Pre-Chapter A/N: Welcome to October, guys! Let's smash whatever goals we've set ourselves this year. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)same username as here and link in bio. Experimenting with two chapters a week, we'll see how long I can keep this up for.
House Velaryon had the best sailors in the world. This was a piece of information that I had grown up taking for granted, but now I could see it clear as day. The disparity in the way they efficiently got their ships in order, completing a perfect retreat in good order that led the Triarchy's fleet by the nose into one of the few natural chokepoints in the Stepstones. Two large islands so close together that there was only a narrow corridor between them. Not so narrow that ships could not pass, but narrow enough that more than four would struggle to pass at the same time. There was the possibility of going around the islands, but while neither was as large as something like Bloodstone was, they were still large enough that going around would mean valuable time lost.
Made even worse by the fact that our caravels could leave them in the dust in open seas already. The wise thing was to disengage, but that was what the long chase had been for: to make them lose sight of wisdom. The expeditionary fleet was about half the size of our full fleet, which was just about the size of the fleet we had attacked Tyrosh with. Chances were they thought that was the bulk of our force. So they continued heedlessly. And as they placed their necks into the noose, it began to tighten.
Two fleets, one on either side of the island, both hidden from view by convenient cliffs, began to arc around the island. The plan? To bugger the Triarchy's fleet from behind. It was a good plan, but they had two hundred ships, and we had barely a hundred. They would still win. It would be bloody, but they just had to keep their heads, and victory would be theirs. I watched their ships begin to react to Vaemond's surprise. Their catapults all aimed in the wrong direction, their scorpions still trained on the sky. Vhagar and Igneel sat behind convenient cloud cover, far from sight. Maybe they would have spotted us if they decided to stare at the sky for a few minutes, but they had bigger problems on the ground.
"How can you even see anything from up here?" I heard Laena's voice to my side.
"Igneel's helping. I'll teach you later," I shouted back, waving off her interruption. The Triarchy fleet was getting hammered. It was just a matter of time before our own fleet was suffering as well, but I just had to wait. One of the Triarchy fleets tried to veer out of the way of the line of fire and took a scorpion bolt straight through its side. Water began to rush through it. More and more began to sustain damage like that. Their catapults were working overtime, but they were losing. At least it looked like they were losing. And then the scorpions began to drop. They left their fixed angles aimed at the sky and began to aim at the Velaryon ships.
No Admiral would lose his fleet when they had a shiny new weapon they could use.
"Now!" I screamed, and someone down there must have shit their pants as Vhagar's roar sounded over the space.
They panicked. Someone must have even bricked their pants with how suddenly they turned to the air, only to find a mountain of a dragon falling down upon them. We didn't give them the time to turn their scorpions about. "Dracarys!" I roared in unison with Igneel, and his flames roared next, covering a large swathe of the air with flames, setting two or three boats on fire before we dove upwards again, abandoning the strafing run.
Vhagar's attack came after ours, but she was worlds more effective, red fire covering the air and then covering the ships. Near a dozen ships suffered her wrath in just the first turn. Just as planned, Laena and I concentrated our attacks on the front line and the center. If we wanted to leave here with some new ships, then it would be the laggards at the back, faced with Uncle Vaemond's devastating offensive while watching the effects that dragons would have, that would be more likely to surrender.
To make sure they did, Igneel and I played up the theater. Where we could have been efficient and clinical, we were showy and brutal. And Vhagar herself needed no orders. She had been a killer of men before Laena's and my grandparents had even been contemplated. Every time she dove, more and more ships found themselves on fire. A few managed to turn their scorpions about in time, but what did it matter.
It was far from the rain of scorpion bolts enough to blot out the sun itself that it would have taken to secure a guaranteed hit. Few as they were, Igneel and I were quick enough to dodge them while Vhagar allowed the few that were aimed well enough to reach her to patter against scales as hard as steel and fall back to the sea. Another bolt flew, just missing Laena by a hair's breadth. Vhagar was pissed, and so were we.
We aimed straight for the ship the bolt had come from and landed on it with no concern for those on it. A few were crushed under our feet, but that was not enough. We struck with tooth, claw, and scale. It was not enough for them to die. We wanted to taste their blood as they died. One ran straight at us even while all his fellows tried to flee the ship. Igneel's tail wrapped around his midsection before tossing him up and into his mouth.
We bit down once. Crunch. Blood flowed into our throat, but we still hadn't had enough. They had dared. "Dracarys!" I roared. From here, Igneel could easily aim at all the other ships. We spun in a circle, setting all the other ships on fire around us before we pushed off the boat, leaving it to sink as we flew upwards. I heard the telltale whistling of a scorpion bolt as we did so, the weapon missing us as it flew past.
In the air again, we were kings. No, riding a dragon meant we were kings no matter where it was we were—the ground, the sea, the fucking skies. We were kings of it all, unbeatable, unquestionable. Vhagar showed it as she dove down again. Two massive gouts of flames burned a line into the water, basically splitting the ships in two. The Velaryon ships had begun boarding the Triarchy ships on the other side and collecting surrenders. It was near impossible to make out individuals from this far, but I was willing to bet that the ship with the most chaos—the one that two different people had fallen overboard from in the last few minutes—was the one with Borros on it.
He was doing his duty and we did ours. We didn't need any of the ships on the other side of the line, so we gave them a lesson in what a dragon could do. Vhagar was unstoppable, and so we allowed her to lead. She was the hammer; we were the scalpel that followed. Was that a good analogy? Probably not. The point is that while Vhagar was less than discriminate with her violence… and that was putting it nicely, we were careful with our targets. Any ship that came close to aiming a scorpion found themselves the subject of our attentions. And while they could be fast with it, could twist and aim it quickly, Igneel and I were quicker.
Something had happened after the poisoning. The channel between Igneel and I was more open now. So where Igneel would have had to be careful with his accelerations when he had me on his back, or dive slower to avoid me falling off, all he did was send some of his strength my way. Whatever g-forces we were subject to as Igneel banked and turned at near full speed were brushed off with an ease that was frankly inhuman. It had taken all that I had to give Igneel enough energy to fly a few hundred meters at half speed. It seemed to cost him nothing to enhance me to levels that no human could ever dream of reaching.
Even as we flew, my mind was calculating the possibilities. What would this mean for fights in the future? Would I be able to just pull on Igneel's strength and become Captain America at will? Thinking and zoning off meant I didn't spot them until it was almost too late. They were on the other side of Vhagar's line. We hadn't even been attacking them, and one of those idiots fancied himself a dragonslayer. Well, what did they say about examples? I looked at the ship and then the two next to it, communicating my idea to Igneel through a series of images. If dragons could laugh, then that would have been the sound he was making as we shot off.
Like an arrow, we sailed through the air. Igneel folded in his wings, not spreading them as we flew downwards. So that meant thanks to gravity, we were flying down even faster than we had been flying into the air. Was it even flying at this point? I closed my eyes as I felt the wind sting against them, folding my body down and bracing myself for impact. Through Igneel's sharp eyes, I could see as the realization reached those aboard the ship that they were the ones we were coming for.
And then it got worse when they realized that we were not going to stop. They fired their scorpion bolt in time. If only it had managed to hit its target. Igneel dodged easily, and then he began to spin. I thanked Balerion that I had chained myself to him this time as I pressed my body as low against him as I could.
We crashed through the ship, wood not presenting much resistance when faced with a dragon. We tore through the upper layer, and then the lower, and then we were in the sea itself. Igneel was a stronger swimmer than any dragon I'd ever seen, so I watched through his eyes with little doubt as we swam beneath the next ship. Igneel allowed himself to sink a bit so he was further beneath the ship.
And then his wings came out as he pushed them against the water, accelerating sharply until he reached the bottom of the ship and then tore through it before tearing through the deck itself and climbing onto the ship. The Triarchy men wasted no time, running and screaming like their lives depended on it. It did.
We turned our attention to the third ship that had caught our attention, only a few feet away.
"Shit," I heard someone on the ship say when Igneel turned towards them and then began to breathe in.
"Dracarys!" I screamed, and in a matter of seconds, the ship was thoroughly on fire next. We shot into the air, not giving anyone an opening to begin getting stupid ideas.
XXXXXX- ICARUS JORDAYNE
It was a good thing that he had a famously thick skin for insults, he thought to himself. No other Great Lord would have consented to the position that had been given to him and the ships his house had committed for the attack. Far to the rear and to the left. There was going to be little chance of any glory on their end, but then again, Icarus did not anticipate anyone leaving here with much glory.
They had all made the journey to Hellholt to look at the bones of the famed Meraxes. Dorne had killed a dragon before, and each of them hungered to kill another. Icarus was more realistic. And considering the Velaryons would be forewarned of the attack, there was little chance of success in this.
"Brother," he turned to the side, watching his younger brother walk up to him.
"They are acquitting themselves adequately at the very least." He spoke of the battle at the front of the fleet. The fleet's tip was in battle with what was obviously a fringe element of the wider Velaryon fleet, and they were struggling to win. That was harsh, he admonished himself. It was not so much that they were struggling to win as that the Velaryon sailors were well acquainted with the concept of not losing. They were on faster ships and so were content to remain at a distance that made ramming and boarding impossible while exchanging fire with their scorpion bolts. They had managed to sink three Dornish ships so far.
The Dornish ships were attempting to return fire with arrows and their catapults, but those were proving less than successful. In a proper engagement, their ships would win. So would the number disparity. But the Velaryon sailors did not give them a proper engagement. They led them on a chase. It must have looked a queer sight to the gods as they watched from above: ninety-one ships giving chase to a dozen, and the dozen somehow managing to remain ahead in the accounting.
"Adequately. What a word to use to say they are failing miserably. You deserve command of this fleet, not that idiot," Icarus scoffed. His brother, for all his age and experience, was yet to outgrow certain childish sensibilities. One of them being the idea that it was possible to deserve something in this world and get it. No one got what they deserved. You could only get what you fought for, worked for, killed for, and even those were far from certain.
"I would not want to be the one in charge of this mess," he said. And it was true. Let Yronwood be the one to herd these cats. Already House Santagar was near abandoning their place in the formation in the search of individual glory. And of course, since they were doing it, Toland would not be left behind. Their arrowhead formation was falling apart at the seams, and Icarus would watch it all.
"Maintain position," he ordered when he noticed a few of his men look his way.
"But, brother, we ought to push forwards to fill the gap Toland leaves behind to keep the formation stable."
"Our orders were to maintain formation even if the skies themselves began to fall. And we will do that. Hold," he said.
And of course, that was when the sky decided to fall. Icarus had not seen the dragon approach. He had not been watching for it either. But House Toland got to be the first Dornishmen of the new generation to taste the fury of a dragon's flames. The fire washed over their ships, setting them alight in seconds, and then the Red Queen, as he had heard her referred to, was gone.
"What was that? Was that Caraxes?" The fear in his brother's voice almost made him chuckle.
"The Red Queen, most likely. The Blood Wyrm is said to be more lithe and slight," he said. He had consumed every piece of information House Martell had gathered on the dragons of House Targaryen once this stupid war had turned from a possibility into a certainty. It was not something many would expect, that House Martell would have deep and extensive accounts of every dragon in the possession of House Targaryen. But it made perfect sense that the Princes of Dorne would spend the money on getting spies or information brokers to Dragonstone, King's Landing, and more recently Driftmark to keep track of the threats that the dragons represented. They were the ones who the dragons were most likely to be used against if the time ever came.
And so Icarus had taken advantage of that information bounty in his studies and preparation. The Toland ships were gone in a matter of seconds. He hesitated to order his men to fire, enough time that it would seem to be shock or something else as the dragon dove down again, straight to the center of their formation. The dragon's flames, a bright red, seemed to smite whatever they struck. It was more than just setting ships on fire; some of them were outright incinerated. It was only when it seemed every other fleet in this coalition had fired that he ordered his men to load the scorpions.
It would seem to be incompetence, not malice, that had left his own scorpions unloaded. Instead of watching the progress his ships were making to getting ready to fire, he watched the dragon.
It was beautiful, the way it flew. He got the name now. Red Queen. Because she was the Queen of the skies themselves. She dove down with no hesitation. The scorpion bolts that they had been assured would be oh-so-effective against her kind either clattered off her scales with no effect or just missed. Each house had their best marksmen doing the aiming, but aiming an arrow at a stationary or even moving target was different from aiming it at a dragon that could not just move left or right, but upwards and downwards as well. Part of him was watching for some sort of weakness, but there was none. At least when it came to this particular dragon.
The Red Queen arced down, and in one pass, incinerated the tip of their spear, Yronwood's flagship inclusive. Icarus turned his eyes to the other ships. Who would break first? It could not be him. Qoren would be all too willing to suspect foul play on his end. Santagar, the brave fool that he was, was marshalling a concentrated storm of scorpion bolts and arrows. Maybe he hoped to somehow hit the infinitesimally small target that Rhaenys Targaryen represented when squashed against her dragon's bulk as she was. He hit nothing and did naught but assure a quick end as the dragon dove down, and in one pass, turned the ships he had been so proud of into kindling.
Fowler. Blessed Fowler was the first to dip his banners and attempt an about-turn. "Get us out of here," he said next, surprising his sailors.
"Brother?"
"I said, turn us around. Are you deaf or blind? If any of you want to be dragon meal, then I can toss you overboard myself. Dorne has lost. The Fleet is gone, and I won't be going down with them," he said. And it said something that that was all the convincing his sailors needed to abandon their fellows to their fates.
"Also, someone dump those scorpion bolts in the sea once we start moving," he said next. No need to make it obvious that he hadn't fired a single shot.
A/N: And that's a wrap. Next five chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.