Baelon's fleet sailed out from the Island, its hulls cutting southward across the Summer Sea. The ships passed the jagged rise of Sharp Point and the long sweep of Cape Massey, their prows cleaving through the rolling waves with steady speed.
During those long leagues on the water, Baelon and his cousin Laenor Velaryon reached an agreement to stage a friendly dragon duel to pass the time.
One side would be Tyraxes, blood-red from snout to tail, a brutal and imposing young dragon whose length stretched close to thirteen meters.
The other was Seasmoke, pale silver-grey and far more slender in build, quicker in shape and graceful in motion.
"I never quite noticed it before," Baelon murmured as he sat astride Tyraxes's broad back, hands curled around the saddle-hooks. "But why does Tyraxes look so much thicker than the others?"
He could feel it plainly through the dragon's powerful movements. Though Tyraxes and Seasmoke were similar in length, Tyraxes carried far more weight, heavy bone, strong muscle, a density that radiated through Baelon's boots and stirrups.
A blessing, truly. More mass meant greater power at close quarters, and with that deep red flame of his, Tyraxes might well contend for the title of strongest of his size.
Laenor, seated upon Seasmoke's narrower back, glanced between the two dragons with a mix of understanding and envy. "Seven hells, cousin. What have you been feeding him?"
"Wild game," Baelon replied, the lie smooth and easy. "He has a taste for wolves. And lions, when he's fortunate."
He certainly could not confess to anything else, nor to the ways Tyraxes had been quietly strengthened under his care, so he offered the simplest explanation.
Laenor nodded slowly, as though reassessing his own dragon's needs. "I see… Well, cousin, I'm starting! And if you lose, shout loudly so I can hear it."
He said it with a grin, already imagining the hunts he and Seasmoke might undertake in Essos to bulk the dragon up. Wolves, lions, anything large enough to satisfy a growing drake.
"Come, then," Baelon answered.
He checked the chains that secured him to the saddle. No matter the strength of the bond between rider and dragon, a fall from such heights meant only death. Tyraxes could shrug off any flame, any wind... but Baelon was flesh, and therefore the creature's sole weakness.
He took a breath and reached for Tyraxes's mind. Their psychic bond carried his commands without the need for any spoken word.
"Hraaah!"
Tyraxes snapped open his crimson wings and launched skyward with explosive force.
Seasmoke followed with a powerful beat of silver-grey wings, but in sheer upward surge he lagged behind. While Seasmoke was still climbing, Tyraxes punched through a thick bank of clouds and vanished from sight.
The moment Seasmoke rose high enough, Tyraxes folded his wings.
He dove.
A streak of living scarlet plummeting from the clouds.
"Ah-!"
Seasmoke jolted in panic, craning upward as he spat a plume of pale flame into the sky, desperate and unsteady.
But Tyraxes, whose resistance to fire was extraordinary even among dragons, did not so much as flinch. The heat passed over him like warm rain.
Had Baelon not ordered restraint, a single breath of Tyraxes's blood-red flame would have ended the duel.
BOOM.
The impact echoed like thunder as Tyraxes struck Seasmoke's flank. The silver-grey dragon lost all balance, wings twisting, body pitching sideways in a helpless tumble toward the sea.
"Seasmoke! Loosen-then fly upward!" Laenor shouted, voice carrying through the wind.
He was not inexperienced. In moments like this, the rider's task was not to wrest control, but to calm the dragon and let instinct right them. At his urging, Seasmoke spread out, caught the air, and steadied himself before he struck the water. With a few great wingbeats, he climbed again.
Laenor exhaled sharply, sweat gathering at his brow. "What a clever tactic… Is this truly Tyraxes's first duel?"
He knew exactly what had happened: an explosive climb, a disappearance into cloud cover, then a perfectly timed ambush once the foe breached the mist. Laenor had flown Seasmoke for years and had never crafted a strategy so suited to aerial combat. He had always relied on flame to overwhelm lesser foes. Against another dragon, such tactics meant very little.
"Thank you for holding back, cousin," Laenor called.
He was not a fool. Tyraxes could have pressed the attack when Seasmoke was helpless, one or two breaths of red flame would have ended the matter with dreadful finality.
"There's no need to thank me," Baelon replied. "We agreed to a spar, not a deathmatch."
Tyraxes descended in a smooth arc, settling atop the warship's mast with surprising grace for a creature so immense. He extended one great wing downward, letting Baelon climb onto it. Lowering the wing like a ramp, the dragon placed his rider gently upon the deck.
Once Baelon's boots found wood, Tyraxes rose again and vanished into the sky.
"I'm jealous, Baelon," Laenor called down as Seasmoke dipped toward the ship. "Why is Tyraxes so gentle with you?"
His own descent was far more laborious. Seasmoke dipped low enough for Laenor to scramble down the saddle-chains, the ship rocking beneath them with every wave. Most dragonriders dismounted that way, awkward and graceless, made worse here by the sea's constant sway.
"No idea," Baelon said honestly. "Perhaps because Tyraxes and I were born together."
He had no better answer, and so he pinned everything on the mystery of their shared birth.
"You're a true dragonlord, Baelon." Laenor clapped him on the shoulder, the gesture firm with admiration.
Baelon smiled faintly.
Time flowed onward. The fleet neared the borders of Tyroshi waters. Still no raven had come from Princess Rhaenys, no word from Volantis. But Baelon found he cared little. The purge of Tyrosh was inevitable, with or without Volantene support.
"M'lord!" a scout called down from the rigging. "Tyroshi patrol ships ahead! flying the Archon's banner. Should we attack or avoid?"
The man's voice trembled with urgency.
"Avoid?" Baelon echoed. "Avoid what? Tyraxes and Seasmoke will wipe out anything in our path. Pass the word! Maintain course!"
He had no intention of slipping in quietly. Even if he desired stealth, two thousand men could hardly vanish into the sea like ghosts.
Without dragons, he might have worried about losses or burning decks.
But now?
He had dragons.
Why bother with caution when a single gout of dragonfire could sweep aside any obstacle?
A roar cracked the sky as Tyraxes burst through the clouds above, his fearsome form revealed in full.
"Dragon! A dragon!"
Nearly thirteen meters long, wings vast and crimson-veined, scales glowing a deep and molten red, Tyraxes seized the attention of every man aboard the Tyroshi patrol ships.
The sailors spotted him at once. Terror overtook them.
Veterans all, they knew precisely what meeting a dragon at sea meant.
You could not outrun him. You could not fight him. You could only burn.
"HRAAAH!"
Tyraxes unleashed his fire, deep crimson, darker than fresh blood. The flame poured downward in a sweeping arc. Men died the instant it touched them, their screams swallowed by the roar.
"Blood-colored… blood-colored flame…" whispered a bearded Tyroshi officer in a lavish purple robe, staring upward in dread as the inferno descended.
His voice was barely a breath beneath the thunder of dragonfire.