The Vale, the Gates of the Moon.
This fortress was the true gateway to the Eyrie, commanding treacherous terrain that made it easy to defend and brutally hard to assault.
After Ser Waymar Royce led twenty-five thousand men into the Vale, he did win the support of some local nobles, especially those houses that had once belonged to the "Lords Declarant" and had long harbored resentment toward Littlefinger's rule.
News of the Lannisters' crushing defeat in the Crownlands and the massacre at Stoney Sept further emboldened them, giving them new confidence to resist Littlefinger.
Yet their advance ground to a halt beneath the walls of the Gates of the Moon.
Ser Waymar stared up at the towering stone walls, frustration written all over his face, and asked Lord Gilwood Hunter beside him, "My lord, how long can the Eyrie's supplies still hold out?"
Gilwood Hunter frowned deeply and shook his head. "A long time, I'm afraid. That sly fox Littlefinger clearly anticipated a siege. Before you ever landed, he ordered vast amounts of grain moved into the Gates of the Moon and the forts beyond it: Sky Castle, Snow Waycastle, and Stone Waycastle. A frontal assault would cost us dearly."
A sense of helplessness welled up in Waymar's chest.
The road to the Eyrie was a natural chasm. Beyond the Gates of the Moon lay three more lines of defense, and only after them did one reach the Eyrie itself, a towering fortress nearly impossible to attack from the ground.
Though he had brought a large army, this terrain left it with little room to maneuver.
Worse still, a significant portion of his force consisted of Dothraki, poorly suited for siege warfare.
Yet with His Grace Lo Quen's arrival imminent, Waymar could not bear to appear ineffectual.
Clenching his teeth, he finally gave the order to attack.
He could not simply do nothing and wait for the dragon to arrive.
Soldiers hoisted crude scaling ladders and charged toward the towering stone walls of the Gates of the Moon under covering fire, shouting as they ran.
The defenders atop the walls were fully prepared. They were sellswords hired by Baelish with golden dragons, along with Vale soldiers loyal to the Eyrie, all seasoned fighters.
Logs and boulders crashed down like rain. Boiling oil was poured, arrows screamed through the air.
Waymar's men struggled upward. Arrows struck them, stones smashed them from the ladders, and men fell screaming to the ground as casualties mounted rapidly.
The battle devolved into a brutal war of attrition. Progress was agonizingly slow, every step forward paid for in blood.
Just as Waymar, frantic with worry, was on the verge of ordering a temporary withdrawal to limit the losses, the sky suddenly darkened.
A deep, thunderous roar rolled down from the clouds, drowning out every other sound on the battlefield.
Both sides instinctively looked up.
A colossal shadow tore through the clouds and plunged downward.
Blood-red scales gleamed in the sunlight, and massive wings blotted out the sky.
It was Lo Quen and his dragon, Blooddancer.
"His Grace! His Grace has arrived!"
Waymar froze in shock, then burst into wild joy, nearly shouting the words aloud.
On the walls, the defenders fell into absolute panic.
They had heard the legends of dragons, but seeing such a creature with their own eyes inspired a terror beyond imagining.
Some dropped their weapons and fled. Others collapsed where they stood, their legs giving out beneath them.
Lo Quen guided Blooddancer directly over the walls of the Gates of the Moon.
He looked down coldly at the defenders below, scrambling in panic like ants.
He gave the dragon's neck a light pat. "Blooddancer, burn them all."
The red dragon answered with a deafening roar, opening its massive jaws as crimson dragonfire slammed into the battlements of the Gates of the Moon.
Where the flames touched, stone glowed red-hot and melted away.
Human bodies were instantly charred to blackened husks, not even given time to scream.
Wooden structures atop the towers burst into fierce flames, turning into towering torches.
The walls were swallowed by fire, thick smoke billowing into the sky.
Under the onslaught of dragonfire, the Gates of the Moon's defenses were all but destroyed.
The surviving defenders were utterly broken, screaming as they fled from the walls. No one dared to resist any longer.
"Charge! All forces, attack!"
Waymar seized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and roared himself hoarse.
The besieging troops, their morale surging, let out thunderous cheers. They quickly raised the ladders, climbed over the now undefended walls, and poured into the Gates of the Moon.
What followed was a completely one-sided cleanup.
In less than an hour, the Gates of the Moon fell.
Lo Quen guided Blooddancer down into the courtyard that had just been cleared.
Waymar Royce, Gilwood Hunter, and the other nobles hurried forward at once, their faces filled with awe and excitement.
"Your Grace, if you hadn't arrived in time, there's no telling how many more days we would have been bogged down here, or how many more lives would have been lost," Waymar said earnestly.
Lo Quen dismounted, his expression calm. "What is the situation at the Eyrie?"
Waymar immediately reported, "Your Grace, although the Gates of the Moon have been taken, the road to the Eyrie still requires breaking through Sky Castle, Snow Waycastle, and Stone Waycastle. Littlefinger and Lady Lysa are currently inside the Eyrie."
"No matter," Lo Quen said evenly. "I will help you take those three castles quickly. The Eyrie will become an isolated fortress."
With Lo Quen and the dragon's overwhelming force behind them, the rest of the campaign held little suspense.
Blooddancer's dragonfire became an unstoppable siege weapon. Before the dragon, the defenses of the three castles were meaningless, and they fell one after another in short order.
At last, the army reached the Eyrie itself and surrounded the strongest fortress in the Vale.
Inside the Eyrie.
Littlefinger, Petyr Baelish, paced back and forth in the lavish hall, the composed smile he always wore long gone.
Lysa Tully sat to one side, her face pale as she wept and muttered, "What do we do, Petyr? What are we supposed to do? They've come… that dragon…"
Littlefinger's own thoughts were in turmoil.
His original plan had been to play the Lannisters and Young Aegon against each other, waiting to sell his loyalty to the highest bidder.
He never imagined the Lannisters would collapse so quickly, so completely.
What caught him even more off guard was Waymar Royce, a man he had long assumed dead, returning to the Vale at the head of a great army, and worse still, allied with that mysterious King from the East.
At the very thought of Lo Quen, Littlefinger felt his chest tighten, his breath coming short. The memory of being outmaneuvered during the grain purchase at Conquest Keep was still painfully vivid.
"Calm down, Lysa. Calm down," he said, forcing himself to steady his voice as his mind raced.
Perhaps he should consider surrender. After all, he did have some prior connection with that Eastern King, at least a verbal understanding.
Littlefinger tried to find himself a way out, even though he knew how uncertain it was.
Just as he was turning the possibilities over in his mind, weighing gains and losses, a sudden thunderous crash sounded outside the window, as though something immensely heavy had landed on the balcony.
The entire Moon Tower seemed to shudder.
Littlefinger's heart clenched, a sense of dread flooding him.
He motioned for Lysa to stay where she was, then drew a deep breath and cautiously walked toward the ornate doors leading to the balcony.
The moment he pushed them open, his pupils shrank and his face turned deathly pale.
Perched on the railing of the balcony, suspended over the sheer abyss beyond, was a gigantic dragon covered in blood-red scales.
...
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