A Feast for Dragons

guttering, making every shadow leap and twist in a monstrous mockery of
the dead man’s shaking. The prince never saw the locust’s spear coming toward
him until Gerris slammed into him, knocking him aside. The spearpoint grazed
the cheek of the lion’s head he wore. Even then the blow was so violent it
almost tore the mask off.
It would have gone right through my throat
,
the prince thought, dazed.
    Gerris cursed as the locusts closed around him. Quentyn
heard the sound of running feet. Then the sellswords came rushing from the
shadows. One of the guards glanced at them just long enough for Gerris to get
inside his spear. He drove the point of his sword under the brass mask and up
through the wearer’s throat, even as the second locust sprouted a crossbow bolt
from his chest.
    The last locust dropped his spear. “Yield. I yield.”
    “No. You die.” Caggo took the man’s head off with one swipe
of his
arakh
, the Valyrian steel shearing through flesh and
bone and gristle as if they were so much suet. “Too much noise,” he complained.
“Any man with ears will have heard.”
    “Dog,” Quentyn said. “The day’s word was supposed to be dog.
Why wouldn’t they let us pass? We were told …”
    “You were told your scheme was madness, have you forgotten?”
said Pretty Meris. “Do what you came to do.”
    The dragons
, Prince Quentyn thought.
Yes.
We came for the dragons
. He felt as though he might be sick.
What
am I doing here? Father, why? Four men dead in as many heartbeats, and for
what?
“Fire and blood,” he whispered, “blood and fire.” The blood was
pooling at his feet, soaking into the brick floor. The fire was beyond those
doors. “The chains … we have no key …”
    Arch said, “I have the key.” He swung his warhammer hard and
fast. Sparks flew when the hammmerhead struck the lock. And then again, again,
again. On his fifth swing the lock shattered, and the chains fell away in a
rattling clatter so loud Quentyn was certain half the pyramid must have heard
them. “Bring the cart.” The dragons would be more docile once fed.
Let
them gorge themselves on charred mutton
.
    Archibald Yronwood grasped the iron doors and pulled them
apart. Their rusted hinges let out a pair of screams, for all those who might
have slept through the breaking of the lock. A wash of sudden heat assaulted
them, heavy with the odors of ash, brimstone, and burnt meat.
    It was black beyond the doors, a sullen stygian darkness
that seemed alive and threatening, hungry. Quentyn could sense that there was
something in that darkness, coiled and waiting.
Warrior, grant me
courage
, he prayed. He did not want to do this, but he saw no other
way.
Why else
would Daenerys have shown me the dragons? She
wants me to prove myself to her
. Gerris handed him a torch. He stepped
through the doors.
    The green one is Rhaegal, the white Viserion
,
he reminded himself.
Use their names, command them, speak to them calmly
but sternly. Master them, as Daenerys mastered Drogon in the pit
. The
girl had been alone, clad in wisps of silk, but fearless.
I must not be
afraid. She did it, so can I
. The main thing was to show no fear.
Animals
can smell fear, and dragons …
What did he know of dragons?
What
does any man know of dragons? They have been gone from the world for more than
a century
.
    The lip of the pit was just ahead. Quentyn edged forward
slowly, moving the torch from side to side. Walls and floor and ceiling drank
the light.
Scorched
, he realized.
Bricks burned black,
crumbling into ash
. The air grew warmer with every step he took. He
began to sweat.
    Two eyes rose up before him.
    Bronze, they were, brighter than polished shields, glowing
with their own heat, burning behind a veil of smoke rising from the dragon’s nostrils.
The light of Quentyn’s torch washed over scales of dark green, the green of
moss in the deep woods at dusk, just before the last light fades. Then the
dragon opened its mouth, and light and heat washed over them. Behind a fence of
sharp black teeth he glimpsed the furnace glow, the shimmer of a sleeping fire
a hundred times brighter than his torch. The dragon’s head was larger than a
horse’s, and the neck stretched on and on, uncoiling like some great green
serpent as the head rose, until those two glowing bronze eyes were staring down
at him.
    Green
, the prince thought,
his scales
are green
. “Rhaegal,” he said. His voice caught in his throat, and
what came out was a broken