Of the Blood of the Dragon

Chapter Twenty Three

As 129 AC drew to a close, Prince Jacaerys prepared to fly against King's Landing. The date he chose for the attack was the first full moon of the new year.

Yet the plans of men are but playthings to the gods. For even as Jace laid his plans, a new threat was closing in from the east. The schemes of Otto Hightower had borne fruit; meeting in Tyrosh, the High Council of the Triarchy had accepted his offer of alliance. Ninety warships swept from the Stepstones under the banners of the Three Daughters, bending their oars for the Gullet... and as chance and the gods would have it, the Pentoshi cog Gay Abandon, carrying two Targaryen princes and the future Lord of Winterfell, sailed straight into their teeth.

The escorts sent to protect the cog were sunk or taken; the Gay Abandon captured. The tale reached Dragonstone only when Prince Aegon arrived desperately clinging to the neck of his dragon, Stormcloud. Only eight, he had never flown before... and would never fly again, for Stormcloud had been terribly wounded as he fled the Gay Abandon, arriving with the stubs of countless arrows embedded in his belly, and a scorpion bolt through his neck. He died within the hour, hissing as the hot blood gushed black and smoking from his wounds.

As knights dragged away the dragon's body, Jace and Viserra arrived at the beaches.

"Aegon?" Viserra went to her knees beside the boy, dread creeping into her heart.

The boy clutched her sleeve desperately, white with terror, shaking like a leaf and stinking of piss.

"I'm sorry." He said, his voice hoarse. "His hair... It was silver like mine. I'm so sorry."

Viserra's eyes widened as she stood, stumbling. Jacaerys took her spot beside his brother. "What do you mean, Aegon?"

"Harlan... they thought he was our brother-"

Viserra collapsed, in the distance a roar came from the Dragonmont.

Prince Jacaerys hadn't sent a maid with the boys, a maid who could have kept dying Harlan Stark's hair black. Harlan Stark had silver hair when the Gay Abandon had been sacked. Mistaken for a son of Princess Rhaenyra, the boy of seven kicked and screamed as he was stabbed half a hundred times, he died with his mother's name on his lips.

Aegon's younger brother, Prince Viserys, had no way of escaping from the cog either. A clever boy, he hid his dragon's egg and changed into ragged, salt-stained clothing, pretending to be no more than a common ship's boy, but one of the real ship's boys betrayed him, and he was made captive.

The Lysene admiral divided his fleet for the attack. One pincer was to enter the Gullet south of Dragonstone, the other to the north. In the early morning hours of the fifth day of the 130th year since Aegon's Conquest, battle was joined. Sharako's warships swept in with the rising sun behind them. Hidden by the glare, they took many of Lord Velaryon's galleys unawares, ramming some and swarming aboard others with ropes and grapnels.

Leaving Dragonstone unmolested, the southern squadron fell upon the shores of Driftmark, landing men at Spicetown and sending fire ships into the harbor to set ablaze the ships coming out to meet them. By mid-morning Spicetown was burning, whilst Myrish and Tyroshi troops battered at the very doors of High Tide.

When Prince Jacaerys and Lady Viserra swept down upon a line of Lysene galleys on Vermax and Cannibal, a rain of spears and arrows rose up to meet them. The sailors of the Triarchy had faced dragons before whilst warring against Prince Daemon and Lady Valaena in the Stepstones. No man could fault their courage; they were prepared to meet dragonflame with such weapons as they had. "Kill the rider and the dragon will depart," their captains and commanders had told them. One ship took fire, and then another. Still the men of the Free Cities fought on... until a shout rang out, and they looked up to see more winged shapes coming around the Dragonmont and turning towards them.