"You knew the enemy's wyverns would come, from which direction they would arrive, and you even seemed to read their minds, guessing their
"You knew the enemy's wyverns would come, from which direction they would arrive, and you even seemed to read their minds, guessing their tactical deployment. How did you manage that?" the Imp asked curiously.
"Why don't you ask how I knew the exact positions of every ballista formation and hidden sentry in Tolos?" Dany countered.
"For the past half month, you've been riding your dragons to scout Tolos daily. Isn't that how you gathered the information?But yesterday morning, when the wyverns attacked around noon, all three dragons never left Tolos, yet you still knew precisely when they would arrive," Tyrion said with certainty.
"I'll show you a few people."
Dany greeted Missandei, Morono, and the other commanders in the hall, announced the meeting's end, then brought the Imp upstairs to a spacious guest room.
Inside, three beds were arranged side by side, each laid with a cool mat. On them lay a fierce-looking middle-aged woman, a masked sorceress, and a wiry old man with graying beard.
All three were pale, with lips dry and cracked.
Were it not for the stifling heat of the bay air and the absence of any stench of decay, Tyrion would have thought them corpses.
"Who are they?" he asked.
"Skinchangers."
Being from the Westerlands, Tyrion had rarely heard old nan's tales of skinchangers, so it took him a long while before he could dredge the name from the corner of his memory, along with the meaning behind it.
"You jest. Skinchangers truly exist in this world?"
He said so, but there was no trace of amusement on his face.
"After the allied fleet departed, I sent Drogon east across the bay and found three wildling skinchangers. They each bonded with animals: three swallows, three cats, one lobster, and one eagle."
Having seen firsthand their efficiency, Dany had already decided to incorporate them into her regular forces, and thus had no reason to keep their existence secret.
"Are the tales true then? They can really become beasts?"
"That isn't exactly wrong. Their flesh remains the same, but their souls shift."
She then explained to Tyrion the abilities of the skinchangers.
"Ah!" The dwarf froze, then his eyes lit with realization. "I see now. You never truly intended to sever communication between Tolos and Mantarys.
Burning the rookery was just a smokescreen, a ruse to make everyone—friend and foe alike—believe you sought to buy time to transport supplies from the warehouses. Once Mantarys's high command learned of it, they would never allow you to depart unchallenged.
But your true aim in attacking Tolos wasn't to loot, but to probe the allies' hidden cards.
Since their trump card wasn't in Tolos, you had to continue probing, otherwise you wouldn't have achieved your strategic goal.
So even if I hadn't released the Spear Company's vice-commander, you would have deliberately let the news slip."
At that, Tyrion's expression turned despondent. He gave a bitter smile. "And here I was, playing at cleverness before you. You must be laughing at me, aren't you?"
"No, I admire you," Dany shook her head.
"Admire me for feeling pity for a fatherless youth?" the dwarf sneered at himself.
"Why not? In this world, it is rare enough for someone to show compassion toward strangers."
Tyrion said nothing, only shaking his head.
Dany moved on. "I didn't need to spread the news on purpose, because it couldn't be hidden at all.
Tolos is the supply hub of the allied forces. Every day, grain goes to Mantarys, and mercenaries arrive in Tolos.
The vice-commander of the Spear Company might take three days to reach Mantarys on foot, but within half a day he could run into mercenaries or a caravan heading there."
"I see," Tyrion muttered in realization.
"Afterward, Morono's eagle delivered the black cat from Boro District outside Mantarys. The cat then sought out the Windblown Company. I reasoned that if the Windblown dared bet everything on the alliance, they must know the allies' hidden card.
Unfortunately, their camp was full of common soldiers. The leaders who knew the secret lived inside the city. The cat could not enter, but luckily there was still the eagle."
At this, even Dany felt a trace of relief.
The common soldiers and most commanders of the allied forces had no knowledge of the wyverns in Mantarys.
For example, Tolos's governor, Balo, only knew that a little over a month ago Mantarys had written, recruiting nobles of ancient bloodlines from the great houses of Tolos—fourteen from House Firepeak among them.
But Balo did not know those recruits were being trained to ride dragons.
Unless one possessed Firepeak blood and was chosen as a dragonrider, even great figures of the alliance such as War God Yunkai remained in the dark.
Moreover, the training camp for dragonriders wasn't in Mantarys. It seemed to be located on an island in the Sea of Sighs. Dany dared not let Morono's eagle enter the lands of Eternal Summer.
As Tyrion had said, only dragons could match dragons.
Dany suspected the allies had dragons.
Even if R'hllor had truly helped them hatch one, they could not possibly raise it to maturity so soon as to challenge her.
Then Dany thought of the Dragonworms.
If Jany could control the worms, could she also control wyverns?Everyone knew wyverns lived in Sothoryos.
But Sothoryos was shrouded in miasma, rife with plague. Ordinary men who ventured there faced certain death. The jungles stretched endlessly, and finding the wyverns' lairs was near impossible—said to be hidden in impassable swamps.
Yet the Valyrians had Jany. She must have known where wyverns could be found.
Dany grew suspicious, so she arranged for the black cat to infiltrate the mercenary camps outside Mantarys, for the eagle to patrol between Elyria and the Eternal Summer lands, and for the swallows to guard the Valyrian Road south of Mantarys.
Aside from the black cat—since mercenaries kept cats themselves—neither the eagle nor the swallows entered the "cursed" lands of Eternal Summer.
Since the Doom, the magical radiation there was too high, and no birds were known to survive—though there were still ravens.
But sending in a lone eagle would have been too conspicuous.
Still, the birds managed to monitor the routes between Mantarys and Tolos.
A flock of wyverns, blotting out the sky, would have been impossible to miss.
Of course, Dany had also considered the chance—what if they somehow slipped past undetected?
That was why the Unsullied and the Free Wings transporting supplies from the warehouses to the docks were mercenaries, dressed in the Targaryen army's shirts.
The white dragon circling above the northern city and the black dragon hovering over the docks were in fact acting as overseers. The mercenaries had no idea the allied army possessed wyverns, nor did they expect a dragon assault on Tolos. Under the watchful eyes of the great beasts, they behaved with unusual obedience.
The captured mercenaries of the western encampment were actually Tolos citizens dressed in prison garb.
After the deputy commander of the Spear Regiment entered Meereen, Dany went into hiding. Her ministers and advisers who were not needed for combat also concealed themselves.
That way, even if the enemy's aerial forces launched a sudden raid, her army would not suffer much damage.
"Why can't the black cats enter Meereen?" Tyrion asked curiously.
Dany pointed at the skinchanger lying on the mat. "See? Even with only the Dragonhorn, they could not withstand it. To step into the dwelling of a demigod would be nothing but suicide."
Skinchangers had a formidable ability to steal information. Their animal companions almost never appeared unusual to ordinary people.
Even most mages could not perceive the soul of a skinchanger within an animal's body.
But nothing was absolute.
If a mage had strong enough spiritual power and knew soul-attacking techniques, not only could they sense a skinchanger's presence beyond the animal's hide, but they could also strike across vast distances and wound the intruder's soul.
The Red Woman, for instance.
Even the mighty "Sixskins" Varamyr could not hide from her.
From hundreds of meters away, a single glance from her had left him grievously wounded.
"I heard the sound of the horn too. It was terrifying!" The Imp's face betrayed fear. "Until yesterday, I never knew magic could be so powerful, powerful enough to alter the course of a battle."
Dany's eyes flickered as she said calmly, "That horn is extraordinary. Eight chances out of ten, it was a dragonslayer's, driven by the divine power of a demigod."
The old green dragon that finally gave up chasing Balerion did so partly because the young green was in danger. But more importantly, Dany was not on Drogon's back at the time, and she dared not let Drogon face Balerion alone.
"Why is it that ordinary people only felt dizzy, while skinchangers nearly died?" Tyrion pressed.
"I don't know." Dany shook her head.
She had her suspicions: when the Dragonhorn attacked, skinchangers instinctively slipped into their "sparrow-soul" or "cat-soul" state. Once their souls left their bodies without protection, they were directly exposed to the dragon's might.
That meant they had pitted their own souls against the soul of a demigod dragon. What else could that be but certain death?
If they had reacted like normal people, clutching their heads and howling, they probably would not have suffered so terribly.
But now, with their souls shattered and themselves unconscious, Dany had no way to confirm her theory.
General Wildfire glanced at the skinchanger on the bed, then at the dragon queen's faintly hesitant expression. He asked curiously, "You didn't summon me here just to look at the skinchanger, did you?
Even your White Knight, Jorah Mormont, isn't here. What secret matter do you wish to speak of alone with me?"
"That obvious?" Dany looked slightly embarrassed.
Tyrion nodded. "Very obvious. In the past, you were never so gentle with me, nor did you ever explain things in such detail."
Then his expression hardened with wariness. "Your Grace, let me make this clear. Helping you mix wildfire is already the limit of my tolerance. If there's a task more dangerous than that, I won't do it. I'll resign."
"You're overthinking. What mission could be more dangerous than preparing wildfire?" Dany's eyes flashed, and she smiled.
"I heard Meereen is a city of monsters, with many dwarfs and two-headed freaks. Perhaps you want me to act as a spy, to explore the city and find the allied wyvern nests." Wildfire said stiffly.
"Don't underestimate yourself. By now, you're quite famous among the allied army."
"Which is exactly why I say it would be even more dangerous than wildfire!"
"Fine, let's be serious then. You know I've captured six wyverns, don't you?" Dany put away her smile and spoke gravely.
Of the twenty dragons that had besieged Drogon, aside from Balerion's old green dragon, seventeen had perished directly in the trap. Two more were burned and torn apart by Drogon.
The young green now had broken wings, flesh torn from his thigh, and wounds deep enough to show bone all across his body.
But he was still a true dragon, ferocious beyond compare. The other five wyverns fared far worse—four were killed outright, leaving only one bloodied survivor, cowed into submission by Drogon.
Viserion had emerged unscathed, perfectly completing his task of keeping the enemy occupied.
By the time the other five wyverns realized something was wrong and tried to flee, Dany had already arrived on Drogon's back.
Drogon was far too fast, and those wyverns, already ambushed earlier, had their wings shredded by bolts, slowing them down.
They dared not linger in battle and scattered to escape. Without Viserion tracking them, one or two might indeed have gotten away.
Once Drogon closed in on a wyvern, Dany commanded dragonfire to burn through its wings, robbing it of flight.
Then, after all five wyverns had been grounded, she joined her soul with Drogon's and unleashed the true dragon's roar, shattering the control runes in their minds—and in the process, she learned how to wield those runes herself.
Thus, she gained six wyverns.
"You can control wyverns?" Tyrion asked, both shocked and eager.
"Yes."
The principle of the Dragonhorn's control was simple: all it required was a dragon soul strong enough to dominate them.
By using the spiritual power of the dragon's soul to carve runes and brand them upon the wyvern's soul-sea, control was established.
Dany had once possessed a dragonbinder. Comparing it with the runes she saw in the wyverns' soul-seas, she quickly mastered the method of commanding them.
But as the Mother of Dragons, with five true dragons at her side, she had little interest in beasts that only looked like dragons but could do nothing but brawl.
"What I need," Dany said, "are wyvern riders."
(End of Chapter)
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