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POV: 3rd person
Then the air split open.
RROOOAAARRR!
The sound was not merely heard it was felt. It rattled shields, shook the marrow of men's bones, and froze every warhorse mid-step. The heavens themselves seemed to shudder as the shadow fell across the battlefield.
From the clouds it came, wings vast enough to blot the sun, scales black as midnight but glimmering like molten steel where the light struck. A great dragon, older and larger than any seen in living memory. Its eyes burned like twin furnaces of hate and hunger.
"By the gods…" a Stormlander whispered, his spear lowering against his will. Even the Durrandon lines, hardened by years of battle, faltered as awe took them.
The beast's maw opened wide and fire poured forth. Not gold, not red, but black. A torrent of flame darker than shadow, hotter than any forge.
It swept across the front ranks of the Valyrian host, and in the space of a heartbeat, hundreds were gone. Shields and flesh alike melted into nothingness.
The disciplined formation of the New Valyrian legions shattered into chaos. Men screamed and burned alive, their armor fused to their bones. Horses shrieked as they reared, trampling their own riders in panic.
Still the fire raged, leaving only a charred scar of ash and bone where once had stood the proud vanguard of the Empire.
Above it all, the dragon wheeled, vast wings stirring a storm wind that tore through banners and bent trees. Its shadow swept once more across both armies, blotting the battlefield into twilight.
And on its back, high in a saddle of black and crimson, rode a figure out of myth. His armor gleamed with Valyrian steel, worked into the forms of scaled wyrms and snarling drakes. Upon his back whipped a crimson cloak, snapping in the wind like wings of its own.
Aegon Targaryen, the last true Dragonlord, had come.
The cheers of the Stormlanders rose, raw and desperate, as men lifted their spears high in sudden hope. Across the field, the soldiers of the New Valyrian Empire broke into cries of fear, commanders shouting futile orders as they tried to hold the line.
The battle was no longer one of men against men.
It was men against the wrath of old Valyria and it had found its daughters wanting.
The dragon's shadow swept wide across the plain, blotting out the sun as Balerion wheeled above. The ground itself quaked when his wings beat, the wind tearing standards from their poles and scattering them like leaves in a storm.
The New Valyrian legions, drilled and hardened, tried to hold. Commands were shouted in High Valyrian, horns brayed, shields locked tight but discipline faltered beneath the rain of black fire.
Men burned where they stood, armor glowing red before it melted into their flesh. Entire cohorts broke and scattered, their formations undone in moments.
Yet even amidst the carnage, the legions did not wholly crumble. From the rear, their captains drove them forward with whips and curses. New banners surged ahead, crimson serpents and silver wyverns snapping in the rising heat. The Empire had not bled this far into the Disputed Lands to yield so quickly.
On the Stormlander side, Argilac's men stared upward in awe and horror. To see a dragon was to look upon a living nightmare, a tale from the old age of fire and doom. Some whispered prayers, some gripped their spears tighter, while others simply froze, unable to reconcile the sight before them.
But Argilac Durrandon was no man to cower. The Storm King stood tall upon his horse, his warcloak snapping in the wind, and raised his sword high.
"STAND YOUR GROUND!" he roared, his voice cutting through fire and fear alike. "The dragon is ours! Push them into its flame!"
The command rippled down the line. Stormlanders, hardened by a lifetime of war along the borders, lowered their spears and advanced. For the first time in the war, the legions of the New Valyrian Empire found themselves pressed between hammer and anvil—black fire above and Stormlander steel before.
Still, the field was chaos. Smoke and fire rolled like waves. The roar of the dragon drowned out the clash of arms. Every man knew: this was no longer a battle to be won by blades alone.
The dragon's shadow swept wide across the plain, blotting out the sun as Balerion wheeled above. The ground itself quaked when his wings beat, the wind tearing standards from their poles and scattering them like leaves in a storm.
The New Valyrian legions, drilled and hardened, tried to hold. Commands were shouted in High Valyrian, horns brayed, shields locked tight—but discipline faltered beneath the rain of black fire. Men burned where they stood, armor glowing red before it melted into their flesh. Entire cohorts broke and scattered, their formations undone in moments.
Yet even amidst the carnage, the legions did not wholly crumble. From the rear, their captains drove them forward with whips and curses. New banners surged ahead, crimson serpents and silver wyverns snapping in the rising heat. The Empire had not bled this far into the Disputed Lands to yield so quickly.
On the Stormlander side, Argilac's men stared upward in awe and horror. To see a dragon was to look upon a living nightmare, a tale from the old age of fire and doom. Some whispered prayers, some gripped their spears tighter, while others simply froze, unable to reconcile the sight before them.
But Argilac Durrandon was no man to cower. The Storm King stood tall upon his horse, his warcloak snapping in the wind, and raised his sword high.
"STAND YOUR GROUND!" he roared, his voice cutting through fire and fear alike. "The dragon is ours! Push them into its flame!"
The command rippled down the line. Stormlanders, hardened by a lifetime of war along the borders, lowered their spears and advanced. For the first time in the war, the legions of the New Valyrian Empire found themselves pressed between hammer and anvil—black fire above and Stormlander steel before.
Still, the field was chaos. Smoke and fire rolled like waves. The roar of the dragon drowned out the clash of arms. Every man knew: this was no longer a battle to be won by blades alone.
It was a battle to be dictated by Dragons.
---
Ash crunched beneath iron-shod hooves.
Argilac Durrandon rode at the head of his party, his cloak of stormcloud black and crowned stag snapping faintly in the acrid breeze. Beside him rode his most trusted captains, behind them their personal guards. But no one spoke.
The battlefield that had been a sea of green only hours before was now unrecognizable. Grasslands and fertile hills lay blackened to stone, the earth itself seared and glassy in places. Spears jutted like twisted grave-markers, their shafts half-charred. Armor sagged in molten clumps, some still housing skeletons blackened to brittle charcoal, others collapsed into nothing more than heaps of ash where men once stood.
The horses picked their way nervously through the ruin, ears flat, snorting, eyes rolling white. Several tried to shy, but their riders forced them forward with clenched jaws and iron grips.
None of the hardened warriors among them had ever seen such devastation. Many had fought pirates, raiders, even foreign sellswords. None had ridden through a field where an entire army had been erased as if by the hand of some wrathful god.
What disturbed them most was not the sight, but the silence.
No carrion birds circled. No groans of the wounded drifted up. No clash of arms echoed over the hills. It was as if a great shroud had fallen, muting the world to stillness. Even from their own camp, the sounds of celebration seemed distant, muffled, unnatural.
Argilac's gaze caught on a banner in the distance a dragon, half-burnt, its crimson threads charred black. The pole still stood, driven deep into ashen soil, but the legionary who had borne it was gone. All that remained was a half-melted gauntlet, still clutching wood now blackened and brittle.
The Storm King's lips tightened. Even he could not disguise the chill running down his spine.
Then the ground trembled.
The horses skittered, whinnying, ears flat in terror. Dust drifted from scorched stone as the earth shivered again an impact, heavy and deliberate.
Another step.
From the pall of smoke, it emerged.
The dragon.
Balerion was beyond mortal measure. His shadow swallowed them whole as he came forward, wings partially folded, the ground quaking beneath talons the size of carts.
His head alone dwarfed any beast Argilac had known larger than a war-elephant, his teeth long and black as swords, his horns sweeping back to form the cruel crown of some nightmare king.
His scales glistened black, drinking in the faint light, yet at the edges smoldered with a dull red glow, as if fire itself bled beneath them. His eyes, burning coals of hateful red, fixed upon the riders below—cold, unreadable, ancient.
And there, standing at his side as though before no more than a trained destrier, was Aegon Targaryen.
The Dragonlord's cloak snapped lazily in the heated wind, black and crimson. His hand, pale and steady, stroked the monstrous chin of the beast, each casual motion a display of dominance over fire and death itself.
His gaze lifted to the Stormlanders at last, lips curved in the faintest hint of amusement as though he watched children stumble into his court.
Curiosity lingered in his violet eyes, but no warmth.
Here stood the last Dragonlord the true blood of old Valyria, and Argilac Durrandon, the Storm King meet that gaze.
Argilac Durrandon and Aegon Targaryen stared at one another black eyes meeting violet.
A man of storms and a man of fire and blood.
The air between them was thick, charged, as if the sky itself held its breath. Horses shifted uneasily, hooves scraping the ashen ground.
Yet their fear was not of kings or lords, but of the great shadow looming behind Aegon the dragon whose eyes still glowed like banked coals.
It was Argilac who broke the silence first.
"You and I know who we are," he said, his voice low, a rumble like distant thunder, the warning of an oncoming storm. "So let us drop the pleasantries, Lord of Dragonstone."
Aegon inclined his head, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "Agreed. Then let us make this brief. You received my raven you know the plan."
"I did," Argilac replied bluntly, his jaw tight. "And I do."
The silence returned, heavier this time. Neither man looked away, each measuring the other, each refusing to yield ground. Behind them, men shifted in their saddles, fingers tightening on reins, while Balerion's slow breath rumbled like a forge in the distance.
It was Aegon who spoke next, violet eyes glinting.
"Then, Storm King, I would ask—shall I rest in your camp? Or must I sleep beside my dragon?" His smirk was subtle, but deliberate, a needle to test Argilac's temper.
Argilac exhaled through his nose, a sound halfway between a scoff and a laugh. He turned his horse with a tug of the reins.
"Come then. Break bread with me." His tone was steady, unflinching, but edged. "But if your beast kills any of my men…" He let the words hang for a beat, the stormcloud promise behind them clear. "I'll have words with thee."
Without another glance, the Storm King spurred his horse forward. His men followed, still casting wary eyes over their shoulders at the red gaze of Balerion, who watched them depart in silence, smoke curling from his jaws like the breath of a slumbering mountain.
---
Targaryen Histories: Writings of Historitor Harry Sevenstar
Aegon Targaryen, primarch of the Second Legion, first proved himself in war upon the fields of the Disputed Lands, along the contested border of the Free City of Lys.
There, for the first time since the Doom of Valyria, dragonfire was unleashed upon the armies of men.
Mounted upon Balerion who had not yet earned the name he would bear for centuries Aegon descended from the heavens and annihilated the New Valyrian Legion, turning the tide of battle and, in so doing, preserved the host of Argilac Durrandon, Storm King of Westeros.
It is written that after the battle, the two kings met only six more times throughout the course of that long and bitter war.
Yet those six meetings, brief though they were, would change the course of history for the entire world.