A/N Thank you again for your continued support. I have the time, so I hope I'll try to keep these Chapters coming. Comment with your thoughts and feedback or just enjoy. Stay healthy and please, stay indoors. I'll do my best to rival the Tiger King, which will be admittedly tough, but when you're done with Joe, Aegon will be here to be your Drahkness Kahn.

38

There was little left to the structure of the port city of Zamettar, the once famous settlement of Nymeria and her Rhyonish refugees. Much has changed since then. Or has it?

The ruined city was surrounded by ruined sandstone walls, crumbling from both the natural decay of time and what looked like an ancient sacking. There were posts a castellan could assign guards to and still survey the outskirts of the city, but as JaHahn confessed, Zlatan had grown overconfident and the walls would be poorly manned even with all twenty of the men posted.

The slavers made their camp near the decaying decks of the harbor. Wood planks were overgrown with a mixture of ocean and land greenery, lichen salting the now green planks like a sprinkle of light snow. They made a boat yard, or the remnants of one, their camp, the jungle seemingly pushing the manmade structure back into the ocean from whence it came. Aegon could see all twenty of the men at times from the group's perch on a nearby cliff. The one Neenee, Nahknani, and the others watched from as he and the twins butchered the guards that were once posted on the now vacant shore below them. The bodies of the dead slavers were never moved, infested with crabs and other sea life. Even more bodies had also washed ashore since the boat explosion, along with the remnants of whatever wood remained on the ship after it was reduced to fast moving shards through the air.

The scene reminded him of his own wreck, then the words of the red woman in his dream. Where were all of my dead men and women? Could it be that only Xenus and I survived? Even so, if we could drift ashore with the debris, where were the rest of the bodies?

He convinced himself they all sank to the bottom of the ocean. It was the only thing that made sense.

He looked over to Neenee, who was sharpening reeds she'd found into arrows, sitting with her long legs crossed on a small clearing before the grass faded into gravel. Nahknani was leaning behind a tall rock cresting out of the hard ground near the edge of the cliff, reaching into her sack for some sustenance. The brothers shared the water skin. The sisters' eyes were resting, leaning into each other, their backs against each other but hunched to the side toward the ground.

Aegon reached into his own sack, grabbed another round fruit, and bit into it. Before he swallowed his first bite, Lem was already next to him, with his nose inches from the sack, on his haunches smiling. Greedy bastard. Aegon reached into the bag and found something that felt like meat and handed it to the hahkyeen's mouth. He took it gently, then whoofed it down in a gulp with a gag. Stupid bastard. Aegon couldn't help but smile.

Shevrohn approached him, crouched behind the rock Aegon was using for cover and asked, "What does it look like. Can we trust JaHahn's information?"

"Even if he was telling the truth, we should be prepared for things to change. Eventually, someone will get back to either JaHarle or Zlatan with something, but until then, it looks like he told it true." Aegon leaned over the rock and pointed to the edge of the dock furthest from the boat yard. "You see the dock over there, that far edge of it?"

"Yes," he said peering into the dusky night, the sun still providing enough purple light to see.

"They post two there. Now, you see the burned down building to the right of the yard?" Aegon continued.

"Yes. I see it."

"They have four more posted there. Two outside, two inside. They barely keep watch of anything. They mostly stand under the light of a torch and bullshit. That's six." Aegon said, his heart beginning to flutter in anticipation of the coming battle.

"They have four more that move around. They usually walk forward and back in a straight line, each crisscrossing the others in an X pattern. They all walk with different speeds and with seemingly no specific point other than to walk and look, so it will be tough to time their movements, but they don't walk with focus and intent. They seem to coast back and forth. When they walk by another guard, they usually stop and talk for a while."

"Okay, but that's only ten. Where are the others?" Shevrohn asked.

"The rest were up doing their daily duties, it looked like. Some were loading up the boat. Others were moving stock somewhere else. It looked like either the burnt building or the building next to it. Others were tending to horses and livestock. Nothing they'd still be doing during the night. It appears they have all made their way to the boat yard for their nightly meal and spirits. You can see the light coming from those window openings." Aegon pointed to the main house in the boat yard. It looked like the slavers were enjoying themselves.

"After they have had their fill," Shevrohn added, "they will be easy to fight."

"Let's hope we catch them sleeping. With our seven, we can take the eight guards quickly. Then, we can catch the rest in their beds. Some will wake up, but we just have to make sure we kill them all. If a survivor gets word out, we stand no chance against JaHarle and Zlatan's combined forces without surprise."

"Sooner or later, pink king," Shevrohn said with a smile, "You're going to have to fight one of us with fair odds."

"What about Niisnihk, or whatever his name was? That was just me against him."

"It was still night and the forest was ablaze. Didn't you kill him with fire magic? Is that fair odds?"

"Some might say that. Others would say I stabbed him in the eye with a burning branch, then cut his head from his neck."

"Some would say both, I'm sure."

JaHahn said the shifts for the watch changed about four hours after sundown. He said they shifted responsibility so no guard had the night watch two nights in a row without a break, but it was sometimes used as punishment. Either way, both the guards ending one watch and the guards ready to start another would be tired. Half tired from a long day and first watch. The other still groggy from only a half night's sleep.

The group would make their way down the cliff, the same way he and the twins once descended, and flank the boat yard from both sides. Each member was given their target with stealth and silence emphasized. Aegon was still confident they could overcome the current odds head on if need be, but if the slavers were able to hold up in the main house, they could fight from the higher ground of the second story and loose arrows at them from cover and above. Aegon didn't want it to come to that.

Just before they were about to leave, they all readied themselves. It seemed Chekka was making progress with the twins finally, as the three of them all seemed to jostle and laugh with each other stuffing their packs and readying their weapons. Neenee filled her quiver with a full quarrel of new smooth arrows as well as some of the remaining steel tipped ones she'd commandeered from the ship. Shevrohn sharpened his sword like Aegon had just shown him, and Nahknani stuffed her pack quickly to run over to him.

"You ready?" She asked, smiling and excited. She didn't look nervous, which Aegon thought was odd. She had been involved with a lot more action since they met, but she still didn't seem the cold killer he knew he could be. Or is she?

"We're prepared. A man once taught me the best way to ensure success is to be well prepared."

"Doesn't that mean the same as ready?" She asked.

"I suppose you're right. Yes, then," he said, "I'm ready."

"Is something wrong? You've seemed distant since you woke. Like your off far in thought." She was very perceptive.

There were a lot of things on his mind, but the things the red woman said bothered him most. What 'right questions'? What did the shipwreck have to do with this? She said something about, "when" her part in the story was over. Did she still play some part? What did she have to apologize for? Leading him on into deciding to go to Asshai? How could she know that would lead to him being shipwrecked? Was she able to see the future? Or was she all an invention of his imagination?

"I had a dream last night that troubled me," he said in an effort to be honest with her.

"Was there any bad omens?"

"I don't know. Dreams are sometimes cryptic. Mysterious. Its hard to understand their meaning. Or if they mean anything at all."

She twisted her eyebrow and replied with adorable sass, "I do know. That's why I questioned your plan when we started. But since then, JaHahn's confessions have proven you right. What did the new dream say?"

He didn't want to or know how to explain the red woman to her. They had just gotten past JaHahn's relationship with her. He didn't want to have to explain his unrequited lover to her. "A sorcerer," there, that'll do it, "that once counseled me has come to me in my dreams with prophetic riddles and clues. They aren't clear, but they serve to provide a warning, I suppose. To be frank, I don't even know. She said," fuck, I said it was a woman, "she was sorry for my losses. Sorry for my pain, but that I had to keep going through it no matter what to stop this."

Her eyebrow furrowed in anger, "So we've been listening to the woman of your dreams, then?" Uh oh.

"It's not like that, truly. I know it sounds like that, but this woman is a sorcerer-"

"Sorceress," she corrected. She knew it wasn't his Valyrian that faltered previously.

"Whatever. It doesn't matter if she's a he or a she, because she only speaks to me, nothing more. We never touched each other. And now, I would never."

"What do you mean, now? Would you never or just now never? What about before? What does she look like?"

Aegon glanced behind her to see the others. Her intense tone attracted attention, as they mumbled in their tongue and laughed at the two of them bickering. "Trouble in paradise, your grace?" Chekka muttered, his arms around each of the twins' shoulders.

He caught himself and looked back at her. Her face was bent in an authentic irritation, not enraged, but certainly not enthusiastic about the way the red woman was sounding.

"She looks like a pink woman. I've tasted you now. How could I ever go back to that?" He smiled and reached for her cheek. "We're about to kill some slavers, let's not leave each other in anger."

"No. Let's. The angrier I am at this wizard woman, the faster I'll kill these men."

The time came and they all crept down the cliff as silently as they could be. They were mostly sure of where their foes would be and were far enough away as to not be worried if they could hear them at the docks, but Aegon preached extra caution for the evening. On the shore, their sounds were covered by the waves, but they stood out from the horizon and could more easily be spotted, so they made their way, following the twins lead, on all fours.

The night was fully dark, and it was difficult for Aegon to see with only the dim light of the moon to guide him. The Brindled men and women saw much better though, and could direct him when he needed. No further discussion was necessary. They would all make their way to where their target would be, dispatch their target, and regroup closer to the boat yard.

Aegon, Neenee, and Nahknani all drew the guards in and around the burnt building.

From what Aegon scouted from the cliffs, two would sit dockside and two others were inside. Aegon suggested Neenee fire arrows at the first near the front, Nahknani could ambush the other, while Aegon could make his way inside and take care of the other two.

The made their way to the building through the remnants of the harbor town, skulking between buildings and down long forgotten alleys to the docks. Neenee and Nani could easily see their two targets, as Aegon signaled to them that he would make his way around the back toward his.

The building was still mostly standing, though the walls on the west and northern faces were all but crumbled to dust. The sandstone building was charred with black during the day, dragonfire most like, as the city of Zamettar was once a Ghiscari settlement taken by the Dragon Kings of old Valyria. How fitting.

He kicked off a wall onto another, getting to a ledge he grabbed and climbed up into the second floor of the burnt building. He wasn't sure where the two guards were posted inside, but he could hear them speaking in Ghiscari from the alley he approached from. He knew they were close.

He slipped in the ancient window opening, just an empty gap in the sandstone wall, and gently placed his boots down on the wooden planks of the second level. He tested his step with gentle pressure, hoping to avoid a loud creak, but the waves beyond them all covered the small noises, and he was able to crawl in and look for his victims.

The second story of the building was little more than a walking ramp around the perimeter with the middle completely open. They were both on the first floor below and across the building from him. One was seated, an oil lamp on the floor in front of him and the other was pacing around the bottom floor without a purpose, or so it appeared to Aegon, perched above them, waiting for the right moment.

He had the dirk and a bone dagger they had picked up off of one of JaHahn's men, allowing him to strike quickly with both hands if need be. With the dirk in his right, and the dagger in his left, he studied the path of the traveler, waiting for him to be close enough to the seated guard to attack both at once from above. Like the jahkyar tried against him, unsuccessfully, he crept around the three foot wide outer walkway around the building toward where the sitting guard was positioned, stepping cautiously to avoid additional noise. He reached a point above them and waited for the right moment.

The walker approached the sitting guard and Aegon pounced, leaping down into the walker with a crash and the dagger, rolling forward into the seated guard and bouncing to his feet with a back-hand slash of his signature weapon, opening the slaver's throat to quietly gurgle his last words to himself. The only noise he was guilty of was the crash from the second floor to the walker's neck with his weight and the dagger.

Footsteps pattered into the building. It was Nahknani. Neenee followed close behind, silently. He nodded to them. They nodded back. Nahknani closed her eyes, tilted her head comically, and stuck out her tongue. She returned her face back to normal and smiled.

Quietly, they peered out looking for the rest of the guards or their counterparts in the stealth attack. The three of them waited in silence, anxiously anticipating either the success or failure of their partners, as well as the mission.

They saw Shevrohn approach from the far dock where he and Trihknah must have taken out the two guards, then they made their way to another walking guard. Chekka and Trihknee were assigned to do the same from the other flank, yet they were responsible for the other three walking guards and were seemingly nowhere in sight. Trihknah appeared shortly after they saw Shevrohn. Now they only had to wait for the other two.

Minutes passed as slow as hours as the three stood silently and motionless awaiting their fate. With the time to think, Aegon's mind began to wonder if the Chekka and Trihknee were capable of taking the mission seriously enough to execute it without problems. He didn't remember if it was Trihknee or Trihknah that moaned and almost blew his cover on the previous stealth mission, but if it was Trihknee, would she try something as stupid again?

"Ahk tu," Neenee whispered, pointing to Chekka and Trihknee who were both strolling down the dock in clear sight of the boat yard. What are they doing?

Chekka strode toward the closed door. The two guards posted outside the boat yard were already dispatched by Shevrohn and Trihknah, and Aegon, Neenee, and Nahknani slipped out of the burnt building to join the rest.

Everyone looked to be keeping quiet and out of the light, save Chekka, who cared less for stealth. He elbowed Trihknee, and said something in their tongue. Aegon, Neenee, and Nahknani were still a small distance away from the boat yard, twenty or thirty feet when Chekka decided to boom out, "Wake up pink pussies! Your deaths have come to your door. Wake up and make this a fair fight!" He started banging his sword against a nearby plank of wood.

Everyone in his party, except Trihknee, was scrambling to try to somehow communicate for him to stop without becoming loud themselves. If they stayed quiet, they could still be individually stealthy, but the rest of the men clearly now knew something was happening as light started to shine from the second floor of the boat house.

Aegon anticipated what would happen and started racing to the right face of the boat house as slavers began to peak out of the front second floor windows of the house with bows drawn, loosing arrows at the Brindled bravado, his sword waving in the air. He took cover behind a collapsed dock railing, taking heavy arrow fire. A quarrel or two most likely found him.

Aegon climbed the side of the building, gripping a long vine that grew from floor to roof, and dug his feet into the seams where the sandstones met as he ascended the wall toward a window. As he walked higher, he heard the commotion inside continue to grow more chaotic, as more and more of the remaining men were awake and now firing arrows at Chekka. The Brindled Man screamed nonsense from the front of the building, drawing the attention of the remaining men, mostly, as Aegon reached an opening in the second story and slipped in.

He unsheathed the dirk, and charged the now six men leaning out of windows, knocking and loosing arrow after arrow. Before they knew it, Aegon was on them, slashing through the first two before they even knew there was another threat, slicing with a forehand, back-hand combination with deadly accuracy to the back of both men's necks.

He then charged the third as he turned, tackling the third into the fourth and to the ground as the fifth forced an arrow to the string of his bow and pulled back. Aegon sunk the dirk through the third with a quick stab down into his back, and rolled off both bodies, narrowly avoiding the arrow of the fifth. The sixth, wisely, switched to a short sword and hacked at Aegon as he rolled back over the third, lunged at the fifth with the dirk, and spun with a back-hand parry to block the advance from the sixth with the short sword.

The door to the boat house burst in with a boom and a roar, as Chekka seemingly met the four men remaining downstairs to the clang of metal on metal, and the scared screams of green warriors.

Above on the second floor, Aegon was caught trading steel with the sixth, as the fourth was struggling from under the third to get to his feet. The sixth came with a two handed forehand slash with all of his strength, which Aegon dipped away from and countered with a quick stab at his gut. The dirk sunk deep and felt stuck, as Aegon dropped it and dove out of the reach of the fourth's swipe with his own short sword. The sixth dropped to his knees, coughed blood, and collapsed as Aegon rolled to his feet and backed away from the armed attacker, with only his hands left to defend himself.

The fourth backed him into the wall with the window opening behind him. The attacker danced back and forth, cornering Aegon, and coiled to push a straight jab toward the center of his chest. Aegon was able to dodge it to his left, half spinning and bouncing away, avoiding the straight stab. He then grabbed the man's extended arms at the elbow and transferred his forward momentum with a push out of the window. The man landed on his head and seemingly crunched into the hard dock below with the sound of cracks and a splatter.

Aegon pulled the dirk from the sixth's gut to an audible gush of blood and the last breath of the dying man, and jumped down to the first floor to help with whoever was left to kill. To his dismay, they were all dead, except Chekka, who had three or four arrows sticking out of his back. His eyes were blazing with an amber he'd never seen in them before, burning with a lust for blood.

"Are there any more?!" He yelled.

"No. none that I counted. We should search the rest of the settlement to be sure, but I think that's all of them." Aegon said, slightly out of breath.

"How many did you claim, your grace?"

"Eight, I believe, but we should double check the one I threw out the window. And you, ser. What was your count?"

"I only killed five, your grace. Please forgive me." He smirked.

"Are you two toddlers done playing knight? There's work to do. We don't know if they will be getting reinforcements. We must be on the sea within the hour." Shevrohn scolded from just outside the door to the boat house.

Aegon patted Chekka on his burly hairy back, avoiding the arrows, "That might have been the stupidest thing I've ever seen, but it certainly made for more fun. Next time, though, let's stick to stealth. They could have had more."

"There's going to be a next time, your grace?" He asked with childish glee.

"You bet your hairy ass there will be."