The silver dragon was the most conspicuous, but the green dragon's roar was far more terrifying.
A thunderous dragon's roar echoed across the coalition army.
The soldiers who had been obediently resting in their camps scattered in all directions.
Panic erupted throughout the enormous encampment like a plague.
"Dragons!"
"Run! Run!"
"We never should have come to this cursed place!"
"Seven save me!"
The shouts of soldiers, the neighing of warhorses, and the screams of prostitutes all blended into chaos.
Some soldiers had been relieving themselves with camp followers when the dragon's roar interrupted their efforts.
After being frightened half to death, they would later discover, to their sorrow, that they had lost an important ability.
Even though Viserys merely had the two dragons circle above the coalition camp as a show of force, the result far exceeded his expectations.
A hundred years ago, many people in Westeros had seen dragons.
Thus, when soldiers faced dragons back then, they would not necessarily collapse immediately.
Given the right circumstances, they could even develop strategies for fighting back.
But during the more than one hundred years since the dragons vanished, countless people had been able to imagine dragons only through books, legends, and their own fantasies.
So when dragons as enormous as these appeared before them, their minds were crushed before they even had a chance to fight.
After seeing the dragons, many soldiers could not even summon the courage to pick up their weapons.
"Protect His Majesty! Get His Majesty out of here! Move!"
"Quairo, come with me!"
Freygo was worried about his chief swordsman.
"Your Majesty, I have to stay and fight back. Otherwise, the entire army will be finished!"
As the chief swordsman, Quairo understood that once their morale collapsed, everything would be over.
On the other hand, if they could launch a counterattack now and even shoot down one of the dragons, there would still be hope.
Under Quairo's urging, Freygo fled north from the battlefield.
"Get the dragon-hunting crossbows into position!"
Only after watching Freygo disappear beneath the protection of a group of soldiers did Quairo begin issuing commands.
The Braavosi army was better trained than the Westerosi forces.
Perhaps because they were more accustomed to warfare, these soldiers were the first to recover from the initial panic.
Under Quairo's command, some soldiers began operating the dragon-hunting crossbows, preparing to fire back at the dragons in the sky.
"Fire!"
Quairo roared so loudly that he could even taste blood in his mouth.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The thunderous reports of more than a dozen dragon-hunting crossbows almost cut through the surrounding chaos.
Unfortunately, they were useless.
The dragons continued circling overhead.
Viserys was extremely cautious, always keeping the dragons at a safe distance from the ground.
Of course, Quairo's hastily organized "firepower" was far too sparse.
The soldiers were also so nervous that the accuracy of their bolts was terrible.
"Don't panic! Bring every dragon-hunting crossbow you can find!"
The soldiers of the various Westerosi lords were relatively elite. They quickly stabilized the situation around them.
That gave Quairo more time to gather additional dragon-hunting crossbows.
But by then, the dragons were no longer satisfied with intimidating the enemy through their roars.
The silver Meraxes unleashed white flames.
Vhagar breathed green fire.
Unlike wildfire's brilliant emerald green, however, the dragonfire was a deep, dark green.
Taking advantage of the time required to reload the dragon-hunting crossbows, the two dragons began "plowing" through the military camp with their flames.
Every dive set a long row of tents ablaze.
Walls of fire appeared like bleeding wounds across the enormous encampment.
The scorching heat and charred stench made it almost impossible to keep one's eyes open.
Yet because the dragonfire was setting the tents alight, reinforcements carrying crossbows were able to locate the battlefield and arrive more quickly.
"My lord, the dragons seem to be looking for something!" one of Quairo's subordinates said as he watched the dragons overhead.
They're looking for Robert, Quairo thought.
But he said nothing.
Before long, sixty or seventy dragon-hunting crossbows had been gathered.
With a volley that large, even if they were extremely lucky, at least one or two bolts should be able to tear through one of the dragons' enormous wings.
"Aim!"
Quairo's command was difficult to transmit accurately through the surrounding chaos.
Before he had even finished speaking, several soldiers had already fired.
The bolts disappeared into the night sky.
Where they would land, or whether one of them would eventually strike some unfortunate soldier, nobody knew.
"Fire!"
Dozens of bolts shot toward the most conspicuous target, the silver dragon.
Meraxes suddenly beat her wings and climbed sharply higher.
By now, she had realized who was firing at her. She waited until they began preparing their second volley.
Then she suddenly dove.
Silver-white dragonfire swept across the area where the dragon-hunting crossbows were most densely concentrated.
The force of the blast alone sent several soldiers tumbling through the air.
Those who had been preparing to fire immediately fled in terror.
The commotion in the coalition camp naturally attracted the attention of the Targaryen army on the Velvet Mountains.
The soldiers stared at the fires appearing throughout the enemy camp, unsure of what was happening.
Mathos raised his telescope and saw the silver and green dragons.
"How can they be that big?"
He could hardly believe his eyes.
He thought he must have been mistaken.
Only two days ago, when Viserys had used dragonfire to cremate Davos, the largest of the three dragons, Balerion, had been no bigger than a horse.
Could they belong to someone else?
The sudden enlargement of the dragons simply made no sense.
But as far as anyone knew, only the Targaryens possessed dragons.
Mathos decided to report the matter to Viserys immediately.
"My lord, look!"
One of Mathos's men suddenly pointed toward a nearby hill.
A gigantic black shadow was crouched upon it. Its enormous wings almost covered the entire hill.
Just as Mathos was about to order the soldiers to prepare for an attack, Viserys's voice came from behind him.
"Don't panic. That's Balerion."
"Your Majesty!"
Mathos turned around.
Viserys was riding toward them on a black warhorse.
Their eyes met.
Mathos immediately ran over to him. "Your Majesty, that... that is Balerion?"
He stared at the enormous creature in the distance and could barely get the words out.
"Yes. Don't ask why. Prepare the army immediately. I'll use dragonfire to open a path for you. Then you will charge in and scatter their camp."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
Mathos looked toward the coalition camp.
When he remembered how his father, Davos, had smashed his head against the gatepost of that very army's camp, he felt the blood throughout his body begin to burn.
After Mathos delivered the order, Balerion flew directly toward Viserys and the others.
The soldiers quickly cleared a space for him to land.
Balerion was forty meters long, with a wingspan of sixty meters.
Every beat of his enormous wings sent violent gusts of wind across the ground.
The soldiers had no choice but to keep retreating. The warhorses pawed anxiously at the earth.
The black beast folded its enormous wings.
Then, with a thunderous crash, Balerion landed.
The ground trembled beneath him.
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