Dragonsalt Chapter 7 (Patreon)

Tyrion Lannister

I have indeed risen quite high. The Imp couldn’t help but muse internally, sitting at the head of the Small Council table within the Red Keep, in the seat of the Hand of the King. At the table’s sides sat the best allies he could find at times like this, with their previous occupants successfully dismissed or cowed into submission.

With that said, his father would be appalled to see the current state of the Small Council - or to be specific, the way Tyrion had changed it since he arrived in King’s Landing. Pycelle was neutered, Littlefinger was sent off on some wild goose chase, and Janos Slynt was on a ship to the Wall. Indeed, Tyrion had done well to confidently secure his position, and it was made even better by the fact his sister nor Joffrey bothered to attend meetings anymore.

“The Queen Mother sends her regards, I take it?” Varys asked, perched on his seat with his hands tucked into his sleeves, smiling.

“The Queen sends nothing.” Tyrion took a sip of wine, failing to hide his delight. “She is still in anguish over Myrcella’s departure, and also enraged at my role in sending her to Dorne. I'm told she has not left her chambers since the Princess sailed away, except to visit the sept and pray for my slow and painful death.”

“All because of the girl?” Bronn asked. “All you did was pack her off to Dorne, not strike her or anything permanent.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen my sister as angry as she is now.” He mused.

“Think she’ll try and kill you?” Bronn half joked.

“It's a possibility.” Tyrion tilted his cup in a little salute. “A strong one.”

“Should it come to that, my lord,” Varys simpered, “I shall attend your funeral.”

“How comforting.”

“I shall weep, most convincingly. Perhaps I'll even mean it.”

“It's the perhaps that warms me.”

“I'll come for the wine.” Bronn added. “Do they pour the good stuff at a Lannister funeral?”

“Only the best, but that’s when I’m paying. If I’m dead, the wine will probably be shit, so no.”

The newest addition to his Small Council let out a cough, unused to their banter and prone to have this meeting done with so he could get back to work. With so much of the city’s defense relying on his efforts, Tyrion had decided to appoint Wisdom Hallyne of the Alchemists Guild to the small council. He was an old and ghastly fellow, still seeming out of place despite the dwarf and sellsword sitting at his sides.

“Moving on,” Tyrion decided. “Bronn, what do you have to report?”

“The Street of Steel is busy, that’s for sure. The City Watch is being filled with as many able-bodied men as we can find, and armed with everything from kitchen knives to spears in preparation.”

“Excellent.” He replied. “And the city’s other defenses?”

“The gates have all been reinforced, and the steel chain you ordered is almost done.” Bronn paused then. “Do you really think it will work?”

It had been a fortnight ago that Tyrion had approached several smiths to forge a chain long enough to block the narrowest part of the Blackwater Rush, as to stop Stannis’ ships from fully sailing up the river. With that said, Stannis could still offload men further down the shore and move in on foot to attack the Mud Gate, as the chain would simply be a mild inconvenience.

Robert Baratheon’s brother, and one of the best generals in the realm, had set his sights on taking the Iron Throne after all. Stannis Baratheon was a formidable opponent to say the least, and the best Tyrion could hope for was mild inconveniences and cheap tricks to try and win the day.

“If the chain doesn’t work, it’ll be nothing more than metal scrap at the bottom of the river while we’re all dead and gone with Stannis sitting on the Iron Throne. Next, Wisdom Hallyne, tell the council what the Alchemists Guild is doing for the defense of the city.”

Hallyne drew himself up. “We are working tirelessly, Lord Hand. Every apprentice, every journeyman, every master in the guild is being worked to their limit. We are making wildfire in quantities unprecedented since the time of King Aerys.”

Ignoring the fervent look the alchemist gained at the mention of the Mad King, Tyrion continued. “How much exactly?”

“Smaller jars that can be thrown by the dozen, as well as larger barrels that we already had on hand. I cannot give you a precise number overall, you understand, it is a delicate art and cannot be hurried.”

“Of course.” He nodded as if he understood the complicated art of making wildfire - which he didn’t. “And how would these larger barrels be best utilized?”

“One of my most promising acolytes had a wondrous idea, in that some of the casks can be bound in ropes tied to rocks before being weighted to the bottom of the bay so they can stay floating in place. That way, when they impact against the hull of an enemy ship, they will erupt.”

“How terrifying.”

“Another idea was to use catapults to fling the sealed casks at the enemy host, or rather their ships. This can be done by hand too, as men at the top of the battlements can throw smaller jars down at those below.” Wisdom Hallyne seemed overjoyed at the mere thought of the death and destruction this would cause. “As I have stated before, wildfire burns through anything, Lord Hand. Wood, rope, flesh, stone, even steel will blacken and run. And water only feeds it.”

“Even steel?” Bronn voiced with some disbelief. “That's a mean thing to bring to a fight.”

Tyrion considered this. “Can it burn through dragon scale?”

Hallyne blinked. "Dragons, my lord?"

“Humour me. Say there's a dragon over the walls, and a very large jar of your green fire that lands on it.”

“It is said that dragons were fire made flesh.” Hallyne said carefully. “The old tales say no flame could scorch them, though the old tales also say a great many foolish things. Wildfire is not an ordinary fire, my lord, it is a fiercer thing. I would hope, but I would not wager my experience on it burning a dragon.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Tyrion shrugged. “I'll note it under the list of things I'd rather not discover the answer to.”

“A dragon over the walls?” Bronn muttered. “Gods, you come up with the strangest things.”

“Is it really that strange? Daenerys Targaryen could decide to head west and take this city any day now.”

The information Varys had shared with him several days ago kept Tyrion awake late into the night even now.

Daenerys Targaryen had somehow come out of the Red Waste after the death of her Dothraki husband with three freshly-hatched dragons under her command. The exiled Princess had then bargained one of those dragons to gain an army of Unsullied in Astapor, before using said army to sack the slave city and slay its nobility.

Now the Mad King’s daughter had three growing dragons, an army of Unsullied, and an entire city under her control in a very short amount of time. It was a tale hard enough to believe on its own, but it was made even more whimsical by the sorcerer supposedly backing her. Varys’ spies didn’t know much about him, other than that he hadn’t left Daenerys’s side, and could use magic of all things.

“Daenerys Targaryen and her sorcerer is an ocean away, my Lord. It is Stannis we should focus on now.” Varys advised him.

“You’re right.” Tyrion agreed, not feeling nearly drunk enough to discuss the topic of exiled Targaryens and dragons. For a brief moment, he wondered if this was the same sense of paranoia Robert Baratheon felt about the exiled Targaryens. If that was the case, then perhaps the former King wasn’t as delusional about Daenerys and Viserys as Tyrion previously thought.

/////

Harry Potter

Fuck I’m weak. Sweat poured from his brow, his limbs heavy and brain feeling like mush as he tried to focus. It was the result of being at the epicenter of Valyria’s magical disturbance which made him so weak, the pressure of the strange magic practically strangling him with its intensity.

Normally he would be able to pump out dozens of spells a minute, but here Harry would be lucky to get off a few before he passed out. It was like his magic was being held in a stranglehold this close to the disturbance, rather than simply being hampered as it was before. Whatever was going on here was definitely what created the strange anti-magic ward that he had been searching for.

Sadly, Harry had little time to study this phenomenon as battle raged around him. Euron Greyjoy’s men attacked his own Unsullied crewmen, coming in waves that utilized their superior numbers to try and overwhelm them. And it worked, as for every five men his Unsullied killed, one would die.

“Close shields!” Sandworm commanded the remaining two men, surrounding Harry. “My Lord, you should escape.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” He had come too far simply to run and give up.

His hand tightened around his wand, watching as Euron’s crewmen advanced steadily on them. To their credit, his Unsullied had not died without causing the enemy harm, as the Greyjoy pirate only had fifteen men left.

If I can just get to him. Since he first attacked him with a spell, Euron had been careful to keep several men positioned between himself and Harry as living shields. Normally he would just blow those men away before striking Euron with a different spell than before, but his magic was far too weak to pull that off now. I need to be smart, but also aggressive enough to win.

“We need to fight our way through.” He decided. “Can you clear a path?”

Sandworm only nodded, and they were suddenly moving, sprinting forward to break through to Euron, even if it killed his remaining Unsullied.

The men clashed as swords scraped against shields while the Unsullied speared through their opponents. Blood stained Harry’s own uniform as he took out his own sword, deflecting a stray slash and cutting an enemy crewmember at the throat.

Remaining in one place would simply get him surrounded and killed, as he moved on to the next man, gripping his sword in one hand and wand in the other. Two other men tried to stop him as he advanced, and Harry growled as his blade clashed against the first, before kicking him away and quickly swiping at the next man.

“My Lord!” Sandworm called out from somewhere behind him.

“We need to keep going!” He didn’t bother to look back.

“Not that, the floor!”

The floor? The strange remark made him look down, and that was when he saw it. Each man that died in that arena was quickly decomposing, their bodies turning to husks against the granite floor of the arena. Blood left their bodies and soaked into the ground in a way that made his stomach sink, as the stone beneath them seemed to almost glow. What the hell is going on?

“Just noticed that, did you?” Euron’s taunting voice met his ears. “Your deaths are what fuels this ritual.”

Harry looked up at him, then beyond where that large cocoon floated above the arena floor. It was glowing brighter than earlier as it pulsed with magic, so much so that he had to hold up a hand to shield his eyes.

That was when he realized that each death in this place was fueling it like Euron said, as the weird cocoon was siphoning off the blood of those that fell. He didn’t know much about blood magic, but he could tell that this was all part of some spell or ritual that the sphere was involved in, and that it was almost complete.

Just what is going on here?

“The Valyrians died to perform this ritual.” Euron suddenly stated. “They gave everything they had to pull it off. And now, centuries later, I have come to finish it. Just a few more sacrifices and the legacy of Old Valyria will be mine.”

The one-eyed pirate suddenly took out a dagger of Valyrian steel and ran it across his palm, making a messy cut of blood. He then turned and flicked his hand toward the cocoon, spraying his blood onto it.

Nothing happened at first, only for the sphere suddenly crack like an egg. A hairline of white ran across its surface, bright as a vein of lightning, and he felt his stomach sink in worry.

That was when the floor under him moved, the whole arena heeling over like a ship clashing against a large wave, and Harry's boots left the stone. For one stupid moment he hung in air, then gravity came back from the wrong direction and flung him sideways across the floor, shoulder and hip first. He hit a fallen stone pillar and skidded, scrabbling at the grooves as he eventually found his footing.

He cursed as he pulled himself up, only to freeze when he saw the landscape around him. Valyria was already a hellish and mesmerizing sight, but now it had somehow upped those insane qualities tenfold. The mountains ringing the ruined city had all teared open at once, sprouting columns of fire from their peaks. Magma and ash flowed, and he realized this is what the Doom of Valyria must have been like centuries ago.

He got his knees under him and then one foot, braced against a fallen slab with his wand arm held out for balance. The air was thick with ash and the flash of burning stone. Ruins the size of a house drifted past overhead, a section of the colosseum's outer wall ripping away as it drifted up into the volcanic smoke overhead.

He turned then, looking back to the cocoon that started it all and watching as it had fully broken. What was left of the shell was pushed aside by a pale arm, which was soon revealed to be part of a woman’s body as she broke herself out of the cocoon. Harry first noticed long silver hair and bone white horns sticking out from her skull when she was fully revealed, framing a beautiful face with violet eyes just like Daenerys’s own.

He couldn’t help but stare at this new woman who had suddenly appeared, and she met his own gaze silently for a brief moment.

But their interaction didn’t last long, because in the next moment she was screaming. The woman’s spine bowed and lengthened, the vertebrae of it pushing up under the skin. Her shoulder blades split wide, and something long and wet and wrong unfolded from them, all bone and wet membrane, and her arms bent backward at the elbow and thinned toward claws. Scales stitched themselves across her ribs and over her large breasts, flowing outward like frost over glass.

Her face changed, eyes slitting and mouth growing outwards, before all over it seemed to reverse and snap back to normal. The wings folded into her shoulders, the scales sank back in, and she was a woman again, curled and shaking weakly on the ground, a sound coming out of her that no human throat should have been able to make. Then it began again, a different shape, a long neck, a tail, a rippling at the hips that bent her legs the wrong way. Again and again her body continued to morph, dragon to woman to dragon to something between, each change tearing the scream out of her afresh, until Harry could hear two voices in it, one high and feminine and one deep as a furnace.

Most men would’ve been terrified by such a sight, but not Harry, as he knew exactly what he was looking at in that instant.

And more than that, he was most reassured by the pulsing warmth that came from his wand. It was only moments ago he had been drowning in despair, powerless and weak as his magic failed to work. Now he could feel the energy suddenly pulsing in his veins, and knew that the strange veil that weakened his magic had finally dissipated.

The closest sensation he could think of would be someone leaving a warded property, only in that the relief was tenfold in this case. Wards that fully suppressed one’s magic were nonexistent, and so it hadn’t been a ward that weakened him, but rather a botched powerful ritual from centuries ago which had finally ended.

“It’s over for you.” Euron appeared then, having climbed out of his own mound of rubble, his face the expression of arrogant triumph.

The pirate looked across the arena at him, probably expecting Harry to look defeated and thoroughly broken. But instead he saw the opposite, as his expression was perfectly calm.

“Did you really think you beat me?”

“W-What?” Euron Greyjoy breathed.

“I’ve spent the past three days awake and keeping my crew alive up to this point. It was my own magic that did it, strained to its limits all so I could get here, and stand at this exact point.” Harry’s grin was a tad bitter and bloodthirsty in that moment. “And now you just gave me everything I wanted, lifted the obstacle that held back my magic.”

“What are you talking about?!” The man spat. “You’re at your limit! You barely even survived to get to this point!”

Harry snorted, and before Euron could blink, he had apparated behind him, a conjured rope wrapped around his neck. The Crow’s Eye sputtered and fell to his knees, being strangled alive.

“You were saying?”

“Gah! You cunt…” He got out weakly, fighting with the rope that continued to tighten around his windpipe before finally cutting it with a Valyrian Steel dagger which broke through the magic.

When he was freed, Euron fell to the ground on all fours, gasping for air. But Harry wasn’t watching him anymore, being interested in something else as he looked across the arena to where the woman’s body continued to violently morph from one twisted and disfigured form to the next.

She’s an animagus. While he hadn’t performed the animagus ritual, he knew enough about it to recognize what it looked like. Even when it was an extreme case - like this one - where the ritual’s recipient was uncontrollably trying to morph into a magical beast.

He pointed his wand at her, and cast one of the most useful yet universally effective spells he knew for a situation just like this. “Finite.”

Instantly, the woman stopped in her squirming, her body going back to her normal human form before she fell to the arena floor, unconscious.

“You got lucky.” A sudden voice spoke, and he turned to see Euron getting up from the ground, having recovered. “But you won’t win today. I’ll gut you, sorcerer, and tell tales of my triumph when I sit upon the Seastone Chair!”

The one-eyed pirate gripped his dagger before lunging at Harry, closing the distance fast as he tried to impale it deep into his abdomen. He got close, the blade mere inches away from spilling his guts, but Harry suddenly wasn’t there.

Instead, he appeared right behind the other pirate in a crack of apparition. To his credit, Euron only stumbled once before he caught himself, turning around quickly to face him, but by then it was already too late.

Not wanting to have his spells deflect off his Valyrian steel armor, Harry pointed his wand at the ground beneath the man’s feet, turning the stone below to a muddy sludge. Euron Greyjoy only got out a curse before he fell several feet into it, the mud consuming him up to his waist before it hardened.

His enemy howled in pain, trying to move before his hand went to his eyepatch to try and uncover it. But Harry was done playing games, and his next spell was a cutting curse that perfectly bisected him at the neck, beheading him.

“Amateur.” Harry muttered, taking a breath and cursing himself for being pushed this far. He had fought Voldemort numerous times before, and some up-jumped pirate was certainly a pushover compared to that.

Another tremor swept through the arena then, and he barely managed to catch himself before he fell. The magic in the area was going haywire, seemingly more volatile than before as gravity seemed to give up at that point, lifting everything around him high into the atmosphere.

The whole city of Valyria was coming away from the ground in great ragged islands, ripping up streets, towers, and colonnades, many still trailing roots of earth and stone, rising through the smoke on currents of unbound magic. Between them the sky was full of flame and smoke. The volcanoes still burned along the horizon, and below them the sea shone.

In the back of his mind he remembered the Unsullied crewmen he had told to wait with the ship, and he knew they wouldn’t make it out of this alive. Even if he apparated to them now, he would most likely arrive to find the boat gone or destroyed, or the area they landed on completely unrecognizable from when they landed.

It was a sad thought, especially since all of his Unsullied companions nearby were dead, but he had no time to concentrate on that now. Instead he had to focus on escaping this place alive, as he walked over to that woman from before who had the Valyrian features.

She wasn’t screaming in pain or fighting her animagus ability, instead resting silently while unconscious. Harry scooped her up in his arms, deciding he would take her with him until they could escape this place together.

Disclaimer: All Characters are over the Age of 18