Meanwhile, at the southernmost tip of Westeros, in Dorne, where the river's mouth met the sea beside Yronwood.
Lord Anders Ironwood stared at the immense spectacle before him, his heart swelling with awe and exhilaration.
The moment he received the letter from Conquest Keep, warning him that Lo Quen's army would be landing here, Anders moved at once.
In secret, he contacted Dornish nobles who either shared his dissatisfaction with Doran Martell's rule or were friendly to House Yronwood. He gathered roughly two thousand men and waited here well in advance.
Now, at last, they had come.
Out on the water, a vast fleet filled the horizon, sails blotting out the light. Countless small boats shuttled soldiers and supplies ashore.
But what truly made Anders feel a suffocating pressure were the three gigantic shapes in the sky.
Three dragons.
One glittered with silver-white scales. One was a deep, shadowed purple. The third, slightly smaller, was black-red.
They circled between sea and sky, roaring as they flew.
Queens Jaelena, Janice, and Chai Yiq each rode Silverfall, Duskshadow, and Ashshadow.
Silverfall and Duskshadow were already enormous, close to ninety feet long, their wingspans breathtaking.
Ashshadow had only hatched not long ago, but in a world where the magical tide had returned, it was growing far faster than anyone would expect. Even now it was fifteen or sixteen feet in length, already carrying a hint of menace.
Chai Yiq had wanted to give Ashshadow to Lo Quen, but Lo Quen judged it too young. And Chai Yiq, as a Dragonbond rider, should not be left without a dragon to ride, so he had her keep command of it for the time being.
In the crowd, Anders found the commander of this expeditionary army, Luo Wen.
He hurried forward and bowed. "Lord Luo Wen, we've been waiting for you at last. May I ask about Your Grace—"
Luo Wen returned the salute with a steady smile. "Lord Anders, His Grace is handling urgent matters in the North and the Vale. The war in Dorne will be commanded by me, together with the three Queens."
He gestured up toward the dragons.
Anders looked skyward, his blood running hot, and his thoughts went unbidden to his daughter, Ynys.
His Grace had promised that she too would become a dragon knight.
The future of House Yronwood would soar beneath dragon wings.
The landing took several days. Forty thousand elite troops, along with vast stores of supplies, were brought ashore in orderly waves.
Luo Wen met at once with Anders and the three Queens to hold a war council.
The plan was simple: use Yronwood as the starting point and supply base, march east, take Tor and Godsgrace in turn, and end at Sunspear.
News that House Yronwood had joined hands with eastern invaders spread through Dorne with stunning speed.
Ser Trebor Jordayne, Lord of Tor, was furious and alarmed. He tried to muster his forces, shut the gates, and present a show of resistance to the bitter end.
But when Luo Wen's army rolled up beneath Tor's walls, and the three dragons began circling low over the city, Ser Trebor's courage vanished in an instant.
He stood atop the battlements, staring out at the endless host and the three monstrous beasts beyond, his face gone pale.
And when he spotted Anders Ironwood among the enemy, wearing a smug, cold expression, he understood the situation completely.
After a few token volleys of arrows, the gates of Tor slowly opened.
Trebor Jordayne came out to surrender, along with his beautiful daughter and heir, Myria Jordayne.
Luo Wen accepted the surrender, then immediately placed the Jordayne father and daughter under guard, and sent trusted officers and soldiers to take control of Tor's defenses.
After a brief rest, the army continued east.
Several days later, they reached Godsgrace.
House Allyrion had once been bound to House Yronwood through marriage ties, but relations had soured sharply after Lord Anders forcibly annulled the betrothal following the "accidental" death of Ryon Allyrion on the Stepstones.
Now Anders had openly rebelled and invited foreign invaders into Dorne. Lady Delonne Allyrion, the ruler of Godsgrace, burned with rage.
Godsgrace was built along a tributary of the Greenblood called the Ho River, its walls tall and strong.
When Luo Wen's army arrived beneath those walls, they saw dozens of enormous scorpion crossbows packed tightly along the ramparts.
Great iron bolts gleamed coldly in the sun, clearly meant for dragon-slaying.
At the sight, Luo Wen's brow furrowed.
He rode up to the three Queens and spoke with measured urgency. "Your Grace, the sheer number of scorpion crossbows on the walls poses a serious threat to the dragons. For safety's sake, I ask permission to command the ground assault first and avoid risking the dragons unless absolutely necessary."
Lord Anders quickly echoed him. "Lord Luo Wen is absolutely right. Queen Rhaenys of Aegon the Conqueror lost her dragon Meraxes to scorpion fire at Hellholt in Dorne. Though the Queens' dragons are mighty, they have not yet grown to Meraxes's size. We cannot afford such a risk."
He knew all too well that if anything happened to the three Queens, Lo Quen's fury would be far beyond anything he could withstand.
Jaelena studied the massive ballistae lining the ramparts, then looked at the grave expressions on Luo Wen's and Anders's faces. After a moment, she nodded calmly.
"The commander's caution is sound. We agree. The battle on the ground is yours."
From atop the walls, Lady Delonne Allyrion looked down at the black sea of troops outside the city and at the dragons circling high above, unwilling to descend. A cold smile crept across her face.
She intended to use the scorpion crossbows as dragon-slayers, to recreate the tragedy of Hellholt.
But Luo Wen's tactics were completely beyond her expectations.
The eastern army did not force the dragons into a plunging assault. Instead, they unleashed their elite infantry.
The first to advance were the Dragon Soul Guards.
These undead warriors, clad in Valyrian steel armor and wielding swords of the same metal, marched steadily toward the walls in tight formation.
Their equipment vastly outclassed that of the Dornish defenders. Arrows striking their armor usually did nothing more than spark briefly before bouncing away.
Behind them came waves of slave soldiers, dressed in uniform leather armor and carrying spears and shields.
Further back, twenty thousand regular troops stood ready to press the attack.
The siege erupted at once.
The Dragon Soul Guards pushed forward through arrows and falling stones without fear, reaching the base of the walls, setting up ladders, and beginning their climb.
Their combat strength was terrifying. Often, a single Dragon Soul Guard could carve out a small stretch of the battlements, opening a breach for the troops behind.
Slave soldiers and regular troops poured into the gaps, locking the defenders in brutal hand-to-hand combat.
Godsgrace's officers desperately tried to organize resistance. The scorpion crossbows fired now and then, their massive bolts tearing into the attackers and inflicting truly horrific casualties.
But there were too few of them, their reload time was slow, and against scattered infantry their effectiveness dropped sharply.
Worse still, every time a scorpion fired, it immediately drew concentrated arrow fire from below, and the crews suffered heavy losses.
The fighting was ferocious, but the defenders' disadvantage was obvious.
Dorne's main forces had already been taken away to support Young Aegon.
Fewer than a thousand defenders remained in Godsgrace, many of them hastily conscripted militiamen.
Against forty thousand well-equipped eastern troops, bolstered by extraordinarily elite units, their resistance was as fragile as paper.
In less than half a day, the eastern gate was breached by the Dragon Soul Guards.
The army surged into the city in an instant.
Before sunset, Godsgrace fell.
Lady Delonne Allyrion was captured in the final fighting.
Once again, Luo Wen left a garrison behind. Without pause, the main army continued its advance toward House Martell's Sunspear.
The reason Lo Quen had sent such overwhelming forces into Dorne was precisely to crush any guerrilla warfare the Dornish might attempt.
Faced with absolute numerical superiority and House Yronwood guiding the way through familiar terrain, Dornish hit-and-run tactics stood no chance at all.