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After The Dragons Danced (A Rhaena Targaryen SI) -- 05. Quest
🕑 Added 2024-08-24 09:00:00 +0000 UTCBAELA
18th Day, Fourth Moon, 131 AC | Tumbleton
Seven days of hard riding south-east brought them to Tumbleton, a host of Northmen riding with her, just as Rhaena had promised. Lord Stark’s men could not to return to the North, for winter was at hand, and their presence would only serve to burden those lands and cause famine and lack. Ten of the eleven thousand that had marched south had become their men now, sworn to House Targaryen, the first soldiers of their nascent army. All that had been Rhaena’s doing. How she had managed to convince Lord Stark of letting his men join their service and releasing his grandfather from his execution, she did not know. Lord Cregan was a notoriously rigid man. What she knew was their grand plans for them; to establish a central army, loyal to The Crown, just as the Free Cities and the Valyrian Freehold before them had.
Five hundred of them had accompanied her as they left the city through the King’s Gate, eschewing the Rose Road and instead following the Mander Road, riding hard throughout the day and resting in some inn in the night or even making camp in the wild where there was no inn.
She had some wariness at being surrounded by this many men at first, but they had turned out to be her fiercest protectors, treating her with a respect and devotion that surprised her. It was one Eldric Umber, the second son of the third grandson of Lord Umber, and currently in command of these men, who told her that her twin had promised massive amounts of gold to them for her safe accompaniment to accomplish her mission and return to the capital. She laughed lightly at that. It seemed gold staved off men’s baser instincts.
Still, she kept a dagger close at hand; the conqueror’s dagger, made of Valyrian Steel and with a gilded dragonbone hilt. The dagger was hers now since blades were not allowed anywhere near her brother. It would not do to have her guard down incase any of the men lost their sense and judged that gold promised in the future was worth less than a princess among them at present. It seemed unlikely, however. Eldric had made himself her sworn protector, and appointed ten more to serve with him. The rest served to mainly to swell their numbers, in order to repel any brigands that might have been roaming the lands, since outlawry had increased quite a lot in the wake of the war and its devastation.
That had proved useful thus far. A band of robbers had attacked them on their fifth day, but her ‘Wolf Pack’ had made short work of them. That had made her feel powerful, knowing that she was nigh on untouchable to anyone but an organised army. There would be no organised armies however, the war was over.
Aye, the war was over, but the scars it left behind still lingered; Baela thought as she entered the ruined and burned husk that was Tumbleton. The town walls were crumbled and torn apart, the stones that once held it were twisted, blackened and melted. The devastation was worse inside the town. Market squares had crumbled all around them.The remnants and ashes of tents and pavilions swirled in the air whenever the wind picked up. The streets were lined with the shells of buildings, their stone foundations scorched black and their wooden beams collapsed into messy heaps of rubble. The few walls that still stood seemed like the ribs of a giant, picked clean by vultures. What was once the town’s sept was burned and blackened, with its roofs collapsed and the statues of the Andal Gods unrecognisable. The only building that stood unchanged was the castle at the top of the hill, the seat of House Footly.
They came upon the very things that interested her of the town, the reason they had eschewed the Rose Road and ridden on the Mander Road for Tumbleton instead. In the middle of what must have been the main market square of the city, were the corpses of the three dragons that fought and died here. She could identify two of them easily enough.
“Do dead dragons terrify you?” she asked the Eldric in a teasing tone when she noticed his disquiet around the dragons.
He wheeled his horse to face her full on before replying, “How could you not? The wrath of dragons…,”he shook his head, “we men are dust under their feet. Look at the destruction they leave in their wake.”
“No, the wrath of dragonriders. Dragons, by themselves, bear no ill will towards anyone. They will hunt, eat and sleep, the same as any animal does when left alone.” she replied.
“Then why not leave them alone?,” he asked, “you seek to claim Queen Alysanne’s dragon, do you not?”
Unbidden, she thought of Moondancer, and for a second she allowed herself to imagine that it was her lovely green and pearl dragon she was sitting astride and not her black palfrey. There had been a gap in her soul since Moondancer had died in their duel against Sunfyre.
“Because we need each other. A dragon thrives best when bonded to a rider.” she answered. “And we do need them as well. There are still parts of the realm that have not yet been brought under the king’s peace, such as the Iron Isles. Dragons were the only way that the seven kingdoms have remained at peace for the past century, you know? Before this war, many generations had grown up and died without ever knowing battle. Without dragons, these kingdoms would descend into the same anarchy that had plagued them since the dawn of days.”
The man only nodded in response.
Baela turned to look at the dragons. Even dead, they were still magnificent. Vermithor’s huge bronze form took the most space, sprawled on the ground in a way that one could think he was a giant firewyrm sleeping. The dried dark patches of dragon’s blood on the ground beside him and on his hide was what confirmed that he was dead. That, and the his large, tattered wings.
Beside Vermithor was Seasmoke, his smaller and grey remains headless, with one of his wingbones bent in a way a dragon’s wing could never naturally take. It was broken, badly. A black patch was left at the base of his neck where his head used to be. Even now, a year after his death, smoke was rising from the hot black blood that was caked over the wound.
On the far side of the street, there was another corpse, this one a deep cobalt-blue colour, with copper horns, crests, and belly scales that had been made black by dried dragon’s blood. There were three arrows lodged in one of its open eyes as well. Tessarion.
She had never seen this dragoness, nicknamed The Blue Queen as a snub against her grandmothers’ Red Queen. In the few times they had come to the capital in the decade before the war, they had never been allowed into the Dragonpit. They had no dragons of their own at that time, and access to the Dragonpit had been restricted to dragonriders and Dragonkeepers, a rule instituted since her mother had snuck in early in her uncle’s reign and claimed Vhagar.
Suddenly, Baela found herself growing sad, and then angry. These dragons were wasted on the men that rode them. Hugh had proven himself a traitor to both factions of the war and was killed when he dared crown himself king after his treachery. The same with Ulf, though at least his dragon Silverwing had the mind of getting away from the carnage of the battle, flying to the other side of the realm and making herself a lair in an isle in the middle of Red Lake. It was a small mercy that cousin Addam, the rider of Seasmoke, had remained loyal to the end, him and his dragon dying for his queen’s cause.
It would have been so much better however, if Jacaerys, Lucerys, herself and Rhaena, had claimed the unridden dragons. At least her and Rhaena could have claimed Vermithor and Silverwing. Why had they never even thought of it, Baela asked herself, instead of clutching to dragon’s eggs that took years to hatch.
Perhaps… perhaps Jacaerys would have have lived if she had accompanied him into battle on the back of a dragon of Silverwing’s or Vermithor’s stature. On instinct, her hand went to the golden chain, a betrothal gift. The memories of sweet promises whispered that dawn came to her as the chain was being fastened around her neck. ‘Once I burn these Triarchy cunts, I will marry you Baela.’ She had kissed her beloved then, one among the many kisses they had each stolen from the other since they had been old enough to know what kissing was. Neither of them had known that it would be their last kiss.
Mayhaps she would have been the one to aid her father in hunting down the kinslayer and bringing an end to him. Both she and her father might have returned alive. Gods knew she was a better rider than any of the dragonseeds, even Nettles, the girl who had tamed a wild dragon and purportedly bedded her father. Baela had battled and fatally injured a Sunfyre that was many, many times her own dragon’s size, though Moondancer had died in that duel. She shook herself out of those thoughts. Such notions would only cripple her now. She had Rhaena, Aegon, and Viserys, who needed to be rescued. And she would avenge her beloved.
Baela turned back to the column of their men, and had the fifty Dragonkeepers that had ridden with them summoned to the front. These were the members of the chapter of Dragonkeepers that had been deployed on Dragonstone during the time of the war. The ones in King’s Landing had all been killed when the smallfolk of the city had stormed the Dragonpit. They came forward a few moments later, dressed in their black armour encrusted with rows of dragon scales. Baela addressed their elder in High Valyrian.
“Do you remember your instructions, elder?”
“Yes we do,” he answered in the same language.
“Very well. We shall get enough wagons for you to return their remains to Dragonstone.”
As they made to ride towards the castle that was nestled on a gentle hill on the far side of the town, a company of boys, twenty of them by her count, with the oldest of them seemingly her age or only a bit older than her, approached from the opposite direction. All of them had their swords unsheathed and at the ready with their horses at full gallop, riding towards them. Baela raised her hand to beckon her own retinue to come to a halt.
“You stand in the lands of Lord Jon Footly, and his regent Lady Sharis Footly. State your purpose!” said the boy at the head of the company, with red hair and the beginnings of a similarly coloured moustache at the top of his lips. She was puzzled. Didn’t Rhaena send a raven informing the lady of the castle of their coming?
Eldric Umber was seething in rage at the young boy's discourteous tone. Baela stopped him in his tracks just as he was about to retort a harsh reply, and likely a slash of his longsword that was already halfway out of its scabbard.
Adopting a tone that she hoped was as close as to what she had seen her father use when issuing commands, she replied, “I am Lady Baela of House Targaryen, sister to King Aegon Targaryen. I have come to return the remains of these three great dragons to the rightful resting place on Dragonstone, they place they were born.”
“These corpses are the property of House Footly now. And how do we know that you are the sister of the King? You have no banners, and your men have no sigils on their mail and plate to identify them.”
That was intentional. In order to improve their speed of travel, their party was deprived of all the marks of a lordly host. There carried no banners, pulled no wagons, carts or litters with them to haul their belongings, only a saddle pack on their horses to hold all their belongings. Even Baela had foregone all the luxuries she had been used to, having only one other set of riding leathers and small clothes to change into at the beginning of every day or two. Every night or two, she washed the set of small clothes she had worn for the day and dried them as much as possible by wringing them while wrapped inside a towel. The leathers were only washed when they came upon an inn or castle.
“Good ser,” she began in reply, before a new horse, this time with a lady sat atop it, approached them. The boys promptly moved aside to let her through. The lady was plump, with a homely face, quite buxom while short, with auburn hair that fell to her shoulders and with large brown eyes.
“Princess,” she greeted, once she was let through by the rest of her men, though calling them men was an exaggeration, “forgive these boys. They are young, green and rather eager for bloodletting.” After offering a rather dramatic bow, the lady introduced herself, “I am Lady Sharis Footly, regent to Jon Footly, Lord of Tumbleton. Be welcome.” Baela smiled. At least no threats would have had to be made.
“Thank you, my lady. As I told the good ser behind you, I seek to return the remains of these dragons to Dragonstone. It seems the raven meant to inform you of this must have gotten waylaid. Our Dragonkeepers will need wagons, open litters, anything and everything that could be used to carry them.”
“Of course, princess. Your Dragonkeepers will be given all that they would need for that. But…” she paused for a moment, “I had hoped to use them to bring some coin back to the town to aid in its restoration. Dragons are a rare sight in the realm even now, and many would have paid good coin to see the skull of one, let alone touch it.”
“Worry not,” Baela replied, keeping her manner pleasant and inviting, “Loans are being offered to the lords of the realm whose lands suffered the worst damage during the war to aid them in their recovery. In fact, my sister informed me that she would gladly receive you in King’s Landing to settle the matter of the amount of coin that would be loaned to you.” That was true. Rhaena had correctly predicted that she would make this request. In her memories, Lady Footly had mounted the three heads of these dragons on the central market square and charged coin for men to view and touch them. The lie was the part about offering such loans to many lords in the realm. That would not be happening. The Crown needed as much coin as it could get.
“Thank you princess. You are a guest in my castle, humble as it is. You and your party shall be guested and provided with all you need, to the capacity in which we can offer.”
“Thank you, my lady. That is most kind,” Baela said.
25th Day, Fourth Moon, 131 AC | Bitterbridge
They had left the ghost town that was Tumbleton two days after they arrived, once the Dragonkeepers had cut up the corpses of the dragons and carried them off in the litters and wagons that they had been granted them. Their remains would have their use, aged as they were. She had known from seeing the remains of Balerion at the bottom of the Dragonmont that dragon’s meat never rot, and their corpses never smelled. They were magical creatures.
Lady Sharis had been quite courteous host throughout the rest of their sojourn at her castle. On the final day she had had her boys fish the headwaters of the River Mander that flowed only a few leagues west of the town. What they had not eaten had been salted and then packed on three large stallions that had been gifted to them as pack horses. Baela herself had been gifted another set of leather riding garb that fit her well. They had belonged to Lady Footly’s daughter that had been killed when the usurper’s brother, the two betrayers and their forces had conquered and sacked the city.
After leaving a hundred men behind to aid the Dragonkeepers and escort them on their return to King’s Landing and then onwards to Dragonstone, the rest of them had ridden hard south-west along the Mander towards Bitterbridge. There were multiple inns in the countryside along the river, and they had therefore not slept in the wild even once unlike the two times they had on the first leg of their journey. The River was the life-blood of these lands, she knew, even now in the depths of winter when there were no crops in the field and the golden leaves of autumn had fallen as winter rose.
Like Tumbleton, Bitterbridge was similarly devastated. Its remaining stone buildings were blackened and crumbling at some places. The difference was that there were more people littering the townscape, not many, but numerous comparing to the ghost town that was Tumbleton. Most were busy trying to repair one part of the town or the other. Bitterbridge had faced Tessarion’s dragonflame and endured a brutal sack in vengeance for the killing of the usurper’s son. Said son had been torn apart by the town’s denizens as his protector was rushing to get the young boy to Oldtown for safekeeping.
The usurper had arranged that after Daemon Targaryen had ‘killed’ his son. To tell it true, her father had planned it that the kinslayer was the one to be slain in vengeance for Lucerys’ death. It did not mean that she had not been glad to hear of the princeling’s death. The Clubfoot should have slain all of the usurper’s children in her honest opinion. Had that happened, her brother Aegon would not be forced to marry the usurper’s daughter, he would not be forced to marry at all when he was firmly still a child, and a broken one at that.
This time, they had sent word ahead to inform the town and its lord of their coming, incase the raven sent from King’s Landing was waylaid as well. At Bitterbridge, she had another important task. The usurper’s son that had been killed here possessed himself of a dragon’s egg. After he was slain, Lady Caswell had planned to send it to the Hightower forces that were marching from Oldtown. She did not get to do that however, for the host, led by Tessarion’s rider, fell upon them and brutalised the town. The egg should still be here, according to what they had heard thus far; and they could not let even a single dragon’s egg be lost to them, especially an egg from the clutches laid by Dreamfyre, the most prolific egg-laying she-dragon since the doom.
T’was truly a shame that all those eggs had been destroyed when the dragonpit was invaded. The dragons produced from Dreamfyre’s clutches grew particularly fast, even more so than the dragons from the eggs laid by her cousin’s Syrax, and her hatchlings were fast-growing as well. The usurper’s twins had two dragons that were the nearing the size of Vermax and Arrax, while being seven years younger. Tessarion had been almost the same size as Syrax and Seasmoke despite hatching in the Dragonpit almost a decade after the two.
A retinue of riders, fifteen of them by her count, were riding to meet them, with a young boy, younger than Aegon to be sure, riding at their front.
“My lady,” the boy said in a small, shy voice as he bowed from where he sat on his horse. He sounded so terribly sad, and his face twisted in grief. There was enough depression to go around in the wake of the war it seemed. He had watched as his mother hung herself, begging for the usurper’s brother to spare her children; a request he had honoured it seemed. “I am Lord Garland Caswell, Lord of Bitterbridge. We are happy to host you, but we don’t have much to offer. Our town and castle have gone through much devastation.”
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance Lord Garland,” Baela replied, “we do not need much. All we need is the dragon’s egg that belonged to Prince Maelor returned to House Targaryen, and we shall be on our way.”
The boy said nothing more, only turning to one of the men behind him, and giving the command. The knight stepped forward, holding a satchel in his hand. Eldric took it, examining its contents, and passing it on to her once he deemed himself satisfied. She put her hand inside and pulled out the egg. It was beautiful gleaming purple, with iron-gold flecks and streaks all across it. Most of all, it radiated the heat of life, the same heat that she had felt from Moondancer’s egg before it had hatched, scarcely four years ago now.
Once satisfied, she closed the satchel once more and secured it to her horse.
“Thank you for this, my Lord. Your loyalty to House Targaryen will not be forgotten.” The young lord only gave a slight incline of his head, wheeled his horse, and trotted back to his castle. And she had thought Aegon to be particularly depressing.
She bade her men advance, sensing that they were not particularly welcome in this town. No matter, the less lords they had to pay court to, the less time their travel would take. They crossed the Mander on the actual bridge that Bitterbridge was named for, and rode on for a few leagues, before departing the Mander Road and instead taking a trail heading west through the countryside towards Goldengrove, stopping occasionally to ensure they had the right heading.
Eldric was an excellent navigator, she had learned, having gone on many adventures in the North, selling his skills with the sword to some lord or the other. He would have been called a hedge-knight in the South. Baela herself was not half bad. She was a dragonrider, and once one began riding their dragon, navigation became a compulsory part of their training, even if some old dragons remembered the ways to places they had been to frequently.
That night, they made camp in an open field, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The night was cloudless and stars filled the sky. The winter cold was bone-chilling; she could feel it even through the heavy woolen overcoat she wore for warm. She did not understand how these Northmen did not seem to mind it.
“In the North, this is just an autumn’s kiss. You of the south have not felt the winter cold truly fuck you,” Eldric’s second, one Ramsey Bolton, a distant cousin of that house, and a man more foul-mouthed than any she had ever met had told him when she complained of the cold once.
Some of the men were busying themselves with one thing or the other. There were some gathering wood for the fire, others tending to the horses, others hunting while the rest were on watch or sat around the fire making merry. She wondered what a sight their little posse of travellers must make. Four hundred men led by a princess, going to seek out a dragon across the kingdom.
Not for the first time, she wondered whether this ploy of theirs would even work. Her uncle, King Viserys, had tried to claim Dreamfyre soon after Balerion had died and had almost burned to death in the attempt. Only her father’s timely intervention had saved him. What if this was a fool’s errand? A rider who had their dragon die before them sometimes refused new mounts, she knew; their bond with their first dragon so intimate that having the presence of another mount felt too foreign.
Her father had thought it different. He reasoned that it was the second dragon to be claimed that determined whether the bond would form or not. Dreamfyre was the worst possible dragon that a former rider of Balerion could try to claim, or so her father had said. According to him, each rider and each dragon left sort of an imprint on each other’s soul after either of them died.
The first rider of Dreamfyre, Rhaena, the woman her twin had been named after, had an immense hate towards Maegor, who was Balerion’s rider, and Balerion himself for travelling to the hellscape that was the ruins of Valyria on her daughter’s whims. He had concluded that whatever imprint of Balerion left in Viserys’ soul after his death must have been sensed by Dreamfyre, who herself had been left with her rider’s revulsion for him, hence the bond not successfully forming.
She hoped it would not be the same with Silverwing. Moondancer was Silverwing’s own granddaughter, if relation mattered in any way to dragons, which she knew it did not. Caraxes was Vhagar’s hatchling and they had killed each other in the Battle above the God’s Eye. Meleys was Vhagar’s hatchling as well, and that hoary old bitch had no compunction against tearing her head off above Rook’s Rest and burning her rider, Baela’s own grandmother to her death. Still, there was no open hostility between the two dragons or the riders they once bore, and her sister had bonded to Morning even after possessing a dragon once before. Claiming Silverwing had to work, she told herself, trying to shun the doubts she had.
Fires were roaring all about the camp, boar and deer roasting above them when Eldric came to her, offering her a choice cut of boar rib. All round them, men were making merry. One of the men around their own fire broke into The Bear and the Maiden Fair, the rest singing along with him. Rhaena knew it all the way through, and would surely sing it in a much lovelier voice than any of these men did. She even had the harp to accompany her.
“What occupies your mind so princess?” Eldric asked, taking a big bite of boar himself
“What you said when we were at Tumbleton, surprisingly. Perhaps all this is a folly. Maybe I should abandon this pursuit. Who knows whether Silverwing will even accept me?”
“You are the blood of the dragon, as you’ve told me many times princess. Why would she refuse you? She accepted a drunken sot on his back during the war did she not? Why not you?”
“You’re right.” That steeled her resolve. She was Baela Targaryen, the blood of the dragon, the daughter of Daemon Targaryen. Her lineage almost unbroken since the days of Old Valyria. If there was any who could claim a dragon, it was her.
Even in the places where it was broken, it was not by much. House Targaryen’s dragonless, minor branches established Houses Velaryon, Celtigar and Qoherys in Valyria’s day; and save for a few spare daughters marrying into other houses for alliances, none of the four houses had married anyone else but each other. Before the conquest of Westeros, even the children of the daughters that had married outside Valyrian stock had never married back into the mainline of the four houses.
Although that had changed after the conquest, the matches made outside the four houses were still to those with a substantial amount of Valyrian Blood. Argella Durrandon had a Targaryen grandmother through her mother, Arianne Tarth. Her husband, Orys Baratheon, silver-haired and purple-eyed, was a pureborn bastard of Aerion Targaryen and his half-sister Maelora Baratheon, sired through the custom of the First Night. Maelora herself was a Targaryen bastard sired in a rather scandalous affair between Lord Daemion of Dragonstone and his aunt, Naerys Targaryen. Before Borros Baratheon, House Baratheon had married either Velaryon or Celtigar brides since its founding, making Jocelyn Baratheon, her own grandmother’s grandmother, more Valyrian than Durrandon.
Queen Alyssa Velaryon, Jocelyn’s mother, was as pureborn as any in the four houses during that time. Her Velaryon father came from an unbroken line and her mother had been a Targaryen from a lesser known branch of their house that had left Dragonstone half a century earlier to earn their wealth in other ways since they had no access to the dragons the main branch did.
Queen Aemma Arryn, her brothers’ grandmother, had Valyrian blood as well. Her father had a Velaryon mother and a Celtigar grandmother while Aemma’s own mother was Daella Targaryen. The only match between a Targaryen to one without Valyrian Blood of any sort had been her uncle to Alicent Hightower. And look the disaster that that marriage wrought. Rhaena and her had agreed that such a match would never happen under their watch again. They would stomach their brother’s marriage to the usurper’s daughter only for now.
She turned to the Eldric beside him, deciding that teasing him was much better than dwelling on those bleak thoughts, “Can you sing as well as you wield a sword?” Baela asked. She’d tested swords with the man on occasion, and had been beaten to the ground quite soundly on all those occasions. The men cheered for her though, saying that she’d lasted much longer than many who had gone up against him.
“I might surprise you, my lady,” he replied.
“Then do so. Surprise me.”
The man nodded, and in a shockingly lovely voice for such a grim man, broke out into The Night That Ended, a famous song detailing the Long Night and how the Night’s Watch rode out to slay the others and bring the dawn. The rest of the men around their raging campfire stopped their merriment upon hearing their commander’s lovely singing voice. A sea of harmonised voices joined Eldric into the refrain after the last verse.
The cheers, whistles and applause was deafening once the song was done. Even men from the other campfires had joined in. Baela herself was shocked, and fought to close her own gaping mouth.
“The princess shall sing for us now too,” one of them said, amidst the cheering throng.
A second man took up the suggestion and soon enough, hundreds of voices rose with the chant of “Princess. Princess. Princess.”
Baela fought not to flush. She knew a few songs, but her twin was a far much better singer than she ever was; especially now, her strange memories had gifted her new songs she’d never heard of and had also made her quite good at playing the harp. There was one song she had particularly enjoyed, even humming it absentmindedly. Rhaena had named it Summer Season, and had sung it so much of late that Baela had no difficulty recalling the words. A love song, she had said, and a rather poetic one at that. It seemed fitting in a sense, since winter had the realm in its icy grip. She opened her mouth and began.
You found your way but it's never enough,
And though it's been tough for you,
Losing touch,
Summer has its end sometimes
Although I can't promise you much
You'll be fine
You'll be fine
As she came upon the refrain for the final time, which in this song, was just repeating the same line over and over again in different notes, the men were swaying to the rhythm and joined her in singing. When she was done, they cheered for her, although she knew it must have been false. Her voice was not meant for singing, not like her sister’s or her father’s. Still, she smiled brightly, and took a dramatic bow, and thanked the men for their flattery, as false as it may have been.
That night she dreamed of her father, and the last time she had seen him alive.
“I am going to hunt down the kinslayer,” he had told her, “and I might not return. Should I die, it will fall to you to care for your brothers and sister. You are the eldest among them. Care for them. Protect them with your very life. Can I count on you for this?”
“Yes father.” Baela had said bravely, tears flowing down her cheeks.
“No tears for me, Baela,” he had replied, as he wiped her tears.
“Remember what I’ve always told you.”
“If I look back I am lost.” she had pronounced the mantra as clearly as she could, not letting her voice creep through the fresh tears that were falling.
He had smiled then, that mischievous smile of his that she had tried to make hers into, just as she did in all things. This time however, weariness was clear on his visage. After that, they had embraced, and then she watched he climbed Caraxes’ saddle, and flying into the setting sun for the last time, Nettles and Sheepstealer alongside him.
3rd Day, Fifth Moon, 131 AC | Goldengrove
They came upon Goldengrove eight days after they had crossed Bitterbridge, and for the first time during their journey, it rained. At first, it was a drizzle, but the drizzle turned into a steady, gentle downpour. Baela welcomed the rain. Since the night of singing, she had been in good cheer. Her will was steel now. Only one more castle to pass by, and in less than a fortnight, they’d be upon Red Lake, and Silverwing would be hers.
As their houses galloped towards Goldengrove, their hooves booming across the country road, she remembered the purpose she had here. She was to pay court to Lord Thaddeus Rowan, a bluff and cheerful man who Rhaena was planning to have on their council after their grandfather died. For now however, there would be a vote during her brother’s wedding to the usurper’s daughter to decide who would sit the council of regency.
On this, they would have little say, since the two of them were still ten moons shy of their sixteenth name day, but so long as their grandfather became hand, the council would be theirs, and they would comfortably enact their plans. Baela was curious to see how Rhaena would pull that off. Their grandfather was a kingslayer by all accounts, and the realm was not like to forget that.
Like the last two castles, a welcoming party rode out to receive them immediately they saw their host arriving, but unlike the last the last two castles, there was neither the hostility nor the sheer depression. At their head rode an old man, pourtly, with a belly that must have weighed more than Baela herself did. He was bald, but with a well-kept beard that had grown to reach his chest. In her sister’s memories, the regents had schemed to wed her to this man. She could see why she had refused and instead ran to Driftmark and bound herself to cousin Alyn. That would not happen this time around. The regency would be loyal to them, and if it was not, she would have Silverwing.
“My lady,” the man said, bowing as much as his belly would allow while still sat atop his horse., “my good Sers. Welcome to Goldengrove. I am Lord Thaddeus Rowan. Lady Rhaena sent word ahead to inform me of your coming. Please, be welcome.” In so saying he handed her the customary bread and salt, to signify their guest right.
“Thank you, My Lord.” she replied, as she spurred her horse to ride alongside him and their hosts followed behind them.
“I do not think I have enough space in the castle to fit all of your men,” he said while fondling his greying beard, “but there is space enough within the castle gates for them to make camp I’m sure.”
“That will be no problem for them, to be sure. We have been riding for the past moon’s turn, sleeping under the stars where there were no inns or castles.”
“Truly? That is not proper for a lady, much less one with royal blood, who would soon become a princess.”
“It is no issue, my lord. We needed speed for our journey. My brother is to wed Aegon’s daughter, and I shan’t miss it.” She wanted to say the usurper’s daughter, but she stopped herself. For the nonce, her cousin was recognised as asking, the Second of His Name.
“Good, good. I’m glad. I thank you for the courtesy of coming all this way to pay court to my humble castle. Please, follow me. We should not be in this rain for too long.”
To the rest of the realm, at least those who knew about Baela’s journey from King’s Landing, she was on a progress, visiting some of the lords in the Reach, to help bind the realm together and aid in dissolving the factionalism that had split the realm in two these past two years..
“Think nothing of it my lord. We would be happy to have your hospitality.”
After entering the castle and out of the rain, Lord Thaddeus took the several minutes introducing him to his six sons. His eldest son and heir was Robert Rowan, a man near thirty, tall and broad, comely by all accounts, although Baela would not describe him as handsome. There was Gareth Rowan, his second son, and Robert’s only full-blooded brother. The rest of his sons were from his second wife, who had died six years ago during the birth of the youngest son; Rayford Rowan, Symon Rowan, Willem Rowan and Loras Rowan. Symon was Baela’s own age, while Loras was only six.
The feast that night was grand and quite the spectacle it did not need to be. She had been bathed, had her hair brushed, oiled and put into a braid. Scarcely a moon’s turn and her hair was already flowing past her shoulders, to the small of her back. She made a mental note to get it cut once she returned to King’s Landing. Unlike Rhaena, she did not particularly enjoy caring for long hair, and all the inconveniences it brought when she rode.
Baela had also been gifted a gown made samite with many colours. There was red, green, blue and yellow, twirling about as she observed herself in the dressing mirror. It may have fit her well, but it was hideous to look upon, in her opinion. The handmaid that attending her thought she was beautiful. That was empty flattery, she was sure. Garbs of many colours did not suit her, she knew. For a time, she thought of shedding the gown and dressing in the black and red leathers she had been with all this time, but they were not clean enough for the feast, and had been taken to be washed besides. She would have to brave the gown it would seem.
Whether it was by coincidence or intention, she found herself sat next to Gareth, the lord’s second son. Robert was married to an Arywn Oakheart, and was a serious lad where his brother Gareth was full of humour, at least he imagined he was. There were several points during the meal where Baela fought to roll her eyes at his supposed ‘japes’. Arywn spoke of meeting and befriending Rhaenyra Targaryen when she toured the realm, two decades ago. She praised her beauty, and the splendour of her dragon Syrax. That was the most interesting part of the feast.
Baela wished Rhaena was here with her. Her twin had an air about her that made anyone from the greatest lord to the lowliest commonfolk feel welcome in her presence. She hated the imagine what her awkward silences and sparing answers made this lord think of her. Despite her lack of charm, she did however remember the courtesies that had been drilled into her since she was young.
“My lady,” Gareth said, ambition in his eyes, “have you given thought to who you might marry? You are almost a woman-grown after all.”
Baela gave a smile that did not reach her eyes, “I have not thought much of it to tell it true. The war has just ended, and most of my family died in it. I wish to grieve first before I truly consider it.”
Rayford, who did less to shield his words behind hollow courtesies, rebuked his brother, “Brother, if you wish for Lady Baela to marry you, just say so. You are as subtle as a charging bull.” Laughs rang around the table, and Gareth was flushed.
After a hearty meal, the best she’d had since leaving King’s Landing, she left to check on the Northmen in the camp they had set up for the night, to make sure they had eaten as well as she had. Satisfied, she climbed to the chambers she had been offered. Upon making sure the dragon’s egg was secure in the satchel next to her, she lay on the feather-bed, drifting to sleep immediately.
They spent three days more before they left Goldengrove, this time with thirty more pack horses, all of them filled with food; bread, cheese, salted fish, beef, mutton and even chicken. They would still need to hunt, however, since four hundred men would consume even that amount of food in quite a short time. Baela honestly thanked Lord Rowan for his splendid hospitality, and from his reaction, she judged that he was well pleased with her. He promised that he and his family would be there for her brother’s wedding in two turns of the moon.
10th Day, Fifth Moon, 131 AC | Red Lake
The roars of a dragon sounded in the grey skies above as she finally espied the blue waters of Red Lake, so named for all the blood that flowed in it during some battle or other in ancient times. She looked up, seeing the Silver Queen beating her wings; the dragon that had been Queen Alysanne’s closest companion from the day she was born, both of them having travelled throughout Westeros in the many royal progresses she had made in her long life and reign. There was even a song made about the day she landed the dragon the last time, five years before she died, her broken hip making it too difficult to mount the dragon anymore.
Her second rider, Ulf the Sot, had been unworthy of the honour of becoming a dragonrider to be sure. The drunken fool had pledged allegiance to her betrothed, only to turn cloak later in the war and fight for the usurper in the Battle of Tumbleton. The usurper’s men had then slain him themselves when they heard that he desired to crown himself, once the brute Hugh and his dragon had died.
In the last year, the dragon had seen more battle than she had in the ninety three that she had lived before that. She chuckled at that. Silverwing would be seeing much, much more blood and fire in the next few years, if their plans were to come into fruition. She was the largest remaining dragon in the world, none would stand against her fires.
“Silverwing,” she heard Eldric whisper the name beside her, as he also looked in awe of the dragon as she made her descent upon an isle in the middle of the lake, a sheep in its jaws.
Baela could think of nothing else, not the lord of the castle that bordered the lake nor the courtesies that she should pay him. There was a small fishing skiff with oars at either of its side at the shore of the lake, and it looked usable.
She pushed the raft into the water and clambered upon it clumsily, so clumsily that she almost toppled it over the edge and fell into the water. She rowed as fast as her hands could towards the isle in the middle of the lake, and the dragon awaiting her there. Her arms were screaming by the time she was half-way to it, but she did not care. Her heart was thumping hard in her chest, and she felt a strength she did not know she had flooding the muscles in her arms. From the distance she could hear some voice shouting after her, but she did not even so much as glance at it.
The isle was strewn with the bones of dead animals, all of them blackened and broken. There was a cave on the far side, as large as one of the lairs of the Dragonpit. Silver flames intermittently lit the cave, and its light confirmed to her that it was indeed a dragon inside, and she had not just dreamed of it.
She slashed her palm slowly, carefully with the conqueror’s dagger. Blood began to pool, for a few moments, before it flowed from her arms, dripping on the ground. The pain would be worth it. Even her lack-lustre voice would serve, Baela thought as she began the song of bonding, in the ancient tongue, while walking up to the cavern’s mouth slowly, carefully, reminding herself to show no fear.
Fire breather
Winged leader
With two heads
To a third sing
From my voice
The fires have spoken
And the price has been paid
With blood binding
It was an ancient song, steeped in sorcery and mystery, created by the mages and sorcerers that made the dragons and combined their blood to that of the Valyrians to ensure that only their exalted race could ride them. The phrase ‘Blood of the Dragon’ was not just a mummers farce that their family spoke to convince themselves and others of their own superiority. It was truth, as plain a truth as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. The Targaryens may have been lowliest of the Forty when they left Valyria, with no knowledge of sorcery, pyromancy, no skill in building in Dragonstone nor making Valyrian Steel, but they still had this one song, the song that reminded rider and dragon of the price that had been paid in ancient days to bind them together.
Silverwing abandoned whatever she was feeding on and turned her huge yellow eyes to her, Baela immediately feeling her blood sing. She reached out cautiously to the dragon’s snout with her bloody palm to make sure the dragon would know that they were of the same blood, that she was worthy of her. The dragon stirred upon sniffing her, and she reached with her dagger, making a small cut upon the side of her head. Black, boiling blood began to flow from it, further staining her already dirty silver scales, flowing down and dripping to the ground between them.
She continued with the song, and slowly moved her bloody hand and placed it on the wound, immediately feeling something changing within her. The black slit in Silverwing’s left eye swelled to completely obscure the yellow, while she felt the purple of hers cover the white of her eyeballs as well.
With words of flame
With clear eyes
To bind the three
To you I sing
There was a buzzing of sort through her body as she continued to sing, causing gooseprickles to rise on her skin. She felt vibrations from the dragon’s hide as well, as she let out a deep grumble, and closed her eyes. Baela closed hers as well and immediately, she felt something within her change. There was that presence again in her soul. Baela had not realised she had missed it this much. Unbridled power was coursing through her veins, and oh, she felt alive, more alive than she had felt since she had lost Moondancer in her duel against the usurper.
As one we gather
And with three heads
We shall fly as we were destined
Beautifully, freely.
The next moment, all went still, and it was done.
She opened her eyes and withdrew the cut hand from the dragon’s hide, seeing the blood that had stained it suddenly spark and come alight in crimson-red fire. The skin she had sliced closed itself. Silver fire was lit upon the wound she had cut on the dragon’s hide too, and it closed as well. Flames of both colours cleansed the conqueror’s dagger. All blood spilled in the ritual was washed away by fire. As she was sheathing the dagger, Silverwing gave her a sudden push with her snout, making her fall over in a childish fit of giggles.
“Māzigon”, Baela beckoned the dragon to follow her out of the cave, once the dragon had ceased its antics. She obeyed eagerly. Silverwing was still saddled, but for her own safety and following her training, she unfastened and refastened the saddle, to make sure it was safe for flight.
“Never ride in a saddle you did not fasten, elsewise your own flight will be short and deadly,” her father had always taken care to remind her. The saddle by itself was old, probably the same one her great-grandmother used; she did not remember her beloved having new ones made for the dragonseeds he recruited. She would have to have that done once she paid Dragonstone a visit.
Climbing atop the dragon and fastening the chains that bound her to the saddle took far longer than she thought it would have, and it was ponderous besides. Then again, this dragon was five years shy of turning a century old, and easily two thirds the size of the kinslayer’s Vhagar, judging by estimation alone.
“Sōvegon,” she commanded, and the The Silver Queen obeyed, immediately taking flight.
Oh, how she had missed this, Baela thought as she landed, having ridden Silverwing until sunset that day. The dragon had roared in excitement and joy often, to her delight and the surely to the distress of the men below. At one point she had flown all the way to the sunset sea, flying low, Silverwing’s hind limbs and wings dipping into the water. They had flown high into the clouds as well, and with a command, the dragon’s flame melted the water that formed them.
Her home was in the sky, Baela had thought, above the grief and despair that the ground had to offer. In the sky, there was no death, no loss. But, she had to land. She had to return to the twin sister that was born with her, to her despairing brother who was now king. She had to return her lost brother and make sure that he was safe and whole.
Home was with them, Baela decided.
