It let out a cry — not a roar, but a high, thin wail, like a baby screaming, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, like metal scraping stone. The sound carried far across the fields and sent a flock of birds exploding from the riverbank. It opened its mouth and a small dark-red flame flickered deep in its throat before dying out. It was still too young to breathe fire properly. But it could bite. It could coil. It could strike.
It lashed a tentacle toward Davon. Davon dodged. The tentacle slammed into the tree behind him, tearing off a large strip of bark and exposing white wood underneath. It swung another tentacle at the two guards. One dove left, the other right. The tentacle smashed into the mud, carving a deep trench and splashing filthy water across their faces.
The creature turned its body toward Limpick. Its golden eyes locked onto him, pupils narrowed to slits. Its mouth opened, revealing the serrated beak and the tiny dying flame deep in its throat. Then it lunged.
Not crawled — lunged. All eight tentacles pushed at once, launching its body off the ground like a gray cannonball straight at him. Limpick rolled sideways. Mud splattered across his body as the tentacles whipped past his shoulder and slammed into the ground behind him. He scrambled to his feet, hand on the hilt of his rusty dagger, but he didn't draw it. He didn't want to kill it. This was one of Yuan's offspring — one of the eggs that had hatched. It was the child he had watched Yuan lay on the shore of Dragonstone. He couldn't kill it. But he had no idea how to make it stop.
Davon didn't hesitate. He charged from behind, sword flashing silver in the sunlight, and brought it down hard on one of the tentacles. Scales shattered. Pale gray fragments flew like snow, like broken glass. The severed tentacle dropped to the mud, still twitching and writhing. The dragon screamed — not a wail this time, but a piercing shriek so sharp it made Limpick's ears ring. It pulled the bleeding stump back and lashed the remaining seven tentacles wildly at Davon. He dodged two, but the third caught him across the shoulder and sent him flying. He hit the ground hard, rolled twice, and lost his sword.
He got back up, one shoulder hanging limp, but he still moved toward the dragon. He picked up his sword with his left hand and kept coming. The two guards charged as well — one swinging the shovel, the other the bucket. The shovel struck the dragon's head. The bucket slammed into its body. The dragon twisted, bit through the wooden handle of the shovel in one clean snap, and sent wood chips flying. It wrapped a tentacle around one guard's leg and dragged him down, pulling him across the mud toward the fissure. The other guard hacked at the tentacle with the shovel until it finally severed. The dragged guard's leg was bleeding badly, pants torn, flesh exposed.
Limpick stood there watching, hand frozen on his dagger. He knew he should draw it. He knew he should help. But he couldn't. Not because he was afraid — because his hand was shaking, not from fear, but from the effort of holding back the word stop. He watched the young dragon thrash and roll and scream in the mud. It was only slightly larger than a dog — far smaller than a horse. Its scales weren't fully grown. Its wings hadn't developed yet. It couldn't even breathe fire properly. It was just a child. A child that had hatched only days ago, that had fallen into a strange place, that couldn't find its mother, and that only knew how to be hungry and how to survive.
Davon charged again. With his left hand he drove the sword into the dragon's head. The head jerked sideways. A red line appeared across the golden eye, and blood mixed with mud began to run down its face. The dragon screamed again — higher, thinner, like a needle stabbing straight into Limpick's brain. It lashed all its remaining tentacles at Davon, wrapping around his wrist, his sword hilt, his waist. Davon was trapped, sword raised but useless, his hand turning purple from the crushing pressure. He shouted something — not in pain, but Limpick's name. "Father!" The word came out distorted, squeezed through the coils.
Limpick drew his dagger and charged. He slipped in the mud, fell, got back up, and kept running. He reached the dragon, raised the dagger, and looked into its eyes. Golden. Huge. The vertical pupil had narrowed to a thin line. In that golden iris he saw his own reflection — thin, filthy, face covered in mud. The dragon looked at him. He looked at the dragon. Its pupil suddenly widened. The thin line became a slit, then an almond, then a full circle. Its eyes rounded completely. The aggression vanished, replaced by confusion. It didn't understand who this person was, or why his scent felt familiar, or why something inside it recognized him.
Limpick's dagger froze in the air. He heard Davon shouting behind him. He heard the guards shouting. But all he could hear clearly was the dragon's heartbeat — thud, thud, thud — fast and frantic, like the eggs he had listened to on Dragonstone, like the dozens of tiny heartbeats deep beneath the sea when Yuan had guarded her clutch.
A tentacle whipped in from the side and struck his wrist. The dagger flew from his hand and disappeared into the mud. Another tentacle wrapped around his waist and lifted him into the air. He found himself face-to-face with the dragon — close enough to see every blood vessel in its golden eyes, close enough to see the fine red cracks spreading across the iris like a dry riverbed. Its mouth opened, revealing the beak and teeth. The tiny flame still flickered deep in its throat, dark red, pulsing. It was about to bite.
Limpick reached out and touched its face — not with the dagger, but with his bare hand. The same hand that had carried cargo in Riverrun, split wood in Harrenhal, and written High Valyrian on Dragonstone. His palm pressed against its scales — cool, hard, smooth, exactly like Ember's. Exactly like Plume's. Exactly like Yuan's.
His fingers slid gently across its face — from forehead to the corner of the eye, along the jaw, down to the chin. The dragon's eyes widened further, pupils expanding until the gold was almost swallowed by black, leaving only a thin golden ring around the edge. Its mouth closed. The tentacles loosened. Limpick fell from the air and landed hard on his back in the mud with a heavy grunt.
He lay there, staring up at the dragon. It stood over him, seven and a half tentacles hanging limp, the severed one still bleeding gray-white blood that dripped into the mud and turned black. Its head was lowered, golden eyes fixed on him. The pupil slowly contracted back into a vertical line, then widened again, then contracted — as if it were struggling, as if it were fighting itself.
Davon came charging from behind. Sword in his left hand, he drove the blade straight into the dragon's neck. The dragon's head snapped upward. Its mouth opened, but no sound came out. It didn't scream. It simply hung there with its mouth open, the tiny flame in its throat flickering once… then dying. Its tentacles rose weakly into the air, waved once, twice, then went limp and dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Its body tilted and collapsed sideways into the mud with a heavy splash that splattered across Limpick's face and chest.
He lay there, eyes squeezed shut against the mud. He heard Davon breathing hard. He heard the guards shouting. He heard people running toward them from somewhere in the distance. And beneath all of it, he heard the dragon's heartbeat — thud… thud… thud… — growing slower, weaker, farther away, until it faded completely.
Limpick pushed himself up onto his knees and wiped the mud from his face with the back of his hand. The dragon lay on its side in the mud, seven and a half tentacles spread out, body twisted, head tilted, one golden eye half-open. A red line ran across the eye where Davon's sword had struck, and blood mixed with mud ran down its face in dark rivulets. Its mouth was slightly open. The tiny flame inside its throat was gone. Extinguished. Gone forever.
Limpick knelt in the mud and stared at it. His hands were shaking. His entire body was shaking — from the soles of his feet to the top of his head — like something inside him was desperately trying to break free but couldn't. He reached out and touched one of the tentacles. It was cold. Not the familiar coolness it once had — this was true cold, the cold of mud, of stone, of something that was no longer alive.
He ran his fingers along the tentacle until he reached the severed end. The scales were still gray-white, fine, almost translucent. Gray-white blood — now cold and sticky — clung to his fingers and dried almost instantly into a thin film that refused to come off.
Davon stood behind him, breathing heavily, sword hanging from his left hand, tip resting in the mud. His right shoulder was swollen and his sleeve was torn. Mud covered his face, and gray-white blood — not his own — ran from the corner of his mouth. He looked at Limpick's back, opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. He pulled his sword from the mud, wiped it on his pant leg, and sheathed it.
The two guards limped over — one favoring a leg, the other clutching his arm — both pale and shaken. They stood in silence, watching Limpick kneel beside the dead dragon, gently touching its tentacle. No one spoke.