Ancient Enemies
Maester Pylos 1
The young maester smiled in satisfaction. After four large turn of hourglasses, his telescope was adjusted to perfection. This very night he would able to conduct his observations on the different constellations and prove the theories of Archmaester Sycar.
BLAM!
"Pylos! Archmaester Agrivane has summoned us!"
The round face of Maester Tybald, his next door's neighbour-in-studies, was full of excitation. As he walked into the light provided by the sun in the early morning, his red air took the colour of fire.
"What is so pressing Tybald?" Grumbled the Riverlander-born maester, passing a light grey cloak over his chain and the rest of his clothes. "I was preparing my next astronomic session."
"The stars haven't changed since the start of the Long Summer." Replied dismissively the Stormlands-born maester. "This night or the next won't make a big difference."
Pylos frowned but didn't reply. Tybald's denigration of the noble discipline of astronomy was nothing new. The man had earned seventeen links for his first chain, but none of them had been in electrum. In fact apart from Valyrian Steel, it was the only metal link Tybald had never bothered to learn.
Locking the door of his study room with his large bronze key, Pylos continued in his quest of information.
"You haven't told me what is so pressing."
"The Conclave has been informed there is a small library that the Cursed Sorcerer had visited before his escape."
"Another Purge, then." The heart of Pylos ached in pain at the quantity of books, scrolls and other repositories of knowledge which were going to be destroyed in the process.
"Yes." If Tybald was saddened by it, it didn't show in his attitude. "The Lord Seneschal has appointed Archmaester Agrivane for the task and they want the library examined and any heretical texts expunged from it by the end of the day."
His companion grunted in acknowledgement but internally despaired at the new delay his work on the constellations was going to take.
But there wasn't any choice. Over two moons had passed since the revelation of Archmaester's Marwyn treason, but the interrogations and the investigations were accelerating, not slowing down. Every Archmaester, Maester, Acolyte, Novice or servant who had in any manner spoken the heretical maester was lengthily scrutinised by the Conclave, the City Watch of Oldtown and the representatives of the Faith of Seven.
The latter weren't exactly welcome in the Citadel, but Pylos understood their presence though he would never enjoy the Brave Sons presence next to him. They were too enthusiast in burning books in the name of 'prudence'. Unfortunately, they were going to tolerate them for several moons. Counting their most recent traitor, three Order members in the last year had fled once their heretical actions had been discovered.
It didn't look like a big number, compared to the thousands of Novices and Acolytes, and the hundreds of maesters in the Citadel. But before the year 299AC only six maesters had broken their vows in the worst imaginable way and evaded the cohorts of the Faith, the Order and the Crown sent against them in the last century. Three new heretics in ten moons wasn't a lot, but it was a worrying tendency and all must have complicities for them to escape with the easiness they had showed.
And to make matters worse, while Vely the Beastmaster and Toric the Bringer of Ruin had been discovered by their own brethren, it was the City Watch which had discovered how far Marwyn the Cursed Sorcerer had fallen. Pylos had no idea what the men sworn to House Hightower had expected when they had pulverised the door of the house, but it had certainly not been an orgiastic ritual organised by one Arch-Maester, five Acolytes and close to two dozen whores in the name of the Demoness of Forbidden Pleasures.
"I suppose this is too much to ask if they have caught our traitor?"
"Too much, indeed." The edge of Tybald's lips twitched in a half-snicker as they climbed the great stairs leading to a floor where small libraries on very specific fields were kept. "His accomplices have given many of his caches according to the rumours, but he wasn't hiding in those."
"He must be far from here, now." For such an old man, Marwyn had revealed demonic vigour when it came to run for his life. His Acolytes had all been imprisoned and were awaiting their execution in the dungeons of the Hightower but their master had jumped half-naked from a window and disappeared into the night.
"That's the opinion of Archmaester Ocley." Replied Tybald in a voice which told Pylos he was agreeing with the master of diplomacy and foreign languages. "He said the Arch-traitor could read and speak over a dozen languages and disguise himself from a lord to a beggar in the time it takes to change of robe."
"What sort of books was stored in the room he visited?" The former Riverlander asked when he saw his counterpart knock against an unfamiliar door. In itself it didn't mean anything; the libraries, rooms and vaults found inside the Citadel had never been properly counted. It was a fool's errand anyway as the books were borrowed, copied or transported elsewhere at frequent occasions.
"Oh, you will love this." For the first time, Tybald was truly grimacing. "Prophecies."
The heavy door of brown-red painted wood opened violently and the two maesters stopped their discussion to enter the potentially heretical room. Force was to assess the work had already begun when they were in. Piles of books in various conditions were littering the ground and most were torn-apart or had their pages cut and spread on the ground. Two Brave Sons were filling a massive box with scores of scrolls. Three Quill Bearers and two members of the Order of the Lantern were strolling in the four alleys, taking a book at random and examining it. After a few seconds, they pressed the golden stamp of the seven stars if they judged its content innocent or at least not dangerous. If not, the knowledge repository was thrown on the ground, destined to be burnt into the pyres.
Seeing this, Pylos truly began to feel ill. They were the maesters. They were supposed to be scholars and healers, the guardians of science and reason, keepers of rare lore and men able to explain the unexplainable. They weren't supposed to do...this! It was wrong!
He opened his mouth to protest...only to close it when Master Merlinoc threw him a stabbing glare.
"Pylos! What are you doing standing there? The ravens aren't going to bring you the books!" The young maester felt himself reddening as snickers and mockeries were heard next to the book shelves. "You should take example on Tybald! He has already begun to work, him!"
Pylos moved his attention back to the specialist of warcraft and cartography, only to see him take over two scores of books and throw them on the floor. Not a single one had been verified but Pylos had no doubt the works were going to the pyre before sunset. And Merlinoc looked appreciative at this action! Feeling his soul die bit by bit, the black-haired maester marched in the small library – well small by Citadel standards anyway – grabbed the book in front of him.
Sothoryan Myths and Prophecies by Maester Mulor.
He didn't see how the plague-ridden jungles of the southern and far-away continent could present a danger and the first pages read confirmed it. The rare ships coming back from Sothoryos were quarantined at Volantis or at Lys, no? And there were no demons or heretic worshippers in these distant waters, just pirates. The heretic cultists didn't tend to last long against the corsairs and the fleets of other outlaws attacking the Essossi trade. Pylos was in the process of placing back the book where it belonged - a process extremely easy due to the number of works already removed – when the muscled Brave Son on his right tore Sothoryan myths and Prophecies from his hands and cut it in two with a large dagger far too big for library work.
"Lax in your work, eh?" The ugly face of the Faith devotee was vicious. "I almost thought you were going to let a heretical text escape the just retribution of the Seven!" His Westerosi was horrible and was revealing smallfolk origins. "Shame! You could have been summoned to the Starry Sept for that!"
Pylos watched around him the five or six maesters who had been forced to come with him and endure this nauseating presence, but the other grey robes which could be seen across the shelves were totally ignoring him with their eyes elsewhere.
So it's like this?
The farce was painfully evident. The Conclave and the Starry Sept had decided this room was an acceptable compromise in order to stop heresy accusations and the Purge was going to erase all the prophecy books, not just those which were found dangerous doctrinally or speaking of things the highborn had no wish to see realised.
Therefore it was with a certain grim reluctance he threw over four scores of books on the ground in less time it took to say it. Murmurs of Victory, Prophecies of Distant Lands, Omens of the Future, the Prophecies for the Ignorant, The Dreams of the Dreamer...everything was discarded. Some of the books were perfectly preserved and hundreds of years old. Their value was literally priceless. For the imbeciles the Faith and his own superiors, these were inconvenient reminders they were not infallible.
Pylos didn't believe in prophecies. It was a nebulous area of magic, and magical practitioners routinely proved they couldn't be trusted – Marwyn was just the most recent example, the three last Archmaesters granted the mask and rod of Valyrian Steel had all had dramatic deaths. But none of the authors of these works to his best knowledge had been guilty of heresy. It wasn't like destroying knowledge in precipitation couldn't have grave consequences: it was whispered in the dark corridors a Purge done some forty years ago on the archives of the Westerlands had led to a rise of tensions between House Lannister and its rebellious Reyne-Tarbeck bannersmen. With the well-known consequences immortalised in the Rains of Castamere.
At least his decimation of the books got the Brave Son away from him. The Father-worshipper walked at the other extremity of his alley, where another maester manifested the same reluctance to throw away good parchment. The reprimand was not discrete but then the young maester supposed it was one of the things researched. Scare every maester not complying with the narrow-minded instructions and tell them they all will burn as heretics if they're not grey little sheep.
The sun passed at the zenith before starting its long course down, accompanied by the bird calls and the powerful wind coming from the sea. Hundreds of books were taken away and the library room began to feel desperately empty. Alleys after alleys went hollow, with only a few books remaining – Pylos was not surprised when he recognised the names of their authors: they had all been written by highly renowned septons.
Good to know the Faith isn't willing to burn their own writings.
The thought was one step away from sacrilege but the Riverlander-born maester found he didn't really care. If the Seven-Pointed Star was vandalised before him, he wouldn't move one finger to stop it. Wouldn't it be funny that the Brave Sons weren't able to recognise their sacred book? His back, arms and legs were beginning to ache as he threw the Compendium of the East and the Arcane of the Shadows in the boxes that newly-arrived Acolytes and Faithful came to take away.
The Purge was nearly over, the supposedly-heretical books were disappearing in the hands of Quill Bearers and he was contemplating with eagerness the prospects of a good, hot bath...when disaster struck.
The very Brave Son who had insulted and belittled him earlier in the day had decided cutting the book he had in his hands was a very good way to show his devotion to the Seven. Or maybe he was bored and wanted something to destroy before the rest of the staff present had finished their tasks.
One way or another, his cutting instrument plunged into the pages of a book which had been named the Codex of Tomorrow. The result was nearly instantaneous. A cloud of darkness emerged from the parchment and surrounded the man. Pylos was struck immobile and unable to find any words. Not by choice; he really wanted to flee, scream, alert the reaction forces the Citadel always maintained nearby but he was magically paralysed.
The screams the Faithful made were unpleasant in the extreme. Of course, given that it looked like the dark...thing...was acting like a powerful acid on his skin, this reaction was perfectly normal.
After what looked like an eternity, the screams of the Brave Son ceased and the Brave Son was released from its fatal grip. And it was fatal, half of its body had been so dissolved the bones underneath were now clearly visible.
The cloud-thing was far from finished however. Instead of dissipating or going back to the infernal pages he had been waiting for, it grew in volume like a balloon one got for free at the Hugor's Day parade. But the shock or paralysis it created ceased.
Pylos threw himself on the floor and not a moment too soon: a sort of shadow arm came out of the cloud to strike the shelves behind him. Once again it was like a powerful acid had been sprayed on the black wood.
"OUT!"
"Let's get away!" Screamed another Brave Son, his courage against true and uncontested heresy having apparently vanished the second the darkness killed his friend. Grey, brown, white and multi-coloured robes rushed towards the door...provoking a massive jam and plenty of collisions. One Acolyte was pushed aside and only avoided being trampled by the slimmest of margins. A maester – maybe Merlinoc though it was difficult to be sure in this chaos – was kicked in the head and the chest by several Faithful for being in the way.
Pylos in the meanwhile took cover behind one of the intact shelves. What was going to emerge from this cloud? An army of demons? Gigantic corrupted bees?
No...the darkness took the form of the visage of...Archmaester Marwyn?
"DO. NOT. TOUCH. MY. AFFAIRS!" Shouted the construct before laughing evilly. There was a ripple on the visage and then the murderous magical creation disappeared like it had never existed. A sort of black dust slowly disintegrated in the air and several Novices, Acolytes and Faithful who had not been fast enough to evade the attack collapsed, drained from their most precious commodity. Life.
"The Archmaesters weren't telling tales when they said he was crazy." Remarked the Acolyte directly on Pylos's left. A quick glance revealed the aspirant had seven chains to his neck, dark skin, curvy black hair and dark eyes revealing a Dornish ancestry.
There was no need to ask who was the 'he' in question.
"Indeed, not." Coughed Pylos, who accepted with gratitude the hand of the younger man. "Thank you...?"
"Acolyte Alleras. But everyone calls me the Sphinx here."
Pylos thanked again the Dornish Acolyte before leaving as fast as humanly possible the devastated library. Because If Archmaester Marwyn could do this many victims with one book, what could he do with two or three? And no one had any idea how many works had been corrupted by the demonic forces in the last years.
Pylos shivered. Really the Citadel didn't feel like a bastion of security and peace against Chaos anymore.
Daena Blackfyre 1
Any intelligent enemy would have renounced taking the hill by now.
The lower part of the slope was literally covered in corpses, crippled horses and dying men. So much blood had flowed that the deep grin grass had turned a crimson colour. The lines of the Company of the Flame Arrows were unbroken, their long spears projecting long shadows under the sun. The long shields of her soldiers had been lightly damaged, but this was an acceptable price when one considered the ridiculous number of arrows they had been targeted with. Said projectiles had proven useless against the well-forged steel of Essos.
Their enemies could have escaped. Daena had less than five hundred cavalry all told and she had her back against the Quoyne River. In a straight-chase, she had no chance to catch them. They should have escaped if they had a general having any sense in his skull. But these barbarians racing at them were Dothraki. And the horselords had never been renowned for their military sense. Plus the imbecile who commanded them had promised that he would rape her once her Company was defeated and then let the rest of the khalasar have its way with her body.
Men were really stupid like that sometimes.
The Dothraki came back. Launching the few scores of arrows they had left in their quivers, the horses galloped to their dooms. Or at least they tried to. Four times they had done it since the sun had risen over this battlefield two leagues south of Ar Noy. The Dothraki had many horses in their camps, allowing them in theory to replace their losses each time they launched a new charge. But with their proud stallions dying at each charge against the deadly rain of her bows and the pikes, the Dothraki horses reserves had been devastated by the time the third assault commenced.
They had considerably less than that on the fifth one, and all were tired. There were far less cavaliers too. Khal Zekko had had roughly eighteen thousand cavalrymen when the swords were drawn and the horns sounded. Eighteen thousand against her seven thousand. If the brainless barbarian had still six thousand screamers holding their whips and arakhs now, she would be astonished.
The khalasar hurled its rage and closed the distance in a cacophony of bells as the horselords braids rang in the wind. The dirty black hairs were covered in blood and Daena could see their grimaces and the hate animating their traits. Many were wounded and their bare chests were hideous with all the scars and dirt they had received in the previous clashes. Truly massacring these savages was a favour to Essos and the rest of the civilised realms. After the Doom, the barbarians had grown too arrogant, profiting from the fall of the Freehold and the following civil wars to pillage and annihilate whoever stood in their way. But no more.
Tired and spurred bloodily by their riders, the horses tried once again to refuse charging the wall of pikes waiting for them. The animals were more intelligent than the masters. Screaming in voices which made her glad she did not understand the Dothraki language, the scarred screamers threw their mounts over the shields they had failed four times to break.
Once again they failed. About one in three animals were caught by an implacable spear, throwing their owner violently on the corpses of their friends. In many cases, the horse died on top of them, making this tactical error a fatal one. The rest broke, turned their backs on the heavy infantry line, with entire groups being slaughtered by her long-range troops. A few hundreds of Zekko's barbarians tried to flank them and escalade the hill on their right, but it was a doomed cause. This was a clear day of summer, and the experimented men and women she had gathered here could see any moves a hundred leagues away. There was nowhere to hide for the Dothraki. There was no grand disaster to make sure their colossal stupidity would grant them somehow victory. She did not let them use their mobility or their speed. And when a Dothraki horde lacked all these advantages, they did the only good thing they ever were able to on this bloodied earth.
They died.
"Caellach! Charge!"
Her red-haired second didn't waste any moment before taking his massive Valyrian's sword Tiger's Eye over his head and shouting like if wanted the Gods to hear him.
"KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!" The order was spoken as the Blackfyre sellsword was slamming his heavy shield into the head of a wounded Dothraki. Teeth flowed and Caellach took great pleasure in slamming repeatedly the head of the barbarian against his tiger-decorated protection.
Then the Company of the Flame Arrows advanced down the slope, murdering the injured Dothraki and dismounting the few screamers who had escaped their army's destruction. Calling it a charge was a bit of a misnomer certainly; the sellsword lines were marching at a rapid pace for a walk but it wasn't running. But Daena was fine with it. She wanted a methodical and total victory, not a brawl which would favour the last Dothraki survivors. She had lost less than five hundred casualties in this entire campaign, she saw no reason why one more man would be lost to these savages.
The impressive screams of Khal Zekko were not heard anymore and as Daena watched over the battlefield, she was unable to locate the leader of the khalasar. Hopefully one of the officers would manage to locate his corpse and bring him back. The head of a khal was always worth a few hundred gold coins when delivered to the Free Cities magisters and dignitaries.
For the Dothraki, this battle was taking progressively the appearance of a very large disaster. Before the fifth charge, Daena had released her last two hundred heavy cavalry on her left side, and now these horses were flanking the remnants of the barbarians while her infantry was working like an anvil, smashing aside the defenceless and demoralised Dothraki. To say her enemies were routing was somewhat misleading. Leaderless, half of their surviving men lacking their horses and forced unnaturally to go on foot, the Dothraki were hesitating between running and throwing their lives against the spears and shields of her steel rampart. A somewhat intelligent group of men would have thrown down their weapons and begged for their lives. A competent sellsword commander would have raised a parley flag and asked for terms. The Dothraki...were the Dothraki. The most inexperienced tried to flee; the ones unable to understand the concept of withdrawal were massacred by the scores.
This was a bloodbath. Many of her men were passing the spears behind and drawing their short swords, the latter being more useful than the former for this type of butchery. Rapidly the throats of the barbarians were opened, entrails came to the light, corpses were trampled and heads rolled all over. Lone riders tried to go back to their camp and their families, but the cavalry she had unleashed were pressing them hard. The Dothraki women and children soon were going to experience the joys of slavery and fill the Blackfyre coffers with a little fortune.
Most of the danger presented by the enemy archers had perished with them when they were trounced by Caellach and Daena removed her black helm, letting her silver hair flow into the light northern wind. The day had been mildly hot and battle had made her very thirsty even if the Dothraki made very poor opponents. She emptied a jug of water before giving her next orders. Half of the Company was commanded to continue in the direction of the Dothraki camp while the rest of the sellswords looted the battlefield and guarded the camp.
"Maester Vely!"
"Yes, my lady?"
Compared to the tall and muscled men filling the ranks of her Company, the man who marched calmly out of the tents left at the top of the hill was really crooked and frail. His skin was so pale one could almost believe he was sick and the dark robes he wore only emphasized how gaunt was his visage. Vely was a Westerosi, but most of her men preferred to compare him with an evil spirit escaped from one of the thousand of Hells which existed in Essossi religions. The fallen maester preferred however to be called 'Ravenlord'. For the explanation to this curious surname, one had just to look on his shoulder where a raven was perched.
It was a very big raven, really. Twice the size of an average one, bigger than the birds of prey the Volantene nobility bred for their hunts. Many soldiers had seen the results of clashes between these oversized creatures and eagles or falcons...the black birds had not won every encounter but they had given plenty of suffering to their opponents. Vely had bred them somehow and made them more intelligent, and there was no way to deny they provided a priceless advantage for long-range communications. The big ravens were faster than the homing pigeons and doves in use by the wealthy merchants of the Free Cities, evaded the arrows of Dothraki archers with frightening ease and never lost their way.
For the moment however they were in limited supply and their creator was the only one they obeyed without question.
"Prepare a message for my brother. Daemon will want to know Khal Zekko has ceased to be a nuisance on our flanks."
"As you command, my lady." The maester answered formally. Then again she had never seen him show much emotion when he spoke. Except when he spoke of the Citadel maesters. There you could be sure to hear the hate. "We have also received the messages you expected from the Orange Ravagers and Rhoynar Exiles. They will rally your banners though I fear the Ravagers have suffered losses against the Company of the Cat."
"Good. Keep a raven or two in reserve for them though. Maybe the Lord Exalted of the Ravagers will need a reminder or two that his loyalties require...assurances."
Vely smiled and the raven croaked in an excited manner. It was not a pleasant spectacle to look upon. Instead Daena turned her eyes back on the battlefield where her Company was finishing murdering the Dothraki screamers. Hundreds of men were already piling the corpses for the looting to come. And her second climbed back the hill, his familiar orange and black armour making recognisable from afar. In his right arm was a head Daena had seen the day before hurling insults at her. Now the mouth was forever silent.
"The head you requested." As always Caellach arrogance literally transpired in each of his word.
"This is your fourth, no?"
"Yes..." If anything the face of the veteran sellsword was more disappointed than anything when he looked at the decapitated head of the Dothraki. "But he wasn't really a challenge. I thought Zekko had survived all his charges because he was skilled with the arakh. It appears he was just more cowardly than the rest of his bloodriders."
"You will have your chance for bigger game soon, Caellach."
The red-haired mercenary did not outright call her a liar, but by his raised eyebrows it was a very close thing.
"How? Between the Golden Company of your twin and our own efforts, we must have destroyed seven or eight khalasars. And the Free Cities are sending more companies our way now that we have proven the horselords are useless when someone competent is facing them."
She had only to speak one word.
"Drogo."
"Ah..." The predatory smile of Caellach was impossible to miss. "Yes, an opponent worthy of my blade. The last 'Great Khal' west of Qohor."
The leader of the Company of the Flame Arrows left there her subordinate contemplating his dreams of glory and battle. There were other preparations to make, new companies to coordinate their moves with, supplies to gather and Dothraki slaves to be sold.
Because whether her men suspected it or not, this contract to teach humility to the barbarians was just the first step of a decades-old plan. At long last, the Blackfyres siblings had managed to coalesce around them the support they needed. New companies were flocking to their banner. Tyrosh was finally promising the ships which had been bargained before their birth.
It would not happen tomorrow or the next moon. They had still a khalasar rumoured to number in the fifty or sixty thousands to fight. They needed more contracts and gold from Braavosi and Pentoshi bankers to pay their women and men under their banner. Armours and swords had to be forged. Volantene associates had to be courted and invited to their sides.
But before the next couple of years, the black dragons would cross back the Narrow Sea with the most powerful invasion force they had ever gathered in six wars. The weak descendants of Daeron the Usurper would learn the Stepstones campaign had not been a total failure for King Maelys.
And this time the Targaryen dynasty's grip on the Iron Throne would not survive.
Savour your last moments of peace, false dragons. We are coming back...let's see if you remember your House words.
Quaithe of the Shadow 1
She had seen many ugly beasts in her life, but this one was particularly repulsive and foul-smelling. The fangs – due to their size and shape, it would not do to call them teeth – were yellow and irregular. Red angry eyes fixed the crowd surrounding its cage while touching primitive talismans hanging around his misshaped neck. Its clothing was a dusty thing alternating between a beggar's cloth and very cheap armour. The protruding brow, the elongated jaws, the guttural groans and the crouched appearance all concentrated to give an impression of unbridled savagery.
But she had no doubt it was the deep green skin of the beast which had attracted the curious currently circulating in the slave's market. The rumours and tales existing on the green monsters had multiplied in the last decades. For the common warlock of Asshai-by-the-Shadow, this was the opportunity to watch the warmongering barbarians in their own eyes and link an image with a name.
Orc.
"Come near! Come near!" Shouted the auctioneer in charge of this part of the market. "Behold the Orc!"
Quaithe smiled under her red mask when the men and women, far from obeying the order, gave the cage containing the monster a large berth. This might have something to do with the green non-human grabbing the steel bars which held it prisoner and growling in hate while revealing its impressive dentition.
"A beast born to fight and die!" Declaimed the slave-master with the smile of someone about to swindle someone of a large purse. "With the appropriate enslaving-spells, this beast captured in the Mountains of the Morn will be a superb gladiator, a peerless slave-warrior or one of your fiercest bodyguards!"
The acclamations from the masked and veiled ranks of Asshai spellsingers and warlocks were rather muted, but the foreigners of Slaver's Bay were more than happy to scream their approval. Pit warriors and the Unsullied were the bread and the water for the cities of Meereen and Astapor; it was likely the merchants coming from these cities were judging how many fights in the arena the beast would endure in the arena before succumbing.
As for a bodyguard role, Quaithe was less certain and she had forgotten more mind-control methods in her lifetime than certain aeromancers knew spells. Trusting a human-eater beast in your presence to behave itself...no, there were limit not to be crossed. Let the Meereenese buy the orc for an impressive massacre in the arena. Quaithe preferred her servants to understand human language, know their right from their left and generally follow directions. All things orks would meet huge difficulties whether under a spell or not.
"One hundred talents and this ork is yours to satisfy your most brutal desires!" Proclaimed the bearded slaver. Many mouths emitted sounds of deception as the sum was not one they could afford. Moreover they would have to pay a warlock or a shadowbinder to bind the ork and none of Quaithe's counterparts services were cheap. Still, there were many hands which were raised for the green-skinned non-human. The auction started like the thousands others happening each day, with the acclamations of the crowd and the gibberish screamed by the ork.
"One hundred and twenty!"
"One hundred and forty!"
The price climbed quickly over two hundred talents, a considerable quantity of gold for a slave which could only be used for war purposes. The number of potential buyers dried like water under the terrible shadows of her home city and the contest remained between four or five men and women. Only one was from Asshai, a water spellsinger named Avraithe. The rest were foreigners, the kind always attracted in the City of Shadows by the magic dealings and the rare creatures brought from every corner of the world.
"Three hundred and eighty talents!" Exclaimed an obese merchant who by his traits had Ghiscari origins. The golden harpies decorating his head, his clothes and his rings revealed a complete lack of taste and pointed his belonging to one of the Meereenese slaver companies. It was men like this who had an astonishing influence in the flesh trade. How low the descendants of Old Ghis had fallen when one considered their legions had fought tooth and nail against the dragons of the rising Freehold. Now they were reduced to sell their own women, men and children as slaves...and sometimes the rest of the populations massacred by the Dothraki or the corsair fleets plaguing the Summer Sea.
"Three hundred and eighty talents, anyone?" Asked the auctioneer. By the twitch of his mouth and the satisfied expression she read deep in his gaze, the man had won his day with this sell. "Three hundred and eighty talents?" His head scrutinised his audience, silently gazing if there was a novice fool enough to add a few more talents but no participants manifested a desire to acquire something expensive and that they couldn't sleep with. "No? Then the orc goes to Master Dahojaz."
The fat Meereen slave-trader giggle in a sound no man worthy of the name should be able to make and left in a whirlwind of pink and gold, leaving his large escort deal with the laborious process of putting the orc's cage on a chariot.
Quaithe shut down the purple drapes of her ebony palanquin and signalled her servants with the small silver bell on her left. As distracting as this slave auction was, it was time to go back to her temple. According to the deep scrying she had performed during the last days, her next visitor should have arrived now.
Yet as her servants transported her from the Great Market to her residence and nexus of power, Quaithe couldn't help but wonder at this coincidence. Her most important visitor of the year had been forced in exile by the greenskins and now an orc was sold before her on such an inauspicious day? It could be just a poor turn of events, but as a shadowbinder binding the threads of darkness and future in her vision, Quaithe was afraid it was something more. Something unpleasant.
The orcs were never good news when they were involved in human affairs. She didn't need her visions or any magical powers to understand that. In the last centuries, the Yi-Tish armies had fought uncountable battles against the green beasts, to the point the Golden Empire of the Dawn eastern garrisons were mobilising a far greater number of men than the Jogos Nhai frontier.
No one knew how the orcs had arrived on this world. If a capricious deity or a mad warlock was responsible for it, they hadn't claimed the deed – and the death the rest of the world would inflict unto them. But everyone knew what the monsters wanted: war. The strategists of the God-Emperor thus were letting the big brutes fight each other in the Mountains of the Morn rather than trying to exterminate them one by one. That way less humans died for a hopeless cause.
Quaithe readjusted her long black robe proclaiming her status of shadowbinder and disciplined her thoughts as her palanquin finally stopped. The orcs could wait until she had finished with her 'guest'. A yellowish palanquin guarded by thin eunuchs was all the confirmation to know he had already arrived.
On every side of the onyx avenue leading to her power base, hundreds of men and women threw themselves to the ground when the drapers were drawn open and her left feet touched the ground of Asshai-by-the-Shadow.
Slowly she crossed the long alley leading to her quarters, manipulating six threads of nights in each of her hands to ensure none of her current enemies had managed to use her little travel to place magical traps or any other dangerous surprises. Her very rank in the city normally sufficed to frighten the ambitious and the powerful into submission but she had not reached her place at the top of the Asshai society by taking risks. Furthermore it warned her visitor she was here and fully in control of her faculties.
A shot climb of her dark marble stairs and she entered the entrance room where a middle-aged man of Yi-Tish descent waited. He wore yellow robes which had seen better days, a talisman of sapphires and ancient runes supported by several gold chains around his neck. A shot beard and inexpressive dark eyes completed the picture.
"Lord Sorcerer Chai Cao."
The title was more a recognisance of power and politeness for the sake of it. Once upon a time, there had been an azure sash on the sorcerer's robe representing his allegiance to the seventeenth God-Emperor Bu Gai. No more. Chai Cao had broken his allegiance to the Azure Dynasty when he had murdered ten of his former brethren of the Magical School of Yin and over two hundred soldiers who had come to arrest him.
"Your Eminency of Darkness." Replied the man who by all rights figured in second position on the Golden Empire list of persons they wanted dead yesterday. Only the traitor general Pol Qo had a bigger recompense on his head. "I think you know what brings me here today."
"You have failed taming the orks tribes of the Mountains of the Morn. Your quest to topple the Empire you served is getting more difficult moon after moon. Your allies are rallying the sides of the Orange Pretender or are begging the eunuchs of the capital to be merciful."
With another of her shadowbinder peers Quaithe would have been far more diplomatic, presenting him various samples of the essences she had gathered from Qarthene and Volantene traders, but the Yi-Tish exile had a reputation for cruelty, bluntness and finding a way to kill each of the 'allies' he had made during the last moons. She trusted far more her opponents in this city than Chai Cao.
"In a few words, you have managed to describe nicely my problems, Your Eminency." If the Yellow Pretender to the throne of Yin seemed bothered she was aware of his plans to launch a greenskin horde against Yi Ti, there was no sign of it in his eyes or on his face and body. "My cause declines and collapses as we speak. The orcs and their crude powers were imperfect instruments for the task I demanded of them. As I led an army against the Winged Men to get rid of the weaklings, my fortress of Carcosa exploded into infighting because a goblin shaman had dreams of his stupid Gods!"
Behind her mask, Quaithe maintained an admirable amount of control not to roll her eyes at the Yi-Tish arrogance. Orcs were warmongering but they weren't going to follow a human without magic enslaving them. The green brutes rarely tolerated someone of their own race at the equivalent of a General's command. Obeying a human would have taken not a miracle, but hundreds of them.
"What do you want?" The most powerful shadowbinder of Asshai demanded, knowing fully the answer before it was uttered.
"I want Yi Ti to burn! I want Bu Gai to prostrate himself in front of me and beg for his life!" There was more than a shadow of folly in the Lord of Carcosa's eyes at each of his snarls. "And to do this I need the Sword."
Ah, yes the Sword. A blade known by many names in different tongues, languages and cultures but the one coming back with regularity was Lightbringer. It was mentioned in Ulthian legends as the Blade of Hope, in ancient Ghiscari the records gave it the name the Warsong. In Asshai it had been given a more appropriate name of course.
The End of Empires.
Its translation in the demonic dialects had fortunately been lost through the millennia and it was for the best. Names had powers.
"The Sword was last seen in the Sunset lands millennia ago. You are searching a myth."
And she didn't even need to lie on this one. Of all the visions she had had in the last decades, very few included the Sword...thank all the Gods of the Creation for this.
"I don't think so." Replied the traitor Lord Sorcerer with such a haughty tone the shadowbinder wondered how in the Holy Darkness this spellcaster had managed to graduate at Yin without being assassinated. "With it the Lion of the Night banished the Demons of the Grey Waste and built the Golden Empire. With it, I will cast it down and have my revenge."
There was a multitude of ways to answer this impolite request but only seven great outcomes could lead from there. The first two would leave her home destroyed and Asshai in flames from their magical duel. Immoral and arrogant Chai Cao might be, but the sorcerer was an extremely dangerous opponent. Maybe she would manage to kill him. But there was an unpleasant possibility the opposite would happen. The next four choices weren't better. All saw in the next four years the entirety of Yi Ti fall under the tide of monsters, whether they were orcs or demons.
The seventh case remained. A desperate option and by the winds of fate Quaithe wished she would never had to contemplate it. But these were desperate times and the time for preparations was running out.
"In this case...try the Citadel of Oldtown in the Sunset Kingdoms. Their library is second to none in Westeros and their second floor holds a room with a blue door containing the clues they have gathered."
The yellow-robed magical practitioner made an imperceptible nod and relaxed his stance.
"My thanks, Your Eminency. I bid you goodbye."
Quaithe waited for the steps to find in the distance and the protections she had installed around her home to confirm Chai Cao was gone.
"Your vengeance will end on Westeros, Lord of Carcosa." It was a dark trade but she was ready to make it. What the Yi-Tish betrayer would have done to the Empire he had once served in the name of his vengeance was too terrible to contemplate.
Moreover in all the futures Chai Cao remained in this part of the world, Asshai-by-the-Shadow didn't stand a chance. In some threads, her existence was cut short by hundreds of mad greenskins shamans. Dozens times she had seen her efforts and those of the shadowbinders fail against an endless tide of orcs. Quaithe had heard the powerful roars of 'Thraka!' reverberate through past, present and future, mourned when she saw the spires and the millennia-old temples of the Art burn in an inferno while millions of monsters pillaged.
These were the most pleasant futures she had been able to examine. The orcs were a threat, but humanity could survive. Not so if the demons won and the pillars of reality were unmade. And in these futures, she and the rest of the warlocks lost far more than their lives in this desperate war. They lost their very souls to these abominations.
It couldn't happen. It wouldn't happen. With outside help and careful manipulation of the threads, a future where the living had a chance still existed.
"But for the Sunset Lands, this is the end of the road."
Asha Greyjoy 1
The sky was a deep blue. There may be three or four scores of words in as many different tongues all over the known seas to describe it but she didn't know them. It was blue anyway and it was enough for her eyes. Blue sky, no clouds, no winds; no doubt a thousand greenlanders cheered a thousand leagues eastwards from here at the perfect day of summer their Seven had granted them. For a proper sailor however, this kind of sky was a hardship in itself. The sun cooked the skins of the crewmen and crewwomen in less time it took for a middle-sized hourglass to lose all its sand. The salt and the warmth became properly unbearable. The reserves of drinkable water became emptier and emptier as men abandoned all their love for ale, beer or anything having the slightest taste of alcohol. Every year around the world, countless ships were lost when a hull found suddenly becalmed in the middle of nowhere. With no wind, a ship's crew could mutiny and destroy whatever discipline had existed aboard. Navigators could make mistakes and be prone to hallucinations. Contrary to one might think, having oars and the men to action them wasn't always a good thing. She had heard the tales of men fainting at the effort of going to their posts, unable to row such was their tiredness. More recently she had seen it from her very eyes when the Great Tide had arrived with half of its crew gone and the rest not far from death.
Ironborn longships had several oars but less than a true galley in Royal service. The swallow draft of their wooden structure added to the ten-plus oars and the single mast ensured they were swift and nimble, able to distance and outmanoeuvre their opponents on the blue immensities. But these fast raiders were crewed by mortals and absent the favour of the Drowned God or the wrath of the Storm God, there was nothing they could do on this windless day. It was not strictly true she knew...lesser ships and captains could have gone a few nautical out there and try to catch the grey fishes whose banks fed the entire Iron Islands. Another day they could have verified the prow, the stern, the sails and every little wooden piece which was necessary for the Black Wind to sail the known seas.
But this summer weather had been over their heads for the best part of five moons and her crewmen had enough. Fishing brought sustenance, but they had done it three days ago and the daughter of a Lord Paramount could only do that kind of activity so many times before rumours began to spread she wasn't fit to reave and be her own mistress.
Asha cursed under her breath several insults she had learned at Tyrosh on her last travel. She spoke very badly this low variant of Valyrian – unlike her Lyseni which was close to fluent – but it was something cursing the merchants and the money-grubbers to go mate with goats. No sign of divine retribution, no breeze, not a whisper of wind manifested itself. The main bay of Harlaw was still the same peaceful blue. The high towers of her uncle Rodrik's home in the distance shone brightly under the implacable sun, like they had for the many moons she had passed at Ten Towers. It was a beautiful scene...and she wanted none of it. Her brothers had had too satisfied expressions when they looked at her before they went away with their Lord Father.
Worse, this had been the last day the southern wind had manifested itself. The Lord Reaper of Pyke had had all the luck. The Black Wind's captain and her crew had not. Forget her planned adventure to the distant Stepstones where she had lost her virginity and gained a fine quantity of loot when storming two Essossi merchants. With the lack of wind over the entire Sunset Sea, she would be lucky to reach the Reach coast before her supplies ran out. And thus she and the Black Wind waited for favourable winds – or any wind at all truthfully - hoping the winds would rise again before her Lord Father returned and whatever plan he and her dear idiots of brothers had elaborated fell upon her head.
Sensing a familiar presence behind her, Asha playfully threw her axe in the air, catching her with her left hand without looking when it descended. When she turned her attention towards the three men who had approached behind her, two of them had stopped, their visages tense, the guardsmen in service of House Harlaw obviously asking themselves if they were going to serve as target practise or be challenged to one of her famous contests of axe-throwing.
Strangely, after Rodrik had lost two fingers a couple years ago, few captains and renowned warriors had been enthusiastic in those. What a pity.
The third man of their group did not appear to be as concerned, watching her with an expression which was close to the rolling of eyes for him. But then the Knight of Grey Garden was always difficult to impress and his choice of weapon was the sword, not the axe.
"Harras. What is it?"
"You uncle wants to see you."
Asha wanted to grimace but the need to always present an attitude devoid of weakness made sure there was no sign of it on her cheeks or in her eyes when she retorted the usual platitudes of how the Reader couldn't let go of her company for a moment. The two guards were torn between fixing the twirls she imposed to her axe and the roll of her hips. They swallowed the excuse hook, line and sinker. Harras did not appear fooled. But then again he knew her for years; Asha had seen him in uncountable occasions since she and her mother had more or less made their home at ten Towers six years ago.
And of course Harras knew she had been eating with her uncle for the first and last meals of the day for the last fortnight. For him to request her return from her observation post on the Bay meant news had arrived. And given her general misfortune these last days, they were unlikely to be good.
"He's still in the library?"
"Reading the Mysteries of the Depths this Ibbenese traveller sold him last moon." Confirmed the wielder of the Valyrian sword Nightfall.
"So he has not stopped his efforts to create an appropriate Ibbenese-Westerosi translation, then?"
"You know your uncle." Said Harras with a small smile.
"Oh yes."
Asha herself could read and speak in three different languages thanks to her mother and the rest of her Harlaw tutors: Common Tongue of Westeros, High Valyrian – with a preference for the Lyseni variant - and Summer Tongue. Those and she had long learnt the difficult art of trade talk.
To her best knowledge, Lord Rodrik Harlaw knew nine – not including all the variants of High and Low Valyrian he spoke like a native – and it looked like in the recent years he had at last decided to learnt the tongue of the Ibbenese. No wonder certain of his bannersmen sometimes joked in his back that the Reader had lost his true calling when he didn't go to the Citadel. Asha herself was less sure: a lot of books her uncle had bought and stored in his personal collection were at the very least slightly controversial on the continent. The most...esoteric ones were outright heretical. Not that it was a problem on the Iron Islands. Since her Lord Father had first been seated on the Seastone Chair, huge efforts had been made to banish the Seven worshippers, augment the ranks of the Drowned God followers and discourage anything practised by the greenlanders. One might say the Iron Islands today were a foyer of heresy able to rival other regions offending the preachers and errant septons of the Faith.
"I think I will find the way." The sole and only daughter of Lord Balon Greyjoy told her cousin. "Warn my crew I will not join them before sunset to the Rich Reaver."
"The longship or the tavern?"
This time both Harras and Asha rolled their eyes at the dim-witted black-haired spearsman. This one had obviously not been chosen for his intelligence.
"The tavern. Why would I want anything with the Codds?"
On this repartee she left the group of three and Asha began the march to Harlaw alone. She saluted the old reavers half-sleeping who were in charge of the nearby watch tower and then made a detour on the left to avoid trampling the golden-coloured cereals which were almost ready to be harvested. Captain and a woman of a Lord Paramount House she may be, but the thralls and the freedmen labouring the earth took their duties very seriously on Harlaw. Great Wyk was the greatest of the Iron Islands, Pyke was its capital and had the greatest harbour but Harlaw was the most populated and the breadbasket of the archipelago. Many Noble Houses of Pyke, Blacktyde and Old Wyk had only barren lands to their name, with the iron, lead, tin and copper of their mines for only resources. Harlaw had a few of those but it was especially renowned for its fields where men could work without breaking their backs and the modest trade it made with the mainland.
Many of the lowborn she met recognised her and bowed. With all the time she had passed on Harlaw, Asha had become an almost familiar figure. Besides with her long black hair going down her neck and her tight leather clothes, she could hardly pass as a man. The large black hat she had taken the habit of wearing to protect herself from the fury of the sun was also impossible to mistake for anything else. Maybe she would keep it for her next venture on the seas.
The sun was still high when she passed the gates of Ten Towers were bored guards did their best to find some relief in the shadows and the proximity of the cold-watered dwells. Three on four servants and sworn swords looked at her with extenuated eyes. The rest were harbouring bored or lusty expressions. Whatever news the Reader had received had not made it out of his library. The patrols were proceeding at the same pace she had left them in the morning.
A few cooks proposed cold crab pies at low prices. A few children kicked a large sack of leather in the part of the shadowed court.
Leaving them behind, Asha entered the Book Tower. Whatever name had been given to him two hundred and fifty years ago wasn't remembered anymore; in this era it was the place the Lord had installed its impressive and growing library. Ten Towers was a relative new castle and the stairs had not suffered from time erosion, but she was feeling the strain when she reached the top. The captain of the Black Wind was used to climb to this place at least thrice per fortnight, but the weather made it an even more difficult proposition.
As she knocked on the door decorated with the silver scythe of House Harlaw, Asha figured the tower was getting quieter these days. In his young years Rodrik had used septons to take care of the hundreds of books he brought back from his reavings in the Jade and Summer Seas. She knew her uncle had asked the maesters to send a few of their young hands to the task but the experiment had turned short when a few of the grey sheep had tried to spirit away certain rare rolls of parchment. The task had then fallen on septons known for their flexibility of mind, but her father's fierce campaign to expulse anyone not worshipping the Drowned God had made them return to the continent in a hurry. Today he relied on Harlaw youngsters and a few chosen servants he had taken the time to train. But there were never enough of them.
The office she entered was unsurprisingly full of books on the most diverse topics. The desk and the shelves contained several scores of heavy volumes, references and ownership catalogues of the vast library situated under her feet. Her uncle had stopped reading the massive tome in front of him and was watching her with an amused expression.
"Ah, my favourite niece."
"Ah, my favourite uncle."
Both chuckled after a short moment of looking each other in the eye. Asha was pretty much the only niece or female cousin Rodrik had not received a proposition to remarry with. She was also fortunate he considered her as a daughter more than a niece, a welcome refuge from whatever Drowned madness reigned in Pyke. On her side of the family, the title of 'uncle' was more a curse than a favoured title. Euron was raving mad and had been exiled when she was two and ten for a multitude of crimes so abominable people refused to speak of them. Victarion was infamous for having killed his wife with his own hands, a burning temper and his brutal control of the Iron Fleet. Aeron was a drunk who forgot his own name when he had poured barrels of wine in his throat and pissed further than anyone. And Robin was a Drowned Priest convinced the Drowned God had healed him of all illness when in truth he looked like a corpse.
Asha didn't pause to think about her dear Father and brothers: they were worse than her Greyjoy uncles.
"Harras told me you had started translating Mysteries of the Depths."
"He did? Good, good. The book is extremely fascinating...all these ancients map of Ibben and the ancient constructions they found..."
The gaze of the Ironborn Lord was about to plunge into said book when by a monumental effort of will Lord Rodrik stopped his eye wandering, put a silver bookmark between the pages and closed the hundreds-page Ibbenese writings with a loud thump.
"But you haven't summoned me to speak about your wish to learn Ibbenese."
"Indeed not." Rodrik huffed powerfully in his typical fashion when he was about to tell someone very bad news. "Devrik has sent a bird from Pyke. He has discovered the reason your father went away."
Asha felt the dread rising in her stomach. Devrik Harlaw was Rodrik's second son and by far the most reasonable of the two. Unlike his eldest brother Quellon, he had always treated Asha like a friendly sibling and not a sack of onions. Devrik had a lot of young men with him who had accepted her own crew and friends like Tris Botley or Baelor Blacktyde. And he could be trusted, reason why his father had used him as his agent in many occasions. Rodrik's son had departed a fortnight ago to see if he could unveil the mystery of the Lord Reaper's departure. At the moment of his landing he had already sent a first bird, telling Lordsport and the rest of the island were in the midst of a massive rearmament. Scores of new longships were constructed; hundreds of new axes, swords and shields were forged. There were rumours Great Wyk and Old Wyk Houses were following way. The Ironborn were preparing for war and it was not for an expedition on the Stepstones.
"And?"
"The Iron Fleet longships have dispersed all over the Sunset Sea to confuse the Lords of Westeros. In the mean time, your father went north to Frostshore for a meeting with Eddard Stark, Heir of the North."
Asha felt like she had received a cold shower in her neck. There were many reasons why the Lord Paramount of the Iron Islands would go visit the Heir of another Lord Paramount. For those who knew the ambition of her Lord Father, this was definitely not a good sign. And then there was the location. Frostshore was a middle-sized castle belonging to House Frostsource on the Stony Shore. For such a prestigious meeting between two powerful nobles, Barrowton would have been the ideal choice.
Unless secrecy was required.
Unless the Northerner and the Ironborn Lord didn't wish the rest of the greenlanders to hear of their talks.
Unless the main subject of the negotiations was high treason.
"He really wants to rebel, then." Internally Asha felt disgusted. While she had still lived at Pyke she knew how bloodthirsty and awful her brothers had been. And it was because Lord Balon Greyjoy had pushed them on this way.
"Yes, he does." Rodrik the Reader was harbouring a dark expression which was rare for him. "My captains have noticed plenty of new longships sailing south these last years and the friends I had at Pyke have all been dismissed from their positions in the Iron Fleet or the Council."
The Lord of Ten Towers caressed the heavy cover of Mysteries of the Depths in an absented manner. "Summer is going to end and war is finally going to return to our shores."
"Can we win?" Asha demanded. Rodrik threw her a tone which was half-ironic, half disbelieving. "You always said we would lose alone against Westeros but if we have the North with us..."
Lord Rodrik Harlaw shrugged. "I don't know the number of men and warlocks the Starks can field but I don't think they can match the Tyrells or the Lannisters sword per sword, let alone the entire South."
"The North has the Neck and Moat Cailin to serve as shields."
"But the Iron Islands have no such defensive depth." The Master of Harlaw reminded her. "Our only defence is the wooden walls of the Iron Fleet and when the war will begin we won't be to replenish our losses."
The Reader shrugged again.
"I suppose we will know the truth soon enough. Balon must have signed his damned alliance with the direwolf now."
"And the terms?"
Asha abandoned her contemplation of the Ibbenese book on the desk to seize a fine Arbor bottle hidden behind A World of Ice and Fire and poured the red nectar in two cups. She really needed a drink now, the climbing and the revelations had not been good for her head and she felt a headache coming. Handing the first cup to her uncle, she gulped largely in the second one.
"Oh, you will be married to Eddard Stark's eldest before the end of this year, don't worry."
The wine was spit out her mouth the moment after.
Waymar Royce 2
"But in the name of Tzeentch I am going to reveal you the truth."
Waymar snickered at this affirmation and he wasn't the only one. Like a nightmare gone, the men gathered on the training ground were able to voice their opinion again. In the ranks of the prisoners, angry mutters were heard and several insults resumed. Who did this heretic think he was?
"The Seven are the truth!" Screamed a man on the right side of the group. A glance at him was all Waymar needed to see that the man had been a thief: he was lacking one hand and its replacement was a crude wood piece he must have carved himself. "You will burn in the Seven Hells heretic!"
"Oh?" Ralfor Darkshore looked especially unimpressed by this rhetoric. "It is quite an assertion to say 'the Seven are the truth', you know. Have they revealed to you what your destiny on the Wall will be? Have they answered your prayers? Have they given you back your missing hand?"
The dishevelled dark brown-haired man in his thirties did not answer. His eyes threw hateful looks, though it was not directed at anyone in particular. His sole valid hand was trembling, like he feared its loss.
"You are here to defend the realm of men from the threats of Beyond-the-Wall. Threats so terrifying the First Men judged good to build a seven hundred feet-tall Wall to contain them. The black brothers have defended the realm against those for millennia and now it's your turn."
"Wildlings..." Muttered someone behind him.
"Wildlings?" The Black Castellan bark was certainly not an exclamation of joy. "Wildlings are humans and therefore are not considered as real threats. They bleed just like us. Often they fight with us. You will meet many on the Gift trading and living their own lives. If Tzeentch and Nurgle have put any sense in your skulls, you will learn to call them the Free Folk or you will quickly miss a lot of teeth."
A new gust of wind made the assembled prisoners shiver and the great black cloak of the castellan made an excellent imitation of a gigantic bat. Waymar was hesitant to believe these words and to his side Sam and the other recruits were sharing troubled faces. The wildlings weren't their enemies? This was madness! Why did all the Crown constables and the enforcers speak about bloodthirsty cannibals then? Why were they so many tales of First Men and black brothers fighting the Kings Beyond the Wall? Why had the messengers of the Lord Commanders never mentioned them when they went at the Royal court or those of the Lords Paramount?
But the Master of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea had apparently anticipated these questions. From a barrack situated directly to face the Bay of Seals, a small group of black brothers came out, followed by a chariot of a model which seemed familiar but was partially recovered by a black drape. Since what was under it was not visible, Waymar watched the members of the Night's Watch. Only two out of eight wore black plate, the remaining ones were equipped with a sort of light armour that made him think about the archers his father kept in his service at Runestone. Nevertheless, all had runes with malevolent sorcery shining on the surface of their protections. Two had the same flame symbol Ralfor harboured on his plastron branded on their foreheads.
Waymar felt his heart beat faster and tried to be calm, breathe more regularly and not attract undue attention – well, more than he got to be one of the rare volunteers to the Night's Watch anyway. These were not the dirty scum playing with banned books he had seen in the Vale; these men were real sorcerers and black-hearted heretics. And whatever was under the black drape, they were clearly prudent and had their weapons ready to be drawn.
"Meet one of the many enemies the Watch has been fighting for centuries." The voice of the Black Castellan was as friendly as a winter storm. On his signal, one of the black brothers in plate let the drape fall down, revealing the large cage which had been solidly stowed on it. "Behold the enemy. Behold the beastman."
Gasps and shouts of horrors mounted from the Southerners group. Shamefully, Waymar knew his voice was among them.
What was in the cage could not be considered human. It was standing on two legs yes, but the similarities ended there. Where humans had foot, the beast had cloven hooves. There were claws at the end of the two 'hands'. Where a human would have his body covered by armour or common clothes, the thing had only a few trinkets and pieces of metal, thus its brown fur could be seen by everyone. To his consternation, a few decorations looked like human skulls. The head of the creature was those of a goat, horns and eyes, beard and wattle, but a goat which had the fangs of a predator and was looking at the gathered humans with an expression of sheer loathing.
The Seven save us...
The monster brayed stridently and all the men having volunteered to join the Night's Watch put their hand on their ears. The thing, no the beastman was noisy and horrible. Waymar felt an impression of wrongness and hate plague the air. Like he was in the presence of a thing he had to kill at all costs. The wind turned and an atrocious smell came to his nostrils. The beastman was not only looking like a humanoid goat; it smelt like a diseased one. Worse, the monster widened the space between his furred legs, allowing him and the other humans a straight view on its genitals...
"We caught this gor scout three days ago in one of our traps." Continued the Night's Watch officer, his voice showing no fear or any kind of emotion towards the non-human creature. "Usually we kill it on the spot or sacrifice it to the True Gods but I knew a Black Ship was close. It was an opportunity to show you what sort of enemies you can find Beyond-the-Wall. The enemies our rangers are killing every day and protecting the human realms from."
None of the Reacher, Valemen, Crownlander or Stormlander were sniggering or laughing anymore. If anyone had taught them a tale about beastmen in a tavern of King's Landing or the usual place they came to drench their thirst after a hard day of crime and law-breaking, they would have mocked the bard or the itinerant traveller peddling such tales and likely denounced him to the next sept or local authority. But this time the monster was real and they could see it with their own eyes. Nothing the enforcers and the gaolers who had given them the choice between the black and death had mentioned that. Waymar in his mind was beginning to wonder what else the crewmen of the Black Ships had not mentioned.
"The only future for these beasts...is death. Rni'siri' tahab!"
Impossibly, a large blue orb appeared in Darkshore's right hand, and the Black Castellan then sent it with a casual move of the wrist in the chest of the beastman. The monster screamed in agony...before bursting in blue flames.
Sorcery.
This was the only thought Waymar was able to utter as the sight of the horned creature rolling and screaming in the cage, braying to death and trying desperately to extinguish the unnatural flames. But it was useless. The cage and the chariot weren't affected by the flames, another impossibility according to the laws of nature the maesters taught the young scions of the Noble Houses. The beast was consuming itself, member by member, its fur and the musk impregnating it proving unable to stop the fires. The braying diminished in intensity, before ultimately stopping when the burned corpse hit the cage's bottom.
"Born from chaos, returned to chaos." Grumbled the Northerner.
He didn't add 'let this be a warning to all of you' but the two hundred and one Southern Westerosi listening to his words understood perfect the underlying threat. If they became a big problem, it would be them in the cage sharing the fate of the beastman.
"Brother Tor, show our new recruits the barracks where they will spend the night. Samwell Tarly and Waymar Royce, follow me."
The voice of command became even more imperious and the former prisoners who had been detained aboard the Black Spear turned and looked at the great man who had to be 'Brother Tor'. It was not a pleasing sight. Unlike the first black brothers they had seen, this one wasn't wearing black plate or the kind of light armour the Houses gave to their levies. No, the man was bare-chested. Waymar was aware this kind of weather might not be a hardship to the people who lived there...but still it was cold and there was no sun visible. The sky was covered with dark clouds and there were snowflakes in the distance. Walking without clothes in this condition was not madness but it was perilously close. If it hampered the black brother, he showed no sign it. Here again there were a lot of runes...but since the man had no armour the mysterious signs had been branded on his skin, forming a sort of skulled-themed figure. Tor was also massive, with arms and legs stronger than those of his own Lord Father. And he was grinning evilly.
"What are you waiting for by the axe of Khorne?" Barked the muscular man. "Move! Move or I will make you climb the Wall before the day is over!"
The black brother walked in the direction of Eastwatch and the thieves, rapists and murderers did not need another incitation to run after him. On the other side of the field, Castellan Darkshore – Royce regretted his ignorance of the Northern Houses, was his family influent or wealthy? – was examining Sam and he with a cold look before beginning its own progression to the Night's Watch fort. Waymar was easily able to keep pace, but the Tarly Heir was breathing so loudly one could have mistaken him for a boar. When they reached the gates, the fat-boned Reacher had stopped running and was now walking with difficulty several feet behind him.
Ralfor Darkshore did not appear frustrated by the slowness of one of his charges but then his visage didn't show his feelings. The sorcerer could have thought about sending back Sam to the Reach or using him as the sacrifice for one of his rituals, Waymar was ready to think the face he showed to the world would have been the same.
Once Sam had arrived, they did not join the rest of the recruits gathering in the space in front of the tunnels but started to climb a stair leading them to the upper levels of Eastwatch. It allowed him to see the interior of the bastion which was unlike any fort or citadel architecture he had seen in his life. In the Vale, the raids of the Mountain Clans had long forced the builders to conceive stone walls able to repulse the hardiest defenders. Eastwatch had not been thought that way. There were many open stairs going everywhere, the walls were too small and an attacking force which managed to breach the perimeter would have an excellent chance to win the day. The wood and the stones were carved with runes, some blue, some red, some green or pink. The more he watched, the more he was disappointed. House Royce by itself would be able to break these defences in less time it took to say it. On the other hand, the Wall was spectacular so close and the three great wooden elevators linking top and bottom were pleasant remembers of the great fortress of the Eyrie.
Another stair and their efforts came to an end. Ralfor opened a door decorated by quantities of blue runes. The interior could have been any other lord's quarter in the Seven Kingdoms...except the fact that instead of a carpet, the fur of a black feline was covering the ground. No, that wasn't all. There were stuffed heads of various creatures hanging on the walls, some of them recognisable as beastmen, others even more repulsing and completely unknown to Waymar.
The Reacher and the Valeman sat on comfortable armchairs with blue and gold decorations. In this, the objects were coloured like the better part of the study. For nearly two turn of hourglasses, the Black Castellan didn't speak, simply putting the parchment on his desk in a neat pile and activating at regulars a few minor lights around his head. After the death of the beastman by incineration the two highborn weren't able to interrupt him.
"It has been a long time since we had Southern volunteers coming of their own will on the Wall. Longer than my own tenure and I've commanded this fort for the last eight years."
"Is it going to cause problems, Lord?" The young man of Runestone knew his defiance showed in his voice, but he had travelled too far to renounce now.
"Lord. So polite." The shadow of a smile came to the Northerner's lips. "Southern titles are meaningless on the Wall. Forget your titles of lords and Ser, boy. They will do you no good here and the only Lord you must give your allegiance to is Jeor Mormont."
The Northerner sorcerer shadowed seemed to have a life of its own on the walls.
"And yes they will be problems. How long do you think one of the recruits you came with survive on the Wall?"
This was an excellent question, Waymar had to admit. Every smallfolk and noble knew a service sworn to the Night's Watch included an oath to serve until your death. But no one had ever spoken how much time
"Ten years?"
"The best of the lot? Maybe. But criminals of the South are useless for the wars against beastmen, skavens and the direst horrors of the Haunted Forrest. Many are lucky to last two or three moons. Some last less than that."
The third son of Lord Royce opened his mouth to ask the Castellan if this was a joke. A fierce glare and a new spark of magic made sure the question was never posed. On the other seat, Samwell Tarly was shivering from head to toe and was harbouring a green taint. For all their sake, Waymar hoped he wasn't going to vomit again.
"Volunteers from the Black Ships are to be sent at Castle Black and a few of the recruits will go with you. Lord Commander Mormont will judge if you are assets or liabilities for the Night's Watch. Your fate will be in his hands once you arrive there. Impress him and you will thrive. Do not..."
There was no need to finish the sentence.
"How many forts are inhabited?" Asked Sam, his voice still shaking but the scion of Horn Hill had found something interesting him.
"Seven."Answered the black commander. "Seven and a eighth one is being rebuilt as we speak. We will have it ready before winter comes."
"And how many-"
"More questions can wait tomorrow. There are more pressing matters at hand."
"More pressing matters?" Waymar did not enjoy the turn this conversation was moving on. Judging by his shivering, neither did Sam.
"Yes. The winds of magic may be weak in the South, but they are blowing strong in the North and the further you come closer to the Wall, the stronger they become. The Wall is a fantastic barrier against the non-humans and the wild magic of the Lands of Always Winter, but its capacity to filtrate and purify the magic can't be considered foolproof. We Northerners have installed thousands of wards and we have the benedictions of the True Gods to protect us. Our ancestors also have lived in conditions where the aether is strong for centuries."
"Let me guess. We have not any of those protections."
"You have neither." Confirmed Ralfor Darkshore. "The runes on your armour may look pretty, but the artisans who forged it had no idea what they were doing and no magic protections have been imbedded into the steel."
"What will happen to us?" Sam's voice was fearful and for what looked to be the ten thousandth time, Waymar Royce cursed the fact he was with such a cry-baby.
"You will change." Replied sinisterly the sorcerer. "If the Gods are merciful, mutations and the beastmen will kill you before the next year begins. If they aren't, you will join the ranks of the abominations, become a Spawn or bray for eternity in the Haunted Forrest."
Waymar recognised an ultimatum when there was one in front of him. He bit his lower lip...and then asked the dreadful question anyway.
"What can we do to escape this fate?"
"Forsake the Seven and devote yourself to one of the True Gods." The air grew heavier and a sort of...aura began to surround the Master of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. His voice took entirely different stones, whispers and thrilling encouragements arriving to their ears. "You will become like us...and enter a cycle of eternal war."