Game of Thrones: The Black Dragon King

Reed was sitting on the dragon saddle, somewhat bored, observing the distant sea through a Mill lens.

He didn't receive a kiss from his fiancée, but Rhaenera gave him a woven wreath before he left, placing it on the hilt of his sword. The flowers had now withered, leaving only bare, discolored vines swaying in the fierce winds high above.

"Hiss~!" Night Fury hissed softly, and Reid, who was telepathically connected with the others, immediately understood and turned the "Mil Eye" to the other side to scan continuously, finally locking onto a tiny sail that was slowly rising above the sea.

In the Middle Ages, when navigation and seafaring technologies were underdeveloped, merchant ships and warships of nobles and lords would try their best to stay close to the coastline, for fear of losing their way. Even so, ships would often run aground and sink due to storms or navigational errors, becoming fish. Most of the time, ships would slowly move along established safe routes that had been verified by countless predecessors, as if they were being pulled by invisible ropes, not daring to cross the line in the slightest.

However, there are two exceptions: highly skilled and daring seafaring explorers and infamous pirates.

"Put it over there," Reed ordered.

The Night Fury's massive body twisted nimbly in mid-air, changing direction and rushing straight at the newly appeared target.

The distance, seemingly endless, was only a short distance for the dragon's flying speed. As the distance closed, the painted hull and bronze figurehead of the oar-powered sailing ship came into view.

It was a Reichsman galley, and the deck was piled high with supplies.

Reed could clearly see the busy sailors on deck, dressed in brightly colored but slightly worn leather armor. Faced with the approaching dragon, chaos reigned on the deck. Some were screaming in terror, some were frantically searching for weapons, and some had collapsed to the ground, their legs too weak to stand.

"Don't panic!!" A middle-aged man who looked like a captain stepped forward. He was burly with a noticeable scar on his face and was trying to calm the situation. "Prepare the bows and crossbows!"

Hearing the order, the sailors, though still filled with fear, forced themselves to take up their weapons and form a defensive formation on the deck. The giant crossbows were quickly adjusted to the correct angle, and several strong sailors laboriously turned the winches, placing the massive crossbows into their firing slots. The archers also nocked their arrows, their eyes fixed intently on the approaching dragon and knight.

Reid glanced at the warships waiting below, a slight smirk playing on his lips. He gently patted Night Fury's neck, and Night Fury, understanding, let out a deafening roar that echoed like thunder above the warships, chilling the already tense sailors to the bone.

"Fire!" With the captain's command, the giant crossbows launched the first attack, the massive bolts whistling as they flew towards Night Fury and Reid. Reid calmly pulled down his visor, and a chorus of exclamations erupted from the sea. The crew members scrambled to fire their scorpion crossbows into the air, but shooting at a dragon was one thing, killing a dragon was another. The arrows that barely hit their mark were deflected by the dragon's scales.

"Let's teach them a lesson!"

The massive black dragon swept across the air above the oar-powered warship, its enormous tail lashing down like a whip, snapping the mast. Its thick booms dragged the triangular sails and tangled rigging, slamming them heavily onto the deck, leaving it in ruins. Wounded pirates cried out in pain.

After circling once in the air, the Night Fury swooped down again, its jaws wide open, azure dragonfire brewing in its throat. Meanwhile, a white flag rose from the tattered mast of the Ries pirate ship. Surrendering when you can't win? Well, that's very pirate-like.

"Stop the fighting!" Reid commanded.

The sudden order made the large creature, unable to freely spew dragon flames, let out a series of low growls in displeasure, but it still managed to suppress the flames in its throat.

Riddle opened his faceplate, pulled out a copper megaphone from the side of the saddle, and shouted towards the ship:

"Sail southwest and surrender to the Valerian fleet, and you will be treated well! Repeat, sail southwest and surrender to the Valerian fleet, and you will be treated well!"

Night Fury circled the Reese warship several times, and seeing the ship below obediently turn around and sail in the designated direction, Reed then increased the distance.

More than twenty years ago, during the Fourth War of Dorne... Westeros bards preferred to call it "The Madness of Prince Marion" or "The Battle of a Hundred Candles," Jaehaerys Targaryen and his two sons, Aemon and Belron, ambushed the Dornish fleet aboard Vormisor, Corakshyu, and Varghal.

Three dragons swooped and circled wildly, spewing forth raging flames. Ship after ship was engulfed in flames, burning until sunset; "the sea was like a hundred candles lit," people described it. The Targaryen family ended and won the Fourth War of Dorne in just one day.

For the next six months, charred corpses and blackened shipwrecks continued to wash ashore at Cape Furious. For a while afterward, the pirates of the Steps Islands, the mercenary ships of Myr, and the bandits of the Pepper Coast were quiet.

More than 20 years have passed, but there are still eyewitnesses and legends left on this sea. People have deeply remembered a truth: on the vast and boundless sea, ships are live targets for dragons.

Therefore, the pirates of the Steps Islands, having received the news, hid themselves very well. Knowing their own weakness, they did not want to confront their opponents, who possessed dragons and powerful fleets, head-on. Instead, they hid in secluded bays, complex island groups, or deep trenches, attempting to use these natural barriers to evade pursuit and wait for a change in circumstances.

This also caused Damon and Corliss's plan to rely on the dragons for a decisive fleet battle to fail. After five days of searching at sea, Reed found nothing except for capturing two lone pirate ships.

Reed leaned listlessly against the dragon saddle, while the Night Fury circled above the Reese pirate ship, leading the galley, which had lost most of its sails, toward the Valerian fleet's anchorage, until they encountered a patrol boat flying the seahorse flag.

When Reed landed at the island barracks, he encountered Damon walking towards him.

"Another prisoner?" Damon said with disdain, looking at the pirates being led ashore.

Compared to the way Prince Reed prefers to have Clark pour dragonfire over his head, burning the pirate ship with its powerful, domineering, and long-lasting flames, Reed's method of bringing back both the crew and the ship seems a bit too merciful.

Reed shrugged, climbed off the Night Fury's back, and patted the dragon's neck reassuringly: "There's information in a living person's mouth."

"The pirates on the previous ship didn't provide any useful information."

"This is a supply ship. Taking out one of the enemy's supplies is equivalent to saving our own five ships' worth; the rowing slaves in the hold will be a great source of manpower." Reed thought for a moment, then added, "Besides, the ship itself is also very valuable..."

The reason why the Valyrian steel sword ordered by the sea serpent was not exchanged for the golden dragon, but instead converted into a ship, is because the ship was really expensive to build.

The cost of a hundred-oared warship can be as high as 80,000 to 100,000 gold dragons. It is not something that can be built just because you have money. It requires three years in advance to prepare the wood for air-drying, one year in advance to fumigate and bend the wood and wait for the key wooden components such as the keel and ribs to be shaped, and six months in advance to order various materials such as canvas, ropes, tung oil, paint and wrought iron components. The construction period starts at one year and has no upper limit.

Even with a golden dragon, building a ship from scratch would take at least four years. Even with financial power, it would still take at least a year, and the cost of materials and labor would increase exponentially.

Damon shrugged dismissively, but didn't pursue the topic further. Instead, he turned and walked towards the barracks, saying as he went, "Now that you're back, let's discuss tactics."

"Aren't you going to patrol anymore?"

"You've only burned two ships in five days? What good is that for the war?" Damon's tone revealed obvious dissatisfaction and anxiety, clearly extremely disappointed with the results of the past few days.

Upon entering the barracks, the Sea Serpent Corliss had already gathered Wilhelm, Lannino, several fleet commanders, a few noble sons under Damon's command, and a mercenary leader. They were all gathered around a large nautical chart, discussing in hushed tones. Seeing Damon and Reid enter, everyone cast inquiring glances their way.

"Alright, everyone's here." Damon clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention. "We need to rethink our tactics. The pirates of the Three Bitches Kingdom have decided to play the coward, their plan for a decisive naval battle has failed, and aimless searching is pointless. We need to come up with a new plan. If you ask me, we should just blockade their supply lines. There are many pirates on the Stone Steps Islands, but most of their supplies rely on external transport. As long as we cut off their sea routes, those pirates holed up on the islands will naturally collapse on their own."

Wei Mengde stroked his chin, but shook his head in rebuttal: "It's not very feasible. To blockade such a large area of ​​sea, our fleet's manpower would be severely stretched."

"Even if we blockade the supply lines, if those pirates have stockpiled enough supplies beforehand, they could hold out for a year or two without any problem. Wouldn't all our efforts have been in vain then?"

"They positioned heavy catapults on cliffs near the coast, posing a risk of sinking ships that got too close!"

"How far can a catapult throw a trebuchet?" Reed asked abruptly, having heard something that interested him.

"Sufficient to cover the shipping lanes along the island's coast."

"How big are the stone projectiles?"

"Capable of smashing through the hull of a hundred-oared warship!"

I need specific quantifiers, not adjectives.

"Uh..." The commander was momentarily speechless when asked, trying hard to recall, "According to the sailors who escaped, it was about... about half a person's height, and its thickness... well, it was almost as big as a carriage wheel."

"Alright," Reed said helplessly, putting down the pen he was about to use to calculate the geometric trajectory of the ballistic missile.

"Let the dragon handle it; these wooden frames are easy to burn."

"They will hide these heavy machines in caves in the cliff, and only bring them out when needed."

"Why not just lure them out with warships?"

"To lure these big guys out, we need to send out real ships. So here's the problem: in Mil, such heavy counterweight catapults only cost two or three thousand gold dragons, while a ship is easily worth dozens of catapults."

"War isn't about settling accounts, kid!"

Reid rubbed his temples and retorted, "But we can't completely ignore the costs. We have to achieve the greatest victory with the least amount of effort."

"So what are your thoughts?"

"Why can't we avoid their strength and attack their weakness? We don't need to fight this heavily defended island to the death. This is the sea; ships can reach anywhere there's water, right?"

As soon as Reed finished speaking, the Valerian officers began to subtly suppress their laughter.

"Actually... no." The sea serpent Corliss carefully chose his words.

"?"

Seeing the question marks on Damon and Reid's faces, Corliss helplessly picked up a quill and sketched on the entire map of the Steps Islands, giving them a crash course in navigation: "As long as there is seawater, a ship can float on the water, but to sail, it needs ocean currents, sea breezes, and manpower. Mainly wind and ocean currents; you can't sail for long by rowing."

"To the north of the Stepstone Islands lies the Narrow Sea Circulation, flowing from west to east, and to the south, the Summer Sea Circulation, flowing from east to west. At this time of year, the winds blow from the southeast. To travel from Westeros to Essos, one must rely on the east-west current north of the Stepstone Islands to overcome the slight headwinds; otherwise, ships would risk getting lost, storms, and shortages of supplies, spending three times as much time navigating the zigzag winds across the Narrow Sea."

"Similarly, merchant ships traveling from the Summer Sea to Westeros also need to take advantage of the currents at the southern end of the Steps Islands. Of course, due to the favorable winds, they can also take a longer route to avoid the islands of the Steps Islands, but there is a risk of getting lost and, if they do not control their course well, they will be carried into the Sunset Sea by the sea breeze."

"Traversing the Stepstone Islands is even more complicated. Due to the complex terrain of the Stepstone Islands, these two currents create countless eddies, turbulent currents, and undercurrents. If you don't want to run aground or hit a reef, you can only use five fixed routes. From north to south, you can go along the coast of the Broken Arm Point of Dorne or the Disputed Lands. From south to north, you can only travel through the strait between the four islands of Bloodstone."

"No matter which waterway, ships dare not go at full speed, and there is usually a journey of one to two days in between that requires rowing to overcome the influence of ocean currents with different directions."

"This is why a large number of merchant ships, even at the risk of being robbed, still pass through the Stone Steps Islands, and it is also why the pirates of the Three Bitch Kingdoms, who are based here, are able to repeatedly succeed in their plundering."

Reid clicked his tongue and pondered, "So, does taking Bloodstone Island mean we've cut off the pirate ship's return route?"

"Not absolutely, but pretty close. As long as we capture the main island of Bloodstone Island and the eastern outlying islands, and supplement it with ships, lookout posts, and long-range weapons, the enemy's supply lines will become extremely difficult."

"Therefore, this battle must be fought."

"We must fight, even if it results in heavy casualties."

······

Reed winked at Damon: "Leave professional matters to the professionals. On the high seas, I don't think anyone is more professional than Lord Corliss."

"I have no objection."