The Worth of Ash
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Game of Thrones or any related titles, characters, plots, settings, etc. These rights are the sole property of George R.R Martin, HBO, and their various publishers and distributors. I own only the original elements of this story, the writing and publishing of which earn me no money.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kyren leaned out over the railing of the pole-boat, staring at the passing water while Sotam nuzzled her back. She patted him absently, but did not alter her gaze. The air was thick with humidity from the river, but the breeze created by their rather impressive speed kept the atmosphere on the deck from stagnating. The dark blue-grey of the water, lightened occasionally by a shallowly-drowned sandbank, was mesmerizing. Kyren could gladly spend the entirety of her southward voyage on the deck of the pole-boat.
Ordes and Gyll had been correct when they told her how easily-found pole-boats were once she passed the ruins of Ghoyan Drohe. In all reality, Kyren had fielded several offers to ferry her downriver, even with the added stipulation that Sotam accompany her. While she was still consumed by sorting through the heavily-accented offers being shouted out around her, a lone female figure had emerged from the crowd. Her long hair was such a deep shade of red that it nearly appeared purple in the bright sunlight. It was such a blatantly false color that the woman immediately earned a measure of respect from Kyren, a measure which only grew as she threatened the group as a whole. Her threats were violent in the extreme and vivid enough that Kyren found herself attempting to memorize them for use later - and they worked. The crowd cleared enough for Kyren to have a measure of peace to hear out the female captain.
She had introduced herself as Captain Zhandah Uknaari, but urged Kyren to call her Captain Zha. She smile broadly and appeared as friendly as she had threatening only a few moments before. Kyren was impressed despite herself and signed on to travel with Captain Zha as soon as the latter agreed to transport Sotam as well.
Kyren was pulled abruptly from her reverie when a hand clapped her on the back. She turned to find Captain Zha, hair pulled into a serviceable braid that was a direct match to Kyren's own. The woman grinned broadly. "Did I catch you unawares?"
Smiling in answer, Kyren moved a bit further down the deck. Sotam was eyeing the captain with the malevolence he took on only when he was preparing to nip someone. "Perhaps a bit. When do we aim to pass the Sorrows?"
Captain Zha surveyed the far bank of the Rhoyne with a practiced eye. "I expect we'll arrive in the Sorrows mid-morning tomorrow. It is good luck, that. There is no worse thing than to pass under the Bridge of Dream under cover of darkness."
"Would that not aid us in avoiding the stone men?" Kyren asked, curious about the disease so uncommon in Westeros.
"Unfortunately, it is not so," Captain Zha told her, raking purple hair away from her face. "The men in the later stages of the disease are unpredictable, easily-provoked. If they so much as hear a sound in the water, the will jump toward our boat. The light only means we have a hope of seeing any particularly determined individuals."
Kyren nodded, lost in thought. One of the other cabins on the small pole-boat was occupied by a couple who had been traveling the Flatlands before their progress had been halted by an oddly-active period of khalasar raids. Privately, Kyren believed that she would rather have faced any number of Dothraki warriors than attempt to do battle on a boat with a man infected with greyscale, but many disagreed.
"Fear not, Alis Waters," Captain Zha assured firmly. "If you recall, I have ways of keeping my boat safe."
Kyren indeed knew of Captain Zha's precautions; they had been one of the major reasons she had chosen to travel with the woman rather than any other pole-boat captain. This particular boat had been outfitted with two large sheets of hammered brass, set on hinges which allowed them to be flipped up and over the small deck. They rested against each other at the top edge, turning the flat surface of the deck - Sotam's current space - into a steeply-angled surface. Any stone men looking to board the boat would either slip off immediately or do so by choice when they lost interest in the unreachable crew.
"When do you intend to deploy your solution?"
Captain Zha shrugged. "There is little chance of stone men raining from the sky until we reach the Bridge of Dream. There are dangers in using the sheets as well. Steering becomes a difficult thing and we cannot raise or lower the sails without placing one or more crew members in jeopardy. When we reach the outer sections of the Sorrows, we will put the sheets in place, no sooner."
True to the captain's predictions, the pole-boat became surrounded by vines, fog, and crumbling stone by sunrise the next morning. The meager light that penetrated the gloom was hardly enough to see, and it was only thanks to the skill of Captain Zha's two deckhands that they did not collide with one of the riverbanks.
After some hours of careful maneuvering, Captain Zha barked out, "Men, raise the sheets!" The deckhands scurried to obey, and the captain turned to Kyren solicitously. "You may wish to return to your cabin, Alis. This section of our journey is not for the faint of heart."
The captain walked away to deliver a similar message to the other passengers, but Kyren remained where she was. If there was danger, it would only help for her to be on deck with Sotam. Any strange noises could make the horse react with alarm, and those noises could in return attract attention from the stone men.
And so Kyren remained on the deck, stroking Sotam's muzzle comfortingly as the two sheets of hammered bronze rose high overhead, lifting further and further before being lowered gingerly together. The deck was shrouded in utter darkness, every noise below causing an odd echo.
Kyren had made herself comfortable some time ago when she heard Captain Zha whisper, "We are about to pass under the bridge."
This declaration was met with two soft 'ayes' from the deckhands and Kyren realized with a start that she was the only passenger who had chosen to remain on deck. The sheets fit so well against each other than Kyren could not even begin to see out, until she found a small uncovered section at the very bow of the pole-boat. It was the size of a single gold dragon, and she was forced to press her eye against it in an attempt to see anything at all.
Between the tendrils of fog floating just above the surface of the water, Kyren caught snatches of a large bridge soaring overhead. The pale, graceful marble archways which made up the supports were largely overgrown with a thick grayish moss, and several of them appeared to have come splashing down some time ago. The Bridge of Dream rose from the chillingly pale water, higher and higher until it dominated her small view.
Seized with a sudden surge of foreboding, Kyren scrambled to her feet and crossed back to Sotam as quickly as she could while remaining utterly silent. Even so, her fingers had just made contact with the warm velvet of his neck when a heavy thud! reverberated across the covered darkness of deck. Kyren shuddered at the realization that one of the stone men had attempted to board the pole-boat and had only been prevented from doing so by Captain Zha's clever solution.
In the interminable time required for them to pass under the Bridge of Dream, several more deafening clatters came. Each one made Sotam twitch as violently as Kyren herself, though both were careful not to make a single sound.
When some time had lapsed without any impact, Kyren relaxed slightly and returned to gently patting Sotam. She expected that they had passed the Bridge of Dream and that the sheets would be pulled back at any moment. To her surprise, however, the deckhands began a quiet conversation. They seemed to be standing on the far side of the pole-boat, but she could hear every word in the echoes.
"'Bout past the Sorrows, I expect."
"Aye. Not too long before we reach Volantis."
"Ease yourself. We still have to make the stop."
The second man groaned. "I forgot. I suppose we will move faster afterward, though."
"With a bit of gold, besides," the first man agreed.
Kyren shivered. The sensation of crawling that traveled up and down her spine warned that there was danger here, that this was a conversation she was not to have overheard. With a swiftness and silence that impressed even herself, Kyren hurried across the deck and slipped into the safety of the cabin she shared with another of the passengers.
Eyva Hutter, a strikingly pretty Westerosi girl, glanced up from her tightly-clasped hands and offered the ghost of a smile. "Have we passed it yet?" she whispered.
Kyren nodded, but could not fault the other female for her worry. She crossed to her hammock and settled gingerly across it. Eyva, still pale under her permanent tan, turned to face her. "I heard the sounds. Do you think any are still aboard?"
"No, I do not believe so," Kyren denied. "It sounded as if they all slid off directly."
Eyva relaxed instantly and Kyren marveled at the girl's trusting nature. She had confided in Kyren the moment they had first closed the door to their shared cabin, revealing that she had been born to and raised by a Westerosi mother while her Essosian father remained in his home country. When Eyva's mother had passed away earlier in the year, the fair-haired girl had decided to search for her father in his home city of Valysar.
It had taken a few days for her next bit of trust: Eyva had shyly asked how Kyren kept her arms so trim. Kyren explained about her training with the staff - thinking that her prowess with a sword and throwing daggers would be best left unmentioned - and obliged when Eyva had asked to be taught a few moves. To the shock of both girls, Eyva had proven a remarkable talent, and Kyren had taught her nearly everything she knew over the course of their brief voyage.
With the safety of the younger girl in mind, Kyren turned to her and spoke lowly, "I believe we may be running into some trouble soon, Eyva, and I wish for you to be ready."
Eyva's face fell into an expression of distress before she carefully smoothed it into one of calm preparedness. "What would you wish me to do?"
Kyren sighed, raking a hand through her dark red hair. "I am uncertain. I do not know what form this trouble may take. All I can advise is that you remain on guard and watch for any suspicious behaviors on part of the crew."
"Should I alert Roghis and Jara?"
She considered that for a long moment. Roghis na Oshir and his wife Jara had been traveling from Pentos to Tyrosh when they were interrupted by an odd movement of khalasars in the Flatlands. She finally shook her head. "They seem nice enough, but neither is trained in any sort of combat."
She knew this for a fact. She had boarded the pole-boat and immediately singled out Roghis as the best potential to learn another form of combat. He towered over her and the rest of the crew, and his muscular arms were nearly as big as Kyren's head. However, he claimed to know nothing of fighting and professed himself to be something of a pacifist except in cases of self-defense. His wife, Jara, had agreed with this, claiming that her own talents lie elsewhere.
"Daris, then?"
Kyren stared at Eyva for a long moment before both females burst into belly-shaking laughter. Daris Lash was a mild-mannered historian who had accompanied them down the Rhoyne in order to pursue his studies of ancient Valyria. It was a fascinating subject, Kyren readily admitted, but Daris was well-known for cornering the other passengers at mealtimes in order to speak at length of mundane details. The man even wore a sliver of stone attached to a chain round his throat, a chunk of rock from a Valyrian temple. He seemed to believe that it would bring him luck. He would need luck, Kyren reflected grimly, if they were indeed to enter a dangerous situation. Daris was so unfit for combat that the mere suggestion was comical.
"It would appear," Kyren said, wiping a tear of mirth from the corner of one eye, "that you and I are the only ones capable of withstanding some sort of attack."
"You more than I," Eyva disputed with a grin. "I only wave the staff about and hope I hit something."
"I believe that still makes you more dangerous than Daris Lash."
It was in the small hours of the next morning that Kyren woke abruptly, blinking dazedly in the darkness of the cabin. In the few moments required for her to wake fully, she became aware that the pole-boat had stopped all forward motion, yet she could not remember a sudden halt. Coming to the conclusion that they must have made their unplanned stop, Kyren woke Eyva with a hand across the girl's mouth - suitably impressed when Eyva woke and raked her nails down Kyren's arm immediately in defense before she realized who Kyren was - and motioned that they should leave the cabin.
Kyren's staff was strapped across her back and her corset hugged her waist as they crept from the windowless room while Eyva had no weapon, but it did not matter. They were greeted by a number of unfamiliar men, dragged to the main deck of the pole-boat, and forced to their knees. The men had lit several lanterns to illuminate the dark area and brought them close to the faces of both females. Thus blinded, Kyren had been rapidly stripped of her weapon, though she managed to watch surreptitiously as it was leaned against a nearby wall.
There were five strange men aboard the pole-boat, and they remained with Kyren and Eyva as the two deckhands went to rouse the other passengers.
"Well?" Captain Zha asked, emerging from her own cabin. "Did I not promise you the best? These two are Westerosi, and I have a Westerosi male. There is also a Ghiscari couple. The male is large, a good candidate for the fighting pits."
"Bah!" the lead slaver jeered. "Could you not have found better specimens? The one with the yellow hair is pretty enough, but this one?" He jerked his hand at Kyren and shook his head despairingly. "You know they always fetch more when they are pretty."
Captain Zha was unconcerned, moving behind Kyren to undo her braid. "The moment your buyers see this skin and hair, they will care for nothing else. It captures the attention. It did mine."
After fanning Kyren's hair out and around her shoulders, Captain Zha circled back to stand before the group, shooting Kyren a roguish grin as she did so. Daris was kicked viciously to kneel beside her and Kyren was seized with a sudden fury too intense to be borne. She spat out, "How could you do this? Sell people? Have you no soul, no honor?"
"Honor, no, but I do have a soul and it thirsts for gold," Captain Zha quipped before returning her gaze to the slaver and adopting a more businesslike tone. "You do not make deals with me only because I offer superior product, but because I allow you to purchase from me while remaining unaccosted by that white-haired bitch. Unless you would prefer to battle a dragon to sell your slaves?"
The slaver grumbled, but before he could reply, one of the deckhands returned, red-faced and winded. "Captain, we need you. Roghis does not wish to join us."
Captain Zha grinned victoriously. "As I said, an excellent candidate for the fighting pits. Do you care to see if your men can handle him?"
With a gesture from the slaver, three men accompanied the captain as they moved toward the commotion taking place in and outside of the cabin shared by Roghis and Jara. The remaining head slaver and his eccentrically-dressed first mate surveyed Kyren, Eyva, and Daris.
"The middle Westerosi is familiar," the head slaver said slowly, indicating Kyren.
"I believe that several parties in Westeros are searching for her, Captain," his first mate said. "If so, she would fetch a price far prettier than that face."
The slaver snorted appreciatively, but his expression quickly turned to a snarl as he whipped around to glare at Sotam. "Damn that creature! It bit me again! Hand over my sword. I shan't give it another chance to do the same."
"Now, Eyva!" Kyren hissed under her breath, and while the crew and the slavers were fully occupied, they rose to their feet, tugging Daris along with them. Silently, Kyren retrieved and handed the staff to Eyva, giving her an encouraging nod when she faltered.
Unsheathing a dagger from her corset, Kyren crept up behind the head slaver, flanked by Eyva, who stood behind the first mate. Daris, shifting nervously and wringing his hands, stood between them and the rest of the crew at Roghis's door. With a gesture, Kyren counted down until they moved to attack, and she reached between the slaver's sword and his torso to stab him swiftly in the heart, slicing along the line between his ribs to inflict as much damage as possible.
As he clapped a hand to his chest, turning to gape at her, Kyren pressed a hand over his mouth and wrestled his body over the side of the pole-boat. Eyva, who had appeared to nearly collapse the skull of the first mate with the force of her staff strikes, did the same beside her. Kyren helped her lift the man's body overboard, attempting to minimize the splash.
"Hurry!" Daris shouted, and Kyren could not remember if there had been words exchanged between them before that moment. She turned to find that they had attracted the attention of the remaining crews. Two of the remaining slavers and one of the deckhands raced over to them, weapons drawn. Daris side-stepped the first few, but ducked an attack by one of the slavers, coming up once more to firmly embed his sliver of Valyrian temple stone in the neck of the man before stealing his sword to slice it free once more.
Impressed despite herself, Kyren turned to fight the slaver before her, but he proved quite proficient with a sword and she was armed only with a dagger. In the flashes of background she caught past him, Kyren watched as Captain Zha approached, sword unsheathed. The woman was distracted, however, when Roghis emerged from his cabin with an unholy roar and broke the deckhand's neck with a motion so decisive that he was almost decapitated completely.
Fending off the slaver's sword with her stronger right hand, Kyren reached into her corset with her left, pulled a dagger free, and launched it at the man. He batted it out of the air with his blade, but the motion cost him dearly: he had left himself unguarded, and Kyren sank another dagger deep into his eye. As he howled in anguish, she took a cue from Daris and confiscated the man's sword before using it to slice his throat.
"Alis!"
The cry rang out, and through her haze of adrenaline, Kyren knew only that the name should sound familiar, but a long moment passed before she remembered it as her assumed name and turned to respond. She was greeted immediately by the sight of Eyva's throat opening beneath her chin. The girl's pale eyes were wide and terrified, the light in them fading even as she was unceremoniously thrown overboard.
A strangled cry of rage clawed its way free of Kyren's throat and she threw every dagger remaining in her corset with deadly precision, ending the deckhand's life in the most painful way she could fathom with the tools she had.
When his body finally slumped to the deck, Kyren whipped around to find another outlet for her fury, but found her way blocked by Roghis. His heavily-muscled arms tensed as he set gentle hands on her shoulders.
"Be at ease," he said soothingly. "The fight has ended."
"Eyva…"
"There is nothing more you can do for her. Come, breathe with me."
Feeling as though she were wrapped in cotton, Kyren inhaled and exhaled as Roghis did. A sense of calm did indeed settle over her, though it seemed false. With a stamp of Sotam's hooves on the deck, Kyren moved to stroke the animal's muzzle, but pulled away as she saw the blood that coated her hands.
"Go on, girl," Roghis encouraged behind her. "A horse cares little if you've blood on your hands, and the company will help you both."
Kyren choked out a laugh. That was a fair summary of her entire camaraderie with Sotam. When her red-stained hands had stopped shaking, she turned back to Roghis. "What happened to Captain Zha?"
Roghis gestured over his shoulder. "She is in front of Daris's cabin."
Hoping viciously to see a scene of death and pain, Kyren was stunned to find Captain Zha on her knees with Jara behind her, pressing a knife to her throat. The final member of the slaver's crew was lying beside them with blood trailing from one temple, but she could see his chest rise and fall with his breath.
"Why do they still live?" she asked, voice thick with disgust.
"Because we do not kill people," Daris said from his seat on a nearby pile of ropes, voice more certain than she had ever heard it previously.
"And why should that right be reserved solely for people like them?" Kyren snapped, returning Captain Zha's glare even as the burgundy-haired female spat aggressively at her feet.
"We will take her boat downriver to the next settlement," Jara said calmly. "There, we will release her and the slaver to the proper authorities."
Kyren glanced at the faces of the other passengers - all of which were set in expressions of firm determination - and knew she would never convince them to act otherwise. She sighed. "Very well, but we will not give them the opportunity to escape."
With a brief glance in the cabins, it became apparent that the one Kyren had shared with Eyva would be the easiest to clear. Under Kyren's direction, it was cleared of anything that could be used as a weapon before they turned their attention to the slaver and Captain Zha.
"We must bind them," Jara told Kyren, and the girl nodded grimly.
It would be a dangerous thing to approach either of the balefully-glaring prisoners, but Kyren glanced at the other passengers before starting for them, nimbly catching the sections of rope Roghis tossed in her direction.
The slaver was bound first, and Kyren narrowly avoided the thick wad of saliva he spat in her direction, tying the rope so that it ground into a cut on his wrist in revenge. Roghis pulled the man to his feet and toward the emptied cabin while Kyren plotted how to bind Captain Zha, a far trickier prospect.
"Turn around, hands back," Kyren ordered.
The now ex-captain hissed venomously at her, but moved to do as she asked. As she rose slightly to her knees in order to turn, Zha pulled a blade from her boot and swung at Jara before attacking Kyren, who made a startled noise as the blade sliced viciously into the skin on the side of her neck. As Zha busied herself in trying to behead Kyren, Daris moved past the stunned Jara to strike Zha firmly on the head with one of the heavy poles they had been using to nudge the boat away from the riverbank.
Zha slumped to the deck and Kyren bound her wrists tightly before allowing Jara and Roghis to move her as well. Both captives had been placed inside the cabin before its door was thoroughly secured. The group then settled into an uneasy silence.
"I suppose you could stay in Captain Zha's cabin," Jara suggested quietly.
Kyren shrugged. "It does not truly matter. I expect I will not sleep regardless of location."
"How do we expect to navigate the boat downriver?" Roghis asked. "I know only the little I have gleaned from watching the deckhands work."
Daris cleared his throat. "I have studied the Essosian pole-boat thoroughly. I am capable of guiding us at least until the next port. For now, I believe you all could benefit from a solid bit of rest."
Jara and Roghis murmured thanks and expressed concern for Kyren before retiring to their cabin. Kyren, contrarily, found herself unable to bear entering the cabin of the treacherous captain and besieged with adrenaline and mourning besides, and thus sat on the main deck and spoke to Sotam until the light of the sun began to filter through the trees.
Daris tried only once to convince her to care for the wound on her neck, but Kyren barked at him with such fervor that he gladly left her alone after that. Sweat caused from the ever-present humidity rolling off the river stung the nasty gash on her neck, but Kyren embraced the pain, using it to fuel her remembrances of Eyva, the girl who would never know her father.
A slight haze of fog rested on the surface of the water in the orangeness of the dawn and the trees dripped with morning dew. Birds chirped as they flitted about and dragonflies skimmed the ripples of the river. It was a moment of peace and serenity, broken abruptly by a muffled series of shouts and a loud succession of thudding.
Kyren started up from where she had sat, half-dozing, against Sotam's warm side. The noise had undeniably issued from her old cabin, the current location of Zha and the slaver. As she approached the door, Kyren's spine straightened to see a pool of thick redness seeping from the gap between the rough been door and the deck. Though Daris was occupied in piloting the ship, Jara and Roghis were awake and nearby, as tense as Kyren herself.
"Stand back, but be ready," she ordered, reaching for the latch.
When the door swung open, the three were treated to a wrenching sight: from the state of undress of the two, the slaver had managed to free himself before attempting to rape Zha, who had produced another knife of some sort and stabbed him until the majority of his torso was covered in gaping red wounds. She then had driven the blade into her own heart and lay splayed across the floor directly in front of the entrance to the cabin. As they watched, her wildly rolling eyes met theirs and she gave the slightest smirk before falling utterly still.
An odd surge of pity and guilt twisted in Kyren's chest. The woman had attempted to take Kyren's head the previous night, yet she could not stifle the feelings. But for her, the woman never would have been imprisoned in that cabin with such company. Roghis's large hand rested heavily on her shoulder before she could sink too deeply into her own thoughts.
"She was Ghiscari," Jara said as though it were a comfort. "They do not believe in captivity."
"Were the slavers not Ghiscari?" Kyren asked confusedly.
"The dichotomy of southern society," Daris contributed from his place across the deck. "It has long since been a subject of study."
"What should we do with them?" Roghis asked.
Kyren sighed. "We should leave their bodies to the river, I suppose. Nothing else to be done."
"And the boat?" Jara queried. "Captain Zha has no more need of it. Unless anyone wishes to keep it for their own, I would rather sell it at the next port and be done."
Daris consulted the map he had liberated from the Captain's prior lodging. "Selhorys is the nearest city."
"I am unfamiliar," Kyren admitted. "What do we know of it?"
Roghis crossed his arms over his broad chest. "It is a wild city - a town, in truth - and it is often under attack by the khalasars. Lawless as it is, few will take notice of a pole-boat sale. We should be safe to sell, divide the proceeds, and go our separate ways."
"It is settled, then," Kyren decided. "We must remove the bodies and clean the floors before we dock. Daris, how long until we reach Selhorys?"
Daris checked the map, studied the sun's position, eyed the river, and glanced at the map once more. "We should arrive in the late afternoon."
"Very well. Roghis, would you care to assist me?" Kyren asked as she moved toward the body of the slaver.
With effort, the bodies were unceremoniously dumped overboard and Jara volunteered to clean the cabin. Try as she might, however, the floors refused to be scrubbed completely clean and dried blood still winked garnet from the seams between the boards of the deck.
Kyren tried not to look too closely, knowing that the sight of blood in the cabin she had shared with the girl she had been unable to save would be embedded in her mind.
She failed.
Author's Note - It's been a while. I know it, you know it. Here's a super long chapter to make up for it. I know there's no Jaime, but rest assured, the next chapter will be exclusively from his POV. In other news, college is killing me. It's been eleven days since I edited this story. That's the longest I've gone without writing since I started this, but I am trying to write more often. My goal is to post another chapter before the premiere of Season 8 in less than two weeks (!) which I know is a lofty goal consider the eleven days thing, but I'm trying. Thank you guys as always for your patience and I would absolutely treasure a review if you have a few seconds. Until next time, thank you for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day!