(The Silverstream - Silverhill: 4/21/299) Kai II
As their small group galloped down, along the left side of the running stream, they came across a large boulder jutting out of the ground. From a crack at the base of the massive rock sprouted a gnarled old tree with long-dead leaves and dried branches. At the forefront of the company, rode their charge and future Fire Lord, flanked by two of her silent guardians, one of which held the banner of the burning stag and the other rainbow banner of parley. The remaining two Flameguard rode at the rear, alongside the tall woman from Tarth, while he and the pretentious white-haired firebrand shared positions at the center.
Staring ahead, he spotted the heir of the Fire Lord lifting a clenched fist. Knowing the gesture's meaning, Kai pulled at the reins of his mount and slowly brought it to a stop, just as the others around him had begun to do upon the sight of the silent command. "We will water the horses here," Ursa said without argument, the words ringing like steel in Kai's ears. "We have sunlight to spare, and thus far no ambushes. A good sign," she added, in what Kai heard sounded like a hint of disappointment.
"Ugh, finally," Syrah groaned, stretching her arms above her head, and hinting at well-formed breasts hidden beneath the hard black leather and padded crimson cloth of her Fire Nation uniform.
Averting his gaze, before being spotted, Kai turned his attention toward the water. Striking though she was to his eye Kai could not help but be utterly repulsed by her venomous nature. Following behind Ursa, he brought his horse to the bank of the stream and let it drink its fill while the others did the same.
"I hate that constant whistling," the silver she-bitch complained, raising an ear before shuddering and jumping off her saddle, just as she had finished stretching. The wind sweeping through the rocks had made for a particularly annoying distraction, and Kai could not find himself disagreeing with the girl's blunt words, even if they did sound like nails upon glass.
Recoiling at the Dragonseed's grating voice, he spoke, "And I hate your ceaseless mewling, Syrah. This was not meant to be some comfortable retreat! So be quiet and maybe this torture will pass faster!" Kai groaned, rubbing his temple and watching as his mount continued slurping up the crystal clear water. Lowering himself from his steed, he hovered over the water's edge for a moment, eyeing his reflection in the rippling stream before submerging his water skin deep within its cool depths.
"Speak for yourself, bastard," the girl sniped, filling her water skin. Like the rest at the Academy, the girl knew the nature of his birth, and it was something she readily used to injure him without ever throwing a single strike. "The silence itself is tormenting. Let alone that fucking wind," she added, and as if he had willed it, a sudden gust of air whipped the girl's white locks all about her face. "Ah!" the Dragonseed spluttered, coughing out the strands of hair caught in her annoyingly viperous mouth.
"Hah!" he thundered in amusement, the scene having prevented him from stopping dead in his tracks at her hurtful words. "Serves you right, Syrah! Has there ever been even a single moment in your meaningless little life where you were not such a cruel and abrasive bitch?" Kai spat after the laughter had passed. His patience had worn increasingly thin, after suffering a string of non-stop insults from the Dragoness, ever since their parting with the main army and perhaps even before then, during their time at the Academy?
"None that I can recall," the girl frowned before a creeping smirk marred her face. "Though, I would ask if there has ever been even a single moment in your meaningless little life where you were not kept awake by the fact that your father wanted absolutely nothing to do with you?"
"You…" he reared back, barely managing to quell the urge to smack the malignant snake woman across her beautiful face. The only thing that had stayed his hand, was knowing the action to not only be improper but also sure to draw the ire of Ursa for what she would have likely seen as childish reasons. And more importantly, he suspected that such brash action was exactly what the demon bitch had wanted, and he would not give her the satisfaction of having elicited a rise out of him so easily. "...won't find many suitors being how you are, you obnoxious little brat," he added, fists clenched, baleful gaze fixed upon her in a mix of lust and revulsion.
"How dare you, bastard!" the Dragonseed hissed, as she gathered her hair into a bun. "Contrary to what you may believe, my prospects are not nearly so limited," she continued with heated tones.
"Hah! Bastard? As if the circumstances of your birth were any better? Your mother was just a simple farmhand before she caught the eye of Sergeant Jiong-Yu. Keep living in your little delusion, Syrah," he narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice into a whisper. "Because try as I and others might to be amicable with you, you still seem to take some perverse type of pleasure at prodding us with your poisonous words. Such will win you no friends and nothing but scorn from those very same prospects you believe open to you. And I…" he countered, feeling the fury slowly rising within him once more at her sheer impudence.
"Silence! The both of you," Ursa roared out, just as the temperature of their surroundings bloomed uncomfortably hot. Kai winced at the reprimand, defeating entirely what he had intended to not do in the first place, which was to draw the Princess in. "On and on, with this useless prattle?! Ever since our departure!? Gods above, and spirits within, even the little she-wolf and her sister never bickered so much! How in the seven blazes have Takkar and Steffon tolerated the two of you for so long?!" The very eyes of the seven hells themselves, backed by the grim scowl of the Stranger, had turned to face the duo of bickering students from the Academy. "Have it out quickly, because one more word out of either of you, and I swear that there will be some torture transpiring in this valley today! Understand!?"
"Yes, Princess," they said in unison, Syrah no doubt feeling the sudden rise in ambient heat as he. Their manners had been utterly respectful and without lip, especially from the girl whom Kai knew had been skirting dangerously close to the edges of the Princess' anger, ever since their exchange upon the hill leading them down to the stream.
"Good!" Ursa's golden rings glinted in the sun as they focused upon the only other one of their company who spoke. "And you'd best not be smiling underneath that helm, Brienne!"
"I would never do such a thing, Princess," the tall woman's words reverberated flatly behind her featureless skull faceplate.
After the rebuke, silence had overtaken their group. Once the stream had quenched their mounts of thirst, and seen their water skins filled to bursting, had they set out once more into the dusty chasm. Moving as fast as their horses would allow, they left nothing in their wake, save plumes of dust. Above them, the sky drifted from feathery white into lifeless grey as they rode deeper into the valley. Ever closer to the castle upon the hill did they come, and all the while Kai felt a sinister gaze upon him. Though from what hidden vantage those eyes observed he knew not, for the stream flowed clear and the land lay sparse with vegetation.
'Nowhere near enough to hide a single man, let alone an army,' he thought, periodically glancing up towards the boulders resting along the steep slope of the rocky hills. Terrain Kai knew would be difficult enough for a skilled firebender to traverse, let alone a normal man encumbered with climbing tools.
Despite all signs to the contrary, he could still feel the hairs at the back of his neck slowly rising in anticipation as the worrying feeling inched closer and closer to the forefront of his mind. In a blink, they had passed the dry brush littering the valley and the rock-strew path which had gradually given way to the shadow of Silverhill. An ever-darkening sky still lingered ominously above, its shadowy cloak threatening to smother the bright sword of light still burning high in the heavens. As they proceeded beneath the ominous shade, he noticed the waters of the Silverstream having begun to blacken with each step their company had taken. Before long, the truth had become terrifyingly clear. What had once been a beautifully clean and sparkling river, had indeed grown dark in a mixture of blood and some unknown ichor reeking of stagnant water. Finding his stomach churning with apprehension and disgust at the grisly sight, he could feel nothing but alarm and the immediate need to return to the relative safety of the main army.
Raising her clenched fist once more, the Princess brought Kai and the others to a halt at the foot of the stony peak leading up towards the Serret fortress. Many enormous rocks stood between them, and the path, as it weaved up the hill. "This does not show promise," Ursa sniffed at the air, her glossy black locks whipping about in the stiff breeze.
"I could have told you that, princess," he heard the daughter of Jiong-Yu mutter at his side, her voice nearly lost to him in the steadily strengthening winds.
"Something foul lingers," the heir continued, either having ignored or not heard the snide comment, her glittering eyes having never left the darkening sky.
"I smell it too," he said, tasting the sourness of his bile as it rose to his throat in response to the rotting odor.
"No. Not that," the Princess of Dragonstone clarified, looking to him. "The coming storm," she pointed to the east, shifting atop her saddle as she spoke. "The skies were clear during our approach, with naught a cloud in sight. Never have I seen the weather turned so quickly without warning, though my father has told me of such happenings on occasion…particularly when he faced the Greyjoys at Fair Isle."
"We should get out of here," Syrah suggested. Confident though the girl was, even he could hear the slight twinge of fear marring her otherwise iron voice. Her attentions were evidently distracted in their close survey of the land, water, and sky surrounding them.
Ignoring the suggestion, Princess Ursa's keen golden eyes pulled away from the skies and narrowed in doubt as she glared between the stream and the path leading to the castle. Set against the past midday sun, Kai could not help but notice the heiress' crushing gaze having taken on the appearance of red hot coals. The horses whinnied nervously as he and the others spied gory smears leading down from the castle gates and into the black stream. Kai focused his eyes upon the water's murky surface, his muscles tight, and inner fire ready to burst forth from his fists. Opening her fist into a palm, the Fire Lord's heir gestured for them to proceed cautiously around the enormous rocks set upon their path.
Following her command, he continuously scanned up and down the length of the stream behind and the stony trail ahead. "I agree, Princess. We should rejoin the others," he found himself whispering through gritted teeth, the thought of finding common ground with the Dragon-bitch having tainted his pride. Beneath him, Kai felt his steed shift uncomfortably. "Steady," he crooned, gently rubbing the charger's thick neck to assuage the creature.
"No," the Princess replied quietly, gesturing to the blood-stained trail, and tracing it up along the path with her finger. "This trail comes straight from the gates of the castle itself, and we are out of time. The storm that is coming? It is a strange one, indeed," Ursa added, glaring skyward, her voice having maintained its steely tone and remaining unmarked by the same fear that had taken hold of the Dragonseed's own. Looking to her, he observed as the muscles hidden beneath her uniform grew tight. "We must secure Silverhill," she said plainly, as they rounded a collection of boulders, wherein they discovered an even more gruesome sight than what they had beheld only moments before. Having been left to fester in a small crevice, beneath the biggest of the boulders, were the regurgitated remains of what appeared to be two women, a child, and a man. The child had been nearly unrecognizable, save for its small size, while the others had a blackish fluid coating dissolved flesh, exposed bone, and warped ring mail which hung loosely from the largest of the bodies. Their faces had seemed to be in a state of abject horror, mouths agape in a silent scream as empty eye sockets stared back at them weeping oily black tears.
Hearing the soft groan of the Tarth woman behind him, Kai immediately understood what to expect after listening to her staggered breaths. Lifting her faceplate, he saw the blonde woman had taken on a sickly pallor, and no sooner had she spewed out the contents of her stomach before he found himself joining her. In a spectacularly greenish-white chorus, and all over the sides of their mounts, had he and Brienne revealed their innermost thoughts on the scene laid out before them. After expelling what remnants of vomit lingered in his throat, he lifted his arm and used the sleeves of his uniform to wipe the sour taste off of his lips. Turning to Brienne, he found her shimmering blue eyes and pale grimace, staring at him as he spied her wiping her wide mouth with the hem of her cloak.
The Princess urged her mount closer to the remains, face as stoic and unreadable as ever. "Hmmm. If this is a trap, then we must eliminate it and whoever or whatever has set it. I will not allow his grace to be caught by anyone or anything. Let alone having him and those loyal to him be as ignobly rendered as these poor wretches," Ursa motioned to the corpses.
"And what if this is the trap?! What if it is meant for you?!" the alabaster-skinned girl sneered, pressing a finger to her nose to stifle the stench, voice raised into a loud whisper. While now nearly as steely as the Princess' own, the girl's voice lacked Ursa's purposely quiet nature. "Or me?" she added in wide-eyed horror, before placing a comforting hand on her chest.
"You think too highly of yourself," the Princess snorted, and had the situation not been so dire, Kai could have imagined himself laughing at Syrah's inflated sense of self-importance.
"Do I?" the girl grumbled. "Look at them, Princess! Look at the water!" she shouted, pointing to the melted corpses and the dark stream beside. "This is no natural occurrence," Syrah continued, before motioning to the bloody handprints scattered amongst the stones and dirt. "And look at those," the girl finally added, identifying what he had earlier missed. Claw-like marks, great and inhuman, had seemed to trail the bloody splotches left by fleeing victims with some having even partially chipped through solid stone.
"Be silent!" the Princess hissed, instantly rearing up to the girl and stifling her with a free hand. "I am not blind! I have eyes, you twit! Look to the ground!" she pointed, turning the Dragonseed's head roughly as she did so, while he and the rest followed her gesture.
Staring at the surface of pebbles, broken stone, and dirt, he saw nothing but the faintest of tracks left upon the well-traveled path. Tracks that he certainly would have found himself nearly unable to distinguish from animals, people, and natural formation had it not been for the Princess' assertion that they were there. After a moment of scrutiny, one nearer to the Dragonseed eventually managed to stand out from the rest. Appearing in the light, as an odd bit of overturned earth, it was something that could be easily missed by the untrained eye, but those of his future Fire Lord had been anything but. His mind gauged the mark, seeing its depth, and hinting its bearer being one of some great weight. In-between the mannish toes of the imprint, he saw flattened dirt, and what appeared to be the marks of stretched skin conjoining them. At their tips, were the telltale signs of great talons, reminding him of the lizard-lion claws he had once seen illustrated in the books issued by the Academy. Upon seeing this, Kai could not help but shudder at the thought of what manner of creature could have left such a trail, for it was most certainly not a lizard lion.
"There are more impressions leading towards the castle than into the stream," Ursa continued in a scathing whisper, ignoring the girl's protests while retrieving a far-eye from her satchel and slapping it roughly into Syrah's palm. Placing a finger to her mouth, the heir of Azula glared at the girl, before finally removing her hand after having received a nod of understanding.
"Apologies," Syrah muttered, nose flaring. The harpy's beautifully heart-shaped face appeared torn between surprise, disgust, and resentment. "What would you have of me, Princess?" the girl asked softly, wincing slightly as her velvet palms gingerly rubbed her mouth and cheeks clear of the smothering hand marks left by the daughter of Dragonstone. All quips and insults had seemingly evaporated from her tone, and even though deceptively delicate hands still clung tightly to the bronze instrument Ursa had shoved into them, Kai could still see a fire burning in the girl's gleaming golden eyes.
"Those pillars?" the Princess said to the Dragonseed, though all followed her directions, as she gestured to an outcropping of tall spear-like rocks almost a hundred feet away south of their position.
The rocks, he observed, were near entirely smooth-faced and no doubt difficult to mount for a simple man-at-arms. 'However,' he thought to himself, 'a bender should find no trouble accomplishing such a task. Especially one as skilled as her,' Kai hated to admit of the white-haired annoyance. Of the pillars, he saw one having stood higher than the others, its point hewed and seemingly curved in.
"Mount the one with the weathered tip," the heiress commanded. "It should provide an excellent vantage point from which you can survey our surroundings without obstacle. When mounted, be certain to motion to us what you see, for we know not if enemies still linger about…" after a brief pause, the Princess frowned. "Go."
"With all due respect, my Princess," he said, watching as the noxiously irritating beauty dismounted and secured her steed to his own, without a word, before scampering carefully through the broken quarry to the tallest of the earthen posts. "You seem remarkably calm for one having been presented with evidence of odd creatures, dare I say monsters, having taken up arms against us."
"Be it man, or monster, all enemies of the crown will suffer the same fate. Death," Ursa's jaw twitched at the simple answer, tone unshaken, her crimson uniform billowing in the steadily rising breeze. Gold-trimmed black boots, and bracers, glimmered in partially obscured sunlight. As Kai stared at her, mounted atop her black charger with a grim frown and focused eye, it was then that he could see why the loyalist army had taken to calling her the 'Red Stranger', and his spirits raised at her simple declaration.
From beside the Princess of Dragonstone, he saw the serpent-girl turn to them, before taking in a lungful of air and assuming the stance of the rising phoenix. In a sudden blaze, Syrah leapt into the air, the bottoms of her feet having erupted into twin streams of fire. With near expert precision and immaculate grace, his former classmate used the flames to maneuver herself upon the crest of the largest rock, wherein she quickly flattened her stomach against the shattered tip of the stone spear. Seeing the glint of bronze, he spied the Dragonseed's fair hands holding the far-eye, her white hair-bun jutting out from the just below the rim of the towering rock.
"As much as I loathe her, Syrah's words were not without merit, Princess," the knighted woman from Tarth muttered, leading her mount up beside the Baratheon royal. "It would be wise to retreat. We would be of little use to his grace were we to perish in ambush."
"Hmmm," Kai heard Ursa sigh at the question before she lifted her left hand and pressed it upon her chin in contemplation. "No, they were not, but who then could have possibly known before even I that I would have personally come to assess the truth of Serret's claims?" the Princess argued, the edge in her voice had grown sharper and sharper with every word that had left her lips. "Even a traitor hidden in our midst would not have had the time to send word to Serret…or to whatever creatures left those," the Princess tilted her head to the scratched stones and the pathway bearing monstrous footprints. "Let alone affording them enough of it to have even staged such an elaborate ambush, mere seconds after I had decided to come here." Ursa frowned in thought. "Unless they…" the Princess whispered to herself, with both he and Brienne having caught the words. "No," she shook her head, "They would also need to have one themselves."
"In possession of what, my Princess?" he couldn't help but ask, as he approached her, and found himself earning a contemptuous glare for his trouble.
"A spirit walker," she replied gruffly.
"But such would be impossible, would it not?" Brienne questioned, stealing the words right out of his mouth.
"It should be," Ursa growled, clenching her fists. "But if there is a traitor, then I pity them when my mother inevitably weeds them out and starts asking them questions..."
"Maybe we should consider the possibility that the trap was incomplete, hmm?" he cleared his throat. "Perhaps we arrived far too early, thus denying our enemies the chance to have positioned themselves properly enough to spring it? If it indeed it is one, as anything else sounds far too ludicrous," he lied to himself, feeling a drop of wetness upon his cheek. Looking up to the dark clouds, he could smell hints of rain nestled within the horrid stench of the corpses near them, and in the distance, he heard the sounds of rolling thunder.
"The best outcome one could hope for, and one I would lean towards in normal times, but something far more sinister is at work here than the mere ambitions of lordly men," Ursa sneered at the rocks leading up to the Serret fortress. "We must go to Silverhill. Trap or no, the truth most certainly lies there, not only of this but perhaps of what transpires in the Riverlands? Fleeing now may only see these questions remaining unanswered as the creatures, be they monster or men, depart without a trace, along with whatever insidious plot they endeavored to see done here."
"Without a trace? Surely…" he started to speak, only to feel the winds pick up at his words, and as he looked down to the tracks in the dirt, he found them quickly becoming ever more indistinguishable from the surrounding earth.
"And there it is," he heard Ursa sigh and found the Princess glowering at him with her blazing golden eyes. "Do you feel it now," she said, and in his bones, Kai felt the world shift towards something ill as a drop of rain hit his forehead.
"There what is?" Brienne asked, seemingly unperturbed by the strangeness surrounding them, her sapphire eyes almost glowing with resplendent confidence.
"A strange storm…" he answered, reciting Ursa's earlier words, before rubbing away the errant droplet.
"Indeed," Ursa said flatly, holding out her open palm to the sky, her face never once shifting from its foreboding nature. "The wind will erase the tracks, and the rain will wash out the blood, leaving behind only armor and questions," she added, turning to him before scanning the hills near the Dragonseed. "Whatever left those tracks had no intention of being discovered this day. You are correct in one respect, cadet. We do appear to have arrived early, and we will use that to our advantage," the Princess glanced at him one last time, before raising a hand in silence and pointing to the alluring snake woman crouched low atop the rock.
The girl raised three fingers, then pointed two to her eyes, before slicing an open palm downward northeast of their position, near a large rock formation by the barred portcullis of Silverhill. In an instant, both the Flameguard and the Princess herself roused to attention. "Proceed quietly. We look for three," she said to them, before turning to the glorified farmhand and motioning for her to remain atop her rocky post.
Dead silence proceeded them as they advanced, broken only by the intermittent sounds of thunder and pattering rain, along with ever-encroaching darkness. The Flameguard kept close to their charge, silent as the grave, their gauntleted hands gripping tightly at the hilts of their great swords while their others clung to the reins of their black coursers. Along the stony path, he saw smears of the same nature as the foul liquid coating the surface of the stream, with bits of armor and weapons of war all marred with blood and strewn about like children's toys. Peering back, he saw the prone form of the Dragonseed still keeping a watchful eye upon their flanks.
In the uneasy calm, leading to their approach, he felt the hairs at the back of his neck starting to rise. A warning, he knew it to be, and as certain as the rising sun, he heard the shifting of rocks beneath heavy wet feet. To the left of him, it was, and so very close.
Ursa's flame shot forth in an instant, denying his eyes proper sight of what it was that had lurked ever so near to them, enveloping whatever it had been in searing golden flames. At his back, he heard the resonant ringing of the Princess' Flameguard having unsheathed their blades. Shielding his eyes, he attempted to peer into the conflagration, and for the briefest of instants, he heard a gurgling inhuman scream rise out above the inferno before suddenly growing silent amidst the sizzling of burning wet flesh. The air smelt of putrid fish, and his stomach turned.
"What in the spirit-world was that?!" his voice escaped him, startled as it was, both at the unexpectedness of his Princess' attack and the quick death her flames had caused to the unfortunate victim it had ensnared in its fiery embrace. Never before had he known things to die so quickly to open flame, lest they were small in size, but from what he could make out in the eye-watering heat of the crackling fire, his eyes spoke of something nearing the size of a full-grown man. As the fire burned, he felt himself growing stronger in its light, as he did beneath the comet soaring in the heavens above them. Before long, the still smoldering corpse turned to ash, before finally dispersing upon the wind and leaving no evidence of its demise save for the narrow scorch mark cut into the ground as if by a burning blade.
"A monster," the Princess answered flatly, narrowing her eyes towards the direction the creature had come. "I am certain the other two heard the death of that one. Be on your guard. There may be more lurking about that our Dragonseed missed." The indifferent tone of the Azula's heir had somehow been both a source of great comfort and terrible unease for his somewhat shaken resolve.
It was when they finally came to gaze upon the gate of Silverhill, unassailed and unblooded by whatever two creatures his abrasive classmate had seen, that he heard Brienne release a near-silent gasp. "What in the light of the seven," she said, covering her mouth.
Corpses upon corpses, many of women and children, had been piled high against the massive gate of oak and iron. Arching above the bodies, like some cruel parody of a rainbow, were grisly inscriptions inked in blood. Letters and patterns he had never before seen, neither in his books at the Academy nor in the historical texts of Westeros, had appeared almost alive to his sight and shimmered in the gloom of the approaching storm. Gazing high upon the crest of the profane writings, he spied a hooded figure depicted in black blood around which its head was a crown of purplish ichor. The splattered form lingered within the shadows of the gate's curved iron bars, its unearthly visage steadily appearing more and more as formless black smoke the closer one came to examine its nature. Beneath the hood was a faceless void that had held no eyes and no mouth, but as he stared, Kai could feel it staring back at him in hunger. The smoke came to engulf his sight, and in the haze, he found himself staring into a black sky teeming with opalescent stars.
It was then that he began to hear the whispers among the infinite space. "Kai," they said, cloaked in Margaery's gentle voice. He shook his head, trying to dispel its words and the shroud it had placed over his mind. Pinching his brow, he attempted to glance to where he had remembered the others had been and found only Ursa, floating as he did, amongst the starry sky. Her face was twisted into a hateful sneer, at the lights above them, before he heard the voice speak again. "The Princess? She and the rest of her family, know of your father, and they will kill you when you learn his name."
"What? My father? But how?" he asked quietly, taken aback at its seeming familiarity with him. Peeling his gaze away from Ursa, Kai stared forward and found the painted shadow ripple and undulate against the stars, before taking on the briefest likeness of his Margaery all adorned in a cloak of pure light. "No! Steffon would never allow them to!" he wanted to yell but found his words caught within his lungs as if some invisible hand had begun to crush his throat.
He heard the maiden of light laugh, yet before it could reply to his attempted outburst, a roaring plume of fire shot past him, shattering the illusion and coating the bodies and writing in a brilliant golden flame. He flinched at the sudden heat and watched as the bodies smoked and burned away, along with the writings and whispering shadow of Margaery's voice.
"If any of you heard what I did, pay the foul voice no heed," the Princess commanded, the heat around them rising to a simmer as she did so. "It fills your mind with lies," she added, eyeing him as the words left her lips.
He wished to respond but found not the words to do so, as his mind still wheeled about at what he had just seen within the shadow upon the gate.
"What is your command, Princess?" Brienne asked, shaking her head and instantly on alert, her impeccable soldiery readily at the fore. "Should we form a defensive position," the woman pressed with firm resolve, unsheathing her blade with a resonant ring. "We could…" Ursa's fair-haired guardian spoke, scrutinizing the towering walls of the castle and the surrounding rocky landscape as she did so.
"Yes," the Princess answered, cutting the woman off. "You will remain here with Kai and Syrah. I will scale the walls and open the gate from the inside. Be ready," she added, looking past them to the Dragonseed and motioning for her to join them.
He spied Syrah in the distance, leaping amongst the stones with jets of flame, her eyes never leaving the path ahead, and his never leaving her form. The sky loomed ever darker above, and in the pit of his stomach, he wished the girl to hurry back, as even as disliked as her presence was, she was still Fire Nation.
"With respect, my Princess, two or more of those creatures still linger and who knows how many might still haunt the grounds of the castle?" he heard the Tarth woman say, as the ground crunched beneath in what he knew to be the sounds of her heavy steed. "I would feel better were I to accompany you."
"As would I," the daughter of Dragonstone said, drawing his attention back to the Princess and the Knight. "But it would take mere moments for me to scale those high walls, and you at least an hour to affix a hook to rope, gain purchase, and then climb. You and I both know the effort would leave you winded, which would not serve me well if an ambush is indeed awaiting us upon the other side," Ursa came to the blond woman and placed a hand on her shoulder. "At the very least, I can escape at a moment's notice by safely leaping from the parapets, so worry not, my friend. The gate will be open soon enough, and then we shall see what ill secrets linger about. You lot," Ursa looked to her silent guardians, "remain here with them. I shall return," she added, before dismounting and straightening her crimson uniform. The Firelord's heir withdrew a small blade from the sheath fastened to her charger and slid it along her belt.
"Be cautious," Kai said.
"Your worry is noted," Ursa replied, then stepped forth nearer to the wall. She looked up once, then a blast of flame shot forth from her feet, feeling more powerful than even those of the Dragonseed whom he had seen perform the very same only moments before.
In a blink, she was over the walls, and silence took hold. He stared a moment, before deciding to turn back to Syrah, whom he realized should have already been in their company. Instead, he found the path and rocks barren, empty of the Dragonseed's presence. For he could see neither hide nor hair of her, not mounted atop them, nor scurrying within them. "Brienne? I see no sign of Syrah," he whispered, knowing that whatever monster had been slain had not been alone. His steed whinnied nervously beneath him. "Steady," he muttered and gently scratched the horse's black mane. After calming the creature, he reached for the satchel strapped to his side, before retrieving the far-eye Margaery had gifted him before his departure from Dragonstone with the rest of the Academy's elder class.
To his left, the tall woman turned in an instant and brandished her blade, while the remaining four Flameguard stood silently and virtually motionless save for the slight tilting of their heads as they followed something unseen through the wall their charge had vanished over.
An eerie silence followed his declaration, and despite the dark clouds looming above the stream like the blackest of smoke, the air had suddenly grown still. He had wanted to call out to their mysteriously absent Dragonseed, but his instructors had taught him better and he knew that to speak out would only serve to reveal their position to whatever monsters may have lurked in the rocks. Just as quickly as it had ceased, the wind began to blow anew. He shivered and felt his skin crawl the moment the foul scent of rotted fish drifted into his nose. Kai peeled his eyes away from the rock-strewn path, his perception of timing having seemingly slowed as the hairs on his neck and arms stood up in warning.
"Kai!" Brienne shouted, her voice sounding submerged to his ear as if hidden deep beneath the waves of a tumultuous shore.
Golden eyes widened when his horse unexpectedly neighed in fright and reared up, throwing him off its back when he had failed to grab at its reins. His far-eye clattered to the ground alongside him, the impact having taken the wind out of his lungs and cracked the lens of his seeing tool, leaving him heaving as he beheld to his horror his steed's stomach being raked open and spraying blood and pale horse guts all around the broken earth before him. The Dragonseed's mount had bucked and kicked away from the slaughter and fled down towards the stream. He pulled away from his dying steed as it crashed down upon its side into the rocky dirt and released a piteously soft cry in its final moments.
Kai grit his teeth as he looked at the remains of his horse, angered and saddened at the loss of the charger that had been entrusted to him by the Firelord herself. "You will pay," he thought to himself of the thing that had robbed him so, his eyes having left the motionless form of his noble companion to face the monstrous figure that now stood where it once had all drenched in the deep crimson of warm blood. The creature stood as tall and wide as the Hellhound, and for a moment it stared silently at him as if gauging him, before drawing its talons and darting forward in a manner unnatural for its large size. Using a small burst of flame from his hands, he used the momentum to roll upon the dirt before coming to his feet and finding the space that he had been only moments before impaled by a scaled webbed hand still slick with gore. A slight gust of air buffeted his uniform and stoked his inner flame. Clenching his teeth, Kai leapt back again as the arm and the monstrous creature who bore it continued its onslaught. Thunder cracked in the distance, accompanied by the frenzied braying of frightened horses at his back. Eyes reminiscent of polished obsidian stared hungrily at him, the fish-like maw remaining agape and eager to swallow him whole as the overgrown bottom-feeder it appeared to be. At either side of the thing's near translucent neck flared a series of grotesque gills. Fins along its blood-stained face and sloped head shimmered wetly in the encroaching gloom. It was then that he felt the winds truly turn and smelled the rain.
"Flameguard," he heard Brienne shout, followed quickly by the dull clang of a skull faceplate being slammed shut, and trampling hooves of startled horses.
Focused as he was, upon the strange creature now bearing down on him with murderous intent, Kai knew he could not chance a glance toward his allies lest he most assuredly be cut down. As he channeled his ki, Kai felt the heat of his power rise from within the center of his stomach and course down the length of his well-muscled arms, before igniting into furious life within his white-knuckled fists. Deep down, he somehow knew the sea demon wished harm upon the Fire Nation and the country of his friends, and this was something he would not allow while he still drew breath. In that moment, illuminated as he was by his flame's golden glow, the terror, uncertainty, and anger the thing had provoked within him had been overwhelmed by an unrelenting fury the young man did not know he possessed. The monster hesitated for a moment as if sensing the young man's volcanic rage, before hissing a challenge and continuing its attack. Swiping in a wide arc above his head, Kai ducked away from the fishman's assault, before planting his foot into the ground. He twisted his body and reared his burning fist back just as the thing recovered from its attack. Kai felt his fist surge through the dangerously narrow space between them, and as his strike hit scaly flesh, a tremor ran up his arm and into his chest before it resonated back out straight into the monster facing him. For a brief instant, they could only glare at each other before a blast of fire flung the creature back, slamming it hard against a nearby rock with a meaty thud.
To the left of him, he heard the ringing of Dragonstone steel, the gnashing of unnatural teeth, and the splattering of blood upon dirt. However, no sooner had he managed to glance towards the lofty gates of Silverhill, beneath the shadow of which he knew his allies valiantly fought than the creature he had so recently believed felled had risen from its prone position. Issuing a gargling roar, the sea demon stormed forward, its mouth now dribbling bits of black blood. While lacking the finesse of a trained warrior, the speed at which it moved was used with deadly efficiency. As he weaved through its attacks, a slash towards his upper right arm tore open his sleeves, the strike having missed his flesh by a hair's breadth. The crimson sleeves of his Fire Nation uniform continued fluttering in the struggle as he searched desperately for an opening. His heart thundered within him, as Kai found the fishman's strikes quickly narrowing the distance between its jagged claws and his supple skin. As the winds began to drown out the sounds of struggle, he felt drops of rain striking the back of his neck, wafting the smell of the coming storm into his nose. Ducking from another of the creature's swipes, he once again channeled his ki, opened his fist into a palm, and released another explosive strike towards its ribs.
"The Dragon's Palm is an attack originally made to disorient, but when combined with a potent fire bender it can cave in the chest of any man unfortunate enough to be struck by it," he recited in his mind, recalling the iron instruction of Commander Lee.
But the monster before him was no mere man, he came to realize, and his eyes grew wide as it merely staggered back, seemingly shaken but not dissuaded. As it looked down to its pale chest, the demon hissed quietly upon discovering the steaming black mark his attack had left it with. Oozing with black blood, the thing cradled the large wound, before looking up and sneering at him. Misshapen lips peeled back, revealing many rows of serrated teeth. Once again it charged, and he readied himself for the assault, standing his ground and assuming the stance of the Dragon. It had all been for naught, however, as he blinked in surprise when the fishman collapsed into a lifeless heap mere steps away from him. Black blood pooled around its body, but Kai would take no chances this time, and he unleashed 'the Dragon's Palm' upon the back of its head, causing it to explode into a bloody mess upon his boots.
"Arghhh!" he heard Brienne roar, snapping him to attention.
Staring up, he beheld the armored form of the princess' gigantic fair-haired protector having been thrown from her saddle, her sword glistening with black blood in the purgatorial space between sun and storm, horse gutted at her side. Despite her size, and the armor which she bore, the woman from Tarth was anything but a lumbering giant. Deftly did she dodge a strike from one of the creature's ilk, before bringing down her broadsword like an executioner and separating the monstrous head from its malformed neck. Just as one fell, two others took its place, these a slight smaller and more mannish in appearance than the pale one with gleaming wet skin now lying 'headless' before him.
"Stand firm, Tarth," he bellowed to the woman as he darted in the direction of his towering ally.
"Quickly!" she replied hoarsely, as a fishman grabbed at her and received a gauntleted fist to its face for its trouble.
As the monster fell back, he rushed it and struck at its spine with the Dragon's Palm. Hearing a loud crack, he watched as the thing collapsed instantly upon the broken earth. It screeched pathetically at him, yet remained nearly completely unmoving, save for the odd snap of malformed teeth in his direction as its back had no doubt been smashed beyond repair and hidden beneath the smoking black wound, he had given it.
Turning to Brienne, he found the woman from Tarth in the middle of shoving her final foe back before running it through with her bloodied sword. The creature grabbed at the sword before it found a dagger embedded in its skull. The young woman's hand shook as it gripped the hilt of the small blade, and he could hear her labored breath beneath her fearsome skull faceplate. "For King Robert," she said with a winded voice.
After a brief respite, they both turned to the princess' armored sentinels who themselves tangled with another pair of sea demons still atop their respective steeds. Looking at the mass of black gore that surrounded them, both he and Brienne shared a nod. The sight hammered into them that the four large knights needed no words of encouragement nor reassurance that aid was coming, for the mangled remains of six or seven other fishmen lie dead at their feet, appearing more as slabs of meat upon a butcher's table than having belonged to a recently living creature. In the stormy gloom, they and their mounts stood like iron statues in their silent fury, unmoving even as the creature's gurgling screeches and flailing arms attempted to dishearten and disarm their stalwart foes. As one, the four Flameguard sliced the air in-between them and the fishmen, forcing them back for a near instant as their horses reared for a final cleaving strike. A wet sound accompanied the dropping blades, and where before there had been two whole fishmen, there were now eight pieces of them.
He stared on in awe, before becoming aware of the princess' mount standing proudly amidst the trampled remains of one of the sea beasts that had assailed them, its black and gold-trimmed armor unblemished and resplendent even in the shadow of Silverhill.
"Firespawn! You! Will! Die!" the broken words drifted into his ears, bringing him pause.
He blinked, turning back toward the creature he had crippled and left for dead, unsure if he had heard what he did for the words had been quick and barely above a whisper. He answered the foul gaze of the monster with his own and saw the odium swirling within its sole mannish eye while the other, black as obsidian, had been unreadable and even more unnerving than the one currently boiling over with unbridled hatred. The sheer revulsion behind what he assumed to have been the creature's words had sounded as loud as a war drum. As his gaze delved deeper into the black pit of the sea demon's eye, he felt something tug at the back of his mind, something elusive and just behind waking thought. He shook his head and refrained from staring once more into the creature's empty black eye.
"What did you say?! Did you just speak to me?" he questioned, bristling in equal parts anger and incredulity at the monster's sudden spouting of the common tongue of Westeros. At his side, he felt Brienne turn and face the thing, in likely equal surprise, though he knew the faceplate would reveal nothing of her true reaction.
"Answer him, monster," Brienne intoned, stepping forward. She brushed past him and raised her sword to the creature's head. "Either speak or die," she pressed the tip into its glistening wet cheek, her words sounding reminiscent of the princess Ursa's own.
The creature's mouth curled to a hideous snarl, but still, it said nothing. Kai focused upon the thing's frightening black maw of gnashing teeth, willing more words to come, but the monster had chosen to remain stubbornly silent. After a moment, the fishman resumed snapping at him like a shark out of the water, surprising him with the sound and dispelling the ill feeling in his stomach. He frowned but understood that if the creature could speak, then it would prove useful in divining the nature of this strange new enemy.
"If you do not feel like conversation, I'm certain the Firelord can pry the words out of your disfigured mouth. If indeed there are words to be pried," he spat.
The creature let out a hissing cackle, spitting fluid at him in return and beating the wet scales of its throat. "Soon she will die..." the thing howled in a sudden rage. Its black maw stretched inhumanly wide, revealing an oily black tendril that struck at him like a viper. Brienne reacted with speed, cleaving the sudden appendage in two, before hacking the creature apart.
"Burn it. Now," Brienne growled, her massive hands clinging tightly to her blood-stained weapon. "Lest it reveals even more surprises."
"All for the better," Kai frowned in agreement, before taking stance and hurling a spout of flame at the butchered creature. The burning flesh reeked of the sea, and in the dancing flames, he could have sworn he had seen the princess holding aloft a burning crown of black fire.
A noise at the gates of Silverhill shook him from his trance, and as one they all turned to see what had caused the disturbance. The massive gate had groaned open ever so slightly causing he and Brienne to assume their respective defensive stances until the princess slid out from the gap with a grunt. Her mount whinnied and trotted calmly to her side.
"Hmmm," Ursa raised a brow as she observed their surroundings and spied the scattered corpses of fishmen and the eviscerated chargers he and Brienne had been bestowed. Once the princess' mount had come to her side, she had placed what seemed an almost protective hand at its neck. "I'm confident that there is a very interesting tale to be said about what transpired here in the mere moments that I was away?"
"It was an ambush, princess! There had been more than we originally believed! Many more," Brienne lifted her helm and stepped forward with her stiff reply. "They cut our horses out from under us," she added dejectedly.
"Then they will be honored, and avenged," the daughter of Stannis promised them. "You all know as well as I that Dragonstone does not so idly suffer the loss of its own."
He saw the Tarth girl turn and gaze upon her deceased mount with her beautiful blue eyes. After a moment, a soft sniff escaped her lips, and she faced the fire princess once more before clearing her throat. "What of the castle, my princess?"
"It appears to have been abandoned or sacked; I cannot truly tell," Ursa Baratheon answered, as she mounted her armored warhorse. "It would do well to mount a proper investigation. Come," she gestured to them to join her.
"Abandoned or sacked? Would those not be the same thing," Kai asked.
"Abandoned implies the denizens fled before an enemy could assail them, or that such damage was done to their shelter that forced abandonment. And as you can see," she gestured to the Serrett fortress, "Silverhill remains whole albeit blood-stained. Also, there is no evidence of some grand exodus from it before these fishmen attacked them. No signs of wagons or horses, or anything, just a handful of melted bodies strewn about the rocks below. Sacked, on the other hand, implies an enemy succeeded in assailing them before they could flee and looting what was held behind their walls when they finally fell. But judging from what I saw in my descent to open the gate, there appeared no signs of true battle within the walls," Ursa stated. "Only bits of blood splattered about the place, but strangely no corpses in sight. Nothing, not even hints at them. Which is odd, considering the state we found the other ones in, all piled before the main gate like garbage."
"What of the armored corpses?" he asked of the ones they had seen in their ascent to the castle gates.
"Sentries, most likely," Brienne replied after a moment's pause. "Perhaps they had been the first victims?"
"Whatever the case," Ursa interrupted forcefully, "these fishmen appear to have done all the work and done so with little resistance. Barring the odd overturned table and stools, there appeared to be no permanent damage to the walls or grounds that would hint at a siege or a truly desperate struggle. Even the supplies appeared untouched."
"They came in the night," he muttered, staring up at the battlements, "just waiting for their moment to strike when the castle slept."
"My thoughts exactly, especially given what these creatures seemed to have tried with us…" the princess frowned.
"Then we should report back to the others and tell them wha..." he said without hiding his unease.
"No!" she barked, her golden eyes flaring into sudden life. "If any more of those creatures still lurk within these halls, I would have them dragged to his grace in chains," Ursa rumbled in determination. "Returning to the army now may allow any that still linger time to flee, and I won't leave this new enemy to fester in the shadows for too long."
"One of us then?" he suggested.
"Splitting our party would be unwise, at this point, cadet," Ursa sniffed, before pointing towards the stream and the darkening horizon. "Especially with the coming storm. I would have these creatures step into the light, even if we have to drag them into it. We came to negotiate the castle's surrender or take it by force if Serrett's words proved false. This is our mission, and I would see it accomplished before the morrow. So, we do not have time to waste in making a return trip to the others, only to engage in a mind-numbing debate about what is to be done. Do you understand?" the princess clarified with grim finality, before scanning their number and glowering. "Unless of course, you lot found the enemy truly that insurmountable?"
"No," he and Brienne said, realizing that while the creatures had initially held the element of surprise, once one gathered their bearings they could be handled like any other opponent.
"Of course not, my princess," a familiar arrogance rang out behind them, causing both he and the Tarth woman to turn in an instant, arms at the ready.
What greeted him had nearly made him forget about the ominous experiences they had suffered thus far. A soft chuckled escaped his lips at the sight of the blood-drenched form of the Dragonseed mounted atop her pristine charger. The oily black blood of the sea beasts covered the girl head to toe, but she neither limped nor swayed as she sat awkwardly atop the saddle, hinting that any injury she had suffered had not been debilitating. From beneath the black, he saw blazing golden eyes boring into his own as he quietly continued laughing. "I'm happy that you're happy, bastard," the girl hissed, using the bit of cloth hidden away with her side satchel to wipe away the gore from her face.
"I am," he replied, for as much as he hated the haughty bitch's usage of the word to disparage him, Kai found himself unable to gather his anger enough to stop himself from chuckling.
"Silence!" Ursa hissed. "It seems your compatriots forgot to mention your brief disappearance, Dragonseed. I trust you are still eager for blood?"
"Indeed, I am, my princess. No one and nothing makes attempt at my life and lives," Syrah snarled clenching her fists.
"Very good," the black-haired daughter of Dragonstone nodded. "Come," she ordered, veering her mount forward to the gate. "Flameguard?!" Ursa barked to her silent guardians and motioned to the gates. The four large knights dismounted, stomped to the gates, and pulled, opening the gap large enough for a horse to pass before quietly returning to their own.
As they passed through the outer gates, they came to a smaller walled square, one nearly as tall as the outer walls and where he assumed archers would be placed to harass any enemy that had managed to break through the main gate. Past the small enclosure, they came upon a smaller gate that had remained ajar. When their party entered, he could only look around suspiciously as he half-expected fishmen to pounce upon them from some hidden perch. The soft snorts of the horses kept the silence from being too uncomfortable for him, and when they entered the Silverhill courtyard, he immediately compared its size to that of the recess yard at the Academy and found it to be at least twice as large. To his left, he saw a squat building with thin wooden doors, one of which tapped against the stone in the breeze, all nestled beneath a small tower. At his right, he spied a long building overlooked by a shorter tower than the last. Towards the back of the courtyard were the stables, where even at this distance he could tell lay undisturbed stacks of hay and a table of assorted horseshoes and wrought iron chains.
"If we intend to capture one of these creatures, would those chains not be of use?" he pointed to the stables.
"You have keen eyes," the princess said, as her own narrowed in suspicion at the stables. "You," she signaled to one of her Flameguard, "go get them." The silent knight nodded then urged his mount towards the stables. Their group watched him in silence as he quickly gathered the chains and wrapped them around his broad shoulders before returning without incident.
"Hmmm," he turned to Ursa who appeared pensive at the sight.
"We shouldn't linger," she said.
"A moment, if you will, princess?" Brienne entreated, motioning for them to look towards the squat building with the taller tower. "Do you suppose that to be the maester's turret and the rookery?" Brienne asked of the group.
"I would wager so," he answered, looking to the princess. "Perhaps the Maester's quarters will hold unread or undelivered missives that would explain what may have transpired here?"
"Indeed," Syrah sighed as she futilely tried wringing the black blood out of her silver locks. "But I suggest," she grunted, "before we delve into letters and parchments, we should see what secrets the main hall holds, hmm? There may yet be survivors to question, don't you think?"
"I agree," the princess admitted. "We can read letters later," she added, before kicking at her mount and leading them deeper into the castle grounds.
And so, they marched past the stables and another small tower, past a smaller square building, until they came before the steps leading up to the great wooden doors of the castle's main hall. To his horror, they found the doors having been splintered open by something large. Very large. In that instant, Kai felt the whole of their group grow in apprehension. As one they mounted the steps, and to his left, he saw Brienne look over castle towers and the darkening sky above with a worried expression.
"This place feels bereft of the light of the seven," Tarth commented softly as she gripped tightly to her broadsword. His ears picked up the sounds of rain tinking upon her steel plate. "I wonder if some fell craft, similar to the one we had encountered at the front gates, is to blame?"
"I feel nothing, Tarth. You worry too much," Syrah muttered hurriedly, though out of caution or annoyance he could not tell, as she still seemed invested in dabbing away at the blood on her face with the once clean cloth now turned blood-soaked mess that she had earlier retrieved from her satchel back at the main gates.
"Now, hark!" Ursa snapped, and the rest of the group turned to see a young auburn-haired boy and a smaller girl with slightly lighter hair all dressed in rich silks, burst out of the broken entrance and towards their party. "Halt!" the princess commanded, causing the two to yelp in surprise, as her silent guard drew their blades.
Thunder clapped all around them, followed by flashes of lightning, and the children cried, running to them as the rain began to pour. "A monster comes! We must flee! Ser Erron gave us leave!" they said fearfully, the tears in their wide hazel eyes mixed in with the waters showering them from above as they clutched at the princess' legs.
The princess stared up at the ruined archway. "Release my leg and stay behind me," she shouted, shrugging off the bawling children with a gentle kick. "Flameguard! Rally to me!" her iron voice rang out above the beating rain and howling winds, replacing his terrible uncertainty with unfaltering fearlessness. "I need eyes at our backs, I want nothing to surprise us!" At her words, two of the Flameguard averted their gazes from the main hall and back towards the direction from where they had come.
"This is not fucking natural," the Dragonseed exclaimed, raising a free hand to shield her eyes, as the waters started their work in cleansing her face and hair of its gory black hue. "We need to get out of this! It's getting hard to see!"
"Enough!" the princess ordered, her gaze having never left the blackness laying just beyond the doors of the castle's main hall. As Ursa Baratheon stared into the darkness, Kai saw her outstretch her arm and open her palm. In her hand, a small orb of fire sparked to life, and he knew what was coming next. A pillar of flame, larger than the one he had seen at the gates, sprang forth, shattering what remained of the large door under its immense pressure and turning the rains around them into vapor. The mounts of the Flameguard recoiled at the flames, while those of the princess and the Dragonseed remained perfectly still. Where once there was darkness, now swirled a firestorm, and in its brilliant luminance, he heard a resonant gurgling roar. The horses neighed fearfully at the sound as the princess continued her fiery advance. He and the rest followed closely behind their charge and what he had at first believed to have been the death rattles of some massive creature, had been one of summons, for soon thereafter he began to see the emergence of figures in the stormy night. As the lightning struck, it illuminated the ever-familiar and horrid forms of the fishmen, revealing not only their translucent skin and finned appendages but the lifeless black orbs of their eyes. One-by-one they rose from the hidden corners and empty wells of the castle grounds with hideous calls of their own.
"Defensive circle," the princess commanded, ceasing her burning assault after the loudest roar had been silenced. "Dragonseed! Kai! Opposite sides of the circle. If anything advances, give them fire!" For what appeared like an eternity, nothing moved until the disemboweled remains of some armored man were thrown out of the burning hall toward the princess. Seeing it before he had, Ursa dodged the gruesome projectile, as it flew over her head and landed in a twisted heap past the Dragonseed.
"What in the seven hells?!" Syrah shrieked before the children cried out.
"Ser Erron!"
A thunderous crack turned their attention up towards a small window above the right side of the main door. Once, then twice, did it sound before a massive form sprang forth from the shattering stone. One larger than any man he had ever seen. In the stormy darkness, he could not gain a clear picture of it, but he saw the soft glow of heated steel until the lighting struck and revealed something wholly different from the fishmen he had seen. A large mannish form towered over the fishmen, armored in steel that sizzled its grotesque flesh, and whose orange glow stubbornly refused to dim even in the pouring rain. On one side it wielded an enormous axe within massive clawed hands, while on the other twitched burnt tentacles. Its face held no distinct features save a hideously star-shaped mouth full of jagged teeth and a head that rose into a singular large tentacle. He saw no eyes, but he felt it staring at him before it roared once more and leapt over the walls of the battlements in a single bound. Following what Kai assumed to have been their leader, the fishmen disappeared back into the crevices from which they had come.
"Cowards!" the princess howled, hurling whip-like streams of fire and scorching the stone walls of the battlements, as they fled. He saw her turn to them, the orders of giving chase likely upon her lips until she beheld the children and softened her features.
"What in the bloody fucking hell was that?!" Syrah screeched, as the rain gradually began to disperse.
As he watched the rains recede, he had a feeling that whatever creature he had just seen, had been the one responsible for the unnatural weather that had followed them into the Serrett fortress. 'Strange weather, indeed,' he said to himself even as his heart hammered loudly in his chest.
"Ser Erron!" the children cried once more, running towards the mangled remains of the body he had seen the monster cast out from the main hall.
As the children cried over the corpse of what he assumed to have been their last if not only protector, he turned to the princess. "I take it we are not giving chase, my princess?"
"Not with children in tow. They would just get in the way, and we can't abandon them, because they may be able to shed light on what transpired here," Ursa grumbled, before looking up towards the tallest tower of the main hall and retrieving her far-eye.
"Do you think they will attack the army?" Brienne asked as she came to the princess's side.
"Let us see," she answered. "Dragonseed! Take position upon that tower and tell me if the storm has truly passed or if it is headed in the direction of the army."
Syrah sighed and sagged her shoulders. "As you command, princess. Just make sure you two don't forget about me this time," the silver-haired beauty pointed to he and Tarth before she assumed the stance of the rising phoenix and burst skyward with jets of flame towards the roof of the scorched hall. After perching for a moment atop the main hall, she leapt from it to the adjacent tower, and then quickly jumped roof to roof, ascending ever higher until her smallish figure could be seen at the very top of the tallest tower. As his own far-eye had been damaged he could only wait until the fire princess had received signal that the skies remained clear.
"Would that truly be a sign of safety?" he asked after a moment, remembering that the storm had subtly rolled in right until the moment it began its deluge when they were within the confines of the castle.
"No," the princess replied, before calmly collapsing her far-eye, and gesturing for the Dragonseed to come down. "But it should serve well enough. Now, from what I gather, it seems we may have sprung a trap not meant for us. Or sprung it far too early, just as you predicted?"
He remained silent, unsure of how to reply to the radiant golden eyes now looking expectedly upon him.
"How do you know?" Brienne asked, causing the princess to raise a brow at him, before turning to face her towering guardian.
"We are still alive," Ursa turned away from them both and towards the whimpering children. "But so are they. Perhaps the intent was to end everyone within the castle and thus finish whatever was started at the gates? But for whatever reason, its enactment was superseded by our interference?"
Dismounting from her charger, the princess stalked toward the small children. The boy turned first, and upon further inspection revealed him to be no older than Ty Lee, while the girl appeared younger still. In her tiny hands, Kai caught sight of some small stuffed doll, that seemed familiar in coloring and shape, but the girl clenched at it too hard for him to identify properly.
"Wh...who...are you?" the boy's voice shook in fear, and his hands trembled so much that Kai believed his hands would fall off. "Are...are you not…with...monster?"
"Most assuredly not," the princess replied to the question with an odd chuckle. "Come," she knelt by the children and called in as comforting a manner as he felt she could manage. "We mean you no harm. We are friends. We come in the name of King Robert Baratheon. We only want to know what happened here. Perhaps you can tell us?"
The boy nodded and the girl let out one last sniffle before she turned to the Firelord's eventual successor. Even knelt, the princess still loomed over the two children, and they stood in her shadow.
"I... I'm Ant, my lady," he announced shakily, with a clumsy bow. "And this is my sister, Bu…Butterfly. We are servants in Lord Serrett's household." The girl curtsied with more grace than the boy had done, yet had remained silent, studying the fire princess with her big hazel eyes. And now that she was close, Kai saw, just as he knew the others had, at what manner of doll the girl had been clinging tightly to.
"It is unwise to start a conversation with lies, children," the princess warned. "Your clothes do not hint at common origins. You are…"
"A..Azula!" the girl peeped, pointing to Ursa and then proudly holding up her stuffed doll for all to see, before extending it to the fire princess. The instant the name had left the girl's lips, even Syrah's mouth dropped open. He saw Ursa recoil slightly at the gesture and even more at the name, before quickly swiping the doll out of the little girl's grasp. The girl, Butterfly, gasped at the sudden yank but had otherwise remained silent as she returned to the boy's side.
Kai knew the armored style of Fire Nation royalty, and the doll had been expertly crafted to resemble such. "Is it from Dragonstone?" he asked, watching as the princess turned the doll around in her hands.
"Yes, I possess one of my own, though not of…" the heir of Azula admitted almost absently, before stopping in her words, her gaze seemingly more focused upon the small stuffed toy in her hands. He saw Ursa's golden orbs burning deep into the topknot and the small teardrop flame of carved wood and painted gold affixed to its head of black horsehair. For a fleeting moment, he half-expected the princess to burn the doll, but she did not.
"A..Azula?" the boy repeated cautiously, his gaze traveling between the fire princess and the stuffed doll clutched within her pale hands, clearly trying to comprehend what had just transpired.
"No," the princess said flatly, tossing the doll back to the little girl who nearly fumbled the catch. "Though you are not far from the truth," she seemed to add as an afterthought. "I am her daughter and the future Firelord of Dragonstone. You would do well to remember that," she warned, her molten eyes flaring like the sun. "Now, child," she said, as she laid a hand on the boy's shoulder, "I would like to know what happened here. No lies, and be thorough with your explanation…"