The Dance is not over

by Antony444

The Dance of the Dragons was the most devastating conflict Westeros had ever seen, one hundred and seventy years before the War of the Five Kings. In the end, a succession of deaths and betrayals allowed the kingdom to find peace and recover. But what if it had not happened? What if the courage of a young dragoness had pushed this war to be fought to the bitter end?

57. Fear the Goat

Chapter 57

Fear the Goat

The world changed forever in the year one hundred and forty-two after the Century of Blood, and yet most Westerosi refuse to acknowledge it, instead choosing to put blinkers after blinkers on their work.

Yet to understand how the Wars for the Narrow Sea began and the Old Age died, they have no choice but to admit it was Essos, as always, where the great events took place. Yes, dragons would dance again and have their role to play in the months and decades to come, but it was Essos where the great moves were thought and done.

It is so frustrating, my friend.

And I don't say this as a descendant of one of the Generals who played a major part ushering that Age.

I speak as a teacher.

Sometimes I wonder if my students wouldn't be happier finding themselves transported across time to the Disputed Lands of old, given swords and shields to serve as sellswords.

They certainly have the arguing and the belligerent dispositions for it.

Yes, yes I know what you're going to say, my friend.

Hasturo the Unspeakable is not exactly the kind of man you want to study, and though you can recognise his military skills, the leader of the Company of the Goat remains an extremely controversial figure to this day. And in the interest of honesty, I can write truthfully and say it is not going to change. My ancestor, while less controversial, was not exactly popular either.

And maybe more importantly, there are far more glorious battles to attract youthful and glory-seeking eyes in the Century of Fire.

But I will not change my opinion: it is the Battle of the Black Pillars and the Battle of Monforte which let the sun of this new Century rise over the dust and the ashes left by the Doom generations ago.

Many men died on these battlefields, most of the time with no idea what they had put in motion.

But they changed the world forever.

They changed Essos forever. We're running in the footsteps of giants now, my friend.

And I, for one, absolutely don't regret it.

Letter of Leonardo Scalla to one of his peers, translated from Myrish Valyrian, approximately 326AC.

---

Captain Rollo Lurio, Sixth Moon of 140AC, one day west of Kaleos, Pentoshi lands

After a few days, Rollo Lurio had come to the conclusion his horse hated him.

He did not why. The Captain had fed the hungry beast much delicious food all horses loved, and yet this sorry excuse of a mule always tried to kick him when it had the chance.

If he had known this ahead of time, Rollo wouldn't have tried to get a horse for himself.

Unfortunately, he had, and now his backside hurt. Sweet Nightingale, all his body hurt, but his backside and everything hurt way much more than the rest.

And of course, this was the fault of his horse.

The black demon that he happened to ride upon was trying to dismount him and ensure he broke his neck from the fall.

"I don't know how the Pentoshi dealt with you, beast. Did they threaten to make you a slave?" He gritted between his teeth as the unruly beast once more refused to obey his commands.

"You know, Captain, there may have been a reason this stallion was far away from all the others in the stables..."

"Thank you, Aldo, why didn't I think about it?" Rollo grumbled...again.

His second wisely shut his mouth, especially as he, unlike his commander, had had the good luck to find a mare that was gentleness and obedience incarnate.

"I hate my horse, and I hate this land. What else is new?"

Evidently, he hadn't thought pushing eastwards was going to be easy.

It was winter, after all, and though winters in this land were far milder than in Braavos, this was still the coldest and most unpleasant season for this part of Essos.

But for all his expectations, Rollo had still been unpleasantly surprised.

The nights were hellishly cold, as bad as when they were drenched at sea, but not cold enough to get snow and freeze the ground for long.

Once dawn arrived, the sun warmed up the shores of the Argos River, and wetness took over.

It meant that while men were freezing off during the night despite doing everything they could to warm up their tents, they were soon under assault in the morning from quantities of flies and mosquitoes.

As a result, there was never a morning that was not unpleasant and filled with insects trying to suck either your joy or your blood.

And of course if you rode long enough, by the afternoon you sweated like a pig, sun or not.

The lands north and south of the Argos River were cold, but not cold enough to not make your life as miserable as it was possible.

"The last farm looked like it was emptied yesterday, shortly before our arrival."

"Food?"

"We found the hideout where they hid two bags of grain. Nothing else."

Rollo Lurio grunted, unconcerned. By this point, every rider of the vanguard had reported the same plenty of times.

The Captain didn't know who had told the Sealord that the Pentoshi were going to greet them with smiles on their lips and pies in their hands, but that man had been either treacherous or stupid.

The Pentoshi farmers and everyone who lived anywhere near Argilon were fleeing before their arrival, leaving empty villages and farms for them to find. The men, women, and children took all the chicken and the cows, placed the grain they could carry on carts, and ran away with all the strength they had in their legs.

"The men don't like that, Captain."

"Which part?" Rollo asked sarcastically.

"The one where everyone flees before our arrival. It doesn't feel...it isn't what we were promised. The young bravos were told we were going to liberate the slaves and save these families from the tyranny of greedy merchant-slavers."

And there were no slaves worth mentioning in this part of the Pentoshi heartlands. The number they had found so far at Argilon and in the vicinity of it could be counted on two hands with spare fingers.

"They must have evacuated the ones they had to Kaleos...you know, the town we are coming to 'liberate' of all its grain."

"Yes, Captain."

The tone was subdued, and the enthusiasm was nowhere to be noticed.

But it was all right. More and more soldiers were beginning to understand that this war was not the one that they had been promised. The Pentoshi living at Argilon and the other towns were hardly wealthy, they didn't sleep in golden palaces, and they didn't seem to worship a God of Slavery either.

But they were Pentoshi, the enemy. Rollo Lurio had pledged his sword and his honour to defend Braavos and the Sealord in this war, and this he would do, for he was no oath-breaker.

"At least we are past the Black Gorge, Captain."

"Yes, Aldo. Truthfully, I thought the Pentoshi would be waiting there to lay an ambush. It's practically the perfect spot where a smaller group of men can stop an army for one day or two."

"Until our crossbowmen take position on the heights and decimate them volley after volley, Captain."

"I didn't say it would give them victory. It's just the best place to stop an army that largely outnumbers whatever hastily levied militia they have defending Kaleos."

"Yes, Captain."

"Kaleos is close, if the maps we have are correct. Once we will be past the Black Pillars, we should see Kaleos."

"The Black Pillars, Captain?"

"It was an old temple the dragonspawn built for their horrible draconic abomination of a God. A big, black temple. But the locals didn't maintain it, and the roof collapsed during a thunderstorm right during the Century of Blood. Many looters stole everything valuable, but the pillars of black marbles were too big and the Valyrians forced their slaves to dig the foundations too deep. Therefore there's only the pillars left on this hill...or so I was told."

"I don't like black temples, Captain. But I will be happy to not have to tighten my belt anymore. We still can drink all the water we want, but the bread is getting old, and the soup we have for dinner doesn't have a lot to go with it."

Rollo did try not to grimace. Everyone had known they were riding and marching eastwards for Kaleos and its granaries, but the extent of how close they were to eating out what was left of their supplies had been hidden from the men at large...though all the smart ones had figured that the campaign was a big gamble.

The Braavosi army had to take Kaleos: it was as simple as that. Otherwise, there would be no return journey.

Thanks to the Argos River, they had enough drinkable water – though Braavosi discipline had to come hard to make sure the water stayed that way every day. The bravos otherwise would have swum and washed their clothes every day in a chaotic way, making sure everything they did fouled the water for thirsty leagues downstream of it.

"We shouldn't be too far from...oh, by the Gods!"

The imprecation was not uttered in a polite manner, but the reaction was genuine.

Past the last turn of the gorges, the Black Pillars were at last offering themselves to their eyes.

It was a ruin, as their maps and spies had told them.

It also was stupidly colossal.

For all the ravages of the last centuries, the pillars alone looked like the fangs of some giant beasts.

The stairs of black marble that had pierced the hill were looking as eternal as they had been when they were built.

"Why the hell did they build something so big? These stairs aren't practical for humans! It is just stupid!"

"The main stair wasn't done for humans, but for dragons," Rollo replied, noting the broken and headless statues on every side of the hill. "This was-"

The words failed, for this was when the first riders revealed themselves, descending in two neat columns on each side of the giant relic of the dragonspawn age.

"Captain?"

"They have banners of parley." He said slowly. Although there were unusual ones, these banners. It was like the men had braided gold and silver to look like horse manes.

But these were banners of parley, and recognised as such by the civilised people of Essos.

And as the morning fog decided to vanish, the presence of another hundred of riders on top of the dark hill was a hint that his cavalry vanguard better respect the customs, if they wanted to live another day.

"No one does this kind of banner but the Dothraki, Captain!" One of his older riders whispered angrily. "I don't think it is a good idea!"

"Shut up, and let me speak!" He snarled back.

About five heartbeat later, Rollo realised his subordinate had been right. For next to the unusual banner of parley, there was the skeletal head of a goat.

The next words of the other party didn't calm his fears in the least.

"Good morning, esteemed sea dancers of Braavos. I am Po the Blue, a humble Emissary of the Company of the Goat. In the name of my master Captain-General Hasturo, I humbly beseech you for an audience with General Vitello Siscar."

The first question, and it was a panicked one that echoed loudly in his head, was how by all the Gods did the enemy know the name of their General, since the announcement had only been made when they left Argilon...

---

General Vitello Siscar, Sixth Moon of 140AC, one day west of Kaleos, Pentoshi lands

Vitello Siscar considered himself a man who had travelled a lot during his life.

In fact, in forty and some years, he had travelled so far and so long that he had technically only been at Braavos for four of his name days.

That had caused him plenty of trouble when it came to politics, for several of the old merchant families had promptly proclaimed that he was very close to becoming a foreigner entirely.

It was pure nonsense, of course. Vitello had travelled far away from his home – as far as Qarth, really – but he was born Braavosi, and he would die as one.

For all his travels, however, he had never met a Dothraki as strange as this 'Po the Blue'.

Just to begin with, the man was dressed in blue.

It was not that much out of the ordinary; when it was cold, contrary to what the inhabitants of the Free Cities thought, the Dothraki didn't go bare-chested outside. They did don clothes, like everybody else.

But the clothes Vitello had seen them take for themselves were crude things. Oh, they protected from the cold, but they were ugly and just one step removed from flaying a poor animal.

The clothes of this 'emissary' weren't like that.

It looked like the Dothraki wore a sort of large blue overcoat, but one so fine and so well-worked that the exterior looked as smooth as silk. The very idea sounded ridiculous, but it couldn't get out of his head.

It wasn't the only part that was very un-Dothraki-like.

The boots were superb, fur and all. The black fur and the leather shone under the winter sun, and frankly, Vitello wouldn't have raised an eyebrow if a Pentoshi Magister did happen to wear these boots.

Yet they were not in the hands of a Pentoshi, but used by a Dothraki barbarian.

Vitello abandoned the examination. Nothing made sense, including the large yellow sash, which looked too like it was made of silk.

This Dothraki had certain travelled far and wide with other sellswords, and certainly decided to copy some traditions of the Yi-Tish merchants.

Yes, it was likely the reason for these civilised clothes. The Dothraki was an exile, one which had acknowledged how barbaric his home culture truly was.

It also explained why the barbarian-born sellsword was drinking his milk in a cup of tea of authentic Yi-Tish porcelain.

The cup emptied, and Po the Blue spoke again.

"As I said, General, I came as the Voice of Captain-General Hasturo."

"The Unspeakable," Vitello was proud to say his voice didn't tremble. The deeds of this monster had become infamous from Braavos to the Jade Gates.

The Dothraki shrugged.

"It is one of the names that have been given to him." The sellsword caressed his long and oiled mustachio. "Several of them were undeserved."

"On that point, we will have to disagree." When even the Triarchs of Volantis thought you went too far to punish 'unruly slaves', it was the sign you were a dangerous maniac that deserved to be fed slowly to several sharks at once.

"Then let us disagree," Po smiled, and there was something...honestly disturbing with this smile. Either the barbarian was good at pretending, or he seemed honestly genuinely happy at serving his role of emissary. "Captain-General Hasturo is deeply sorry for your supply misfortunes, but he has been hired by the Princedom of Pentos to protect these lands. In his great generosity, he humbly asks you to return to Argilon, and cease all this untimely violence against the legitimate owners of this land."

There was no insult, not a single word raised once upon another. There was just this troubling smile.

"I'm afraid it is impossible." Even if he wanted now, Vitello knew for sure there was no turning back; his army would starve long before reaching the coast, no matter the direction. They needed the granaries of Kaleos.

"Captain-General Hasturo is ready to offer you seven days of supplies for your army, if you, General, accept under divine oath to turn back."

This was tempting, yes. But weren't all deals with the demons of the Doom supposed to begin that way in the old tales?

"I refuse respectfully." And the emissary had made his first great mistake; he had confirmed the grain supplies of Kaleos were as big as the Braavosi quartermasters thought. Otherwise why propose seven days of supply? You didn't give everything you had as an opening move, you offered as little as possible.

"Captain-General Hasturo respectfully requests you change your course of action."

"I refuse respectfully...again."

Po the Blue did never stop smiling.

"Is there anything the Captain-General can do that will change your mind?"

"He can liberate all the slaves of this land, release in my custody all the granaries' content of Kaleos and a dozen towns, and renege on his oaths to Pentos. We won't employ a man with the foul reputation of the Unspeakable, but we will not protest if he happens to sack several Pentoshi holdings on his way east."

"I am afraid that the Captain-General will not agree to this proposal, General. It is regrettable you intend to be so stubborn."

"It is regrettable...for you." Vitello declared. "I know you have most of your men mounted, but this hill and the terrain around it are extremely bad news for your Company. I am going to march to Kaleos. If you stand in my way, I will crush you."

"If you truly decide to fight against the Company of the Goat, General Siscar," the Dothraki never stopped smiling, "you will die screaming like a pig upon the altar of the Black Pillars. Thousands upon thousands of your men will be slaughtered next to you. When it will be over, the prisoners will be paraded in front of the Pentoshi crowds baying for your blood. Then they will be sold as slaves to the visiting khalasars, unless the Captain-General prefers sending the stubborn fighters to die in the fighting pits of Meereen."

Vitello shivered for a couple of heartbeats.

It was exactly what he thought. This Dothraki's apparent 'civilised behaviour' was nothing but a mask hiding the carrion beneath it.

This Company was just a horde of monsters, rapists, and mad tyrants, all pretending to be sellswords until the bigger monster holding their leashes threw them to create a bloodbath.

"Go back to the Unspeakable, Po of the Company of the Goat. We have nothing left to say to each other."

---

Ser Richard Lydden, Sixth Moon of 140AC, not far from the edge of the Kingswood, somewhere south-east of King's Landing

"I really need a drink, Gregor."

It was a sign of how bad the scene looked that his giant partner didn't tell him wine and other drinks didn't help things.

When you wanted to forget horrible sights such as the one they had in front of them, drinking definitely did help.

"You have seen dead men before."

"Not like this..." Richard looked away. "I hate watching corpses, especially..."

Blood? Blood he could watch and smell without feeling nausea.

But this? This wasn't blood. It was the Stranger's realm, and it looked like the crows had already began their work long before a lone woodsman discovered it and alerted proper authorities.

Richard Lydden turned away and didn't look at the carnage anymore.

"You would hate battlefields, Ser."

"I already hate them, from the depths of my heart." It wasn't just for being known as a perpetually drunkard that he had been left behind while the Red banners rode to war. "And I thank the Gods and the King that violent crimes are diminishing these days. I can tolerate the disgusting smell of the capital...but this? This is worse, Gregor."

"Unless one dies in his bed surrounded by loved ones, death is rarely gentle," the Westerner giant mused in a very convincing attempt to imitate a maester.

"They were eaten by beasts. I would call it many things, but 'gentle' will not be found anywhere."

"I doubt they were alive by the time the crows arrived." Gregor told him calmly, while Richard kept himself many feet away from the scene of the crime, a hand on one of the large trees at the edge of the clearing.

"What?"

"This one, Ser...this one clearly had two rings on the fingers of his right hand. But he doesn't have them anymore. Unless crows use pincers and other tools suddenly, it was men who robbed him."

"Maybe the lumberjack was not the first man to find them?"

And no, he wasn't going to come closer to the slaughter, his nausea was fading away, and he wasn't going to do something regrettable...like puke on the mortal remains of these poor souls.

"I don't think so. And the second victim was clearly beaten hard before being abandoned here." Gregor breathed out. "I will be the first to recognise I don't have a ring like the maesters, Ser. But to me, it already looks very suspicious. These men were dumped far outside all big trails in the Kingswood, yet close enough to the southern bank of the Blackwater for a short punishment moment."

Richard thought quickly about it...which was not difficult, since it stopped him from thinking about far worse things.

"The killers could have arrived with the morning tide with their prisoners, beaten and killed their captives, and then left with the evening tide. And they chose this location because save a few smugglers, no one ever comes here."

It was of course, inexact, Richard knew it before finishing the sentence. A lot of souls, highborn and not, often crossed the Blackwater to camp at the edge of the Kingswood, and sometimes they journeyed far deeper into its depths than the current crime scene.

But the hunts and the other visits happened from spring to autumn.

They didn't happen in winter.

Oh yes, in winter, the Kingswood was abandoned to the beasts, the snow – when it fell – and it was silent like a grave.

It was, assuredly, not a bad location to hide your crimes...and in that particular case, to hide two corpses.

"I don't see how we will be able to tell who they were," Gregor admitted, speaking as if it was something he did every day. How his partner could tolerate watching that and not disgorging everything he had eaten before noon, Richard didn't know. "This one used some Tyroshi dye to paint something on his right arm, but plenty of sailors do that, I'm told."

"We certainly saw many of them at Fleabottom and elsewhere." The disgraced knight of House Lydden agreed. "And with more and more Tyroshi merchants coming these days, the dyes are getting cheaper. Not everyone does use them, but hundreds do-"

"Thousands," Gregor corrected.

"Thousands, yes," he wouldn't get the last word today. "I'm afraid it's a small army of suspicious people, and we will never get the time to speak with them all...assuming it would be useful at all."

Gregor sent him an interrogative glance.

Richard snorted.

"You didn't argue when I told you the killers left with the evening tide. They could be on the other side of the Narrow Sea by now."

This time it was Gregor's turn to shake his head.

"Now that's trying to count your chicken's eggs twice, now, Ser. The weather was bad these last days. I don't think they could have gotten further away than Dragonstone."

Dragonstone or Essos...in the end, from the perspective of the City Watch, it was not exactly a big difference.

It wasn't like they were going to pursue these criminals to the Free Cities, assuming the murderers indeed chose to escape there.

"I presume there are no purses to be found on any of them?"

"No such luck, I'm afraid. Whoever did kill these two men, they really took everything that could give us a name."

"Let's hope then that in King's Landing, a few of our friends will be able to tell us who went missing recently..."

---

Captain Rollo Lurio, Sixth Moon of 140AC, one day west of Kaleos, Pentoshi lands

The call had come to assemble one hour before dawn, and Rollo was very glad to be back among the foot regiments of the Republic.

Yes, he had abandoned the stallion who wanted to dismount and trample him to someone else. Good riddance, and all of that.

It didn't mean that it had been a good night.

In rotation, all spearmen and crossbowmen of Braavos had waited for an attack that never came.

For everyone in the camp knew that they massively outnumbered the enemy, and the Company of the Goat's only chance of victory was to kill them in their sleep.

It was what the Unspeakable and his butchers had done everywhere they went, cutting down innocents and true soldiers before they could raise a sword in balance, or so the rumours went.

But this time, the Company of the Goat had not attacked.

Perhaps they had arrived too late to defend Kaleos and now were desperately trying to have some rest before the battle.

Anyway, it didn't matter.

The Republic was going to win.

The Black Pillars would fall, and with them, Kaleos.

"THE TITAN!" The battle-cry was screamed by six thousand throats, and possibly more.

From the top of the hill, which was beginning to be illuminated by the sun, came only silence.

The Company of the Goat was definitely there, waiting for them, with at least four lines of archers taking position where once there had been statues and some kind of Valyrian small religious buildings.

And yes, Rollo knew these archers were going to cause some losses. Their crossbowmen didn't have their pavises, and most shields on hand were small, unable to handle a true rain of arrows. But there couldn't be more than four hundred archers. And this hill was uneven and high compared to the flatlands, but hardly impossible to climb.

Once they arrived to sword-range, the enemy would have no choice but to engage in unfavourable conditions, or flee for his life.

As far as using horses to turn the tide of battle, it was best to not think about it.

Really, it was one more proof that the Company of the Goat wasn't just good at fighting a real army.

Yes, they had a large force of mounted archers, and what did they do?

They chose to offer battle on a battleground that forced every mounted man to dismount or acknowledge how useless he was!

Hasturo the Unspeakable was truly a monster, yes – everyone now knew of the terms he had given to the General – but when it came to war, the monster clearly knew nothing.

"Be careful with your footing," he grunted to his men. "We have just the space to deploy an army, let's not prove to the General our boasts were something that we swore after two drinks!"

"Only two, Captain?"

Rollo shook his head in amusement.

"For some, and I won't give names, it is two!"

"That's awful, Captain, I just didn't know this barrel was so close to being empty..."

At least this lightened the mood, and they advanced, as did all the army.

There was no time to admire the spectacle, but pride still rose in his chest as he contemplated the large formations mustered for this battle. Most Free Cities sniggered when they spoke of Braavosi fighting on land, but for all their sellswords, Pentos, Myr and the others never called to arms six thousand of their freeborn and gave them the weapons to humble their enemies.

They didn't dare.

Braavos, on the other hand, had. They had dared, and now they were going to win.

They marched on a battlefield of black, grey, and white stone. Rocks and sparse grass were all there was to be for leagues around the hill, and it offered very little for the soldier, novice or inexperienced.

"ENEMY ARROWS! SHIELDS!"

"So soon?" He mumbled to himself.

Several good Braavosi fell, including many crossbowmen in the vanguard. Yet these losses were few, and as a second volley arrived, you could see easily that only thirty or forty archers were already using their bows.

Obviously they had the range, but most of their brethren didn't.

"THE TITAN!" He shouted with thousands of others. "DEATH TO THE SLAVERS!"

"FOR THE REPUBLIC!"

The small force of cavalry of the Republic – some two hundred strong, and with a murderous black stallion among them – took position on the left flank, where the road ran around the large hill.

The infantry, in the mean time, advanced, and soon began to touch the stairs and the pieces of black marble.

The sun began its rise, and damn, it was not really pleasant to have all this light suddenly flaring up in your face.

But Rollo was an officer of the Republic, he knew his duty, and besides, it wasn't like there was an enemy just in front of him to exploit the moment of vulnerability.

More arrows came raining down, but the shields were taking care of the majority of them.

"THE TITAN! BRAAVOS AND THE TITAN! FOR THE REPUBLIC!"

"DEATH TO THE SLAVERS!"

And just like if a curse had been uttered, all light slowly deserted the battlefield.

The sun...the sun was devoured by darkness!

"WHAT IS HAPPENING?"

"THE SUN!"

"THE SUN IS MISSING!"

And as the light of the morning abandoned them, Rollo watched in terror, for the cavalry of the Republic, what little had been assembled, seemed to charge at something in the distance.

Then darkness fell, and Rollo's eyes couldn't see them anymore.

The Captain ignored it at the time, but all these men and horses would never be seen again by any soldier of the Republic of Braavos.

---

Hasturo the Unspeakable, Sixth Moon of 140AC, the ruins of the Temple of Balerion, western approaches of Kaleos

"Oh, science, you are about to win another great victory..."

His old masters had always told Hasturo that using an eclipse for the ritual was assuredly impossible.

That only the Goat, praise Her, could give you the knowledge of this miraculous event in advance.

They had also told him it was impossible to use an eclipse to gain a decisive advantage on the battlefield.

Clearly, today he was proving them wrong.

It was possible to know in advance where and when an eclipse would take place.

The Myrish, eager to push ever further the limits of astronomy, had proved it was possible. To be sure, Hasturo had needed to sink a small fortune in their workshops, and then more gold had been necessary to bribe a few Magisters who protected the astronomers to get the answers he wanted.

It had required many, many years to find the right location, at the right time.

And if this war between Braavos and Pentos had not began when it did, all this knowledge would likely have been for nothing.

But where science offered a canvas, the Gods had provided him the paint.

It had required a few spells here and there; a pinch of fear and some small glamour. Some tricks had been played that an Asshai shadow-binder would consider beneath him.

And when the Braavosi army marched at dawn, they marched for their doom.

Their General, obviously, had not known an eclipse would come.

He had not prepared his men for it.

And when you didn't prepare your men, superstition took command.

Yes, soldiers were superstitious, whether they were Dothraki or Braavosi.

Men feared the unknown.

Men feared what they didn't understand.

"It is really fascinating," the High Priest mused, "how one can kill an army without drawing a sword from its scabbard."

Yes, a few spells had been cast.

But honestly, most of the work was right now done by the Braavosi themselves. The exits of the Black Gorge and the stairs to the Black Pillars were too narrow to let an army manoeuvre like one of the Valyrian Legions of old.

Over six thousand men had been packed into an extremely narrow battlefield.

Now he had blinded them.

Now they were engulfed in the darkness.

Now they were hearing in the distance his men slaughtering the cavalry of the Republic.

They were in the darkness, and many of them had been blinded by the eclipse.

The Company of the Goat didn't have this problem.

They were presenting their backs to the eclipse.

More importantly, Hasturo had at length told them what was coming in the last days.

With proper preparation, you prevented panic.

With a proper plan, you could achieve the impossible.

"It is impressive, master. Many are killing each other."

"But?" Hasturo smiled.

"But you won't be able to kill the entire army like that. Some hundreds were butchered by the trampling and the panic, but it won't kill everyone. And their General has kept his wits. He's already rallying them. Many are only defending, waiting for the storm to pass. And the eclipse will end soon."

"All of this is true. Yet you didn't recognise the most important part."

"Master?"

"The minds of the Myrish astronomy elite were key to locate the battlefield we needed, friends. But this battle is a song of blood and darkness. This battle is a symbol."

He could feel at last. He could feel the beating sound.

Somewhere in the Planes, his actions had not gone unnoticed.

A divine being had opened his eyes and was watching his work with interest.

"We are but humble messengers, friends, and this battle is the message. I could have tried to observe this eclipse from another battlefield, or even a city at war with itself. But what of the message? It needed to be today. It needed to be this hill. It needed to be this temple."

"Balerion," one of his lieutenants whispered, at last understanding. "King of the Gods, Lord of the Underworld, Sovereign of the Black Wings...he who transformed the three Sister-Queens into Dragons when they offered themselves to the greatest volcano of the Fourteen Flames...during an eclipse."

Hasturo nodded once, satisfied.

"As I always say, know your mythology, and you know the symbols of the magic you seek to unleash upon your enemies."

The Temple to the Black Dread was a ruin, yes, but it had not been defiled or desecrated. It had merely been abandoned.

And the name Balerion itself survived, courtesy of Aegon the Conqueror.

"The men and women of Kaleos, wise souls one and all, did pilfer as little stone as they could from the temple."

One of his Captains coughed.

"This is very fascinating, Captain-General, but...the eclipse is ending. And the enemy is beginning to reorganise. What is going to happen when they will push forwards once more? Save on the road where we waited to ambush their horses, we can't exactly use our favourite tactics on the hill. Our horses would break their legs with every charge!"

"Oh," Hasturo chuckled, "don't worry about that. The message has been sent. Now we can abandon the hill and the Black Pillars."

"Captain-General? All Ghiscari and Valyrian military treatises insist that the best position to mount an effective defence is to hold the heights against an enemy."

"The Ghiscari and the Valyrian Generals had interesting ideas," the Qohorik-born Priest acknowledged. "But I prefer to read the Yi-Tish literature I went as far as Qarth to obtain."

"Yi-Tish literature, Master?"

"Supreme excellence does not consist of fight and conquer in all your battles, friends. Supreme excellence is to break the enemy's resistance without fighting him. Has Po moved in position?"

"Yes, Captain-General!"

"Then we have indeed achieved supreme excellence."

---

Braavosi General Vitello Siscar, Sixth Moon of 140AC, western approaches of Kaleos

An eclipse.

A bloody eclipse.

What kind of bloody madman used an eclipse to gain an advantage upon a battlefield?

Vitello knew what some of the officers safely waiting in their mansions near the Lagoon would say.

The eclipse was a coincidence, nothing more.

The eclipse was a natural phenomenon, the moon passing before the sun in a rare event that was likely seen once in a century. Or was it two centuries? In any case, it was a rare event.

Some suspicious men would tell him it was some ill-omen that augured nothing good for the rest of the battle.

Vitello knew better.

It wasn't an omen, and it was no sign of divine displeasure. It was not a coincidence either.

The Unspeakable had waited for this eclipse, and used it deliberately to blind him.

The massacre of his cavalry on the road had happened too fast. The position of the archer on the Dark Pillars was too perfect. The Dothraki and the other barbarians of the Company of the Goat had not reacted to the eclipse at all, save to send more arrows in the sky.

No, it couldn't be a coincidence.

The dreadful butcher serving the demonic goat had anticipated the eclipse, though Vitello didn't know how he had done it.

The madman had known, and he had ruthlessly used it.

By the time the last sliver of darkness disappeared from the sun, the Braavosi army had suffered like it had never had before.

Between the men dead by arrows and the ones who had panicked and provoked a stampede, between five hundred and six hundred had perished. Many more were injured. Hundreds were screaming for something to stop the pain of their eyes.

Vitello gritted his teeth, and began to bark new orders.

"The Black Pillars...they are the key. We have to take that hill, or the day is lost."

Yes, the road moved around the ruins of the dragonspawn temple. But it always stayed in bow range of the archers on top of the hill.

As long as the enemy had it, his army couldn't reach Kaleos without bleeding every step of the way.

And there also was the journey back to consider.

River barges or no river barges, it would be difficult, maybe impossible to move all the grain if the enemy used fire arrows to destroy their resupplying efforts.

"General! We need to-"

"I know! I know. We need to take that hill. Reform the regiments of the vanguard. We attack once more. Send the ninth regiment to cover our left flank, and tell them to dig in."

"There's not a lot to dig, General. The terrain is...rocky?"

"I know!" Keeping his exasperation was more and more problematic with every struggle. "They have to keep the enemy cavalry away, or whatever force will come by this road from the east! This is the only place the enemy can use its horse, and we must keep them at bay when they inevitably return!"

Then the Braavosi officer turned to give more orders.

"The musicians must play the Hymn of Liberty! I want acclamations! I want drums! I want to give my men fire in their hearts! Give the last ration of alcohol to the first ranks! This hill must fall, and the Black Pillars will be ours before the sun begins to set! BRAAVOS AND THE FIRST LAW!"

"DEATH TO SLAVERY! DEATH TO THE SLAVERS!"

Hesitation disappeared.

Courage returned.

The men shouted again, and as the eclipse showed no sign of blinding the sun again, the discipline returned.

Panic became a thing of the past.

All the training and the orders given since Argilon were reconsolidated again.

There were more arrows falling upon their heads, but the shields stopped many, and the crossbows of Braavos arrived in range to exercise their vengeance.

The pikemen and swordsmen of Braavos had vengeance in their hearts, and they were armoured to make war.

In contrast, three out four of the archers were Dothraki, wearing these outrageous overcoats. They wore no chainmail, and their headgear looked to have been made of wool and fur, not metal.

"BRAAVOS AND THE FIRST LAW! TO VICTORY!"

The Braavosi army launched its attack, baying for blood, screaming to its enemy how they were going to take their vengeance.

The archers of the Company of the Goat hesitated, and then suddenly began to lose all their ardour.

Faced with proper soldiers, the eclipse no longer blinding their opponents, and a lot of angry men of the Republic, the sellswords of the Unspeakable did what sellswords were best known for: they ran away.

"COME ON MEN! WE TAKE THIS HILL AND WE WILL SEE KALEOS!"

Vitello went with his men, of course. They did deserve it, and it wasn't like leading from the back' had been a good idea when the eclipse came. He had been too far away to reassure his men, too distant to rally them. He wouldn't do the same mistake twice again.

"WITH ME! FOR THE SEALORD AND FOR LIBERTY!"

Stair after stair, ruined rank of statues after broken statues, they advanced.

Vitello listened to the shouts of glory and courage. There weren't many sellswords' corpses there, they were running way too fast to be caught; most of it was done by crossbows.

When you were armoured in chainmail, you were slowed down, and unfortunately the butchers of the Unspeakable weren't burdened by armour.

But everywhere, the defence of the hill was collapsing.

The day was almost won.

Vitello went forwards, moving around the decapitated head of marble of what must have been a huge dragon statue.

He ran and he shouted in joy.

The top of the hill!

He was so close, and if the maps were true...

Yes! Yes, it was there! Kaleos was there, not even three leagues away from him!

Its walls were not tall or impressive, but under the rays of the winter sun, they shone like the most fabulous jewellery to have ever been polished by the artisans of the Republic.

"VICTORY!" One man screamed.

"VICTORY!" Many crossbowmen – some had thrown down more shields to make their pursuit more effective – shouted back.

Songs began to be played as the dust of enemy fleeing caused many songs to be played.

Vitello raised his sword-

And the cloud of dust stopped.

His arm stopped.

"No..."

On the plains of Kaleos, the riders of the Company of the Goat waited for them.

It was a true formation of cavalry; it was no disciplined rabble.

And hundreds of the archers that had just been 'fleeing' were now mounting their horses again, grabbing quivers and more bows.

This would have been bad enough, but the terrain was just flat.

While the Black Gorge and the Black Pillars were very rocky ground, there was no one of that to the east.

It was a realm of grass, and harvest fields.

There would be little cover to be found there.

It was a land where cavalry ruled supreme, and Vitello had no cavalry anymore.

"General! General!"

"What it is?" The sight of a young man rushing with an expression of despair on his face caused despair to sink in his guts.

"Attack on the rear-guard! There has been an attack on the rear-guard!"

"I left one hundred men to deal with-"

"The damned sellswords provoked a massive landslide in the Black Gorge! General! They made their approach as the sun turned dark!"

The bastard. The damn bastard.

The Unspeakable had predicted the eclipse, and loosened his second arrow while everyone was busy panicking.

"How bad it is?"

"We lost half of the supplies left, General. And there is-"

Horns sounded. And from the north, a small force of cavalry came into view.

"They...General, they can't possibly threaten us from where they are!"

"No." Vitello agreed grimly. "But if they have archers among their numbers, they can prevent us from descending the hill to fill up our jugs and our barrels in the river."

The enemy began to set fires to the piles of wood that had been gathered before its main mounted force.

Instantly, it created a lot of smoke.

And since the wind came from the east today, not from the north, all this smoke was going to end up in their faces.

"The monster never intended to hold that hill. He wanted us to pay its capture in blood and tears."

And he had obliged him.

He, Vitello Siscar, had fallen for the trap.

He took a few heartbeats to examine the situation, and it was one that was worthy of whatever Hell some priests tried to scare you with in their sermons.

The cavalry.

His cavalry.

It had been the key of the battle. While it was inferior in numbers and hardly a potent force, as long as he had it, the enemy could somehow be caught.

But now-

Now, the cage had been opened, and they had entered it, blinded and already exhausted.

Their supplies were already in a bad state before today, and it was worse now.

The fastest way to return to Argilon was blocked, meaning that to avoid the Black Gorge, they had to walk upon the plains of the Pentoshi heartlands, or try to cross the river under the arrows of the enemy.

Kaleos was close. So close.

And it didn't mean anything, for if they descended the hill, the enemy archers were going to slaughter them one by one.

Fighting the Company of the Goat while trying to besiege Kaleos...they couldn't do it.

They may have done the siege, if they had some supplies in food and water. If they had siege engines to go over the walls or destroy them. But they hadn't any of that.

If they charged there, the swift horses would avoid battle, and then strike them in the back the moment they turned their heads towards Kaleos.

They were trapped.

He, Vitello Siscar, had led six thousand soldiers of the Republic of Braavos, and over two more thousand of non-fighting auxiliaries, into the trap of the Unspeakable.

The acrid smoke began to attack his nose.

"General! Your orders!"

It was a disaster. It was a disaster, and his family name, his honour...everything he held dear would be shattered by what he felt was he was coming.

They were trapped, and he could see no escape.

"GENERAL! YOUR ORDERS!"

Vitello swallowed heavily. Suddenly, the promise of Po the Blue was all the more terrifying.

No! No, he wasn't going to die...not like this! Never like this!

"We need to regain control of the banks of the river immediately!"

---

Prince-Consort Addam Targaryen, Sixth Moon of 140AC, Stone Hedge

For most of the day, his wife had not spoken of the realm's affairs. There had been far better things to do, from taking up their daughter in her arms, to letting all the children have their first snowball battle in presence of Moondancer, and far more pleasing activities inside.

It was only when half of the castle was sound asleep and themselves had withdrawn to their solar, where a good fire and plenty of candles awaited, that the matters of rule were spoken anew.

"So our draconic superiority has vanished."

The words were said in a playful tone, but Addam knew his wife. She wasn't happy at all.

"Temporarily, I think. Your sister is pregnant, but she won't always be unable to ride. Then it will be three dragons against two."

Baela sighed, letting him place her hands between his.

"It isn't the same, and you know it. With three dragons against one, especially when the one isn't that big, the question would have been how high the price for victory would be."

But it would have been a victory, her purple eyes said. Now that the black wings of some ravens had flown from King's Landing and they had hundreds of witnesses to confirm it, it was clear that it was no longer the case.

"Yes, it isn't. I admit I had completely forgotten the last child of the eldest Hightower. And though Silverwing's death had never been announced, it had been so many years no one had seen it that the Queen's dragon that it was generally thought to have become a wild dragon. That, or it had returned to Dragonstone and its presence had gone unnoticed."

It might have been the latter, for all they know, but none of his mother's spies had managed to confirm it.

"It is hardly the sort of news I wanted to hear during my visit to the North. And there is worse. The hatchling of Aera survived, but the hatchling of Theon did not."

Addam kissed his wife on her cheek, feeling her sorrow.

"It is not the end of the world. And you told me the hatchlings were terribly vulnerable if the bond didn't work perfectly. Or if there was some other issue."

"Nine hatchlings out of ten die before their first name day, in normal circumstances," the expert in dragon lore of the castle replied. "But I had hoped...never mind."

"Morning was not the first attempt of your sister to have a dragon."

"I know! I know."

Still, there was something strange at work. Addam hadn't thought about it for long before, because there had been no need to. But now, one had to acknowledge the truth for what it was: all the dragonriders of this kingdom were women or girls. Theon Stark could have been the first male since the death in combat of Baela's father.

It could be a coincidence, of course. As his wife had insisted upon, young dragons were extremely vulnerable when they were young, and not just because men wanted to kill them before they caused trouble. And Theon's hatchling had been very young, besides being the only one to be assigned to a male dragonrider.

"As long as you have no regrets..."

And yes, Baela knew what he was hinting at.

There was a huff, and the Black Queen was back.

"First of all, we still haven't been able to confirm my dear cousin would have been unable to ride Tessarion in battle. And since I did just give birth to our daughter, most likely Nettles would have been alone with Sheepstealer to fight him."

True, and it had not been by lack of efforts to discover how seriously injured the Green King was.

"In addition to that little problem, you and my entire Council were the ones to tell me that we didn't have the coin for a big war. And let's face it, husband, it would be a massive one, dragons or no dragons. Unless I managed to wipe out the entire Green line in the opening fires of the bloodshed, this war would last for years."

"You think the Greens would repeat the same strategy as the Faith Militant enacted against the Cruel."

In other words, don't stay in the castles, hide in the woods or whatever location a dragonrider will not be able to search through without help on the ground, and above all, never, ever, try to face a dragonrider and his or her dragon on the battlefield.

"It would have been in their best interest, no? Even before the most recent births, they had three sons, and all had an egg which hatched in their cradle. But enough about that. Daeron is alive, and the opportunity, assuming there was one, is long gone."

Yes, Addam had noted his wife was not the kind of person to want to think very long about the 'what if' of the past. This wasn't their passion, and the line of the Blacks preferred to look forwards to the future.

"You are right, but some things didn't change." The purple eyes stared at him interrogatively. "We still don't have the gold to go for a long war."

"The gold we assigned to-"

"Yes, you have prepared for the expenses of your road-building. But I know how you would hate remove the silver and the other coins to leave your roads unattended. And honestly, your Master of Coin and I have checked the old books and re-read the figures Lord Stark and Lady Arryn had for us. We can't afford a new Dance...no, we can't afford a new war. Your realm is just barely beginning to recover, and the chests of the Royal Treasury, even today, are far from what they were during your uncle's reign."

"We could make Pentos pay...assuming of course I was willing to fight on the other side of the Narrow Sea, of course. And I am not."

"Speaking in assumptions and the like..." Addam smirked before returning to a deadly serious tone. "Honestly, the moment to have that sort of deal with a Free City may be too late. Pentos is sinking rivers of coin into rebuilding its military forces, and House Velaryon has already extorted them high prices for their help in supplying iron and other things. Pentos of course would generously compensate you for your help, but I'm thinking they would prefer to let you borrow a large sum rather than their usual 'gifts'."

"You have a gift to deliver all the dark news all at once, don't you, husband?"

"If I didn't, who would?" the son of the Twins asked lightly, earning himself a huff. "And since we're speaking of dark words, I really don't think it would be wise to go at war at all on the Narrow Sea. Not when we have already two dragons that are battle-hardened and on the other side of the frontier. The slaughterhouse of the Westerlands didn't trigger a war with the Greens, but there is no certainty your 'dear cousin' would feel the same if the situation was reversed."

Furthermore, and he didn't say it out loud, all wars included some risks, but a war in winter felt like an absolutely horrible idea.

As the Braavosi captains were learning deep in their guts. There were already messages coming from the Three Sisters to Crackclaw Point of purple-sailed ships sunk or battered into impotence by the storms.

"War is truly a thing of death and pleases only those who sell weapons if it lasts long enough. Glory didn't survive long in the heads of those who fought at Bosworth. And I suppose it's a very good thing I didn't want to fight for the Pentoshi or the Braavosi in the first place."

Addam just gave her a polite smile. That his wife had been unenthusiastic about it was perhaps one of the worst kept-secrets of Westeros. The beards may have been cut at Gulltown and in other harbours, but the Black Queen had refused the sweet 'gifts' of the Pentoshi for several moons, no matter how tempting they might be.

"Let's go to bed, Addam, I want to think of far more pleasant things before falling asleep."

"Of course your Majesty! I am always at your disposal..." This time he was lucky, this earned him a passionate kiss and more.

---

Captain Rollo Lurio, Sixth Moon of 140AC, the inner ruins of the Temple of Balerion, the Black Pillars, western approaches of Kaleos

His throat was parched.

There was an instinct to grab the closest jug. It had been a present of his father.

It was empty.

"I am thirsty," one of the young bravos said plaintively.

"We all are."

"Please, I swear-"

"There isn't any water to give you, son. I'm sorry."

And it was the truth.

It was an ugly truth, but the truth nonetheless.

General Siscar, once he had realised the trap that had engulfed the entire army, had tried to smash his way out of it.

Rollo didn't know how the old man intended to cross the river, assuming it was his intention. It was always possible the goal had been to replenish the supplies of drinkable water and extend a larger perimeter to defend against the Company of the Goat's counterattacks.

It didn't really matter what the final goal of General Siscar had been, because it hadn't worked.

The mounted archers of the Company of the Goat had been waiting for them, and it had been a massacre.

The Dothraki had used the damn tactic that had seen them spread terror from Slaver's bay to Pentos, the caracole. They were always on the move, their arrows were in the skies coming for your life when their horses were already fleeing in the other direction. There were always fifteen to twenty riders coming at every moment, perfectly positioned, and then they were using their bows, before departing to let others have their fun.

It took a lot of arrows, but if one thing the Company of the Goat seemed to have in abundance, it was projectiles and time.

Especially time.

The monsters had placed the auxiliaries of Kaleos with large shields on the other side of the river, and that way, the mounted archers could come and go as they pleased, leaving the Pentoshi to guard against any fording attempt.

All the attacks past noon had failed.

Hundreds of good men had died.

And the few pikemen and crossbowmen who had reached the river didn't have any thirst problem anymore.

They didn't have any problem to be bothered about.

"I wish...I wish all this war never happened."

"I think we all wish that, son." One of his grizzled veterans replied.

In the distance, horns were playing.

"What are they doing again?"

The music – if you could call it that – abruptly changed, and in a heartbeat, an atrocious sound attacked his ears and those of every soldier under his command.

"By all the dirty latrines of creation, what was that?"

"It sounded like...it sounded like a thousand goats bleating!"

"Demon-goats, then...no goat bleats like that..."

Rollo shivered.

In the name of every God worshipped in the Braavosi Lagoon – and no, it didn't involve the Black Goat of Qohor – what were they doing here?

Some part of him still hoped it was a nightmare.

That if he closed his eyes, fell asleep, and then opened them again, everything would be all right.

Maybe this was all caused by some bad drinks at the closest tavern, right?

No, it wasn't a nightmare.

"There are laws, right? The Laws of War..."

"You're thinking of the Laws of Blood, son. The Volantene follow them...when it suits them. They want to rule over Valyrian blood, not spill it. But you need a Volantene General in charge...and the enemy is-"

There was more of this atrocious demonic bleating, and then a human voice screamed somewhere in the darkness. The dialect was a horrible bastard form of Braavosi Valyrian, but it was perfectly understandable.

"SOLDIERS OF THE REPUBLIC OF BRAAVOS! YOU ARE GOING TO DIE! YOU ARE GOING TO SCREAM! YOU ARE GOING TO SUFFER!"

"When the Red Priests of the Isle said the night was full of terrors, I don't think they wanted to warn us about that..."

"BUT THE GOAT PROTECTS! PRAISE THE MOTHER GOAT!"

Somewhere in the night, a soldier screamed in agony.

"Damn them, damn them all..."

"At dawn...it will be over at dawn, right?"

"No, son. They're going to light more fires, make sure we are dying of thirst. And if we aren't tired enough..."

Rollo finished the sentence, his lips aching as he did so.

"If we aren't tired enough, they will wait until we are. We can't catch them, and if we abandon this hill, they will slaughter us one by one. We need a miracle. I think...I pray for the General to find one before dawn."

---

General Vitello Siscar, Sixth Moon of 140AC the Black Pillars, western approaches of Kaleos

Dawn came, and with it, good news Vitello hadn't hoped he would receive.

"It seems the skirmishes of the night have convinced the force on the other side of the river to be more prudent now that the sellswords don't support them, General. We are able to move and refill the jugs and the barrels of our men. We will have drinkable water for the day."

"Outstanding," the Braavosi army commander commented sincerely, trying not to show how dry his lips were, and how much he had already been suffering from a parched throat.

"But it is only a reprieve," his supply officer continued unflinchingly. "This can only solve very temporarily our water problem, and I have already committed over one thousand men to the effort."

And this had been done, every officer of the Republic knew, because otherwise the regiments would have been mutinied and launched themselves towards the river, orders be damned.

When you were dying from thirst, honour and oaths were forgotten as quickly as an improbable story when you were drunk.

This had been the good news.

Vitello knew it was the time to hear the bad ones.

"The rest of our supplies?"

"They are distributed as we speak through the ranks. We had enough bread this morning to fill the bellies of...the five thousand and sixty-seven regular pikemen and crossbowmen of our army, but not the one thousand and eight hundred forty-two camp followers who are with us."

Vitello didn't know what was worse; that he had to prioritise feeding his soldiers over the non-soldiers, or the announcement that in two nights and a day, he had lost close to one thousand men without inflicting anything in return.

One thousand losses when he had begun with six thousand.

Hasturo the Unspeakable was a demon disguising as a sellsword commander.

"Assessment of the situation?"

"The enemy has placed close to one thousand Pentoshi on the other side of the river to prevent us from crossing it, while the Company of the Goat gathered in its full strength between us and Kaleos, General. We estimate their numbers at somewhere around two thousand."

It was hardly insurmountable numbers, until you remembered that each of these sellswords was mounted on a big pony that could beat the most enduring Braavosi horse in a long race.

In other words, they could not catch the Company of the Goat unless the enemy made a big mistake.

"They are also creating their large clouds of smoke again to destroy the morale of our men, General. If we-"

"That's enough." He interrupted. "I know what the enemy is doing, and given how far away from our crossbows' range the enemy is, there is nothing we can do about it."

All his Captains chose to remain silent. It was the painful truth, so why bother denying it?

"The enemy, as cruel and monstrous as he is, has at least offered us a simple battlefield. We don't have any food supply left, with what he did to our rear-guard and the speed we needed to fill up our bellies after the battle of yesterday. We have enough water, as long as we can hold the river. Thus we have a series of simple choices."

In the dust between the black stones of the ruins, Vitello traced the approximate positions of each army.

"We can't try to retreat through the Black Gorge. We don't have the supplies to guard the hill while our men work on restoring a workable path across the landslide."

"The enemy could just create more anyway if we tried and succeeded."

"Precisely," there were plenty of small rocks that were incredibly brittle in the Black Gorge. Creating a second landslide would hardly be difficult. "Marching south is out of the question; there are no rivers to my knowledge that can supply us, we lack the maps to find them, and moving in this direction places us incredibly close to other Pentoshi cities, which will send their reinforcements to harass us."

"We could try to storm Kaleos." One of his Captains proposed, with some fire in his eyes. "The Company of the Goat will throw us some arrows at us, yes, but-"

"Thousands of arrows," another of his subordinates grumbled, "and our men are exhausted. The barbarians have forced us to stay awake all night, and they know we don't have the supplies anymore to feed them."

"Kaleos has the supplies we need! It is undefended!"

"It is not," Vitello Siscar cut abruptly before more idiotic words could be uttered. "The trap the Unspeakable created here is cruel and intelligent. Monster he might be, but the Unspeakable is not stupid. Do you really think he left Kaleos' walls unmanned and the gates opened? When he knows how dire our supply situation is and how the granaries of the town could solve all our problems? No, I don't believe for a heartbeat that the city is undefended."

"In that case, General..." one of his Captains coughed. Not because the poor man wanted to sound important, but because the smoke was really blowing in everyone's face. "In that case, we have only one real choice left. We can't use the Black Gorge to retreat, and moving around it from the south is folly. This means we need to cross the river, crush the blocking force of Pentoshi foot on the other side, and run westwards as fast as our legs can carry us."

"Yes."

It was asking the impossible from his men, and Vitello was aware of it.

It would have already been a very difficult campaign if his men had seven days of food on their backs, which was the time they had taken to reach the Black Pillars in the first place.

But they hadn't that food in the first place. They didn't have that many animals to butcher for their meat either.

A fighting retreat was one of the most difficult things to ask of your troops, all the tactical memories of the great Generals of the Century of Blood agreed upon that.

Asking it of your men when they were almost starving sounded like a disaster-in-the-making. And they had to add a river crossing on top of it.

Worse...

Worse than that, there was no massive supply depot waiting for them at Argilon. They had marched westwards to take the supplies in question at the beginning of this campaign!

"We are rats eating their own tails," one of his Captains said dejectedly.

"We must try to take Kaleos nonetheless, General. Maybe the town is defended by a bunch of Pentoshi, but at least there's food there. Without it, our men won't be able to fight in two or three days."

"For all the good it will do," plenty of people coughed, as the smoke was everywhere on the hill, and their eyes began to hurt. "The Unspeakable and his horde of Dothraki won't hesitate to burn the granaries if it looks like we are about to seize them."

"We need to cross the river! After noon, it's our only chance!"

"The Company of the Goat won't say idle! Do you think they aren't going to react when they see us swim over the river and try to convert a few barges into pontoons?"

"We will need to keep a large rear-guard..."

"And who will lead it, you?"

"What do you imply, sewer rat of the canals?"

"ENOUGH!" Vitello shouted. "You are officers of the Republic, you swore oaths-"

"SOUTH! ENEMY! THE ENEMY IS ATTACKING FROM THE SOUTH!"

"By the Isle of the Gods! They have-"

The smoke. This damn smoke.

They had all believed it was a horrible way to make sure they were thirsty and desperate to drink everything.

But it was more than that.

The smoke covered the battlefield.

With it blowing in their face and hurting their eyes, they hadn't noticed any kind of force shift.

And now, the south-

Vitello froze in horror.

Many of his men that were supposed to guard this flank had been sent to refill the water supplies.

"SEND OUR RESERVES TO THE SOUTH! HURRY!"

But as the wind blew a powerful gust in their faces, the Braavosi General saw the smoke clear in front of him.

He saw the rain of arrows massacring the men trying to form a wall of pikes.

Not that there were many of them left.

Hundreds were fleeing.

It had been too much.

The thirst had burned their throats, the jugs hadn't yet arrived to them, and now the enemy was coming out of the smoke to kill them all, after an eclipse and an awful night.

It was too much.

But Vitello had to try.

"STAND MEN! STAND! FOR BRAAVOS AND THE FIRST LAW!"

For five heartbeats he believed there was a chance.

But then a new volley targeted the pikemen below, and everything fell apart.

There was no more army on the southern side of the Black Pillars, just a mass of men running away, pursued by laughing Dothraki screamers.

"THE RIVER!" This was the new battle-cry, the new King of his army. "THE RIVER!"

"NO!" There wasn't any bridge to cross! If all the army threw itself at the river when the enemy was on its heels...

"REFORM THE SQUARES! CROSSBOWS! YOU HAVE TO-"

Soldiers emerged from the smoke, and Vitello realised too late they weren't going to stop.

The impact was painful, made it all the more painful that it came from his own men...and he wasn't a youngster anymore.

It hurt.

Oh, it hurt.

And for a moment, he surely lost consciousness.

The smoke. The sounds of thousands of men screaming.

Vitello Siscar was trying to breathe.

And finally, there was silence.

He was alive.

He was alive!

But it was a struggle to find some strength in his legs.

There! A hand! His Captains had not abandoned him, they had-

The hand was attached to blue clothes.

Blue.

It reminded him the sky, the-

He knew that blue.

"Ah, General," Po of the Company of the Goat had stopped smiling. "Why didn't you listen to my advice while there was still time?"

---

Hasturo the Unspeakable, Sixth Moon of 140AC, the ruins of the Temple of Balerion, the Black Pillars, western approaches of Kaleos

This had been a massacre.

The Black Pillars offered a priceless sight on the river, and at the moment, the Argos was crimson red for leagues.

It was red of the blood of thousands of Braavosi.

The soldiers of Sealord Zalyne had marched eastwards for grain, and received an ugly death for their greed and arrogance.

Strangely, it almost made Hasturo feel melancholic.

"Maybe I am really getting old..."

"You are old, Master."

"Ah, the voice of young men, so impatient, so convinced of their strength..."

Many of the men around him laughed.

"How many?" He asked in a far colder voice.

"No more than four hundred, no less than three, Captain-General. You want us to pursue them?"

"Yes," Hasturo answered. "But slowly, very slowly. Kill them by one or two, leave the toughest and cleverest soldiers alive. I want some of them to reach Argilon. I want Admiral Tacito Laskarys to know exactly how massive the losses of his army were."

"He may not believe the survivors, Master. He may believe these are deserters wishing to find an excuse for their desertion."

"This is why we will ride westwards soon." Hasturo declared with a thin smile. "The good Admiral may wish to close his ears, but it will be difficult for him to ignore the presence of the Company of the Goat on his doorstep."

"That, and it will force him to abandon Argilon...the ruins of the town they destroyed in their 'conquest'."

"It is another element of my strategy, yes." He conceded. "The Braavosi are really skilled at fortifying their coastal holdings, but there are limits to their ingenuity. Here, the sea access to Argilon is partially blocked by sunken ships, and they sent their army against us, meaning they didn't have many hands to rebuild walls and other things."

Braavos had begun this war hoping they could hunt all the rabbits at the same time, only to realise that the rabbits were in reality hares, that the crossbow quiver had only a couple of arrows in it, and that the hares were willing to fight back.

It was assuredly a most unpleasant experience. For the Braavosi, it went without saying.

"I am but a humble messenger, and it was all about sending a message."

A message to the Gods. A message to the Free Cities.

Hasturo watched the battlefield, one now devoid of smoke, as his men had stopped the burning shortly after the surprise attack had succeeded in its goals.

There were only scavengers now on the slopes of the Black Pillars, but his eyes did not see them.

They recalled the impressive rout.

It had been something that he would recall for as long as he drew breath.

Just imagine: thousands of Braavosi, throwing down pikes and other heavy weapons, running down the dark hill, their heads filled with terror.

It had been a giant flood of terrified men, a torrent that no command could convince to turn back.

And then they had arrived to the river, their panicked heads at last acknowledging there was no salvation. Many prayers had been made to the Moonsingers and the Father of Waters.

None of them had been answered.

It wasn't because the Gods didn't exist.

They did.

Oh, they did.

But the Gods wanted devotion. They wanted deeds. They wanted genuine belief.

It was all fine when you began baying for a miracle when you were in a desperate situation, but what about the one or two centuries where you spent your hours speaking meaningless words, and not fulfilling your oaths?

The Company of the Goat had been there to massacre this mass of men that behaved like sheep.

And all the Gods had watched.

Well, all except one.

This hill was the temple to one God, after all.

And with the eclipse...this whole battlefield was an altar.

It was an altar, and a way to send a message.

"Regarding your instructions, Master..."

"Yes?"

"We have taken close to five hundred prisoners. They are sent east as we speak. The Podesta made some difficulties at first, but when I told him they would be paraded in front of Pentos for all to see, he suddenly became far more accommodating."

Of course he did. This victory was hardly the scale of the triumph celebrated at the end of the Rhoynish Wars, but for tiny, insignificant Kaleos, it was the greatest event to ever mark their history.

The Argos River had turned red.

A Braavosi army had perished.

Next time some Sealord decided to aim for land conquests, he better remember that without horses and riders to use them, the idea of conquering Essos was just a delusional dream.

"It was a splendid victory, Master."

"Oh, it was. But winning here was all creating an opening for something far greater."

Destroying an army of several thousand men had required many, many preparations and tactics that had not dared use before in the last campaigns, so that the Braavosi would not see them coming until it was too late.

"And there are many who will wish to stop me before I deliver the final message."

Hasturo gave a last glance to the crimson river. There was something poetic about it, no? First the canals had run red, because of the orders of the future Sealord. Now the conquest of the Pentoshi heartlands had ended in a massacre that turned the waters red once more.

The High Priest of the Black Goat of Qohor drew his bone knife and marched to the altar.

With every step, the pressure increased.

Hasturo was sure everyone felt it.

Blood had been spilled. Fire had burned.

You could almost feel the predatory gaze of the Dragon-God waiting in his plane.

"The Pentoshi..." no matter how defeated, Vitello Siscar remained defiant to the end. It was almost admirable. Almost. "The Pentoshi will turn against you when they know what kind of monster you are. They are slavers, but they do not worship demons like you do!"

"The Pentoshi will seek to survive above all," he gently explained, "and at the time we're speaking, the greatest threat to that is your bloodthirsty Republic. Nothing more. Nothing less."

The Unspeakable examined his knife, though there was no need to.

It was made of dragonbone, after all.

"I curse you!" The Braavosi shouted. "Do you hear me? I curse you, Hasturo the Unspeakable! You killed my men, but one day, you will suffer the same fate as I do! And on that glorious day, you will burn!"

The imprecation ended, courtesy of him using the dagger to open the throat of the defeated General.

Immediately, blood was spilled on the ancient black altar.

The Dragon-God rumbled in approval.

The power of sorcery flared for the time it took to click one's fingers.

The message had been received and accepted.

Hasturo removed the blood-covered dagger.

"I know how I am going to die, Vitello Siscar. All Messengers of the Goat do know. And what you call a curse, I call a blessing. Knowing how you die can be...liberating."

He chuckled. The Braavosi, of course, couldn't hear him anymore.

The body was dead, and the soul...well, it had been devoured. Sometime being a godless man didn't pay at all.

"Master?"

"It worked. The God accepted my message."

Now, as they said, only one remained.

But it was the most difficult message, of course.

---

Decisive battles in Essos were extremely rare during the decades after the Century of Blood. They were even more so when sellswords were involved on one side or another of the battlefield.

By the very nature of their profession, the men selling their martial skills to the Free Cities had little interest in inflicting crippling casualties to their foes, who, for all they knew, would be fighting by their sides tomorrow when other employers gave them a better offer.

The Battle of the Black Pillars, where a force of six thousand Braavosi was annihilated, was thus not just a rarity, it was completely unprecedented.

Such was the scale of the victory, indeed, that many men far from Essos who would hear the tale of the battle proclaimed it was the beginning of a new age for the sellswords.

In reality, it was nothing but that.

While the profession of sellswords was hardly going to disappear, the era of their companies ruling the Disputed Lands and playing the role in the rise and the fall of countless Magisters' ambitions was coming to an end.

That this end would come after some splendid victories where they played a key role proved, if anything, that the Gods had plenty of humour...

---

Gonfalonier Scaramuccia Scalla, Seventh Moon of 140AC, the Disputed Lands

Some unfortunate souls hated winter because it snowed for months around their homes.

Gonfalonier Scaramuccia Scalla hated it because wherever he camped somewhere, he was greeted by heavy rain.

It was a miserable affair.

Everything was wet, men caught cold and fevers by the hundreds, and when the freezing arrived... the coughs were heard from the Narrow Sea to the Lake of Misery.

It was like watching a mummer's farce of the Sunset Lands, except your boots were swallowed by a soup of brown shade, the men selling you supplies tripled their prices and pretended they did you a favour, and more unpleasantness.

"And I am the Gonfalonier."

Some poorly informed souls, generally not living anywhere near Tyrosh, Myr, or Lys, thought that the title was prestigious and promised great power.

It was anything but.

Gonfalonier was indeed a great military title, and according to several old documents, the Gonfalonier was the 'stalwart shield and sword of Myr'. The Captain-General of the Free City of Myr, some whispered.

And for a time during the Century of Blood, when Myr had just been freed from Volantene rule, the Gonfalonier had indeed been the nominal ruler of the Myrish heartlands.

It had not lasted long.

The moment the Elephants began to defang the tigers, the Magisters had similarly removed the sword of the Gonfalonier.

Oh, they hadn't been as short-sighted as to destroy the Scalla line.

As greedy as some merchants were, they knew that one day, they may need leaders of soldiers on the battlefield. The Eldest Daughter was humbled; it was hardly ruined and defeated.

But they could refuse to give the Gonfalonier the gold and silver to pay for his troops, and that was exactly what they had done.

For more than five generations of men, the Gonfalonier of Myr was the Captain-General of the Myrish armies, except said armies didn't exist anymore.

All the fighting, everyone knew, was done by sellswords. And these ruffians were paid by the Magisters. Naturally, the latter gave the commands to the former.

Gonfalonier had ceased to be a title of honour, and was increasingly seen as a relic of a long-dead past. The Scalla family had to participate in the slave trade to recover some of its old fortune. Mastery of military affairs had been abandoned to let mastery of trade take all its attention.

And now, when everybody, including himself, had abandoned any idea of playing a role in any campaign of note, the Conclave of Magisters at last remembered it had a Gonfalonier.

The tent opened, and one of his men walked in once he bid them to enter.

No need to let this dreadful rain have its way with his furniture, it had already ruined so much of it.

"Has there been a decision?"

"It has, Lord Gonfalonier. You are hereby commanded to once again become the stalwart sword and shield of Myr. The Conclave acknowledges the true merits that your Gonfalonier ancestors gave to splendid Myr, and wishes you to reiterate their exploits!"

Scaramuccia grimaced.

He was sure plenty of honeyed words had been added to the official roll of honour.

It was almost flattering, really.

Almost.

"In other words, they have realised that throwing one sellsword company after another at the Company of the Falcon is resulting in a lot of deaths and plenty of gains transforming into sand between their fingers."

Before the arrival of the Captain of the Sunset Lands and its redoubtable force, the days of Tyrosh appeared to be numbered. The purple-haired servants of the Archon had only three cities left, all in the west, practically on the doorstep of Tyrosh itself. There had even been laughs when Lys paused its offensives, with the members of the Myrish Conclave laughing that the Black Swan had handed them half of the Disputed Lands on a crystal tray.

The smiles had died right as the Company of the Falcon began to destroy all the sellsword companies that had been hired to march westwards.

It was not that the Tyroshi were suddenly terrors on the battlefield. It was just that with each victory, the Company of the Falcon had risen in power and influence, and these days two-thirds of all Tyroshi-paid troops in the Disputed Lands followed their lead.

They Myrish-paid sellswords, on the other hand, had a hundred Captains, and followed the commands of at least thirty different Magisters. They were uncoordinated, lazy, and did not have a clear strategy save the one which consisted of filling their purses.

"Tyrosh is weak, Gonfalonier. The weakest it has been in decades. If we don't defeat its forces now-"

"Yes, we will never defeat them."

Already the Conclave had taken a large gamble by continuing to keep all the sellsword companies on the field during winter.

This war had lasted far too long, longer than anyone, including the Archon and the Magisters of all the Free Cities, had expected.

And that was before the Braavosi decided to turn crazy and plunge half of the Narrow Sea in the flames of war.

"I suppose they still keep control of the purse?"

"I am afraid so, Gonfalonier."

It would have been good if they didn't, but it was asking them a bit too much for the Conclave to lose control of what ensured it ruled Myr since the Century of Blood...

"The orders?" He asked.

"You are to muster all the sellsword companies and the forces at your disposal, Lord Gonfalonier. You will then proceed westwards to the city of Monforte, which has outrageously decided to refuse the generosity of the Conclave, and take it back for the glory of Myr! But the most important part of the campaign is to inflict a true and lasting defeat upon the Company of the Falcon. The Tyroshi and their pet bird must be broken, their hold upon the lands they still have under control shattered forever!"

"Tall orders," Scaramuccia Scalla remarked. And it wasn't a lie: just because the order had come that all sellsword Captains were to obey him wasn't going to ensure all of the rabble and the hired killers would obey him unflinchingly. The Gonfalonier had a group of sellsword companies under his command; it was not an army. "The Company of the Falcon has defeated plenty of them already."

"But this time, the Conclave believes they have found a solution that no upstart sellsword of the Sunset Lands will have an answer for."

"Oh?" the recently-elevated Gonfalonier raised his eyebrows. "I'm all ears..."

---

Admiral Tacito Laskarys, Seventh Moon of 140AC, Argilon

Tacito gave a last glance to the man in the bed.

It was like everything had been added to create the sight of a starving vagrant. The haggard expression, the gaunt cheeks, the unshaven and miserable-looking beard.

There was some white hair to be found everywhere, and not just above the ears.

Every shred of courage and defiance seemed to have left this body.

And yet this was one of the officers that had been sent with General Siscar, a man barely thirty name days old.

A man that looked easily a decade and a half older, with clothes in tatters, and a mind and a body that had broken as monsters hunted them down across the plains of Essos.

Tacito left the room, and didn't look back.

It was raining outside, and the wind was akin to a cold shower in your face, but this didn't slow him down. His guards followed.

There wasn't a word spoken until he arrived to the refurbished house that served as his 'cabin' while he was ashore.

"How many does it make with this one, Julio?"

"Seventy-two, Admiral."

Seventy-two. And five of them weren't soldiers, but camp followers.

Seventy-two. Seventy-two, out of an army that had been six thousand-strong.

"Moonsingers preserve us." What else could he say? This was one of the greatest military disasters of Braavos, and he had played a major role in it. And this time, there was no blaming the weather. "Do we have a better idea of what happened?"

"Not...really? Admiral, most of the survivors we have are trying to recover from their desperate escape. Their words are incoherent at best, and none of the high officers of General Siscar-"

"I know what we have is incomplete. But I need something. The worst kind of rumours are spreading, Julio!"

And if there was something the rumours could do, it was to kill the morale of his sailors and every Braavosi before another battle began.

"Yes...yes, Admiral. I...as you wish." The younger man swallowed with difficulty. "There isn't much I can say about some moves of General Vitello Siscar, but what I definitely can say is that he fell into a well-prepared trap. Of course, I have the benefit of hindsight, but it is really clear now that the enemy, identified as the Company of the Goat, stripped every piece of food that they could from the lands between Argilon and Kaleos. The more they pushed eastwards, the more the enemy had time to strip the farms of everything edible. Our men found some bags of grain and other things, but barely enough to sustain a few companies. And men on the march eat a lot."

"That they do," the Admiral of Second Fleet muttered bitterly.

"After that...after that it seems really clever for the enemy to have turned the Black Gorge and the Black Pillars into the jaws of something ready to kill our soldiers. They knew the last part of the Gorge isn't close to the river, and they acted to deny the men as much water as possible, while taunting General Siscar to attack on the day of an eclipse."

"You don't think it is sorcery, then."

"Admiral, we saw a partial eclipse here, at Argilon. There have been other reports coming from the north too. Any sorcerer that is capable of conjuring an eclipse over half of western Essos will likely find far better means to kill five hundred or a thousand men."

It was a good point, and he had to reluctantly acknowledge it.

"No, Admiral, the enemy commander, who we have to presume is the Unspeakable butcher, knew somehow an eclipse was coming. He used it to ambush our cavalry and slaughter them. After that, he abandoned the heights, and waited for General Siscar to commit mistakes. Mistakes that weren't truly mistakes, but forced by the disastrous starvation about to kill our entire army wholesale. Food and water shortages dictated the pace of the defence, and the mounted archers and the rest of the enemy forces used it to kill thousands. And once the rout began..."

Yes, the moment the discipline had broken, there had been nothing left to restore the unity and the strength of the army. In fact, it hadn't been an army anymore, just a terrified mass of men.

Vitello Siscar had perished – one could only hope Hasturo the Unspeakable hadn't managed to take him alive – and his senior officers had likely disappeared with him. There had been no one high-ranked enough to save the day, and even if there had been, Tacito Laskarys wasn't sure it would have done any good.

This hadn't been an army, but a mob that threw itself across the river.

The Argos wasn't the Rhoyne or the Narrow Sea, but it was at least thirty feet-wide near Kaleos, and the Pentoshi had been waiting on the other side.

And thank God it had been Pentoshi there.

No matter how incoherent some ramblings, the first survivors had admitted the scale of the butchery had frozen the arms of many Pentoshi old men and youngsters, allowing plenty of Braavosi to run with their lives.

Needless to say, on the other side of the river, the Company of the Goat had offered no such mercy.

"I suppose we won't know exactly how the enemy broke our men so completely. The smoke doesn't explain everything." The Admiral of the Second Fleet winced. "It isn't critical now. What is critical is that we have just lost the war."

"Admiral! We still hold Argilon-"

"Argilon is impossible to defend as it is right now. The fort our siege engineers made ready can hold its own for a while, I suppose, but the town is not ready for a siege, and we don't have the infantry to man the walls anyway. The men went with Siscar, remember?"

Tacito should have never authorised that expedition. Yes, Siscar was hardly a General on the leagues of an ever-victorious tactician of the Century of the Blood, but he had a good head on his shoulders, and he knew Braavos couldn't afford the loss of this army. Yet the Unspeakable had outplayed him at every turn of the battle.

"Admiral..."

"I think we can wait one or two more days, we have managed to bring enough fish and grain here, but I don't see how we can justify waiting more. The Unspeakable will come to Argilon, and its walls will not stop the archers which slaughtered Siscar and his men."

If there was one detail that had been very bad for his blood and his head, it had for certain been the terrified words of the survivors mumbling about the arrows hitting them long outside of Braavosi crossbow range. It had not been the shock the eclipse of the destruction of the Gorge road represented, but it had caused enormous damage to the army.

The Laskarys elder didn't have the slightest idea where the Company of the Goat had bought these never-cursed-enough bows, but they had been murder for pikemen and crossbowmen alike.

"With due respect, Admiral. I believe we can still win. Yes, we will have to abandon Argilon when the Unspeakable will come, but I believe victory isn't out of the question. It will need...ah...some redefinition of victory..."

"Yes, it will," Tacito replied with the gentleness of old vinegar. "I was a bit worried you were going to propose a direct assault against Pentos, when we weren't able to take Kaleos with what we had!"

"I...yes, this wouldn't be...good, Admiral. But our trade war at sea has been going much better, Admiral."

"Go on."

"We have this Sunset Lander who has just asked for an alliance...Bar Emmon, is it? He can help our resupply operations, at least as long as we keep this war a series of naval operations."

"Yes." Tacito Laskarys admitted with ill-grace. "And no. The wars against the Pentoshi merchants and their ships will cause great harm to the purses of certain Magisters, but it isn't like they will surrender. Our bravos, by their excessive enthusiasm at Palados and elsewhere, told them there would be no peace save the one written at the edge of a sword. Pentos will continue the war for as long as it can. The slavers have no reason to surrender anything. Yes, it will cost them money. So what? They will prefer this to cutting their own throat. And the Pentoshi navy is still defending the entrance of the Bay of Pentos, with every moon adding to their numbers."

It pained him to admit, but so far the Pentoshi Navy had waged a far better war than theirs. They hadn't won a single naval battle of importance, all of their successes could be attributed to sellsails and other parties.

But they still controlled the Bay of Pentos, and as long as they did, Pentos would survive.

At the same time, sellsword companies like the Company of the Goat would emerge from the untamed immensities of Essos to fall upon the Braavosi forts spread across the coast.

"We can't conquer Pentos, and Pentos can't do anything to us. We are winning more than they do, but like them, trade is part of our blood."

And between First Fleet and Siscar's army, Braavos had just lost close to ten thousand men. Pentos had lost far more of course from Tanex to Argilon, but it was going to be very cold comfort to the Sealord, the Iron Bank, and all the players of the Lagoon.

Their victory was supposed to give them the keys to become the most powerful Free City of the Narrow Sea.

"Braavos went to war in the hope it would be a swift, golden victory, one where the Pentoshi slaves would be freed, and the First Law would be established, with small towns rising in revolt right before our arrival. So far, I will remind you, it hasn't happened. And our men's morale is not what it was a couple of moons ago."

Oh yes, everyone had been happy when it was time to teach a lesson to the cheese-mongers, but when it was time to tighten your belt and the supplies arrived infrequently...war was suddenly far less popular. Being a sailor was a hard existence, and having one meal instead of two didn't improve the mood.

"We also need a way to reward the men. Some half-burned plot of land near Palados isn't going to exactly motivate anyone."

"The Sunset Lander...Bar Emmon...he has a solution which would solve that problem too."

"Does he have the support of his King, this bastard descendant of the Valyrians?"

"He's a Lord of the Sunset Lands, and he says he does." His subordinate answered. "But I didn't see any Seal to prove it, and all the ships we've seen so far have his banners, not the dragon's."

"I don't like this," Tacito Laskarys muttered with a grimace. "But since the Unspeakable has yet to ride to Argilon in person, I suppose it won't do any hurt to talk to him."

---

Captain-General Godric Arryn, Seventh Moon of 140AC, the Camp of the Company of the Falcon, east of the city of Monforte, Tyroshi-controlled Disputed Lands

Godric had always felt there were more interesting things than learning about past events when they did not involve battles and magnificent betrayals in order to win wars.

That said, there were exceptions for everything, and the history of the city of Monforte was one.

Yes, Monforte was one of those fascinating cities that were never mentioned in Westeros.

And it was really a pity.

There were cities which were built to celebrate the birth of a new kingdom. The destiny of Monforte, however, seemed to be to outlive all kingdoms which ever tried to claim it.

Curiously, it had not been originally founded by Valyrian settlers, but by some groups of exiles fleeing westwards after the Rhoynish Wars.

The dragonlords had taken over some centuries after that, of course. The giant aqueduct that was the pride of the city was proof enough of that.

Yes, unlike many other towns of the Disputed Lands, Monforte was not built on the banks of a river, near a lake, or anywhere near the coast.

The aqueduct was the reason of this anomaly, by the way.

But the most interesting part was that the structure was really titanic, being taller than three elephants on top of each other in some places, it was not made of the infamous 'dragonstone' that made the Black Walls and other surviving relics of the dragonlords.

It had to be maintained. It required a lot of gold.

And thus every inhabitant of Monforte refused to pay to its masters anything but the most trifling sums when the tax collectors came around.

Some of his cousins on the other side of the Narrow Sea would keel over in shock at the idea of what was considered 'proper taxes' at Monforte.

In return, it explained why even by the standards of the Disputed Lands, the men and women of Monforte were known to change of allegiance to a Free City every moon. There were some tales of sellsword commanders, of all people, not managing to keep up with every turn cloaking of their masters!

Monforte had an aqueduct, proud people, and tall walls. And they wanted to keep it that way.

All of this should have held no importance for a campaign of the Company of the Falcon. Except for one thing. Monforte sat at the crossroads of a vital system of supply roads for a good third of the Disputed Lands.

And these supply roads had been one finger away from passing under complete Myrish domination when he arrived.

"Thankfully, the Archon recognised my talents."

The female slave he had bedded last night giggled and filled his cup with delightful red wine.

"Your talents are countless, Master."

"That they are," Godric admitted shamelessly. Humility was for the weak and his cousins, after all.

Of course, like all things, it came to pass. In that case, the signal the time of pleasure was about to end arrived with a stern veteran with green-dyed hair.

"Captain-General Arryn. I bring news of war. The Gonfalonier and his troops have left their camp near Sanguinetto. They are coming here."

"How interesting," Godric mused before drinking more wine. "I didn't think Scalla had it in him, to be honest."

The title of Gonfalonier was a joke, everybody in the Disputed Lands knew that. Scaramuccia Scalla was only a commander of man because his great-great-great-daddy had managed to hold at bay a mid-sized Volantene army before the Black Dread arrived to burn it to a crisp.

And then the victory had been blown up out of proportion.

"He has with it all the sellsword companies Myr could muster on short notice."

Ah yes, that explained the audacity.

"The Conclave increased the length of his leash, then. When?"

"Two days," the spymaster of the Archon told him.

Godric Arryn snickered.

"Someone must have really received firm orders from Myr, after the latest spanking I gave to the Maiden's Men."

"Well, the Maiden's Men are back. Gonfalonier Scalla brings them with him, along with a force of three thousand crossbowmen directly trained and paid by the Conclave."

Godric whistled in appreciation. He had known he had pissed off quite a few Magisters, but the anger of the Myrish merchants must be far greater than he had imagined if they went so far as to spend enough gold for a field army worth of crossbowmen.

"This is a far greater threat," the exiled knight admitted out loud. "But crossbowmen alone will be dead meat for my cavalry if they can't hide behind something when I sound the charge. Who else is there besides the Maiden's Men?"

"The Second Sons, the Long Lances, the Bright Banners, the Men of Valour, the Jolly Fellows, the Company of the Lion, and the Masterless Boars."

While the number of companies called was impressive, the names were anything but. Each of these companies had at least been smashed once by the Company of the Falcon. Some, like the Maiden's Men, had even been trounced twice.

"And?"

"And Myr hired the Silver Harpies too."

Godric whistled again.

"Now they have my attention."

The Silver Harpies were not a local sellsword company at all. In fact, one could hesitate calling them a sellsword company in the first place.

They were a Ghiscari force of men that had been mustered by New Ghis to earn a lot of coin and favours by the rulers of New Ghis.

As per the traditions of Old Ghis, it was in its great majority a force of heavy infantry. According to the rumours, there were even more heavily armoured than the Braavosi pikemen and the Volantene Tiger's cloaks.

If the last rumours were true, they were about four thousand of them, as many as the current effectives of the Company of the Falcon.

"I suppose it kind of explains their enthusiasm to offer a battle, yes." Godric blinked. "And it is also a bad sign. Last I heard, they were negotiating some contracts with Volantis."

Give it to the Triarchs: the ancient monsters were not beyond hiring people wanting to resurrect the culture of their long-dead foes.

But there was a far more urgent problem, and the Archon's spy had to know it. For the Silver Harpies to be here, they had to land at Sanguinetto, it was the only harbour Myr controlled that was sufficiently close.

And that meant, in turn, that the Lysene Navy had let the transport ships carrying the 'sellswords' pass unimpeded.

The Tyroshi Navy could be blamed for the same sin, except Godric knew from his own men how dispersed and weak the Tyroshi fleet had become in the last decade. It was the shadow of the forces which had once given headaches to Caraxes the Red Wyrm.

"But Cittadella is holding?"

It was the key. The road from Sanguinetto could easily be blocked by the Company of the Falcon, but only if Cittadella and its large harbour on the coast remained under Tyroshi control.

Said city also happened to have an excellent paved road that led south, straight into the lands that were harvested by the slaves and freedmen of Monforte.

Whoever held Cittadella could flank Monforte, every sellsword who could read a map – not a large number to be sure – knew that.

"Cittadella has not come under assault of any company hired by Myr, no."

Godric thought it over. Myr had to know the importance of Cittadella for certain, it had been the first march of his offensive to force them to abandon all of their recent conquests.

On the other hands, with all the men they had mustered, their army had to be over twelve thousand. It was entirely possible they had gathered the biggest hammer they could, and thought they could take care of the other cities later, once his company was defeated.

It was going to be delicious to call them wrong.

Godric threw his cup away and called one of his male slaves.

"You! Go find the Captain of the Company of the Rose. Tell him we need to have a little council of war. There are plenty of men who wish to die crossing weapons with me!"

---

Gonfalonier Scaramuccia Scalla, Seventh Moon of 140AC, the Battlefield of Monforte

Somehow, Scaramuccia was sure they were going to call it the Battle of Monforte.

This, despite the fact they're still at least seven to eight leagues away from the city itself.

Bah, it wouldn't be the first time anyone used an incorrect name for a battle. Though how they would know it was this battle and not any of the scores or so fought near Monforte in the last decade promised to be interesting.

The Myrish Gonfalonier shook his head.

This thought could wait for another day.

For now, there was a battle to win.

"Once again, it is good for us to die for Monforte, and the merchants to count the expenses..."

But for all his natural cynical ideas, everything stopped as his army crossed the fords and began to deploy on the plains.

The last Gonfalonier of the Scalla was well aware of many intrigues sponsored by the Conclave which had led him to being in command of this army, but there were some sights you couldn't help but be awed by.

And if thirteen thousand men or so on the move, two thousand of them mounted, didn't impress you, then it was likely nothing would.

It was a multitude of banners, spears, and swords, cuirasses shining under the winter sun.

The rains had at last decided to let them decide this campaign away from dark clouds, and as such, from his elevated position, the full might of the troops paid and equipped by Myr was marching in its full splendour.

Many of these men were not born in Myr. In fact, save the crossbowmen, it was likely nine out of ten had not visited Myr for anything but drinking in the taverns and losing their coins in the brothels.

They were the sellswords of the Disputed Lands, the heirs of the Century of Blood. They were blown by the winds of history. The coins of the Free Cities were their credo, and Wealth was their Goddess.

They would follow him for as long as the Conclave paid, and not a day longer.

"The men stand ready, Gonfalonier."

"So I see."

Nine major sellsword companies and over thirty smaller ones had indeed marched after the call to arms was sounded.

As per the plan of battle given two days ago, Scaramuccia Scalla had placed the Silver Harpies in the centre, supported by his crossbowmen. The Ghiscari sellswords had a lot of spearmen, but their javelin-throwers hardly inspired him confidence. In order to shore up their flanks, he had chosen the Second Sons and the Company of the Lion, both long-living companies which dreamed to have their revenge against the Falcon.

Then the whistles and the drums arrived to their ears.

"Let it not be said that the enemy is lacking in punctuality..."

The banners of the Falcon appeared first, the ego of their Captain-General tolerating nothing else.

But they were hardly alone. Soon the familiar blue rose joined them, along the black cat. Plenty of other sellsword companies had accepted the Archon's coin, and between clouds of dust, they were more columns marching to join the battle.

"Company of the Rose, Company of the Cat, the Red Vultures, the Silent Killers, and the Immortals," one of his men listed the new arrivals. "There's some Tyroshi cavalry too, although I don't see the Archon's Guard."

"Things aren't that desperate for the Archon to send his private army on the battlefield."

"Yet," one of the heralds spoke amused.

"Yet," the last of the Scalla line agreed, his lips twitching. The Archon may have slightly misjudged the situation.

Of course, it was always possible the Master of Tyrosh hadn't. The Gods knew how shaky his control over this 'army' was. Most of these sellswords had never fought as part of a greater army before, and that was when the companies next to them hadn't been their enemies mere fortnights ago.

"Still, it is quite something. Their numbers?"

"I think they have about twelve thousand men, Gonfalonier. But it can't be less. As for their plan...given how swiftly they moved when we crossed the fords, I don't think it will be a surprise to you that they intend to catch us against the river, and destroy us when several companies will panic."

"Yes, we're really playing once again the classics of the Disputed Lands."

It had been done more times than anyone could remember, honestly. Of course, the river was neither particularly deep nor wide, but trying to keep your calm when you had an enemy before you forcing to withdraw, one step at a time, was hardly something to be enjoyed.

"Our wings will have to hold them as long as possible."

The Silver Harpies, for all their Ghiscari lineage, had a lot of heavy infantry, and should be able to stop the most dangerous warriors of the Falcon and the Rose for a time.

"I suppose that it is better that way, really. If the age of the Disputed Lands is to end today, let us make sure the sellswords have their fair share of the glory."

"Yes, Gonfalonier. And besides, it is time for Monforte to raise high our banners for a long time."

"I am not sure the inhabitants of Monforte would be pleased by your words, Captain." Scaramuccia raised his hand, and four riders spurred their horses, making sure the black coursers galloped away to relay his commands. "They want to keep their aqueduct, you know."

"Is it true the dragonlords refused to build it in dragonstone because the city's governor of the time refused the demand of a Belaerys to make his daughter a concubine?"

"It might very well be true, given the insistence it was repeated all over Essos. But since the Doom devoured the archives of Valyria, and sellswords burned those of Monforte, I don't think we will ever know for sure."

And one couldn't help but think that for once, the dragonlords had had the last laugh.

"Anyway, the Company of the Falcon shows no sign of waiting for us. It seems they really intend to push us into the river. It's time to surprise them, don't you think?"

"TO BATTLE!"

"TO WAR!"

"THE ARCHON IS AFRAID FOR HIS CITY AND HE HAS GOOD REASONS TO BE!"

---

Captain-General Godric Arryn, Seventh Moon of 140AC, the Battlefield of Monforte

"Why in the name of the Stranger are they doing?" Godric shouted.

"Captain-General, it looks like the enemy is...trying to abandon the fords. They're pushing southwards and avoiding a true engagement for now. Maybe they intend to avoid a full-scale battle with their backs against the river?"

"I can see that!" It took some effort, and the disgraced knight of Buzzard Fort swallowed the insults had on his tongue. "I mean why they think it will help them? We are going to be able to cut them from their lines of supplies effortlessly!"

"Maybe they think that by noon, we will have the sun in our eyes, and it will help them?"

Godric had the urge to kill the feeble-minded fool which had uttered something like that.

"Do you see the sky, oh, Banner-Bearer? Do you see these big, grey clouds? Don't you think they might not provide a bit of a hindrance for the sun to shine anywhere?"

"Oh..."

Sometimes, Godric thought, the sellswords of Essos were hired for not being able to solve any problem more complex than count upon the fingers of one hand, and if they reached somehow five, their Captain was supposed to demote them.

"I don't see what they're moving southwards, Captain-General. They may have been afraid that we repeated our victory against the Maiden's Men."

"Or maybe they think they will be able to convince Monforte to open its gates."

Godric raised his eyes to the sky in annoyance.

"Why would they do that? Monforte has proven it only gambles on the winners, and they don't like at all the Jolly Fellows and the Company of the Lion."

Especially the latter. It was ironic given the emblem, but despite being created by cadet sons of the Westerlands, this particular sellsword company had become infamous for not paying its debts.

"But let's assume for a moment they convinced Monforte to open its gates. Without their possessions and their supplies, the Myrish will need something to compensate. And Monforte isn't ready for a siege."

Godric had made sure of that, depleting their stores to feed his own army.

"You're right, Captain-General. Still, it raises again the question of what they're trying to accomplish. They're cutting themselves from their supply road, and they will allow us to assault their camp. It isn't like the Myrish to make...to risk everything in something so big."

One of the officers of the Company of the Cat saluted.

"They may have reinforcements somewhere, Captain."

"Reinforcements of what?" Godric asked, curious about the answer. "The sellsword companies which aren't here today are in Lysene service, or have gone north to fight the Braavosi. There may be one or two secondary players that have not been hired, but otherwise all the big sellsword forces have answered the call, on our side or the other. The Myrish wanted their reinforcements so badly they called the Silver Harpies and paid the cost of the travel from Volantis!"

Godric didn't know whose Myrish faction had been unhappy about his victories, but it went without saying they had loosened the ties of their purses.

Yes, Magisters loved the sound of coins trickling in their chests, but they were human. When they wanted revenge, they were happy to pay for it.

"No, there's no reinforcements," Godric smiled hungrily. "Tell the Company of the Rose to send their men after the Myrish camp. They pretend to be the Heirs of Theon the Hungry, no? It's time they prove it! Rampage across the Myrish and sellsword tents, take their slaves, and make sure their camp women cry!"

"But, Captain-General! Without the one thousand men of the Company of the Rose-"

"We will win a bit more slowly, but that's fine. The enemy is far slower than us, and they're moving like dim-witted pigs! We will wait for the Company of the Rose to give the final blow, but in the mean time...I think it's time to give our greetings again to the Maiden's Men and the Bright Banners. They begged for their lives once, this time I intend for their battle-lives to be far more exciting and bloody!"

---

Gonfalonier Scaramuccia Scalla, Seventh Moon of 140AC, the Battlefield of Monforte

The plan wasn't working.

It wasn't his plan, but it was a cold comfort when you saw the entire company of the Maiden's Men be trampled and routed like unruly children.

"Gonfalonier...our entire left flank is in danger of collapsing!"

"I can see that by myself, thank you!" Scaramuccia snapped back. "At least our centre is holding and counter-attacking."

The double effort of his crossbowmen and the Silver Harpies was particularly effective in butchering anything they came up against. It helped of course they faced only light infantry, but it was quite splendid to see hundreds of men of the Company of the Cat and the Falcon get their just reward.

"This won't do any good if the cavalry of the Falcon destroy all the companies guarding our left flank! Once they do-"

"I told you, Captain, I have two eyes, and I can see the reality by myself."

And honestly, more than the disaster of the Maiden's Men and the Jolly Fellows, the last Scalla Gonfalonier was unhappier about the sight of Godric Arryn than anything else.

With his silvery armour and his falcon helm – rumours were that the Archon had offered him this masterpiece for his first victories – the man of the Sunset Lands felt like the Champion of the Gods themselves descending on the battlefield.

Meanwhile Scaramuccia was very well aware he was fat, long past his prime, and even twenty name days ago, maidens were hardly lining up to jump in his couch.

If he was being honest – and he would prefer not be in front of his Captains – the Myrish Gonfalonier would have to admit he was jealous of the Captain-General of the Falcon.

The moves of the Falcon cavalry were an equestrian miracle, and the Falcon itself was perfection with a spear, killing right and left every sellsword who dared challenging him.

Scaramuccia would cheer when-

"By the Gods, Gonfalonier! Send all our reserves to reinforce the Maiden's Men! They need our help!"

As a Scalla and as an officer, he could recognise how just the decision was, in a tactical sense.

But there were moments in a battle when the army commander had to give unpopular orders.

"No. The two companies will have to fend for themselves."

"Then the entire flank is going to die!"

Scaramuccia watched the spectacle of utter defeat that the Company of the Falcon had created.

"It may, yes."

"What kind of strategy is that?"

"The one that gives us a victory."

"VICTORY! VICTORY? The bastards of the Rose are busy looting our camp! And the Company of the Cat is killing two of our biggest sellsword companies! This isn't victory!"

"Mind your tone, Captain," the Gonfalonier glared at the man of the Bright Banners. "I am the Sword of the Conclave, and I accomplish their will."

"Raagh!" The rage was heartfelt, and the sellsword stormed away rather than facing his bodyguards.

"As much as he was rude and insulting, the man had kind of a point..."

"Of course, he had." Scaramuccia rolled his eyes. "And yes, I could have ordered a far less risky strategy. We could have stayed on the other side of the river, to begin with. Or we could have tried to go for a far less valuable target. Monforte was chosen because we knew the Company of the Falcon would be defended by the Falcon. The Archon is many things, but he needs the crossroads to send his taxes collectors everywhere in the Disputed Lands."

And for this, tens of thousands of men were hacking and slashing at each other. Rivers of blood were flooding. Prisoners were taken, men of no importance were killed. It was an immense battlefield, and so much was happening with every heartbeat. The spears were broken by the hundreds, but the armsmen had always more to send as replacements for the first ranks. The swords were plunging into human flesh as the armours of lesser quality failed.

Some companies faltered, others waited for small amounts of time, as water jugs were spread out before resuming the assaults.

It was a battle of massive size. Few like those had ever been fought in the last decades, to be sure.

"Gonfalonier...our left...it is over."

The Falcon and his heavy cavalry had indeed cleaved in half the opposition.

And the Maiden's Men had enough. The sellswords had resisted far longer than anyone would have thought, but at last, they had enough. One in five of their men was dead or wounded, it looked like, and they did not believe they could win anymore.

By groups of ten or fifteen, they fled.

The river eastwards was naturally not a wise course of option; as a result they ran or rose what few horses they had left southwards.

"I presume, Gonfalonier, that we are going to sound the retreat soon? Now that all the companies of the left wing are gone, this flank is wide open for a good old cavalry charge of the Falcon and...what are they singing?"

"WE SOAR!"

"FALCONS! WE SOAR!"

"WE SOAR!"

"HIGH WE SOAR!"

For an eternity, on the battlefield, thousands of men of the Falcon and the other companies taking the coin of the Archon roared in triumph.

Scaramuccia sighed.

"What a pity to kill these warriors!"

"Gonfalonier, they are about to kill us, not the contrary."

"That's where you're wrong, Captain."

Some drums began to be heard in the distance.

Then there were more horns and drums.

It was a song that was shaking the hills and the plains. And suddenly, the screams of the Company of the Falcon diminished, their confidence a bit less than it had been before then.

"There's an army coming from the north! There's a great army coming from the road of Cittadella!"

"You...Gonfalonier...you knew?"

His silence must have been an answer by itself, no?

"But...how...there are no more sellsword companies to take the field? Not west of the Rhoyne, at any rate!"

"Who was speaking about sellsword companies, Captain? For the right price, the Conclave will always find new allies. This army is not from the Disputed Lands, it comes from a land of sands and oases..."

The plan had always been to destroy this Tyroshi-paid army on this battlefield.

And that was the Conclave had insisted upon a plan that would see the Falcon in person plunge into the melee with his usual ardour.

"Now is the time! Sound the advance!"

"Yes, Gonfalonier! ATTACK AND NO MERCY! FOR MYR!"

---

Captain-General Godric Arryn, Seventh Moon of 140AC, the Battlefield of Monforte

All thoughts of victory were so far away they might as well be on Asshai.

"Captain-General! This might be a trick! The enemy certainly mustered a group of starved slaves and disguised them to-"

"No," Godric shook his head. "This army is real."

Four thousand, maybe five thousand.

And at last five hundred horses, which were galloping to cut him from the road to Monforte.

If it was a gamble, it was the most outrageous gamble in history.

But it wasn't a gamble.

If it was, the Myrish would have chosen other banners.

They wouldn't have chosen the sun and the spear, the orange sands and the red sun, with the golden spear.

"There were rumours the Princess of Sunspear wanted a new army after the Greens humiliated her...but I didn't think her first command would be to sell it to the Conclave of Myr!"

Godric had never thought about it.

It made sense, though.

Someone had to pay for this army. And it wasn't going to be House Targaryen.

And of course an army that didn't fight might as well call itself 'palace guard' and return to the desert from where it was called from.

If an army never fought, it couldn't be bloodied. No Captain would be able to find out where its flaws were, and correct them in time to do any good.

And so the Dornish had sold themselves to the Conclave of Myr, adding the useful to the vast sum of coin and other things they had no doubt asked for their services.

"Well done," the Captain-General of the Falcon congratulated his enemy sarcastically. "And the spies of the Archon didn't hear a whisper about it before they arrived on the battlefield."

Was it what the Valemen had felt at the Battle of Bosworth when the Volantene sellswords arrived?

No.

No, because it was worse on this battlefield. The Black Queen and her brutes had at least the good fortune of knowing their rear and their camp was secure.

His army did not.

"Send a messenger to the Company of the Rose. Tell them it is time for them to run. Thankfully for them, they're on the other side of the river, and Scalla did not leave many forces nearby. They can escape in time."

"Captain-General! It is one thousand men that-"

"They won't return in time."

The Dornish had arrived at the perfect time...perfect time for Myr, that was.

"We barely destroyed the left wing of the companies arrayed against us, the centre is still intact. If we stay here, we are going to be surrounded from all sides and then be wiped out to the last man."

This was why he had wanted to be so sure that Cittadella was in friendly hands. As long as it did, it made changes of fortune like this one impossible.

"If we turn around and charge them-"

"Charge them with what? The cavalry I command personally and five hundred men of the Vultures are our last reserve." Godric gave an evil smile. "I know the Company of the Red Vultures has a lot of feuds against Sunspear, but five hundred against five thousand..."

His officers saw him like he did.

It was the classic hammer-and-anvil strategy. The anvil was damaged, but the hammer was pristine, unbroken.

"Like the damned words of these Rhoynar scorpions..."

"Captain-General?"

"UNBOWED! UNBENT! UNBROKEN!"

The battle-cry was heard from the first time in the Disputed Lands, and Godric had the unpleasant feeling it wouldn't be the last.

"Why couldn't you have arrived by sunset...I would have destroyed the Gonfalonier and his rabble long before that..."

"Captain-General!"

"We have no choice, Captains. We must retreat westwards right now. The noose they want to strangle us with is not ready. We can fight our way out, and we will."

"Captain-General! The Company of the Cat is beginning to send heralds towards the Myrish! I don't think-"

"They are trying to sell themselves to the winner, yes." Godric answered, but grinned as a new volley of arrows fell upon said company. "I think the offer to parley has been refused."

Evidently, the Conclave of Myr did not want errant dogs – or cats – to accomplish its will.

"Our priority is to save each and every warrior of the Falcon we can," the Falcon General ordered. "Send the Vultures against the spears of Dorne, tell them to win us some time. The Immortals must stop the Silver Harpies."

Orders continued to be barked and relayed by scores of riders.

All the while the army of Dorne continued to advance, and the avenue to escape narrowed increasingly fast.

Godric Arryn, disgraced knight of Buzzard Fort, Captain-General of the Company of the Falcon, and Praetor personally designated by the Archon, made an ugly grimace.

"All these tactics made perfect sense now if the Gonfalonier knew the Martell spears were coming..."

---

No One, Eighth Moon of 140AC, the House of Black and White, Braavos

The room was a room, but it also was more than that.

It was below the canals, where the light of the sun never shone.

There were bones to watch for those who went through the gate leading to it, but the bones were only there for remembrance.

So were the skulls.

There were many passages, and there were stairs.

They led to plenty of locations, while at the same time going nowhere of importance.

There were keys, but they weren't locks.

There was silence, yet the whispers were never far from it.

The construction had lasted a long time. But its builders never remembered building it.

No masks were allowed, but they all carried a burden within them.

It was a room.

It was under the canals.

It had water that wasn't meant to be drunk.

It wasn't water.

It was black water.

It was poison.

It was a gift.

It was the source of wisdom.

It was dangerous.

It was a blessing.

It was truth.

No One waited.

There weren't any candles.

There was only darkness.

" The Shadow of the Goat grows stronger."

"The gift wasn't delivered. The end of suffering was delayed."

The temperature of the room grew colder.

" We feel the warmth of the Fire. We see the shadow of their wings. We hear the deafened rumble of their roars. We are displeased."

"Hasturo the Unspeakable..." No One licked his lips. Even in this room, uttering the name was unpleasant. "The Unspeakable has somehow avoided our gifts. One, Two, and Two were sent. Suffering won. The pain ruled. The messages were sent."

" We hear the song being called before it is time. He is ruining everything!"

No One shivered. The man was hardly young, but he had never heard the Voice of Many succumb to an emotion that could be mistaken for anger.

The truth of the black water was troubled by violent currents.

" The song must be stopped. The Shadow of the Goat must vanish. The Unspeakable must accept the gift ."

No One swallowed.

"This man hears. This man obeys." The command was the divine given purpose. It couldn't be argued.

He didn't leave the room, however.

"How?"

The actions of the Unspeakable disturbed everything. The gift had to be given.

But three times the heretic's name was given so that the suffering would end.

Three times the name had dried upon the lips of the Humble Ones.

Talent and the gifts had failed, in a manner that had never existed since Summer was given the mercy of the Darkness.

" The song must be stopped. The gift will be given with two hands. The suffering will end by the seventh strike."

Two full hands of seven Humble Ones each?

It was-

Serenity and the void seized No One.

His thoughts became calm itself.

It was necessary.

The song had to end before it woke up what was to be discarded.

It was to be done.

"Two hands of seven, yes, Voice. It will be done."

No name had survived the gift being delivered by a hand of seven.

Two hands would end the suffering before it was too late.

" Valar Morghulis."

"Valar Dohaeris."

---

The High Septon, Eighth Moon of 140AC, the rebuilding village of Tumbleton

The Most Devout had firmly opposed him coming here.

Their reasons, of course, had been inventive. First they had pleaded it was not reasonable for a man of his age to leave the city in winter. When it had not worked, they had argued the roads were dangerous. Over and over, they had moved on from reasonable arguments to the ones which betrayed their true worries. What if King Daeron refused to name any Faithful to the Council while he was away? What would happen to the sermons of the day of the Smith during his journey?

They had been really disappointed to hear that his journey, in more ways than one, was his pledge to the Smith.

Of course, now that he was looking at the devastation, the High Septon thought the Most Devout may just have wanted him to not look at the disaster that had been called Tumbleton once upon a time.

"When I heard about the flooding, I had not thought it was that bad," the representative on this world of the Seven-Who-Are-One admitted.

But it was.

So close to the northern hills, the thunderstorms had been incredibly violent in autumn, and the flooding had unleashed a colossal mass of water and rocks.

The Old Tumbleton would have endured without problem. It had levies, dams, and had been built with these storms and floods in consideration. It was not Oldtown or King's Landing, but it was a nice city of stone and blue tiles.

Or so the High Septon remembered from his youth.

Unfortunately, the Old Tumbleton had perished in the awful sacking of the Dance.

"Lady Sharis Footly did her best, your Holiness. But I'm afraid there is only so much someone can do before breaking."

"Lady Sharis was the devoted servant of the Mother where Tumbleton was concerned." He replied sincerely. "Will there be problems for the succession of Tumbleton and the Lordship?"

"There might be, your Holiness. The sons of Lord Footly are all dead, the last one never was taken by the Stranger when the Iron Fever came. I'm told there's a daughter, but she left for Bitterbridge."

"Some other Lords getting too greedy against the strictures of the Father Above?"

"In this case, your Holiness, I'm afraid it is more the case of a highborn daughter feeling a place which has caused nothing but tragedy to her own family."

The man many had nicknamed the Humble One allowed the sorrow he felt to show up on his face.

"Yes, I was afraid...one can't hardly blame this poor woman."

Between the two battles which had utterly destroyed the Old Tumbleton, the Iron Fever, and of course the latest destructive flooding of autumn, it was no wonder that there were whispers everywhere Tumbleton had been cursed.

The sights now were only adding water to this particular mill: the former houses of stones were abandoned, and the smallfolk who didn't leave were living in miserable hovels of wood. There was hardly any sign of greatness, and the abandoned fields promised absolutely nothing good for the future of these lands.

Yet here and there, there were signs of hope.

A few children were playing in the ruins of the Old Tumbleton.

And the large seven-sided star of the Old Sept had survived, and been moved south on a small hill, so that its metal was illuminated when the winter sun deigned shining upon it.

"I believe Tumbleton can be rebuilt."

"Your Holiness, some say..."

"That Tumbleton is cursed?" He rolled his shoulders, and thanked the fact that far away from thousands of Faithful, the High Septon didn't have to don his tiara. "It has known plenty of misfortune, that much is true. But cursed? Aside from the folly of men, I don't think we can speak of curses. The Old Tumbleton was a prosperous town, and avoided the curses during the reigns of many Kings, be they of the Green Hand or the Iron Throne."

"If you say so, your Holiness..." it didn't take a very insightful mind to know his protector disagreed firmly his mind. "But even the Faith will need a lot of gold. And I don't think many will thank you for throwing so much coin away when there is a Schism, no matter how much you call it in public."

This blunt honesty could have been admirable, if it didn't betray everything that was wrong with these days with some of his Most Devout. Maiden save him, at least one in seven thought that the Warrior's sword was the solution.

"Roger, who are we?"

"The Faithful, your Holiness."

"Yes, we are the Faithful. We are supposed to be the shepherds of the Seven-Who-Are-One on this world. And shepherds do not terrify their family into following their commands."

"Sheep are stupid animals."

Thank the Father Above that his protector had been ejected from the Starry Sept long before having the knowledge to become a septon.

"Then what are we supposed to say of the intelligence of the men and women of the Seven Kingdoms, who killed each other for a throne you will hurt yourself by sitting upon it?"

Yes, this prompted the other man to close his mouth.

"The sheep wants the greener grass, and water which isn't fouled. They want to be saved from the wolves and the other dangers roaming in the darkness of the night. And we, the Faithful, have hardly been good shepherds."

Far away from King's Landing, the High Septon could allow these words to pass his lips, which were assuredly a criticism of his predecessors...and himself.

"We have hardly been good shepherds," he repeated firmly. "And I think...no, I know, deep in my heart, that the Seven want us to be Good. To be better. We will rebuild Tumbleton. Not with gold, which was wasted anyway in the last summer by tainted souls, but with seeds, good stones, and good souls. The fields have to be prepared for the next harvesting season. The houses have to be rebuilt in stone, with strong foundations, and on the good side of the river, not the one which is flooded every autumn. And Tumbleton need a strong bridge, one which won't collapse at the first flooding."

Hopefully, these efforts would be sufficient for the legitimate Lady to return. But even if it didn't...a humble man would be able to tell his soul that he had really done what he could for the city he had loved so much in his youth.

His protector sighed in despair.

"And I suppose you're not going to abandon the idea of this pilgrimage into the hills? It has snowed there in the last days, your Holiness."

"I am old, Roger, but my eyes can recognise easily what snow is, and its white colour upon some heights of this land." Sometimes, he really wondered if the accusations of senility didn't come from the men closest to him. "There is a holy monastery there. I want to visit it again."

"And the cold?"

"The cold is a formidable balm for your soul, as long as you have the proper furs...and prayers. Now come, I want to listen to the prayers of the Faithful."

"You treated them of sheep not one turn of hourglass ago?"

"Ah, but is a sheep doomed to stay a sheep, or will he become a shepherd if he is told all the good he can make in the light of the Seven-Who-Are-One?"

---

Lord Alyn Velaryon, Eighth Moon of 140AC, Surabahai the Isle of Elephants

The Isle of Elephants, Alyn felt, did not belong to the same world as Driftmark and Westeros as a whole.

It was hot, to begin with. There was so much water in the air that your clothes could quickly fill a cup if you tried to twist it during the breaks.

It was a dangerous land, and not like the North or the Riverlands – the latter had smallfolk where if you tried to steal an apple, you could begin a feud that would later lead to the demises of your House and six Kings.

No, the Isle of Elephants was dangerous in subtle ways. The moment they had come ashore, their hosts had insisted they plunged into a viscous liquid that seemed to be the sap of one of the biggest trees of these warm and impenetrable forests.

Some sailors, both from his crew and those of Anja Do and Jayantys the Black, had refused. The next morning, the men were feverish and on death's door. The morning after that, they were burned on pyres. The mosquitoes of this island were not just big, they brought with their bites some of the most dangerous fevers Alyn had ever seen.

The sap they had to cover their skin gave them a ridiculous kind of colour, but it protected them from the mosquitoes and other insects.

Obviously it was not the only 'rule' that their hosts had explained to them in some bastardised dialect of Valyrian.

Rules? No, the word was inadequate. Those were suggestions, really. If you failed to heed the words of the guides, the men and the women bowed and left you alone. And the consequences of failing to listen to wise advice resulted in either humiliation or death. Some former pirates of the Basilisk Isles were still defecating six times per day, and the smell was so horrible...ahem.

Best to stop thinking about this...unpleasant issue.

"This better be close, now. Admiral! If we don't see their capital by sunset, I'm of the opinion-"

"They insisted we had to be patient." Alyn answered.

"You believe that? About the 'Ivory Palace' being difficult to find? By the bones of the Black Dread! How can one hide one's capital?"

"We are guests here," the Lord of Driftmark told his subordinate. "And so far, our hosts have failed to give a single lie to us."

It was a very strange culture, here on the Isle of Elephants. There were the pachyderms, of course. The grey-skinned animals were easily twice bigger as the ones the Volantene paraded during their elections.

And the men and women lived with them, deep in the jungles. A maester had written that Zabahd was the chief city of the island, but nothing could have been more wrong. Zabahd was a mere trade outpost, the harbour where the denizens of Surabahai welcomed traders and other visitors. The true population lived deep inside the jungles, which reminded some of the descriptions that had been made of the Green Hell of Sothoryos.

Except you could live and thrive in the jungle of Surabahai, of course, whereas the expeditions sailing for Sothoryos lost all their men in a couple of moons, if not sooner.

The families of Surabahai were different from all Essossi and Westerosi he'd ever encountered. Some of the things that were similar to the Volantene, like the piercings of the nose and the bellies, had completely different meanings on this island. The elephants were not just bigger, they were treated like brothers and sisters. They were part of their hosts' community; they weren't beasts of burden.

Nevertheless, it was something he wouldn't wish to endure for the rest of his life, and the audience with the Raja seemed to have been delayed again and again, by virtue of not reaching the 'Ivory Palace'.

It was the seventh day and Alyn was exhausted.

He closed his eyes.

When he reopened them, the jungle and the countless trees that made travel incredibly impracticable were gone.

There was a large fog all around him...and bit by bit, it failed, revealing the bones.

The giant bones.

There were giant bones everywhere!

And the ivory tusks easily revealed which skeletons had been gathered in a single location.

Elephants.

These had to be the bones of elephants.

But there was only a minor problem.

Some carcasses were easily thrice the size of some of the elephants he had met so far.

Which was ridiculous.

Alive, some of those elephants could have rivalled in size some of the largest and most powerful dragons of the Seven Kingdoms.

And though 'impossible' seemed way too easy to say, the reality was that no one had ever mentioned that.

It was-

"Not the Isle of Elephants, but the Graveyard of Elephants..."

" Indeed."

The air shivered, and the scene changed.

More bones appeared, and the biggest skeleton of all was in front of him.

It was...titanic.

Compared to this, the bones of Nagga, which he had examined twice, were just a distant and lesser contender.

This was a leviathan as tall as a mountain, and with legs able to trample armies with every footstep.

And between the bones, an old man was staring at him.

Once again, the appearance reminded him of some of the snake tamers he had seen at Volantis. Darker tanned skin, a high turban of white, and a rather thin and gaunt appearance; this man had it all.

But there was something, from the immaculate white and the absence of sweat...

"You speak the Common Tongue of Westeros?"

" I speak all the tongues," this time, Alyn knew there was something wrong. The man hadn't even opened his mouth to talk!

"Is it...is it a dream?"

" Yes," his host agreed happily. " I am pleased you have such a quick mind, Navigator."

The eyes...the eyes seemed to be way too old. A glance, and Alyn was afraid to do more than glance at them.

"Where are we?"

The white turban shivered and the mouth opened, revealing sparse yellowing teeth.

" I think you know deep inside you the answer to that question, Navigator."

"The Isle..." but wherever he looked around, it was bones after bones of elephants; there were no forests, no living animals. "No, you don't mean..."

" You see this island as it was millennia ago, Navigator. Millennia ago, before the Long Night came for all of us. If can contact you in the dreams, it is because you stand above the bones of the great and mighty bones of the First. This island was once the burial grounds of the most trusted and venerated elephants of the world. This island was declared sacred by the Great God Gajânana, Lord of Prudence and Success, Guardian of Wisdom, and many other titles that mean nothing to you."

Alyn felt it. The moment the God's name was uttered, the bones seemed to come alive.

"Elephants of such size do not exist anymore. And they couldn't have lived on this island."

It remained in fact to be seen if this 'First' was not the island instead of one dead elephant upon an island.

"Once again, you know already the answer to that question, Navigator."

Yes. Yes, Alyn was afraid he did.

There were always rumours, from the Wall to Volantis. There were rumours that the lands and seas had changed a lot during the fabled dark centuries where the Eternal Winter raged, and the sun was unable to rise.

And if the rumours were true...

"Sothoryos. You came from the continent that is known today as Sothoryos."

An ivory pipe was conjured in the thin fingers of the stranger.

" The survivors of the war did. They came with their last elephants, you see. The sacred land was to be their last refuge."

"A war...that was lost?"

There was deep, earth-shaking laughter.

" No, Navigator. Believe us; if we had lost this war, we would not have this conversation today."

Eyes flashed, and somehow, the former Master of Ships had the hallucination he was facing something gigantic that was trying to humour a child.

" We won the war; alas, the victory left us the shadow of what we once were."

"This...I understand." Yes, it had to be about the War for the Dawn. The Long War. And many other names different cultures and realms had given to it. "But...with all the respect I have for your elephants, I am an adventurer trying to reach Yi-Ti by avoiding the Jade Gates. I do not believe...I am Alyn Velaryon, Lord of Driftmark."

" You are the Navigator." No, this was not a man. And it assumed generously it had once been a man. Honestly, Alyn had his doubts about the last part. " And I ordered my priests to lead you here, because I need your help."

"You..." this felt like a praise, but with every word, it felt like the jaws of some giant predator closing all around him. "You are a God!"

" And these days, my worshippers are no longer found outside this island."

The gaunt and thin white-clothed man did not even deny his divinity.

" Here I am all-powerful, able to protect my family until the end comes. But ask me to act one league from its shores, and I am impotent."

The confession must have cost him; Alyn knew that acknowledging your powerlessness was shameful, whether you were a knight or a King...it had to be worse for a God!

"Why..." he cleared his throat. "Why do you need my help? Small wars are fought between human kingdoms, but the Long Night is something which ended millennia ago."

" It ended, Navigator. But the wheel of magic is turning again. We...we didn't manage to destroy our enemy. And now a messenger goat has broken something that was failing. The war will begin again. You mortals have forgotten much of the deeds which were done...and if we fail this time, we will all die."

And to say that this morning, his greatest fear was to not find the Ivory Palace and spend a moon in the jungle among the mosquitoes and the elephants...

"Do I have a choice?" The Lord of the Tides sighed.

" One has always a choice, Navigator. But I speak from experience when I tell you that trusting the next generations to care of your problems is particularly foolish."

---

Author's note :

The adventures of Alyn Velaryon will continue next chapter, as will the War of the Beard. This chapter was necessarily focused on Essossi events, but in the next update, Westerosi events and points of view will be once again at the forefront of the historical stage...

More links on the Dance is not Over:

P a treon: www. p a treon Antony444

Alternate History: www .alternatehistory forum /threads /asoiaf-the-dance-is-not-over.391415

The Dance is not Over can also be read on Archive of Our Own now!

Link is: archiveofourown works / 52798378 / chapters / 133541518