Prince Daemon Targaryen
At sunset on the eighth day of the eighth month of the year 110, fiery death arrived on the wings of Caraxes from the Sea of Dorne to Ghost Hill, the seat of Lord Toland. The port took the first blow, where several ships stood under sails bearing the Rhoynish sun and the yellow-and-green banners of the Tolands—evidently, Prince Qoren was gathering a new squadron to aid the Realm of the Three Whores. Daemon merely smirked and directed the dragon downward: flame crashed upon the vessels, gangplanks, and piers; sailors, porters, and soldiers darted about in panic, some managing to leap into the water, though it was unlikely to save them from the burning debris falling upon their heads. A mere couple of passes—and the entire harbor was engulfed in fire, and that which did not yet burn was already licked by the greedy tongues of the spreading conflagration; only a few fishing boats were fortunate, those that stood further than the rest and managed to weigh anchor whilst the dragon was occupied with worthier targets.
Daemon, of course, noticed their flight, but there was no time to waste on such insignificant shells: the castle was of far greater value.
"Naejot, Caraxes!" (Forward, Caraxes!) he shouted, and pulled the reins.
The dragon obeyed with a roar and surged toward the hill, upon which Ghost Hill stood out as a pale patch against the background of the darkening sky. In times past, a ghost had been depicted upon the Toland sigil as well, but after the First Dornish War, the Lord of that time decided to mock Aegon the Conqueror. The dragons had failed to subdue the desert land then, and Lord Toland had painted upon his new escutcheon a dragon biting its own tail. Now the yellow-and-green banner fluttered atop every square tower of the castle, and it was upon these banners that the Blood Wyrm poured forth his fire first of all.
Along with the standards, the dry timbers of the floors and galleries on the battlements flared up, and whilst Caraxes circled the castle, the Prince counted the scorpions: one on each corner tower, and two more on the crown of the donjon, aimed toward the sea and the west. Arrows and bolts launched by them already whistled past, and Daemon, schooled by the bitter experience of carelessness, raised the Red Wyrm higher.
In Myr, they had shot at them until they burned the city walls, and only after the slaughter did the Prince discover two bolts in his dragon's armor, of which only one had managed to penetrate beneath the hide. It had inflicted no serious wound, to be sure—a mere scratch—but to extract it, he had been forced to sweat profusely: Caraxes had not appreciated the care of the Dragonkeepers and had accidentally trampled a pair of the clumsiest ones. Perchance the Master of Dragons would have found a less painful method, but Aegon was on Estermont...
Having circled the castle once more, Caraxes waited for one of the scorpions to loose a volley, and immediately crashed down upon it from above, spewing all-consuming flame. The ballista crew flared like torches, and the engine itself blazed up, never having fired again. The dragon banked for a new attack and, in passing, sheared the tiled roof from the barracks with his long tail.
"Come now, little snakes," Daemon muttered under his breath. "Is there not a dragon upon your banner?"
The little snakes attempted to answer him with volleys from crossbows, but Caraxes did not even notice the small bolts, only snarled irritably when several of them grazed the membranes of his wings. A moment—and the gallery with the crossbowmen was no more. Lord Toland's scorpions were mounted on sturdy frames, but it was this that betrayed them: the heavy mechanism was not easy to turn, and the crews of some had already managed to flee, so with due dexterity, they could not harm the dragon.
One after another, the Dornish scorpions turned into bright bonfires, sending sparks into the twilight sky. Having eliminated the primary threat, Daemon sent the dragon to fly circles over the castle, dousing everything that caught the eye with flame. In its reflections, dispersing the gloom of the oncoming night, the Blood Wyrm darted across the sky like a dark red shadow, descending time and again to the earth amidst wails, screams, and the crackle of burning timber, to commit the castle of the Tolands, their village, the granaries in the harbor, and the meager fields and groves to the fire.
When the sun had finally rolled behind the dry, dusty hills in the west, and its last gleam had been extinguished, Daemon did not realize—as the Dornishmen below surely did not realize either—that Ghost Hill was blazing no worse than the sunset. Flying over the conflagration once more, the Prince lashed the reins, and Caraxes landed with his paws upon the scorched and blackened main tower of the castle. Barely fitting and scattering debris, he let out a thunderous, victorious roar, fully worthy of Balerion himself, and released a jet of flame into the sky.
Having shown off his fill, the dragon took off from his unreliable perch, wrecking the upper story, and set forth to the east. When they had flown a couple of miles, Daemon could not restrain himself and looked back after all: the glow of the fire truly eclipsed the sunset. The night was clear, but a chill had crept up somehow unnoticed, and the Prince, when the battle frenzy released him slightly, began to lean periodically over the pommel of the saddle to warm his hands on the dragon's hide and to pat him at the same time: Caraxes loved affection, always willingly submitted to it, and even now, in flight, and after battle, did not hold back a contented clucking.
Their path lay toward the northernmost of the sharp cape-shards remaining of the Broken Arm. They flew low enough; the terrain beneath the dragon's belly was repulsive in the Dornish manner: dusty hills, plains parched by sun and winds, across which the beggarly descendants of the Rhoynar foolishly drove their herds from oasis to oasis. Near them, as the Prince knew, huddled wretched hamlets with stunted fields around. Now, with the onset of darkness, it was useless to seek them: even if there was a lamp, a splinter, or a candle in some hovel, the little light could not be seen from the heavens. Fortunately, the dragon's senses were sharper than a man's, and several times they descended to make a pair of fiery circles by some small lake or well. Daemon released the reins and allowed Caraxes to do his work himself.
His warrior spirit, however, did not suffice for long: having done his duty at Ghost Hill, he had grown hungry and now paid more attention to hunting Dornish livestock, but in the process, the village was subjected to destruction all the same, and the oasis ended up buried beneath charred debris. The rider was quite satisfied with his behavior: it was amusing to observe the dragon's revelry straight from the saddle.
In the end, Daemon was forced to interrupt the merriment after all, and, pulling on the handles, forced a displeasedly growling Caraxes to rise higher.
"Issa eglie daor, raqiros," (It is not enough, friend,) he said in consolation to the dragon.
It was already long past midnight, surely the Hour of the Wolf had passed, if not the Hour of the Owl, and they had best leave Dorne before dawn.
At last, the sea stretched before them in a broad, dark, ever-expanding strip, across which a path of moonlight was thrown like a bright yellow ribbon. Caraxes jerked his head right and left, gave a short roar, and without any command rushed downward. Squinting his eyes against the headwind, Daemon still managed to discern a signal fire amongst the rapidly approaching sand dunes, burning brighter than any torch and any lighthouse.
Spreading his wings and the membranes on his spurs at the last moment, the Blood Wyrm landed in a saddle between two dunes, raising no small whirlwind of sand and nearly colliding nose to nose with Meleys. The Red Queen clicked her teeth displeasedly at Caraxes's very snout; he answered with a disgruntled grumbling, resembling the bubbling of lava in the vent of the Dragonmont. Rhaenys ended the suddenly begun squabble:
"Daor!" (No!) she shouted, scarce not louder than her she-dragon, and this proved sufficient for the beast to make room.
Daemon smirked and, climbing out of the saddle, slid dashingly down the dragon's flank into the sand. The Queen Who Never Was and the Good-Mother Who Never Was had evidently been waiting for them for a long time: the boulder on which she sat sheltered a rolled cloak, and beside it lay a wineskin and a pair of small bags taken from Meleys's back; for all these campaign comforts, the cousin had never removed her scaled armor—she had treated armor seriously before, but Aegon's misfortune had opened everyone's eyes anew. She looked stern and martial, and the Prince thought that Vhagar would have suited her far better, but did their Gods ever ask their opinion?
"Sweet Cousin," Daemon greeted his kinswoman with a broad smile. "Forgive me, we were slightly delayed. Caraxes wished to sup."
"You are covered in soot," Rhaenys cast out.
The Prince mechanically brushed a hand across his cheek—his fingers were truly black. Corlys's wife silently produced a rag and, moistening it with water from a flask, held it out to Daemon. He grunted, but accepted the cloth, and, wiping his face, inquired:
"How was your hunt?"
"You shall see, if you ascend the dune. Ser Santagar will have to plant his Spottswood anew, and we singed his spotted cloak besides."
"Only singed?"
"Do not be a child, Daemon, do not cling to words," Rhaenys grimaced. "The castle is burned, and the groves likewise."
"Villages, fields?"
"Of course."
"Were there scorpions?"
"Two," the Princess looked back at her she-dragon and added not without pride. "They are too slow for Meleys."
"Good," the Prince nodded with satisfaction. "I want you to attend to the Broken Arm. Burn everything from the Stepstones to the Greenblood."
"I shall not go against Sunspear," the cousin resisted. "Qoren waits only for our appearance in his sky; he has placed a ballista on every roof."
"Well then, do not fly to the Martells," Daemon shrugged. "Attend to his vassals and bannermen: Lemonwood, the Green Orphans, the Stone Orphans..."
"Planky Town and Shandystone?"
"A flotilla of nutshells and a beggarly little town."
"Shoving the dirty work onto me? How ungrateful, Cousin. And what shall you do?"
Daemon raised his gaze to the sky beginning to lighten in the east. Well, the dragon had flown over the Cyvasse mountains; it was time to deploy the horseman.
"I shall descend as a guest upon Prince Qoren," he said at last. "And then I shall pay a visit to Yronwood."
"Did you hear what I said of ballistae on every roof?"
The Prince only waved off his cousin's warning:
"Speak not nonsense. The Myrmen failed to hinder us—and the Dornish shall fail likewise."
One had to give Rhaenys her due: she did not remind him of the fate of Meraxes and her namesake Queen—that tale had already set teeth on edge. The war had shown that scorpions could threaten only young dragons, and even then only if they gaped too much or were too lazy to flap their wings once more. For Caraxes, agile and sturdy, it was not fearful: the Myrmen could not stop them, and neither would the Dornish.
"Well, if you die, Aegon becomes Prince of Dragonstone," the Good-Mother Who Never Was remarked calmly, rising from her boulder. "So I shall not dissuade you."
Taking the half-empty flask from him, Rhaenys grabbed her cloak in passing and headed toward Meleys, who was glaring tensely toward Caraxes from the slope of her dune. However, halfway there, the Princess turned and cast out:
"Although, you know, the difference will not be great. The Queen will soon give birth—and how long, in your opinion, will Viserys observe your sweet brotherly agreement if he has a son?"
"Viserys swore that I would remain his heir."
The cousin only snorted in reply.
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