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The sudden appearance of Gaelithox shattered the calm and comfortable air of Starpike, turning the peaceful riverside stronghold into a place that felt as though it stood on the brink of war.
The great dragon had not yet harmed the castle or the lands around it, but no one in their right mind doubted that it could, at any moment, reduce the entire castle to a blazing, roaring hellscape.
From the instant the dragon descended from the sky, Lord Titus Peake had, in truth, lost all control over his castle. It was not that he had chosen to surrender his authority…
It was that no one was listening to him anymore.
All across the castle, panicked screams tore through the air.
The shrill cries of frightened children mingled with the terrified bawling of livestock, the harsh clatter of objects knocked to the ground and shattering into pieces, and a rising chorus of chaos that seemed to swallow the streets whole.
In that uproar, it was as though everyone had forgotten that a noble lord still resided in the towering main keep at the heart of Starpike.
These simple townsfolk, most of them uneducated and with no one to teach them the history of the Seven Kingdoms, still clung to the belief that fleeing into the lord's castle would bring them safety.
Yet inside those thick walls, their lord was consumed by another vision entirely: the blackened, warped towers of Harrenhal, their stonework twisted and shattered under the fury of dragonfire.
The truth of the moment was simple enough. Those outside were desperate to rush in, while those inside longed only to flee.
Gaelithox had circled above the castle only twice, yet that alone was enough to send nearly every horse, ox, sheep, goat, and even the dogs into pitiful ruin. Hindquarters gave way in terror, bodies trembled where they collapsed upon the ground, or else they bolted madly through the streets, heedless of where they ran or whom they trampled.
To the beasts, the dragon's very breath was like the cold kiss of a poisoned dagger, its point pressing against the soft, pulsing artery on the side of their neck.
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Gaelithox glanced down at the turmoil within the walls and saw nothing unusual in it.
It was always the same. The first time it had flown over each castle in Dorne, the scene had unfolded no differently. Those morsels it considered food would collapse upon the ground, wetting themselves and gasping for air.
It had learned to wait just outside the walls. Sooner or later, the people inside would work up the courage to carry those trembling little morsels out to it, and truth be told, Gaelithox had never cared much for the taste of men.
They were not appetizing, even if it had never actually eaten one.
Still, this time felt different. This castle, with its bright colors and flimsy-looking walls that seemed as though a single push might topple them, was far more chaotic and disordered than any of the others it had seen before.
The soldiers standing watch on the battlements shook where they stood, and, to the dragon's mild surprise, some even appeared to be moving toward the great scorpion mounted on one of the corner towers.
Ah… those bolts resting on the wooden frame gleamed coldly in the sunlight. They were massive, each one far thicker and longer than the tiny toothpicks that human archers loosed from their bows.
So the dragon thought.
Not that it was ignorant of the world… far from it. The truth was that Clay had raised it far too well. Aside from that brief time in the Three Sisters, when it had been allowed to hunt for itself, there had never been a single meal it had not been fed to fullness.
Clay had never told it what weapons humans possessed that might truly wound it. After all, in all its life, there had been only one occasion when it had seen men bare their blades in its presence, back in Astapor, when those coin-grubbing slave-masters had dared to draw steel against it.
That day, one breath of dragonfire had been enough to turn them all into drifting ash.
And so now, when Gaelithox saw these humans, teeth chattering and limbs trembling, forcing themselves to aim the castle's great scorpion at it, the dragon felt nothing at all.
It was like watching children play with toys. That was all.
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"C-Commander… are we… aimed?"
The soldier wore the surcoat of Starpike, its fabric marked with the sigil of three towers. His face was chalk-white, and his voice shook so badly that the words almost caught in his throat.
Before him stood the commander of the castle guard, a man who reeked of wine, his glassy eyes struggling to focus and his mind clouded by drink. He hiccupped between breaths, yet his gaze burned with a strange, feverish light as he stared out at the dragon beyond the walls.
Muttering under his breath, he said,
"Hss… what a beautiful thing… never in my life have I seen a bird… hic… a bird this big."
"Your granddaddy here just saw it fly right over my head, and now it's landed. Watch me pull out the big spear and pin this thing right into the ground… hic… and then you cowards can have meat to feast on!"
They say wine lends courage to the faint of heart, and there is no truer saying.
There are times when alcohol can turn a man who clings to life into someone reckless enough to try anything, and it had done exactly that to the commander standing before them now.
On any other day, in any other hour, this man was the very picture of a bully who preyed on the weak yet cowered before the strong, the sort whose stomach churned and whose knees buckled at the mere sight of blood.
That he had ever managed to become commander of Starpike's defense, a position that demanded the willingness to face blood and steel, was thanks only to underhanded means best left unspoken.
If time could be turned back, if the men who had once promised him that post were given the chance to decide again, then no matter how many gold dragons they were offered, not one of them would have placed him in that role a second time.
For it was this small, insignificant man who now struck the death knell for the entire castle of Starpike… and for House Peake within its walls.
The reason was simple enough…
One man, too deep in his cups, his senses dulled by the warm haze of drink, had lost the ability to judge distance and size.
To his blurred eyes, the great dragon crouched upon the low hill outside the castle looked like nothing more than a particularly large and beautiful bird.
So the commander mounted the great scorpion on the battlements, eager to show his men a display of his skill at shooting birds from the sky.
Behind him, the common soldiers, their legs shaking so badly that their armor rattled, watched their commander's back with a mixture of disbelief, dread, and an emotion they could not even name.
They glanced from the massive bolt, thicker than any man's arm, to the dragon outside the walls, which lay just barely within the scorpion's maximum range.
Some wanted nothing more than to turn and flee in the opposite direction like the others already abandoning their posts, but when they tried, the drunken fool of a commander drew the longsword from his hip and barred their way.
Slurring through his words, he barked, "Anyone who dares to run… I'll cut you down where you stand!"
Already drained of courage by the dragon's looming presence, the soldiers now found themselves staring at the gleaming edge of a sword waving in the unsteady hands of a drunkard. Not one of them dared to move a step.
Some were close to tears. Others, whose wits had nearly fled entirely, seemed to have given up struggling, and one even gritted his teeth and muttered, "What's there to be afraid of? For all we know, the commander might take it down with a single shot. These scorpions are powerful. I heard from the old veterans that back when the Dornish attacked, these bolts could skewer a warhorse clean through in one strike."
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Out on the castle balcony, Lord Titus Peake had been calling for help for what felt like an eternity, only to realize that no one was coming.
It turned out that the Peake family's household guards were no fools. Most of them had heard the tales of Harrenhal.
The instant Gaelithox appeared, they had understood at once that remaining in a stone castle was far from safe. One breath of dragonfire, and the place would become nothing more than a ready-made oven.
So when someone shouted for them to run, the guards awoke from their stupor as if from a dream and, without a second thought, turned to follow the surging tide of bodies rushing for the gates, pouring out of the castle in blind panic. Not one of them remembered that they had just left a noble lord behind inside.
From his high vantage, Titus Peake could not yet understand why no one had come for him. He looked down at himself and realized, to his growing dismay, that he was clad in nothing but a towel — bare skin and damp cloth, and nothing more.
If he went outside like this, all the dignity and elegance of a nobleman would be utterly ruined.
So, with the kind of clarity that comes when pride overrules fear, he turned to his wife, who was still sitting there, stupefied and pale as a ghost, and slapped her hard across both cheeks, the sharp cracks echoing in the chamber. When her eyes finally focused, he jabbed a finger toward her and ordered her to fetch him clothes at once.
No matter what happens, he thought, never show fear. Always meet the world with a smile, and at all times keep your elegance.
That, at least, was what Lord Peake told himself.
After all, the dragon outside did not seem in any great hurry to breathe fire.
It was then that his gaze swept toward the southeastern corner of the Starpike, and he caught sight of several of his family's soldiers manning the scorpions, their massive arms drawing the bowstrings taut as they aimed directly at the dragon.
The moment he saw them, the cup in his hand slipped from his fingers. It hit the floor with a sharp crack, shattering into glittering shards.
For the space of a heartbeat he stood frozen. Then, abandoning all pretense of poise, Titus Peake drew upon every scrap of breath in his body and bellowed with a voice hoarse and ragged, yet loud enough to shake the walls, at those brainless fools:
"STOP!"
But it was already too late.
The bolt leapt from the scorpion's string with a sound that, to anyone else, might have seemed almost soft, but to Titus Peake's ears, it was as sharp and ominous as the knock of a stranger at one's door in the dead of night.
His gaze followed that bolt as it cut through the air toward the dragon, who until now had been lounging in lazy indifference.
His men had already done something foolish, so all he could do was pray that, somehow, that shot would at least bring some result…
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Gaelithox had been waiting. He had waited to the left, and he had waited to the right, but still no one from the castle had come out bearing food for him.
Truth be told, he was beginning to feel irritated.
That was when he noticed the scorpion aimed squarely at him.
Instinct stirred in his blood, prickling through every nerve, and as the small commander brought his hammer down on the release lever, Gaelithox tilted his neck ever so slightly to one side.
A moment later, a searing, tearing pain ripped through the thin membrane of his wing, the one lined with beautiful scales of blue and gold.
The shot had gone wide, but the sheer force behind it still punched clean through the thin membrane of Gaelithox's wing, leaving behind a small, ragged hole.
For the briefest fraction of a heartbeat, confusion lingered in the dragon's golden eyes… then, in the very next instant, it was swept away, replaced by a fury so vast and violent it seemed to boil the very air around him.
No food was one thing!
But to injure him as well?
That was something no dragon could ever tolerate.
A roar, deep and thunderous, tore through the skies and shook all of the Starpike. The sound was so immense it seemed to make the stone beneath their feet tremble.
The wound, though the size of a man's arm, would not ground him. It hurt… yes, a sharp, stinging ache, but it was nothing more than that.
Gaelithox beat his colossal wings and surged upward, climbing swiftly into the open sky. Survival came first; he had to be sure he was in no immediate danger.
That roar had startled the small commander who had loosed the bolt, shaking him sober as though someone had thrown a bucket of ice water over his head. He stared at the vast shape of the dragon wheeling above, froze for two full seconds, and then let out a shriek that no human throat should have been able to produce.
"AHHH! MONSTER! HELP!"
He had no idea that only moments ago, it was he who had sent a bolt as long and thick as a man straight into that creature's wing.
From the balcony railing, Lord Titus Peake watched the dragon ascend, saw it soar skyward with the grace and power of its kind, utterly unbroken by the shot. The blood drained from his face in an instant.
In that moment, he forgot entirely about dignity or the image of nobility. Clad in nothing but a towel, he shoved past his wife, who had only just returned with his clothes, burst through the door, and fled without a backward glance.
He knew what it meant for a dragon to be wounded yet live. It meant the end of the Starpike was upon them.
For more than a hundred years, the Targaryens had kept dragons. Never once in all those years had a dragon suffered harm and failed to retaliate.
And sure enough, the very next moment proved him right.
Gaelithox climbed high into the heavens, circling over the castle in broad, sweeping arcs. When he saw that the weapon which had wounded him was silent now, with no follow-up strike, the ancient pride and seething rage of his kind filled every fiber of his being.
Heat surged through him, his body temperature rising as fire magic coursed thick and fast through his veins.
The blue-and-gold dragon roared, the sound echoing like rolling thunder, and with a single mighty sweep of wings that blotted out the sun, he folded into a dive.
His first target was clear… the scorpion that had sent its bolt into his wing.
His jaws opened wide, revealing row upon row of terrible teeth, and from deep within his chest he unleashed a torrent of flame, thick and furious, that poured forth like a river of molten light.
There was a single deafening crash. The wooden scorpion, along with the soldiers who manned it atop their high platform, vanished almost instantly into ash.
The sheer destructive force of dragonfire shattered the great stone tower beneath. Cracks spiderwebbed through its surface, and in moments the structure gave way, collapsing inward from the heart of the ruin.
The smell of char and smoke spread throughout the castle in only a few breaths, sharp and acrid, clawing at every throat.
Everywhere, people stood frozen, staring wide-eyed at the sight before them.
A dragon!
A storm of flame!
Billowing black smoke!
Together, they painted a vision of hell!
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[Chapter End's]
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