Chapter 267 - The Dragons Must Be Hatched
The blacksmith's hammer rose and fell. DING. DING. DING. Three clean strikes, then it accelerated into a rapid scatter of sound, DINGDINGDINGDINGDING, relentless and bright.
Then the hammer shifted angle. The sound dropped from high to low. THUD. THUD. THUD. Dull and heavy, each blow driving down.
High notes and low notes wove together in the air, the whole smithy ringing with the echo of iron on iron.
The flames of three dragons had melted the Valyrian steel Jonina Beeyon brought back into glowing red molten iron. The blacksmith worked it while it was still hot, pressing curved contours into the surface with each hammer strike, bending that dark-crimson plate one fraction closer to its final arc with every blow.
Drogo stood to the side watching, head tilted slightly, eyes half-lidded. He listened to the rhythm of it the way a man listens to a song he's heard a hundred times but doesn't mind hearing again.
Melisandre walked in from outside, the hem of her red robe sweeping through the iron filings and coal ash scattered across the floor.
She stopped beside Drogo and listened for a moment. "Quite a nice rhythm."
Drogo pulled his gaze from the blacksmith's wrist. "This one's called Warrior Like the Wind."
Melisandre smiled. A polite smile, corners of her mouth lifting just enough to count as courtesy.
"Everything is ready. They're at the Dragonpit." She paused. "Shall we begin the sacrifice?"
Drogo took one last look at the iron plate. The blacksmith's hammer came down in a final stroke — CLANG — the sound ringing long and slow before fading.
He let his hand drop from his belt, turned, and walked out. "Then let's get started," he said over his shoulder. "I'm done waiting to see those dragons hatch."
The Dragonpit stood atop the Hill of Rhaenys in King's Landing. From a distance it looked like a giant beast with its head hacked off, crouching under the gray-white sky, the scales along its back mostly shattered and fallen away, the broken stone skeleton exposed beneath.
Up close, the dome had largely caved in. Only a few arched ribs still held near the eastern entrance, curved and ragged against the open sky.
Drogo paused at the entrance.
He looked up at the broken edge of the dome and let the memories of this place surface.
During the Dance of the Dragons, the common folk of King's Landing had been driven to a fury by the suffering the war brought down on them. A fanatical prophet they called the Shepherd stirred thousands of starving, half-maddened people into action. They turned that fury on the dragons, on every symbol of Targaryen power they could reach.
The mob stormed the Dragonpit. The dragons were chained, and the fighting was brutal.
It ended badly for both sides. Thousands of commoners died. The five dragons inside, Shrykos, Morghul, Tyraxes, Dreamfyre, and Syrax, who arrived later, were all killed.
The Dragonpit itself came down in the death throes. Dreamfyre had tried to break through the dome and escape. She crashed into the ceiling. The whole vast structure came down with her.
This magnificent building, reduced to rubble.
Drogo found it almost funny.
The Targaryens had chained their dragons inside these walls. Dragonflame could melt iron chains. It could burn through stone. When the mob came pouring in, the dragons stretched their necks and breathed fire at the people closing in on them, but not one of them thought to melt the chains around their own necks.
He walked toward the center of the ruins.
A funeral pyre had already been built at the heart of the Dragonpit. 3 meters high, firewood stacked layer upon layer in a crisscross pattern, soaked with oil.
Viserys was bound to the stake at the top. His head hung forward, silver-white hair fallen loose across most of his face.
Beside him, the High Sparrow was tied to a second stake. His gray robes were cinched into ridges by the rope. The swelling on his face hadn't fully gone down, and a dark-red bruise ran from his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth.
In the gap between the two men sat the purple dragon egg.
Daenerys was already there.
She stood about 20 paces in front of the pyre, wearing a deep-blue gown. Her silver hair draped over her shoulders, lightly stirred by the wind. Beside her stood 5 Queensguard, the brothers Missandei and Missandor flanking her left and right, the three Belwas brothers arrayed behind her.
Barristan was not among them.
The old knight had been sent outside the walls to distribute grain to the common folk of King's Landing. Drogo hadn't wanted him at the ritual.
He knew what would happen if Barristan were here. The man would speak. He always did now, leaning on his age and on Daenerys's patience, offering his opinions whether anyone asked for them or not.
Drogo remembered that Barristan had stood beneath the Iron Throne in silence when the Mad King Aerys burned Rickard Stark alive. Not a word.
Now, apparently, he'd found his voice.
Drogo didn't need to hear it.
The dragons had to hatch. That was not a discussion.
Cohollo, Qotho, and Haggo followed behind Drogo as he crossed the ruins toward Daenerys.
Beyond them, the vast Dragonpit held only two others: Melisandre and Jonina Beeyon, standing on opposite sides of the pyre. The two red priestesses kept a measured distance from each other, both watching the stacked wood in silence.
Drogo didn't want word of this getting out. The fewer people present, the better.
He stopped in front of Daenerys.
She turned and looked at him, her gaze steady. No tension in it. No hesitation.
"You've had a few days to think it over," Drogo said. "Have you?"
Daenerys looked back at the pyre. At Viserys's hanging head.
"The first time Viserys came to see Rhaego, he said something that moved me. I knew he was trying to get close to Rhaego, to hurt him." She was quiet for a moment. "But what he said made me wonder — whether he only became the way he is because of everything that was done to him. All the years of humiliation."
"I went and spoke to Barristan about it afterward. He told me Viserys was like this from childhood."
Drogo looked at her. "Then let's begin."
"I want to light the fire myself," Daenerys said.
Drogo didn't hesitate. He glanced at Melisandre. The red priestess gave a small nod, stepped forward, and placed the torch in Daenerys's hand.
The flame danced in the wind. Orange-red light moved across Daenerys's face and caught in her silver hair, warming it to gold.
She walked toward the pyre.
Her footsteps crunched over the broken stone floor, each step quiet and deliberate, carrying her closer to the oil-soaked wood.
Viserys raised his head.
His eyes were purple, and in the firelight they burned brighter than usual, wet with tears, like two glass beads left too long in water.
He saw the torch in her hand. He saw Drogo standing behind her. He saw the white cloaks of the Queensguard.
His mouth opened. What came out was hoarse and cracked and barely formed into words. "Dany. I'm your brother. I'm your king. You can't do this to me."
Daenerys stopped in front of the pyre.
The torch was in her hand. The base of the pine stack was less than an arm's length away.
➤ Next: True Dragons Do Not Fear the Fire’s Trial