Prince Aegon Targaryen
Authors of geographical treatises insisted with one voice that the Shivering Sea was named so not for nothing: even in the longest and hottest summer its waters are so cold that a man who falls overboard will freeze before he drowns. Aegon did not want to check this tale wandering from book to book on himself, therefore, contrary to custom, he strapped himself to the saddle with chains. In the sky above the grey, rolling water surface it was even colder; the piercing wind managed to break through several layers of clothes of warm sheep's wool and tanned leather the Prince had donned; even the heat of the dragon's insides did not save him—it was barely enough to warm the saddle. Vermithor was not delighted with the weather either; Aegon felt the full degree of dragon indignation and was absolutely certain: could the Bronze Fury speak human, he would swear with the most terrible words.
For the fifth day already, the dragon furrowed the skies over the Lorathi Bay in search of the squadron of the Shivering League, as the alliance of Ibben and Lorath had begun to be called for some time. A couple of years ago such an alliance seemed almost impossible: Lorathi and Ibbenese, of course, traded, but harbored no warm feelings for each other. Everything changed after several incidents between Braavos and Ibben. First, a whaler of the hairy men was kept in quarantine in the harbor of Braavos thrice longer than due, allegedly without visible reasons; then Port Ibben was closed to Braavosi ships; then a caravan of Ibbenese merchants underwent a sudden pirate attack in the waters of Braavos, always considered safe. In short, each side had a hand in making the retaliatory action seem an insult. Against the background of worsening relations, the alliance of Ibben with Lorath, a long-time rival of the Titan's City, turned out quite logical.
At first, it seemed to Aegon that finding a squadron of a hundred ships at sea cost nothing, but, as it turned out, everything was not so simple: the elements actively showed their foul character, and the huge pot-bellied vessels of the Ibbenese managed to get lost among grey waves. With each day the Prince flew further and further into the sea, advancing south with this. His task was to detect and destroy the alliance's ships before the Braavosi fleet went to sea, but for this, the enemy had first to be found.
It was hard to peer into the low horizon, and for the first time Aegon wondered if he spent too much time over books, but immediately drove the unbidden thought away—there are no nearsighted Targaryens. To finally rid himself of the unpleasant chill of suspicion, he twisted in the saddle and touched Vermithor's hide; warmth was felt through the glove. The Bronze Fury growled displeasedly and plaintively—dragons could survive a cold winter, but surviving does not mean living as they are accustomed. The Prince tried to convey his support to the lizard:
"Lykirī... Lykirī... Nyke kesīr... (Calm down... Calm down... I am here…)"
Vermithor grumbled, as people grumble for show, forcing themselves to keep a displeased expression on their face, though they themselves are drawn to smile from affection or a kind word. However, in the next instant the dragon roared briefly, his neck stretched tensely like a string: he saw ships. Aegon himself saw nothing, of course, but felt how the Bronze Fury noticed the enemy, almost "saw" with dragon eyes the masts and pot-bellied black sides of large vessels—those were definitely Ibbenese.
"Skoriot ruarisi konoti tubȳti? ("Where have those days gone?)" muttered Aegon with suddenly awakened excitement, and pulled the reins toward himself.
Vermithor caught the rider's thought a few seconds earlier and began to gain altitude himself. A couple of powerful flaps of wings—and they were in the cold, wet milky-white veil of clouds. Breaking through it, the dragon found himself in a place that always evoked a strange feeling of gloomy inspiration in the Prince: as far as the eye could see, clouds stretched from below, clouds stretched from above, and between them hung the dragon. Aegon checked the fastenings on his belt once more just in case, tugged at the chains—to fly out of the saddle in the very first battle would be terribly stupid.
The Bronze Fury, meanwhile, peered into the whitish veil beneath them, from time to time moving his head from side to side. Hardly did he see ships through the clouds, decided Aegon, such is impossible even for dragons; however, he did not hurry the lizard—Vermithor, unlike him, had been to war and obviously knew what was required of him. Finally, the dragon emitted a sound very similar to a dog's yapping.
"Itatā? (Is it done?)" asked Aegon of him; an impatient clicking of jaws rang out in response. "Naejot! (Forward!)"
The dragon did not need to be asked. Vermithor barked and dived into the clouds at a sharp angle; gloom surrounded them again, Aegon's ears began to pop from the sharp change in altitude, but he only clutched the saddle handles tighter. There was no fear—he had been afraid enough in the first nights after concluding the treaty with the Sealord; Ibbenese, of course, are excellent seafarers and not bad warriors, but against a dragon they are powerless, and as long as the Prince bends low enough to the saddle, nothing threatens him. There was no excitement either—it evaporated somewhere over several days of fruitless searches. Only detached determination remained to finish this quickly.
Vermithor emerged from the clouds a mile and a half from the Ibbenese squadron going northwest. Naturally, they were noticed; through the noise of the wind in his ears, Aegon managed to catch desperate shouts, saw how stocky figures of sailors rushed about the decks, ran along ropes, masts, and yards, how crews bustled at ship scorpions. Naturally, their efforts were worth nothing.
The Bronze Fury roared and breathed a stream of flame into the side of the first ship; not stopping on it, the dragon took to the right, shifting attention to the neighboring vessel; another couple of flaps of wings—and he, breaking rigging with his body, crashed onto the deck of the third Ibbenese, breaking planks with his weight. Several arrows whistled past Aegon, and the Prince practically flattened himself in the saddle.
"Daor! (No!)" shouted he to the lizard. "Inkot, sōpnenka! Inkot! Sōvēs! (Back, fly! Back! Fly!)"
Vermithor, from whose hide bolts flying from neighboring ships bounced with a ring, growled viciously, waved his tail, sweeping away mast and aft superstructure at once, and reluctantly obeyed the order. His legs, however, managed to go too deep into the thickness of the ship and, evidently, got stuck—it did not work to take off immediately. Furiously working wings, the dragon dragged the unfortunate ship out of formation, twisted his neck, and pecked the barrel-shaped side of the vessel a couple of times with his head. Ibbenese built their ships from wood mined in the Forest of Ifequevron; durable and at the same time flexible, it made the ship perfectly adapted to any storms, it feared not the blows of any waves. And yet it did not survive the collision with the dragon: torn from within by claws, and from without by fangs, the side cracked like a barrel hitting a stone. With a triumphant roar, Vermithor freed himself and took off, pushing off from the ship that had become a pile of tarred splinters into which bloody shreds were generously mixed.
"Gaomā daor heksīr! (Don't do that!)" shouted Aegon at him—the dragon could have broken his legs too, but lecturing a dragon in battle is a useless business.
Vermithor gained altitude, and the Prince, taking advantage of the brief respite, surveyed the Ibbenese fleet. As expected, there were under a hundred ships with a grey whale on banners; according to information from Braavosi whisperers, the Ibbenese sent half their ships to help Lorath, but even this number was more than enough. Ibbenese vessels were famous for their high seaworthiness qualities and were considered practically unsinkable, be it in the fiercest storm or the fiercest skirmish. Aegon and Vermithor now had to convince the hairy men of the opposite.
Somewhere far below, under the Bronze Fury's belly several stone balls whistled and plopped into the chilly waters—Ibbenese were poor marksmen. The dragon took this as a personal insult and with a furious roar rushed to attack again.
A stream of golden flame touched the sea surface, instantly turning the surface layer of water into steam; slowing not a whit, Vermithor flew over the lead ships of the squadron, generously dousing them with fire. Tarred wood flared up even where dragonfire did not manage to reach; even the sea itself burned—blubber, without which Ibbenese do not go to sea, managed to leak from holes in the hulls.
Again and again the dragon banked over the enemy squadron, spewing flame on the Ibbenese; their marching formation fell apart long ago, every captain tried to lead the vessel away from the fiery flying death, but few succeeded. Aegon gradually entered a rage himself and began to direct the dragon at the most impudent and desperate fugitives. Sailors maddened by heat and horror ceased resistance and only jumped overboard in a foolish attempt to save themselves, scarce seeing the winged shadow above them. However, Vermithor decided to leave them no chance either, breathing several times on the wreckage to which they clung: those who did not burn immediately were scalded by instantly boiling water.
The Prince could not say how long this beating continued—several minutes or several hours. He got carried away, dissolved in some bloody-furious euphoria of his dragon, undoubtedly remembering his young days. Doubts why Vermithor was nicknamed the Bronze Fury were no more. Only a handful of ships managed to avoid his flame: three dragging at the very end and therefore furthest from the slaughter hastily turned around and rushed to flee; another couple of vessels managed to fall out of the general heap considerably battered and headed toward the shore.
Aegon pulled the reins, forcing Vermithor to turn toward the crippled fugitives, and thought it would be not bad to capture at least a couple of enemy banners, else Braavosi captains might not believe. The dragon under the Prince roared briefly: he had already satisfied his natural thirst for destruction and therefore immediately understood what the rider wanted. Going into a low-level flight, the Bronze Fury managed to contrive and break the mast with the whale banner on one of the ships with his paws. Another pass—and the smoking ship blazed worse than before.
Aegon forced Vermithor to rise even higher and surveyed the battlefield from under the very clouds. The Ibbenese fleet was living its last minutes: its ships together with sailors burned and sank, those who managed to escape from the shells turned into floating icon lamps went to the bottom or froze to death in the icy waters of the Shivering Sea. A belt of dark grey, almost black clouds in the north attracted the Prince's attention; those lucky enough to survive by day in the fiery element will certainly perish by night in the water element. Jubilation and euphoria overwhelmed him: for the first time he entered battle and won. Fought a whole fleet that snapped back, tried to kill him and his dragon, but won. Aegon gave vent to emotions overflowing the edge and screamed through the wind:
"Ērinnon! (Victory!)"
And immediately his desperately boyish wail was drowned out by Vermithor's deep triumphant roar, followed by another stream of flame, spewed this time into the sky. Despite his seventy years, sometimes the dragon behaved like a mere boy. Having announced his triumph to the grey sea, Aegon turned the dragon to land.
They managed to reach the shore before the storm caught up with them. On the hilly western coast of the Braavosi peninsula stood an army of fifteen thousand under the command of Ternesio Zalin—the Council of the Anchor and Sword feared Norvos might violate its neutrality in the conflict and sent troops to the border with the neighbor. The army, consisting mostly of mercenaries, moved slowly, terribly slowly, though Braavosi roads were reputed the best after Valyrian ones; bad weather would hinder their movement even more.
Vermithor descended on the outskirts of the camp; the wind ruffled white banners with the black head of the Titan flying over the standards of individual mercenary brotherhoods and companies. Among them were emblems familiar to the Westerosi too—Ser Bartimos Celtigar refused to let the Prince go to war alone and, raising a cry among natives of the Seven Kingdoms, gathered a small detachment, naming it "Crab's Claw". To Aegon's considerable surprise, the merchant-ser turned out to be a ser not only in name and kept in the saddle and wielded a sword quite skillfully. Now a red standard with a silver crab rose by the red-and-white tents of the Westerosis.
Aegon picked up the Ibbenese whale banner and thrust it into the hands of Dennis who had arrived in time:
"Give it to Zalin. Here are his Ibbenese. And order him to bring Vermithor a couple of bulls—he earned a good supper."
"Congratulations, my Prince," rang out the loud voice of Bartimos, emerging from his tent. The knight was clad in a cuirass with a "crab" surcoat on it; a quite reasonable step, even far from the border—the army is mercenary after all.
"On what?"
"Why, first real battle, for such it is customary to knight. I shall deem it an honor..."
"Thank you, Ser Bartimos," cut off Aegon coldly. "But I fear this will not be entirely fair—my participation in the battle was minimal. If you want to knight someone, you may touch Vermithor with the sword, today he earned it more than I. Wonder if my grandfather knighted the dragon? Ser Vermithor the Bronze Fury of Dragonstone. What say you, Dennis?"
"Sounds impressive, my Prince," as always dispassionately responded the sworn shield.
"Sounds delusional," shook his head the Prince and felt the almost destroyed bun into which he gathered his hair before battle. "Do not consider my refusal an insult, Ser Bartimos, but setting fire to a fleet and finishing off survivors is not too knightly an occupation. I shall not respect myself for this, and I do not want to listen to odes in my honor because of this slaughter. If ever I want to receive spurs, I shall try to pick an event nobler for this sake."
"I understand," bowed Celtigar. "With your permission, my Prince."
Dismissing him with a nod, Aegon trudged to his tent. He felt strange; only on the ground did he understand how flight and battle exhausted him.
"As if I was beaten with sticks all day," he complained to Dennis, crossing the threshold of the tent. "Heat me water. I want to wash all the soot off myself before Zalin drags himself here."
"Yes, my Prince," the sworn shield, who somehow managed to get rid of the enemy banner, left him alone with himself.
With a heavy sigh, Aegon sank onto a folding chair, stretching out legs exhaustedly. The cane fell from his hands of itself, hitting the thick Myr carpet with a soft muffled thud. Why do they not write about this side of war in history treatises? Dry lines describing large-scale battles, deeds of brave generals, listing heroic feats and counting irretrievable losses did not prepare the Prince for such. Even Tey sekar Narareon and Aegon Anogarion in their works on the art of war managed to bypass fatigue and devastation left by battle, and keep silent that cries of the dying ring in ears many hours later.
Aegon rubbed his face, trying to gather himself. Hands smelled of dragon, burning, and blood; hands smelled of death. The Prince felt no pity for the Ibbenese, they were deeply indifferent to him; their whalers, always smelling disgustingly, called at King's Landing, Oldtown and—quite rarely—Dragonstone; Ibbenese looked unattractive—stocky, hairy, with inexpressive faces; Aegon could hardly imagine there were sages like Westerosi Maesters among them.
But today he sent all these hairy men to their forefathers. Of course, he would do it again—obligations must always be fulfilled, especially if you are a Prince of House Targaryen; especially if they are paid for with a Valyrian candle. But now most of all he wanted to wash alien death off himself and forget about the cries of sailors burning alive.
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