Jack, the deputy commander of the Lancer Corps, was a devoted son. To avenge his father, he ran with the endurance of a marathoner. In just half a day, he broke free of the Dragon Queen's control over Tolos and reached the mercenary squad from Ma'tares.
Ignoring his exhaustion, he borrowed a horse and rode another two hundred kilometers. At last, before sunset, he found the two-headed Benny.
After hearing Jack's report, Benny immediately resolved to deliver retribution to the Dragon Queen.
Relieved, Jack smiled faintly, then collapsed into unconsciousness.
He was simply too exhausted, completely spent.
On a personal level, Jack admired, even faintly revered, the Dragon Queen.
But she had killed his father. The hatred of patricide could never be forgiven.
On a personal level, Daenerys too admired Jack, and was even moved by his devotion to his father.
But she had killed his father. The hatred of patricide could never be forgiven.
Jack had risked his life running to Ma'tares to seek reinforcements for revenge.
Daenerys, however, coldly regarded him as nothing more than a pawn, baiting enemy reinforcements into her ambush. She could already imagine Jack's end.
Indeed, Jack became the Dragon Queen's spy. Benny's wyvern tore him in half and devoured him alive.
Benny believed their last defeat had been entirely because Jack betrayed the coalition.
This time, he made meticulous preparations, certain he would never fall for the same trap again.
The black dragon was in Old Ghis. The green and white dragons were conducting routine bombing runs on New Ghis alongside the Wildfire General.
There was no force in Slaver's Bay capable of countering them.
To conceal their movements, Benny's force never took the main routes.
This ambush, he believed, would surely catch the enemy unprepared.
Forty shadow wyverns with black scales and black wings, like demons in the night, followed a mottled green swamp dragon. After nightfall, they set off, first flying north into the endless mountain ranges, then eastward across the Dothraki Sea.
At last, they hid north of Meereen, in the vast sea of grass that rose waist-high, waiting for word from Old Ghis.
Once it was confirmed the black dragon remained in Old Ghis, while the green and white dragons continued their bombing runs to the south, Benny's force immediately rose into the blue sky and white clouds, flying boldly and fearlessly toward Meereen.
In the distance, a shimmering river gradually came into view, flowing into a deep blue sea.
That was the Skahazadhan, the river Daenerys had designated as "HLJ."
Across its far bank stood the matchbox-like city of Meereen.
Suddenly, Benny stiffened. Five hundred meters ahead, circling high above, was a dragon nearly thirty meters long.
Where had this dragon come from?
Through his spyglass, Benny saw the distinct beak-like mouth and relaxed. It was a wyvern.
Its filthy, swamp-green scales reminded him this had once been part of his own force.
On that day, twenty wyverns had followed him to attack the black dragon. Five had surrounded the green dragon, and five had pursued the white one.
This grimy green-scaled wyvern was one of those that had chased the white dragon.
Benny even remembered its rider: Pierro Valorís, Lord of Tolos.
Finding a wyvern above Meereen surprised him, but did not throw him into panic. In fact, it gave him relief.
He had received reports from New Ghis that during the Battle of the Bay of Sorrow, the Dragon Queen had appeared with six wyverns.
But in recent days, only the Wildfire General's wyvern had taken part in the bombings of New Ghis.
They had long wondered where the other five had gone.
Now Benny understood. Daenerys had stationed the other wyverns in Slaver's Bay as patrols.
"Damn it, there's even a dragon rider! Daenerys not only lifted the restrictions set by Queen Jenny, but seems to have mastered the Valyrian contract seal as well?"
"Her talent is terrifying. Just by imitation, she has grasped the secret arts of the Valyrian sorcerer-lords?"
On the wyvern's back was a white knight clad in white armor and a white cloak. Seeing this, Benny's lungs nearly burst with rage, yet beneath the fury lay a chill of fear and a burning desire to kill.
"Skreeee—!"
The wyvern ahead had already noticed the vast shadow of wings behind it. Its white knight rider yanked the reins in panic, wheeling the creature toward Meereen in a desperate attempt to flee.
The Dragon Queen herself never used reins or saddles, but wyvern riders, Targaryen dragonlords, and even the Valyrian Dragon Kings required full riding tack to control their mounts.
Yes, dragons and wyverns could understand their riders' words, but in the skies, when flying at speeds over a hundred kilometers per hour, no dragon could hear a rider's voice over the roaring winds.
"Don't let him escape! That's a swamp dragon, slower than your shadow dragons. Wakanda, take your squad and chase it down. Killing one white knight is as good as killing one-seventh of that woman's life! Hahaha!"
At Benny's command, five shadow wyverns split off from the host and surged forward.
In truth, Sothoryos had more than one breed of wyvern.
At the battle near Tolos, Benny's force had consisted entirely of swamp dragons.
Swamp dragons could grow up to fifty meters long. They were powerful, but slow, averaging only about 150 kilometers per hour.
This time, Benny commanded a host of shadow dragons.
Shadow dragons were smaller, only twenty to thirty meters long, but they could reach speeds close to 250 kilometers per hour. Fierce and aggressive, with excellent night vision, they were expert hunters in darkness.
In short, swamp dragons were massive, strong, and suited to heavy bombing, while shadow dragons excelled at ambush, tearing, and aerial combat.
Wind howled past his ears. Cold mist sliced across his face. Bloodthirsty joy flashed in his eyes. His nostrils almost caught the scent of blood. And Wakanda shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Kill, kill, kill!"
"Balerion, go! Rip it apart!"
Balerion was the name of his shadow dragon. Out of the forty dragons in the host, at least five riders had named theirs the same.
The swamp dragon ahead truly could not match the speed of the shadow dragons. Because it had wasted time turning back, it took only a minute or two before the wyvern squad closed in on the white knight.
"Woooooo—"
The white knight blew a small horn hanging from his waist. Its shrill, urgent sound rang with fear and desperation.
"Hahaha!" Wakanda grew even more excited.
Raising his hand, he gave a tactical signal. The other four wyverns in his squad split off, one to the left, one to the right, one above, one below, closing in from four directions.
"He's doomed."
Benny stared at the swamp-green wyvern two kilometers away, struggling to climb higher to evade the attack, and in his heart he sentenced the White Knight to death.
The shadow dragons weren't as large, but they were swift, agile, and reacted far faster. In aerial combat at high speed, they were leagues beyond the clumsy, rigid swamp wyverns.
If the White Knight had any sense, he should have reduced speed and altitude, taken a firm stance, and faced the shadow dragon head-on.
Perhaps in the first wave of attacks, the White Knight might be snatched away by the shadow dragon—just like an eagle seizing a chick trailing behind the hen. But in the close-quarters melee that followed, the swamp-green wyvern could very well inflict serious wounds on its foe.
"Not everyone who mounts a dragon can call himself a dragonrider."
Benny withdrew his mocking gaze and shifted his attention downward.
Warned by the horn's call, the city of Meereen below, no larger than a tabletop from this height, released four more black specks—four wyverns.
Yet the four wyverns didn't recklessly charge into the mass of dragons above. Instead, they split into four directions, converging on the White Knight from all sides.
"Hmm, trying to rescue that White Knight?"
The appearance of four wyverns didn't surprise Benny. He had long known the Dragon Queen captured six wyverns—one left in Old Ghis, the other five here. It was only logical. With the Dragon Queen's cunning, there was no chance she hadn't prepared for an allied aerial assault. Five wyverns showing up here was exactly what he expected.
That they hadn't charged upward didn't surprise him either. No sane rider would take four against thirty-five.
But their decision still put him in a difficult spot.
At this moment, the wyvern host was flying at 1,500 meters, four kilometers from Meereen, each clutching a cluster of fire-oil bombs identical to the Dragon Queen's.
The original plan had been simple: drop half on Meereen, and half on the militia encampment outside the labor camp.
The city aflame would draw the attention of the Unsullied, leaving them no time or focus for the disturbances in the camp.
Then Benny and his men could seize the labor camp and liberate a hundred thousand Ghis adult males.
Perhaps it wouldn't topple the Dragon Queen's rule outright, but it would plunge Meereen into chaos and pave the way for the greater war to come.
But now—"We must stop those four wyverns. If they link up, it'll be five against five, and Wakanda's squad could be annihilated."
In a duel, the larger swamp wyverns held the advantage.
That was why, the first time Benny ventured into the rainforest to tame wyverns, he had chosen swamp wyverns above all others.
After only a moment's hesitation, he made his decision: split off four groups of twenty shadow dragons, drop their firebombs, and take down the enemy wyverns first.
As for burning the city—Once the enemy's air force was destroyed, they could leisurely choose their bombing targets.
Perhaps the olive groves and wheat fields would be worth a try.
Twenty wyverns split into four groups, breaking away from the square formation, leaving half their ranks suddenly empty.
"Screeeech—"
A pained cry echoed from the sky.
Benny turned his head upward. The swamp-green wyvern whipped its tail, swatting a shadow dragon away, but another's claws had already pierced deep into its left wing.
It was like scissors stabbing into a leather jacket and ripping wide.
"Riiip—crack!"
The leathery wing tore apart, the very wingbone snapping.
The swamp-green wyvern shrieked, flapping desperately, but it was like a hen with a broken wing—tilted, staggering, spinning uncontrollably toward the earth.
By chance, it was falling straight toward the wyvern host below, neck bent back, spine down, one wing flapping wildly, the other awkwardly spread.
It looked like a swan pierced through the neck by an arrow.
"Ha! Clear the way, don't let it smash into you." Benny laughed and waved. The wyverns around him scattered instantly."This White Knight is unlucky indeed. Escaped the shadow dragon's fangs, only to be crushed to paste beneath his own beast!"
But the wyvern was falling belly-up, its rider strapped into the saddle, hanging upside down, arms flailing wildly.
It was almost comical.
Then, a drop of dragon's blood drifted through the air.
It spattered from the torn wing of the swamp-green wyvern and landed squarely on Wakanda's face.
The searing heat made him grimace in pain.
"Hot!"
He cursed, wiped at his face, and stared at the fresh blood on his hand.
For a heartbeat Wakanda froze, then his pupils shrank to pinpoints. Like he had seen a ghost, he cried out in horror, "Benny! Careful! Dragon's blood is scalding!"
"What?" Benny was stunned.
"That's no wyvern—it's a dragon! Only true dragons have boiling blood!"
In his mind, Jenny jolted awake in terror, and in an instant, her sense of danger surged like a tsunami.
"Move! Move now! It's a trap! The target is you!"
Jenny screamed frantically, even forcing the wyvern beneath Benny to roll aside.
But among the forty-one beasts flying here, Benny alone rode the cumbersome swamp wyvern.
And at that moment, the swamp-green beast altered its fall. Its bent neck suddenly straightened, its faltering wings beat with full strength.
"Screeeech—Two-Headed Demon, die!"
The dragon roared. With a double True Dragon Roar and divine power burning, it unleashed its strongest soul-crushing strike.
(End of chapter)
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