Dragonmont

Dragonmont is the smoking mountain on Dragonstone, a landmark whose eastern cliffs and slopes shaped the events around the dragons Grey Ghost and Sunfyre. Its significance lies not only in the dragon remains found at its base, but also in its hidden slopes, where Sunfyre took refuge and Aegon II Targaryen began flying again.

Setting and Approach

A battered merchant cog, the Nessaria, arrived in the harbor beneath Dragonstone after a storm drove it off course while sailing from Pentos to Old Volantis. As the ship passed westward, its crew saw two dragons fighting against the setting sun, their roars carrying from the eastern flanks of Dragonmont. The mountain’s scale and dark cliffs framed a sight the sailors later recounted throughout the waterfront, where the tale was repeated and embellished.

Grey Ghost’s Remains

The report prompted local fisherfolk to take their boats around the mountain. They returned with news of a dead dragon at its base: Grey Ghost, identified by the color of its wings and scales. Its remains showed that it had been torn apart and partly consumed. Ser Robert Quince, the castellan, initially attributed the killing to the Cannibal, which had attacked smaller dragons before. Although some fishers wanted knights sent to the beast’s lair, Quince refused to provoke it and forbade fishing beneath Dragonmont’s eastern face, where Grey Ghost lay.

That identification was later challenged by Tom Tangletongue, who questioned the Nessaria’s Volantene sailors and paid attention to their repeated descriptions of the attacker’s golden scales. The Cannibal was black, while those clues pointed to Sunfyre. The mountain’s apparent evidence of one dragon’s attack thus became a clue to another dragon’s survival.

Sunfyre and Aegon II

After disappearing from the record for more than half a year, Sunfyre had crossed Blackwater Bay to Dragonstone. His injured wing had healed poorly, leaving him able to fly only with difficulty. From a hidden lair on Dragonmont’s desolate eastern slopes, Aegon II ventured out at dawn and took to the sky again for the first time since the Battle of Rook’s Rest. The burned king and maimed dragon found renewed purpose in one another: the mountain provided a place from which both could return to action.

The account leaves uncertain what drew Sunfyre back to Dragonstone. The dragon may have been driven by an instinct to return to the mountain where he hatched, or may have sensed Aegon II’s presence; the narrative offers these as possibilities rather than established explanations. What is clear is that Dragonmont sheltered the dragon before his reunion with his rider and became the starting point for Aegon II’s renewed effort to reclaim the island.