Game of Thrones: The Black Dragon King

Three days later, the fully equipped army awaited its departure.

Beneath the towering city gate, accompanied by a harsh scraping sound, the recessed city gate slowly opened.

Leading the way was a red flag with a black dragon fluttering in the wind. Beneath the flag was a group of heavily armored cavalrymen, clad in gleaming steel plate armor, riding tall horses and wielding lances. They were densely packed together, their heads surging, and the tall plumes on their helmets rose and fell like waves with the swaying of their horses.

Behind them stood a neat and orderly infantry formation: halberdiers clad in uniform half-plate armor, heavily armored swordsmen, archers in red overcoats with short swords, carrying quivers and longbows, and crossbowmen in butterfly helmets and leather armor. Their steps were firm and their momentum was overwhelming.

Next came the horse archers, clad in half-length chainmail, riding swift warhorses, with sharp scimitars at their waists, and horn bows and quivers placed at the front and back of their saddles. Unlike the orderly marching of other troops, these horse archers, in groups of ten, scattered in all directions. Their mission was to intercept scouts and messengers, conceal the battlefield, and create a black curtain that prevented the enemy from sensing the situation.

The entire army surged towards Meereen like an unstoppable torrent, following the ancient trade routes along the Skazardan River. It must be said that these roads, worn smooth by caravans transporting large quantities of goods over hundreds of years, were surprisingly convenient and comfortable for military marches.

"I have a question," Reed asked. "Is Korakshyu ever truly full?"

This scarlet greyhound's thickest part was originally its ribcage, followed by its pelvis; the rest of its body was slender and well-proportioned, like a snake. Now, its abdomen, between the ribcage and pelvis, is severely swollen, and it finally looks less like a greyhound and more like a sausage.

Reid received a report from the clerk that Kolachu had eaten ten cows, more than one hundred sheep, and seventeen fat pigs in three days.

"Your family is so wealthy, do you really care about such trivial things?" Damon replied irritably.

"My main concern is whether it can still fly in this condition."

"Rest assured, every meal that Kolachu eats will turn into dragonfire and descend upon your enemies."

Korakshoo seemed to sense Reed's gaze. It lowered its head and looked at Reed with its scarlet eyes, which seemed to carry a hint of smugness and provocation.

Reed shrugged: "Two thousand horse archers and one thousand heavy cavalry are yours to command. I'll focus on attacking Meereen; you can handle the harassment from other directions."

"No problem." Damon also showed excitement as he led such an elite cavalry force for the first time.

……

During the march, Rhett, as usual, rode his dragon over his army when he suddenly noticed a flock of vultures circling a frame-like object in the distance. Upon landing, he was met with a sight too painful to behold—a young female slave, nailed to a cross, served as a signpost guiding the way.

If Red had previously harbored doubts about the righteousness of using the emancipation of slaves as a pretext for war, he was now convinced that he was doing something truly righteous.

The young slave girl's skin, tanned a wheatish color from years of outdoor labor, now appeared unusually pale due to blood loss. Her rough little hands, pierced by iron nails, pointed towards Meereen.

Beneath the unclosed eyelids, the eyes were empty and filled with despair, as if bearing the weight of all the world's suffering. The once clear pupils of a child were now covered by a deathly white film of decay. Beside them, a disheveled, seemingly insane woman picked up stones, shooing away vultures that came to feed on the carrion.

Looking around, there's a signpost like this every other lone, stretching all the way to Meereen in the distance. It's as if silently proclaiming: "What Daenerys has, you also have."

Reed shook his head violently.

"Take the body down."

Two soldiers immediately stepped forward and set the cross down. The madwoman snatched the child away, wailing, and, as if to lull him to sleep, hummed a lullaby in a hoarse, unpleasant voice that Red couldn't understand...

Although Reed had endured a lot of moral harm from necessary work while working as a mercenary, he still found the current scene somewhat unacceptable.

After a moment of silence, Reed took out two gold coins from his pocket. The image of a harpy with bared fangs on the front of the coins made him feel a little disgusted. After thinking for a moment, he replaced them with bronze star coins from Westeros and gently placed the mottled copper-green seven-pointed star over the child's eyes.

"In King's Landing's flea-infested ground, far more cruel acts have occurred. To repay the perpetrator with double the pain than to pay a stranger's ferry fare is a more fitting way to end the life." Damon's voice suddenly came from behind, his rough, bony hands gently stroking the hilt of the Dark Sisters' sword. This renowned steel blade was not only used to cut people on the battlefield, but also frequently employed in executions, for cruel acts like chopping off hands and feet, and gouging out genitals.

"Don't suddenly speak in someone's ear like that next time. I always feel like you're testing my vigilance so you can stab me in the back." Having already developed a psychological trauma, Red was extremely wary of this kind of behavior of approaching someone from behind.

Damon glanced intently at Reed's armor and said slowly, "It's made of steel, you can't pierce it."

He had indeed thought about it...

The clerk, dressed in a brown linen hooded robe, held a leather collar removed from the neck of a young female slave and reported, "Sir, what should we do with these road signs?"

"Is he a maester? A scholar trained by your family?" Damon suddenly asked. The scribe's attire was very similar to that of a maester in Westeros, but he did not have the chain around his neck that symbolized a maester's academic ability and status.

"You answer," Reed gestured.

The clerk bowed slightly and replied, "I am a clerk, sir. I mainly do paperwork and statistics. I know some law and civil affairs, but I am not proficient in medicine or the knowledge of ravens. Of course, I was trained by the Seris family and serve my master."

Damon nodded, seemingly satisfied with the clerk's answer.

Seeing that he had satisfied his curiosity, the clerk turned to look at Reed and continued his work.

"Take them down and bury them, then record the location of each signpost and the family it belongs to."

"Yes, sir."

Perhaps having cried all her tears, the old slave, who looked like a madwoman, finally stopped weeping. She pulled something from her bosom, knelt down with a thud, and pleaded in a hoarse voice, "Kind sir! Please have mercy! Please allow me to exchange this gem for a shovel so I can bury my daughter..."

Reid sighed softly and said, "My soldiers will help you dig a grave. As for this gem, I can exchange it for an equivalent amount of silver coins to make your life easier..." Reid looked down at the gem clutched tightly in the old slave's hand. The dim, emerald-green light looked increasingly familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

Tears welled up in the old slave's eyes again, but this time they were tears of gratitude. He crawled forward on his knees, presented the jewels with both hands, and said in a hoarse voice, "Kind sir! May the gods bless you! May you live a peaceful life..."

"Get the hell away from me!" Reed yelled in alarm, backing away. He finally remembered where that familiar face came from—it was the scorpion-faced creature Daenerys had encountered in Astapor.

The old slave suddenly hurled the scorpion, coiled into a ball, at Reed. In mid-air, the scorpion unfurled its body, revealing a grotesque human face on its thick stinger that sent chills down one's spine.

A flash of sword light, and the poisonous scorpion flying through the air was precisely cleaved in two.

"Look at you, you coward!" Damon mocked the Dark Sisters.

Looking at the scorpion split in two, Reed was still shaken. Despite being mocked, he still said to Damon, "Thank you."

"I'm sorry." The old slave grinned, his mouth full of black teeth forming a creepy smile, then turned to run away.

"Trying to leave? Not so easy!" Damon grabbed the Dark Sisters and prepared to give chase.

Reed suddenly pounced on him and pinned him to the ground.

"What the hell do you want?!" Damon turned around angrily.

Before he could finish speaking, two thick crossbow bolts, accompanied by a strong gust of wind, slammed into the spot where he had been standing.

"We're even," Reed said irritably.

"Korakshyu!" Damon called out. Two near-successful assassination attempts had enraged the dissolute prince, who was now calling upon his dragon companion.

"Horse archers! I want their heads!" Reid shouted, ordering the horse archers to pursue them.

Hundreds of yards away, the assassins in the earthen cave were furious.

"I told you we should have shot the dragon first. That dragon was much closer to me than those two. Now look what's happened, the dragon is flying over here."

"Idiot! Shooting it in the eye won't kill it at all; it will only enrage the dragon. If we kill the dragon knight, the dragon will be uncontrolled."

"Did you kill the dragon knight? No! Now we're the ones in trouble!"

"Shut up, escaping is the priority."

In their panic, they led their horses out of the burrows and fled in all directions. However, Koracius in the sky had already locked onto their presence, and with a flap of his enormous wings, he brought gusts of wind that blew the surrounding vegetation wildly.

"Hiss~! Waa ...

"Dragonfire!" Damon angrily issued the order.

An assassin had barely run a short distance when he felt a scorching heat rush towards him. He looked up in terror and saw that Koracsh's crimson dragon flames were already relentlessly plowing towards him. He tried his best to dodge, but he was too slow and was engulfed by the dragon flames with a scream.

Seeing this, the remaining assassins spurred their horses with all their might, attempting to escape this land of death. However, Damon would not let them off so easily. He circled in the air, locked onto another target, and then swooped down, burning one of the fleeing assassins to ashes.

As the other three assassins entered the woods, Reid arrived on his Night Fury, shouting and gesturing, "I'll go left, you go right. Set the forest on fire and force these rats out. The archers on the plains will take care of them."

Damon nodded in agreement, and the two immediately got to work.

Korakshu roared deafeningly in the air, bent its neck back, and from its open mouth, crimson flames seemed endless, turning the dense forest beneath its wings into a sea of ​​fire.

The Night Fury, not to be outdone, spewed forth eerie blue flames that clashed with Koracsh's dragonfire, igniting the forest on the other side as well. The flames spread rapidly, engulfing the trees with crackling sounds, and thick smoke billowed up, blotting out the sun.

The two dragons flew at speeds far exceeding those of horses, using flames to create a massive encirclement in the forest.

The three assassins faced only two paths: either force their way through the fire-filled barrier and be burned or suffocated to death, or turn back and confront hundreds of cavalrymen head-on.

The three assassins exchanged bewildered glances, their eyes filled with despair. They knew that whichever path they chose, death was inevitable.

"Let's risk it all, let's gamble it all, let's break out!" one of the assassins said through gritted teeth.

"This wall of fire is too wide. Even if you don't burn to death, you'll choke on the smoke. Trust me, I'm quite experienced in killing people by fire."

"What should we do then?"

The lead assassin ripped off his sand-colored cloak, revealing a red and yellow flame emblem, and said with a laugh, "Turn around and fight them!"

"They say the Ullers are half mad, and the other half worse, and they're absolutely right. You're insane! If two Ullers fall into the hands of the Targaryens, especially with the hot-tempered Damon, you'll suffer a fate worse than death!"

"The Ule family has no cowards. We'll die before they capture me. Besides, that arrogant Dragon King needs to know who made him grovel on the ground!"

"Ha!" Fowler Uller whipped the horse's rump hard, urging it to charge out of the woods.

Seeing this, another Uller and a hired assassin from Ries also turned their horses around and galloped towards the plains. Since they couldn't escape, they might as well fight to the death!

Facing the well-organized ranks of horse archers on the plain, Fowler Uller drew his distinctive Dornish scimitar and resolutely charged head-on into the fray.

"Damon! I know you're watching! Face me!" Fowler Wooller roared.

Perhaps the wind noise at high altitude was too great, or perhaps the distance was too great, but the wandering prince did not respond to his challenge. The horse archers, on the other hand, naturally paid tribute to the warrior with a hail of arrows.

Hundreds of arrows were fired, and the warhorses collapsed, throwing their riders heavily to the ground.

As he watched the colossal creature approaching from the sky and heard the increasingly dense sound of hooves, Fowler Uller inexplicably recalled a story told by his elders when he was a child: the falling Mirasis had crushed their family castle.

"Damn it, I should have brought a lance..." Fowler Uller muttered, then laboriously placed his scimitar against his neck and snapped his carotid artery.

Out of caution, the horse archers thoroughly inspected the surroundings and eliminated any dangers before Reed allowed the Night Fury to land. Meanwhile, Damon had been staring at the headless corpse of Fowler Uller, the Knight of the Gates, for quite some time.

The horse archers faithfully carried out the order to retrieve the heads. Six horse archers stood respectfully in a row, each carrying one of the assassin's heads—some burned beyond recognition, some freshly killed, and some severed some time ago. The head of "Regretful Guest" was particularly bizarre; the blood flowing from the severed neck was a dark, almost glue-like substance.

Reed glanced at it, tossed a bag of reward money to the leading cavalryman, and then ordered, "Burn it!"