new story : Marvel Zombies, I Am Only Antidote
read lots story at patre-on
always update and finish
CaveLeather only for 9$
The battlefield before Viserysfort was awash in a symphony of fire.
The massive trebuchets of the Tyroshi coalition no longer hurled the dead across the sky. Now, only the golden silhouette of a dragon soared above.
Wails and curses echoed from the Tyroshi camp. There was no clash of steel, only the agonizing shrieks of the wounded.
It was a melody of slaughter. A melody of absolute defeat.
The true horror lay in an enemy they couldn't even reach—a cold, calculated massacre from the heavens.
Those engulfed in the flames were reduced to ash. The entire Tyroshi encampment was bathed in a brilliant, terrifying glow of rose and gold—the distinct scent of fire, the sun, and the dragon.
The siege engines had been obliterated first, followed swiftly by the supply wagons and the stables.
The knights who dared to flee met a far more gruesome end. The dragonfire was everywhere.
Some tried to spur their mounts into a frantic gallop, only to find the flames burning fiercer with every step.
Terrified warhorses reared wildly, throwing their riders. The screaming men were either trampled to death or roasted alive, leaving the camp suffocating under the heavy stench of pure dread.
Every pass of the dragon's shadow brought fresh waves of blind panic.
Horses bucked their masters and bolted aimlessly across the scorched plains and burning tents, running until they collapsed, twitching and foaming at the mouth.
Creatures born of magic naturally struck terror into beasts of war. If horses feared direwolves, their dread of a dragon was primal.
The Tyroshi cavalry had been utterly decimated. In this hellish landscape, they had lost every tactical advantage.
"The dragon is flying away!"
"It's leaving!"
But Viserys had no intention of lingering over the Tyroshi ashes. He was already steering his mount toward the next battlefield: the Dothraki rearguard camp.
"Stop him!"
"Bring him down!" A few desperate, brave souls screamed for the men to hold the line, but in the sheer chaos, their cries fell on deaf ears.
A pathetic smattering of arrows arched into the sky, but through the thick black smoke and blinding fear, they completely lost the dragon's position.
Viserys guided Sunblaze back up through the clouds, the dragon's deafening roar echoing across the plains.
The golden shadow morphed into an eagle in the clouds, shrinking to a speck like a fly before vanishing entirely.
Viserys listened to the howling wind. Higher. Take me higher. Then, a stomach-dropping plunge like a rollercoaster.
"A dragon. It's a fucking dragon."
"Look! The milk men's trebuchets are on fire! Their camp is gone!"
"There's a dragon in the White City!"
Even the Dothraki immediately recognized the mythical beast. Watching the massive Tyroshi encampment burn to the ground, the horselords were struck by a profound, surreal shock.
The horselords prided themselves as the greatest cavalry on earth, but that didn't make them immune to fire.
Even the ancient Dothraki dosh khaleen would tell them how pitiful their ancestors were before the Doom of Valyria.
Before the horselords rose to power, Valyria was the one, unrivaled universal empire.
"Khal." Drogo's bloodriders closed ranks around him. Tens of thousands of screamers pressed against the front lines.
Even if the dragon descended here, a saturated volley of arrows would make it nearly impossible for the beast to pinpoint a target.
But the sky remained clear. Aside from the burning Tyroshi camp in the distance, the heavens were empty.
The cavalry couldn't just sit there staring at the clouds all day.
"No... my camp," a sudden realization slammed into Khal Drogo.
If the dragonrider wasn't attacking his main force, the only logical target was his vulnerable rearguard.
These milk men truly were treacherous to the bitter end.
Drogo's instincts were dead on. The Dothraki rear encampment was already erupting into a towering inferno.
Flying a single dragon into a heavily armed formation of tens of thousands of Dothraki archers would be suicide—a foolish piecemeal tactic.
Viserys had mastered the mental links of the binding spells, and Sunblaze's scales hadn't yet hardened to the impenetrable thickness of an ancient dragon.
As a hatchling, his greatest assets were sheer speed and agility.
And Viserys had chosen the most venomous strategy imaginable: sever the supply lines and burn the camps.
By inciting mass panic, he could then easily sweep through the collapsing ranks and butcher their remaining fighting force.
Striking deep behind enemy lines to annihilate logistics and supplies was a near-impossible feat in conventional warfare.
But rules didn't apply here. Viserys commanded the only air force in the world.
"Dracarys!" Viserys commanded.
Sunblaze let out a joyous, bloodcurdling roar, his massive shadow circling directly over Khal Drogo's massive tents.
Drogo's camp was sprawling, stretching for miles.
The horselords traditionally built their "palaces" out of woven grass, with only the Khal and his Kos enjoying slightly larger structures.
Gold-and-red fire rained from the heavens. Blindingly bright fireballs detonated on impact, twisting the dry straw in tongues of flame, blooming like violent, catastrophic flowers.
"Fucking milk men!"
"Cowardly dragonrider!" The screamers left behind to guard the camp roared in absolute despair, scrambling desperately out of their grass tents and watchtowers.
Viserys spotted the Dothraki rations: strips of dried horse meat and vats of fermented mare's milk.
He also saw the massive wooden carts piled high with premium fodder, an absolute necessity for sustaining the Dothraki warhorses on a march.
Viserys didn't hesitate for a second. Whether it was meant for men or beasts, he was going to burn it all to ash.
Sunblaze patrolled the skies above the camp, roaring furiously as waves of dragonfire cascaded downward.
The camps, constructed entirely of bone-dry grass, were practically begging to be lit. They were the ultimate tinderbox.
With nothing to check its spread, the inferno raged out of control. The screamers who dared to stay and fight back shrieked in agony as the heat swallowed them.
They flailed wildly before being completely consumed by the gold-and-red blaze.
Amidst the blinding smoke and suffocating fumes, the sporadic arrows fired at the dragon were utterly useless.
Sunblaze unleashed another torrent of fire before shooting back up into the sky, moving like a sleek, apex predator—cunning and ruthlessly efficient.
The blinding flames forced everyone back. Women and children who realized the danger early fled their tents, scrambling for whatever cover they could find.
Viserys's primary objective was to utterly cripple the Dothraki logistics; he didn't care much about the ordinary elderly or weak.
With a powerful beat of his leathery wings, Sunblaze swept through Drogo's rearguard, setting off a catastrophic blaze before banking away flawlessly.
The dragon tore into the clouds with a final, deafening roar, leaving the Dothraki with nothing but a ruined, smoking wasteland.
"Fly!" Viserys commanded. In this world, it was the most beautiful word imaginable.
He ascended into the heavens, leaving behind hordes of wide, terrified eyes staring helplessly up at the sky.
Meanwhile, back in the Tyroshi camp, Bloodbeard—his face heavily smeared with mud—was just beginning to take stock of his ruined army, his heart still hammering in his chest.
The soldiers were in absolute disarray. Some had even dug themselves into mud pits, desperately trying to hide from the dragon's wrath.
"Gone... It's all fucking gone." Vargo Hoat of the Brave Companions sprinted over to a completely shell-shocked Bloodbeard.
It wasn't just the trebuchets and supplies that had burned; it was years of hoarded mercenary wealth. This was a fatal, crippling blow.
Vargo was a tall, gaunt man with a stringy goatee. He wore a heavy chain of coins around his neck, scavenged from every battlefield he had ever fought on.
"The enemy... hath a dwagon widew," Vargo lisped heavily, struggling to spit the words out.
"Give me back my trebuchets! Give me back the Commander! Give me back my supply train!" Bloodbeard suddenly snapped, lunging forward to strangle the Goat by the neck.
Vargo angrily shoved the red-bearded captain away. "Are you... thtill a Bwave Companion? Bloodbeard..."
Bloodbeard's sanity was practically shattering. How the fuck were they supposed to keep fighting?
Viserys had incinerated their siege engines and almost all of their horses and provisions in a single strike.
For a massive army of six thousand men, losing their logistics meant they were days away from a complete and total collapse.
The remaining survivors naturally gravitated toward Bloodbeard. The captains of the Stormcrows and the surviving Tyroshi commanders gathered around him.
...
They sat on folding chairs, still reeling from the shock, surrounded by whatever longbowmen and scorpion crews they could scrape together.
"Look over there! The Dothraki camp is burning too!" a mercenary shouted, pointing at the even more massive inferno lighting up the horizon.
"The horselords lost their supplies too..." Bloodbeard groaned in despair.
The realization hit them like a physical blow. A starving, bankrupt army stranded out in the unforgiving wasteland... the thought alone was chilling.
"What the fuck do we do now?" Bloodbeard frantically patted the mud caked on his face. He used to be incredibly proud of his fiery red beard; now, he felt like it was a massive bullseye. He needed to shave it the second he got a chance.
"Well? What do you say?" Bloodbeard looked at the Goat and the others. The men exchanged uneasy glances.
"We have no food, no water, and no horses," one mercenary finally spoke up. "We should just cut our losses and leave. Even if the Archon managed to send reinforcements now, they wouldn't make it in time."
"Leaving sounds great. But what about our losses? The Archon's brother is dead meat, and all our life savings just went up in smoke."
"I have another idea. Why don't we... Since we can't go back to Tyrosh... Andalos is right there," another mercenary suggested with a dark, plotting grin.
If you can't beat them, join them. It was the golden rule of survival.
Shhhk! A dagger was buried to the hilt in the mercenary's back. Death arrived instantly.
"Gentlemen, we only have one path left. We either become slaves to the beast, or we stand together. We fight side-by-side and slay the fucking dragon."
The man holding the bloody dagger was Daario Naharis, the third-in-command of the Stormcrows. Even by Tyroshi standards, his attire was aggressively flamboyant.
Daario's mustache was split into three distinct prongs and dyed deep blue, matching his eyes and the curled hair that reached his collar. His pointed beard, however, was painted bright gold.
His outfit was a chaotic mix of yellows: frothy, cream-colored Myrish lace spilled from his collar and cuffs, and his doublet was studded with brass dandelion medallions. He wore thigh-high leather boots adorned with gold filigree, and soft, yellow kidskin gloves were tucked into a gilded belt.
Only his fingernails were painted in a striking blue enamel.
"We kill the dragon?" A collective gasp rippled through the mercenaries, but the sheer ruthlessness of the hardliners kept them completely frozen in place.
"Beautiful... fucking beautiful. But maybe you could... chop him to pietheth firtht..." Vargo Hoat sneered coldly.
"What exactly are you suggesting?" Bloodbeard glared at Daario.
"We don't have a choice," Daario stated flatly. "We have no horses and no supplies. If the Dothraki or those Andalos villagers catch us out here, we're dead meat. On top of that, our men just watched their life savings burn to ash. Mutiny is practically guaranteed. If we run away now, we'll just be broke, hunted dogs."
"The Archon... the Archon will compensate everyone!" a high-ranking Tyroshi officer piped up, desperate to keep the men in line. If this military venture completely collapsed, the Archon of Tyrosh would be ruined.
They had to bleed the mercenaries dry and force them to keep fighting, no matter the cost.
"My stance is very simple. I am not busting my ass for a fucking dragon," Daario scoffed icily. "Andalos is a land of freed slaves. And let's not forget, that beast just torched our stash."
"A big... a big dwagon ith tough. But a hatchling... a hatchling ithn't unbeatwable," Vargo reasoned.
"The Myrmen have killed dragonriders before. The Triarchy's fleet shot down small dragons and their riders in the past... We are out of time. We can either run away and die broke, or we can make one glorious, bloody grab for the gold. We have to make a choice..." Daario urged.
"Fuck it!"
"We can't outrun a dragon and cavalry anyway. We'd just end up as roast pork, Commander..."