CHAPTER I. THE GILTED COMPANIONS
"She's gone, Myles, and we're all the better for it."
The Blackheart looked at the brothers, before nodding curtly in acquiescence at the dreaded news which dashed his dreams on the rocks. Underneath his plated chainmail he was already sweltering, the beating sun warming up his tent so as to make the place unbearably hot and stuffy.
"And the mother?"
"Dying of the pox, last we heard. Not that it matters, for she is no Blackfyre, and it is to them that we owe our-"
"Black or red, a dragon is still a dragon." The new Lord Commander of the Golden Company swished the phrase around in his mouth as if it's taste was at once foreign and natural to him. He could still marry the mother, perhaps, put a babe in her belly and avenge his house fighting for the succession of that child over the falseborn heirs of the Dragonknight...
"With all due respect, my lord, she is no dragon, but an old and overworked whore with a dried up womb and a foul smelling mouth."
The thinner of the brothers concurred. "We made inquiries, lord, and...well, she is little more than a corpse at this point. The mistress of the pillow house has gone to great efforts, great efforts, to revive her...but alas, it is to no avail. She is as dead, if not yet quite so in fact."
The Blackheart eyed the two men intently for a split second before dismissing the two from his presence. He had not the resources to send others after them to make the trip to Lys and jump through the hoops necessary for the mistress of the pillow house to allow him to access. The typically pleasant coast of the Orange Shores was proving anything but as he marched what tatters were left of the Golden Company to fulfill the only contract he had been able to drum up, fighting in the service of the Volantenes. The Volantenes would pay in time, and if his men fought well, there'd be enough gold for them to begin enlisting recruits to fill up the empty ranks and enough slaves to begin birthing the new generation of embittered Westerosi exiles. Then he would beat back westward and fight for Alequo Adarys, a tyrant recently set up in Tyrosh by the Band of Nine (an alliance which included the Golden Company) - well, whenever Alequo was able to extort from his smallfolk enough coin to pay the Golden Company's asking price.
Or else there was always the embrace of the Old Mother, that haggard pirate queen who wanted their help reasserting herself in her old haunts among the Stepstones.
As he mulled these thoughts of contracts, offers and counter-offs in his mind one of his squires came in to serve him wine, no doubt some of the very last of what was left of the good stuff. He eyed the nervous lad's toing and froing with disinterest, until the bastard's name - something Flowers - lighted a small spark in his mind.
The Reach… We still have friends in the Reach.
The thought came to him loud and clear. He bellowed, nominally so as to call back the brothers to him, in truth to send the squire running off after them.
"Lucas and Brynden, come back here!"
A new plan took form as he simultaneously set it out for them. They were to head a small band of sellswords, Westerosi by right of their fathers but Essosi by birth. With these men they were to engage in whatever profitable activities might come their way, making their way for the Hightower in Oldtown, seat of House Hightower. The Hightowers were the most powerful of House Blackfyre's friends (or friends-in-potential), though their committal had never been whole-hearted in the past. Still, they had more than one drop of dragon's blood and a claim to the Iron Throne thanks to their direct descent from the Queen-Who-Never-Was, the first Targaryen princess to be bypassed in the succession. With the Blackfyre dynasty brought to an end upon the Stepstones, it was the duty of the Lord Commander of the Golden Company to find a suitable alternative to bring his men home.
Who could know? Perhaps Lord Leyton might even be convinced to take up Blackfyre and oust the falseborn from his rightful seat, restoring the men of the Golden Company their lost homes, properties and titles.