Author's Note: Some of you guys pointed out the obvious issues of combat from dragonback and you're absolutely right and I wanted Aegor to discover those problems somewhat organically. So don't worry, he's going to quickly discover that his best work might MAYBE work on something the size of Urrax, but will never work on anything larger. Honestly it always confused me how once dragon riding started in Dragonlance they were ever able to use weapons. It would definitely be kind of similar to Eragon where only spells really worked from dragon back. And there aren't any spells here.
Also apologies that this took longer than expected. Instead of my normal amount of work this last few months we had a teacher out for paternity leave and another couple get various flus so I've had many more interactive lessons to teach as opposed to a normal week where half my lessons are babysitting kids doing worksheets or computer work and I can kinda chill a bit. I certainly prefer actually getting to teach of course, but it definitely cuts in on writing time!
Chapter 4:
Aegor sat in his chambers surrounded by parchment. The few books the Grand Maester had let him take out of his sight, scores of pages of notes from the books he would not, and dozens of pages of his new scribbles trying to work out his problem both by word and drawing.
It was seemingly insurmountable. Sure he could make a polearm that would work on Urrax right now. But even at the size of Meleys it would become unwieldable due to the dragon's own size. The only option would be to fly upside down over a target and hook them from above essentially.
Wanting to test the theory Aegor had tried to see how long he could fly upside down on Urrax the previous day, luckily a proper dragon saddle had straps, but his blood flow had been a menace almost immediately. Not only did his blood immediately rush to his head, but the straps sank into his thighs and legs deeply, cutting off that circulation as well.
Deciding the melee polearm theory might be a complete wash, Aegor began looking over ranged options.
And there he hit even more problems. Dragons often moved too quickly for a mounted combatant to aim. Which was not even mentioning the issue of controlling a dragon while using two hands for a bow or crossbow. Perhaps on a dragon like Vhagar one could mount a small ballista and convince her to let a second rider join as the controller of the ballista. But on any but the largest beasts that was even less viable than the polearm.
Thus his new books, accounts of wars against the Dragonlords of Valyria. Unfortunately, there were not many. Perhaps Dragonstone had more, and he suspected Dorne of possibly having even more. As he imagined Nymeria had not left all the knowledge of the Rhoynar behind when she and her ten-thousand ships left.
The problem he was coming across was that the easiest way to handle a dragon rider was to kill the rider and hope the dragon, uncontrolled, rampaged in a different direction.
That did not suit his potential needs, though obviously he would certainly consider it. Next he found accounts of lucky shots with arrows or ballista taking out a rider or hitting the dragon in the eye or through the roof of the mouth. The key phrase here was lucky, the Dornish taking out Meraxes was a one in a thousand or more shot. Hitting a moving dragon through the eye was not a situation one could count on. Below a certain age dragons did have other soft points in their hide, but once they reached a decade or so most of those were gone.
However, his one passage that showed some promise, though admittedly would need a large amount of adjustment to achieve a similar result, was the way the Rhoynar used magic during the Rhoynish Wars with the Freehold.
The admittedly few accounts of the phenomenon did include one analysis treating stories of "Rhoynish water wizards" as more than mere myth postulating more reasonable abilities and possibilities. The Maester writing postulated using fog to blind dragons and then massed catapults or ballista as opposed to massive summoned water spouts. He thought perhaps to Valyrian survivors in great confusing fog that the massive splashes of flung stones could have "seemed as if spouts of water consuming their comrades". The Maester even professed his doubt that any such fog would have been a result of magic. He postulated "advanced aqueduct engineering, geothermal heating, and steam clouds". Though this sounded a bit far-fetched to Aegor, as if dragons and the fire magic of Valyria had been real, why not water magic?
But blinding the enemy dragon did sound promising. Not particularly honorable but what was honorable about the winner of a duel between dragons almost always being the one with the older and larger dragon? There had been nothing honorable about the duel between Maegor the Cruel on Balerion and Aegon son of Aenys on Quicksilver at the Battle Beneath the Gods' Eye.
His other considerations from his readings were no more honorable than the blinding tactic. Nets meant to tangle the wings released behind during a chase, flying above with the equivalent of a large fishhook tossed underneath to spear the rider or slash the wings, and he even considered the idea of strapping large iron spikes or balls in easy to release bags or harnesses on the saddle to drop down at opponents.
"Well there's not a one of these that would not lose me any knighthood I had at the time…" He muttered to himself as he started putting his notes and books away. Conveniently not thinking even just to himself that if he ever actually used these he would already be committing to kinslaying. The Day of the Mother each week was given as a day of rest so he did not have work in the training yard, but he certainly had other things he could attend to.
Deciding to leave off Aegor packed his notes away and gathered the books to return to the Maester. His notes would work for him for any future ideas he may wish to pursue, however, for now he would put it off as a possibly lost cause. Unless he could brace a thirty foot lance on dragonback he was not going anywhere with the polearm idea.
Sighing, Aegor left to return the books and then head down to the yard to train. The king planned to hold a tournament at the end of Queen Aemma's pregnancy, and Ser Arryk wanted him to participate as his first tourney. Well the squire bracket of the tourney at least, Ser Arryk was loath to allow him to participate with the full knights such as his own father.
"Alright, lad! We shall be going over distance closing tactics in melee today!" Ser Arryk explained once he was geared up in the entirety and had properly joined him in the yard.
"Let us start with the fourth piece! You have your own spear, and the sucker across from you threw his at your thick skull and missed! What do you do here?"
"As quickly as possible I lunge in with my own spear without throwing it, Ser! I now have the reach advantage!"
"Good! And if you in sheer incompetence missed your own spear throw and he responds as such to you?"
"A left-handed strike away, pulling the spear to catch the shaft under my arm and then thrust forward with my sword or dagger in my right!" I replied in kind.
"Competent I suppose, now let us have you demonstrate that counter." He took out a blunted practice spear.
I sighed and prepared myself for his charge.
We spent the next two hours drilling melee counters into my muscles and mind, hoping to prepare me for the opening squire rounds of the king's, admittedly premature in my own opinion, celebratory tournament for the coming child.