This time, Vermithor's fire was not aimed at Vhagar's vast body.
It was aimed at Aemond.
The bronze dragon's jaws opened wide, and the dark gold flame lanced toward the single figure in Vhagar's saddle.
Aemond did not flinch. Did not dive. Did not command Vhagar to evade.
Vhagar accelerated.
She drove forward, straight into the fire, straight at Vermithor's open jaws—a headlong charge, a battering ram of scale and fury.
«MADMAN?!» Aegon, fleeing from his own pursuers, looked back and saw. His scream was lost in the wind.
Fifty yards.
Vhagar raised her head. She did not slow. She kindled.
The fire that erupted from her gullet was not the orange-red of common flame. Not even the gold-white furnace of Vermithor's breath.
It was dark green. Liquid. Ancient.
Dragonfire—the fire that had raised Valyria and razed it. The fire that had melted Harren's black stone and made it run like tallow.
The flames met in the air between them.
*BOOM. *
The explosion swallowed the sky.
Bronze fire met green fire, and the world turned white. Not the white of clouds or snow—the white of the sun's heart, the white of annihilation.
Aemond flattened himself against Vhagar's neck. The shockwave passed over him like a giant's hand.
Both dragons were hurled apart.
Vermithor was young, strong, in his prime. He beat his great wings furiously, fighting the recoil, stabilizing his vast body with brute strength.
Vhagar was old.
But she was cunning.
The ancient she-dragon did not fight the shockwave. She rode it. Her wings folded; her body dropped like a meteor, falling thirty feet in the span of a heartbeat, converting the blast's force into speed. Then her wings snapped open again—WHUMP—and she shot upward from below, driving her shoulder into Vermithor's belly.
Vermithor's instincts were faster than thought.
He did not try to climb—that would expose his softer throat, his vulnerable chest. Instead, he mether. Shoulder to shoulder. Chest to chest. Scale against scale.
The impact was felt a mile away.
*CRASH. *
The dragons' roars merged into one sound—a shriek of fury, of pain, of bloodlust. Men on the ships below clapped hands to their ears. Some fell to their knees.
Aemond felt the inertia try to throw him forward. His safety straps bit into his flesh; bruises bloomed purple beneath his armor. His knuckles were white on the saddle's grip.
Vhagar bellowed—a sound of pain.
Her chest scales were thick, but Vermithor had struck her full-on. The bronze dragon's shoulder had driven into her breastbone like a ram. She could feel the crack, the strain, the insult of it.
But her counterblow came faster.
While the dragons were still locked together, while Vermithor was still recovering from the collision, Vhagar struck. Her great head whipped around. Her jaws opened wide, revealing teeth as long as a man's arm, each one a curved dagger of bone.
She bit Vermithor's neck.
Two centuries of battle experience guided her aim. She did not waste her strength on the thickest scales. Her upper jaw found the seam between two plates; her lower jaw found the seam below. Her neck muscles bulged.
She twisted.
*CRUNCH. *
A sheet of bronze scales tore loose from Vermithor's neck, spinning away into the wind. Beneath them, the flesh was raw and red, muscle fibers twitching in the open air. Dragon blood—dark, steaming, almost black—began to pour.
The drops fell toward the sea. Where they struck the water, they exploded into great clouds of white steam. Dead fish floated to the surface, bellies up, cooked from within.
*RRRAAAAAARRRRR! *
Vermithor raged.
He forgot tactics. Forgot evasion. Forgot everything but the pain and the fury. His hind legs came up, claws extended, and rakedVhagar's belly. His tail whipped around like a siege engine, the bone spur at its tip screaming through the air, and slammed into the base of Vhagar's left wing.
*CRACK. *
The sound echoed across the harbor.
Vhagar's entire body lurched. Her left wing drooped; the membrane, stretched taut, had been torn. Not badly—but enough.
The old dragon's roar changed. It was no longer the sound of battle.
It was the sound of rage.
«VHAGAR!» Aemond screamed.
He felt the change in her. Felt her fighting stance become desperate.
Vhagar rolled right. Her injured wing barely answered her command. She clawed at the air, trying to gain distance, trying to think—
But Vermithor gave her no respite.
He came at her like a storm. Claws, teeth, tail, even his horned head—every inch of him was a weapon. He had abandoned defense entirely. Each blow carried the full weight of his rage. The wound on his neck still bled, but the pain had become fuel, kindling, fire.
The dragons wheeled and tumbled across the sky. Their roars shook the clouds. Their blood fell like rain.
Aemond lay flat against Vhagar's neck. Blackfyre, the Conqueror's blade, was in his hand. His violet eye was fixed on the figure in Vermithor's saddle.
Varros.
The bastard clung to his dragon's back with both hands, lashed to the saddle by iron chains. His face was pale, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a rictus of fear and fury.
But he did not look away.
He is buying time, Aemond thought. For the others.
For Aegon.
Aegon needed the time.
Sunfyre's situation was dire.
The golden dragon was young, strong, beautiful—but he was inexperienced. Against the coordinated assault of two dragons, even inexperienced riders became deadly.
Silverwing's tactics were simple: do not engage head-on. Use speed and agility. Attack from blind spots. Harass.
The pale blue-green she-dragon was not as large as Sunfyre, but she was faster. Every pass, she targeted the same place—the joint of Sunfyre's left wing. Her claws snagged; her teeth tore; her wingtips slapped and buffeted.
Each attack widened the wound by a fraction. Dragon blood wept from the gash, trailing behind the golden dragon like a crimson banner.
«LEFT! SUNFYRE—LEFT!» Aegon screamed.
The wound on his own back was agony. Silverwing's claw had caught him during an earlier evasion; his armor was torn, his flesh laid open. Every breath tasted of blood.
Sunfyre tried to turn left.
Grey Ghost was waiting.
The pale dragon—near-invisible against the grey dawn sky—had been hovering at the edge of the battle, patient as a hunter. The moment Sunfyre committed to the turn, Grey Ghost struck.
His fire was narrow, focused, hot. It did not cover a wide area—but what it touched, it destroyed.
Sunfyre swerved. The fire missed his body by inches, but the heat of it scorched his flank. He screamed.
Silverwing was on him again.
This time, her claws found the root of his rightwing. Her talons hooked beneath the scales, and with a savage yank, she tore three golden plates loose—along with a great strip of the flesh beneath.
Sunfyre's scream was a sound Aegon would hear in his nightmares for the rest of his life.
The golden dragon's body lurched. His altitude dropped twenty feet in an instant.
«CLIMB! SUNFYRE—CLIMB!» Aegon howled.
The golden dragon beat his wings with desperate strength. But the pain in his right wing was a fire of its own; his ascent was slow, labored, agonizing.
Below him: the black, jagged coast of Dragonstone. If he lost control at this height, he would not survive the fall.
Above them, Sheepstealer was in a fury.
Lothron had reappeared.
The young black dragon had been hiding in the clouds since the ambush began. Now he descended like a striking hawk—not to engage Sheepstealer directly, but to attack the rider.
Nettles.
The dark-haired girl clung to Sheepsteeler's back, her small body curled tight against the saddle. She had no armor. No chains. No weapon but the riding crop in her fist.
Every time Lothron dove, he loosed a narrow stream of fire—aimed not at the dragon, but at the girl.
Sheepstealer twisted, turned, writhed. He wanted to fight—wanted to catch this insolent black shadow and rend him—but every time he tried to close, Lothron was already gone, already curving around for another pass.
And every pass, the fire came closer.
Nettles did not scream. She did not weep. She only held on, her knuckles white, her face buried in Sheepstealer's scales.
Hold on, she told herself. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on—
Sheepstealer roared—a sound of frustration, of fury, of desperation. He wheeled in the sky, chasing the black dragon's tail, but Lothron was too fast, too nimble, too cruel.
He was not trying to win.
He was trying to distract.
And it was working.