GOT : All Left Behind

"Your advantage cannot be emulated. Do not be afraid to use it."

Ecologically, estuaries were a beautiful thing. Saltwater met fresh, their currents mingling and swirling together, two distinctly different systems colliding and creating something greater than either could be on their own. Fish from river and ocean both called those waters home, and both prospered. And where animals prospered, so did man.

The town at the mouth of the Torrentine was just one example of this. On both the east and west banks of the river, houses and hovels alike clustered around an imposingly large guard tower. But not equally. 

The closest were the manses, large and made to house the wealthiest merchants and the odd member of the lower nobility, built from bricks of local red stone. Surrounding them were the workshop-homes of the craftsmen, their walls a red far browner than their neighbors'. The hovels, by contrast, rarely even had walls of brick, instead being the deep brown of mud hardened by the harsh heat of the Dornish sun.

Had I had more time, I would have loved to spend more time observing it, theorizing, drawing conclusions, and testing them. Alas, I did not have that luxury. I needed to act, after all. A pair of towers at the mouth of a river could all too easily disguise a chain boom that would block off the harbor.

If the towers could raise that chain, any naval attack of the harbors lining the river's banks would fail. My task was clear.

No, not my task.

Our task.

The world exploded as our awareness grew, our forms dropping from the sky in a steep dive. The wind howled around us, whipping at plate and scales alike and finding purchase on neither. Blue water, green grass, and the many brown and red tones of the city all rushed up to meet us, but our target remained solidly beneath us: the western tower at the mouth of the river. One of the boom towers.

We spread our wings a few seconds before impact, slowing down just enough to keep our smaller half from being harmed, and slammed into the side of the squat tower. The stones refused to yield to brute strength, holding firm to the impact but unable to stop us from tearing great gouges in the outer walls and flooding the interior with our flame.

It had been the work of a moment, and one quickly repeated.

We took to the skies as the first tower crumbled behind us, launching ourselves at its twin across the river.

Less than a minute later and the second tower was reduced to slag, much as the first, the walls of red stone glowing as brightly as the fires of the forge. Stone liquified, flowing like water as the walls collapsed. Within, the guards met a fate our smaller half would not wish upon any creature upon this earth.

But they had joined their town guard. They were soldiers. It was a military target, and we should not hesitate to strike.

The squat tower collapsed in on itself, and we took to the skies once more.

As we circled the town, the ships of the Ironborn streamed upriver. A small number, enough to blockade the docks but no more than that, struck the eastern half of the city. On the western half, however, where most of the buildings - including a small keep - were, the brunt of the fleet landed. Not just at the docks, no, but on every exposed inch of shoreline. Then, when there was no more shoreline, they docked with one another, forming a make-shift bridge of ships to get their troops onto land.

So far, all was going according to plan. That meant we had to begin our second phase. Namely, the bridge across the Torrentine, that solid construction of stone and timber. Even from a distance, it looked wide enough to handle at least two wagons side by side, three if they were especially slim.

We dropped from the sky, our form aiming for the bridge. Our wings spread at the last minute, slowing our fall as we bathed the crossing in pale green flame. Even before the next beat of our wings took up back to the skies, we saw it begin to fail. The timber took first, catching alight. Without the support they provided, the stone body of the bridge could not support itself.

The sounds of stone hitting water reached us within seconds. A brief glance once we had regained altitude confirmed what we already knew: where there was once a bridge, there now was none. The defenders of the town upon the Torrentine's mouth were split in half, with the western half kept busy by some of the less courteous Ironborn while the east was overrun by the rest of my army.

We, however, remained in the air.

No matter how much one, or rather both, of our halves wished to indulge in battle on the ground, we were better served in the air. Especially since our smaller half was so much more vulnerable than the larger half. And since the bulk of our forces were still making their way through the streets.

We were content to circle the town as we watched the world below. There was little we could do to help without setting the houses aflame, and our walking half was hesitant to allow it. Aside, mayhaps, from striking the keep. We wanted its leader alive, some demand of our smaller half's father. Any attack on said leader's home would need precision and restraint.

Those were words only rarely applied to dragons and their riders.

As much as our greater half wanted to bring fire and death to the vermin, our smaller half demurred. Thus, we circled for a while longer, carefully watching the scene beneath us unfold. The great sea of Ironborn warriors expanded outwards from the western docks, rapidly flowing deeper and deeper into the town like a flooded river. Their eastern counterparts held firm, as was expected of them.

Our smaller half felt a measure of satisfaction at that. They held, despite the dangers. They held and did their task, slowly beating back the weaker flank of the enemy while the western did the important work.

As if on cue, a tiny black shape fluttered across our view. At first, we assumed it to be an arrow, fired upon us by a defender with poor prioritization skills. But then it changed course. We saw it flap its wings, and knew it was no mere arrow. This was a raven, one of the ubiquitous messenger birds of Westeros.

We roasted it before it had made it a dozen yards. Should word get out of our presence, this invasion would become an unmitigated disaster.

That was when we saw a second raven. And a third. And fourth, fifth, and sixth.

And wondered why the archers among the Ironborn were not doing their assigned task. They were archers, and these were important targets outside of melee range. Why were they not doing their task?

A blast of green fire reduced the birds to ash before they could get far, but our irritation still mounted. The Ironborn should have shot them down before they even got this high into the sky. If this continued, we might have to strike the keep itself to prevent the messages from getting out. But we needed to take said keep intact.

Quite the conundrum.

Luckily, there was an easy solution: restraint. Well, not quite. Really, we just had to be careful where we attacked. By circling the keep which guarded the city, by watching and learning from which part of the keep the ravens were leaving, we could identify our target.

After another three birds met their doom trying to escape us, we narrowed down their source: a small tower that rose from the corner of the keep's wall. The maester's tower, it had to be.

We dove down, bathing it and a fair section of the wall in green flame for a few brief seconds. While the flame alone was insufficient to bring it down with so little exposure, the impact of us landing against it sent chunks of stone raining to the ground. An instant later, we leaped from the tower to the keep itself, and the tower finally collapsed.

But we wasted no time admiring our handiwork. Instead, we turned our flame to the walls, sparsely defended as they were. Those few guards were quickly relieved of their duty as green flames washed over them. Even after such a brief exposure, the stone was already aglow, the crenelations warping from the heat.

In the yard below, what guard remained turned to look up at us. They were few in number, but we could see the gleam of mail on many of them, could smell their desperation as they realized just whom they faced. These were knights, men-at-arms, men who knew how to fight. And they knew they were outmatched. But were they wise?

"We suggest you surrender," our smaller half called out, voice unnaturally flat. "The lives of the people in this town depend on it."

...

Hey guys I really need you to throw some power stones to elevate the ranking :)

...

If you want to read ahead of the public release, or just want to support me.

you can join my p atreon :

[email protected]/Nolma