Chapter 25: What Sellswords Lack
Lelouch set down his far-eye, and frowned.
"Liomond Lashare deigns to show up at last with ten thousand spears a flag of parley," Ser Gerold said.
"He's been recruiting," Lelouch said. "Lashare wouldn't have left Myr without garrison and last I saw him he had just the eight thousand between the Battleborne and Jolly Fellows."
Gerold looked back to their still disembarking force. The Adere River narrowed to some eleven hundred feet when it bent east, away from the Gateway. It was room enough for thirty galleys to sail side-by-side, and still pivot, but only just.
"It will be some hours before we're ready to fight them," he said. "Let's see what he has to say."
Among the great lords that rode with them up the gently cresting hill were Ser Marthew Crakehall, Brynden Tully, Rodrik Cassel, Barristan Selmy, and a spattering of other knights and second sons. The truly great lords of the realm had not been with the first wave for fear that Maelys would already be here, lying in wait. Seven forbid he manage to seize a Targaryen, a Stark or an Arryn…
Gerold Hightower was likely the most valuable potential hostage present by virtue of his birth, yet he was kingsguard. White cloaks were meant to be stained red, so why not today should the gods will it?
The men they'd been left to work with then were an odd mix of competent and expendable lords.
Barristan the Bold's sword arm was a growing legend, having cut down ten and six hardened killers at Naqes so that Lord Baratheon could be rescued. Brynden Tully's great skill at outriding had saved the hosts when they danced with the Golden Company by four times engaging in fierce skirmish to keep the lines of communication open. Rodrick Cassel had bloodied his men greatly to break the stream of reinforcements which threatened to overwhelm Prince Aerys at Guardian Isle whilst the Yronwoods fought through to them.
Then there was Marthew Crakehall, the Great "Boar", and a cousin to Lord Sumner.
"Lord Velaryon," Marthew said as they rode, "I hear your lord father has not arranged a betrothal for you yet."
Brynden audibly sighed. Barristan shot him a look of sympathy. Rodrick found the windswept grass quite splendid, and Lelouch was certain they had the same grass in the north.
"Not for lack of trying," Lelouch said politely.
"I've a lovely sister back home, Amarei," Marthew said. "She's a sweet thing, nearly five and ten. Strong too, with hips that will bear many children. She'll have just flowered when we finish with Blackfyre too."
"You should point her out when we return. I'm sure her virtues are like the Maiden's," Lelouch said.
Marthew beamed at him and rode further ahead.
"How'd you manage that?" Brynden asked. "I haven't seen him stop pestering anyone so quickly since he was ordered onto the ship with us."
"The man's desperate to see his sister wed," Lelouch said, shrugging. "His strategy appears to be to cast as wide a net as possible. Show some interest, tell him you need time to consider it, and be on with your business."
Not that Lelouch could blame the Great Bore, even if he was going about it all wrong. Old Walder has been eyeing the Crakehall knight's sister since before the war, so Tywin had said, and Marthew had begged off giving answer to Lord Frey while he was off at war. The Crakehall knight couldn't hope for a better match than a lord, but that he cared enough to try and and snag someone closer to her age was commendable as far as Lelouch was concerned. If he could not find a match and soon, he'd have to accept House Frey's coming proposition or cause offense.
Or did Old Walder want Genna's hand for himself? Lelouch had not forgotten how the lecherous old man's eyes liked to wander at Duskendale.
Their party came to a pause some fifty feet from Lashare's. Two riders came forth from the sellswords.
"Ser Seafyre, ride with me," Gerold said, using his legs to urge his charger forward.
Lelouch did the same to keep pace with the White Bull in his white cloak on his white horse.
They like the color all too much, Lelouch thought, wrinkling his nose.
"You have the honor," began the one-eared man besides Lashare, a lieutenant of some sort, "of being in the presence of Captain-Magister Liomond Lashare, the Lord of Battles, the Master of Myr."
Lashare waved the man off, eyes glinting like hardened steel. "No need for formalities. We're all old acquaintances here, aren't we? My, how high you've risen little Seahorse." The sellsword almost sounded proud.
"You have the honor," Lelouch spat out, "of being before Ser Gerold Hightower, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, the White Bull, and Commander of the Host of All Westeros."
"Such vitriol," Lashare said, shaking his head. "I thought your lords were taught your courtesies while us sellswords were taught the killing?"
"We offer courtesy and killing both to each man as they are deserving," Gerold said.
"Ah, so it can be won?" Lashare said. "It's just a matter of killing the right person then."
"If you've nothing left to say, we'll be on our way," Gerold said.
"Let's not be hasty, Ser Gerold. We might still be friends before this is over," Lashare said.
"You serve Maelys Blackfyre," Lelouch said. "There can be no peace."
"I serve," Lashare said, tone correcting, "the one true king of Westeros."
"Who is that in your mind?" Gerold asked.
Lashare smiled and his teeth were all daggers. "Why, the one who pays me best of course! A man has to make a living, and I make mine selling my swords. It's in the name, you see."
"We could arrange to have gold delivered to your tent," Gerold said dryly.
"Bah!" Lashare said. "Pretty, shiny circles, but my… tastes, shall we say, have been elevated by the fine luxuries of Myr. I'm nobility now, don't you know?"
"Does one not need to be noble to be nobility?" Lelouch asked.
"Was it noble of your uncle to launch a coup against you?" Lashare tilted his head. "Was it noble of Adamm Velaryon to have a whore in every city?"
Lelouch gritted his teeth.
"What, pray tell, suits your tastes now?" Gerold asked.
"The same things your knights in bloodied steel and high lords on high mounts like," Lashare said. "Power and prizes."
"Blackfyre made you the king of a Free City," Lelouch said.
"Blackfyre," Lashare hissed, "made me nothing."
Lelouch blinked.
"I thought you served his cause," Gerold said.
Lashare laughed. "We were only ever allies of convenience. As he's so fond of saying, what does a sellsword lack? Loyalty. Haven't you noticed how I kept my men away, how my ships did not sail to Tyrosh's aid?"
Was that what he'd been up to all this time? "Then why should we trust you to stay loyal to the Targaryen cause?" Lelouch asked.
"You shouldn't," Lashare said candidly. "What you should trust is my self-interest. Blackfyre has no prizes left to offer me, but the Iron Throne does."
"Ser Gerold," Lelouch said, "you cannot seriously be considering—"
Gerold raised a hand and Lelouch quieted. "The Iron Throne cannot give you a lordship or be seen treating with a man who condones slavery."
"I don't need you to give me a lordship," Lashare said, tilting his head. "Just acknowledge me as the rightful ruler of Myr, and soon Tyrosh and Lys will follow if the rumors I've heard of Velaryon are true. Why, even the Sealord will have to acknowledge me after that. As for the slavery, let's be rid of it then. It's not my fortune under threat and I should like an excuse to humble the merchants once more."
"You'll release your prisoners of war?" Gerold asked.
"Every last one," Lashare promised.
"You'll throw your ten thousand men against Maelys?" Lelouch asked.
Their own host numbered fifty thousand once more after the reinforcements Lord Ormund had brought and the losses they'd suffered. Blackfyre was estimated to have some fifteen thousand men left, though to a man they were hardened veterans. As for the Volantene vanguard, their best guess stood at thirty thousand slave swords and sellswords.
If Blackfyre and the Volantenes united, the battle would be close. If Lashare joined his men to theirs, it wouldn't be.
"For the right price," Lashare said.
"Mastery of one Free City is not enough?" Gerold asked.
"It's not two Free Cities," Lashare said. "My services do not come cheaply now that I rule a city. If I join Maelys, suddenly, you'll find yourselves outnumbered instead of outnumbering."
"You just said he has nothing to offer you and that your services do not come cheaply. I cannot see you giving it to him for nothing," Gerold said.
"I'm no fool, Ser Hightower. Either we'll have made peace and sworn eternal friendship here, or you'll bring war to my footsteps when Maelys is dead. There is no neutral ground to be had anymore," Lashare said, breathing in deeply as he closed his eyes. "Can't you feel it in the air? The anticipation, the stirring of swords?" He opened his grey eyes with a tinge of the summer sky, like castle-forged steel beaten and blued. "This is it. This is the battle that decides your war. What comes after is cleanup."
"We will have to confer with our prince," Gerold said.
"Go, and confer all you like," Lashare said. "You have until Maelys arrives. Let's call it two days."
Gerold made to return back to their lines.
"I would have a moment with Ser Velaryon," Lashare said. "I'm sure he'd like to know of his uncle."
Gerold looked to Lelouch, and Lelouch nodded tersely.
"He's been treated well," Lashare said. "You have my word, for however little you lords value it."
"I'm glad," Lelouch said.
"Since the Night of the Myrmidons, I had always known you'd amount to something. Few are the men who could've navigated that perilous situation as well as you did," Lashare said. "But I never imagined you would rise to these heights. Now you are a commander of a host over ten times what you had in Myr, and knighted by a crown prince too. What friends in high places you've made for yourself."
"He values my counsel," Lelouch said.
"I'm glad," Lashare said. "For if I do not find the outcome of your talks favorable, your uncle will be treated less well."
Lelouch stiffened, then snarled. "Kill him then, and be done with it. I will not stand here just to be threatened."
"I know all about killing," Lashare said. "Killing is a mercy. Your uncle is too fine a navigator. It would be a great waste."
Lelouch blinked. "What?"
"I've made friends with a khal of the Dothraki recently, have you heard?" Lashare asked. "Khal Yaggo and his ten thousand screamers. You can't begin to imagine how hard it is keeping them happy to sit around for months. I'd thought to use them once, you know, but their price was too high."
"Is there a point to all this?" Lelouch asked.
"Your uncle's skill at reading the stars will serve him well in the Great Grass Sea and beyond," Lashare said, pointing to the Lake of Myrth. "I've men ready to deliver him to the khal, just across that lake."
"You'd… you'd make a slave of him?" Lelouch asked, failing to keep the dread out of his voice.
"Like I said, killing is a mercy," Lashare said. "Think on your words to the prince wisely."
"Sell my uncle," Lelouch said, shaking, seething, breath searing, "and your death will be the least of my revenge. I will unmake you from history until you are nothing more than a footnotes' footnote. Your achievements will be ash and wind."
Lashare smirked, and rode away heedless.
-ZeroRequiem-
"I ordered Ser Brynden Tully east earlier today," Gerold said to the assembled war council. "He has with him outriders on sand steeds and coursers, with skirmishers from the Ironborn for support by sea if needed. Five thousand men all in all to delay the Volantenes for as long as possible while we settle things at last."
It was a mistake, Lelouch thought.
"Will the Volantenes not make short work of such a small host?" asked Ser Moryn Tyrell, before biting into a Fossoway apple.
"We believe that the Volantene host must have marched at double time to cover so much ground in so short a time," Gerold answered. "Ser Brynden knows the signs of exhaustion, and will adjust as he sees fit."
Had Lashare already given Uncle Adamm to the khal for his threats?
"This leaves us with forty-five thousand men against Blackfyre's fifteen thousand," Hoster Tully said, leaning forward in his seat. "Twenty-five, if we count Lashare's men with him. An overwhelming numerical advantage, but will Blackfyre allow us to bring them to bear, or will he flee as he is wont to do?"
No, Lelouch thought. Lashare was smarter than that. To sell his uncle would rob him of his most useful threat, and ensure no peace could be made.
It would be a great betrayal for the Iron Throne to agree to peace after a hostage of their principal vassal was sold into slavery. Not just to House Velaryon, but to the very image of the Sacred Struggle. A matter like this we would not keep silent over.
"If he runs, we will turn east and join your brother," Jason Lannister said, standing and pointing to the map. "We'll smash the Volantenes aside, then what hope will Blackfyre have?"
"A fool's hope!" Baratheon said.
"The Volantenes could march around the lake if Blackfyre gets word to them somehow," Jon Arryn said.
"They'd run into Lashare's Dothraki pets," Lelouch said.
Gerold glanced at him. "The Volantenes are no friends to the Dothraki. Among the Free Cities, they alone offer these nomads death over the wreath."
"Then it must come to a battle at last," Baratheon said with a hawkish smile. "Only one question remains: Lashare's offer."
Could Uncle be rescued? Lelouch let himself think, hope, before his own voice quashed it. It had not worked when he'd tried it in Myr, when he might have claimed the element of surprise. The odds now were much worse.
There was no one he could send to negotiate with the khals either. Cici… no, it was different with the Tyroshi. They respected truce at least, and reputation. All the khals cared for was strength, and to them women had no strength.
Cici was not dosh khaleen.
"With one shake of the hand, we will have won," Lord Arryn said. "Such a disparity in numbers would let us batter down both the Volantenes and Blackfyre even had they been able to join together. Split apart, Lashare would tip the scales so heavily in our favor."
The assessment was sound, if not as certain as Arryn made it sound. Blackfyre might still eke out victory if Aerys was struck down at any point. Who would be left to rule Westeros but a man close to the grave and two wailing women?
Aerys cannot die, Lelouch thought.
As a chief adversary to Blackfyre's band, it would be disastrous. Lelouch's efforts over the past fourteen months would be all for naught. Worse, he'd have made a terrible enemy of the king if Blackfyre triumphed, and his work in Essos undone in a twinkling.
"We'd be making peace with our enemy," Tywin said. "What will men think of us if we do?"
"After we win, whatever we tell them to think. Dead men, on the other hand, have no choice in how they're thought of," said Roger Reyne, the Red Lion of Castamere.
"More allies would not be amiss," Hoster added.
"Lashare claims he is no friend of Blackfyre's," Gerold said. "That he purposefully held back his strength and let him flounder."
"Do you believe there's truth to his words?" Stark asked, setting his cup of mead on the table.
"It makes some sense, but I am undecided," Gerold said.
Aerys sat silently throughout it all, contemplating. He was the very visage of the wise king—and them as his counsellors—the story painters loved to make grand portraits of. Aerys will not die.
Servants came with platters of food. Wine was had. The moon started sinking, and the lords still seemed split evenly on the question of Lashare.
"Tyrosh was our enemy not that long ago," Arryn said, steepling his hands in front of him. "They were only brought to heel recently. What makes Lashare any different?"
"My lords," Baratheon said, crossing his arms, "we've argued this to death and still have not come to agreement. Indecision is the death of armies."
"It is House Targaryen's throne to defend," Gerold said, eyes sweeping the room before coming to a rest on Aerys. "We may advise and counsel and argue, but the choice, in the end, must be a Targaryen's. Prince Aerys must decide."
"Aye, let the prince decide," Stark said.
If the king doesn't lead, how can he expect his subordinates to follow?
"I've heard my lords speak their piece," Aerys said. "All save one that is."
Lelouch stilled.
"I'm curious, Ser Lelouch," Aerys continued. "You've kept your peace for so long that it is most unlike you. I cannot recall a war council before tonight where you only spoke once all throughout, and only to provide information instead of opinion."
"Think on your words to the prince wisely."
"Lashare has my uncle, Prince Aerys," Lelouch said. "He has threatened to sell Adamm Velaryon into slavery if I speak against him."
Baratheon scowled. "Perhaps we spoke too soon, calling Maelys the Monstrous, as if he was singular in that regard."
"Do you advise the prince towards peace then?" Jon Arryn asked.
"Peace for your uncle's life," Edgar Yronwood added with an innocuous smile.
Uncle Adamm's life… was it worth it, throwing away everything, even Aerys' cause? Lelouch thought.
Kiren's nails dug into his arm. "Swear it. Swear there will be no peace until this insult is answered in full."
Lelouch stood and he felt every gaze on him keenly. "When I came before King Jaehearys at court and asked him to give me leave to make war on our enemies in the Stepstones, I made a vow. Some of you were there that day. To you, I ask, do you remember my words?"
There were some shaking heads, while others remained still.
"That a Blackfyre remains alive today is a reminder of that ignoble past," Lelouch said. "That a Blackfyre might still strike at the heart of Westeros unforgivable. I will right these wrongs. There will be no more pretenders."
"May the Stranger deal with me ever so severely if I leave this work half-done," Lelouch vowed. "There will be no peace between me and those who wronged our family."
"My lords, I remember my vows," Lelouch continued. "I remember that Liomond Lashare, an upjumped sellsword with dreams of grandeur, sided with an enemy of House Targaryen. That he dared to defy the Iron Throne openly. I say to you now, if I remember all this, others surely will."
He turned to Roger Reyne. "After we win, men will think what they please and the minstrels will sing their songs. Would you have them sing of our victory, our won glories by steel striking steel? Or will they think of how Lashare won House Targaryen its throne?"
Lelouch pierced Jon Arryn with a look. "You say Tyrosh was our enemy not long ago. You ask what makes Lashare any different. I say he is different. Tyrosh may be made of merchants and coin counters, but even they know the worth of their word as bond. When Tyrosh made common cause with us, it was on our terms after a battle we'd won. Who is this sellsword that we now let him dictate terms to us, and yet has never had the courage to face us in battle?"
He set his sights on Hoster Tully. "More allies would be welcome, you say. At least the Tyroshi had the decency to die first. What does a sellsword know of loyalty or sacrifice or hard choice? What does he know of honor? All he has ever done is in service to himself." Lelouch snatched up his cup and downed the mead in it—then the cup smashed itself against the floor. "Better I take my life now than be known to have sided with that curr."
At last he looked to Lord Yronwood, whose son he'd humiliated not so long ago. "Peace for my uncle's life? I would not give Lashare the satisfaction if he offered me my uncle's life a hundred times over."
"I spit on Lashare's honor!" Lelouch snarled, more suited to an animal's maw than a lord who'd brokered peace once upon a time. "I spit on his peace!"
"Fire and blood!" Aerys shouted, jumping to his feet. "Fire and blood to our enemies!"
"Fire and blood! Fire and blood!"
"Ours if the fury!" boomed Lord Baratheon between the chanting lords, thumping fist on chest in that way all Baratheons did—in open defiance of the gods themselves.
More swords and axes and hammers were raised with every chant of "Death! Death to the Young Dragon's enemies!"
Lelouch howled, and all the hounds of war howled with him.