Wow, time, she does fly. It's been a crazy 6 months but I won't bore anyone with the details.
The Dreadwolf Chapter 3 - Dracarys
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There were few things worse than the Norvoshi heat in high summer. Hidden as they were among the rocky out cropping's on a hill overlooking a sun-bleached valley, Cregan was yet anxious with anticipation.
His men were weary, three weeks of hard traveling through the barren lowlands had left them on the brink. Two had already fallen. Their march had taken them away from the towns and villages that lined the road to the west. They scurried under the cover of darkness most nights but today was different.
Today presented an opportunity, they had set up camp on a hill and in the distance they could see a caravan of slavers and their goods making their way along the winding country road. Soon they would climb the hill and descend into the valley. Sooner still they would be ambushed by Cregan's band at the choke point at the top of the hill.
This was where they waited. Nervous, hungry, and sun-drenched, he peered over his shoulders, he saw sunken eyes and cracked lips. They were ill prepared, if desperation didn't give them away, the smell would. They had yet to come across a sufficient enough body of water to cure that particular ailment.
Now they waited. Doreah was with him, as was Levan. Toho and half the men were on the other side of the small road, hidden well.
It was an hour later before he could hear the crackling of hooves against the old, paved road. He could feel the anticipation around him. Slave caravans had guards; they needed to time this precisely. He peered around the boulder that hid him and gave a quick count. Four caravans, filled. Twelve guards, horsed. Eight traders at the reigns of the caravans.
As soon as they were in position Cregan gave the order and his dirty men spilled from the shadows. Makeshift slings made easy work of three of the guards before Cregan unhorsed a fourth and buried his blade in his chest. A horse reared and caved in the chest of one his men with a wet crack. Another had a chunk of his face bitten off before the beast was put down. These were war horses. These men were more than petty slavers it seemed. No matter, in a manner of moments they were all dead. The traders themselves offered little resistance when their protectors fell.
They surrendered easy enough and now sat huddled under the blades of two of his men, he ordered Siena to pick their supplies clean. The girl went to work and returned with casks of water and food enough to keep them fed for a fortnight. There were also barrels, enough to hold a river of highly flammable lamplighter. The lamplighter had its uses. Toho secured the horses.
He however, stood before the crude iron cage of one of the caravans. The people behind it wailed and begged and pleaded. They named him saviour and liberator. Spoke invocations and blessings in the hopes he would grant them freedom. He looked them over and felt nothing.
Doreah drew up by his side and placed a rusty key in his hand. She looked at him expectantly, but he did not react.
"How many?" He asked her.
"How many what?" She could tell by his tone there was more behind the question.
"How many mouths in these cages?" He asked again. Eyes focussed on the face of a young woman who sobbed as her face was pressed hard against the prickly crude iron by the other slaves as they scrambled to beg at him. She was bleeding now.
"Mouths?" She sounded shocked "Cregan, my love, these people need us, we cannot..."
"How many times do you think they were to be fed before arriving at their destination?" He asked.
She didn't answer but her face contorted in that way it did when she was about to be profoundly defiant of his worldly logic.
"Once" he said when it was clear she had no answer. "And in all likely hood that has already happened. The supplies we captured won't stretch for another thirty mouths."
"We can ration until we get closer to the Rhoyne, the lands there are more fertile you said, more game to catch."
"They can barely walk, Doreah." He said "It will take time for them to regain their strength, time and supplies we don't have. "
"I will not leave them to die" she said sternly.
"You will do as commanded" He bit back before softening immediately at her struck expression. The commander in him often spoke before the man.
She turned to walk away, as she tended to when they disagreed. It was not sightly to argue in front of the others. It weakened both of their positions. He reached a hand out and grabbed her arm.
"My lady" he began "You must see reason."
"This cannot be hidden behind reason" Her face showed rage, but her eyes, they never lied, they pleaded.
"We will not survive if we cannot make the hard decisions" Cregan almost yelled. The others kept a respectable distance. These conversations had become frequent.
"They cannot be so hard if you keep making the same choices" She shook her head and sighed. "I've spent my life in bondage, I would not see that fate visited upon anyone else. There are worst things than death."
There was a moment of silent eye contact between them before she made off to Siena and began to inspect the supplies.
He stared over at her. How could he make her see, how could she be so bold in defence of people she did not know. Why should she care for these slaves, they had no use. These were not her people.
He looked to Levan and the man walked over quickly. He had proven himself a capable second.
"You heard that" Cregan half asked.
"I did captain" He replied. He scratched the back of one of his large ears nervously.
"And?" The wolf asked forcefully
"We are one in voice and mind, captain. Your will stands above all, I do as commanded." Levan rushed.
"You are slave no longer; I will have you speak freely" This was growing irksome
"As you wish." Levan said under Cregan's ire "I do not care for these people. They will slow us. They will eat up our food and how can we be sure to trust them. Any of them could kill us in our sleep."
"You feel no compassion for them? A fortnight ago they would have been your fellow slaves."
"A fellow slave killed my mother over a trinket" he replied sharply with a dark look in his green eyes.
Cregan pondered for a moment.
"Come, I want to know where these slaves were to be traded" He said and gestured to the bound traders.
Together they walked over to the prone forms of the traders. They had been bound in thick rope, one of them, a man with sandy hair and what appeared to be a broken jaw, slumped loosely as he bled through his mouth and ears. He was not long for this world.
Levan booted the fatter of the trio to get his attention. The man squinted his brown eyes against the sunlight as he looked up.
"What is your destination?" Levan asked and bent down to stare in the man's eyes.
"We are for Nar Sem" One of the traders said.
"A town?" Cregan asked pondering.
"It's not a town not really." The trader added "It's a market, where we sell, trade, I meant trade, our goods. Its empty most of the time but every few months they have a great big grand market."
"A market for what exactly?" The wolf menaced down at him.
"Everything" the man spurted out "Livestock, and linen, whores, whatever the master desires. We are to trade the slaves..people, the people, and the lamplighter"
Cregan looked back at his people. They'd had a hard go of it since leaving the manse. They'd burnt the place to ground and taken what food and provisions they could. The painted ladies, singers and servants of the guests they'd slaughtered were given the choice to follow them out or burn with the building. They chose to follow. The ladies followed Doreah, her protective nature making her a leader of sorts alongside him.
Their numbers were small, but Doreah had used them to sway many of the men into sympathetic allies. He always pitied men who were so easily swayed by the trappings of the flesh. That being said, most of these men were slaves two moon turns ago. They were not so wise to the ways of the world.
"How far away is this market town?" Cregan asked
"A days ride south. You can't miss it, there will be scores of caravans on the south road" the trader shifted nervously "I..I can guide you. I can show the way, for my freedom, master, if it please you" He begged
"Caravans heading south" Levan pondered "They'd be coming directly from Norvos. No doubt they'd have heard about our escape."
"Yes, but it does present an opportunity, we are starved on this path. All of those caravans, full with food and water. We'd only need one to keep us fed to the Rhoyne." Ren said with Toho next to him. They had approached silently to eaves drop, and it was not just them it seemed.
"Weapons and armour also" Someone else added. "And horses"
"Fancy yourself a bandit now do you" Another retorted.
"With Horses we can get to the Rhoyne in two days, my father was a boat maker on Dagger Lake. We can find shelter there."
"Enough" Cregan barked out. "We killed a black priest. The goat god holds close to his followers. The Order will have the hills swarming with swords poised at our necks. We will continue on as planned."
"We will starve" Another added.
"Kill the horses, their meat will suffice" Leven added.
"And them?" Sienna said and pointed to the mewling slaves caged up on the caravan. Doreah next to her looked on heatedly awaiting his response.
Toho intervened "They are meat" he spat "Like the horses. Weak slaves. "
He barked out a gruff laugh that shook his great frame "The Wolf cares what sheep think? The Wolf leads, sheep follow. Sheep follow or sheep die. Wolf strong or Wolf die." He spoke in his harsh Dothraki tongue.
Just then there was murmuring under the dying din of the slaves who cried for freedom. Many had gone silent, listening in to hear words that spoke to their release. A man could be heard, faintly, he yelled in a gravelly roar, strained as it rattled about the mess of bodies around it.
"Qoy ki tih qoy" he heard from the cage "Qoy ki tih qoy" again it came. It was Dothraki, coarse and hard and tired. Toho was upon the voice immediately, almost ripping the iron gate off its hinges before Cregan handed him the key with a stern eye. The former Blood Rider nodded in understanding and opened the cage slowly. A heave of bodies poured out, Cregan's drawn sword held any thoughts of freedom at bay. He ignored their pleading.
When Toho reached the back of the now empty caravan there was a Dothraki man sat up against the far side. He was missing most of his right leg and the left had festered with a blistered wound that seeped pus into a rancid pool beneath him.
It was probably the sewage that lined the floor of the cage that infected his wound. The man had his braids cut and was as pale as a Dothraki could be. His lips cracked and bleeding, eyes yellowed and half closed. He was not long for the world. Meat, Toho had said.
"Qoy ki tih qoy!" Toho yelled. He knelt and cradled the man's head
"Blood of my blood" Cregan whispered to those around him
The man began again, growing weaker as he spoke. "The little ones" he said "They have the littles ones. They are the Khalisar" He raised a hand and grabbed at Toho's massive bicep "protect the Khalisar, blood of my blood" Cregan interpreted as best he could. What was said next he did not translate, they were personal words, questions with answers that broke his Dothraki friend at his core.
He looked on at the steel that grew behind the hulking man's eyes and Cregan knew he was a at a crossroads. He wanted to move on, damn the slaves, damn the village. Get to the Rhoyne and Pentos from there. He could go alone. Leave them to play at being heroes. Let the reality relieve them of their delusions and probably their heads in the process. But yet that thought gave him pause. These were not his people, yet… Yet, "The Children" The Dothraki man had said.
He closed his eyes and his head was filled with a cacophony of noises. The world still burnt around him, he could feel the heat against his skin. He heard his mother's voice, singing, screaming. The old manse by the lake, the songbirds, the choking fumes. The arrow in his thigh. The blacksmiths daughter, the smell of roses that hung about her. The red of her lips. The bulge in her belly. How his heart thumped at the sight. The sword through her gut. "Save us" she begged.
He withdrew defensively when Doreah's hand landed gently on his arm. His eyes were frantic and she looked concerned but he softened at her worried look. Taking her calloused hand into his own he kissed it gently.
"You have designs on this village?" He asked
"Yes" She answered with strength behind the word. "They have children, my love. You've felt the lash of the whipman more than most. How can we leave anyone to such a fate."
"Some of your people will die" He said and looked deep into her eyes so she would understand. "Can you deliver them to such a fate?"
"They can choose not to come"
"Can they really, Doreah?" Another question.
"I hold no leash, Cregan. We chose our fate when we helped you kill our masters"
"No, they chose freedom." He peered over her slender tan shoulder at the smattering of dirty men and women of their group as they looked on at Toho and his kinsman. "This crusade of yours to free every slave could see them back in chains at best and nailed to a stake at worst."
"My crusade?" She asked and looked up at him with questioning ire. As if he were a stranger to her in that moment. "Your words at the manse… I had thought we were of common cause in this. We stood for freedom, breaking the chains that bind us all."
He held up his hands. "And our chains are gone. We are slaves no longer. The world is not ours to save"
"It's not about saving the world, my love." She cupped his cheek and looked at him with something akin to pity "It's about an ideal, that no one should suffer as we did, and that anyone who would so chain us will all burn."
He could feel her hand on his face. The heat, the fire. He was there again, a thousand leagues away in an instant. "Save us" She had begged those years ago.
"Ready the pyre then" he said in a whisper.
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He had given them a choice, all of them. The slaves in the cages and those he had liberated from the manse on the hill. "Serve me in this" he said, "Or be named coward and cast from my sight" Life or death, in the end it was always life or death. He could not let any of them leave his camp. What if they were captured, if they survived that long it would be a miracle, but he was not willing to have his escape route sold for a cup of water.
Now here he stood. He was shrouded in an all-encompassing cloak that trailed slightly through the fine dirt beneath his feet. Flanking him were his most trusted with a few more for good measure taking different routes through the small market village. The place was truly alive, lanterns hung above its tight alleyways casting dim white light down on hundreds of vendors as they milled about hacking their wares to whomever stumbled into view.
The crowds parted before them as they approached the main attraction. A large stage with dozens of slaves lined up for inspection. They were mostly children. Half-starved and shivering from the cold water that was being thrown from an old bucket all over them. They were from all over Essos, dark Summer Islanders, copper Dothraki, and pale Lysini. The war in the south was proving most profitable.
Behind them were a line of men, adorned from neck to blistered in ankle in heavy, shining iron. They were of a more uniform nature. Towering men with long limbs, coal black hair and eyes just as black. The slight tan of their skin told Cregan that these men were Sarnori, from the dying city of Saath. How brazen, he thought. It had been generations since anyone made contact with the proud and quarrelsome descendants of Huzhor Amai. They had ruled half of Essos for nearly two millennia before the Dothraki burnt their civilization into a hazy memory.
Saath was all that remained, less than twenty thousand people desperately holding on to a long faded dream. Braavos had declared them to be left alone. How things had changed since his incarceration. What intrigue had he missed, how could the iron leash of the Braavosi have loosened so much as to allow a centuries long compact to be betrayed. He cast the question from his mind to focus on other things.
There were sixty people on that stage. Half of them were warriors. He needed warriors. The children had their uses.
He made a move to back of the crowd as it surged towards the stage when a fat old man stepped up and began to stir them with words of an auction to come on the morrow.
"There's a small army here" Levan said under his deep hood. "We're better off leaving this place before we're discovered."
The others clung to walls in an ally with a short bridge passing between the ramshackle shops around them. The moon hung high now, eery blue played tones with the oranges and reds of the lanterns that crisscrossed above their heads.
"We are committed" The Wolf said. "But mayhap tonight is not our night."
"Tonight is the only night" Doreah replied "I fear they will make quick sell of these people. This is our only chance."
"All the better then. We've freed thirty and some this morning alone. Best not press our luck" Levan said. He was on edge.
Cregan walked over to a cart missing its two front wheels and dug a hand into its contents. He cast a look to his compatriots with a devious grin.
"Sun dried" he said, removing the hand now covered in brittle, sandy manure.
"There are dozens littered through the town" Doreah added under her hood.
"It's cow shit" Ren said.
"Yes" Levan replied "And unless we're going to force it down their guards throats I don't see the significance "
"Everything has its uses boys" Cregan added as he turned to face them "All you need is a creative spark"
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Some hours later when the noise had died down and the people that swarmed the town like so many flies had retreated to the company of whores and cheap wine, Creagn and his few stood at the ready at designated posts.
He had kept a close eye on where the slaves were kept while their masters, old and new, slept. A few guards wandered the dirt roads that crossed the town. Their slow, deliberate gait spoke well of their tiredness. In truth it was not long to sunrise. They would only have one chance at this, and the Wolf needed to succeed.
Lurking as he was outside the doors of a brothel pretending to be an inn, he took in the cool night breeze and watched Levan and Toho heave a cart of dried manure mixed with lamp lighter in front of the door. The torch in his hand cast him in wicked shadow against the worn brown of the buildings behind him. He had sent Levan to retrieve the lamp lighter, It would serve its purpose.
A moment later he cast his torch into the mess in front of him, it went up like kindling. The smell was as powerful as the heat when the flames cascaded high into the sky. It stung at his nose and drew tears from him eyes. With a mighty shove they turned the inferno over onto the wooden inn and watched as the fire rode the air like a wave and slammed into the door before climbing through the seams and into the building itself.
Soon the night sky was aflame as his agents across the small town set it alight. In his youth his father taught him how the people of the Rhoyne would make a special type of fire from a concoction that was most parts pig shit. They would pump it from hoses fitted to their sail ships. They called it nightfire, but its secrets were lost with the decline of Rhoyne culture.
Now, the inn before him burned well, but it would an overstatement to name its flickering, hungry orange garb as akin to nightfire. All the same, it served its purpose. They had poured the lamp lighter all around the major buildings of the town.
The streets were quickly filled with men and women in a panic. Guards raced around in a frenzy unsure of whether to attempt to put out the fires or try to and catch those who leapt from the high windows of the inns and brothels. The stable at the far end went up in a black plume as the gates were flung open and dozens of flaming horses tore through the town centre, smashing into buildings and people alike adding even more carnage.
Cregan threw his hood up and made for the only building that didn't blaze a hearty orange, the slave pen.
He glided through the onrushing crowds, a wraith in his all-consuming cloak. A woman jumped from the roof of a burning building and landed at his feet in a thump. She did not fall far enough to be outright killed by the impact, but it made a sorry mess of her all the same. The dozen or so guards that ran over her left little for the carrion.
As he approached the crooked, sand worn building he saw Toho and Levan pull out from the alleyways that ran on both sides of the pen. Doreah and Ren had taken a few men to secure as much food as they could under the distraction and then find a route out of the village.
Five burly men stood at the front door to the building. Each brandished gleaming steel on their hips and for all the commotion, everyone, soldier and merchant alike gave them wide berth as they scurried to escape or put out the ever growing flames.
These men were trained and trained well, Cregan could always tell. He could see it in their stance, the way their eyes scanned their surroundings, the subtle distance between their hands and their swords. Close enough to draw at a moment's notice but far enough away to fool the uneducated as to their readiness.
Now they stood across from each other. These men knew instinctively that there would be battle. They drew closer together and the one at their middle spoke above the carnage around them.
"Let's be havin' you then" He said and levelled his blade in Cregan's direction.
"Lads" The Wolf said "You heard the man."
He approached with quick strides and flashed his blade across the face of their leader. A screeching ring and orange sparks raced out from where the swords met. The man was quick and countered with a with a flurry of rapid hacks at the Wolfs guard. Cregan was nimble enough to strafe around the man and deflect his blows to create a favourable angle. He saw the great form of Toho race ahead with a yell as he brought his sword down on the shoulder of one of the guards while another tried to flank him.
He was brought back to his own fight when he had to duck and roll under a sweeping slash from behind him. He came up quickly and leaned back as far as he could to avoid the follow up from the other attacker. Seizing some initiative, he countered with a stab to the man's midsection before pulling his sword away and burying into the man's throat.
The lead guard didn't spare a moment to and was on Cregan in an instant. He swung wildly with lunging steps that added brutal force to his attack. The Wolf was forced into a measured retreat as his sword arm grew numb from the force of the blows that rained down on him.
Sensing his opponent tire, he gambled on ducking under a slash aimed at his head and ran the edge of his sword across the man's midsection, leaving a shallow red line where he cut the guard. He drew back with a grunt of pain as blood spilled down his legs. Cregan pressed his advantage and hacked into his enemies' shoulder when he was too slow to parry his blade. The man's head was rolling on the floor a moment later. Surprise etched into his dark eyes as they stared on into the infinite night.
Toho and Levan had handled the other three guards in equally gruesome fashion. Their bodies lined the floor, spilling crimson onto the golden sand beneath them. Levan hobbled slightly from a gash on his left leg as they advanced through the door of the slave pen. They raced through the building and into a large room at its rear.
The smell was horrendous. Men and children lined the walls. Each of them chained to the wall with Smokey black iron. Sixty in total. Most were decently fed and seemed pox free. He supposed that kept their value some.
"Keys?" Levan yelled.
"The room, there, over there" One of the children shouted and gestured with his head towards a door to the side of the pen.
Toho searched the faces franticly. The children his kinsman spoke of were his sole purpose in being here, Cregan could tell. When he found them, he began to speak in hurried Dothraki. A weight seemingly left his shoulders when he confirmed their safety.
"Levan!" Toho yelled "Keys!"
"I've got em, I've got em" Levan yelled out and limped back into the room with a series of cast iron key chains in his hands.
He passed them on to Cregan who began to free the many slaves. It took longer than he would have hoped to get them all free but the screaming outside only grew louder, signalling that the fires had begun to spread even faster. Smoke filled the pen in hazy whisps of stinging grey that hung heavy in their throats.
"Quickly, to the door!" He yelled and led the column out of the building. The site that greeted them upon exiting was one of grim satisfaction. In all directions men woman and beast alike fled the village as it burned under the night sky.
A great mare ran in their direction and garbed in a coat of flames with a wicked wail that cut into the air around them. Two of the children, a boy, and a girl, panicked and ran into the village proper, no sooner did the façade of what was once a storehouse crumble down on top of them.
Cregan grit his teeth and turned from the scene with stony resolve. The Sarnori men had followed them out but did not seem overly interested with following further. So he pointed to a hill off in the distance.
"I have people there" Cregan said "Food and water. Freedom. Come with me now for I will not make this offer again."
They looked uncertain, defiant almost. Then one stepped forward, his gait long and languid to match his lithe frame. The man nodded slowly and urged his brothers forward. They complied quickly and began to edge in the Wolf's direction. A little girl screamed as another building cracked loudly in the background.
"The children" Levan said "Each of you grab a child. We must keep them safe."
Cregan nodded approvingly at his sworn man and grabbed the hand of the nearest child and hefted him onto his strong shoulder. Toho carried the two Dothraki children and began at pace towards their meeting place.
It was a small miracle no one took note of dozens of escaped slaves. Then again, they had more pressing concerns, the fires engulfed the entire town now. Maybe they did their job too well. This place would not survive the night. He had been kind enough to target the storehouses which he knew from experience would contain all manner of very flammable liquids alongside dry and brittle haystacks.
As they escaped out into the sandy outlands Cregan spared a look behind him. Someone would have seen something, and they will talk. Sooner or later those words would reach the ear of someone with sense enough to link this with the murder of the bearded priest.
If they didn't have his scent before they would have it now.
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A shorter chapter than expected but this is more of a primer for whats to come. The next chapter will be the last in what I call the freedom arc before I move into more exciting GOT-related story lines.
