On the harbor pier, two forces clashed in a desperate struggle for survival.
On one side stood the elite soldiers of the Seven Kingdoms, clad in fine armor, disciplined and proud—the very strength of Westeros.
On the other side were the Dragon Soul Guards, silent as stone and unyielding as mountains.
From the first clash, the battle revealed itself as horrifyingly one-sided.
The skill and equipment the soldiers of the Seven Kingdoms boasted of proved as fragile as parchment before the Dragon Soul Guards.
The ceaseless ring of steel on steel could not hide the shrill wails of weapons snapping apart.
The Dragon Soul Guards' gleaming Valyrian steel armor was indestructible. Heavy axes and sharp swords alike failed to leave so much as a scratch, while the impact shattered knuckles and split blades into jagged ruin.
When the silent guards swung back with their Valyrian steel swords, the Seven Kingdoms' soldiers lifted their weapons in panic. But with a single sharp crack, the blades they trusted for their lives splintered like rotten wood.
The gulf in weaponry was undeniable.
A few noble lords carried swords forged by master smiths. Though not Valyrian steel, these blades could endure a dozen clashes before breaking. But the common steel of ordinary soldiers' swords was utterly useless—their parries meaningless before Valyrian steel.
Westerlands men and warriors of the Reach at least wore light plate armor that offered some protection. But the ironborn of the Iron Islands and the fighters of Dorne, clad only in leather, chain, scale, or mail, were left with flesh and bone exposed to merciless steel, like livestock awaiting slaughter.
Where sword-light flashed, limbs flew. Blood soaked the wooden planks of the pier.
Even the sturdier plate armor proved worthless, cut apart like paper beneath Valyrian steel. Many knights of the Reach and soldiers of the Westerlands fell no differently, swiftly cut down by the guards' cold efficiency.
Driven back step by step by the relentless onslaught, the soldiers of the Seven Kingdoms were forced to retreat along the narrow causeway until they reached the very end, with nowhere left to run.
Watching common men and even gallant knights fall like sheep to the butcher, Hyle Hunt, a hedge knight of Horn Hill, stood blood-soaked, his plate smeared with filth and gore.
He shouted hoarsely toward his commander, Lord Paxter Redwyne.
"My lord! We can't hold! We can't hold any longer!"
Lord Paxter's face twisted in dread, the gaunt muscles of his cheeks trembling as his eyes fixed on the Dragon Soul Guards, death incarnate, advancing step by step.
The guards were not only strong but swift as wraiths, their blades always finding the gaps in the knights' heavy plate, striking at the joints with lethal precision.
One by one, the knights and retainers of the Reach fell, blood spraying from the seams of their armor, staining the pier crimson.
The nobles at the rear looked on in cold despair, as though they were staring into the very face of Doom.
On the far side of the causeway, Kevan Lannister, drenched in blood, fought at the head of the remnants of the Westerlands army. With nothing but will and desperation, they tried to stem the tide of Dragon Soul steel.
Prince Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper, and his Dornishmen fared far worse.
The narrow causeway robbed Oberyn of his famed serpentine spearplay, reducing the fight to brutal collisions of flesh and iron.
The agility the Dornish had always prided themselves on found no place here. They were cut down mercilessly, their screams rising and falling in waves.
Worst of all were the ironborn of Victarion Greyjoy.
Men once renowned for their ferocity, their eyes blazing with menace, now held only terror.
Their thin leather armor might as well have been parchment before Valyrian steel. With every flash of a blade, another ironborn fell.
The wild grin was gone from Victarion's face, replaced by a despair as deep as the abyss.
Baelor Hightower clutched Paxter Redwyne's arm, his voice trembling with urgency.
"My lord, you are the commander. Give the order to surrender! This battle... we are utterly defeated."
A violent struggle flashed in Paxter's eyes. The pride of a great lord of the Seven Kingdoms made the words stick in his throat.
"Surrender? We are lords of the Seven Kingdoms..."
Baelor's voice turned almost to pleading. He pointed toward the blazing golden inferno in the distance.
"My lord, look—look at that dragon! If we keep holding out, half the nobility of the Seven Kingdoms will perish here. I beg you, my lord, look at that sight..."
With great effort, Paxter turned his head and looked out over the sea.
There, beneath the lowering dusk, the golden dragon roared to the heavens. Its colossal body wheeled in the storm, each dive unleashing a pillar of blazing fire that rained destruction on the sea below.
Hundreds of warships—the greatest fleet the Seven Kingdoms had ever assembled—were being reduced, one by one, to blazing torches on the water.
Flames licked madly at masts and sails, casting the sea in a molten golden glow.
Countless soldiers, sailors, and camp followers writhed and screamed in the inferno, throwing themselves into the boiling waters only to be swallowed by the waves or cooked alive.
The naval strength of the Seven Kingdoms—centuries of pride and glory—was collapsing in the golden blaze, turning to ash and cinders.
After this battle, the mighty fleets of Westeros would exist only in history.
It's over.
Everything is over.
Baelor Hightower was right.
If they did not surrender, most of the nobility of the realm would die here today.
Paxter Redwyne tore his gaze away in despair, suffocated by the weight of agony and humiliation.
He closed his eyes tightly, his throat working furiously.
At last, a decision so heavy it seemed to drain the life from him forced its way out between his clenched teeth.
"We... we surrender!"
With the commander's order given, the remaining soldiers and knights of the Reach, their faces etched with humiliation and the fragile relief of survival, cast aside their broken weapons. One by one, they dropped to their knees on the blood-soaked pier, their cries for mercy mingled with sobs.
The cold-eyed Dragon Soul Guards advanced, kicking aside discarded steel and binding their captives with coarse hemp ropes.
Across the pier, Ser Kevan Lannister, bloodied from the fighting, saw Paxter yield. When the Dragon Soul Guards halted their attack, he knew the battle was lost. With a heavy hand, he gave the same order.
The Ironborn and Dornish, already broken by fear and loss, threw down their weapons as well. Relief and exhaustion washed over them, but their faces were carved with numb terror and bitter defeat.
The brutal landing battle had come to an end.
Of the more than three thousand elite soldiers who had stormed the island, only a few hundred shaken survivors remained.
The pier had become a slaughterhouse. Rain mixed with thick, clotted blood, seeping between the planks and staining everything a glaring, dark red.
The surviving nobles, knights, and soldiers, like livestock awaiting slaughter, were bound tightly with ropes by the Dragon Soul Guards.
Under the cold gaze of Jaelena and Chai Yiq, they were marched toward the dungeons of Bloodstone.
Out at sea, Lo Quen had nearly burned every Seven Kingdoms warship within sight.
The air was heavy with the acrid stench of charred flesh mingled with salt.
He loosed a majestic roar, wheeled about, and flew toward the reef where Roro and Hal lay hidden.
There, the warships waited in silence.
On the deck of the flagship, Roro and Hal stared, their faces filled with awe and shock beyond words.
They had never dreamed they would live to witness the return of a dragon thought gone for more than a century.
And more incredible still—that this legendary beast had destroyed the Seven Kingdoms' fleet on their behalf.
They exchanged a glance, and both thought at once of their enigmatic master, Lo Quen.
"My lord... he..." Roro murmured, his eyes burning with fervor.
Hal nodded vigorously, his voice trembling. "To command a dragon... my lord must bear the blood of a true Dragonlord."
They still believed the golden dragon to be Lo Quen's mount.
The thought that they served a true dragonrider filled them with pride and elation.
They had chosen the right master to cling to.