Boom!
Crimson dragonfire slammed down from the sky and exploded right in the middle of the terrified Triarchy pirates. The blast lit up the battlefield in a storm of fire and shredded bodies.
"Shit—run!"
Barwick's face went white. He yanked his horse around to bolt, but the animal was already shaking from the dragon's roar. Its knees buckled and it dropped to the ground with a heavy thud.
"Move, you worthless sack of shit!"
He whipped the horse and cursed it, but the beast only trembled harder, eyes rolling white with pure terror. In front of a dragon—the ultimate predator—even the best warhorse turned into prey that shit itself in fear.
Barwick had no time. He kicked free of the stirrups, scrambled up, and shoved his way into the fleeing mob, running for his life.
He wasn't dying here. Not when there was still a future to grab.
"Charge!"
Stannis spurred his horse forward, ignoring the smoking craters the dragonfire had left. His lance punched clean through the backs of three pirates who were trying to run.
The Dragon Tongue Knights thundered in right behind him.
Black armor rolled over the enemy like a storm cloud. They hit the pirate line hard and fast, carving a bloody lane straight through the middle.
"Stay tight! Don't fall behind!"
Randyll Tarly rode just behind the black knights with five hundred Reach cavalry. He split his men into two wings and swept around the flanks, cutting down every pirate who tried to slip away. No mercy. No hesitation.
Cavalry against infantry—especially when a dragon had already blown their formation apart—was a slaughter.
"Caraxes!"
The red dragon's molten eyes flashed with vicious hunger. He swept low over the battlefield, long neck stretching as he poured fire without mercy.
Daeron sat sideways in the saddle, watching the chaos below with cold calculation.
"Just another raiding band that got too greedy."
The best way to deal with scattered raiders like this was simple: kill them all.
He tapped Caraxes's neck. The dragon banked hard and streaked toward the eastern side of the field where the biggest group of pirates was trying to escape.
Boom.
Barwick was still running when another column of red fire crashed down in front of him. The leading pirates vanished in a spray of charred meat and flying guts.
"How the hell is it that strong?!"
Barwick froze for a second, then wiped a strip of cooked intestine off his face with a shaking hand. His mind went blank.
Heavy cavalry and a dragon. All he had left were a few thousand pirates who'd lost their ships.
There was nothing left to say.
He was going to die.
"Dragonfire!"
Daeron wheeled Caraxes in a tight circle and laid down a long, curving wall of flame that cut off the pirates' escape route.
A real prison made of fire.
"Don't stop! Push them!"
Randyll wasn't directing from the rear. He was right in the thick of it. After skewering seven men on his lance, he drew the Valyrian steel sword Heartsbane and started hacking left and right.
He was one of the best military minds in Westeros, and he held himself to the same brutal standard in personal combat. The moment the Life Seed method had been released, he'd formed one and become a true knight. Now he swung the massive greatsword like it weighed nothing, putting every ounce of that strength into the fight.
"Protect me! The Andals are breaking through!"
Barwick was big and strong, but running on foot was killing him. He screamed for his personal guards while trying to stay hidden in the middle of the mob.
He stood out too much. The shouting, the fancy clothes of a governor and former Triarchy admiral—everything about him screamed "important target."
"Looks like we caught a big fish."
Randyll's eyes locked on him instantly. He spurred his horse and charged straight through the chaos.
"Stop him! Don't let him get any closer!"
Barwick's heart hammered. He could feel death breathing down his neck.
Randyll dropped his lance, snatched a spear jammed in the ground, and hurled it with all his strength.
Thud.
The spear hit Barwick square in the back, punched straight through his chest, and came out the other side.
Barwick jerked once. His face went from white to red in a heartbeat. Blood exploded from his mouth.
He dropped.
"Governor?!"
"Shit—the governor's dead!"
"Barwick's been killed—!"
The moment their leader fell, the remaining pirates broke completely. A few kept fighting out of sheer desperation, but most just tried to run.
Randyll rode over, looked down at the body, and gave a short, cold nod.
"Only good at running."
He swung Heartsbane and took the head clean off, then skewered it on the spear and hung it from the back of his saddle like a trophy.
Clip-clop.
Stannis rode up beside him, expression complicated as he saw Randyll had beaten him to the kill.
"You did well."
"Finish the fight first."
Randyll's voice was as blunt as ever. No false modesty. He turned his horse and rode back into the slaughter.
---
Afternoon, 3:36.
Daeron dismounted and walked across the muddy, corpse-strewn ground. His face showed nothing.
"Your Grace, we killed over two thousand three hundred, captured about seventeen hundred, plus some women, children, and slaves."
Randyll reported with a frown. Even with the dragon dominating the sky, a couple hundred pirates had still slipped away. There was no catching them now.
Daeron didn't waste time on that. "Our losses?"
"One hundred and thirty-six knights from the Dornish marches and the Reach dead. One Dragon Tongue knight dead. Sixteen seriously wounded. Two hundred and twenty-one lightly wounded."
Randyll had the numbers cold. One Dragon Tongue knight had gotten too aggressive, charged into a knot of pirates, and been dragged off his horse and killed.
Daeron checked the time on his panel. "Keep the slaves. Execute the prisoners on the spot."
"All of them?"
Randyll wanted confirmation.
"Yes."
Daeron's eyes were steady. "Every extra mouth means more food the Iron Throne has to spend and more men we have to waste guarding them."
Better to just end it.
Randyll thought for a second, then nodded. "Understood, Your Grace. I'll oversee it personally."
On Westerosi soil he would have argued. Hard. But this was the Disputed Lands—unclaimed territory. These were foreign pirates. Killing them didn't cost him any sleep.
Daeron walked back across the bodies, pulled a bottle of ginger ale from his inventory, and took a slow sip.
"Three days of forced march got us to the end of the Valyrian Road. We're less than three hundred miles from Twin Lakes. We can reach it in three days if we keep pushing."
That was the whole point.
Speed and surprise.
He had left the slower main army behind and taken the Dragon Tongue Knights plus Randyll's fifteen hundred cavalry ahead at a brutal pace. The goal was to pin the Elyria forces down before they could scatter across the Disputed Lands.
First fight, and they had already crushed a force of several thousand raiders.
Not bad.
"Governor Graven is about to get a very unpleasant surprise," Daeron said with a thin smile.
---
War Fortress.
Evening.
Graven received the report that Barwick's five thousand men had been wiped out.
"What do you mean they're all dead?!"
Graven's face twisted with rage and disbelief. The enemy had lost barely three hundred men while Barwick's entire command had been destroyed.
How was that even possible?
One of the other governors answered nervously. "That's what the survivors said, my lord."
Graven still couldn't accept it.
The governor continued. "They ran into a dragon. The Dragon King himself was riding that red monster. The men who made it back were lucky to escape."
"How many got away?"
Graven's voice was ice.
"Less than two hundred."
The governor kept his eyes down. In truth it was probably fewer. Some of the pirates had run for the Tyroshi coast instead, looking for fishing boats rather than coming back here.
Graven was furious, but he hadn't lost his head.
"The Dragon King only just landed with the main army. Now he's suddenly appearing at the end of the Valyrian Road."
"He's afraid of getting bogged down. He wants a quick victory."
"The more he wants that, the more I'm going to deny it to him."
Another fat governor hesitated. "But the Dragon King is already close to Twin Lakes. We're the ones in danger here."
"Are you stupid?"
Graven's voice dripped with contempt. "You think we're just going to sit inside the War Fortress and wait for him to burn us out like the old Triarchy cities?"
The fortress was a symbol and a shelter.
It was also expendable.
Against a dragon, the only way to win was to stay more mobile than the dragon.
Graven's mind was already moving.
"We can't run yet. The sellswords and pirates downstairs are already divided. If they see us bolt, they won't just scatter and fight the Iron Throne—they might turn on us first and take everything we have."
"Then what do we do?"
The governor looked genuinely scared.
Graven's eyes were cold and calculating.
"We send out a force to slow the Dragon King down while we figure out our next move."
"The Golden Company?"
The fat governor perked up.
Graven gave him a withering look. "You want to burn our last real card right now?"
Myles Toyne still thought he was going to be Prince of Elyria. He wasn't going to commit easily. The other sellswords and pirates who knew how the Triarchy had ended? They were a different story.
The governors looked at each other, unhappy with Graven's growing control but too afraid to challenge him openly.
Graven saw it and played his final card.
"Don't panic. We still have the West Essos Federation behind us. They're not going to sit back and watch us lose the Disputed Lands."
"I'm sending word to Volantis right now. We'll call in reinforcements."
He turned and walked away before anyone could argue.