Pre-Chapter A/N: Here we go with another chapter, coming in right on time. Next three chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
I took a deep breath as I climbed up on Igneel's saddle. We flew into the air, shooting up and then catching the wind with our massive wings. We did not venture close to the castle. Instead, we flew around it from a good distance away. So far that the scorpions would either fall short, miss, or just be dodged. So the garrison at Hellholt did not even bother. Good. They had a seemingly limitless number of scorpions but not limitless bolts to fire from them. That would have been just too unfair, I thought with a chuckle.
Hellholt was a stout castle. It was wider than it was tall, sitting upon the desert like it was a crown. Its towers were not all that tall, but at the top of each one sat a scorpion. Her walls were wider than walls tended to be. There was space for scorpions to line the walkways, and the walls covered the castle from all sides, so there was a wall of scorpions waiting for you no matter where you attacked from. Well, there was one blind spot.
Those things would not articulate well enough to allow them to aim straight upwards, so if I flew high enough and then descended straight down onto the castle, they would have to wait until I was closer than they were comfortable with before their bolts could be properly aimed. The bolts on the towers would be the only threats if I approached that way—for a time, at least. Eventually, all the scorpions would be able to turn upon me. But even with this many scorpions, they were more likely than not to clang off Igneel's scales. Of course, the small, squishy human on his back would be a weak point. So would his eyes and the inside of his maw. But anyone who managed to aim for the inside of Igneel's mouth would probably be explaining to their ancestors why that was a bad idea in the seven hells before they'd manage to fire.
I decided on an approach as I watched the castle for longer and longer, and then I flew back to the army that was camped quite a distance from the walls.
"You did not attack," Icarus said when he found me shortly after I'd landed. Did he really think me so hot-blooded? A shame.
"I did not. I will wait for nightfall instead. Let the men tire watching for the dragon. Every hour, Igneel and I will fly about the castle to keep them on guard and make sure they lose some sharpness," I said.
"Nightfall will make taking the castle harder," he said.
"Taking? Whatever gave you the idea there would be a castle left for you to take after I was finished?" I asked, and then walked away. Best to get what little sleep I could before I had to fly Igneel out once more.
When night came, the energy was practically frantic both in the camp and, I suspect, in the castle as well. Icarus had announced to his men that Hellholt would be destroyed for their insubordination as an example to the rest of Dorne of what their choices were. Wise choice. Take what I had decided and then make it seem like it was his idea from the beginning to create the illusion that he had more control over this situation than he did in reality. I allowed it because the strength of Yronwood's rule would favour me as long as he knew who his master was, and if he didn't, then I'd either replace him with someone who did or just burn the kingdom down and start afresh. Ideally, that wouldn't be the case.
Yronwood would go wherever Jordayne did, and I had a plan for breaking Jordayne. When the time came, he would beg me to rule Dorne.
I climbed on the saddle, and Igneel and I ascended into the air. This time, we flew around Hellholt, getting closer and closer with each pass to the point that some of the scorpions even began firing on us. I tracked the bolts with careful eyes as we dodged them all. I noted the maximum distance they were able to travel before they just fell to the ground, having spent their momentum. And then I ventured closer still, making loops about the castle over and over again. The men manning the scorpions were sounding the alarm already. They were sure the attack was about to come.
They fired more and more of those bolts, each man probably salivating at the thought of being the one to bring down Igneel, to become the next dragonslayer of Hellholt. They had more excitement than fear in them, I noticed. Igneel could smell very little of the latter and a lot of the former. These were men that had truly bought into the myth their lords sold. Of course they were. Only the most fanatic and eager would step up to man walls that were to be attacked by a dragon. So we tested them next, venturing closer to the castle before backing away and retreating to the edge of their range.
This strange dance we carried out thrice more before we abandoned the attack and turned around fully to return to the camp. The men of Hellholt escorted me back to the camp with their cheers. It was a buoyant, alive thing. And it didn't even enrage me now. It was a sign of a plan coming together.
"Patience, my friend" was all I could spare for Jordayne as I retreated to my tent for another hour of rest. Igneel got his own rest, and by the next hour we did the same run. This time, we kept it up for longer, and still they fired their bolts, eager to bring down the dragon and claim eternal glory in their own names. No one forgot Ser Serwyn of the Mirror Shield. In their minds, these men dreamt of having their names reverberate through history like that one.
We danced in and out of their range, getting closer and closer to the castle. Some of the smarter ones were realising that they should save their bolts. For those ones, we got even closer until they could not hold back any longer. Trying this strategy in the daylight would have been much harder. But even a clear night like this one still obscured things enough that a lot of the time they were just spraying and praying.
When we had played with them for a while, we retreated. This time, only most of them were cheering at their feat of having driven me off. When I landed, Icarus just gave me a look and a nod. Had he figured it out already? No doubt. He had his men form up in their cavalry, creating a threat that if the gates of Hellholt opened, they would rush for them. And so the gates did not open. Men from Hellholt did not stream out in their dozens to collect the bolts they had fired in hope of reusing them.
The third time I took to the skies, the men manning the scorpions had clearly been warned of what was happening. They were far from as liberal with their bolts as they were before. But it wasn't like they could ignore the dragon. Even if I was bluffing, that bluff could change very quickly into a real attack if they let me get too close.
So this time, they maintained a tighter cordon around the castle. But still the bolts flew. At maybe half the rate of before, but still they flew, and just like before, they missed. Or we dodged, or our wings flapped out at the right moment and the bolts were sent careening away from their target like they'd been hit by a strong wind.
We kept this dance up for even longer than the last one, and then when we started our retreat, there were no cheers from the men on the walls.
When I returned to the camp, Icarus had the cavalry line up again like they were just waiting for those gates to open. They stayed shut to the world. The bolts remained outside. By now, most of our army had realised what I was doing, and so they hailed me on my journey to my tent, where I slept an hour away. And when I woke, I decided to wait even longer.
Igneel and I took to the skies for the fourth and final time that night. And when we did, it was not a slow, leisurely flight like before. We shot into the air like a jet, ascending higher and higher. I muttered a spell to shield me from the winds, and then another to keep me glued to the saddle. Igneel waited until we were directly above the castle, and then we dove.
It had taken less than two minutes in all, whereas we had given them at least five minutes to prepare before every attack. We met the Uller men with their trousers down. Literally, in one case—poor fellow was taking a leak over the wall.
Igneel did not roar before this attack; he struck Hellholt like a meteor, terrifying and silent. We streaked downwards like a missile, and as late as we could, our wings spread, catching the wind and generating our own to stop us mere metres from the castle's centre.
"Dracarys!" It was my roar that broke the night first. Blue flames followed.
I wish I could find something interesting to say about the rest of what came after that initial attack, but there was nothing. The scorpions did not even manage to fire once in our direction. Whether it was because of how quickly the attack began, or that they had run out of bolts, or that the men themselves chose to flee rather than waste their lives, I did not know. All I knew was that we burned Hellholt with no opposition. We enjoyed every second of it despite how monotonous it became, though.
Igneel had had his anticipation and appetite for destruction whetted by our earlier feints, and so I made sure to indulge him. We burned each of Hellholt's towers, and the walls, and the scorpions on said walls and towers, and the castle's main structure until most of the stone had begun to run from the heat and the castle had collapsed in on itself.
When the sun rose, Hellholt, the home of House Uller, was gone, and hopefully the family itself, but there was no way to make sure.
At least, that was what I thought until the afternoon, when Jordayne sent a man to my tent.
I walked in to find the five of them on their knees. Black-haired and black-eyed, and brown-skinned, the Ullers looked nothing special.
"How?" I asked.
"When Prince Qoren brought me here as a squire, the then young Jarred Uller had boasted about his family's history with House Targaryen, as well as the fact that they were one of the only Dornish houses never to abandon their castle, even when it was burnt. A reinforced underground layer with an exit hidden in the desert. He never showed the exit to me, but Oberon's men are ever so resourceful," he said, and as he spoke, one of the Ullers glared daggers at him. Until he finished, and then the man had had too much and spat at Jordayne.
Credit where due, he managed to pack a good amount of force into that thing. Enough that it travelled the distance until it reached its target's boot, despite the fact that he was closer to the entrance of the tent than he was to the standing Icarus. Icarus looked down at it, and then up at me.
"I was going to have them beheaded as nobles deserve, but this spit reminds me of something. You see, Laenor, how he ended up broaching the topic of the underground crypt was because he was telling me all about how his ancestors had had their way with a captured Rhaenys over and over again. She survived her dragon's death, and they tortured and raped her until she birthed the child of Aegon the Dragon that she had been carrying before taking wing that day. They cut the baby into sixty-two pieces. One for every castle burned in Dorne," he said. I was seeing red as he spoke.
"They are yours to deal with as you please, my friend. Consider it a gift from me to you, as well as an apology," he said. I nodded, and then I gestured for the guards to bring them along.
We marched them straight to Igneel.
"I have heard your house boasts of the lucky shot that brought down Meraxes. Perhaps you might show us what makes you worthy dragonslayers in person," I said, turning to them to see the lord's wife and two of his sons whimpering and begging the guards for their freedom. The lord and another of his sons were glaring at me with hatred. So much hatred.
"Release them. Arm them," I asked the guards.
They looked hesitant, but then Icarus repeated my order. I hadn't even noticed that he had followed us. A sword was placed in the hands of the men and even the wife at my insistence. We were outside the camp—some distance away. Around us was only desert, Igneel, and the well-armoured guards that had brought them here. I unsheathed Riptide. I had since changed out of my armour and so wore only simple clothes like they did.
"You have two dragons before you. Kill even one, and win your freedom," I said, spreading my hands out to make sure what I said was clear. Igneel or me. Choose.
They made the boring choice. All four of the men rushed me, even the two that had been crying and begging just mere seconds earlier. They were not bad. Uller had a competent master-at-arms, that much was easy enough to see, but they were just lesser. Too slow, too weak.
I moved out of the way of the father's thrust, grabbed his wrist, and then put Riptide through his thigh. He screamed, and I relished it. I squeezed his wrist until he dropped the sword, and then I let go of said wrist before slamming my fist straight into, and partly through, his nose. It gave way, pressing against his face, broken, and he fell backwards. The other three began to hesitate now. Especially as Igneel crawled forward and reached the man.
He screamed as that massive maw loomed over him.
"Dracarys," I said, and that was the last of Lord Patreck Uller. His sons saw his fate. They looked at me, and then behind them at the guards who waited, armed and ready for violence, and they did the smart thing. They fled.
"Igneel. Hunt," I said, and then I walked towards the lady of the house. He shot off the ground, making sand fly everywhere for a second, forcing me to slow some.
"I told him. I told him to bend the knee," she was saying over and over again when I reached her.
"Please, my lord. My uncle rules at Vaith. He will bend the knee for me. He will pay a ransom, my lord. He will. For me, he will," she said, over and over again.
"My lady, my lady, my lady," I said over and over again until she stopped her word vomit.
"I care not what your uncle is or where he rules. In truth, this isn't even about you. But House Uller offended the House of the Dragon, you see. An example has to be made," I said. If I ruled as King of the Seven Kingdoms, I would have done this even sooner. It shocked me that the royal family just allowed a house that boasted of slaying a dragon to remain in existence, and even to begin to thrive in some ways.
"Please, my lord. Please. I am no Uller."
"You bore him three sons. You wedded him in a sept. You swore vows," I said.
"I beg you, my lord. Please. I will do anything. Whatever it takes, please just spare me," she said, and then she dropped the sword that she had maintained only a loose grip on and began to take off her dress.
"My lady, please preserve some of your dignity. I am a married man, and those vows I take seriously," I warned. Even the rumour of impropriety here could be disastrous. Laena would believe me, but it was always better for there to be no cause for doubt in the first place.
I considered sparing her. I really did. But then it was taken out of my hands. She was pulling at her waist, and then there was a dagger in her grip as she rushed me. There was little distance between us. I was taken completely off guard, such was her acting that I could get no sense of her plan until she began to carry it out—I'd mistaken the fear I smelt for fear of death. No. It was the fear a warrior felt before battle.
And I treated her like one. I moved, and before she managed to reach me, my blade had arced out. Her head hit the ground, and her body did the same, completing its lunge to land pitifully to my side. I looked down at it before squatting to wipe Riptide off against her dress.
Igneel returned not long after, and then gave a look that looked to mean something like—"you eating that?"
I shook my head, and he dug in. And so the Ullers of Hellholt came to their end. Not with a bang, but the crunch of bone between dragon's teeth. Rhaenys was avenged.
A/N: And that's the chapter. This one took me a while to work through. Next chapter comes on here by Sunday night. Next three chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), you can support me there and read them early.