The Bronze Dragon-A House of the Dragon fanfic

Chapter 15

My father mostly continued to prepare himself for conflict during this time. It was perhaps not the most constructive way to work his feelings out, but he was left with little other option. My mother would always say that the fact he stuck to his vow of not taking her to bed until she desired it a mark of my father's discipline, but that may be overly charitable.

There was a practical reason for this training as well. The Vale has long had intermittent conflicts with the primitive tribes that inhabit the Mountains of the Moon. Knights of the Vale will typically blood themselves by searching out tribal settlements to attack; it helps gain them experience and knowledge of battle. My father was preparing for the first of several campaigns he would wage as the new year dawned.

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129 AC

Poring over maps was perhaps not the most exciting part of preparing a campaign, but as Daevar was learning, it was probably one of the most critical parts of it, along with arranging supplies and other measures to keep a force in the field. Not glamorous, but perhaps even more crucial than a proper shield or pike wall. Maester Barden had been helping where he could of course, but most of the responsibility had fallen on him and Gerold, as was to be expected for a military campaign

This one that was being planned was only to be a small one. Daevar and Kermit were to take a force of five hundred men into the Mountains of the Moon and search out Mountain Clan settlements to attack. Kermit had thought about questioning the morality of the whole thing, but had decided that it was a little pointless. The clansmen had never shown mercy to the hamlets they had put to the torch, so why should they be showing any mercy to the clans in return?

"You think that we'll be able to last for a moon's turn?" Kermit asked. The plan had been to stay out there until the moon turned and they were able to march back home with objectives accomplished, but he was skeptical. He had heard stories from his father about armies simply disappearing from their inability to supply themselves.

"There's only going to be five hundred of us, and we'll have enough archers for hunting." Daevar replied. He'd been working on the plan for this with Gerold for a couple of weeks now, and if that old soldier was happy with what he'd readied so far, then that was good enough for him. "My concern is more that we'll end up outnumbered by the tribesmen."

"Our force will be better equipped and better disciplined." Kermit countered. "The tribesmen will be lucky if they have anything more than bronze armour on them."

"We shouldn't underestimate them, Kermit."

"I know, but we are far more ready for a fight than they will be."

Daevar sighed. Kermit's confidence about his men in battle was to be envied. He himself was confident of course; the tribes' ability to stand up in a straight fight was minimal to say the least, and their arms and armour were certainly far inferior to what they had. Maybe I am just overthinking things . After all, Gerold had been to fight the tribes multiple times and he had never come away with more than a few scratches.

Of course, other preparations would be made. Supply lines would have to be kept open and equipment maintained after all, but Daevar was confident such things would work themselves out. After all, there were people in his force capable of something like that, so he would be able to focus on the fighting. Daeron was not going to accompany them this time; with Tessarion now large enough to ride, he was busy learning how to keep her under control.

As if to punctuate his thoughts, the sound of the wind drew his attention towards the sky to see the blue dragon soaring above them. His heart admittedly did miss a beat on occasion when he saw Daeron and Tessarion in the sky, but he figured that his cousin would not do anything too insane as he was learning to fly. Most of their flights so far were focused around simply trying to get from place to place without too many things going wrong. To his credit, Daeron didn't seem to be doing much wrong, though Daevar knew he wouldn;t be the best judge of that. Speaking of cousins . . .