(The High Hall of Runestone, 121 AC)
The High Hall was cold. It was a damp, pervasive chill that seeped into the marrow, ignoring the thick tapestries and the roaring hearths. It was the breath of the Mountains of the Moon.
Aeryn sat on the ancient seat of the Royces—a throne of dark, petrified wood reinforced with bronze bands. It was too large for his eight-year-old frame, yet he filled it with a terrifying stillness.
Before him stood the "Grey Lords," the inner circle of the Vale's nobility who held lands bordering the Royce domains. Lord Hunter of Longbow Hall, smelling of wet hounds and leather; Lord Redfort, tall and skeletal; and Lord Belmore, a man whose belly strained against his doublet.
They looked at the boy with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism. To them, he was a curiosity—a Targaryen prince playing at being a mountain lord.
"The tithes from the Coldwater regions are late," Aeryn stated. His voice did not echo; it cut through the room like a draft. He wasn't looking at the lords; he was studying a heavy, leather-bound ledger, his mechanical brace clicking softly as he turned a page.
Lord Hunter stepped forward, his boots heavy on the stone floor. "The mountain clans, my Prince. They hit the caravans at the Whispering Pass three days ago. We lost three wagons of grain, four good men, and a shipment of iron from the lower mines. We cannot pay in gold when we are bleeding in the hills."
Hunter spread his hands, a gesture of helpless frustration that Aeryn recognized immediately as performance.
Aeryn looked up. His violet eyes were flat, devoid of the sympathy Hunter was fishing for.
"You have eighty men-at-arms in your garrison, Lord Hunter," Aeryn calculated aloud, his tone bored. "The Whispering Pass is four miles long. If you had stationed scouts at the Needle's Eye, as the standing orders of the Vale dictate, the ambush would have been visible twenty minutes before it occurred."
Hunter's face flushed a deep, angry red. "Standing orders? From a child who has spent his life in the perfumed gardens of the Red Keep?"
"From the Lord of Runestone," Aeryn corrected calmly. He closed the ledger with a dull thud.
He stood up, using his bronze-topped cane to descend the dais. His limp was subtle, a rhythm rather than a weakness. He stopped five paces from the towering Lord Hunter.
"I have spent the last week mapping the weather patterns of the Giant's Lance," Aeryn continued, his voice steady. "The clans are moving because the winter is coming early to the peaks. The frost line has dropped five hundred feet in two days. They are desperate. And desperate men are predictable."
"And what is your 'predictable' solution, Prince?" Lord Redfort sneered, crossing his arms. "Are you going to fly your beast up there and burn the entire mountain range? The smoke would choke our own cattle."
"Fire is a blunt instrument," Aeryn said, turning toward the great window that looked out over the mist-shrouded cliffs. "I prefer a scalpel."
He pointed out the window.
High above, circling the highest tower of Runestone, was a shadow of living metal. Vermithor glided on the thermal currents, his bronze scales catching the pale, watery sun.
"The Stone Crows use the shadows of the peaks to move," Aeryn explained. "Tonight, the moon is full. They will attempt to raid the Lowlands of Wickenden to stock up for the freeze. I have already sent forty of my Bronze Guard to the foothills."
"Forty men?" Hunter laughed, a harsh, barking sound. "The Stone Crows number in the hundreds! They will eat your knights for supper."
"Forty men," Aeryn said, turning back to face them. "And one observer."
...
(The Foothills of the Vale - Midnight)
The wind howled through the canyons, masking the sound of soft boots on stone.
The Stone Crows moved like ghosts through the scrub brush. They were masters of this terrain, ragged men and women wrapped in furs and hardened leather, wielding axes of stone and stolen steel. They moved toward the single stone bridge that crossed the gorge—the only way down to the rich farmlands of Wickenden.
They did not look up. They were watching the ground, watching for patrols.
They didn't hear the dragon until the moon disappeared.
Aeryn didn't dive. He didn't roar.
He had Vermithor hover at four thousand feet, invisible against the ink-black sky, drifting silently on the wind. Through the lenses of a modified far-eye—a brass tube fitted with Myrish glass—Aeryn watched the heat signatures of their torches and the movement of their bodies.
Target confirmed. Density: High. Bottleneck: The Bridge.
Aeryn adjusted the lever on his chest harness. "Naejot."
Vermithor descended. He didn't flap his wings; he simply fell, a massive stone dropping from the heavens. He opened his wings at the last second, the air displacement creating a thunderclap that knocked the vanguard of the clansmen off their feet.
The dragon landed on the far side of the bridge.
Vermithor let out a hiss—not a roar, but the sound of a steam vent opening. His golden eyes, glowing like furnaces in the dark, illuminated the terrified faces of the savages.
The clansmen turned to run back the way they came.
Snap.
A single flare, fired from Aeryn's saddle, arced into the sky, bathing the canyon in blinding red light.
From the ridges above, the Bronze Guard stood up. Forty crossbows leveled.
"Drop the steel!" Ser Vardis Egen's voice boomed from the cliffs. "Or feed the crows!"
The clansmen froze. Behind them, a dragon. Above them, death.
One of the clan leaders, a massive brute with a necklace of finger bones, screamed a war cry and charged the dragon.
Aeryn sighed. Variable: Human stupidity.
"Drakari," Aeryn whispered.
He aimed Vermithor's head not at the man, but at the ground five feet in front of him.
A line of fire—white-hot and blinding—erupted from the dragon's maw. It turned the rock into molten slag in an instant. The heat wave hit the charging warrior like a physical wall, throwing him backward, his furs singing.
The fire died as quickly as it had come, leaving a glowing, bubbling trench of lava between the dragon and the clan.
Silence fell over the gorge.
Aeryn looked down from his saddle. He adjusted his heavy cloak against the cold.
"The next line," Aeryn's voice projected clearly in the silence, amplified by the acoustics of the canyon, "will not be on the ground."
The Stone Crows dropped their weapons. Clatter after clatter of axes and swords hitting the stone.
...
(The High Hall - Next Morning)
The doors of the hall were thrown open with a heavy thud.
The Bronze Guard marched in, their armor dented but their discipline impeccable. Behind them, roped together in a long, sullen line, were fifty captured clansmen, including their leader. Behind them were the chests of stolen grain and iron.
Aeryn was back on his throne, breaking his fast with a piece of hard bread and cheese. He looked bored.
The Grey Lords stared. Lord Hunter's mouth hung slightly open. Lord Redfort looked at the captured savages, then at the grain, then at the small boy on the throne.
"The tithes will be paid by nightfall, Lord Hunter," Aeryn said, not looking up from his meal. "And I suggest you double the scouts at the Needle's Eye. Next time, I might not be awake to balance your ledgers for you."
Hunter stepped forward. He looked at the bound Stone Crows—men who had terrorized his lands for a decade, now cowed by a child.
He knelt.
It wasn't the shallow, courtly bow he had given the day before. It was the heavy, creaking kneel of a man who realized he was in the presence of power.
"As you command, Lord Royce," Hunter murmured. "The grain is yours. And... my sword is yours."
"I do not need your sword, My Lord," Aeryn said, finally looking up. "I need your competence. Rise."
As the lords filed out, chastened and silent, Aeryn felt a sharp throb in his scarred arm. The cold of the morning was setting in. He rubbed the copper brace, looking at the empty seat beside him where his mother should have been.
I am establishing the Law, Mother, he thought. But the Stone is lonely.
He picked up a quill and a piece of parchment. He had been drafting a report to the King, detailing the pacification of the region.
He wrote: "The Vale is quiet, Uncle. The variables are being stabilized."
He paused, then added a final line, his hand softening:
"Give my regards to Helaena. Tell her the spiders here are much larger, and they do not weave silk. But at least the webs are easy to see."
Aeryn Royce-Targaryen closed the ledger. The first lesson was over. The Grey Lords had been broken. Now, it was time to build the city.