GOT: The Great — Chapter 224 - The Archon of Tyrosh's Reckoning

Drogo stood before the Painted Table, his finger still pressed on the Stepstones. Something nagged at him.

The Crow's Eye and Joanna had only set out a short while ago. Their ships would sail south from Dragonstone, thread through the Stepstones, then push east into the Disputed Lands. That route ran straight under the noses of the Dornish.

If the Dornish fleet was still dug into the Stepstones, those two Relic Raider ships were sailing into a trap.

Drogo turned and walked out of the Painted Table Chamber without another word.

Outside the Stone Drum Tower, Drogon was working through a roasted sheep. The Unsullied had dragged it over half an hour ago; only the two hind legs and the spine were left. Drogon heard the footsteps, dropped the leg, and raised his head.

Drogo vaulted onto the dragon's back and pulled the reins up. Drogon spread his wings, shoved off the ground, and flew south.

First stop: the Isle of Tarth. Renly Baratheon's old seat, now Drogo's.

The island garrison saw Drogon dropping out of the clouds and scrambled to clear the pasture behind the castle.

Drogon sprawled in the grass for half the night and worked through a pig the soldiers brought out. Before dawn, Drogo was back on the dragon's back. The sea unrolled beneath his feet, shifting from gray-blue to deep blue as the sun came up.

The further south they flew, the bluer the water and the warmer the air.

Near Tyrosh, he spotted them.

Two ships on the water, ringed by seven warships.

The two ships flew the flaming skull on their sails. The Relic Raiders' mark.

Their hulls had already been punched through by rams. Their gunwales were on fire. The seven Dornish warships circled them, and men on the warships were pitching grappling hooks across the gap. The hooks caught on the gunwales; Dornish soldiers swarmed up the ropes.

Drogo spotted Joanna.

She stood on the deck, both hands on her war hammer, working.

A Dornish soldier had just dropped from a rope onto the deck when she drove the hammer into his chest. He flew back, hit the gunwale, tumbled twice, and went into the sea.

Another came in from behind her. She spun and swept the hammer around. The head grazed his helmet and caved it in. He went down on his knees and stayed there.

Behind her, the melee was already going badly. Several Dornish soldiers had stormed the deck and were fighting the Free Army in close quarters. Some of the captives Drogo had brought back from Valyria had seized the chaos to switch sides, throwing in with the Dornish.

The Crow's Eye stood propped on his crutch beneath the mast, his blue lips moving faintly, as if the whole battle was someone else's business.

Drogo pulled the reins. Drogon tipped forward, wings half-tucked, and fell straight out of the clouds.

Wind roared in Drogo's ears. His eyes squeezed to slits.

He fixed on the Dornish warship nearest the Raider ships. The biggest vessel in the pack, flying the banner of Dorne, House Martell's spear-through-sun embroidered across the cloth.

The command ship.

At 30 feet above the water, Drogon spread his wings. The dive's momentum kicked his body upward for a moment. He stretched his neck forward, opened his jaws, and deep in his throat a mass of black-red fire rolled and churned.

Then it came out.

Dragonfire hit the command ship's deck.

The sails were gone in an instant. The Dornish banner on the mast shriveled to a fist of scorched cloth.

Men caught fire on the deck. Some jumped for the water. Some didn't make it to the railing.

Drogon swept over the command ship, his wingtip clipping the burning mast. It snapped clean through, toppled onto the gunwale, and dragged a sheet of burning canvas into the sea.

Drogo hauled the reins. Drogon carved a half-circle low over the water and came back in.

A second Dornish warship was coming about to run. Its sails were already full, bow swinging southeast, making for the Stepstones.

Viserion cut in from its flank. Flame poured through the bow and burned straight back to the stern.

The third and fourth ships were riding close together. Drogon took them in a single pass, flame punched through the stern of the first and kept going, splashing onto the bow of the second. Both ships caught at once. The firelight spread across the water and turned the blue sea orange.

Rhaegal would not be left out. His dragonfire hit another hull, blew a hole through the planking, and the sea rushed in.

Seven Dornish warships. Not much time at all before the last of them slipped under.

The Free Army swept the decks. The Rosby captives who had crossed over to the Dornish during the fighting — them and the bodies of the dead, went into the water.

Drogo had Drogon circle once above the Raider ships. Joanna stood on the deck with her war hammer planted at her feet, looking up and waving.

The Crow's Eye leaned out from behind the mast on his crutch, squinting up at the sky.

Drogo didn't land.

He pointed toward Tyrosh. Drogon pulled skyward and climbed back into the clouds.

The two Raider ships came about and trailed behind him toward Tyrosh.

Drogo got there first. Drogon set down on the open ground outside the harbor. Drogo dropped off the dragon's back, left him where he stood, and walked toward the docks.

Tyrosh squatted on the rocks at the northern edge of the Stepstones. It had been a Valyrian colony once; after the Doom it had stood up on its own two feet and called itself a state.

The city walls were black, cast from dragonstone, as hard as anything on Dragonstone itself. From half a harbor away the dark arc was already visible, running from the wall's base all the way out to the cliff edge.

The harbor was packed. Merchant ships and warships shoved in together, their masts thick as a winter forest stripped of leaves.

The people on the docks saw Drogon drop from the sky. They screamed and ran. Cargo went everywhere. A barrel of dye rolled off a pile and smashed open, purple spreading across the stones.

A few Tyroshi strolled past on the waterfront, their hair dyed purple and blue, vivid against the gray-white sky.

Drogo hadn't been waiting long before the two Raider ships made port.

The holes rammed through their hulls were still weeping water. The charred planking along the gunwales had been half-stripped away, and sailors were lugging spare boards up from below.

The Crow's Eye stood on his crutch beside Joanna. His blue eyes moved across the walls of Tyrosh, then across the dye-haired Tyroshi on the waterfront.

"Their hair," he said. "Like parrots."

That evening, the Archon of Tyrosh sent men to fetch Drogo.

The Archon's palace sat inside the city walls. It wasn't large, but the walls were hung with Tyrosh's proudest work: cloth dyed in purple and deep blue, the patterns catching and releasing the candlelight as the flames shifted.

The Archon was fat. Three rings on his fingers. His hair sat somewhere between green and blue, as though he had started with one color and then thought better of it halfway through.

He had a great deal to say. The Dornish had attacked Tyroshi merchant ships without warning. A naked provocation. Tyrosh's centuries of neutral trading stood violated. His navy had pushed the Dornish back once, but the cost had not been small. On and on. Then he changed his angle.

"If your fleet had not needed to pass through Tyrosh's waters, the Dornish fleet would never have come." He rapped his three rings on the table. "Your ships drew the bees. The bees stung my city. Tyrosh's losses — that debt falls on you."

"I paid the toll," Drogo said. "You took the coin. That means you were obligated to see my ships through your waters safely. My ships lost two-thirds of their number. That's your failure, not mine. If anyone owes compensation, it's you."

The Archon's fingers worked around his rings.

His lips moved twice. The flesh of his face pulled tight.

Drogo watched him and knew the answer already.

Tyrosh was a merchant city.

A merchant never spits out coin he's already swallowed.

But Drogo had no interest in a long argument. This was no time to make new enemies.

"I'll cover half of Tyrosh's losses," Drogo said at last.

The Archon's fingers went still.

"One condition. The Tyroshi navy helps me drive the Dornish out of the Stepstones."

The fingers started moving again.

The Archon looked at Drogo. Then he looked out the window.

The harbor of Tyrosh. His ships riding at anchor, holds full of dye and pearls.

The Dornish had been sitting in the Stepstones for years, and Tyroshi merchant ships had paid for it more than once. Clear the Stepstones, and those ships could move freely again.

The Archon spread his hands. "Agreed. But the cost of our navy's operations — that's yours to cover as well."

➤ Next: The Alliance at the Stepstones