Viserys's heart thumped with a kind of manic excitement. There were five dragons in front of him. Five living dragons. They were the keys to his conquest of Westeros. He studied every one of them. And his eyes ultimately locked onto the biggest of them. The black one. It was going to be to him what Balerion the black dread had been to Aegon the conqueror.
Compared to the green-scaled dragon that Rhaenys rode, the black beast was massive. Humongous. He would not be wrong in guessing that the black dragon could absolutely crush the green one in its jaws.
Lost in his daze, he dismounted from his horse. He was not able to tear his eyes from these massive dragons. The dragons still had not seemed to notice them.
Slowly, with his eyes fixed on his prize, he took a couple of steps forward. They still did not react. Had the dragons truly not noticed the convoy coming so close?
"Lord Viserys!" Illyrio hissed in a muffled, panicked tone. "It is dangerous. Be careful."
Viserys barely heard him. He took another step closer to the black dragon. And then, it finally stirred.
Its massive eyes flicked open. Viserys could almost see his own reflection in those vast eyes. He froze. His steps came to a sudden halt as he stared cautiously at the black dragon. He could feel the chill in his spine. He knew that he was treading a dangerous path.
The dragon began to rise. It took its time uncoiling and shifting its immense body until it stood fully upon its legs. Now that it was no longer curled in sleep, those seeing it this close for the first time realized the true, terrifying scale of the beast. It was vastly larger than anything they had imagined. Its piercing gaze locked onto Viserys and the entourage behind him.
The disturbance of its rising stirred the others. One by one, they uncoiled, and within a few moments, all five dragons were standing, their eyes fixed on the intruders.
It was a sight none of them would ever forget in their lifetimes. Five massive dragons looming over them, watching their every move.
Everyone was holding their breath. They knew a single misstep meant being reduced to ash. Had Rhaenys not been there, they would have already scrambled as far as possible from the monstrous creatures. She was the only one preventing them from losing their sanity to fright of their enormous presence.
Viserys, standing at the forefront, swallowed hard. He did not want to admit it, but his body was trembling instinctively. He was shaking, his legs quivering and stopping to move forward. But he steeled himself. He clenched his jaw and raised his foot to take another step forward.
His foot had not even touched the ground, was still in midair, when the black dragon reared its huge neck upwards, towards the sky, and let out a deafening roar.
The sound was so loud it felt as if the very earth trembled in its wake. The roar that the dragons had let out when they had been flying over Pentos was nothing compared to this roar. And they knew in an instant that it was angry. It was livid at his space being violated.
Viserys stumbled two steps backward. His spine suddenly drenched in cold sweat. He was terrified and horrified. The trembling in his body increased even further.
But his arrogance demanded he push forward. He clenched his fists and again raised his foot to step toward the beast.
This time, the black dragon unhinged its massive jaws and drew in a deep, rushing breath. And now, its anger has reached its limit. Everyone knew what was coming.
It snapped its neck down, a blinding torrent of fire a split moment away from erupting from its throat, when another figure stepped out of nowhere, planting herself directly in front of Viserys. It was Rhaenys.
"Obsidian!" She screamed.
The dragon stared at her for a tense moment, as if debating whether to obey her or not. It did listen. But only partially.
Craning its heavy neck, it twisted its body sharply toward the forest. And then it let loose.
A rumbling roar followed by a blinding, massive torrent of fire. It was blisteringly hot. Even though the blast was directed away from the convoy, the air instantly turned into a scorching furnace. They could feel it from that great a distance. And it only horrified them. Terrified them.
The forest, on the other hand, caught light immediately. The section of the treeline facing the brunt of the attack was reduced to nothingness in mere moments. An arc had been formed. The forest for a distance of more than one hundred metres and twenty metres wide, at the maximum width of the arc, had vanished. It had disappeared.
When the flames finally cleared, nothing remained but smoking ash and the charred, blackened remains of trees. A few bodies of the animals who had been roasted alive could also be spotted. The inferno finally stopped. The dragon slowly turned its massive head back toward the convoy.
And every man present swallowed in sheer, unadulterated terror. They had thought that maybe they had not been in their range. But how wrong they had been. If dragons had wished to burn them, they would not have even been required to move.
Rhaenys turned and faced Viserys.
"You failed, Viserys," she said coldly. "You failed."
"Obsidian will never be your mount," she declared, her voice cutting through the thick, smoky air. "And neither will any of the others."
"They have seen your cowardice," she continued. "They saw you tremble in their presence. They saw you step back when Obsidian roared."
"They will never accept a man as their rider who cowered and was a moment away from being burned alive," she added.
Every word struck Viserys like a physical slap. He could not believe it. He refused to believe it.
"No!" He shrieked, his voice cracking with hysteria. "No! That is not possible!"
But Rhaenys paid no heed to his tantrum . She turned her back on him, fixing her gaze directly into Obsidian's massive, molten eyes.
'Not today, Obsidian,' she conveyed through their warging bond. 'Not today.'
'This fool thinks he is the true dragon,' she said. 'I would have let him die, but I think he needs to experience what it truly means to be in the presence of a real dragon.
'He needs to meet Lord Aeos,' she added. 'And that will be a chapter our readers will await the most.
Obsidian did not reply. The massive black dragon simply unfurled his wings, sending a gust of hot, ash-filled wind washing over the terrified convoy, and took to the sky.
#
#
#
[Add the book to your collection. Send it some power stones. Leave a rating and a review.]
[Access advanced chapter on P@treon. Replace @ with a. One additional advanced chapter each week on P@treon. ]
[email protected]/imaginarywriter