The thick fog before his eyes had yet to disperse. In Tyrosh, atop the lighthouse at the outermost edge of the harbor, Harbor Master Grisson—who had just finished a night shift—let out a yawn.
Damn it. After several nights of continuous night duty, his eyes could barely stay open.
Grisson took out a flask and gulped down a mouthful. The strong liquor burned his throat a little, but at least it cleared his head somewhat.
"How long until the shift change?" he asked hoarsely.
"A quarter of an hour, my lord."
Grisson nodded and turned to head down the stairs.
Just then, a strange sound came from overhead…
Like muffled thunder, yet also like something breathing heavily.
He looked up—and suddenly his whole body stiffened. The flask slipped from his hand and hit the floor with a clack.
"This—!"
Grisson and his men were all stunned.
Grisson snapped back to his senses and shouted in terror, "Ring the bell! Quickly!"
Seeing several of his men still frozen in shock, Grisson slapped them hard a few times to jolt them back to their senses.
But by the time the bell of enemy attack began to ring, it already seemed too late.
Above the harbor, over the layer of fog, three enormous dark shadows were pressing downward through the mist.
The moment their dragon wings spread, even the morning light was blotted out.
Daemon Targaryen rode at the base of Caraxes's neck, the corner of his mouth curling upward.
"Dracarys."
The blood-red dragon began a rapid dive. Dark red dragonfire poured down like splashed boiling oil, flooding directly into the oar deck of a three-tiered war galley.
"Ahhh!"
Across the entire ship, screams erupted—short and dense.
As the vessel tilted, Grisson could see clearly from the lighthouse: on the benches of the rowers remained nothing but charred corpses.
"A demon dragon!"
"The demon dragon is here!"
The alarm bell rang wildly, but the harbor had already descended into chaos.
The second main warship tried to flee.
Syrax had already arrived.
Rhaenyra Targaryen's golden she-dragon skimmed across the surface of the sea, and dragonfire sliced precisely across the hull.
Under the violent blast of dragonflame, the wood began to crack with sharp crack-crack sounds, and seawater rushed in madly.
"Fire the scorpions! Fire the scorpions!" a captain shouted on the deck, jumping in fury as he stared at the three dragons in the sky.
Then the wings of Meleys swept over.
Not fire—wind.
The air currents raised by the eighty-foot wingspan of the dragon's wings directly swept people and objects off the deck. Two scorpion operators screamed as they were hurled over the railing, crashing onto the stone dock fifty feet below and smashing into two heaps of flesh.
"How do we even fight this?" a boatswain stood on the deck, staring blankly.
The moment the words left his mouth, the rapidly flying Caraxes engulfed the ship behind him in dragonfire.
At the western city wall, atop the Iron Gate wall, the scar on Captain Rosso's face—running from brow to chin—twitched violently.
"Loose arrows! All of you—loose the damned arrows!"
The scorpions clattered as they fired, heavy bolts shooting toward the sky.
But the dragons were too fast—absurdly fast.
With one easy roll to the side, Caraxes dodged several arrows. Syrax climbed beyond range, and Meleys…
The Red Queen, Meleys used her speed advantage to charge straight at the arrow tower.
No, not crash into it. At the last moment, she breathed a burst of flame, then pulled up.
Boom!
From the battlements at the top of the arrow tower, the scorpion operators let out screams as they were burned alive.
"Firebombs! Pitch bombs!" Rosso roared until his voice broke. "Burn them, damn you!"
The catapults hurled clay jars filled with pitch and sulfur after they were set alight
The first jar struck Meleys's left wing, and flames burst up with a whoosh.
A wave of cheers rose from the Tyroshi defenders on the wall.
But they cheered for only three seconds.
Meleys let out a roar so loud it made people's eardrums ache, then beat her wings violently.
The burning pitch flew off like rain and fell onto the city wall.
Several soldiers were set ablaze. Screaming miserably, they rolled along the battlements before finally falling from the forty-foot-high wall.
And Meleys's wing…
Only a small patch had blackened.
Rosso froze.
"Captain! The harbor is finished!" A messenger scrambled up in a panic. "The fleet on duty has already been destroyed! They've begun landing!"
Rosso rushed to the edge of the wall and looked down.
The harbor had already become a living hell. All six main warships on duty were burning. Charred sailors' corpses floated on the sea, while even more men were swimming desperately toward the harbor. And the remaining fifty-odd warships, because no one was manning them, lay moored inside the port.
Farther out, a black mass of landing craft was charging in—at least a hundred small boats, every one of them packed with men.
Worse still, the first wave of black soldiers had already landed on the beach.
Holding large wooden shields banded with iron, they charged forward under the rain of arrows.
The soldiers carried ladders, and thirty of them were hoisted onto the wall with loud clangs.
"Quick! Boiling oil! Rolling stones!" Rosso shouted, eyes red.
The boiling oil was poured down, splashing directly over more than a dozen black soldiers who had just climbed onto the beachhead.
The sizzling sound of burning flesh mixed with inhuman screams.
Then huge stones from the catapults came crashing down, and one boat was smashed to pieces together with everyone aboard.
But the blacks did not retreat.
A young soldier climbed up onto the battlements.
Rosso saw his face clearly. He was only eighteen or nineteen, with freckles on his face and excitement filling his eyes, yet the axe in his hand still came chopping down.
Rosso twisted aside to avoid it, then thrust backhanded and drove his sword through the young man's throat.
Blood sprayed across Rosso's face. The young man's eyes widened, and he toppled backward, falling from the wall.
But three more had already climbed up.
The city wall turned into a meat grinder.
In such a narrow place, soldiers from both sides were crammed together, hacking with swords and axes, shield slamming against shield, even teeth—everything was used.
One Tyroshi soldier had his arm chopped off. He lunged forward and wrapped his remaining arm around the enemy, and the two of them fell together.
A black soldier had his belly pierced through. He clutched the sword that stabbed him, holding it tight so his companion had the chance to cut off the enemy's head.
Rosso cut down four in succession; the edge of his sword was nearly rolled.
He panted heavily and looked around. The wall still stood, and the defenders could still hold.
But then—the dragons came back again.
Rhaenys Targaryen rode above as Syrax dove low across the wall, dragonfire sweeping across a stretch of battlements like a broom.
More than fifty defenders instantly became human torches. Everyone fled from them in terror as they wailed, until the flames burned through flesh into bone. Only then did they let out their final scream and collapse.
"Captain! The eastern wall is about to break!" A soldier with blood all over his face ran up shouting.
Rosso looked east. Three hundred feet away, a banner embroidered with a seahorse had been planted upon the battlements.
Black soldiers swarmed up like ants, spreading to both sides.
"Reserves!" Rosso's voice had gone completely hoarse. "Hold on! Reinforcements will arrive soon! Quickly!"
...
In the inner city of Tyrosh, inside the fortress, Archon Adrian was trembling.
This three-hundred-pound fat man wore ill-fitting armor, his helmet on his head, his face pale as a corpse.
"Five thousand! Five thousand Tyroshi gold coins for every mercenary company!" He waved a gem-studded short sword. "So long as you can hold until the day after tomorrow!"
The dozens of mercenary captains below glanced at each other and remained silent.
Adrian said anxiously, "Just hold until the day after tomorrow! Reinforcements from Lys and Myr will arrive!"
"Archon," said "Bloodbeard" Maros, the man with a scar across his face, "there are three dragons outside."
"So what if there are dragons? I have walls! I have you!"
"And besides, on the fleets of Lys and Myr there are dragon-hunting scorpions made specifically to deal with dragons."
"Then why, just now at the harbor, did your fleet sink before they even fired?" Gordon said coldly.
"They attacked without declaration. My fleet had only the duty crews aboard. How was I supposed to know?"
"The walls are melting," Gordon continued.
"My men saw it. Your soldiers are being burned to ashes."
"It's not that we cannot help," interrupted Madrid, the captain of the Blood Beads Mercenary Company. "But the situation is dangerous now. How about ten thousand gold dragons?"
"You're taking advantage of the fire to loot!" Adrian burst out angrily. In the past, these so-called mercenary companies had been nothing but trash in his eyes—but now the entire city was on the brink of collapse.
Suddenly a loud crash rang out. The dome trembled, and the crystal chandelier creaked.
Adrian gritted his teeth, tore a ring of keys from his belt, and threw it to a trusted subordinate. "Go to the treasury! Give each of them ten thousand! Now!"
"After taking the money, get up on the walls for me!" Adrian stared at Gordon. "Everyone! Every mercenary company!"
A moment later, the mercenary captains looked at the chests of money. They were heavy—inside were newly minted Tyroshi gold coins. Then they ordered their men to carry them away.
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