Land of the King
Chapter 57: Fall
It had not been long before the Valyrians arrived. The moment she had learned of the situation, Jaenara had saddled Terrax as quickly as she could and then took off into the sky. They had taken off into a battlefield.
In the skies above the entire archipelago, the last reserves of Valyria waged a punishing battle against the Arnorian defenders entrenched and dug into the mountainous islands. Jaenara watched as the dragons attempted to burn out the defenders in the fortress, but black stone was impervious even to dragonfire. Nestled in their protective cocoon, the defenders fought back, unleashing devastating volleys of arrows, bolts, and spouts of water.
Battle hardened from two years of war however, the dragonlords easily evaded and dodged the Arnorian attacks before diving down to blast the defenders with more and more fire and then pulling up before they got too close. While black stone was impervious to dragonfire, the humans it protected were not and the heat could still affect them. Jaenara knew she had to intervene.
No less than nine enemy dragons and their riders flew in the sky above the island, yet for Jaenara, fighting with nine-to-one odds was hardly new. She had long since learned to never let herself be pinned down. Terrax and she danced in the skies with their foe, weaving in and out between blasts of dragonfire, spouts of water, and endless volleys of arrows and bolts.
As Terrax unleashed a new round of flames in the sky, the nine opposing dragons evaded with ease but their manoeuvre had distracted them long enough for the Arnorians to land some hits on them.
In front of her, whips of water conjured by a water mage had risen from the sea and had grabbed hold of one dragon, a grey-white that she did not recognise, but before it could be dragged into the sea to drown, the drake expertly bellowed a great flame that boiled through the whips and severed it, freeing itself. Yet that freedom was short-lived.
The moment Jaenara had seen the dragon caught with the whips, she had known how it would free itself, having seen the Valyrians do it many, many times. Sensing his master's intent, Terrax had risen high before folding his wings and diving down upon the distracted and doomed beast and its rider.
It happened in an instant in reality, but perhaps Jaenara's enhanced senses and adrenaline-pumped blood vessels had made it seem much longer. With cold-hearted ruthlessness, Terrax incinerated the grey-white's rider before his claws landed and tore into its wings and his massive sword-long teeth sank into its neck.
With a savage crack, Terrax, much larger and powerful than his victim, bit almost cleanly through the grey-white's neck even as his claws practically tore off its wings. Gravity did the rest and just as quickly as it had all begun, Terrax unfolded his wings and took off back into the air, his take-off pushing the carcass of his defeated foe down before it crashed into the sea.
'I'm sorry,' Jaenara apologised briefly to the dragon and rider she and Terrax had just brutally murdered. Though they were sworn enemies now, there was once a time that Jaenara would have proudly flown alongside the grey-white and its rider and Jaenara mourned the loss of another countryman in this endless war.
The remaining eight Valyrian dragonlords and their mounts, all of whom were smaller than Terrax, gave the pair a wide berth after witnessing their comrades be destroyed. Jaenara had hoped that the display of power would have frightened the remaining eight into fleeing, sparing her the task of killing more of her former countrymen, but they refused to retreat and she resigned herself to her task, urging Terrax higher into the sky to choose her next target.
A great and powerful roar sounded then, shaking the very foundations of the fortress Jaenara was defending, and alerting all in the area to the presence of a newcomer. Terrax responded with his own earth-shattering roar, having recognised the roar and accepted the challenge.
Jaenara's gaze turned to the northeast, where a familiar red dragon approached and she felt a pit in her stomach. She knew that dragon, and she knew its rider all too well. Aelyx had come.
The doors of the council room opened and Ciryaher looked up from the sea of maps on the table to see the messenger entering.
"Prince Ciryaher, we've just received orders from Vinyambar over the glass candle!" the messenger announced, handing him a piece of paper.
Ciryaher nodded to the courier. "Thank you," he replied neutrally. At that the courier quickly bowed and took his leave, and Ciryaher read the note. As he read the orders, Ciryaher's frown grew before he crumpled the paper and set it on the table, his hands balled in a fist.
"Your Highness?" the generals asked. The war council had been called after word had come of the Valyrian offensive into the Stepstones, and now Ciryaher's options were limited by orders from on top.
"His Majesty has reported that the situation in the Stepstones is more dire than we thought. It is believed to be only a matter of days until they fall. We are to alleviate the situation by opening a second front in Essos, preferably with a push toward Myr."
None spoke at that, perhaps having sensed his mood. He preferred it that way. As the war had dragged on and eaten away at them all, Ciryaher had found that he much preferred the precious few moments of silence, where he could be left alone to think without worrying about the death and carnage that he had seen, that he ordered his men into. Yet war waited for no one, and he turned his attention back to the orders they had received.
Ciryaher wondered what his father was thinking. A push toward Myr now was suicidal. Ciryaher had tried for two years to retake Myr and he had never succeeded. The nature of their anti-dragon weaponry did not lend itself well to offensive attacks on the enemy as a great deal of time was needed to fortify and set up their positions to fight dragons. When it came to offensives, Arnor had to advance carefully, often with the use of rangers to snipe their enemy and even that was difficult because the Valyrians had a tendency of burning the terrain in its entirety to flush them out.
"Any ideas on how we go about carrying out the King's orders?" Ciryaher asked, giving his subordinates permission to speak.
"A push by land would not be wise Your Highness, the Valyrians would see us coming from miles away and their dragons would reduce us to ashes. The Flatlands are not a good place to lead an offensive against dragons from."
"I am well aware of that General. Yet these are orders, we must alleviate the situation in the Stepstones, and the only way is through an attack. If the King commands it, then we can only obey."
"Your Highness, if I may? I believe I might have a less… drastic solution to our problem, and we could potentially not only relieve the Stepstones, but also seize Myr in the process."
Ciryaher turned to the officer who had spoken. A young man who was merely an attendant to one of the generals. Under normal circumstances, Ciryaher would have rejected it outright but war called for innovation and he would hear the young officer's plan, anything was better than suicidally marching south across the open and exposed Flatlands to Myr.
"You may Lieutenant…?" Ciryaher gave his permission, asking for his name as he did so.
"Darklyn, Your Highness. Lieutenant Darkyln, from Morlond. Minimal relation to Lord Darklyn, he's my second cousin," the man answered, pre-emptively answering Ciryaher's next question, his relation to the Lord of Duskendale, while he was at it.
"Very well then Lieutenant Darklyn, let's hear your plan."
"Thank you Your Highness. As the General mentioned, any land attack would have to cross all the way over the Flatlands to march to Myr. With the enemy having dragons, such a march would be nothing short of suicidal without any major rivers to provide enough water support. Any attempt to take Myr that way would no doubt end in failure. What if we didn't have to do it that way?"
One of the officers said dismissively, "If there was, we would have thought of it earlier."
"You did, but the Valyrian control of Tyrosh ensured the plan was never feasible. I propose that we send a fleet out from the Bay of Pentos and sail right into the Sea of Myrth to take the city by sea like we did when the war first began. If the Valyrians are launching a full scale assault on the Stepstones, the majority of their dragons will be concentrated there, and not in Myr or Tyrosh. Furthermore, I suggest that we send a secondary force by land to serve as decoys."
"Are you suggesting that we send an entire army to die?"
"No. Dragons are powerful and they can fly but not even they can cover the entirety of the Flatlands easily. Our reports indicate that Myr is currently under-garrisoned with dragons while the bulk of their power is concentrated in the assault they are unleashing on the Stepstones. I propose that rather than marching as one contiguous army, this secondary force be split up into several smaller parties that will raid and skirmish as they move south. The Valyrians will be forced to deploy dragons from Myr to hunt down our raiding parties, and that will give the fleet an opening to take the city."
"What if the Valyrians don't bite the bait? What if they just sit pretty in Myr and wait for our land armies to arrive?" Ciryaher asked, speaking for the first time since he had given Lieutenant Darklyn permission to speak.
"I do not think that will be possible, Your Highness. Our forces will have orders to burn the countryside and destroy the roads. If the Valyrians do not sally out, they and the city will starve. What's more, the civilian population might start rioting if nothing is done. Myr has always been close to rebellion since the Valyrians burned the city at the start of the war. Even if they do not act and the Valyrians remain in Myr or some reinforcements from Tyrosh notice our fleet passing by, the Valyrians will be forced to respond anyway and that will have accomplished our original orders from the King, even if we failed to take Myr," Lieutenant Darklyn answered.
"Thank you for your suggestion Lieutenant Darklyn. And what are my ranking officers' thoughts on the Lieutenant's plan?"
"It has some merit Your Highness," Lord General Mooton said.
"More planning is needed but I believe it could work," Admiral Arendil answered.
"Very well then. Let's get to planning it in detail," Ciryaher approved of the plan, secretly hoping he hadn't just agreed to send countless men to their deaths.
When the meeting had concluded and the plans finalised, Ciryaher's thoughts drifted to the message that had sparked the whole thing. The only reason why messages like those could be transmitted and received was because the glass candles that Ciryaher had sent back to Arnor all those years ago had borne fruit. It hadn't been like that at first however. At first the Arnorians had been completely at a loss on how on earth the Valyrians had made the candles. It had not been until Jaenara had defected and given her aid, that they had figured out how to reverse-engineer the candles as well as link them with their palantiri.
Though they had only small numbers of them at the moment, there were already far more than the palantiri and it eased their communications. Ciryaher was already dreaming of a future where the entirety of Arnor and its military could easily communicate instantaneously with an arsenal of mass-produced glass candles underneath the umbrella of the more powerful palantiri and this dream was all possible only because of Jaenara.
Jaenara, the dragonlord who had befriended his little brother in Sothoryos. When he had first heard that story all those years ago when Túrin had reported back to them, he had thought his brother foolish for befriending and possibly falling in love with a dragonlord, if their father's suspicions had been correct. Now however, Ciryaher could only thank Eru that Túrin had reached out to a lonely and torn girl.
She had come through for his brother at his darkest hour, when Aragost and their father had chosen to sacrifice him and Ciryaher had written saving him off as a lost cause. Jaenara had given his brother back to him, and she would always have his eternal respect and gratitude for it.
They had yet to meet in person, but when the war was over, CIryaher looked forward to meeting her. Someday soon, when all of this came to an end. The Second Prince of Arnor could feel it in his bones, the end of the war was nigh.
Seeing Aelyx astride his dragon, Arrax, brought back old memories for Jaenara.
Years ago, her brother Aelyx had attempted to bond with Terrax upon the death of their grandfather. As the new heir of the family, Aelyx had felt entitled to ride the greatest dragon in the family, and with his father riding the blue Tyrax, the second-largest of their dragons, their hold on the leadership of the family would have been unchallenged.
Terrax had chosen differently however and had flown halfway across the city to bond with Aelyx's bastard halfblood sister instead. For all the love he may have once bore her, Jaenara had always suspected that in the depth of his heart, Aelyx had never forgiven her for that.
The mount that Aelyx had ended up choosing in the stead of Terrax had been mighty and impressive in his own right however. Arrax, the younger brother of Terrax and Tyrax. The great beast was only the third-largest dragon in the family, but what he lacked in size compared to his larger and older brothers, he more than made up for in ferocity and aggression. Despite his age, the great dragon had had only one rider before Aelyx because bonding to and controlling him was so difficult. Aelyx had needed a dragonhorn to help do it but once he had, he had earned the dragon's respect and it had become fiercely loyal, if not wholly obedient, to him.
Aelyx had of course taken Arrax to war and from the first battle at Tyrosh to now, the dragon had been by his side in every battle he had fought. The beast was well known by now and had never been shot down. Even when suffering injuries that would have grounded most any other dragon, the ferocious war beast had refused to back down and had continued fighting even as its scales turned even more red with its own blood. This bloodlike appearance of Arrax and his flames had led to the dragon being dubbed the Blood Wyrm by the Arnorian soldiers in the Stepstones.
The Blood Wyrm and its rider had become infamous on the battlefield, known for destroying entire fleets and turning the tide of whole battles with a ruthless and cold-hearted efficiency, as if they had a personal vendetta, which Jaenara knew they did, the memory of her goodsister coming to mind briefly. His ruthlessness and fury, his sheer determination and power, and his and his dragon's will to bathe in the blood of themselves and their enemies alike had earned her brother his own name to go alongside that of his mount. The name of Aelyx the Crimson was known on both sides of the Narrow Sea now and his reputation was so well known, that many believed that facing him was akin to staring Death in the eye.
It was that Arrax and Aelyx that challenged Terrax and Jaenara now. She had encountered her brother and his ferocious mount on many occasions during the war, but she had always been able to win their engagements or stalemate them with sufficient guile and support, and a good bit of running(flying?) from every engagement.
But this time… Jaenara turned back to see the fort, the other eight dragons continued their assault on it, relentlessly battering and blasting at the defenders.
'Túrin is there as well,' she thought to herself. Her brother had chosen their battlefield well. With her allies and home base at risk, Jaenara couldn't run and she had nowhere to run to either. Aelyx had pinned her down and forced her to finally face him properly.
"There's nowhere for you to run to now Jaenara!" Aelyx shouted before Arrax let loose a torrent of crimson flames.
Swerving out of the way, Jaenara urged Terrax into a climb, seeking to gain the advantage of height. Aelyx seemed to spot it however, and their climb was blocked by a massive blast of scarlet fire that was so hot, Jaenara could feel the heat even dozens of feet away from it.
With Terrax shying away from the flames, Jaenara urged him around and at her command the aged dragon unleashed his own fire, a furious bronze-gold blaze that injured the right wing of Arrax.
Against any lesser dragon, that injury would have seen them plummeting to the ground but Jaenara saw first-hand now that Arrax's berserker reputation had been well earned as the dragon shrugged off its injury and continued relentlessly pursuing and attacking them and they continuously evaded and counter attacked.
Jaenara hated to admit it, but they were outmatched. Terrax was huge but he was also old. Though still ferocious in battle, he was slow and ponderous and had become increasingly sluggish since he had first bonded with her. Shortly before the war, it had been predicted that Terrax might live for perhaps another three decades at most, but Jaenara realised now that lifespan might have been shortened by the exhausting war she had put him through.
Compared to Arrax who was younger and in the prime of his life, Terrax was like an old warrior whose age was starting to undermine him. But it hadn't crippled him yet. Jaenara was determined not to lose here.
"I'm sorry Terrax. One more, one more battle for this war and you can rest," Jaenara told her beloved friend and mount. She didn't know if the war would end soon as her gut told her, but she did know that for good or for ill, this would probably be the last time Terrax would ever be able to fight like this. It was time to end their dance of dragons.
"Dracarys!" she ordered and Terrax obeyed, letting loose a torrent right for Arrax's weak spot.
One of the very first lessons Jaenara had learned about dragonriding had been years ago under her father's tutelage. It had been before her mother had thrown herself off that balcony, a time when Jaenara had still had the rosy naïve belief that she could have both her Arnorian and Valyrian heritages and families in full.
Aerion Belaerys had given his daughter an important lesson that she had never forgotten and had used to devastating effect in the war. He had asked her a simple question, 'What is the weak spot of a dragon?'. Jaenara, having grown up with the stories of the Silmarillion, had foolishly answered 'Its underbelly.' Her father had given her an unimpressed look and told her to think about her answer some more.
A distraught and upset young Jaenara had gone outside to brood and comfort herself in the soothing heat her dragon, Terrax, had emanated. As she did so, she had inspected every inch of her dragon, or at least the parts that he was willing to show to her, as the lazy lizard had been lazing on the floor, before she returned to her father.
'It's the eyes,' she had said, feeling triumphant and pleased with her certainly correct answer. After all, where else was a dragon weak? A near impenetrable armour of scales covered almost every inch of Terrax and any other dragon's body. Almost every inch that is, except for their eyes.
Her father had smiled at her, 'Good answer. And if you asked almost anyone else it would be the right one. But it isn't the right answer.'
Jaenara had been quite upset. She had thought and brooded for hours, even tiringly inspecting Terrax for any weak spots only for her father to effectively tell her that her answer was not satisfactory? Her anger was dispelled instantly however, when her father had revealed what the true answer was.
'The real weak spot of a dragon my dear Jaenara, is its rider. You cannot think of them as separate. As a horseman would tell you that he and his horse must act as one, so must a dragonlord and their dragon. And a dragon's rider is its greatest weakness because no matter how much we armour them or chain them to their mount, they will always be vulnerable, both to the arrows of lesser men and to the flames of other dragons. And yet they are also a dragon's greatest strength, a partner that guides them in battle and leads them to victory. Just as we dragonlords are incomplete without our amazing mounts, so too are dragons incomplete without a wise and capable rider.'
'That's why,' her father had said as he kneeled down and put his hands on her shoulders, 'if ever you are forced to fight against another dragon and their rider, aim for their weakness, and strike true.'
She had never thought that she would see the day she would apply that lesson of her father's on her own brother, but she had no choice. Forcing herself to let go of her attachment to her brother, Jaenara ordered Terrax to unleash a blaze on her brother to kill him, yet even now she still hoped that Aelyx evaded the blast and survived, she didn't know if she could live with knowing she had killed her own brother.
To her shock and horror, Arrax and Aelyx showed no sign of dodging and when Terrax's jet of bronze-gold flames came near, the Blood Wyrm met them with his own crimson. For a few brief moments, the flames of the two dragons were locked in a violent push against the other, blood-red and crimson swirling and mixing with bronze and gold before Arrax charged and closed the distance between them, bellowing a massive blast that burned Terrax's eyes away.
"Terrax!" Jaenara shouted in concern for her dragon as he shrieked in pain. To her horror however, that distraction had allowed Arrax and Aelyx to lock onto them, and the two dragon and rider pairs grappled in the sky, beginning to plummet down to the water as the wings of both dragons ceased beating properly as they tried to kill the other. Without his eyes, Terrax was at a disadvantage, one that proved to be fatal when Arrax bit into his neck and began savagely biting at it as his claws began tearing away at Terrax's scales and flesh all over various parts of his body.
Perhaps it was because of the strong bond between them, but Jaenara felt every injury that Terrax suffered as though it was her own body that was being bitten at and torn apart.
In the chaos of their mid-air battle, Jaenara had failed to notice that some of her saddle chains had come loose and as Arrax held them both down as they fell, the same gravity that had once assisted her would now be her doom.
She turned to her brother, just a few feet above, as his dragon continued to tear and hack away at Terrax. It was the closest she had been to her brother, both physically and emotionally since the moment she had left him.
"Please," she begged him, begged for any single shred of mercy he might have, thinking of every memory, both good and bad, that they had shared together in her desperation.
"Jaenara," her brother said.
Hope filled her heart when she saw her brother's remorse and hesitation writ all over his face, but as soon as it came, it was burnt away when she saw a single tear escaping from his eyes, his gaze becoming cold and ruthless. She knew then that she would have no mercy from her brother.
"Fall."
She slipped out of the last chain keeping her tied to Terrax and the world slowed. Every second was like an eternity as she plummeted from the sky, seeing the cold merciless look in her brother's eyes as he and Arrax tore Terrax apart. As he watched her fall to her almost certain death.
As gravity dragged her down, Jaenara could think of only one thing. Her brother's last word to her, 'Fall.' And she did.