GOT: The Great Khal — Chapter 130 - Assault on Storm's End

Drogo led the main force himself, taking the remaining warships around Tarth and slipping quietly into Shipbreaker Bay.

The second column was Jako's. He pushed upstream along the Wendwater, left a thousand cavalry to patrol the Kingswood, and cut the Kingsroad between Storm's End and King's Landing.

Jako didn't stop after landing. He drove west fast, seized Summerhall, and sealed off the main route north for any Dornish army.

Two advantages. That was what the Dothraki brought to this campaign, and both were used to the fullest.

The first was mobile raiding. Drogo had Jako split the cavalry into 20 columns, 500 riders each, and pour them into every country lane like quicksilver. They swept across the Reach without mercy. Granaries were burned on sight. Supply convoys were hit and stripped. King's Landing's food supply from the south was strangled, one road at a time.

The second was luring the enemy into the open. Light cavalry appeared and vanished along the Roseroad and every other stretch of open ground, baiting garrison troops into sallying out. Once they gave chase, Dothraki horse archers closed in from both flanks and worked them over in volleys. The pursuers couldn't outrun them. Couldn't close the distance to fight back. In the end they were shot dead on the open ground, every last one.

Shipbreaker Bay had earned its name.

The sea wind howled without pause, thick with salt and brine. Waves hammered the reef-studded shore one after another, throwing up foam several yards high before it shattered and fell back like rain. Fog could roll in without warning, swallowing distant ships whole in seconds, leaving nothing but the faint outline of a mast tip.

Drogo had gotten lucky. No fog today, and the wind and waves were behaving themselves.

He stood at the prow of the flagship, watching Storm's End, and spoke to Daenerys Targaryen beside him. "Bringing the fleet into Shipbreaker Bay was not an easy call. One bad squall and we lose everything."

"We have dragons. We can protect ourselves." He tilted his chin toward the far end of the deck. "They can't."

The Freedmen were working the trebuchets, slamming stone shot into the walls. Where the stones hit, they left shallow white scars and nothing more.

Daenerys followed his gaze, then reached up to gather her hair where the sea wind had pulled it loose. "Good thing you didn't bring our people. These waves would break them."

She wasn't wrong. The Dothraki thought seawater was poison.

When the fleet left Meereen, they'd barely cleared the harbor before a small squall kicked up. Warriors who were fearless on horseback had their spines pulled right out of them. One by one they bent over the gunwales and retched, faces going from bronze to grey-green. When a wave hit and the hull lurched, someone else would heave with a loud groan, and the sour stench spread through the lower hold with nowhere to go. Most of them chose to huddle in the dark below decks rather than come up and face the open water.

"They're not suited for sieges anyway," Drogo said. "I already sent them with Jako to fight the kind of war they're good at."

Most of the Stormlands lords had abandoned Stannis Baratheon by now. The Iron Throne nominally controlled the region. But Storm's End was still in the hands of Stannis's loyalists. Before Drogo's army had even reached Dragonstone, Mace Tyrell had been besieging the castle for months. The Tyrells only pulled back when Drogo brought his forces to Westeros.

Wardfall stared at the walls. The Freedmen had charged with ladders several times already. Each time, logs and stones from the battlements had driven them back.

He frowned. "The walls of Storm's End are 150 feet high and 80 feet thick, packed with sand and rubble in between. Ladders are useless. Breaching the walls is impossible." He shook his head. "This castle has survived every war thrown at it. It's isolated now, no relief coming — but taking it will still cost us."

Drogo didn't answer him.

He turned and walked to the green dragon. He fitted Rhaegal with a new suit of plate armor, the pieces running from neck to the base of the tail, the steel catching a cold blue sheen under the grey sky.

Rhaegal crouched on the flat-bottomed barge, wings half-spread, tail flicking with impatience. When he was wounded he'd been forced to lie low. Now that he'd healed, he wouldn't stay down for a single moment longer.

The last buckle snapped shut. Rhaegal shook his wings, screamed once, and launched into the air.

Drogo turned and mounted the black dragon.

Drogon's armor was heavier than Rhaegal's, the alloy plate on his chest gleaming like cooled lava in the sunlight. He felt his rider's intent. A low rumble built in his throat and his wings snapped open.

3 dragons rose from the fleet in quick succession. Drogo gripped the saddle and leaned forward slightly, moving with the rise and fall of Drogon's back.

They climbed. Shipbreaker Bay spread out below them, grey-green waves grinding against the reefs, the warships scattered across the water like pieces on a board, their sails small and distant.

The fortress sat on a jutting headland, sea on 3 sides, land on one. The castle itself was a single massive drum tower, its top ringed with heavy battlements.

On the open ground below the walls, Grey Worm's forces were already in position. 3,000 Unsullied in 3 phalanxes, shields locked, spears up like a forest. 20,000 Freedmen with ladders and battering rams spread across the flanks and rear, waiting for the signal.

Above Storm's End, all 3 dragons dove at once.

Drogon led, wingtips cutting through the cloud, a black blade falling from the sky. Rhaegal on the right. Viserion on the left.

The phalanxes saw them first. A cheer tore out from behind the shield wall, raw and uncontrolled.

Grey Worm stood at the front of the formation, face blank, and pointed one finger at the battlements. His spear pressed forward. Behind him, 3,000 Unsullied stepped forward as one.

On the walls, the defenders came apart. Archers and crossbowmen scrambled to raise their bows, loosing wildly into the sky. Most of the arrows fell short, never touching scale.

Drogon opened his mouth.

The glow came first, deep in his throat, before the fire. Then black dragonfire poured down and hit the center of the wall.

Iron armor went red. Then it melted. It fused to the flesh beneath and couldn't be torn free.

Rhaegal and Viserion breathed at the same time. Left and right, sweeping the eastern and western sections of the wall. The defenders who weren't burning dropped everything and ran for the stairwells, jamming together in a crush, shields and spears scattered across the stones.

The fire died. Smoke churned. Ash drifted through the heat.

The survivors crept out from behind cover. The sea wind pushed the smoke apart, and through the charred ruins of the wall, a figure stood in the open.

Head to toe in Valyrian steel. Greaves, cuisses, breastplate, vambraces, pauldrons, gorget, helm. The dark grey steel rippled with a watery sheen, not a single gap for an arrow to find. The helmet covered his face completely, leaving only a T-shaped visor slit.

The eyes behind it were colder than ice.

His right hand held a podao, blade tip down. Blood ran along the edge and dripped.

No one on the wall had seen him arrive.

When the dragonfire came, there was nothing there. When it cleared, he was standing in it.

Flames crackled at his back. Smoke coiled around his feet. He stood in the middle of the ruin and did not move, like a war god who had walked out of hell itself.

➤ Next: I am a king!