95

Chapter 95: Interlude: Legio IINotes:

Were you expecting another Dragonseed interlude? I'm busy tomorrow, so you guys get an early chapter.

Anyway, before we begin, I just want to mention that this fanfic is coming to an end. There are only 10 more chapters left to go, including this one.

Once this story ends, I'll immediately start work on my next fanfic, 'Instead of Secondary School, we went to Hogwarts'. It's another self-insert story starring my old high school clique and I.

I've written out an outline for most of the story starting from the Triwizard Tournament, but am struggling to pad out the first 3 years. Can everyone please suggest a plot bunny or two to me? The fanfic is canon-compliant, and set during Harry's time at Hogwarts. Those are the only 2 rules. But otherwise feel free to suggest ideas for a plot.

If I find a plot bunny I like and can use, I will dig into my buffer and immediately release the next chapter of this fic. How's that for motivation?

Thanks, and without further ado, onto the chapter!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"I name you Tempest; Swift death riding as fast as the wind."

-King Rhaenyra I Targaryen granting the Second Legion their cognomen

114 AC, Oldtown

"It is time." Lord Otto Hightower gravely said to a room full of men.

A massive murder of ravens flew out from the Citadel and Hightower. So much so that it appeared as though the sky was blotted out by clouds of fluttering black. The birds flew, bearing messages around their legs. Flying to every single Green castle, holdfast and town within reach.

"Call the banners."

Across the Reach and Westerlands, banners were painted over with heraldry. King Aegon II had yet to create his own personal heraldry, so it was the personal banner of Queen Alicent that was used: The Hightower, quartered with the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen.

"Gather your men."

Riders rode to every town and village in the West, conscripting every single man of fighting age. Calling them up to serve King and Country and slay the vicious Dragonqueen in the East.

"Open your armouries."

The Reach was no stranger to war. As the breadbasket of Westeros, it come under more raids and attacks than could be counted. Ironborn raids, Dornish pillaging, Westerlands incursions, Stormlands invasions and much more.

Forges and foundries burned through the night, forging the steel that would be bared come war. Old swords were taken down from mantelpieces, as lovingly-maintained armour came off armour stands. Swords and spears hidden in attics and stashed under floorboards were retrieved. Bows and arrows for hunting and pest control were distributed. Woodchopping axes were sharpened and oiled. Ploughshares were beaten into swords, cutlery was melted down to form spearheads and wooden tables were hacked up to fashion shields.

"Sound the horns."

Granaries and food banks were emptied, and every cart and pack animal in Oldtown drafted into service, providing the supply train that would allow the Green host to march to war. Horses, donkeys and mules, normally strapped to ploughs or threshers, were now fitted with saddles and packs.

"Prepare for war."

A massive host of twenty-five thousand men gathered beneath the walls of Oldtown, mustered for war. Above them all, atop the Hightower, a green flame burned. Signalling to all within sight that House Hightower was going to war.

"Prepare for the Dragons to Dance."

And on the fifteenth day of the last moon of year 114 After Conquest, this great army began to march up the Roseroad. A long column of men that seemed to stretch for miles, slithering across the lands like a steel-clad snake, as four dragons flew overhead.

———

114 AC, 13th Moon, 24th day, Roseroad, near Horn Hill,

It had taken them sixteen days to muster for war, in an effort that some would call a logistical miracle, given the sheer number of men involved.

Lord Unwin Peake had ground his teeth the whole time, annoyed at every delay and time spent waiting. Swiftness was the lifeblood of war, and every day that they squandered in preparations was a day Rhaenyra gained ground on them.

Unwin had scoffed when he heard Rhaenyra was raising a standing army, laughing at the idea of toy soldiers being taught to heed the orders of a whimsical girl. Those men were being emasculated. Taught how to stand in neat lines and look good in parades. It was bad enough that legionaries were taught how to shoot cowardly crossbows, but worse was the fact that those men— and women, what an absurdity!— were being trained to read and write instead of proper martial arts!

Bah, literacy had no place on the battlefield. Proper warriors didn't need such effeminate dross clogging up their brains. They needed guts, and glory! Valour and bravery was what won wars, not ink and parchment!

But despite that, the self-proclaimed 'King' of Westeros was right about one thing: Keeping a standing army meant that she could mobilise far faster than a more traditional feudal levy.

Where it had taken the Greens weeks to prepare a supply train and gather the men, Rhaenyra only needed to give an order, and within three days, the Legions were on their merry way.

The First and Second Legions had marched from Camp Cockleswent to Highgarden and put the seat of House Tyrell under siege a mere two days after Lady Tyrell left to repel Erik, an entire week before the Greens had even left Oldtown.

That was bad enough.

Worse was the report that Tumbleton had fallen to a surprise attack by the Third Legion a day later, deployed from King's Landing. Securing the Mander Canal for Rhaenyra's Royal Fleet, and establishing a foothold in the Reach to launch further attacks from.

While it was true that on paper, the Greens had Rhaenyra three-to-one, the truth was that their men were scattered about and not one single monolith.

As things currently stood, there were three Black hosts and four Green hosts.

The first of the four Green hosts was the Hightower army of twenty-five thousand, marching from Oldtown.

The next was the Lannister host under Lady Cerelle. The largest of them all, numbering at thirty-thousand. The full muster of the Westerlands, marching down the Ocean Road to link up with the Hightower host at Highgarden. But she was being checked by Lord Rowan and his army of ten thousand.

The General-to-be of the Seventh Legion had taken Old Oak in a lightning strike, and now sat atop the Ocean Road. Rhaenyra had clearly sent Lord Rowan many of those queer sappers to aid him, and Lord Rowan's position was known to be too well fortified for a quick breakthrough. Unless Cerelle Lannister wanted to break over half her army on those defensive lines, there was no way she'd be able to crack those lines quickly.

Lord Rowan didn't have the quantity or the quality of men to defeat Cerelle in detail. He didn't even have enough to hold the line indefinitely. He'd fold, but not before adding at least another month to Cerelle's advance.

The third Green host was the ten thousand Stormlanders under Lord Boremund Baratheon, mustering at Storm's End in preparation to sack King's Landing. 

This was by far the least reliable of the Green armies, as the Stormlords were generally Black-leaning. A sense of duty had compelled the lords to attend Lord Boremund's summons to war, but otherwise they were unable to commit to a single plan of attack. Debate raged through their war councils, the army paralysed with indecision.

Half the army wanted to back Rhaenyra, citing the oaths of fealty sworn to her. Grateful for the amount of coin and resources she'd sunk into the rebuilding and reconstruction of the ravaged Stormlands in the wake of the ruinous War of Four Directions.

The other half were enraged with the revelations that Rhaenyra had murdered Lord Royce Caron, and claimed that their duty to House Baratheon took precedence over a duty to a foreign overlord in the Crownlands.

Still, Lady Tyrell had spies in the Stormlands host, and had reported that most of the lords had adopted a wait-and-see approach, and when the time came, would back the winning horse in the race. The Greens were the obvious frontrunner, given their dragons, but they would need a few more battlefield victories to secure the full support of the Stormlands.

The third Black host was the army currently encamped in Tumbleton.

Three days past, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Legions had arrived in King's Landing from their initial deployments. Rhaenyra had gone out of her way to make the whole thing into a three-act-play, including a parade. Preening her feathers for the entire Realm to see, and mocking the Greens.

I fear the Greens so little, that I can waste the time and manpower and have half my army throw a frivolous parade instead of marching to war.

That was the message she was sending with this move, and the sheer insolence and arrogance of it made Unwin's blood boil.

Regardless, the three Legions had stopped showboating, and had since sailed down to Tumbleton, reinforcing the already-present Third Legion. Swelling the host from five thousand to between seventeen to nineteen thousand men. This was Rhaenyra's main force, and by far the most powerful of the lot.

Staring down this army was the last of the Green hosts. Twelve-thousand men, stood between Rhaenyra's main force and Highgarden.

Already, reports indicated that the first line of defence at Bitterbridge was experiencing probing attacks by the Fourth Legion.

While additional lines of defence had been raised at Longtable and Cider Hall, there just simply wasn't any way they could truly hold back such a powerful army. The Legions simply had too many men.

That would not have been so bad, had it not been for the siege of Highgarden. Most of the household knights and professional men-at-arms of House Tyrell were currently trapped behind the walls of the castle. Enough of them that the First and Second Legions were wary of storming the castle. Unfortunately, this came at the cost of these soldiers being unable to go forth and recruit men to fight, for without them to serve as backbone, any force of hastily-mustered conscripts would do nothing but feed casualties to the Legions.

This meant that Shaera's promised forty-thousand men would fail to materialise until after Highgarden was relieved.

Yet another delay in an already time-sensitive war.

It was quickly apparent to Lord Unwin, and much of the Green war council that they were fighting the clock as much as Rhaenyra herself.

Time favoured Rhaenyra, in more ways than one. Lady Rhaenys was already gaining on Aerion, having very publicly torched the House of Bought and Sold in Pentos during her attempt to capture the traitor Dragonseed. How long would it be, before she captured Aerion and reclaimed the dragon flock for House Targaryen?

The Greens only had four of them, and they were the smaller beasts, at that.

Even if by some miracle Aerion managed to evade Rhaenys forever, sooner rather than later, the hosts of Beyond-the-Wall, the Riverlands, the North and the Vale would enter the fray. Those kingdoms were staunch Black loyalists, and would bring enough men to bear that it would be the Greens whom would be outnumbered and crushed.

No, they had to win. Now, as quickly as possible. Before Rhaenyra had a chance to muster enough forces to crush them underfoot.

While it would have been faster to sail around Dorne and attack King's Landing directly by the sea, the unfortunate truth was that neither side of this conflict had the ships necessary to gain naval superiority.

The navies of Oldtown and the Shield Islands were intact, yes, but if those ships were used to ferry the Green host by sea, it would be leaving the entire West Coast at the mercy of the combined Ironborn and Mormont Fleet. The Sunset Sea was at a stalemate. Neither side had the numbers to defeat the other, and with the Dragonseed Erik guarding the Black fleets, throwing dragons at the problem was likely to end in more dead dragonriders, despite the numerical advantage.

No. This war would be won on the land, not the sea.

The first week on the march had proven most productive. The Honeyholt and Horn Hill had surrendered without a fight on the 19th and 22nd days of the 13th Moon respectively, willingly giving up much of their treasuries, granaries and armouries in exchange for being left unmolested by the Green host.

Questioning the locals had revealed that Rhaenyra had ordered her loyalists south and west of Highgarden to surrender without a fight. They were free to surrender however much gold, steel and grain required to bribe the Greens into leaving peacefully, with the one caveat being that providing warm bodies to the Green war effort was not an option.

Rhaenyra's mercy was costing her. Was this truly not proof that women were too soft to rule? Were Unwin Peake sitting atop the Iron Throne, he would have ordered any and all of his supporters to fight to the last man, no matter the cost. There could be no compromises with the enemy, and a valiant death on one's feet was better than living in cowardice, on one's knees.

Regardless, the Hightowers were as aware as Unwin was on the necessity of time. While there could never be enough steel or grain for the army, the gold would do nothing but weigh them down. House Hightower had spared no expense hiring every single sellsword they could, draining the entire pool of mercenaries dry. Even if more could be bought, they would arrive too late to make any meaningful impact in the war. No, the gold was nothing more than a cunningly-laid trap.

Time that was exceptionally precious. Especially after reports came in on the 23rd that Bitterbridge had fallen to the Sixth Legion, bringing the main Black host ever-closer to reinforcing the First and Second Legions at Highgarden.

As things stood, the Legions besieging Highgarden were ripe for the attack. A mere ten thousand men, easy prey for the twenty-five thousand strong army. If the Greens could defeat the First and Second Legions quickly, then fortify Highgarden against the Black reinforcements, then they could execute a defeat in detail of Rhenyra's vaunted professional army, and come ever closer to victory.

But if the two Black hosts managed to link up in time, the opportunity would be lost. Highgarden could not withstand such numbers, and it would instead be the Greens marching right into a fortified position.

This war was now a race, with Highgarden as the finish line. Could the Black host reinforce their forward forces in time, or could the Greens arrive and destroy them first?

At first, it seemed as though the Green host would arrive at Highgarden within ten days from departure, well ahead of the predicted Black reinforcements, but then trouble started.

It first started with the outriders. A detachment of four hundred horsemen had been sent out ahead of the main army, to requisition barges and other watercraft from towns along the Mander, in order to shave off the last few days of the march from Oldtown to Highgarden. Led by a cousin of the Lord Florent, it was expected to be a relatively routine assignment, lasting no more than a day or two.

None of them ever returned to camp.

Scouts later started going missing, and supply carts from Oldtown began coming into camp at a far more infrequent rate.

Desertion and cowardice were initially to blame, but after the Florent cousin turned up as an arrow-ridden corpse, they swiftly realised what was going on.

While it was true the First and Second Legions were busy sieging Highgarden, and could not deploy forces to attack the Green host without leaving the siege lines. There was a certain force they could throw at the Greens without weakening their position; Marcher Cataphracts.

Riders with bows, galloping across the fertile fields of the Reach. Unleashing death upon all before them.

It was said that Dornish Kataphractoi came from Essos, brought over by Nymeria a thousand years ago. Legend said that the Rhoynar were inspired by Dothraki horse archers, and came up with their own variation on the idea, replacing the original unarmored calvary with warriors clad in scale mail, and using recurves bows instead of the Dothraki shortbow.

The Rhoynar Kataphactoi later became a mainstay of Dornish hosts, and were used to great effect over the centuries of raids and conflicts with the Reach and Stormlands.

The men of the Dornish Marchers had a long tradition of archery, with their longbowmen being famed across all of Westeros. Boys were often given their first bow at age four, and would spend the next twelve years training at archery. To the point where even commoner boys could shoot apples off of the heads of their sisters from over sixty paces away.

These were proud bowmen, and upon seeing archers mounted atop warhorses, took it as a challenge, and had decided to show the barbaric Dornish that the civilised peoples of the Marchers could do better.

Marcher Cataphracts combined the best of both worlds, with the power of Andal knights and the range of Dornish Kataphactoi. Cataphracts wore heavier armour than Kataphactoi, with larger warhorses and more powerful bows to boot. They also bore lances and swords as sidearms, allowing them to act as conventional heavy calvary when needed.

And the Second Legion fielded no less than fifteen hundred Cataphracts in place of standard calvary.

They struck out, in companies as small as ten, attacking at infrequent intervals. The Cataphracts sprung ambushes during the day, attacking isolated companies or scouts, and running before reinforcements arrived. They danced at the periphery of the Green host, shooting at any targets of opportunity they could get, then scattering in all directions when faced with superior force.

And however bad things were during the day, it was even worse at night. Fire arrows were the main weapon used by the Legionaries, aimed at tents and carts. They struck every hour or so, unleashing a volley of fire arrows before fleeing into the night, often banging on drums or using horridly loud war horns during their attacks.

It was a traditional Dornish tactic, one used by the cowardly sand-monkeys to great effect against larger hosts. The Cataphracts weren't trying to kill men or even torch supplies. No, they were trying to prevent soldiers from getting any good sleep, wielding exhaustion as a weapon. Hit and run guerrilla warfare. A fly, intent on killing an elephant through a death of a thousand cuts.

Despicable.

How deeply disgusting was it, that a proud host of Marchers would be forced to resort to the cowardly tactics of their most hated foes? Refusing to stand and fight like men, and killing through deception and trickery? Where was the honour in such a deed?

But clearly, Rhaenyra did not care about what lows she would stoop to in order to cling to her stolen power. Up to and including ordering brave and valiant Marchers to fight like cowards and cravens.

———

114 AC, 13th Moon, 29th day, Roseroad,

The Second Legion was exacting a punishing toll in blood and bodies.

Their Cataphracts had gotten disturbingly good at dodging patrols, somehow slipping through three screens of scouts to charge the side of the host in movement.

Three hundred sellswords had died before Green calvary could be mustered to chase them away, with twice that in wounded. The heavy horse archers had ridden away at full speed, occasionally turning around in their saddles and unleashing volley after volley of arrows at the mounts of the chasing knights. 

Annoyingly, the Cataphracts method of retreat was both hopelessly random and brilliantly conceived at the same time. When chased, the Cataphracts would split up and scatter in all directions, aiming to vanish into the countryside. And when pursed, the riders would either deliberately lead the pursues in a merry chase that did nothing but go in circles, or more aggressively, lead them straight into another ambush.

Eventually though, Lord Unwin Peake had cracked the Cataphracts' retreat.

"There are no more than fifteen hundred of them." The second most influential lord amongst the Green faction declared. "At the rate they are attacking us at, they must be regrouping after every retreat. Even if they scatter like grains of sand, they will all return to a designated fallback point to prepare for the next attack."

"A forward base. One with supplies to feed them and their horses." Ser Ormund noted.

"They've been good at obfuscating where it is." Lord Horbert pointed out. "Our riders have found nothing but ambushes, and any prisoner we capture prefers to commit suicide than reveal any secrets to us."

"Horses can not catch up to them, yes." Shaera nodded. "But do we not have dragons? I can lead our riders in a strike on their base."

There were shouts of annoyance from the rest of the Green war council, and before long the council had degenerated into a shouting match revolving around two points:

1) Shaera wasn't trusted, and nobody believed that she wouldn't just backstab them to Rhaenyra when the time came.

2) They wanted to win glory in battle, and were unwilling to see her steal what the 'honour' of assaulting the Cataphract main base.

This debate was eventually put to rest the next day, on the last day of Year 114 After Conquest, when a force of Cataphracts had struck the host once more. The largest attack by far. A diversionary force of two hundred had hit the baggage train in the rearguard. The Greens had sent their horsemen to chase them away, drawing strength away from the front.

After the knights were too committed to redirect, at least six hundred Cataphracts had stuck the vanguard with incredible ferocity. Four hundred men were dead— including the Lord Costayne and his brothers—before Shaera arrived and scorched the Legionaries into retreat. She and the other dragonriders had then sortied to chase down the fleeing Cataphracts.

But that turned out to be yet another diversion.

As soon as Shaera and her riders had stopped providing air support, Legionaries from the First Legion had ambushed the column. A hillside had split open, revealing hidden bunkers filled with siege engines, hidden behind trees and bushes, and convincing facades of grass. Scorpions and catapults had unleashed bolts and rocks straight into the packed ranks of sellswords, reaping a bloody harvest.

A thousand men were dead, and twice that number wounded. In exchange for less than three hundred Legionaries.

It was a good thing that the Hightowers had the foresight not to kill Naerys, for she was the only reason most of their wounded were expected to make full recoveries. But there were only so many that she could heal per day, and even then, the wounded needed time to rest and recover before they were fit for battle once more.

The bloody skirmish had lit a fire within the Greens, and the very next day, Shaera and her three riders had sortied with a thousand knights under them, intent on chasing down and killing the Cataphracts.

———

115 AC, 1st Moon, 1st day, Southpool,

Southpool had once been a riverside town before the Legions had requisitioned it for their use.

Wooden houses with thatched roofs, with the odd stone building to break up the monotony. There were hundreds of such hamlets along the river Mander, trading towns where the farmers of the Reach brought their harvests to sell. Putting their harvests on barges that would take the food to feed the many hungry customers across the Realm.

Southpool's docks were filled with barges, yes. But these weren't a typical trader's vessel. No, these were the troop transport ships, presumably from the detachment of the Royal Fleet stationed at Camp Cockleswhent.

This particular town had shoddy walls, made of cheap mudbrick. But walls nonetheless, and Legion sappers had clearly been busy. Scorpions and catapults crowned the walls, and trenches had been dug outside as an additional line of defence.

"How should we approach this?" Shaera asked Lord Jack Bulwer, the commander of the knights accompanying her. "My riders can sweep the town with dragonfire, but that would be depriving your men of the honour and glory they desire."

She really didn't care a whit about what those men felt, but she had to play the part of an ally. Half the Greens were looking to knife her in the back once she'd outlived her usefulness, held back only by the Hightowers and her dragon. They didn't trust her, and many openly loathed her. And so Shaera had set about making herself useful.

People loved useful people. They let useful people get away with so much more than non-useful people. Even Rhaenyra was no exception, as she'd left Shaera alive even after her betrayal.

Naerys was proving recalcitrant to heal the Green wounded, even with a sword to her throat. So Shaera had spoken a few words of encouragement to her sister, and when that failed, triggered the leash to induce magical pain in the younger girl whenever she disobeyed. Naerys fell in line, and the Greens gained the last natural healer in Westeros as an asset.

The Valyrians Otto Hightower had rounded up to ride her siblings' dragons were inexperienced, undisciplined and occasionally power-hungry. A few conversations with Shaera, and she had them eating out of the palm of her hand. They were now as horses broken to the saddle, no longer the wildcards Otto previously had to wrangle.

And now, she would be making inroads with the knights. Promising a few paltry concessions like this would help endear her to them, providing yet another pillar of support for her shaky platform.

"You send a pair of riders to sweep the walls, and another pair to sink the barges." Lord Bulwer suggested. "Cut off their retreat, and my men will do the rest."

"As you wish." Shaera nodded. It was a decent enough plan, and one that minimised collateral damage to the town. It would do.

Taking to the air once more, Shaera gave out the orders, and the Greens moved out.

At first, the battle seemed to go well.

Daybreak and Tessarion swept the walls without any problems. Dragons were simply too tough to be seriously wounded by anything short of a ballista, and the projectiles glanced harmlessly off of their scales.

Southpool's gates were battered down by the knights, and the legionaries immediately begun a retreat towards the docks, setting much of the town on fire behind them to cover their retreat.

Dragons were unimpressed by the blaze though, Urrax and Syrax simply flying over and moving to attack the Targaryen barges, destroying the Cataphracts' method of retreat.

And then, the legion commander spoke three words, and single-handedly turned the tide of the battle.

"Megapults, open fire!"

Lances of pure light streaked off the ground. Hundreds if not thousands of them. They shot up into the sky with great unearthly shrieks, like the clarion calls of the damned.

And then they exploded.

Shaera yelped and quickly conjured a shield to protect herself, wincing as Wildfire battered away at her shields. Gods, the blasts were deafening, and set her teeth to chattering which each explosion.

She was the lucky one, most of the volley was aimed at Urrax and Syrax, closer to the ships, with Daybreak and Tessarion being afterthoughts.

The dragons shrugged off the pyrotechnics, but their riders did not.

The rider of Syrax was screaming at the top of his lungs. His left arm was a black stump, and his hair was afire with wisps of flickering green.

The rider of Urrax was little more than a charred corpse, slumped over in the scorched saddle.

What in the Seven Hells was going on? Shaera had never seen a weapon such as this before. She had spies in the Alchemist's Guild, and they would have told her if Rhaenyra was funneling money into creating such an…anti-dragon… weapon…

Shaera stuttered into a stunned silence as she realised that she had seen such a weapon before. A long time ago, back when she was still a Fyre and not a Tyrell.

———

111 AC, Camp Cockleswhent,

The twelve anti-dragon ballistae arrayed around the pretty flower field where the 12 weddings were held all came to life, the sappers of the First and Second Legions raising their siege engines to the sky and unleashing bolt after bolt.

Five seconds after they'd been launched, at the apex of the arc, the bolts all exploded. Blossoming into starbursts of fire in the air. Pretty sparks of an entire rainbow of colours fell like rain, to the oohs and aahs of the crowd below.

As soon as the first bolts had been launched, the sappers pulled a lever attached to the side of the ballistae, pulling back the bowstring and allowing another bolt to drop down into the firing groove from the box above. A match was struck, lighting a special string that was made especially flammable and the trigger quickly pulled, the ballistae shooting the next volley of pyrotechnics into the air.

"That's really pretty." Shaera remarked.

"Courtesy of the Alchemists' Guild." Rhaenyra nodded.

"Oh, is this wildfire then?" Shaera curiously asked. "The stories did not do it's beauty justice."

"No. It's a derivative." Her cousin denied. "I've been having the Wisdoms tinker with the recipe. Make them into less of a one-trick-pony."

"I didn't know that alchemy could be so beautiful." Shaera sighed appreciatively, admiring the beautiful patterns and sparks formed by the explosions.

"I'm hoping that we'll be able to market these fireworks out." Rhaenyra smiled. "Wildfire really only has military usage, and though House Targaryen is the patron of the Alchemists' Guild, I'd rather that they not rely solely on us for funding. I'd like them be able to stand on their own feet."

"Yes, I can see that." Shaera replied, pasting on her usual simping and guileless smile. "I'd love fireworks like these at my own wedding."

———

115 AC, 1st Moon, 1st day, Southpool,

The fireworks had fired from what appeared to be shoddy two-wheeled carts. Small and relatively unremarkable, they were little more than a rack for the fireworks to be placed in, with no limbs or moving parts to distinguish themselves as a siege engine.

Hundreds of them had been positioned in the streets, hidden in plain sight. Disguised as the usual transportation vehicles of sundry tradesmen, merchants or farmers.

Not that Shaera had time to gawk, for the Legions were not done yet.

"Megapults, reload! Manglers, open fire!"

Almost immediately, half the houses of the town seemed to suddenly fall apart, revealing that they were little more than decoys made of cheap plywood and thatch, or in some cases, mere tents pretending to be houses.

And underneath, hidden from sight, were the largest ballistas that Shaera had ever seen.

Behemoths of weapons, easily twenty feet in length, with limbs nearly as long. The frame of the weapon was made from goldenheart, and the limbs fashioned from jet-black dragonbone— the ribs of the Black Dread itself, Shaera realised, no other dragon was large enough. The string was woven steel, and nestled in its firing groove, was a massive lance made completely out of goldenheart, tipped with a Valyrian steel arrowhead. A vicious spike of barbed metal, with a diameter almost the size of Shaera's head.

There was a heartbeat of horror, and then those massive monsters of ballistas began firing.

"Retreat!" Shaera yelled, lacing her voice with sorcery to amplify it. "Retreat!"

Syrax and Tessarion obeyed, despite their riders bearing grievous wounds from the initial firework volley.

But riderless Urrax had no such obedience, charging head-on at the ballistae nests without even the slightest attempt to dodge.

It was a truly one-sided fight.

The silver dragon wailed, ballista bolts punching through its scales one after the other. Valyrian steel arrowheads—fired by those absurdly overpowered siege engines— ripped right through Urrax like it was a thing of paper instead of magic and iron-hard scales, perforating the beast with massive holes the size of Shaera's head. And one of them punched straight through the dragon's skull, and that was that.

Urrax crashed into the Mander, bleeding boiling blood from dozens of wounds. Dead before it even hit the water.

"Megapults, fire at will!"

And that was Shaera's cue to go. She and the other dragon riders immediately hightailed it out of there, as the next volley of fireworks ascended into the sky. Fleeing before they too could be slain, and this battle be turned from defeat into disaster.

The last thing Shaera saw was the Manglers being turned on the thousand knights that had come as escort.

Valyrian steel bolts punched straight through houses like they were paper, carving bloody swathes through Green ranks. The knights attempted to retreat, only to find that Southpool's mudbrick walls proved useless as cover.

Mangler bolts tore right through those like they were cheap plywood.

———

115 AC, 1st Moon, 1st day, Roseroad,

The mood was grim as the Green war council assembled later that evening.

"We have gravely underestimated Rhaenyra Targaryen." Lord Horbert Hightower declared, and not even the most sexist and misogynistic lord in the room spoke a word in disagreement.

A thousand knights and four dragons had set out to hunt down the Cataphracts. Less than two hundred managed to stumble back into the Green camp, Cataphracts hounding their retreat the entire time.

Near two and a half thousand men had been lost already to the Legions, and they hadn't even made it to a proper pitched battle yet, no.

The Skirmish at Southpool was only that, a skirmish.

A tenth of their host, including an all-precious dragon, had been lost in mere skirmishes.

Worse, even the most optimistic estimates placed the Legions at having lost less than five hundred men in exchange. Not exactly a good start to the new year.

At this exchange rate, it wouldn't matter even if Rhaenyra was outnumbered four-to-one. The Greens would run out of warm bodies way before Rhaenyra even came close to reaching her bottom line.

Seven Gods and Hells, but Rhaenyra truly was on another level.

If there was one army that Shaera believed would never be taught how to kill a dragon, it would be the Legions. And Dragonqueen Rhaenyra was arguably the last person anyone would have think of, when it came to aiding the research and development of anti-dragon weaponry. And why would they? The only reason why Rhaenyra was King was because she commanded a veritable armada of dragons to cow the entire continent into submission.

If there was someone whose best interests revolved around no one finding better and more effective methods of killing dragons, it would be Rhaenyra.

While there was always the risk of rogue dragonriders— like Aerion or herself— Rhaenyra had dozens of other, better methods to call them to heel. Laena on Vhagar, for one.

Or the Leash.

A leash which Rhaenyra had put her back into making as ironclad as possible.

A leash which Shaera herself— a sorceress whom specialised in such bindings— had to move heaven and earth for in order to escape. And even then, only due to a mere technicality.

But noooo, apparently Rhaenyra was just so viciously paranoid she ordered the research and development of anti-dragon weaponry anyway. Just in case someone managed to break through all of her other contingencies.

Gods, did she have no fear that by creating such new and improved weapons, someone else might not take them up against her to counter her monopoly on dragons?

By teaching the Legions how to kill dragons, she was opening herself up for an inevitable coup in the future. It would only take one traitor general.

There was a long beat before Shaera glumly realised that Rhaenyra probably had a contingency plan for that exact scenario as well. Multiple contingency plans, in fact.

Shaera had thought Rhaenyra defanged, after she'd lost her dragons, and the Greens gained some of their own.

She was now starting to realise that even with the deck stacked so harshly against Rhaenyra, the Greens might still very well lose this war.

Notes:

So, whatddaya think? Did Legio II Tempest live up to its reputation?

Moreover, we get to see a few of Rhaenyra's anti-dragon contingencies. Remember the anti-dragon ballistae which caused House Targaryen so much trouble in the War of Four Directions? Well the Manglers are those on steroids.

And the Megapults, you may know by another name; the Korean Hwacha. AKA one of the oldest known forms of MLRS (Multiple-Launch-Rocket-System).

For those curious, the Mangler and Megapult are references to Dreamwork's How To Train Your Dragon. The Mangler was what Hiccup first used to shoot down Toothless, kickstarting the whole story. The Megapult was some titanic crossbow Hiccup made in the comic that could shoot like 10 arrows at a time.

Remember to provide some Harry Potter plot bunnies for my next fanfic, I need them!