A Feast for Dragons

starry
khalasar
,
so she might ride the nightlands beside her sun-and-stars? Or would the angry
gods of Ghis send their harpies to seize her soul and drag her down to torment?
Drogon roared full in her face, his breath hot enough to blister skin. Off to
her right Dany heard Barristan Selmy shouting, “
Me!
Try me.
Over here. Me!”
    In the smoldering red pits of Drogon’s eyes, Dany saw her
own reflection. How small she looked, how weak and frail and scared.
I
cannot let him see my fear
. She scrabbled in the sand, pushing against
the pitmaster’s corpse, and her fingers brushed against the handle of his whip.
Touching it made her feel braver. The leather was warm, alive. Drogon roared
again, the sound so loud that she almost dropped the whip. His teeth snapped at
her.
    Dany hit him. “No,” she screamed, swinging the lash with all
the strength that she had in her. The dragon jerked his head back. “No,” she
screamed again.
“NO!”
The barbs raked along his snout. Drogon
rose, his wings covering her in shadow. Dany swung the lash at his scaled
belly, back and forth until her arm began to ache. His long serpentine neck
bent like an archer’s bow. With a
hisssssss
, he spat black fire
down at her. Dany darted underneath the flames, swinging the whip and shouting,
“No,
no, no. Get DOWN!”
His answering roar was full of fear and
fury, full of pain. His wings beat once, twice …
     … and folded. The dragon gave one last
hiss
and stretched out flat upon his belly. Black blood was flowing from the wound
where the spear had pierced him, smoking where it dripped onto the scorched
sands.
He is fire made flesh
, she thought,
and so am I
.
    Daenerys Targaryen vaulted onto the dragon’s back, seized
the spear, and ripped it out. The point was half-melted, the iron red-hot,
glowing. She flung it aside. Drogon twisted under her, his muscles rippling as
he gathered his strength. The air was thick with sand. Dany could not see, she
could not breathe, she could not think. The black wings cracked like thunder,
and suddenly the scarlet sands were falling away beneath her.
    Dizzy, Dany closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she
glimpsed the Meereenese beneath her through a haze of tears and dust, pouring
up the steps and out into the streets.
    The lash was still in her hand. She flicked it against
Drogon’s neck and cried,
“Higher!”
Her other hand clutched at
his scales, her fingers scrabbling for purchase. Drogon’s wide black wings beat
the air. Dany could feel the heat of him between her thighs. Her heart felt as
if it were about to burst.
Yes
, she thought,
yes, now,
now, do it, do it, take me, take me, FLY!

----
     
    JON
    He was not a tall man, Tormund Giantsbane, but the gods had
given him a broad chest and massive belly. Mance Rayder had named him Tormund
Horn-Blower for the power of his lungs, and was wont to say that Tormund could
laugh the snow off mountaintops. In his wroth, his bellows reminded Jon of a
mammoth trumpeting.
    That day Tormund bellowed often and loudly. He roared, he
shouted, he slammed his fist against the table so hard that a flagon of water
overturned and spilled. A horn of mead was never far from his hand, so the
spittle he sprayed when making threats was sweet with honey. He called Jon Snow
a craven, a liar, and a turncloak, cursed him for a black-hearted buggering
kneeler, a robber, and a carrion crow, accused him of wanting to fuck the free
folk up the arse. Twice he flung his drinking horn at Jon’s head, though only
after he had emptied it. Tormund was not the sort of man to waste good mead. Jon
let it all wash over him. He never raised his own voice nor answered threat
with threat, but neither did he give more ground than he had come prepared to
give.
    Finally, as the shadows of the afternoon grew long outside
the tent, Tormund Giantsbane—Tall-Talker, Horn-Blower, and Breaker of Ice,
Tormund Thunderfist, Husband to Bears, Mead-King of Ruddy Hall, Speaker to Gods
and Father of Hosts—thrust out his hand. “Done then, and may the gods forgive
me. There’s a hundred mothers never will, I know.”
    Jon clasped the offered hand. The words of his oath rang
through his head.
I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on
the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the
dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of
men
. And for him a new refrain:
I am the guard who opened the
gates and let the foe march