to bear. Finally one quarrel took him through the neck, and Jace was swallowed by the sea.
The Battle in the Gullet raged into the night north and south of Dragonstone, and remains amongst the bloodiest sea battles in all of history. Sharako Lohar had taken a combined fleet of ninety Myrish, Lyseni, and Tyroshi warships from the Stepstones; twenty-eight survived to limp home, all but three crewed by Lyseni. In the aftermath, the widows of Myr and Tyrosh accused the admiral of sending their fleets to destruction whilst holding back his own, beginning the quarrel that would spell the end of the Triarchy two years later, when the three cities turned against each other in the Daughters’ War. But that is outside the scope of this tale.
Though the attackers bypassed Dragonstone, no doubt believing that the ancient Targaryen stronghold was too strong to assault, they exacted a grievous toll on Driftmark. Spicetown was brutally sacked, the bodies of men, women, and children butchered in the streets and left as fodder for gulls and rats and carrion crows, its buildings burned. The town would never be rebuilt. High Tide was put to the torch as well. All the treasures the Sea Snake had brought back from the east were consumed by fire, his servants cut down as they tried to flee the flames. The Velaryon fleet lost almost a third of its strength. Thousands died. Yet none of these losses were felt so deeply as that of Jacaerys Velaryon, Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne.
Rhaenyra’s youngest son seemed lost as well. In the confusion of battle, none of the survivors seemed quite certain which ship Prince Viserys had been on. Men on both sides presumed him dead, drowned or burned or butchered. And though his brother Aegon the Younger had fled and lived, all the joy had gone out of the boy; he would never forgive himself for leaping onto Stormcloud and abandoning his little brother to the enemy. It is written that when the Sea Snake was congratulated on his victory, the old man said, “If this be victory, I pray I never win another.”
Mushroom tells us there were two men on Dragonstone that night who drank to the slaughter in a smoky tavern beneath the castle: the dragonriders Hugh the Hammer and Ulf the White, who had flown Vermithor and Silverwing into battle and lived to boast of it. “We are knights now, truly,” Hard Hugh declared. And Ulf laughed and said, “Fie on that. We should be lords.”
The girl Nettles did not share their celebrations. She had flown with the others, fought as bravely, burned and killed as they had, but her face was black with smoke and streaked with tears when she returned to Dragonstone. And Addam Velaryon, lately Addam of Hull, sought out the Sea Snake after the battle; what they spoke to each other even Mushroom does not say.
A fortnight later, in the Reach, Ormund Hightower found himself caught between two armies. Thaddeus Rowan, Lord of Goldengrove, and Tom Flowers, Bastard of Bitterbridge, were bearing down on him from the northeast with a great host of mounted knights, whilst Ser Alan Beesbury, Lord Alan Tarly, and Lord Owen Costayne had joined their power to cut off his retreat to Oldtown. When their hosts closed around him on the banks of the river Honeywine, attacking front and rear at once, Lord Hightower saw his lines crumble. Defeat seemed imminent…until a shadow swept across the battlefield, and a terrible roar resounded overhead, slicing through the sound of steel on steel. A dragon had come.
The dragon was Tessarion, the Blue Queen, cobalt and copper. On her back rode the youngest of Queen Alicent’s three sons, Daeron Targaryen, fifteen, Lord Ormund’s squire, that same gentle and soft-spoken lad who had once been milk brother to Prince Jacaerys.
The arrival of Prince Daeron and his dragon reversed the tide of battle. Now it was Lord Ormund’s men attacking, screaming curses at their foes, whilst the queen’s men fled. By day’s end, Lord Rowan was retreating north with the remnants of his host, Tom Flowers lay dead and burned amongst the reeds, the two Alans had been taken captive, and Lord Costayne was dying from a wound given him by Bold Jon Roxton’s black blade, the Orphan-Maker. As wolves and ravens fed upon the bodies of the slain, Ormund Hightower feasted Prince Daeron on aurochs and strongwine, and dubbed him a knight with the storied Valyrian longsword