Chapter 10.4- The Seadragon's Roar

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“His name is Quentin Sand. He claims to be a Blackmont Bastard, and that he was hired by Tyrosh with the plan to kill a Dragon here.” I said as I marched into the meeting room adjourned to Corlys’ quarters aboard his flagship, the Queen Rhaenys. His eyes sharpened as he looked up from the sea charts he and his men had been pouring over.

“To kill a Dragon? Specifically that? Not to ambush our fleet as a whole but to kill a dragon?” He asked.

“Yes, Father. According to him, their orders had been to let you pass if you presented no challenge and allowed them go about their business. All their scorpions had been aimed towards the sky rather than straight ahead as would have made sense for a fleet that came to do naval battle. I think their plan had been to bog you down with numbers to force me or whatever Dragon-rider you had with you to take to the skies here they would have blocked the sun with the rain of a thousand bolts” I said, saying the last sentence with air quotes and my best impression of Quentin Sand’s accent.

“I see” He said, and I could see the rage that lurked beheath the Seahorse right there and then.

“Leave us” he said, and his coterie of navigators, strategists, and advisers fled the room like there was fire on their arses.

“They knew you would be here.”

“If not me, then another dragon rider.”

“Your mother?”

“She would have burned them even faster than I did” I said, even as I felt the knot of worry tighten in my gut. She might have ended up tagging along for this thing. Igneel and I had gotten lucky. The only reason we were alive and those pirates weren’t was because we had been luckier than they were. I did not feel comfortable with the thought that it could have been Mother in a similar situation.

“That she would have. But if they expected you here, then they surely knew I would be here.” He said, and that was a fact that I had already come to terms with once I had spoken to Quentin Sand.

“Bet that there’s nothing but driftwood left of our advance fleet?” I asked.

“A fool’s bet” he said with a sigh.

“They knew we were here, and we never even heard a whisper of Tyrosh gathering so many sellsails and pirates to their banner” He said.

“We expected that they would challenge our rule of the Stepstones”

“Rule, yes. We expected that they would become a problem once we established ourselves on the Islands, but its clear now that they do not mean to see us make land fall even”

“So what do we do?” I asked, and he stared out the porthole for a few seconds before his smile sharpened.