"Are you afraid of dying?"
"No, we holy knights are not afraid of death!" Jorah waved his hands repeatedly, his face flushed as he explained. "But we cannot die lightly. Take me, for example. Besides being a dragon rider, I also hold the positions of White Knight, Commander of the Queen's Guard Cavalry, and Director of Meereen's City Defense.
If I die, it is equivalent to the Queen losing a dragon rider, a White Knight, a cavalry commander, and a city defense commander.
Meanwhile, the enemy's dragon rider is just a dragon rider, without any additional military or administrative posts.
What is worse, in a one-on-one dragon rider duel, my chances of victory are lower than theirs. If a large-scale melee breaks out, we would suffer a huge disadvantage."
Meiji was stunned for a moment. It did seem to make some sense.
Still, if you cannot fight, why were you chosen as dragon riders in the first place?
She only thought this to herself and did not voice it aloud.
Because she already knew the answer. Winged dragons were such valuable assets that, of course, nobles got first pick.
"Why can't you defeat them?" she asked, conflicted.
Nobles deserved preferential treatment, that was only natural, but nobles should also be better fighters.
Jorah said helplessly, "I have not trained as long as they have. They are professional dragon riders, while we are merely knights who ride dragons.
They gather every day to train together for at least twelve hours, with only half a day off every ten days.
We often have to handle official duties, leaving no time to train, nor any opportunity to assemble everyone for group training.
Originally, we still had an advantage in weaponry, namely the Tyrion crossbows, but before long the other side learned to use them as well."
At first, Dany did not realize that there was any problem with her dragon rider selection system.
She was not someone who favored relatives or cronies. At this early stage of building her power, under a fair and just system of promotion based on military merit, every noble who earned a title had unquestionably rendered outstanding service and was a rare talent.
In the founding years of any dynasty, were there not always constellations of great generals and a rain of brilliant strategists?
Every noble in Slaver's Bay who received the Seal of the Holy Knight truly deserved it, without the slightest exaggeration.
But the problem soon became apparent. Winged dragon riders sounded impressive, but in reality, they were soldiers who could be expended.
High-ranking soldiers.
Yet no matter how high-ranking, they were still soldiers.
The allied winged dragon riders came from backgrounds even higher than the knights of Slaver's Bay.
Many of Dany's dragon riders had previously been slaves, while the allied dragon riders all came from Valyrian descendant families. In terms of status, they were not much inferior to the Targaryens.
However, although those riders were of noble birth, they held no military or administrative posts. Their deaths would not affect the normal functioning of the allied command system.
Dany's dragon riders, on the other hand, all carried important responsibilities. If seven or eight dragon riders were to die, then…
At first, Dany did not notice this issue. But after fighting seven or eight small-scale dragon battles in succession, she suddenly realized that she had been attending funerals a bit too frequently lately.
When she carefully tallied it up—
Damn it!
Five commanders at the level of regimental leaders had been lost, each in charge of three thousand-man units, and three more had been captured by the allies.
Dany was shocked, furious, and bewildered. She had swept through Slaver's Bay, launched a surprise attack on Tolos, even bombed New Ghis, and ultimately occupied it. After years of campaigning across the world, not a single commander at the thousand-man level had died.
Yet ever since acquiring winged dragons, ever since forming the winged dragon rider corps, in just two short months, senior generals had fallen one after another.
Then what had she crossed half the world to Essos to find winged dragons for?
"So our tactic is to use numbers to overwhelm the enemy, to use true dragons to suppress winged dragons, to resolutely avoid large-scale melees and avoid one-on-one duels, and only bring into play the winged dragons' advantages in rapid redeployment and aerial bombardment," Jorah said helplessly.
In other words, they abandoned the role of fighters and transformed all winged dragons into transports and bombers.
When winged dragons acted as bombers, Dany still had to assign true dragons as escorts.
"This is really too humiliating, isn't it?" Even Meiji inexplicably felt a sense of shame.
It was as if Jorah's loss of face meant the loss of face of the Dragon Queen's dragon riders, and by extension, the loss of face of all Westeros.
"We are merely adopting a more cautious method of warfare, not hiding in the rear and refusing to fight.
When we win the final decisive battle, who will not praise us as 'glorious dragon riders'?" Jorah did not take it to heart.
As the two spoke, the distant bombardment had already ended. The black dragon escorted seven winged dragons back into Meereen's airspace. The Dragon Queen landed in the pyramid garden, ate a large mango, then led seven winged dragons fully loaded with fire-oil bombs as they took off again from the dragon pit.
After nearly an hour of back-and-forth activity, the second round of bombing began.
"I finally understand why the allied camp is so far from Meereen. Ten kilometers, all just to reduce how often you have to reload fire-oil bombs!" Meiji suddenly realized.
Then she asked in confusion, "Since they are already at the gates of Meereen, why don't they attack the city? Why endure bombing outside the walls instead?"
Hearing this, Jorah's expression suddenly became extremely grave. He asked in return, "Did you see any war elephants in the camp?"
"Yes, I saw quite a few giant elephants."
"That was a convoy of cargo elephant wagons. There are five thousand elephant soldiers. The enemy has not attacked the city simply because the elephant troops are not yet in position. Of course, it is also possible that their trump card has not been fully prepared."
"Since the enemy is stalling for time, why do you not take the initiative and attack?" Maege asked, puzzled.
Jorah shook his head, his tone no longer so certain. "The queen believes that delaying benefits us more. We need time to find out where the elephant troops are, and we also need spies to determine what trump card the allied forces have prepared against her.
"We must also proceed cautiously, advancing step by step and avoiding falling into their traps.
"In any case, we have suffered no losses so far, yet we can continue bombarding them to wear down their morale and supplies."
Although the She-Bear was his aunt, some classified military intelligence was still kept from her.
For example, the Dragon Queen had vaguely guessed the location of the elephant troops and was arranging for soldiers to dig pits in the city and bury water jars, using sound to determine their position.
For example, as the weather in Slaver's Bay was growing cooler, the Dragon Queen hoped it would become colder still, preferably with a snowfall, because she had already formed a partial guess about the trump card aimed at Balerion.
For example, the Dragon Queen was certain that as long as her rhythm was not disrupted, and as long as the allied forces reached the walls of Meereen, she was bound to win, because she also had a trump card of her own.
Since confidential information could not be disclosed, the Great Bear instead went over the well-known intelligence with the She-Bear, such as Balerion and Jenny, the dozen or so city-states that made up the allied forces, and the allies' true strength.
"Sigh, no wonder His Majesty Aegon was captured and the Dragon Queen never returned to Westeros. The war here truly exceeds my imagination.
"Compared with fighting the Dragon Queen, what we did in the North really does seem like child's play." The She-Bear sighed endlessly, feeling an inexplicable sense of loss.
Jorah shook his head. "Wars in Westeros are at most about contending for the Iron Throne, but this is a battle to decide the ruler of the world. There is no comparison between the two."
The She-Bear felt even more dispirited. So Westeros was not the center of the world after all, and the Iron Throne was not the foremost throne in the world.
She stopped looking at the soul-crushing battle outside the city and instead began to take in this hanging garden more than two hundred meters above the ground.
There was a swimming pool, lawns, gardens, and along the outer edge a semicircle of small woodland with persimmon trees, mango trees, and pomegranates.
The garden was thirty meters long and wide. It was enormous. It was hard to imagine how much stone, manpower, and time it had taken to build this pyramid.
"When I was a child, I also attended lessons with a maester. He said that in the distant East there were great pyramids. I asked him how big they were, and he said very, very big, bigger than Winterfell. I did not believe him. Now…" As she exclaimed in amazement, the She-Bear began to feel a little inferior.
The pyramid was 240 meters high, and its base must have exceeded 300 meters in both length and width. Yet Winterfell itself was only a little over 300 meters wide and just over 500 meters long.
Not to mention the castle within Winterfell, even if the godswood were added, it still would not match the sheer volume of this towering stone structure.
And Slaver's Bay did not have just one great pyramid. Meereen alone had more than twenty.
"Is King's Landing as big as Meereen?" the She-Bear asked.
Well, heavens above. A dignified Countess of Bear Island, over fifty years old, had never even been to King's Landing.
In fact, the first time the Great Bear went to King's Landing was when he accompanied Eddard on the campaign against Rhaegar.
Before that, he had not even left the North.
They could hardly be blamed. From Bear Island to King's Landing, traveling by land was at least four thousand kilometers. By sea it was even farther, going around Oldtown and Dorne, likely close to ten thousand kilometers.
"Meereen is larger in area than King's Landing, but its population is smaller. The Ghiscari like to build pyramids and fighting pits. Those buildings take up too much land."
"Oh." The She-Bear murmured in a daze. "If there is a chance, I should go see King's Landing."
Seeing his aunt like this, the Great Bear suddenly felt a pang in his heart and said, "My wyvern is female. In a few years, when it lays eggs, I will give you a few.
"In the future, the Lord of Bear Island can also tame and ride dragons to travel the world, and even run a wyvern air-transport business to make money and support a wife."
"The queen allows you to give wyverns to others?" the She-Bear exclaimed in shock.
The Great Bear shook his head and said with a faint smile, "Wyverns are arrogant and unruly, absolutely the most ferocious creatures in the world. Ordinary people would have no way to tame even a hatchling, but I possess the Paladin's Mark.
"The queen has promised that all first-generation paladins may pass the title of 'Paladin' down to their descendants as a hereditary rank.
"I have no children, so the title will pass to the descendants of Alysanne and the others."
"Queen Sansa seems to have become a dragonrider simply by praying to the Seven, without so many restrictions," the She-Bear said, puzzled.
"That is because the Great Black, the Guardian of Light, answered her prayers. Not everyone can receive a response through prayer.
"Once I inform the queen about the succession, House Mormont will enter the Guardian's register of paladins.
"In the future, as long as a direct descendant of House Mormont meets the required level of faith, they can receive the Paladin's Mark through prayer. That is what inheritance means."
"Faith? Faith in the Seven? Our family has worshipped the Old Gods for thousands of years!" The She-Bear frowned.
"Let the children choose of their own free will. Did not Sansa Stark follow the Seven?"
"With a dragonrider's inheritance on the line, who would still be willing to worship the Old Gods?" the She-Bear sighed.
"Actually, worshipping the Old Gods has its advantages…"
The She-Bear frowned again and asked hesitantly, "Once someone becomes a dragonrider, do they have to pledge loyalty to the Dragon Queen's descendants?"
"Of course. Just like vassals don their ancestral armor to answer their liege's call. If the queen's heir needs dragonriders to fight, we must all mount our dragons and go."
This was the dragonrider system Dany truly hoped to establish.
A single voracious wyvern could nearly bankrupt any king, but distributing them among vassals was different.
The vassals gained honor and the convenience of rapid mobility, the king reduced financial burdens, and there was a stable source of dragonriders.
Because the Paladin's Mark came from the Great Black, the loyalty of the dragonriders could also be ensured.
A win-win situation.
Well, in truth, it was simply a knockoff version of Valyria.
"But Bear Island has been loyal to the Starks for generations," the She-Bear said, her expression conflicted.
(End of chapter)
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