Tyrosh, The Harbor.
The thick mist had not yet dispersed.
High atop the outermost lighthouse of Tyrosh's harbor, Harbor Master Garro let out a long yawn.
He'd worked several night shifts in a row, and his eyes were burning with exhaustion.
He pulled a flask from his tunic and took a heavy swig; the strong liquor scorched his throat but cleared his head.
"How long until the relief watch?" he rasped.
"A quarter-hour, my Lord."
Garro nodded and turned to head down the stairs.
At that moment, a strange sound drifted from above, a rumble like muffled thunder, followed by a heavy, rhythmic breathing.
He looked up, and his entire body froze. His flask hit the stone floor with a dull thud.
"Gods..."
Garro and his men stood in a state of shock. Finally snapping out of it, Garro shrieked in terror.
"The bells! Ring the bells!"
He delivered several sharp slaps to his stunned subordinates to rouse them, but the alarm bells began to toll too late.
Above the harbor, three massive shadows tore through the mist, descending like the wrath of gods. The moment their wings unfurled, the morning sun was blotted out.
Daemon Targaryen, perched upon the neck of Caraxes, bared his teeth in a grin.
"Dracarys!"
The Blood Wyrm went into a steep dive.
Dark red dragonfire poured out like boiling oil, flooding directly into the oar-decks of a triple-decked galley.
"AAAHHH!"
The screams from the ship were short and dense.
As the vessel listed, Garro saw clearly from the lighthouse: the seats of the rowers were now occupied by nothing but charred husks.
"Dragons! The dragons are here!"
The sirens wailed, but the harbor was already in chaos.
A second flagship tried to flee, but Syrax was upon it. Rhaenyra's golden she-dragon skimmed the water's surface, her fire slicing through the hull like a hot blade.
The timber groaned and splintered, and the sea rushed in.
"The scorpions! Fire the scorpions!" a captain shrieked from a deck, glaring up at the three beasts in the sky.
Then came the "Red Queen," Meleys.
Her wings didn't bring fire, but a gale. The eighty-foot wingspan created a downdraft so powerful it swept men and equipment off the deck.
Two scorpion operators were hurled overboard, falling fifty feet to the stone docks below where they hit with a sickening crunch.
"How are we supposed to fight this?" a boatswain muttered, staring blankly.
He didn't get an answer; Caraxes banked around and engulfed the entire ship in flame.
------
The Iron Gate.
On the western wall, by the Iron Gate, Captain Rosso felt the scar running from his eyebrow to his jaw twitch.
"Arrows! All of you! Fire those damn arrows!"
The heavy scorpion bolts hummed through the air, but the dragons were too fast.
Caraxes dodged a volley with a casual barrel roll, while Syrax ascended out of range.
Meleys used her superior speed to charge a gatehouse. She didn't crash; at the last second, she unleashed a torrent of fire and banked upward.
BOOM!
The men inside the stone ramparts were incinerated, turned into living torches before they could even scream.
"Fireballs! Pitch! Oil!" Rosso roared, his voice cracking.
"Burn them!"
The catapults launched clay jars filled with pitch and sulfur. One jar struck Meleys's left wing, and fire blossomed.
The Tyroshi defenders let out a cheer that lasted exactly three seconds.
Meleys let out a roar that vibrated in the soldiers' teeth and beat her wings violently. The burning pitch was flung off like rain, falling back onto the walls.
The Tyroshi soldiers were doused in the liquid fire, rolling on the ramparts until they fell forty feet to their deaths.
Meleys's wing was left with nothing but a small, blackened patch.
Rosso stood in shock.
"Captain! The harbor is lost!" a messenger panted, scrambling up the stairs.
"The fleet on watch is destroyed! They've begun to land!"
Rosso rushed to the edge. The harbor was a vision of hell. Six flagships were burning, and the water was filled with the floating corpses of sailors.
Further out, a massive landing fleet was approaching, at least a hundred boats, each packed with men.
The first wave of "Black" soldiers had already hit the beach. They held iron-rimmed wooden shields, pushing through the hail of arrows.
Ladders were slammed against the stone walls with a rhythmic thud.
"Boiling oil! Stones! Now!" Rosso screamed.
Ten soldiers were doused in oil as they tried to scale the wall; the sound of sizzling flesh mixed with inhuman shrieks. But the Blacks didn't retreat.
A young soldier, no older than eighteen with freckles on his face, made it to the battlements.
Rosso sidestepped his axe and drove a sword through the boy's throat.
Blood sprayed Rosso's face, and the boy fell backward off the wall. But three more took his place.
The ramparts became a meat grinder, swords, axes, shields, and teeth were used in the narrow space.
Rosso cut down four men, his blade dulling. He looked around; the walls were holding, for now.
But then, the dragons returned. Rhaenys on Meleys and Rhaenyra on Syrax swept over the battlements.
A broom of dragonfire swept across a section of the wall. Fifty defenders became human torches.
"Captain! The eastern wall is breaking!" a blood-stained soldier cried.
Rosso looked east. Three hundred feet away, a banner bearing the Seahorse of House Velaryon had been planted on the wall.
The Black soldiers were swarming up like ants.
"The reserves!" Rosso rasped.
"Hold! Reinforcements are coming! Hold!"
----------
The Archon's Palace.
Inside the inner fortress of Tyrosh, Archon Adrio was trembling. The three-hundred-pound man was squeezed into ill-fitting armor, his face as pale as a corpse.
"Five thousand! Five thousand Tyroshi gold pieces for every mercenary company!" he shouted, waving a gem-encrusted dagger.
"Just hold until the day after tomorrow!"
The mercenary captains exchanged looks, remaining silent.
"Just until the day after tomorrow!" Adrio pleaded.
"The fleets of Lys and Myr will arrive!"
"Archon," said Maros, known as "Bloodbeard," "there are three dragons out there."
"So what? I have walls! I have you!" Adrio shrieked.
"And the Lysene fleets have specialized dragon-hunting scorpions!"
"Then why did your fleet sink in the harbor before they could fire a single shot?" Goro asked coldly.
"It was a sneak attack! My fleet only had a skeleton watch! How was I to know?!" Adrio snapped.
"The walls are melting," Goro continued.
"My men saw your army turned to ash. We'll help, but the risk has changed."
"Ten thousand Gold Dragons each?" Mardo, captain of the Bloodborn, interjected.
"This is extortion!" Adrio was furious. He used to view these mercenaries as trash, but now the city was on the brink of total collapse.
BOOM!
A massive explosion rocked the room, and the crystal chandelier rattled.
Adrio snarled and threw a ring of keys to a trusted servant.
"To the vault! Give them ten thousand each! Now! Once you have the gold, get to the walls! All of you!"
A moment later, the mercenary captains watched as chests of freshly minted Tyroshi gold were dragged into the room
-----
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