25

A horn sounded from outside the tent alerting the guard as Aegon and Nahknani slipped into the nearby brush to make their escape attempt. Aegon whistled to Lem, who quickly bounded over from the spot he was ordered to stay, and the three scurried away, once again, running through the dark.

Aegon's vision paled in comparison to those big blue eyes of his companion, so he trusted her path as she led them through as quickly as possible. Before long, he could hear the guard filling rank, preparing for a search of the woods. He heard the commands of someone in charge shouting out to his subordinates in their tongue. "What are they saying?" Aegon asked.

"They're organizing the search. He says I must not be touched and to save you for him and the slavers."

"Who's 'him'?"

"JaHahn. The leader of the guard and my betrothed, as you say."

Aegon stopped, pulling away from Nahknani's grasp. She whipped around, her eyes glowing from the distant light of the search party's torches. "Go," he told her, "You are no help to me if they believe you're a part of my plan, whatever that is." He said, developing one as he spoke to her. "If I am captured, the only way you would ever be trusted enough to help me is if they didn't suspect you. Run with me now, they'll eventually find us, and you will be punished. For that I am sure, but if you go back now and act as if you were my captive or at least not on my side, they might leave you alone enough to free me. If they catch me of course."

He could hear the marching orders from JaHahn and felt the party's progress as the ground rumbled beneath him. "How many are stationed here with JaHahn?" She paused. "C'mon, quickly, they're coming."

"Usually six, sometimes as much as ten." Ten Brindled Men. Fuck.

He pulled out his dirk and wrapped the jahkyar cloak around his left arm, "Are they seasoned fighters?"

"No. For that, count yourself lucky. Only JaHahn and Niisnihk, the big one, are dangerous. Well, all are bigger than you," he couldn't see the face she was making, but he knew she was smirking that evil smirk. "Don't die." She reached out her furry hand and touched his face.

"Like you said. Their orders are to keep me alive. As long as they follow orders, I'll be fine. I'd say take Lem with you, but he's probably going to follow you anyway. Now go. Circle back around so it doesn't look like you ran with me."

Nahknani paused again, her eyes shining in the torchlight that continued to get closer, "Go," he whispered softly, "I will see you again."

He turned and ran east, crouching and skulking through the bushes and trees to flank the thundering column of Brindled Men. He could hear their steps pass him, as he waited in the cover of a thicket of thorn bushes. They rushed past him, following his original trail, stopping where the trail stopped. The leader, most likely JaHahn ordered to them, gruffly grunting loudly enough that Aegon could hear clearly, though he understood not a word.

After their orders, the group dispersed. Two in each direction, as their torches betrayed their chances of stealth, to reveal a total of eight Brindled Men, including their general and his pet, a hulking freak for even a Brindled Man, standing a full two feet above his leader as the three groups of subordinates left in different directions. One group was headed directly to the bush Aegon was hiding. Good.

The group walked inches away from him, and passed him without hesitation. When they were more than a few steps away, Aegon slipped silently out of his bush, and followed behind them, dirk in hand, carefully sneaking through the brush, moving only when the Brindled Men's movements in front of him were loud enough to cover his own.

The pair looked young for Brindled Men, slighter and shorter. He could hear them bickering back and forth with each other as they ran. It was hard to make out anything other than their silhouettes in the dark, but as he chased them, he kept vigilant waiting for his opportunity.

The ground began to descend as the pair began downhill, their pace and noise level increasing. Aegon followed anticipating the right moment. When the floor suddenly dropped two feet at what could be described as a miniature cliff, the two slowed, stopped, then descended one at a time.

As the first turned to continue downhill, Aegon jumped onto the second beast's back as he climbed down the drop, plunging the dirk downward into the beast's neck as he covered its mouth to mute the bubbling choke that resulted. The huge body fell limp below him as Aegon pounced off and around the first. When the first turned to respond to the noise of his fallen partner, Aegon had already circled around and behind him. He jumped onto the its back, plunging the dirk downward into the front of the beast's neck as his left arm wrapped around his shoulder and his legs wrapped around his back. He lifted the dirk and shoved it back down, this time higher up on the neck to quell any pending scream. The Brindled Man crumbled underneath him as blood bubbled and spurt out of both neck wounds. Laying on the forest floor, he felt sorry for the fallen foes. He ran to save these Brindled Men, not to slaughter them, but somewhere deep inside he felt a rush of warrior's pride. The brutal voice in his head screaming victoriously I am Aegon Velaryon, Survivor of Seas, King of the Jungle, Killer of Brindled Men! Blood lust raised a heat from inside as his heart began to beat more intensely, and the sounds of the forest echoed around him as bugs and birds cheered his victory. Two down. Six to go.

The first two had come directly to him. The rest would be much harder as they continued to spread; tracking what they thought was him. Nahknani's clan's forest wasn't as dense as the other sections he'd been through though, and each group's torches betrayed their location.

He followed another group of stray light down to the river, where two more Brindled Men thought they'd find him crossing. They stayed on their side, only looking at the far bank for footprints. The river was not as wide here and maybe they thought he could have jumped or scurried over, so they held their torches up, standing at the edge of the river bank, their toes nearly in the water, straining their vision to check the other side. It was almost too easy.

Once he was close enough to hear the two men joking back and forth, he readied himself for his strike. He slipped the dirk out and charged. He rushed past them crouching, slicing the tendons that connected their heels to their calves on all four legs. As they began to scream, only now noticing the attack, he planted his foot and spun back toward them slashing the first with a right overhand strike to the one's face, following with a back handed slash at the other's chest. The face slash immediately dropped the first beast, his features opening and spilling onto Aegon as the second countered with his staff thrusting a strong but poorly formed parry to block Aegon's third strike, another forehand slash.

The dirk is a nimble weapon and Aegon followed the strong parry with a deft backhand swipe, the Seahorse blade darting through the air like a dragonfly. The beast parried again, but stretched his arms too far to meet the blow, leaving him exposed. In half a heartbeat, Aegon shot another quick thrust to the beast's chest that sunk deep into his ribs. He slid the dirk out as the Brindled Man dropped to his knees and splashed into the edge of the river, his dead partner's face still bleeding into the sand of the bank, both torches fallen and beginning to ignite the dry brush around their corpses.

The screams alerted the other guards as the remaining torches bobbed down in the dark descending upon him. He scurried away as embers sparked into full blown flames behind him.

Only two of the remaining torches descended to the river bank as Aegon sheathed the dirk and scrambled up a nearby tree just out of the orange glow of the building flames. He reached a branch thick enough to step onto, and braced himself against the trunk for cover and support. He pressed his face against the bark, like he did before he first saw the beasts that day that seemed so long ago. He watched the light of the two torches bouncing down the hill as two of the remaining four guards approached and reached the latest murder scene. As they neared, he hoped it was the two novices. When their faces were revealed by the light of the flames, a sigh of relief escaped his mouth.

They saw the scene and their focused faces immediately shrunk to frightened ones. The flames from the fire continued to spread, the flares licking out at new dry brush to ignite and the fire quickly spread to a blaze. Smoke and orange light clouded around the two guards as they fled from the scene, passing under the branch Aegon was perched upon.

Like the jungle cat he killed, he pounced, the dirk firmly in his hands and pointing down, he landed dirk first into the trailing guard as the two scurried away from the increasing heat of the blaze. As the guard in front heard the bodies fall, Aegon rolled off the fresh corpse and into the smoke from the fire, the heat a welcome rush as he stepped into the burning brush unscathed. He flanked, circled, and closed in on the remaining guard from behind, jumping once again onto the larger warrior's back with the dirk plunging into the front of the guard's neck where his collarbone met his chest. The muted moans, hollowed as his latest victim's body folded neatly beneath him. The blaze continued to spread as an orange smoky haze floated over and across the forest floor. The village began to rise and rabble as sounds of chaos started to hum in the distance. Six down.

He looked around. Nothing but smoke and orange haze was visible as the forest around him was completely engulfed in the rising flames. He looked for the tree he climbed to gain a better vantage point. He wanted to see if he could find the two remaining guards, JaHahn and Niisnihk, or if fleeing was the better option. He reached the tree and began to climb it, sheathing the dirk and covering his face from the oppressive smoke swirling.

He ascended a few feet, his knees and thighs scraping up the rough trunk as he squeezed his legs to climb. The air was black and orange around him as the ash from the first flames started to swirl in the haze. If he reached the branch, he could assess his next move. Then something grabbed him, pulling him forcefully off the trunk and lifting him into the air. He saw the tree slip away as the force turned hum and threw him down, the forest floor rushing to meet him.

He rolled and turned, facing his attacker. Niisnihk.

The Brindled Beast stood before him, all of ten feet tall, with shoulders that would fit an aurochs. He wore a bright white vine wrapped around his forehead to hold the thick tufts of mane that framed his gargantuan head back from falling on his face. Aegon couldn't determine where his neck ended and where his chest began, as the huge frame in front of him stepped toward him, slowly. His bulky arms swung like inverted trebuchets as he lumbered one heavy step after another, calmly approaching his prey. As Aegon's mind cleared and he gathered himself off the ground, he couldn't help but feel intimidated by the ease in which his foe approached. To him, I'm no fiercer than a rabbit.

Sharp cat-like eyes gleamed bright yellow in the light of the flames. His chin was as wide as a doorway, shaped more like an oversized plow than the bottom of a jaw. His mouth was as wide as a man, full of sharpened fangs more like daggers than teeth. His brow jutted out from his skull far and straight enough to rest a chalice on. His huge body wasn't chiseled from stone like Ootrahk's, but the massive bulks of boulder that built him up from the ground were twice as thick. His gut though. His chest and belly jiggle as he moves. Not in the best shape, now are you?

He'd be extremely strong, Aegon knew. Strong enough to rip him apart limb from limb. He'd seen smaller men do the same in the fighting pits. This beast could pop my head like a locust and swallow it whole. But he wasn't quick, slow in fact. As he lumbered toward Aegon, he seemed to almost out of breath, as if walking was enough to tire him. He did manage to throw me this far though. Gods, I must've flown twenty feet!

The mountainous giant steps away, Aegon hopped from the ground to his feet and bounced, retreating a bit further to judge his opponent. He quickly checked the area. The giant beast had thrown him away from the flames, though the smoke and ash still swirled around them and after the quickest of glances, it didn't look like JaHahn was around to ruin his plan, so he ran. He started with a slow jog, until he heard the gait of his pursuer increase from walk to run. Then, he ran faster, toward the flame. He could feel the giant feet behind him trembling the floor beneath his feet, slowing gaining. The pounding behind him boomed faster and faster. The flames licked at his face as he strode into the heat, but the giant refused to stop, his face a good two feet above the highest flare.

Aegon looked back, saw he had enough room between them, then pivoted to a halt facing the giant. As Niisnihk tried to stop, he widened his stance, shortening his strides to quick stabs at the ground. He was steps away from Aegon when he stopped. Niisnihk reached down to grab him, folding powerfully but clumsily, like an avalanche. Aegon dove and rolled under and between the monster's legs, raking the inside of his thigh with the sharp steel edge of the dirk, opening up a slice from knee to groin. The beast roared, throttling in Aegon's ears with the deep bone chilling tone of a lion. Then, he cursed something in their language which sounded just as ferocious. As Aegon popped back to his feet and into a balanced ready stance, flames licking at his face and heels, the beast turned and lunged onto all fours, sending up puffs of ash, charging at him like a galloping destrier armed with the fierce mouth of a carnivore, his sharp ten-inch fangs bared and gaining. Shit. This is new.

He pounced and Aegon jumped, soaring just above and around the snapping jaws and into the smoke swirling the battle. He flipped and swiped down with the dirk landing a glancing blow to the side of the beast's face, but Aegon landed off balance in an awkward roll. The beast pivoted on its four feet and lunged back at him as he watched, rising from off his back.

Aegon rolled forward as the front paws of the attacker smashed down behind him. He rolled onto his feet, just underneath the attackers jiggling gut, and jumped up into it with the dirk, thrusting as hard as he could, pushing up as if he meant to cut clear through. As his body lifted off the ground, the beast coiled his back legs up defensively, crushing his knee into Aegon's face like a battering ram, sending Aegon's body to meet the charred and burning ground with a crash.

The dirk hit its mark, and somehow Aegon managed to hang on to it after the blow to his head, but his body was flat against the ground, under the beast, blood spilling onto Aegon's legs, as a huge paw wrapped around his torso. Aegon swung the dirk, but Niisnihk's other huge arm blocked his strike at the wrist, knocking the dirk out of his grasp, to the ground just out of reach. The beast squeezed, his palm comfortably large enough to wrap around Aegon, as he rose to one knee, to standing, and lifted Aegon in the air to his face. To his mouth.

The beast's grasp around him tightened, his claws digging through layers of his skin. He gasped, struggling to breathe. He looked around, squirming, trying to get free. Only smoke and fire surrounded him, as the giant lifted him near a burning branch. Fire.

He spoke saying, who the fuck knows what, laughing at himself after his words finished. Aegon reached for the burning branch fully engulfed in flame. He grasped it, the crackling wood cool in his left hand, his missing finger itching in the soft embrace of the flame's kiss. He had always enjoyed heat. Food never burnt his lips. Braziers were never too close. Even at the killer fish pool on his first day in the jungle, it wasn't the flames that burnt, but the raw skin, inflamed and burning in the contaminated water. The words of House Velaryon meant little and less to him. They were stupid, in fact. "The Old. The True. The Brave." Sure they were his father's words, but were they? For all accounts, Jacaerys Velaryon was as much a bastard as Har of the Harbour, in fact, maybe more-so. Jacaerys Velaryon and Sarah Snow were wed in the Godswood of Winterfell by some accounts, and he was the trueborn son of that union. His father could have been the illegitimate son of Harwin Strong on Queen Rhaenyra, making his words either the Strong words, which he'd never heard, or the words of every Waters in the Crownlands: nothing.

Despite all that, he knew who his grandmother was. Who his father really was. Who he was. Who I am. We are Targaryen, the blood of the dragon. And our words are Fire and Blood.

He jabbed the burning branch into the small yellow eye of his foe. He stabbed at the other one. He pulled back and forth, stabbing, stabbing, stabbing. The air stunk of burning hair as the huge brindled hand dropped Aegon to clutch at the burning face it belonged to. A drowning bellow saved solely for the dying filled the air, as the monster spun blindly in the flames, grasping at his face to save his already lost vision. The burning branch was long enough to jab into the eye and brittle enough that it probably broke off inside it. The subsequent jabs only shortened the branch. The beast would never see again.

Nor would he breathe. Aegon scurried to the dirk, grabbed it, and charged. Niistrihk was still walking wildly in circles, clawing at the flames in his eyes. Aegon stabbed and tackled him into the heart of a roaring flare as the flames danced, licking at the air, engulfing the monstrous body as it fell in.

The beast's hair caught fire. It's skin sizzled. The well marbled meat on his bones roasted in the intense heat that felt soothing to Aegon. He stood up, pulled the dirk from the monster's back and raised it for a strike. With his left hand, he grabbed the beast's mane, lifting his shrieking head up off the ground as he came down with the dirk. He swung and swung, reminding himself of Xenus, hacking at the beast's neck like a tree trunk, only chipping away at the thick, muscled flesh one small, savage chunk at a time. He screamed, roaring in a blind rage, his blood burning in his veins as the flames around him licked cooly and coyly at his skin, the blaze singeing his garments, save his rough leather boots and the jahkyar cloak that had already fallen off of him. Hacking and hacking, he roared, until finally he cut through, his arms burning from the effort, and lifted up the head the size of his torso, so big, he could barely lift at all.

He sheathed the dirk, then grabbed the head with both hands, lifting it into the sky as he continued to roar, the fire crackling and dancing around him. Drops of rain began to fall, as the night sky was soon opening into a downpour. He stopped screaming and looked around. At first, he saw nothing but thick black smoke rising off the charred ground into the blackness of the night. The embers around him still fighting to remain aflame, orange and sizzling, cheered his triumph with every drop of falling rain. Then he saw the forest. The remaining light from the coals gave off enough light to see the gathering around him. His sudden instinct was to prepare himself for more battle, but the Brindled Men gathering before him weren't more guards, they were onlookers. A mob of townsfolk, all women and children, gathering as an audience to his death match.

He stood, slightly downhill from the crowd in the orange glow of embers, as the mob began to make noises. They grew louder and louder, some chant or song it sounded like, though in their tongue it could have been anything. Their voices grew louder and louder as more appeared, gathering in the rain, under the swirling smoke, chanting something repetitive. Drahkness Kahn. Drahkness Kahn. Drahkness Kahn.

They kept chanting it, over and over, until he dropped the head down to the ground, to drag it by the mane up the hill to his audience. He walked into the crowd as they opened around him, chanting, their brindled faces smiling, their huge fangs bared from ear to ear. They hooted and cheered him, chanting all the while, as he ascended the small hill to the center of their encampment, to Nahknani's father's tent.

She approached him, smiling herself. She said nothing, allowing the voices of her people, the mob now following closely behind him, chanting over and over.

"What of JaHahn?" he yelled to her, trying to speak above the noise of the crowd.

"He left when he sent Niisnihk after you. He must be retreating to his father's lands. They'll surely be back." She yelled, still smiling.

He lifted the head again, turned it to his audience, then threw it towards the entrance to her father's tent. The crowd roared in approval, then continued to chant.

He looked at her. She was still smiling. He asked, "What are they chanting?"

"Drahkness Kahn."

"What does it mean?"

Her lips were spread from ear to ear. She replied, "Dragon King."