Chapter 19
Part I

It was the end of the world, and the sun was dead. The Shadow lay above them.

Blown by a cold wind, eleven ships plunged headlong-swift into the embrace of the everlasting dark. Their way was lit only by the flame of torches over the oars, and such was the weight of the dark that pressed upon them that they had to be relit every few hours. The fires cast a weak, flickering glow on the river through which they waded: grey, flat, still as death.

"After Qohor, after Yeen, after Old Valyria, perhaps you think yourselves prepared." Wisps of wind brought the low voice to every man as if it were whispering behind his ear. "Understand this: You are not. We are heading into a place more hateful to living things than anywhere else on this earth. You may come out of here alive, if you heed without question every command I give you, no matter how mad it may seem."

At the prow of the foremost ship, the figure of Stannis Baratheon was tiny as an insect. Every man felt nevertheless the gaze of those eyes glaring down upon him.

"Cursed K'Dath is dreaded by all in the Further East as the graveyard of emperors. Asshai-by-the-Shadow is the most sorcerous city in all the realms of men, and so most feared. Yet both are only at the edges of the Shadow. We are heading to its heart.

"You will behold beasts of wonder and terror greater than you can dream of. For the otherworldly power that flows out from Stygai nourishes great and terrible things in these lands, relics of greater ages too strong to survive in our faded world. But for all their dread, they are not the true peril. These lands are called the Shadow Lands because they belong to the Shadow. Everything that walks or grows or breathes in the Shadow Lands, is in its thrall.

"You must eat none of it. Consume nothing but the food we bought, that we have brought with us. Not this." The prince cast an arm around him, to the waves of pale, white, wavy stalks that stretched everywhere to the horizon. " 'Ghost grass' this is called, and it is the only plant that grows here in the Shadow Lands. If you eat it, it will seem the sweetest meal you have ever tasted, but every bite will drive you to take another. You will see things that are not real. Your mind will break to gibbering madness. And in the end you will suffer a fate crueller than death."

"Like them soul-eaters in Yeen?" one soldier shouted up to the mast.

"Not at all," said the prince. "Cruel enough the soul-eaters would seem a mercy."

A shiver ran through the sellswords listening.

"Above all you must not drink the water of the river Ash. The Ash flows to here, but before that, its waters flow by dread Stygai, the heart of Everlasting Night, where the Shadow waxes stronger than the sun. Drink none of it. Be fool enough to eat of the ghost grass and you might, might survive, if you have the iron will to refrain from more. But a single drop of Ash-water will doom you till the world dies. Spare no effort to escape it. If your friend is drowning in the river, shoot him dead if he opens his mouth. His soul would thank you for it."

The grim silence bespoke assent. Then again, of course, they never had a choice.

In Asshai, unnatural as it was, despite the shadows of the mile-tall towers and the greater shadow's gloom that even noon could not break, at least there was a little sunlight. Henceforth, however, as their ships sailed upstream on the river Ash's grey waters, every day was hotter and darker than the last. The very air felt sticky and oppressive. The landscape around them—always the same, swathes of ghost grass on every side to the horizon—shrank smaller and smaller every morn. For a bare hour at noon, the sun was dull as twilit evening. The rest of the day, the sun was gone. And at night, even the stars vanished entirely.

At times the river split in twain. Then, and only then, the Black Captains who ruled over this voyage went to their commander, to seek his will. The Prince of Sunset stood at the prow as if carved of stone, sleepless as a statue, silent as the grave, long cloak whipping and snapping behind him in the high wind. He never cast a glance back. His dark blue eyes were fixed only ever forward.

Days after they left Asshai, one night Justin dared to approach the Prince of Sunset. The wind was a high howling screech. It blew with such force it was hard to stand up, let alone walk. Justin was carrying nothing, yet to walk bare-handed felt like running with two men on his back. He staggered onto the commander's ship and over across the deck, and he flung out a hand that grasped the railing just in time to stop himself from falling.

He stood there, holding on, panting from the effort. He did not speak. He knew Stannis Baratheon better than that. He merely stood, calm by his side, waiting.

Two hours passed before Stannis spoke, quite out of nowhere, as was his wont. "This land resists me as I've never felt before," he said. "There is a will that rules here, in the earth, in the water, in the air. It seeks stillness. It dislikes moving."

He had not turned. He had not moved, save for his mouth. His body was still as stone, still facing away. There was no way he could have seen Justin, nor in the high wind heard him.

But you are not moving, Justin thought. "Resists your magic, you mean? The wind you command?"

"I do not command the wind, Massey," Stannis replied. "How could I? Try it. Command the wind: 'here I am, do as I say'. Any fool can give orders, that does not make the world obey him. I've said this oft before. I am not some 'master' of the wind. It has none. I am the wind that hurls us onward."

You've said it oft and it makes just as little sense as last time, Justin thought. He was not fool enough to say so.

"I noted something I wished not to speak of in the open, commander," he said, instead.

"Which is?"

"When we saw Li Xinong's corpse it surprised you." Justin hesitated. "It seems to me, you didn't know he had died."

"I did not," said Stannis. He turned around and stepped down from the prow. The sails slacked. The high wind quietened; faltered.

Justin had suspected as much. Even so, the admission shook him. It scared him more than the everlasting darkness did. "You always see. Why not this time?"

"You were right not to raise this in front of the men." Stannis drew in a deep breath. His whole body shuddered, skin like paper stretched over the bones. His frailty filled Justin with concern. He still needs to eat more, he hasn't recovered yet, he shouldn't be going into battle so soon. "The men must not know I am weakened."

"My prince," Justin said, "I do not understand."

"The Shadow lies upon us," Stannis said, as if fearful he might be overheard. "Upon us! All things in this land are in its power, even me. To be a greenseer is to be a self that lives beyond yourself. Yet so long as I am here under the Shadow, I dare not. In Asshai at the Shadow's edge I could go a little, but here, not at all. For I go beyond myself into the everlasting dark, it will take… it will consume me."

Stannis had been about to say something else, Justin was sure, something more revealing. He did not press it. "You mean, you can't see things yet to come?"

"Things yet to come," said Stannis. "Things long since passed. Things that were not, yet might have been."

"Then that is not so bad," said Justin. From the prince's frailty, he had feared worse. "You still have eyes and ears. You can see as all men see."

"It is!" Stannis stamped his foot. "You do not know; you cannot miss it. It is like a sighted man gone blind. I am a greenseer, Massey. To stand beyond space and time and possibility is my strength and my shield. For years I have seen far and wide. Now I am forced to march through Fate like a child fumbling in the dark, and it daunts me."

"Then be daunted," Justin said sharply, "but march on. You have a thousand men beside you, and powers that none of us have, too. Your men have less than you, and we go on, for we have trust in you. So have trust in yourself."

Stannis was silent at that.

"If not your sight," said Justin, "how are you guiding us which way to go, when the river forks?"

"Naught but scraps of memory," Stannis admitted. "Li's notes are lost to Euron Greyjoy. Our guide is what little I recall from the runes in the tomb of the Bloodstone Emperor."

"Azor Ahai went here before."

"Yes," said Stannis. "The only man who has ever gone to the City of the Dead and returned alive."

"Then I would know of the man whose footsteps we are following," Justin said. "You said the myths are ofttimes wrong. Who was he truly?"

Stannis hesitated. "It is not a sweet tale. I would think you would rather not know. It has no happy ending."

"There are no happy endings," Justin said. "You should know that by now."

"Very well." Stannis dipped his head, acknowledging. "Azor Ahai was a prince, second-born to the emperor of the land that we nowadays call Yi-Ti, though it did not yet bear that name. As the eldest son, he was destined to sit the throne. But he had a keen love of the higher arts, the powers not of this world that some call sorcery. His father's chiefs and courtiers feared him. And so they persuaded his father the Opal Emperor to set him aside and raise up his sister in his place, though the custom had always been that sons came before daughters, and there had never before been a woman as emperor. Azor Ahai was sent into exile."

Is this myth or memory? "You feel akin to him," Justin said. His tone made it a question.

Stannis did not deny it.

"In truth this did not much displease Azor Ahai, for he did not love power nor worldly things," Stannis went on. "For a time he lived in peace with the men of the Tiger clan, the clan of his wife. Not forever. The Empress sat unsteady on her stolen throne, capricious and cruel, ever fearful of imaginary plots against her. Oft she would favour some clan over others, then, in an instant, decide they were her enemies and send men to slaughter them to the last. In time, she sent men to kill her brother. He, his wife and their household escaped and fled into the wilderness, but the Tiger clan's home burnt behind them, though they had done no wrong. The Amethyst Empress ordered it put to flame and all the innocents there massacred. In so doing, by her foolish malice, she made real the plot that she had conceived in her fevered thought. Her warriors pursued the clan's few survivors. Fearing for their lives, they fled to the only place no-one would follow: here. The Shadow Lands.

"And thus he went beyond my sight. I only have old myths, distorted by thousands of years of tellings and retellings, likely with as much falsehood as truth in them. But I with my eyes have seen that he entered the Shadow Lands fleeing, empty-handed; and my eyes have seen that he returned, mighty and terrible. The runes of his tomb say he sacrificed his wife, Nissa Nissa of the Tiger clan, for what he gained there, though he loved her dearly. I know, at least, she did not come back with him. Whatever the truth of it, Azor Ahai walked out of the Shadow Lands with a great black stone, and he began the war to take back the throne that was his by rights."

It should not have been first to his mind, but Justin was struck at once by the difference between the truth Stannis said he had seen and the myth as Justin had always heard it. "A rock?" Justin said. "Not Lightbringer?"

"Myths change, Massey, I told you," said Stannis, dark eyes narrowing. "You should know by now that power is not born of smelted ore, it is born of agony and sacrifice. Lightbringer was never more than a sword. Any fool spilling his own blood can light a flame, if he but knows the way. Those with power in their blood, if they can bear to spill it, can call fires great and terrible. You have seen me do it twice before."

He had seen it indeed, though he had not thought of it like that.

"The Amethyst Empress's partisans were great in number. Her brother's numbered few, near none. Only the Tiger clan's remnants stood with him. But he had powers that no man could fight, no matter how valorous. From the stone he conjured a terrible pestilence whose curse reached all the land. Men at the time gave it two names. The black-death, for its victims would cough up black ooze instead of snot or blood and die screaming as a million writhing bugs devoured them from within. And the crowning-plague, for it would strike down only those who held to the usurper-empress. Villages would be struck down and start dying, one by one. Then in their hour of despair the prince would appear, and the touch of his hands was healing.

"Soon Azor Ahai had amassed an army. The usurper-empress sought to stop him, but every time she tried, she was thwarted. From the black stone Azor Ahai called forth the Taken, living shadows that could not be slain and yet could slay. The empress's captains would raise armies, yet surrounded by their guards their throats would be slit when they rested in the night. At last Azor Ahai descended on the capital. A great host of men stood against him, mighty in number, brave and strong and full of spirit. And they were swept away before the dark. The white city fell, and the prince of the plague and the darkness took back his father's throne that had been stolen from him.

"The new-crowned Bloodstone Emperor reigned for years unchallengeable. Chieftains, kings and kings-of-kings sought to fight him and were undone, for against the powers of the black stone there was never hope of victory. His power grew, and the lands that paid him tribute stretched further than the farthest boundaries of Old Valyria. All mortals fell before him. Triumph was his. But power has its price, and the Bloodstone Emperor could not escape the dreadful bargain he had struck with the power in Stygai. Over every land he ruled, from every subject who owed him allegiance, a great darkness spread forth. The sky grew dim. The sun failed, faded. And all the peoples of the world suffered just as the Shadow Lands: an everlasting night."

Everlasting night. "The Long Night," Justin said breathlessly. "This was it. The Bloodstone Emperor brought it, then? I knew the Yi-Tish myths said so, but our myths—and you said they're real—the Enemy—the Others—"

"I said the Others are real. They are," said Stannis. "Yes, our myths say the Others brought the Long Night, and the two were on the same side. But myths are just the tales men tell one another to explain the world, wizened by time. Think not of what the men of Westeros said to explain what they saw. Think of what they saw. Do you see how they made their mistake?"

"They saw the Others come when the Long Night came," Justin said. "So they thought the Others brought the Long Night. And you're saying—you're saying they're wrong. The Long Night brought the Others."

He stopped. The sheer enormity of it blew him over. The world was turned on its head. Because if that was true, that meant—

It cannot be.

And yet—

Justin tried to throw it off, but could not. The remorseless chain of thought rattled round to its awful ending. "The war between mankind and the Enemy. The war you told us in Volantis was the true purpose for every contract you ever chose for us, every place we've gone since we left Handtaker, everything the Swords of the Storm have ever done. To find a way to win your secret war."

"Yes," Stannis said, unashamed. "It is why I am what I am. Power comes with duty; mine is the Enemy."

"Thousands of years, thousands of thousands dead. That war started with the Long Night," Justin said. "And you're saying the Others didn't start it. We did."

He looked to Stannis, seeking to be wrong, willing him to deny it, hoping, for once, to hear the commander's deep voice scold him for being wrong.

But the commander had turned away. "This world has so many monsters," Stannis murmured, scarce to be heard as the wind rose back to howling fury. "I ofttimes think men are most monstrous of them all."

There was little to be done aboard the swan-ships of the Swords of the Storm. In better times, in better places than this foul darkness, where the sun shone in the sky, Justin would have liked to spend his evenings with a joint of venison, a bawdy song, a cup of fine wine and a pretty whore. None were here now. Like every free company, the Swords of the Storm had camp followers at least as numerous as the fighting men: cooks, singers, messenger-boys, women of the night, often the children begat by said women and the sellswords. It was a part as sellsword life. Much as Stannis disliked it—he never slept with anyone, nor drank anything but water—even he knew he could not ban it… until now. Of course Justin knew why they could not take them along into the dominion of Everlasting Night, but it still rankled. Even the cooks were banned. The men had to have their stale bread, salt meat and greyish vegetable broth by themselves.

So when he had finished his day's overseeing and drilling his men, there was nothing to do but brood and dwell on the tales he had been told.

Justin lay in his hammock in the perfect darkness of his cabin aboard the ship Herald of the Storm. The hammock did not rock, for the Ash allowed no waves. The river was too still. So he just stared sightless at the ceiling, listening to the wind's cold blast.

Azor Ahai, the man who had saved the world, had also doomed it. He had defeated the Enemy of mankind, for a time, not forever. He had also caused those Others to become Enemy in the first place. The Enemy had not come bringing the foul darkness that swept across the world in ancient days. They had come to fight it. White was black and black was white, and old myths were upended like old certainties. Like the certainty that Justin would continue to serve Stannis Baratheon. The commander had never shaken Justin's faith in him as hard as he was shaking it now.

Justin had come to the Free Cities, not far from the Seven Kingdoms, to serve an exiled prince mere years after his exile, in the hope of ingratiating himself to a prince and soon-to-be Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. It had been a gamble but a reasonable one, he had thought at the time. Robert had only one infant son, babes-in-arms were like as not to die from some ailment, and Justin had no better path since Cersei had cast him down from his high place at King Robert's court. Now Robert's succession looked steadier than ever. The king had three children, all of them beyond babes' fragile years. The chance of Stannis being king had shrunk exceeding-slim. He was further from the Seven Kingdoms than ever before, and he had sworn himself unknowing to a greenseer whose true purpose had not been disclosed to him.

Often, in the days since Volantis, he wondered whether he regretted taking that pledge. He was rich beyond his younger self's imagining, for the prince paid his Swords wages that dwarfed those of any free company else. That would do him no good as a dead man, so it seemed poor cause to suffer never-ending peril in the most fearful places in the world. Should he, then, take his leave? Resign his captaincy, sail back to the Seven Kingdoms, wed some comely girl of some old and famed House that had fallen on hard times and needed a wealthy suitor? He was past his fortieth nameday now. He had served Stannis since he was under thirty. How many lands he had he travelled in those years? How many men had he slain? How many armies had he battled? And for all that time, he had lived a lie.

It was the mistrust that cut sharpest, Justin decided. He, Alequo Nudoon, Richard Horpe, Marro Namerin, Bozyno Vunel, every captain and every cohort, all of them had been used unwitting by a man whose will ran alien to theirs. The men were still being used unwitting. Justin had told no-one, not even his most trusted lieutenants of his cohort, who looked up to him. Ser Justin Massey was a man of his word, still, though his liege was not. He had thought he and Stannis were of the same purpose, comrades-in-arms in a free company fighting for gold and renown. Instead he was a pawn in a war he barely understood, enlisted against an Enemy ancient and terrible. And Stannis had lacked the decency to tell this to the men who fought and bled for him. It was not, 'Why leave?', but rather, 'Why stay?'

Justin's eyes wandered in the dark of his cabin, a reflection of the depthless dark outside, the sun and stars extinguished in this realm of everlasting night, and wondered how a comely young knight from the Crownlands had ended up in such an accursed place as this.

He had sworn Stannis his sword, as knight to liege. He would not break that oath. Ser Justin did not consider himself ever-so righteous, but he had his pride and he would not soil the Massey good name with such deep shame. There was no shame in leaving an oath that both men agreed to release, though, and he felt sure Stannis would agree, so long as he swore his silence. Of course he could not leave now, craven in the middle of the chase for battle. He would see this fool's errand through to its end. But once it was done, if he yet lived, what then? What if Stannis forsook the golden contract from Volantis, to go off explore some other godsforsaken place of nightmares like this one? Would he follow? For that matter, would he have followed, back when Stannis asked him to be a captain in the Swords of the Storm, if he had known what the commander's real purpose was?

Justin himself did not know.

He lay there, drifting in and out of sleep, til a loud noise rudely awakened him. Too soon. Day and night were nigh the same thing, here in the Shadow Lands, but he knew when he had not slept enough.

"Captain." A young soldier's voice, breathless. "A signal."

From half-sleeping, Justin jolted up, blood racing. No sellsword who was slow to rise could live long. "Bring my armour to the deck," he said, already beginning to step out of the captain's cabin, the night's thoughts banished.

"Captain, you're in night-clothes, don't you want to get—"

"I'm captain. Armour later. Orders now." He sprinted up the stairs and burst out into the light aboard the deck of the Herald of the Storm. There was little of it: flaming torches that should have been bright, but whose glow could not reach far in the Shadow Lands. Of all eleven he could see three ships: his Herald, the Dark Lady behind, and the Knight of Night ahead.

"Captain." Sharp salutes.

Justin left them no time to tarry. "The message from the signal-flags."

"Enemy approaching," the man on duty on the mast shouted down at him. "Airborne."

Flying monsters. Delightful. At least it wouldn't be the first time.

"Sleepers being woken?"

"Said it," said Munio, one of his lieutenants.

"Good. You, you and you—" he picked out men he could scarce see— "stop donning armour for now. You pile more firewood on the torches." Firewood had to be used sparingly here. The smothering gloom of the Shadow Lands would snuff out any light that lingered long, so the torches oft needed relighting. But if they were to be attacked, the time of need was now. "You, you—go to the armoury. Fetch Myrish crossbows first, you'll see them, the rainproof cases. Aught else afterwards."

More men were emerging bleary-eyed from belowdecks. Justin glanced at Sergeant Haenis, wordless. Their eyes met. That was enough. The sergeant ran over and began shoving the men towards the armoury.

He looked up the mast. "Signal that: get crossbows, spears."

"Another message," the man with the signal-flags called down to him, instead of answering. It was hard to hear him over the wind. "Head west."

"You heard him! Arms to the oars." To Balni, the sellsword on the mast: "You send that message."

"Still passing down the last one, Captain." Balni's voice was cracking with fear and strain.

Half-armoured sellswords scrambled to reach the oars. Before they could, the wind turned sharply. From blowing the Herald upstream, it was now battering to push her sideways towards the west bank of the river. The wind could do little when it was against the flat of her sail, though.

Once the Herald was pointing the right way, Justin ordered the oarsmen, "Off the oars. Finish donning armour." He trusted the wind would do the rest. "To all—crossbows at the ready. Load, don't loose. Spears beside you, lean them close, ready to pick up if it makes a pass."

The torches were blazing from fresh firewood, and a greater light of icy blue shone from one ship, near the middle. Witchlight, he thought. Then that ship had to be the Stormborne. Justin glanced ofttimes at the Dark Lady, which was in his own cohort: his men, his duty. That was Lieutenant Paraz Holqonak's command while at sea, however, and it was folly to seek to command two ships at once, as anxious as he might be. Besides, Holqonak was a seasoned man. Justin had to trust him. He had appointed him, after all.

Up on the mast, Balni cried, "Arrivin' any moment."

All eleven ships were half-way to the river-bank now, though the Ash was so wide it would take them some while more to get there. The wind that shoved them forward was shrieking. Onward, went the ships. Justin's teeth clenched. He willed them onward…

Then, upstream from them on the river, caught in the witchlight and the light of the torches, rising over the horizon, there flapped a pair of gargantuan wings.

The earth trembled. A pair of golden eagles scattered different ways, twisting and turning desperately in the air. Every man's ears were deafened by a roar louder than the trumpets of an army. Then they caught their first glimpse of a massive head. From its open mouth, lined with huge teeth and wide enough to swallow whole a horse, blazed forth a dark red glow.

Terror came upon them all, then, and a hundred voices screamed: "DRAGON!"

One more flap of those enormous wings carried the great beast wholly over the horizon. It had a long, sinuous body, like a snake. It was hard to see where body ended and tail began. Two legs came next, each with gigantic hooked talons that could have slashed a house in twain. It was flying high. And its snarling head was pointing straight for them.

For a moment Justin stood, frozen with horror. The creature was immense. It was bigger than any of their ships; no, bigger than any two; no, bigger than all eleven. It was the kind of monster that had conquered Westeros, only, this beast looked bigger than Balerion. Were it flying under the sun, not here in Everlasting Night, a city could be covered by its shadow. It was huge, horrible, hungry. There could be no doubt it would eat men. Seeing such a beast, every instinct in his body was screaming at him: RUN, RUN, RUN!

Justin forced his terror down, stayed in control, in command. "Crossbows at the ready!" he repeated. "Don't loose til it's eighty feet. Don't waste bolts, they'll just come back down again. Eighty feet. Then loose."

A golden eagle darted down and landed on the deck of the Herald of the Storm. It was a fierce bird, with a wingspan broader than half a man's height, yet it seemed tiny. It flapped queerly with one wing, hitting the deck. It stared expectantly at Justin. When he said nothing, it did it again, hitting one wing at the deck. Then it flew and perched on him, one sharp talon gripping his arm. He cried out at the pain, then noticed the other talon was on his crossbow.

"Wings!" he said, suddenly understanding. "Aim for the wings! They must be lighter, less armoured. All, aim for the wings!"

The eagle soared off to the Knight of Night.

From that ship, only barely over the high wind, Justin could make out the much-too-loud voice of the Swords of the Storm's worst captain:

"Get it in the wings!" roared Richard Horpe. "I want every man of you on it! Get its wings. Nail it down and it's just a fucking ugly horse, you hear me?"

A reply drifted over from a panicked shouting soldier: "Horses can't fucking breathe f—"

"Shut up, Drongo!"

The air jolted from wingbeats louder than a lockstep-marching army. The dragon was getting closer. The ships were achingly close to the shore, a bare hundred yards. Close. Not close enough.

"Eighty feet!" Justin shouted again. "Not yet! Wait for it to be close!"

But it wasn't close enough. The dragon was too far over their heads. It opened its mouth wider. Its teeth were like greatswords. The bright blood-red glow in the back of its throat turned even brighter.

A brilliant jet of crimson flame erupted from out of the dragon's gullet, heading straight for them on the ships below. For half a second he felt like he was being bathed in boiling water. He closed his eyes…

…and was struck by a blast of icy cold air. The still grey waters of the Ash went wild as they caught the mere outer edges of an enormous gust of wind which rammed into the jet of dragonfire. They struck each other with a bang that put the dragon's roar to shame, like a whole waterfall hitting the ground at once. In one second the heat of the air around them jumped and plunged wildly, turning from boiling-hot to piercing-cold and back and back again. Tangled streaks of red and white light formed a churning tapestry for a moment in the sky. Then they faded away.

"Oh my Moon-mother," Balni said, dazed. He giggled as if drunk. "I'm alive."

The dragon's huge golden eyes, the size of kiteshields, narrowed. They fixed on one ship—the Stormborne—and on one man standing on it.

Then it let out a roar of fury that shook the waters and the earth. Its wings went flat to its sides. Talons that could carve an elephant were thrust outward. And it dived down, straight towards the commander.

Justin only had a split-second to notice. "Loose!" he roared by instinct of a leader of men, though he knew it was useless against the noise of the dragon. "Loose! Loose! Loose!" He loosed for himself, and that was the only true hope: that they would see him, and follow along.

They did.

All his men followed, and the men of the other cohorts too. The dragon dived like a bolt of lightning, so fast that even with its size it was a tricky shot, but the Swords of the Storm had been hardened in fights like this, as no other army in the realms of men. More than a thousand heavy Myrish crossbow bolts were loosed within two seconds. Several hundred of them went plunging through the leathery flesh of the dragon's wings.

They hit, ripped, tore. It worked as well as it possibly could have. The giant monster shrieked with pain. Its wings were shredded in countless places.

None of that stopped the dragon's scale-armoured body crashing down into the Stormborne.

The Stormborne was a well-wrought ship, made alike to the craft of the Summer Isles, peerless among shipwrights of this world. The dragon was diving fast and heavier than most castles. She shattered instantly. Planks of wood went flying in all directions, a few with men still clinging to them. Dozens of men were slain by flying splinters. Dozens more were crushed to red smears beneath the dragon's scaled belly. The prow of the deck, where Stannis was standing, was hit worst of all: slashed to pieces by two huge talons that cut through hardy oak like knives through ripe cheese; then crushed by the slamming-down weight of the rest of the dragon.

The keening wind fell silent.