Redd leaned down and placed his palm against the thick black scales on Ehm's neck. His fingertips followed the texture of the scales and slid forward from the base of the neck. "This time we are going back. Back to the place where you once lived. Are you happy?"
His voice was partially chopped up by the wind during the high-speed flight, but those syllables still passed through the vibrations of the air and reached Ehm's ears.
Ehm roared a second time, this time deeper and longer than before.
The roar spread far across the open sea, like an invisible hand slapping the water, pushing the ripples beyond the reach of the eye.
Redd could feel the slight tremor coming from Ehm's body - not nervousness, not uneasiness, but something rising from deep in the chest, like the memory of running on that land a long time ago was being brought up again. Although it was blurred, the bones still remembered it.
They kept flying, passing through the Narrow Sea, passing through the small islands and reefs scattered on the sea.
Occasionally, you can see a few merchant ships or fishing boats on the sea, dragging out long and thin white trails on the dark water, like a wound opened by a sharp object and then closed immediately.
Those ships became very small below him and Ehm, shrinking from the mast to the hull into a black spot that could be covered by the palm of a hand, and disappeared behind them after a moment.
In the afternoon of the next day, they arrived at Volantis.
Ehm began to lower its altitude, slowly circling along the long arc outside Volantis the Black Wall, and found the large Dragonpit entrance specially arranged for it.
The crack opened in the middle of the expanded black city wall, like an opening in the city wall struck by a huge chisel. The edges were covered with melted and re-condensed black rocks, giving off a dull sheen like aged iron in the afternoon sun.
Volantis's atmosphere has become more like a pure fortress and supply depot since he last left.
The population within the city wall is not dense, and there are wide gaps between buildings. The streets that have been filled in and re-planned are straight and spacious, with warehouses and workshops built on both sides.
Most of the residents in the city are slaves. The former nobles, merchants, and members of the governor's family - those who once gave orders in the nine Free Cities, owned mansions and escorts - now wear uniform gray linen clothes and carry stones, dig soil, and build wall foundations under the scorching sun.
They wear iron collars around their necks, with numbers and department marks engraved on them. Some are reinforcing and expanding the city walls, some are building new berths and trestles near the port, and some are digging Dragonpit underground passages and ventilation systems.
Each team of people worked step by step under the gaze of fixed foremen and supervisors, their movements neat but slow, like a group of gray stone tablets being driven to move under the scorching sun.
This was once a proud and wealthy city. Before Redd conquered it, it was home to the most wealthy merchants and the most powerful noble families in the entire south of Essos.
Later, after a failed resistance, those people were liquidated one by one, their family property was confiscated, and they and their relatives were demoted as slaves and transported to Volantis to repay their resistance with their labor.
Hundreds of thousands of people were selected from nine City-Statess, concentrated at the same construction site and port, and divided into different work teams according to gender and physical strength.
Their descendants are also registered as slaves, unless they join the slave army of Redd and make meritorious service on the battlefield, or are recognized in a certain skill and receive a pardon.
Otherwise that identity would be passed down from generation to generation, written in the notches on collars and in the notes of registers, unable to be erased by anything lighter than a pardon.
Redd let Ehm land on the platform outside the entrance of Dragonpit, jumped off the dragon's back, and glanced at the gray figures moving on the construction site.
Volantis Under the scorching sun, the ground was glowing with a white glow. The slaves lowered their heads and hunched their backs, and the tools in their hands made dull knocking and rubbing sounds on the dry earth and stone.
The scenes he had seen in this land could no longer be summarized with words such as astonishment or pity. He knew the rules and boundaries here, knew which changes could be implemented on the existing track, and which adjustments would trigger a series of chain reactions that would take him a lot of time to catch.
The city wall of Volantis and Dragonpit are advancing according to the plan he drew. The port is expanding, and the warehouses are piled with shipped materials and tools.
Most people don't know when he will come back, or whether he will encounter something in the ruins that only he can see.
But the facilities they were building, the passages they were digging, the supplies they were stacking, and under every block and riveted ship plank that was built according to his orders, all had a common purpose that was not directly written in any order or drawing:
Prepare for that road, pave the final connection point for the abyss and fractures on that island, and the land he wants to explore.
The port of Volantis spreads out in the afternoon sun, like a piece of dark gray cloth that has been ironed repeatedly. The edges have been bitten with uneven gaps by the waves, and have been neatly mended by stone embankments and wooden trestles.
The dock was filled with supplies - bundles of arrows wrapped in oilcloth and stacked on a wooden platform, grain bags piled up in a neat square array, iron weapon boxes stacked into walls, each layer separated by hay and linen to prevent moisture and collision.
Several thick-bodied transport mules, with their coats glowing with a layer of grease in the sunlight, were munching hay in the troughs with their tails swaying to drive away the flies hovering around their ears.
In the distance, a transport ship that had finished unloading its cargo was slowly leaving the port. The waterline was higher than when it arrived. The dark coating that was originally pressed under the water surface was exposed on the bottom of the ship. In the sun, it had a mottled luster corroded by salt and seawater.
Redd came out of Dragonpit inside the Black Wall and walked toward the port along the sandy road that had been stepped on repeatedly.
His boots stepped on the soil that was somewhat soft due to the hot sun, leaving shallow marks with every step.
Ehm has been settled in Dragonpit by him. After entering Dragonpit, the dark black Titan Demon Dragon curled up on a rock platform in the deepest part, with its wings folded at its sides and its eyes closed, as if it was digesting the fatigue caused by this long flight in its own way.
There were several slaves guarding the entrance of Dragonpit, wearing uniform gray linen clothes and iron collars around their necks. When they saw him approaching, they all lowered their eyes, stepped back half a step, and moved out of the way.