Although Azure Scales and the other young dragons were quite unhappy that Danyla had used all those delicious strange eggs to plant trees, they soon forgot their grievance when they discovered that the mutated animals in the deep forest near the Dragon-Taming Tower tasted rather good too.
Vast stretches of land along the northern shore of the Smoking Sea were covered in dense primeval forest. Though the extreme environment had caused tremendous mutations in the trees, leaving them twisted and grotesque, the abundant, tough, mutated grasses still supported large populations of wild animals.
Herds of wild sheep and bison could be seen everywhere, though most had undergone horrifying mutations.
Danyla crouched on a warm rock beside the Sea of Sighs and gently parted a tall clump of dark red grass with the Valyrian Steel Sword in her hand. This grass grew throughout the area within several kilometers of the shore, its color echoing the dark red seawater.
The edges of its blades were sharp as knives, and their fibers were strong. When cut, they released a red sap that reeked of rust and sulfur.
"Light armor woven from this grass would certainly be sturdy and easy to wear. It might even be more practical than chain mail!"
While Danyla was carefully considering the grass's uses, a breeze laden with a powerful stench of decay suddenly blew over. It smelled like dead fish churned up from the seabed, mixed with rotting mud and sulfur. The odor made her brace herself against a nearby pine and retch.
Unlike the oaks and pines of Westeros, the trees here did not grow straight. They twisted upward, their trunks covered in black, knobby growths like diseased skin. Thick resin seeped from cracks in the bark, gleaming an eerie amber in the sunlight.
Danyla had accidentally