The dawn was a bruised purple, the first sliver of white light bleeding over the horizon. The celebration banquet had left the Great Hall a graveyard of overturned goblets and snoring men. Aegon, seemingly immune to the exhaustion of a night spent drinking, walked through the mess and delivered a sharp kick to Hugh Hammer's side.
"Are you dead, or just dreaming?"
Hugh groaned, blinking bleary eyes as the fog of ale began to lift. "Your Highness... I apologize. I had a bit too much."
"As long as you can stay in a saddle, get up," Aegon said, his eyes gleaming with a restless energy. "Come with me. It's time Tyrosh learned that one dragon was a warning, but two is a sentence."
They made their way to the makeshift open-air Dragonpit. Sensing their riders, Sunfyre and Sheepstealer stirred. The Golden Sunbeam—Kagerou—nudged Aegon with a nose the size of a boulder. Even trying to be gentle, the dragon's affection nearly knocked Aegon off his feet.
"You brat," Aegon laughed, patting the warm, shimmering scales. "Do you even know how big you've gotten?"
Aegon vaulted into the saddle, and with a thunderous snap of wings, Sunfyre claimed the sky. Hugh followed, though his ascent was less graceful. Sheepstealer, the muddy-brown veteran of eighty years, gave a habitual, violent shake that nearly sent Hugh tumbling before he could lock his safety straps.
"Watch it, buddy!" Hugh yelled, white-knuckling the handles.
"HISS!" Sheepstealer roared with ancient impatience, lumbering into a run before catching a thermal and banking hard after the golden streak of Sunfyre.
Tyrosh
As the morning mist burned off, the two dragons crested the city. Below them, Tyrosh was a jagged tooth of a landscape—a quarter of the city already lay in blackened ruins from previous raids.
"Hiss!"
Sensing Hugh's mounting aggression, Sheepstealer let out a roar that shook the remaining glass in the harbor. Aegon winced. He had preferred the stealth of Sunfyre and Vhagar, but Hugh had no such subtlety, and Sheepstealer was too wild to listen to a "hush."
With the element of surprise gone, Aegon gave Sunfyre the command. "Dracarys!"
Crimson-gold fire and muddy-brown flames lashed out in a twin helix, raining down upon the rooftops. The screams that followed were thinner than months ago. The wealthy had already fled; the poor had dissolved into the Disputed Lands. Only the stubborn, the desperate, and the garrison remained.
The sky suddenly filled with the whistle of iron. Thrum-thrum-thrum!
Tyrosh's anti-dragon ballistae opened fire. Sunfyre, agile and attuned to Aegon's thoughts, danced through the air like a sunbeam. Sheepstealer, however, relied on decades of wild instinct. Feeling the wind of a passing bolt, the mud dragon twisted her massive sixty-meter frame with surprising fluidity.
But Sheepstealer wasn't content to dodge. Enraged by the "stings," she dove straight into a nest of scorpions, braving a second volley. She didn't just breathe fire; she landed.
The ground buckled under her weight. Sheepstealer began a grisly feast, incinerating a squad of soldiers before snapping them up like dried meat.
Thud! A heavy iron bolt buried itself in Sheepstealer's hindquarters. The dragon let out a shriek of pure fury, looking back to see a soldier cheering his "lucky hit."
With a whip-crack motion, Sheepstealer slammed her massive tail into the weapon emplacement. The soldier, the ballista, and the stone tower were reduced to a fine red mist and splintered wood in a heartbeat.
Aegon watched from above, shaking his head. Hugh was a rider, but Sheepstealer was still a beast of the wild. It would take a year of blood and training to truly break her spirit to the harness.
For an hour, the mud dragon ravaged the streets. She took five bolts to her hide—none of them fatal. As Sunfyre circled and prepared to leave, he let out a sharp cry. Sheepstealer, satisfied and blood-slicked, unleashed one final torrent of flame before following the golden dragon back toward the sea.
As they flew, Sheepstealer's powerful muscles began to contract, naturally forcing three of the bolts from her flesh. The remaining two would soon melt and fall away, dissolved by the searing heat of dragon's blood. To a fully grown dragon, these were not wounds; they were merely insults.
The message to Tyrosh was clear: The Golden King has a new hound, and she is very, very hungry.
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