Daenerys

The tempest raged all around him. Lightning crackled and lanced past to crash into the flailing bodies on the ground while the winds tossed him about like an old leaf on a playful breeze. Moreover, the air was full of enemies. Slight quick ones whose cold needles shattered harmlessly against his hide would have been nothing and less to him, but for the other that circled endlessly, tirelessly, hurling lightning from its maw with force enough to shame the great cold things that boomed incessantly to each other and reduced everything around them to red smears and rubble. Even amid the chaos, some small part of him was still wondering if creatures of a similar size had not been the ones to stack the stones he'd found in the green world he'd left. Certainly not these in particular, they were too intent on smashing all to dust. A cold flying tooth splintered off his snout and made him snort in anger, answering ice with fire and burning away the cold thing's thin wings to send it tumbling to earth. More than once they'd tried to mob him- what were even a dozen of their kind to his? He'd filled his mouth with two at once, black fire doing for another two while his tail sent a fifth crashing into a sixth. Contempt colored indifference as yet another pass saw broken ice cascading off his side. Even had he not gone to the green world and found the she-creature that dwelled there, these small slight beasts that fled from flame would seem unimpressive. But he'd received his share of blows in the green world as well, club-tails and three-horns and the she-creature herself, any one of which could have crushed these small cold cousins flat without a thought. He didn't mind getting mobbed, that just made it all the easier to deal a crushing blow with jaws or tail or even one of his powerful legs. There were always more, though, and every moment he was distracted by the creatures was time the great dead thing spent on hammering the men huddling behind the stones below. Even when he stole away from them to send a lance of black flame at it, his fires fizzled and steamed away on the surface of some bright barrier the bones were warded in. Again the green world came to him, the great stones hidden in the endless green sea. Only when he'd been past the threshold had it become visible- outside, it seemed to be just more greenery. Could this be something akin to what hid the stones? Even if he worked it out, what good would it do? The dead thing had no flesh to sear, not even eyes to blind. His teeth and claws would find only cold, hard bones- and the thing's own maw was rather bigger. He did not let the matter faze him. In that green world the storms had raged near as bad as here, and there he had at last found himself atop the mountain that included all other life. He had not left that paradise to cede supremacy so soon- and certainly not to something dead.

Daenerys did not chance to look down until it had been a scant few breaths without the cold giants loosing at them. Drogon had come into his own in a world of god-lizards and so thought as a god-lizard might. Go ahead and hit me. Aside from the male god-apes or a stampede of horned behemoths, there was nothing to which they paid a second thought, let alone feared. Rhaegal was not near so content to be the center of attention, dancing about so nimbly the cold giants could not quickly enough bring their mammoths to bear. A sea of cavalry had rolled north off the moor and out of the wolfswood with the express intent it seemed on spitting whatever they could reach before they were themselves overborne. Simultaneously another force emerged from the trees north of Winterfell to swamp the cold giants ringing the storm-speaker, the god-singer in frigid brawn. Rhaegal's head snapped to the furious shouts of the Old Tongue, eyes locked upon the giants' shaman. Jon was not one to miss such an opportunity either and so they shot off. Even if the storms don't die, Dany thought, face pressed into Jon's back, surely wresting control of them out of the Others' hands can only be- An upwell from below sent Rhaegal flailing backward away from the giants, a second gutting gust spinning him out and sending him crashing gracelessly onto one of Winterfell's intact roofs, dearer by the second. While Dany's stomach roiled, praying endlessly for the babe's sake, she heard the bone dragon shriek overhead. Again she peeked up, and immediately wished she hadn't. Lightning forked out from between the great jaws, branching in a dozen places to crash into the earth around them even as the building Rhaegal had landed on was stormed by a dozen bellowing bodies. A cold mammoth, too, was bulling over, crushing living, dead, and even icy brutes in its haste to reach them. A sudden gust was all it took to send Dany sliding down Rhaegal's side, Jon going flat on his back to close a hand around her own. Bellowing from below, the thumping of huge booted feet and the cracking of stone sent their tower splitting even as it pitched, Dany jerked out of Jon's grip to slide down the collapsing roof. She looked down rather than waste time trying to cling on, biting her tongue and tasting blood as she slid off the tower and onto the ramparts. Even as they shook beneath her, she wasted no time. To me, she thought, reaching for Drogon. She found an impassible tangle of the Green Hell's vines, each thick as a man's arm, all she could see in her mind's eye. The black dragon came crashing down through a wooden house a moment later, emerging with teeth bared and none the worse for wear.

A spear snapped in twain against his shoulder, Drogon turning to throw a spear of his own before seizing the giant in his teeth and flinging him into a mob of dead men. Dany moved as quickly as she could toward him, the giants' attention rather occupied elsewhere. Even as the street quaked beneath her and the sky roiled above, she put the storm out of her mind. It is no different than Daznak's Pit, she thought, as the sounds of the newcomers crashing through dead men grew closer. No different, she told herself, but it was Sons of the Harpy, mere men in masks, he had sent flying through the air then. It was cold giants Drogon was thrashing now, neither axe nor spear nor hammer seeming to scratch his scales, let alone wound him. Their shouts and war cries were drowned by his roar, grown louder a hundredfold than when he'd taken his leave of her in the throne room of the Red Keep. Even shouting at the top of her voice did not pull his attention from the cold giants, from the dead men that moved to surge into their midst and over them. Black fire shredded them, sent the giants running and left Daenerys alone in Drogon's presence. Only when she was close enough to touch him did he seem to sense her. She braced again, tried to find her courage. The searing wind that bathed her then turned the driving snows and piling ice into mist, Dany feeling as though she'd walked back into Winterfell's hot springs. Drogon's roar had her hands clamped over her ears, her teeth gritted and a whimper threatening to escape her lips. God-lizards do not whimper, she told herself. In their wild world, might makes right. She squinted through her hand. Drogon's mouth had become the world before her, twitching bits of brute poking from between his teeth. The reek was punishing. Burned meat, she thought, and brimstone. There was rotten meat too, though Drogon's fire kept it from growing into the sweet cloying stink his god-lizard wore. She had no whip to hand, but Daenerys did not let that dissuade her. The thick foliage in her mind burned like paper when it was met with flame, Drogon snorting in surprise and annoyance at her trick. Down, she thought, reaching up to put a hand to his jaw. A fat ruby glittered from the spikes that jutted off it, stuck fast within. Caught when he chanced to land and rest, she reasoned, noticing more all across the bottom of his head, the underside of his neck and his belly. Well, he hardly has a braid to wear bells in, she told herself, giggling despite all that was going on. He was too large to get atop without a climb first, Dany unsure how to manage the thing in her state. Down, she thought again. Down… Another roar advertised his feelings on the matter. Down, she insisted. I am small and you are great, and on the morrow, you will be greater still. Just now, though, we need to make sure that morrow comes. She put a boot on one of the spikes and began to clamber up. At last, heart fluttering and chest heaving, Dany managed to seat herself, Drogon rearing to peer at her. He snorted. Fine, not down. Up, she thought,as the dragon's wings beat, great curtains the color of blood sending corpses and rubble flying (as well as Dany's hair into a wild silver flurry). Up, she urged, Drogon screaming as he thundered forward, managing to flatten a lanky brute into the mud as he bulled on. The sight of Rhaegal and Viserion above, discovering for themselves the inviolate silver barrier that warded the bone dragon, spurred him on further. UP! Dany felt Drogon push against the ground. Her stomach leapt and then they were flying, her fears falling away, falling to earth even as they left it behind.

He wasted no time trying to lock up with the dead thing. Not only was it warded, but it was considerably larger even than he. Still, he had to get his once-brothers' attention. The dead thing's mated pair of riders had their eyes on the ground, not on them, which struck him as strange. Never mind, called a voice from somewhere below. He screamed, a glimpse of someone with red hair and blue eyes in his mind. His pale once-brother veered off at once, making for the ground while the green came wheeling around to his right, the distance between the three of them growing by the moment.

Brandon. The word, the name was meaningless to him, but the impressions of raining havoc on the cold ones was something he did understand. He understood also the futility of attacking the great dead thing, very content to cut down earthbound foes in black walls of flame. Keep hitting them. the blue-eyed, red-haired voice said. Keep hurting them.His senses pulled away from the dead pooling witlessly below and into the winds from the north, where several of the cold giants were making red mist of the hapless men in their midst. The one in the center, the storm-speaker. The giant in the middle seemed to be outlined somehow, clearer where all the rest became dulled, became unfocused. He bulled for the giant, bashing aside a small cold cousin whenever one chanced to get in his way. On his approach the giant started to sing anew, the skies above him rumbling ominously. His compatriots could not so easily shift their attention though, the men swarming around them armed with glittering black claws and teeth that bit and clawed deep angry wounds. There were others with them somehow, more than just he and the creature on his back, and as thoughts of the three-horned behemoths ringing their young and old in the green world came to mind, so did the others. They saw, too, the way by which the wolf-lizards hiding in the ferns dashed out for the kill while the behemoths were busy warding off he and his mate. The others latched onto this with vehemence, and he beheld his brothers' hot bodies lose themselves in the burning trees, edging closer all while the giants batted at the men and screamed at him. Too late did the storm-speaker realize two of them were missing, bellowing in fury when they erupted out of the trees. They could not fail to reach him- and then they were flung aside with careless ease with some great limb of the wind's. Roaring, he descended himself, smashing into the giant even as a hundred tiny mouths full of black teeth bit at his cold flesh. A cloud of black dust burst around his head, the giant screaming in a haze of agonized rage, hands over his eyes. The force of it was enough to push him off, shove him away- and the lightning bolt that sunk into the meat of his chest was enough to make him scream in surprised pain himself. Reeling, teetering, the giant got to his feet, thundering in his god-tongue, bolts crackling off his palms to cascade into anything they hit. The brewing storm above his head began to fall apart, though, his focus broken. The lightning from above was coming randomly now, unpredictable- and uncontrolled.

Daenerys could only gasp, forcing air back into her lungs as Drogon ascended again. The bolt of lightning had nearly knocked her off. That would have been the end, she thought, still gasping as she took in the sight of the storm-speaker bulling into the battle, all pretense of restraint, of reason utterly abandoned. Any sound, he met with lightning.

Leave him, Bran Stark's voice filled her thoughts. The wildlings will do for him. Others, find the Others.They were tiny white slivers to Dany's eyes, but viewed through Drogon's they were deep black blotches in a sea of red. Likewise, the cold drakes could hide in cloud banks and snowy gales, but they could not hide their coldness- they stuck out to Drogon like shooting stars. And they don't know you can see them. Bran continued. Any more than the Others on the ground know they cannot hide from us, Dany thought. Mortal men are no match for Others anyhow, they are for us to deal with. She spotted Viserion surge out from behind a golden curtain to set a cold mammoth's fur alight, the beast trampling all around it in throes of panic. Above, Rhaegal sent another drake plummeting to the ground. The center of attention, Dany thought ruefully as Drogon bellowed defiance at the cold shapes on the ground. Anything fleeing him would run right into the other dragons, anything rushing away from the perimeter would find themselves in a crucible of black fire. The bone dragon has only one head, after all, she thought, and House Targaryen has three. It could not chase Rhaegal or Viserion without Drogon closing with the Others on the ground and laying waste to them and could not come crashing down on Drogon without its riders being swarmed- and set upon from above by his brothers. He is not worried, Dany realized. Tired, perhaps. Angry, for a certainty. She remembered Drogo killing a man with no more than his bare hands, no more afraid of the arakh in his face than Drogon was of the bone dragon now. Another stream of lightning from above scattered Dany's thoughts, pulling tight against Drogon's body even as she felt the power in one of the forking bolts lance into his knee. We're working on it. Bran's voice answered.

Still here, then? she thought in reply.

So far. The Singers seem to be onto something. For now, just piss on the Others whenever you get a chance. Jon and Meera will do the same.The bone dragon screaming overhead was rather hard to ignore and the lightning flying from its maw turning buildings to broken piles of dust and brick only further stressed urgency to Dany. Believe me, we're hurrying. You might think snow in your hair is bad but at least it isn't dirt.

Drogon's instincts were sharper than hers, of course, and so Daenerys left him to fly as he would. Instead of directing him, she relayed whatever came to her from Bran in terms she felt Drogon would understand. That noise and light and heat were singularly discomfiting to the cold drakes, that fire was vital to keeping the dead men off the living. Taking the opportunity to escape the bone dragon's attention for a moment, Drogon snuck back over to the newcomers to further clear their way. In the mud and beset by corpses, it was difficult for Dany to tell who they were at first. Then she spotted the crimson banners, the yellow splotches on them that had once, she reasoned, been proud golden lions. There were others as well, three green blots on a yellow field, a yellow tree on a white one, more she could not place. Oakheart perhaps, and Rowan, she thought. There was nothing the dead men could do to Drogon, much less awing, and so Dany had a brief chance to catch her breath and get her bearings. The cavalry charge had broken through the dead men pooling at Winterfell's southern gate. The Others on foot and their allies were more concerned with putting still more walking corpses or even caltrops of icicles between themselves and the sudden wall of steel, bemired even as blades wrought of razor ice cut down any man lucky enough to stagger past the wights. On top of all else, the biggest bear she'd ever seen was bowling over everything in front of it in a berserker rage. Then Dany saw a tall man on a black courser smash aside the last of the dead in front of him, his horse's mane and hooves aflame. The animal seemed utterly unconcerned by the embers flowing from its nostrils, the enemy before him his only care. The man bore down on an Other, sword aflame, and parted the icy armor and cold flesh beneath it with equal ease. It wasn't the Valyrian steel in his right hand he held that stopped Dany cold, though. His left arm cradled a dragon egg, a lovely orange the color of a summer sunrise. The Others around him were too busy fending off his flaming sword to care about anything else…including Drogon bearing down on them out of nowhere. Even as he flattened the position the cavalry was charging, Dany felt curiously little. It's not the first time he's come crashing out of the sky, and three-horned behemoths require rather more force to bring down than a few dead men! Curiously, even close as he was, Drogon showed not the least bit of interest in the egg. There's a world coming down around him, Dany reminded herself, and we'd best be off before something more resilient than dead men come for this position! The flaming courser trotted up to Drogon bold as you please, so unlike every horse Dany had ever known. With a graceful overhand flip, the egg came sailing up to her and dropped neatly into her hands. Immediately the heat within it seared away the palms of the sealskin gloves Jon had given her, but she could not think on nothing else but the orange surface of the egg, the silver flecks so much like stars just before sunrise hid them that she needed a shout from below to spur her on.

"Away! AWAY!" screamed the man on the horse. If a snowball would survive his grasp, he'd be throwing one at my head, Dany thought hastily, Drogon ascending of his own accord. At least one of us has their mind on the battle.

Carrying a dragon egg throughout the rest of the battle struck even Dany as wishful thinking.

Bran. she thought.

Your Grace? came the answer.

Where's Shireen?

Where you told her to be. The Singers thought…that she might present an interesting insurance prospect, given what's in her care. Dany gulped. Even if we lose, the Others overrunning Westeros and then the world, it need not be the end.

I've found another such…care. she thought. Have her come to the surface quickly so she might take it off my hands.

…Oh. She should come up near the keep, look for her there. I'd say keep an eye out for her fires, but…

The entire castle is aflame. Dany finished for him, Drogon turning back toward the center of Winterfell. I hope I don't drop it down some bloody tavern chimney, she thought ruefully. It would be so like me to do something foolish. Nor do I have all day to find the right blaze! At least the dragonfire was either black, bronze or gold. Tongue between her teeth, Daenerys bid Drogon land as near the keep as he could manage without whatever he landed on collapsing beneath him. A sudden wall of fog booted Shireen from her thoughts immediately, Drogon roaring in irritation as his black flames ate away at the bank rolling in- only for it to roll on wherever his attention wasn't. Up, Dany thought, I've seen enough of the Others' working up close. Sure enough, a tall thin profile half-formed out of the fog. The stuff fountained out of its hands in wide, lazy spirals, extinguishing the nearby flames. Clattering from within the fog presaged the approach of several mounted figures, emerging from the grey-white morass to reveal their unliving nature. Drogon greeted them with more fire, but the tall Other merely flicked his hand to cover the lot of them with a fresh curtain of fog, the lion's share of dragonfire never reaching the ground even as the skeletal horsemen crashed into the nearest of the castle's defenders. Dany could see the Other's eyes glinting up at her from the fog bank. Daring me to land, just as he wants me to. Fog began to pool around the Great Keep, seeping through the tiniest cracks…as well as the gaping holes made by the Others' assault. Dragonfire is no help, it will just burn the keep down! Then the doors crashed open, and a gout of flame cut through the fog. The Other's focus was taken off Drogon and the fog ringing the horsemen began to thin. Dany heard a pop from within the sudden blaze, the sound of a lightning strike igniting a forest fire. The half-formed Other seemed to answer somehow, prompting a fresh tirade from the flames. Shireen managed to comport herself, willing her form into something recognizably her. Dany snatched the opportunity for Drogon to snap up a bronze-armored figure cleaving stormlanders in twain with abandon. She heard his teeth crunch together, the warded bronze humming even as it warped. Drogon held the dead king fast in his jaws, fire jetting from between them until the armor turned to melting wax, bronze dripping from the dragon's teeth. Now they can call you 'kingslayer', Dany thought wryly.

Shireen soon had the last of the fog peeled off the Great Keep's walls, flailing after the Other even as he danced away from her. Keeping her attention, Dany thought, the egg still hot in her arms. When she might be elsewhere. Her flames did the Other no harm, who even when blasted into nothing would simply re-form behind the girl. No common swordsman… Even with a dragon above him and Shireen throwing fire in his face, the Other seemed completely at ease. Awing, though, Dany could spot the water pooling up from Winterfell's stones. …But then neither are they. Lady Catelyn and Talisa sprung up from the castle's bricks to grab at the Other, their watery forms less avoidable. He works in water, and they are water. Only when he was caught in the double torrent did Shireen manage to engulf him, the geyser of steam nearly catching Drogon as it shot up before he gracelessly spun away, Dany nearly losing the egg in the tumult. Below, steam boiled away living flesh and dead both as the elements raged in their midst. Breathing hard, Daenerys had Drogon add his own fire to the chaos, though the dragon's lungs were finite where the entities on the ground had no such limitations. At least, Shireen, Lady Catelyn and Talisa don't. Daenerys had no idea of the Other's nature, but that was something for the maesters to ponder. Only when the geyser began to boil away, sinking back to earth did Drogon let up, and when Dany managed to get a glimpse of the ground only blackened brick remained. At last the embers of the dragonflames around the blast began to congeal, Shireen billowing back into existence if looking a bit dizzy. Well, who can blame her? Drogon landed again, Dany easing off his back as carefully as she could.

"Lady Shireen, are you alright?" she asked, approaching with the egg in hand. Her words went unheeded. Only when Daenerys presented the dragon egg did the girl seem to realize she was standing there. "I want you to put this with the others. Then, if you feel up to it, come back up and keep the Great Keep clear of dead…and anything else the Others bring to bear. Don't worry about the rest of Winterfell. Prince Brandon and the Children of the Forest need time to address the-" the sound of the bone dragon screaming overhead, embattled in the clouds with one dragon or the other. "-that. If you can help provide it, that would be much appreciated." Shireen took the egg, still flickering uncertainly.

"Why am I still here?" she asked. The question was one Daenerys had not the least notion how to answer. Then she realized that Lady Catelyn and her charge had yet to rejoin them. There isn't a lot of water around, though, Dany mused. There's fire to spare and more.

"Perhaps they've gone." Daenerys turned to Shireen. "I know Lady Stark had plenty of people waiting for her. Talisa Maegyr as well. It could be you'll find your own freedom before the Others are through."

"I hope not." Shireen replied flatly. "I have no one I wish to go to."

Given the intensity of the flames, Daenerys found herself able to again catch her breath without something barreling out of the chaos to cause trouble. Even the cold giants' mammoths seemed unsure about getting too close to Drogon.

"You'd best be off, Your Grace." Shireen said. "You're safer in the air. I'll slip this in with the others, then be back up as you commanded."

"Only if you feel up to it-"

"Burning away dead men doesn't need much 'feeling up' to." Drogon left her there, making to nanny the westermen a bit more. Daenerys kept an eye out for the monstrous bear, easier by far to spot in the mess than banners long since dropped. A deep bellow beneath the walls of the castle was as good a hint as any. Dany spotted the bear mixing it up with one of the cold giants, great silver bands around his bulging arms pinning the furs in place beneath them to hide the wounds he'd taken at White Harbor. In his hands was a massive greataxe, its head glittering hammered silver. Lorm, she remembered. His name is Lorm. The axe seemed to truly discomfit the bear, who slowed with every blow its considerable bulk was dealt. It needed no armament of its own to keep Lorm at bay, though, arms beating the giant about the chest and head whenever the chance came with brutal, meaty thuds. They traded axe for claw and bellow for roar, the bodies of the living and dead both crushed flat beneath them as they brawled. At last Lorm's axe found purchase in the monster's shoulder, the giant screaming as the wound sizzled and burned as if caused by acid. The bear answered with an agonized low, catching Lorm's off-arm between his teeth and rending it until all that hung off the giant's shoulder was bony splinters in a knot of sinew. Lorm's axe came crashing into the bear's snout next, blade burying itself in its skull and sending it reeling. Again, there was nowhere to put Drogon's fire that wouldn't also catch the westermen nearby, and anyway there were wights to be kept off them in the first place.

Get ready, Your Grace. We're going to try something.

Now would be an appropriate time! Something welled up from the ground, the hairs on Dany's neck standing up. She shuddered. Then the castle trembled, more than one building giving up the ghost and collapsing. Some unseen wind, some unseen force roiled forth like the rhythm from a drum, knocking the dead off Winterfell's defenders and stranding the Others and their allies in a sea of those who yet lived, yet fought. Overhead, the barrier that warded the bone dragon made an unearthly warbling sound as the force crashed into it, flickering but holding firm. At a chorus of True Tongue from the Other-queen, the sky above the abomination began to clear, stars uncounting visible for the first time since battle was joined. Daenerys found herself looking at more stars than she could ever have counted, more than she would have ever thought possible. Among them was one she'd never seen before, big and bright as a diamond in a crown. The star from the cave, some part of her thought. It never went out, no more than the Others themselves went out. Visible, too, was the full moon, a full pure silver-white that seemed to leech the color from everything below. The heap the bear had become stirred. Lorm was too busy screaming, either in triumph at his victory or in shock at his wound, to notice. Then the bear stood, the terrible wounds Lorm had dealt it slowly oozing over, save the ruin its head had become. The monster roared, beyond the reach of bodily pain. Then it charged at Lorm, swung with one of its great arms, and tore the giant's head from his shoulders with a single blow. It stood there, swaying, and gave a final bellow before again collapsing. Even the ruin wrought by the duel had not been enough to dissuade either side, and soon more dead were surging in to replace those lost by the Singers' trick. A cadre of Others stood in their midst, each armored in ice. One held a blade wrought of starry night, it seemed, and the carnage it wrought soon had the snows running red. Drogon tried to burn him, of course, but the Others were done losing their commanders to dragons. The bone dragon dived and Drogon had to swoop so low Dany might have tapped a wight on the shoulder to avoid the latest barrage of lightning. Bran, more Others are on their way. It looks like they're intent on making it to the Great Keep, and I can't get near them now the bone dragon's come lower. One among them has a sword…I've never seen its like.

Funny, you could say the same of us, Your Grace. Bran replied. You'd best get clear of the ground, the next one will be stronger. We will never know a warm moment, Dany realized as Drogon ascended. They are committed and so are we. One way or another, the end will come tonight. The thought was almost comforting.