The archer's lungs burned as he crashed through the undergrowth, branches whipping at his face. He was no soldier; he was a poacher from a nearby village who'd thought banditry would be easier than starving. Now he was cursing the scar-faced Essosi captain and his men to every hell he could name. They'd vanished before first light, along with the chest of silver and good weapons. Left behind were twenty local fools like him, panicking in an empty camp with nothing to show for months of banditry but a few stolen cloaks and some mouldy bread.
Unable to find their leaders, the remaining men had split into two groups of ten to search the woods. The archer's group had found nothing but brambles and bad luck. Now he was the bait.
He glanced over his shoulder. The silver-haired prince was still coming, moving through the trees with a frightening speed, five red-and-black clad guards strung out behind him. The archer's only hope was to lead them back to the other nine men in his group. Ten against six were decent odds.
He burst into a small, rocky clearing where his fellows were gathered, leaning on their spears and axes, arguing in low, anxious voices about what to do next.
"The king's hounds!" the archer screamed, his voice cracking with panic. He didn't stop running, pushing past them to scramble up a low rock outcrop at the far side. He fumbled for another arrow from his quiver.
The nine bandits started, then scrambled into a ragged line. They saw the prince first, a flash of silver and black steel, and then the guards behind him. Fear and a desperate, angry courage took hold. "We have the numbers!" one of them roared, a big man with a rusted woodsman's axe. "Take them!"
The fight was not a battle but a brutal, chaotic brawl. There were no formations, only the crash of metal and the thud of bodies.
Prince Daemon was a blur of motion. He didn't roar; he was eerily silent. His first strike took the axeman in the throat before the man could finish his swing. His second parried a wild spear thrust and sent his sword point through the spearman's ribs. Two men down in as many heartbeats.
An arrow hissed from the rocks. One of Daemon's guards jerked, a feathered shaft suddenly protruding from his neck. He fell without a sound. Another guard had his helm and the skull beneath it crushed by a two-handed hammer blow. He dropped like a sack of stones.
The remaining three Targaryen guards fought back-to-back, their training giving them an edge against the bandits' wild swings. They cut down three of their attackers in quick succession.
On the rock, the archer nocked another arrow, his hands shaking. He aimed for the prince, but Daemon was never still. He was already engaging three bandits who had surrounded him. They came at him from different sides, but Daemon flowed between their attacks. A sidestep, a vicious slash that opened a thigh. A pivot, a block, a thrust that found a belly. A final, sweeping cut that hamstrung the third man, who fell screaming. It was over in seconds.
Then, silence, broken only by heavy breathing and the moans of the dying. The archer stared, his arrow still nocked. In the clearing, only Prince Daemon and two of his guards remained standing, their armor splattered, their swords dripping. Around them lay nine dead bandits and three fallen guards.
Daemon looked up, his eyes finding the archer on the rocks. He grinned, a fierce, bloody expression. The archer's nerve broke. He dropped his bow, turned, and fled deeper into the woods.
The silence in the small valley was heavy. It wasn't the quiet of an empty forest, but the dense, quiet of a place recently abandoned. The Targaryen party, now with all three princes reunited, stood in the middle of a dozen crude, empty shelters made of woven branches and mud-stained canvas.
"A camp, as we guessed," Viserys said, his voice tight. "But where are the rest?"
As if in answer, two guards dragged a stumbling, bloodied figure into the clearing. It was the archer Daemon's men had chased down. His face was a swollen mess from punches. The guards forced him to his knees before the princes.
Daemon stepped forward, his anger cold and sharp. "Where are the others? The ones who led you?"
The archer flinched, words bubbling through split lips. "M-mercy, m'lord… They… they left! Before first light. Took the silver, the good steel… left us with nothing."
"Who are they?" Aegon asked, his tone calm but insistent. "The Essosi refugees?"
The bandit shook his head, a pained motion. "Not refugees… Soldiers. Knights, maybe. Spoke funny. Acted like lords."
The brothers exchanged a grim look.
"Where did they go?" Aegon pressed.
"Don't know!" the archer wailed. "Gone! That's why we split up… to search for 'em!" He had nothing else to give.
Daemon's jaw tightened. He gave a curt nod to the guards. "He's spent."
Ignoring the man's sudden, frantic pleas, the guards hauled him to the edge of the clearing. A moment later, a sharp cry was cut abruptly short. Then, silence again.
Viserys ran a hand over his face, his expression troubled. "If the leaders slip the noose, this whole hunt is for nothing. We present heads of local thugs, not the men who started this. The Crown's justice will look incomplete."
Aegon was already thinking it through, his eyes scanning the ground as if reading a map. "They can't go back to Duskendale or Rosby. King's Landing is a fortress. The only logical route is north and east. To Maidenpool."
Daemon's eyes lit with predatory focus. "Then we chase them. I'll take a few men and ride. You and Viserys stay, ambush the other bandit group when they return."
"They have hours of lead," Aegon countered. "On horses, on these roads, catching them would be a gamble."
"Then what do you suggest?" Viserys asked, frustration edging his voice.
Aegon looked from Daemon's fierce impatience to Viserys's anxious duty. A small, knowing smile touched his lips.
"You stay with most of the guards," he said to Viserys. "Spring the trap on the returning bandits. Secure the 'victory' for the crown." He then turned to Daemon. "You and I will hunt the Essosi."
Daemon frowned. "You just said we couldn't catch them on horseback."
"We won't use horses," Aegon said, the smile widening just a fraction. His lilac eyes held a glint of certainty. "There's only one way to cover miles of forest and road faster than men can ride."
Viserys blinked. Daemon's scowl cleared, replaced by a confusion.
Aegon spoke the single, decisive word.
"Dreamfyre."
In the forest north of King's Landing, Dreamfyre, who had been resting in a hidden clearing, raised her great head. She sensed the familiar call in her mind.
With a low rumble, she unfurled her wings and pushed herself into the air, turning north towards her rider's summons.
The six Essosi deserters rode their stolen horses at a steady trot along the coastal road. The tension of the past days was beginning to ease.
"By now, those village fools will be swinging from Rosby's walls," one man said, a hint of a sneer in his voice. "They bought us a clean road with their lives."
"Aye," another added, patting the small, heavy sack of silver tied to his saddle. "The captain's plan was sound. A few more days, we pay a fisherman, scatter to the wind. Fresh starts, lads."
Their captain, the broad-shouldered man with the pale scar, scanned the empty road ahead. "We're clear of Duskendale. We can breathe easier."
"Finally," one of the younger men sighed, slumping a little in his saddle.
The captain nodded, but a faint, cold unease still prickled at the back of his neck.
Suddenly, the world went dark. A vast, blue-scaled shadow blotted out the sun, swallowing the road and the men upon it. They reined in their panicked horses, twisting in their saddles to look behind them.
A dragon's great head, larger than a wagon, was bearing down on them from above, its golden eyes fixed. A low, earth-shaking rumble vibrated in their chests.
"Run!" the captain bellowed, his voice raw with terror.
It was too late. Four spheres of roiling fire, each the size of a man's head, shot from the dragon's back. They struck the road around the men with deafening, concussive whumps. Horses screamed and reared, throwing their riders. Dirt and stone sprayed through the air. One man landed with a crack as his ankle snapped beneath him.
Before the dust settled, Dreamfyre beat her wings once, a thunderclap that flattened the grass, and landed on the road ahead, with a ground-shaking thud, cutting off their escape. On her back, two figures were clearly visible.
Daemon Targaryen, a fierce grin splitting his face, was already sliding down the dragon's side before she had fully settled. He hit the ground running, sword drawn, and charged toward the two dazed men who were scrambling for their own weapons.
Prince Aegon descended more calmly, his own sword held lightly at his side. He walked toward the remaining men.
The Essosi fighters, trained soldiers despite their flight, saw their hope shatter. With snarls of rage and fear, three of them who were still standing charged the lone prince approaching them. They came at him from slightly staggered angles, their movements coordinated even in desperation.
To Aegon, the world changed.
The frantic charge seemed to slow. Their expressions of fury, the shifting of their weight, the exact angle of each incoming blade, all of it became a clear, solvable equation. This was not speed, but perfect, preternatural clarity.
He did not need to be faster than their swords. He only needed to be where they were not.
He took a single, precise step to his right. A wild slash meant for his neck passed harmlessly through the air where he had been. As the man overbalanced, Aegon's own blade licked out, opening the man's thigh to the bone. The deserter crumpled with a shriek. A quick flick and a throat cut open, blood pouring in streams.
Aegon was already turning. He dropped into a crouch as a second man thrust at his chest. The sword passed over his shoulder. As he rose, he drove his pommel into the man's jaw, feeling the bone give way, then reversed his grip and sank his sword point into the man's chest.
The third attacker, seeing his companions fall in seconds, hesitated for a fatal instant. Aegon closed the gap. A parry turned the man's blade aside, a fluid follow-through brought the edge across his throat. The man fell, clutching his neck.
It had taken only a few moments.
Aegon moved forward to the last man.
Behind him, the sounds of Daemon's fight had already ceased. Two more bodies lay in the dust, their blood soaking into the dry road.
Only one man was still alive, kneeling in the center of the carnage.
It was the captain. His clothes smoldered, his face and arms a ruin of blistered red and black from the dragon's fire. Blood seeped from a dozen cuts and from the hideous compound fracture of his leg. Each breath was a ragged, wet hitch, fighting the pain and the creeping dark.
He had fought one last time. He had pushed through the agony, gripped his sword with shaking hands, and launched a desperate, final attack. It was not just to survive. He would take a prince with him. He would make their deaths mean something, make the rulers feel the sting of loss, make the cost of their lives clear in royal blood.
He had failed.
The silver-haired prince had moved with an impossible, liquid grace. Every lunge, every feint, every killing blow the captain had risked his life to master over years of service, had crumbled into nothing. His sword had not even touched the prince's tunic. The fight had lasted seconds, ending with the captain disarmed and on his knees, his body bloodied and broken.
Now, he looked up with his one good eye, finding Aegon standing before him with a smile, the prince's sword tip tracing a faint line in the dust. Realization dawned.
He was…playing with him?
Hatred and a bleak, final understanding warred in the captain's gaze.
He was no match.
He had never stood a chance.
"We… just wanted to live…" he rasped, the words bubbling with blood.
Aegon did not pause. He did not offer a reply, a judgment, or a last stare. He took one final step and, in one clean, efficient motion, brought his sword down in a sharp arc.
The captain's head fell from his shoulders and rolled once, coming to rest facing the sky, the eyes still wide open, frozen in their final, silent curse.
***
📜 Milestones:
100 Power Stones → +1 Chapter