The first impact bent the Unsullied line without breaking it.
Ormund’s men struck at speed, spears driving into shields while the weight of the ranks behind them carried the charge forward. The noise reached the rise as one continuous collision of wood, iron, bone, and voices. Men disappeared beneath the press before I could distinguish who had fallen. The Unsullied yielded several paces under the force, then planted their feet and began killing.
Their front spears drove beneath shields and through gaps in armour. When shafts broke or became trapped inside bodies, the second rank thrust over their shoulders. Fallen men were pulled backwards by those behind them where space allowed. When there was no space, the line stepped over them.
Ormund’s centre pressed harder.
His men had spent more than a week hungry beneath the forest, but desperation gave them strength discipline alone could not provide. They were not fighting for a patch of ground or a lord’s praise. Honeyholt stood between them and food, safety, and the road to Oldtown. Every soldier understood that losing here might mean starvation, captivity, or dragonfire when they tried to flee.
They fought like men who had been shown the shape of their ending and wanted another.
Arrows crossed above the battle in both directions. Hightower archers sent volleys toward the second line while ours loosed into the packed ranks behind their front. Shafts struck shields, armour, faces, and earth. One moment the air would clear enough to see the field, and the next it would darken beneath another rising cloud.
Behind Ormund’s infantry, the first ballista fired.
The bolt passed above the fighting and struck the slope beneath Dravvaxx, throwing up a burst of dirt and stone. He recoiled, wings flexing as anger passed through him. The crew began winding the machine back before the first bolt had finished rolling down the hill.
A second weapon turned toward us. Its canvas fell away. I sounded the horn. One long note carried over the field.
Dravvaxx launched.
The wounded wing opened under strain, but it held. He drove upward with enough force to send dust and grass rolling behind us. The second ballista fired as we left the rise. Its bolt came directly toward his chest.
Dravvaxx twisted.
The iron head passed beneath his left wing, close enough that I heard the air tear around it. A storm of ordinary arrows followed from Ormund’s rear lines. Most fell short or glanced from scale without effect, but several struck the thinner membranes of Dravvaxx’s wings. He roared and climbed, carrying us above the densest part of the volley before the archers could correct their aim.
The battlefield widened beneath us.
Ormund’s centre had locked against the Unsullied, both lines straining around a front that shifted by inches. His right wing was moving toward the orchards, Bulwer men attempting to crush the western flank against the narrow watercourse. On the opposite side, Redwyne cavalry advanced toward Landrey, their formation widening as they sought ground firm enough for a charge.
Behind all of them waited the covered wagons. Some were already open.
I counted four visible machines, each placed far enough from the others that one pass could not destroy them all. Three more wagons remained covered. Their spacing was deliberate, their crews protected by spear companies and archers whose attention followed Dravvaxx through the sky.
Ormund had made the field hostile to dragons. I had no choice but to enter it.
The nearest ballista stood behind the Hightower centre. Its crew worked quickly, lowering the great arm while loaders brought another bolt forward. Dravvaxx descended from the north rather than attacking from Honeyholt’s side, forcing the crew to turn the heavy frame while men struggled to clear its wheels. They nearly managed it.
A bolt rose from another machine before we reached them. I saw it from the corner of my eye and pulled hard. Dravvaxx banked, his injured wing shuddering under the strain. The bolt passed where his neck had been and continued into the sky.
The first crew abandoned their machine.
"Dracarys."
Dark flame rolled across the wagon. The ballista vanished inside it. Timber split under the heat. The bow arms twisted, the loaded bolt caught fire, and the men who had remained too close were swallowed before they could run. Dravvaxx carried the flame beyond the machine and through the archers stationed beside it, breaking their formation in an instant.
I pulled him upward before the infantry beneath us could become part of the fire.
The battle continued below without pause.
The Unsullied were no longer merely holding. Black Rat had begun shortening the front where Ormund’s centre pressed hardest, drawing units inward while allowing the second line to step into prepared gaps. Dread Legion spearmen moved forward between Unsullied companies, reinforcing the places where the vanguard had lost too many shields.
Men fought at arm’s length.
Spears became useless when the ranks closed too tightly. Swords, axes, daggers, shield rims, and bare hands replaced them. I saw one Hightower soldier drag an Unsullied down by the throat, only to be stabbed through the back by the man behind him. A Legion veteran lost his sword and drove the broken shaft of a spear into an enemy’s face. Bodies gathered beneath the front until living men fought on uneven ground made from the dead.
Ormund’s right wing reached the western ditch.
The Bulwer advance had been meant to turn our flank, but the earth there had been cleared and marked during the week of waiting. Their first ranks stumbled into shallow pits and concealed channels. Reach spearmen met them before they could recover. The fight broke apart among the orchard edges, smaller groups hacking at one another between trees and low stone boundaries.
On the eastern flank, cavalry horns sounded.
Landrey had waited until the Redwyne horse crossed the tilled ground. Their charge lost shape as hooves sank into soft earth and riders crowded around the firmer strips. Then Legion cavalry came over the shallow rise in disciplined ranks, striking the Redwyne flank rather than meeting them head-on.
The collision threw horses and men together.
Lances splintered. Riders fell beneath hooves. Some continued fighting from the ground, pulling at reins, stabbing upward, or dragging enemies from saddles. The Reach knights behind Landrey followed more aggressively, turning the controlled strike into a brutal melee that spread across the eastern field.
I had little time to watch. Another bolt came from below.
Dravvaxx folded his wings and dropped. The shot passed over us, but the sudden descent sent pain through his healing right wing. I felt it in the way his body tightened beneath me. He recovered before the ground rose too near, beating hard enough to skim above the rear of Ormund’s lines.
Arrows struck against his scales like thrown stones. One glanced from my breastplate. Another lodged in the leather behind my left shoulder. I felt the impact but not the point, though the force nearly turned me in the saddle. The straps held.
Ahead, two ballistas stood behind the Redwyne wing. One was exposed. The other remained beneath canvas with only the iron-tipped bolt projecting through a narrow opening. Its crew had been waiting for me to attack the obvious machine.
They fired together. The exposed weapon released first. Dravvaxx climbed over the bolt, his talons passing so close above it that I saw the polished grain of the shaft. The hidden machine fired a heartbeat later, aiming into the climb rather than where we had been.
The second bolt struck Dravvaxx. It did not pierce the thick scale, but the impact twisted him sideways. His roar broke into pain. For several terrifying moments, the field spun beneath us while his wings fought different currents.
I pressed myself low against the saddle. "Hold the turn," I shouted. "Give me one more breath, and we will take them both."
Whether he understood the words or the intent behind them, Dravvaxx stopped fighting the momentum. He let the roll carry us through, then opened his wings at the bottom of it and turned back toward the machines from a direction their crews had not expected.
They tried to reload. The hidden crew tore away its canvas, desperate to rotate the frame.
Dravvaxx’s fire struck the exposed ballista first, then swept across the second wagon. Men ran beneath the flames before the machines caught, but the weapons themselves were destroyed. One arm broke free and spun across the ground. A loaded bolt detonated from the heat, scattering burning fragments among the Redwyne reserve.
Three machines destroyed. At least four remained.
Dravvaxx climbed again, favouring his injured wing. Smoke and dust had begun to cover the field, making the army beneath us appear in fragments. Banners rose from the haze, vanished, then returned somewhere else. Horns overlapped until commands became difficult to distinguish.
Black Rat’s lines remained visible through their order.
The Unsullied centre had been forced back perhaps twenty paces, but the retreat was measured rather than broken. They yielded ground by rank, allowing Ormund’s men to press forward into a narrowing pocket. Dread Legion infantry stood behind them, ready to receive the first soldiers who reached through.
Ormund believed his centre was succeeding. I could see his green banner moving closer. He had committed more men to the pressure, drawing reserves from behind the line and feeding them into the fighting. The Hightower host pushed with renewed force, desperate to crack the Unsullied before their own flanks failed.
Black Rat waited until the enemy had crowded itself into the space he had given them. Then his signal flags changed. Unsullied companies on either side turned inward. The pocket began to close.
Ormund’s foremost men found themselves pressed from three directions, unable to retreat because their own ranks continued pushing from behind. Spears entered them from the sides. Legion infantry stepped through the centre and struck the compressed front with shields and short swords.
The ground disappeared beneath bodies. The Hightower centre did not break, but its momentum died.
Another ballista fired from near Ormund’s rear. The bolt passed beneath Dravvaxx and continued toward Honeyholt. A second machine loosed from the western side, its angle dangerously close.
Dravvaxx beat upward, but the wounded wing faltered. The bolt grazed the membrane near the old tear.
It did not pass through, yet the iron edge opened the healing wound again. Blood scattered into the air behind us. Dravvaxx screamed and turned sharply away, climbing with uneven strokes.
For a moment, I considered withdrawing.
He could still fly. He could still burn. But every turn placed greater strain on the wing, and Ormund’s crews had learned our movement. Remaining in the same pattern would eventually give them a clean shot.
Below, the remaining machines continued firing.
If I left them, the ballistas would turn on our massed infantry. Their bolts had been designed for dragons, but a shaft thick as a tree limb did not become harmless when aimed at men. One shot through the Unsullied ranks could kill several before stopping. Another into Landrey’s cavalry would tear through horses and riders alike.
Dravvaxx felt my hesitation. His head turned toward the western machine. Anger overcame pain. He descended before I commanded it. We came down steeply through arrows and smoke. The ballista crew adjusted, following our approach. Another wagon beside it shed its covering and revealed a second weapon positioned at a different angle.
A crossfire. The first machine fired. Dravvaxx slipped beneath the bolt. The second waited. Its crew held until we were committed to the descent, then released from the side.
I pulled Dravvaxx into a turn that his injured wing could barely support. The bolt passed between his body and right wing, tearing through a strip of membrane without striking bone. He dropped hard, close enough to the field that men scattered beneath his shadow.
The ballista crews began shouting. They had expected him to climb away. Instead, Dravvaxx landed. His weight struck the earth beside the western machine, crushing men beneath one foreclaw and overturning the wagon with the force of impact. The crew of the second ballista tried to rotate it while archers loosed from less than thirty paces.
Arrows broke against Dravvaxx’s face and chest.
He lunged forward. His jaws closed around the ballista’s heavy arm. Timber shattered between his teeth. With a violent turn of his neck, he ripped the machine from its frame and threw it through the men behind it.
The first crew fled from the overturned wagon. Dravvaxx breathed fire across them and the broken weapon.
His landing had placed us dangerously close to Ormund’s western infantry. Bulwer men began moving toward us through the orchard edge, some carrying spears, others bows. Brave, foolish, or too trapped by command to choose differently.
I loosened one saddle strap enough to draw my sword, though the blade felt absurd beneath a dragon’s neck. Dravvaxx swung his tail through the first group, throwing bodies across the field. He breathed again, a shorter burst that scattered the rest without setting the entire orchard alight.
Then the air above us darkened beneath arrows.
Hundreds.
Archers farther behind Ormund’s line had turned toward the grounded dragon. Shafts struck Dravvaxx’s back, wings, and armour. Most failed to penetrate scale, but enough found membrane and older scars to drive him into fury.
I secured the sword and pulled the straps tight. "Up. We need height before the next volley."
He spread his wings. The right one trembled. For one instant, I feared it would not lift him. Then Dravvaxx drove both wings downward and rose through the arrows. His hind claws tore furrows through the field before clearing the ground. The second volley passed beneath us as he struggled upward.
The battle had changed while I destroyed the western machines.
Landrey’s cavalry had broken the first Redwyne charge but become tangled with fresh Hightower horse under Ser Jon Roxton. The knight’s banner moved through the centre of the melee, surrounded by mounted men in dark armour. He had struck Landrey’s exposed side while our riders were still reforming.
The eastern flank began bending toward Honeyholt.
Our western infantry held among the orchards, though their formation had dissolved into dozens of private fights. Men grappled beneath trees, slipped in the watercourse, and killed one another against low walls. There was no space for ordered ranks there, only groups trying to stay close enough that a friend guarded each exposed side.
The centre remained the true contest.
Black Rat had stopped Ormund’s advance, but not driven it back. Fresh Hightower companies continued joining the struggle. Unsullied discipline held against them, yet even discipline had a body’s limits. Their vanguard was thinning. The Legion second line had entered fully, its crescent-wreath banners moving forward through gaps left by the dead.
Jasper’s men fought with heavier swords and axes, relieving Unsullied companies one section at a time. The transition was careful, but Ormund’s officers recognised it and increased pressure wherever one formation replaced another.
Dick’s reserves remained behind the centre. He had not released them early. I was grateful he understood restraint well enough to ignore the terror in front of him.
A sixth ballista revealed itself near Ormund’s centre.
It had been disguised among ordinary wagons, its arms folded beneath stacked sacks and loose planks. Men threw the coverings aside while others hammered locking pins into place. The crew was not aiming at Dravvaxx.
They were aiming into the Unsullied. The weapon fired. The bolt passed above the Hightower rear ranks and struck our front with hideous force. It went through one shield, the man behind it, and two more soldiers before burying itself in the earth. The opening lasted only seconds, but Ormund’s men surged toward it.
The ballista crew began loading again. I pointed Dravvaxx toward them. He descended reluctantly, the wounded wing making every adjustment slower than before. The crew saw us coming and turned the machine upward. Archers formed beneath it, arrows already nocked.
Another covered wagon stood thirty paces away. Both opened together. The first bolt came from the centre. Dravvaxx banked left. The second fired into the turn.
I saw the iron point growing larger with impossible speed. There was no room to climb and too little time to reverse. I pulled Dravvaxx lower instead. His belly passed over the fighting ranks while the bolt cut above his back, close enough to tear the edge of my cloak.
Men below threw themselves aside as his wings swept over them. The distinction between our soldiers and Ormund’s vanished in the dust. I did not breathe fire. One careless command would have killed Unsullied and Hightower men together.
We passed beyond the front and climbed over the enemy rear. The two ballistas turned slowly to follow. I circled behind them. Their crews understood too late.
Dravvaxx’s fire crossed the first machine, then the space between, and finally the second. The wagons ignited beneath the frames. Men tried to drag one ballista clear before the axle caught, but a burning wheel collapsed and pulled the entire weapon sideways.
The seventh machine exploded when its stored bolts and oil took flame. The blast threw burning wood across Ormund’s rear companies. Every visible ballista and scorpion was gone.
I searched the field for another covered wagon, another long arm rising, another canvas moving with men beneath it. There were ordinary carts, wounded wagons, and supplies scattered behind the Hightower line, but no further machine revealed itself.
Dravvaxx remained in the air.
His breathing had grown rough. Blood ran from the reopened tear and several smaller punctures across his wings. He was furious enough to ignore the pain, but not immune to it. I kept him above the enemy’s rear, where ordinary arrows reached us only weakly.
Without the machines, the sky belonged to him. Ormund understood that before many of his soldiers did.
His banners shifted toward the centre. Horns called from behind his line, not retreat, but a change in formation. His remaining reserves began spreading out, making themselves poorer targets for dragonfire. Archers abandoned their dense blocks. Wagons were driven apart.
I could burn them now. But not without risking the men already entangled with ours. The battle had become too close.
Dravvaxx could strike the rear and flanks, yet every pass needed care. One gust of changing wind could carry flame into our own lines. One panicked movement might send Ormund’s men through the Unsullied before I could correct.
I turned toward the eastern cavalry battle. Landrey’s flank was failing. Ser Jon Roxton’s fresh charge had split Legion riders from the Reach knights. Several banners were down. Men fought in scattered knots, with riderless horses running between them. Roxton’s reserve continued pressing toward the rear of our second line.
There was space around them. Enough space. Dravvaxx descended from the west. Roxton’s riders saw us and tried to scatter. Some turned toward the centre, others toward the forest. A few raised shields above their heads from instinct rather than reason.
I aimed behind the foremost line, cutting off their advance without burning Landrey’s trapped men. "Dracarys."
Flame struck the Hightower cavalry reserve.
Horses screamed and threw riders before the fire reached them. The formation dissolved. Some men burned. Others were trampled during the escape. Roxton’s banner vanished inside smoke, though whether the knight himself had fallen, I could not see.
Landrey seized the opening.
His remaining cavalry gathered around the Legion standard and drove into the disordered Hightower flank. Reach knights followed, striking men who had moments earlier believed victory within reach. The eastern line turned.
Across the centre, Black Rat’s horns sounded. The Unsullied stepped forward.
For the first time since the charge began, Ormund’s centre was forced backwards. One pace, then another. The dead beneath their feet made movement slow and ugly. Men slipped, fell, and were killed before rising. Shields locked against shields while soldiers screamed into faces close enough to feel each other’s breath.
Dick released part of the reserve. Legion veterans moved through the second line and struck the tired Hightower centre. Their arrival did not create a clean collapse. Battles rarely offered one. It added another weight to a struggle already near its limit.
Ormund’s green tower banner remained upright. He was still on the field. Still committing men. Still refusing to surrender.
Dravvaxx circled above the battle while I searched for the safest place to use his fire again. Smoke drifted across Honeyholt’s walls. The field below was covered in men, torn banners, riderless horses, broken wagons, and the blackened remains of the machines that had once controlled the sky.
Then Dravvaxx stopped turning. His head lifted. I felt the change in him before I heard anything.
The rage beneath me sharpened into attention. His wings steadied despite the pain. Every muscle along his neck tightened as he looked beyond the battlefield, toward the clouded southern horizon.
A sound rolled across the Reach. Deep. Distant. Too vast to belong to any horn. Men on both sides hesitated as it carried over the fighting, passing through smoke, steel, and screams with enough force to make horses rear beneath their riders.
It came again. A dragon’s roar.
Dravvaxx answered with fury, but the first voice had not been his.