As Aegon took to the sky on Sunfyre, the blue streak of Tessarion returned to Bloodstone, kicking up a swirling cloud of grit and salt as she touched down. Daeron slid from his saddle, his face flushed with the triumph of his first real skirmish.
"I have tidings for my brother," Daeron called out to Ser Alec, who was currently buried under a mountain of supply manifests.
Alec looked up, weary but respectful. "His Highness has flown for Tyrosh, My Prince. What news do you bring?"
"The relief fleet is less than a hundred miles out," Daeron said, grinning. "And it is massive."
Alec's eyes widened, a flicker of genuine hope breaking through his fatigue. Bloodstone was a skeleton of a command; with barely four thousand men to garrison the islands, patrol the waters, and build a city from nothing, Alec had been praying for reinforcements.
"Is it the Lannisters? Or Lord Hightower?"
"A forest of banners," Daeron replied. "Mostly the Reach—Hightower, Redwyne, even smaller Houses like the Bakers. I counted at least fifty cargo ships, low in the water and heavy with steel and grain."
"Fifty!" Alec exhaled, a weight lifting from his shoulders. "Praise the Smith. I might finally be able to sleep."
Up until now, the "Lord of the Stepstones" had mostly issued grand decrees while Alec did the grueling work of turning those dreams into stone and mortar. They needed a castle, barracks, and homes; living in silk tents was for summer travelers, not for those who intended to hold a kingdom.
High above the Narrow Sea, the clouds churned like a boiling pot. Sunfyre's golden scales caught the light, turning the dragon into a shimmering streak of fire.
"Faster, Sunfyre," Aegon urged.
The dragon roared, a sound like grinding tectonic plates, and accelerated. The jagged silhouette of Tyrosh Island soon rose from the waves. Aegon's primary goal was to find the slave rebels, but he wasn't one to pass up an opportunity for a bit of psychological warfare. He figured it was only polite to offer a "greeting" to the Archon who had so recently tasted his fire.
In the sunless depths of the underground chamber, Archon Nekania's head snapped up. Through the stone and the soot, he heard it: the melodic, terrifying shriek of the Golden Dragon.
"Not again," he hissed, his face contorting in a mask of helpless rage.
Sunfyre didn't bother with a dive. Aegon kept him hovering at a medium height, raining liquid gold down upon anything that moved within the ruins of the city.
Thrum-thrum-thrum!
Suddenly, a dozen iron bolts, each a meter long and forged for murder, hissed out of the shadows of the broken buildings. Aegon's connection to Sunfyre was so tight his own skin prickled with the warning. He pulled the reins, banking Sunfyre into a violent, barrel-roll turn. The bolts whistled harmlessly into the clouds.
"Cunning rats," Aegon muttered. "They've learned to hide the scorpions in the rubble."
He realized that without ground troops to flush out the nests, low-altitude strafing was becoming a gamble. Satisfied with the hundred or so fresh corpses he'd added to the Archon's tally, Aegon wheeled Sunfyre away. He disappeared into the glare of the sun, leaving the Tyroshi to curse his name in the ashes.
Following his memory of the island's geography, Aegon flew northwest toward the Lango Highlands. From the air, the plateau looked like a massive, flat hand reaching out over the sea, protected by sheer cliffs and a single, narrow mountain pass.
There, the war was in full swing. A sprawling mass of escaped slaves was throwing itself against the pass, but the masters were putting up a desperate, disciplined resistance. Aegon noticed something that made him frown: the masters were using "slave soldiers"—men in collars fighting to keep other men in collars.
You'd think a rebel army would be better at recruitment, Aegon thought dryly.
Still, the rebels were smart enough to recognize the value of the high ground. If they took the Lango Highlands, they took the water and the grain. That made them worth a Prince's favor.
Sunfyre dove, silent and predatory. He didn't roar; he let the fire do the talking.
The slave soldiers were focused on the fray until the sky itself seemed to melt. Cobalt-gold flames washed over the masters' defensive lines. Those caught in the center were silenced instantly, turned to carbon before they could scream. Those on the fringes were less lucky, becoming living torches who tumbled down the slopes, unable to quench the dragon's kiss.
"Dragon!" the masters shrieked. They had no scorpions here; they had never imagined a dragon would care about a slave skirmish in the hills.
Sunfyre, now a beast of over fifty meters in length, ignored the peppering of pathetic hand-arrows. Their tips broke against his scales like rain on a roof. He tore a gaping hole in the masters' formation, a charred highway of death.
Seeing the opening, the Rebel Army—hungry, bloodstained, and fueled by a lifetime of hatred—howled as one. They surged up the slope like a tidal wave, their eyes fixed on the throats of their former owners.
Aegon didn't stick around to watch the slaughter. He had a different target. He flew Sunfyre over the crest of the hill, toward the lush plantations of the Highlands. He began to systematically incinerate the granaries and the standing crops.
The rebels would have their victory, but Aegon would make sure they knew exactly who held the keys to their larder—and their lives.
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