As Long collapsed, the storm started breaking up, and Hao ran back into the trees. The badly wounded young lieutenant flagged for big gun replacements and then fell to his knees in agony. Another commander came and took his place as they carried the young soldier away to be healed. A noise made the Westerosi turn their head towards the woods as a huge chunk of trees came down all at once. Four lines of Zonians pulling on ropes came out into the clearing, and the massive slings surged ahead. The new wall commander, Von, signaled for the Deepwood Motte slings to fire their wildfire charges. He ordered the big guns and the gunners to fire on the Zonians.
Shots tore through the lines of Zonian pullers, killing 100's but the Zonian slings still pulled into firing range. The Westerosi slings fired, and barrels of wildfire whistled through the air, exploding on contact and spreading the deadly wildfire all along the Zonian lines. The rain-soaked ground resisted the usual spread, and the burning failed to catch the wet wood of the slings on fire. Then came the thump-thump of the enemy sligs unleashing massive ice charges on Deepwood Motte. A large group of Westerosi troops was staged in the courtyard of Fort #2, and they took one of the ice charges directly. More than 300 of them died on contact. The second charge fell just short of the wall and froze its way half up the wall. Some of the soldiers who had thrown themselves out of the way of the first charge and against the wall leaped up as the ice nearly got them too. The magically activated ice charges spread everywhere it was wet, icy fingers even reaching through the carefully built stone-kin walls. The front wall of the fort buckled but did not come down.
More wildfire explosions lit the early morning sky in the woods where the Zonians waited to charge out. Screams echoed through the woods, and the Zonian slings launched fire charges into the city itself. Houses and people burst into flame, and the fire brigades began struggling to contain the damage and the loss of life. The oil trenches where the Zonians waited came to life, burning with a fire hot enough to raise smoke through the woods and ignite the trees. One of the Zonian slings caught on fire, and the Zonian troops struggled to put it out. Another ice charge hit the fort's gate directly, bursting it into pieces. The Zonian commander shrieked for his troops to attack. They came out of the woods in waves, shouting death to the Westerosi. The big guns on the wall and the Westerosi slings throwing explosive barrels devastated the charge, chopping huge holes in the wall of Zonians. But on they came.
Just when it looked like the fort would be overrun, a cheer rose from the Westerosi ranks. The Zonian troops looked at each other, wondering why these almost beaten enemies were cheering. Then one of them saw the dragon swooping down on them. Drogon cut a path through the clearing that evaporated Zonian troops by the thousands. He followed a line straight at the Zonian slings. One of the slings had its base eviscerated and fell into the other, knocking them both out of commission. Qotho was firing arrows as fast as he could at the enemy, and before they could break and run, the Zonian commander ordered his huge archer core to fire at the dragon as it swept by. It was a fool's errand as the dragon was too fast and impervious to their arrows. Drogon swept up into a short climb and swung around for another pass. The Zonian troops broke and started retreating like men gone mad. Nothing in their brutal lives had prepared them for something this destructive; they fled. But one Zonian wasn't fleeing, as the dragon came through on a second pass. Hao lined up the flight path and unleashed his most powerful lightning blast as Drogon flew back north. Qotho, looking back, yelled for Jon to dive. As Drogon closed on the treeline, the lightning blast caught him across the back and tail. The lightning struck and arced, and Jon and Qotho were knocked senseless. They would have fallen from the dragon's back except that Drogon was also knocked completely out and fell like a stone. The three of them crashed into the trees.
A moan went up from the fort's walls. And then the Zonian commander and what few hard troops he had left charged out of the woods to try and finish the dragon off. Hao went with them with the intention of frying that dragon to a corpse. Commander Von, realizing that they must save the dragon from this attack, signaled for the Deepwood Motte cavalry to issue forth in its defense. The cavalry cut through the oncoming Zonians at an angle. Heads flew from Zonian shoulders, and the Zonian commander went down as well. That broke this last charge, and Hao ran for the trees before he too would be killed. They had killed several thousand Westerosi and at least wounded that dragon, but they had lost twelve thousand troops, their giant slings and their commander with this failure. There would be no celebrating tonight in the Zonian encampment. This assault was an utter failure.
In the great hall, Ned came running in and jumped into Arya's lap; the reports were coming in that the assault had been turned back, and then she gasped when the reports of the dragon being felled came in.