Chapter 76: The Riverlands Burning - Part 1
ULF
Ash came up to meet us for a hundred miles.
The Riverlands were dying. From Silverwing's back I could see the scars. Black swathes where villages had stood. Cratered fields where crops had grown. Rivers running dark with ash and worse.
Daemon on Caraxes had conducted total war. No mercy. No quarter. Pure terror.
This is what dragons do when unchecked. Weapons of mass destruction with wings.
We descended toward what had been a market town. Now it was char and rubble. Silverwing didn't want it. She circled twice, refusing, then folded her wings and took the square anyway.
Three days old, that fire, and the ground was still warm through my boots.
Bodies in the streets. Or what remained of them. Blackened shapes that had once been people. Men, women, children. All equal in death. All equally burned.
No crows. Even the crows had finished here and gone.
"Daemon's work," Aemond observed. No emotion in his voice.
"Or his army's." Hugh brought Vermithor down beside us and the bronze wings threw grit through what was left of a bakery. He walked the ruin like a smith checking another man's work. "Takes time to burn this thoroughly. They must have been here for hours."
"Looking for supplies. Or sending a message." I dismounted. Walked among the ruins.
These were people. Farmers. Merchants. They had nothing to do with the war except being in the wrong place.
A doll lay in the ash. Cloth body. Painted face, half-melted, one blue eye left.
Someone's child carried that. Someone's daughter or son.
I could have picked it up. Buried it somewhere that still had grass.
I left it where it lay.
Behind me Hugh laughed at something. Nobody in that town to hear it but us.
THE CELLAR
The second village had survivors.
Hugh found them. A trapdoor under the collapsed floor of an inn, and beneath it twelve people. Maybe fifteen. Covered in soot, half-starved, terrified. They came up when he told them to, because a man off a dragon tells you and you come up.
"Who do you serve?" Hugh's voice carried no warmth.
"No one, m'lord." An old man. Trembling. Hands out, empty, held where we could see them. "We're just farmers. We serve whoever..."
"This village flew Black banners."
"We flew what banners we were told! When Daemon came, we flew Black! When you come, we fly Green! We just want to live!"
A woman behind him put her hand over a boy's mouth. The boy wasn't making a sound. She did it anyway.
Hugh turned to Vermithor.
"Burn them."
"What?" The old man's voice cracked. "We surrender! We yield!"
"You're enemies. Traitors." Hugh raised his hand. "Draca—"
"Stop."
I put myself between Vermithor's jaw and the cellar mouth. Close enough to smell the furnace working in him.
Hugh's face twisted. "Get out of the way."
"They're farmers. Not soldiers. Not threats."
"They supported Daemon."
"They supported whoever had dragons overhead. Same as they'll support us now." I kept my voice level. "Killing peasants doesn't win wars. It creates martyrs and motivates resistance."
"It sends a message."
"The wrong message." I held my ground. "Move aside, Hugh."
We stood face to face. Vermithor growled behind him. Silverwing rumbled behind me.
Two dragons. Two riders. One wrong move and this becomes very ugly.
And I listened to myself and hated it. Martyrs. Resistance. Not one word about the boy with his mother's hand across his mouth. Arithmetic was the only tongue spoken on this ground. I'd learned it fast. I was good at it.
Aemond's voice cut through the tension.
"Enough."
The prince regent came down from Vhagar's back and crossed the ash without hurrying.
"Hugh. These people aren't worth the time it takes to burn them. We have larger prey to hunt."
"They're traitors—"
"They're peasants. Irrelevant." Aemond gestured dismissively. "Let them spread the word that the Green dragons have come. Let them tell everyone what they saw. Fear is more valuable than corpses."
Hugh's jaw worked. But he stepped back.
"Fine. For now."
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
Those were my words. Ten minutes old, and he'd picked them up like a dropped tool and thrown away the part that made them worth saying. Every village he spared from here north, he'd spare for the wrong reason.
I'd take it. They were alive.
The survivors fled into the countryside. The old man looked back once. Gratitude and terror mixed in his eyes.
I nodded once.
Small mercies. Whatever they're worth.
THE MESSAGE
We found it at the ford, where the road crossed and the water ran shallow and brown.
Fifty feet tall. Burned into the earth with dragonfire. Letters blackened so deep they'd scar the land for years.
THE DRAGONSLAYER DIES AT GOD'S EYE
Aemond read it aloud. Then laughed.
"The Rogue Prince wants his rematch. Poetic of him."
"It's a trap." The words came out before I could stop them.
"Obviously." Aemond's smile didn't waver. "But we have three dragons. He has one. If he wants to spring a trap, let him try."
"He knows these lands. Knows the terrain. Knows—"
"He knows he's losing." Aemond turned away from the message. "Daemon is desperate. His forces are scattered. His queen is losing allies. God's Eye is his last gambit: force a confrontation on his terms." He shrugged. "We'll give him his confrontation. Just not the outcome he expects."
Caraxes had to hover to write that. Low and slow, the better part of an hour, in country crawling with scouts. He wasn't hiding from anyone. He wanted it carried north.
Hugh read the message again. Grinned.
"He's calling you out specifically, White. The Dragonslayer. You scared of a fair fight?"
"I'm scared of unfair ones. Which this clearly is."
"Then don't show up. Hide in King's Landing with your queen." Hugh's grin widened. "Let real dragonriders handle the war."
He's baiting me. Knows I can't back down without looking weak.
"I'll be there."
"Good." Hugh walked toward Vermithor. "About time you proved you belong with us."
THAT NIGHT
The camp was quiet.
Soldiers slept around dying fires. Dragons rested in cleared areas, their breath misting in the cold air. Down the picket line a horse kept fighting its tether and a boy kept talking it down.
I sat alone, journal open on my knee.
If I die tomorrow, Helaena...
The words came slowly. Heavy.
Know that every choice was for you and our child. Every battle. Every kill. Every compromise with honor. All of it to build a world where you could be safe.
Forgive me for not being there. For leaving when you needed me. For putting duty before love.
Raise our child to be better than I was. Teach them kindness. Teach them strength. Teach them that monsters can choose to protect instead of destroy.
I love you. I've loved you since the first time you looked at me like I was human instead of a weapon.
Whatever happens at God's Eye...
A sound. Footsteps.
I closed the journal.
Aemond came out of the dark with his cloak over one arm.
"Couldn't sleep?"
"Thinking."
"Dangerous habit." He sat on a nearby stone. "You know Daemon is targeting you specifically."
"I noticed."
"Any particular reason? Beyond the assassination you prevented?"
I killed Blood and Cheese. Took his revenge off him before he could have it. That made it personal.
"I stopped his assassins. Killed men he paid. That's enough for someone like Daemon."
"Perhaps." Aemond studied me. "You've never told the full story of that night. How a single guard killed two professional killers in darkness."
"Does it matter?"
"Everything matters." His single eye reflected firelight. "But I suppose results are what count. You protected the children. You've fought well. Whatever secrets you keep, they haven't harmed the cause."
Yet.
Neither of us said it. He stood and put the cloak on.
"Get some sleep," he said. "Tomorrow we hunt the Rogue Prince. I want you sharp."
He walked away. Past the fires, past the sleeping men, toward the black bulk of Vhagar, who raised her head for him and set it down again.
I opened the journal.
Added one final line:
I'll find my way back to you. I always do.
The ink was still wet when the wind came off the burned fields and put the nearest fire out.