Chapter 26: The Sons of the All-Father
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Jon leapt out off of his straw mattress screaming his hands held out in front of him as if to strangle someone. He felt as if his blood burned within him as he whipped his head around in a daze. His mind barely recognized the waking world as the dream of fiery annihilation consumed his capacity for thought.
"Enough of that!" yelled a voice nearby, "Enough!"
Jon turned his head to see his half brother Tom standing in the darkness of their shared dormitory, naked sword in hand while his ridged flesh sword remained covered by his sweaty night shirt.
"I was dreaming of tits, feeling great, and then you ruined it, again." Tom whined, his face twisted in anger, "I fuckin' hate you, you damned dumb cunt."
Jon didn't feel afraid of the blade, as for some reason he felt absolutely invincible, alive in the night like never before, no aches nor fatigue from the hard day of training as one of Prince Daemon's squires. He felt like slapping that sword out of Tom's hands and slapping the stupid out of him when a the lone door in the room started banging.
"THE BEACONS ARE LIT! THE BEACONS ARE LIT!" the man outside screamed and moved on to the next door down the hall.
Both of the half-brothers needed a moment to process what they'd just heard, and Tom finished first.
"Oh shite!" he cursed and began scrambling to dress and arm himself in the dark.
A twist of dread seized Jon's guts, and he thanked the gods for making him feel so invincible this night. The beacons are lit, the fires atop the watchtowers built and manned around Dragonstone by the thousands of Pentoshi sellswords employed by House Targaryen stationed on the island, only to be lit to warn of an attack.
Unlike Tom, Jon went to the small lamp in the room and took flint to steel, lighting up some tinder to ignite the greasy wick and get some light. Good thing to as Tom stumbled around with his hoes on backwards.
"Get yourself straightened out, ya' dullard!" he scoffed, and set about dressing himself in his arming suit and chainmail.
"Fuck off!" Tom weakly retorted and went about fixing his error.
Jon shuddered as he secured his bascinet to his aventail. In full chain coat and hoes, he was armored far better than any small-folk could ever hope for, but he knew full well the difference between his gear and that of the nobility. Chain helped keep the blood in the body, but didn't save much from broken bones, and he dearly hoped to not discover that whomever got the castle in an uproar didn't arrive in the best equipment money can buy. Warfare, like all matters in life, is just plain unfair to the poor.
The pair made the short journey to the courtyard where they encountered four more of their half-brother squires. The six of them were easily the biggest of the men shuffling about as Ser Alfred Broome shouted orders about, preparing for whatever battle might take place. This made it easy for Prince Daemon to spot them as he strode into the courtyard in his polished black plate armor.
"What horn has sounded?" he demanded of the senior knight.
"Ashcove." Ser Broome answered.
"Take my squires with you, I'll ride ahead." The Rogue Prince smirked under the light of the moon, completely unthreatened the invasion of his territory by unknown forces.
Jon grimaced at the self deception. He'd taken up with a servant in the castle, the kind who loved collecting highborn gossip, and he knew full well who had the guts to attack Dragonstone. Aegon 'The Great' Targaryen. His father, and the father of his fellow squires. His fellow potential dragonriders. Boys raised to combat the power of the man who abandoned them.
The prince took a horse and rode out for the Bloodwyrm Caraxes, while Broome began shouting at the brothers to mount up and ride with him and his fellow knights. None of the brothers were particularly well accustomed to horses as the prince seemed far more interested in using them as sparing partners than actually teaching his squires how to be knights, but the best part of learning a new skill at the last possible moment is that it only takes a moment, and soon enough the brothers rode behind a force of knights for Ashcove, groins aching from how hard they clenched their thighs to the big beasts' flanks. Only his superlative grip strength kept Jon on the horse when it reared because of how close Caraxes came while flying overhead.
The knights arrived in the small fishing village built along the cove the settlement took its name from to find a spectacle of absolute carnage, only the lack of burning fires made it anything less than a scene straight out of the hells. Jon spied what he believed to be a hundred corpses at least hacked and cleaved bloody between the sparse houses.
Caraxes loomed over what remained of the Pentoshi sellswords barracks near the village, a company of three hundred men. Nearby Daemon screamed at the leader of the company.
"The enemy didn't flee inland you fool!" the Rogue Prince snarled as he shook the Essosi man in his hands, "You failed to stop them from advancing inland! The Prince assured me you people were the best swords of Pentos! The rest must all be cripples and catamites for that to be true!"
As the Prince berated the mercenary, the knights scattered about the village looking for any stragglers left by the enemy. Jon and his fellow squires dismounted and walked closer to Daemon and heard the man being shaken assure the Prince that he would understand if he just saw the men who did it for himself, giants he claimed.
"How many did you slay?" Daemon demanded, uncaring for his excuses.
"I don't know precisely, surely many will die of the wounds we inflicted." the man wheedled, fully cowed under the gaze of the red dragon whose long slender next looped around the man and the rider with an amused glint to its massive eye.
"How many confirmed killed." Daemon demanded.
"T-t-t-ahchem- two." the man admitted with much struggle.
"I espied a hundred bodies-" Jon felt a rush of pride for guessing the number correctly, "and you say to me only two were the enemy."
"My Prince! When you see them you will understand!" the man insisted and fell back when Daemon pushed him.
"Get out of my sight, worm. Bring me the bodies, and prey they are 'giants'. Pray." Daemon menace.
The mercenary scrambled away and screamed orders in that Essosi dog language him and his kind utter amongst themselves. Soon enough a pair of mercenaries came struggling to pull the legs of a slain man on his belly with a dozen spears sticking out of his back. Seeing the size of him shocked Jon as he'd rarely seen anyone bigger than him and his brothers, but this man was noticeably larger both in height and girth. Perhaps the leather plates and scales cladding his body added to that image more than Jon factored, but truly the slain man deserved the title of giant to the point that even Daemon, looked troubled by the sight.
Another pair came dragging the other enemy slain, this one two showing signs of dozens of wounds across his equally huge body. Something possessed Daemon to approach the dead man, and remove the leather clad helmet from his head. Jon gasped in shock, seeing a face so familiar on the corpse, one he'd seen on the face of his many half-brothers. The short silver gold hair glowed in the moonlight, and Jon knew the light of day would reveal purple eyes.
"No." Daemon muttered, then the volume rose with each utterance, "No. No, no, no. NO!"
The black armored prince spun around, and pointed at Jon, "You!" he yelled and pointed at Tom, beside him, "You! With me, now!"
Both brothers stilled as Daemon ran to Caraxes and began climbing to the saddle of the beast, "Now!" he screamed over his shoulder.
Terrified of the dragon or not, the boys carried out the prince's command, climbing the rope behind the prince hand over hand till they reached the saddle and were handed chains to bind themselves with. The brothers held onto the saddle for dear life when the Bloodwyrm began moving, its legs tearing up the ground, and Jon lost his breath when Caraxes leapt into the sky and spread its wings, unleashing its unique whistling shriek.
All of a sudden, Jon understood Daemon. He understood his father. Why they felt so completely disconnected from common folk. Up here in the sky, they all look so tiny, and the stars, the stars never looked bigger. Jon felt like he could reach out his hand and grab the moon. He felt a primal terror, but also a thrill unlike anything he'd felt until waking up this night. An invincible sort of thrill. Tom screamed and laughed beside him as they rode the very wind up the Dragonmount.
Caraxes trilled again, and Daemon shouted, 'Dracarys!'
And for a brief moment, it felt like the sun rose and banished the night as the Bloodwyrm reigned fire down below. Jon looked back at the flames, and what he sighted filled him with awe and hate. In the flames a formation of shields locked together like a turtle's shell had turned the brief blaze of the dragon, and now the men inside - boys, he figured, no older than himself - threw down their shields forming a path through the lingering flames to run across.
Seeing what his brothers can accomplish when supported by their father filled Jon with hatred. He saw them steaming and some even rolling on the unburnt ground to get the fire off them, he understood that many of them were burnt and cooked by the blast, but to see them somehow defy the might of a dragon, knowing that they'd killed a hundred men with ease to get here. He wanted to be them, while at the same time pitying their fate. They wouldn't survive a second pass by Caraxes, or even a single more sustained burning, but by the gods they'd done the impossible and it was glorious.
Caraxes didn't turn back for a second pass, instead it landed them outside a cave on the Dragonmount.
"Get off, and go in. Destiny awaits." Daemon commanded them, and they obeyed, lingering only briefly outside the den of Vermithor and Silverwing, the greatest dragons on the island, those rode by the former King and Queen, their ancestors.
Jon felt his mind failing to process the sequence of events that turned him in a single night from Daemon's personal training post into potentially the rider of Vermithor, the greatest dragon in the world save Vhagar herself. He saw Tom take the first steps into the cave and for a brief moment he thought of stabbing his half-brother in the back. Kill him now to ensure that he doesn't take Vermithor before he can. He even felt the hilt of his dagger in his hand, but shook his head, his eyes watering in shame as he thought of what he'd almost done in greed, an act that would make him unworthy of even approaching the Old King's dragon.
He followed his brother into the darkness, guided only by the sound of the massive dragons breathing and rustling until a burst of flames in a massive bronze maw briefly illuminated the cave. Just that brief flash of sight took Jon's breath away. The majestic and terrible size of the dragon filled his mind with a primal fear.
Jon's mind flashed with his brief instruction in High Valyrian, just enough knowledge to cover basic dragon commands, but his hasty refresher came to an end when an unstoppable force toppled him over onto his back, and in the fading embers released by Vermithor he saw the pale grey form of Silverwing looking down at him.
Any thoughts of the King's Dragon fled his mind as he reached up, in what he hoped was a dominant extension of his arm, but knew was a weak placating gesture, and his voice quivered as he called out, "Silverwing, likiryi."
He sounded as pathetic as he felt. He repeated the command, desperate now to bond with the Old Queen's dragon so as not to experience first hand what his half-brothers got from Caraxes. The dragon's head lowered, and Jon's eyes widened in fear of the coming bite until the grey dragon filled his outstretched hand with its snout and trilled, the 'gentle' call shook his form and left his ears ringing, but Jon ignored the pain and instead laughed as his face split in a manic smile. He rose to his feet under the allowance of the dragon who somehow urged him clearly with her head to go outside.
The massive booms of Silverwing's stride filled the cave behind him as he scrambled to exit before she managed to accidentally smash him flat underfoot or wing. Under the moonlight, the sight of Silverwing's regal form filled him with further shame for wanting to slay his brother to claim her mate. Then she dipped her body low to the ground, as low as such a large creature can, and he felt a drive from within to climb atop her, an urge he didn't fight in the slightest. With his exceptionally strong hands he managed even the least generous of purchases as he scaled the dragon, and got a good grip on one of the spines as he reached the top and looked out over the island. Good that he got such a good grip as Silverwing roared into the night and began running down the Dragonmount, leaping into the air.
Jon screamed in terror and joy as he and his bonded dragon took to the sky for the first time. The danger faded away as she lifted him higher and higher into the sky, circling the island, which gave him a perfect view of a bone white dragon far smaller than his own flying across the Blackwater Bay. Grey Ghost, he determined though he'd never before seen the beast, Grey Ghost, and stolen from Dragonstone by one of his invading half-brothers. A part of him wanted to give chase. Silverwing could slay Grey Ghost with ease, but any heroism left his heart entirely when a shadow cut off all light of the moon falling onto him.
Jon looked up and his eyes struggled to make out the black form of a dragon roughly as large as his own flying overhead. The young fisherboy who grew up in a hovel and now rode one of the largest dragons in the world felt it all slipping away. He saw himself in his mind, consumed by a great gout of bright green flames, but the fire never came. Silverwing banked hard to get out from under the Cannibal, but the great black dragon didn't bank with her, instead he too flew out over Blackwater Bay, his dark form only visible to Jon's eyes when he passed in front of clouds or blotted out stars.
Jon's heart returned to his chest after its brief migration up into his throat, and Silverwing returned to the earth nearby to the castle. Jon needed a very long time for his limbs to stop shaking enough to make the climb down from the dragon, and by then Vermithor arrived with Tom atop him, equally shaking.
Gods, why couldn't it have been any of his other dumb cunt brothers that got the big one?
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The Dance of Dragons kicks off with a fire bombing of King's Landing, a dragon-rustling raid on Dragonstone, and some 'No Joy in Command' easter eggs. Check that story out if you can, its another banger by GladiusX.