Chapter 16
It was the dead of moonless night when he heard the roar.
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaah.
Jorah near jumped out of his skin. The ground beneath him shuddered. The block on which he had been sharpening his sword shook so badly the sword skidded off and well nigh cut him. But nothing trembled so much as the great slab of layered red sandstone.
For three helpless seconds he just sat there, blinking dimly in the firelight. Then the instincts that long hours of commands had drilled into him kicked him in the face, and he started hollering.
"'Ware! Beware! 'Ware! All men, up! All men, up!"
Swearing, moans of sleepy men, rough curses as men turned on their sides. "What… what…?"
"Up!" Jorah kept shouting. "Up, up, up, up! There's something down there, I heard it! There's some kind of beast under there—" he pointed with his sword to the great slab of stone— "and it's alive, it's alive, it's alive!"
More swearing, foul sellswords' curses so profane that half an earful would have deafened a whole septry's worth of septas. But for all the grumbling, Jorah noticed, they rose quickly. In thirty seconds most men had at least a knife in their hands. In a minute most had all the armament the company insisted every man must know: a spear, a crossbow, a shield and a sword. In a minute and a half, most were mailed; pairs of men chosen long before this day kept watch for each other, so that one man was always facing the threat while the other pulled on a shirt of mail.
"What's all this about, Ioras?" Beluros asked, a genial bearded man from Tyrosh stepping up by his side with crossbow in-hand. Jorah liked him. He spoke Tyroshi Valyrian, as Jorah did (while most of the company used Braavosi), and he was one of the few other men in the company who had seen more than forty namedays as Jorah had.
"Something under the trapdoor has woken," said Jorah. "Something is trying to get out."
"Ah. Hellish beast, I guess? Another one of those."
"Is…" Jorah struggled. "Is this what it is always like?"
"We're the Swords," Beluros shrugged. "Comes wiv' the job. Madness follows us around." Misinterpreting Jorah's appalled expression, he added, "No worries, you'll get used to it damn soon. Well, that or dead, o' course."
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaah.
The slab of sandstone, heavier than ten men, trembled.
Years of drills and discipline brought Jorah's companions swiftly to motion. Jorah was glad when he espied a figure in wrought iron plate riding on a white horse from elsewhere in the camp. Beside him rode a standard-bearer with a long lance from which there flew a sigilless black banner. One of the Black Captains, it had to be: someone in charge, who would know what to do. Richard Horpe, Jorah guessed from a brief glimpse of a lean scarred face, visible for just a moment before the rider jammed on his full closed helm. A good sign. Of all the Black Captains the man was reputed to be the most fearsome warrior in person. They would need that now.
"Who called alarm?" barked Horpe, not wasting a word.
Jorah stepped up. "I did."
"What is it?"
"I don't know," he replied, feeling very small, "I just heard it, this great noise that came from under the trapdoor…"
The Black Captain cursed, casting a dark glance at the slab. "I should've known. Gods damn it. Fucking commander, always takes us places like this…"
In an instant, his voice rose.
"Form lines, men! Half-circle! Rows! By the trees! Half-circle! Rows!" repeated Horpe. "Get in your lines! No not there, you fool, here—by the trees. Don't stand there, you imbecile, do you want our own bolts to hit you? Form lines! Half-circle by the trees!"
More of the Black Captains were arriving now. A shorter one, whom Jorah guessed to be Captain Marro Namerin, rode up to Ser Richard.
"What's the danger?" Curt, straight to the point.
"Don't know," Captain Horpe answered, in the same Braavosi tongue. "Something under the trapdoor."
"Why by the woods?" Namerin pointed, wordless, at the other side of the camp, where most of the company was presently encamped. It would have been faster to get gathered on the other side, that said without saying.
"Don't want it to escape into here. This way, if it runs, it'll have to flee over open ground and we'll get a clear shot."
Namerin nodded. "Good thinking. A moment—" And he rode off. "Horsemen! Horsemen! Form ranks on either side of the half-circle, lances aloft, get ready to charge but not before my sign, you hear me? On my sign!"
"Load your crossbows!" the Black Captain Alequo Nudoon was shouting in the meantime. "Get y'selves loaded! I want a thousand fucking bolts sticking out of that thing's arse—but only when I order it, y'hear me? All other ranks, behind, ready to load and loose in order! We can handle it no matter how many arms and legs and tentacles this thing's got. Loose at my order."
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaah.
The whole of the ground below them shook. Jorah's footing broke and he fell, only to be held up with an annoyed grunt by the man beside him. He gave a grateful nod. This was the loudest tremor yet, like the world heaving. The ancient sandstone trapdoor heaved up and down like breath. Deep cracks had gouged through it.
Whatever lurked in the dark places of the world, the Swords of the Storm were waiting. Formation was complete: a hundred columns, each one twelve men deep, in a half-circle by the side of the trees. The trembling trapdoor lay at the centre of the circle. On the other side, only open plains awaited, and the far-off ribbon of the Rhoyne. The first row stood at attention and would step aside the instant they were done, for the second row to loose as well. From drills Jorah knew full well the deadliness of the threat they posed. If the Black Captains gave the order, the combined strength of any one of those hundred columns could send a sustained, unending hail of bolts, one in two seconds. Together they could turn a charging army into wet mush.
They waited.
It was an agonising wait. Jorah stood in the front row, his Myrish crossbow hefted, finger aching on the trigger. He was not a long veteran of the Swords like Beluros. He had not fought in the Great Northern War, nor the Sellsword War that they had fought against Braavos, as the older men still told hushed tales of around the fires at supper-time. He had only joined the company this year. He had yet to even see the Prince of Sunset. All he had seen was a company of despairing hopes and no-longer-iron discipline, falling apart, men slipping away in the night. Was this how he was to die? Betrayed and abandoned by Lynesse, taken by the Swords recruiters to some long-forgotten tomb the Prince of Sunset had wished to delve in, and then left there to rot and die at the hands of some nightmare that should have been forgotten?
A pause.
A pause.
A pause.
A pause—
CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!
—and the earth blazed with baleful light, as white and bright and blinding as if a second sun had been born here on the ground. The twenty-thousand-year-old sandstone slab was rent in pieces, blown flying high above the onlooking sellswords' heads. After the light came a vast darkness: a choking cloud of ash rushing up out from inside the ancient tomb. He could see nothing of what might lie within it.
"Hold! Hold! Hold!" Nudoon was shouting. He sounded commanding, not afraid. "Don't panic! Don't loose till I give the order, you sons of bitches! Wait for the order!"
Slowly, ever-so-slowly, in minutes the dark cloud settled to the floor. It sank, first slowly, then a little faster. Its great bulge diminished. Its utmost height—once thirty times the height of a man—receded back towards the ground.
Except…
…It could not quite reach the ground.
From amidst the settling ash there was revealed the figure of the beast that had broken out of the darkness. It was completely black, covered by settling ash. It wore man's clothes—a shirt, a breeches, a long cloak—like some grotesque parody of mankind, for the clothes were clearly of nothing like the right proportions for its body. Sleeves meant for large arms dangled loose from thin sticks of bone.
The figure shook itself like a dog. Heaps of heavy black ash flew off the long stolen cloak and head, revealing a cloak of the same colour, and hair of the same colour. It passed its hand—alive, clearly, for it was moving, but it looked dead, so thin that it was skeletal—in front of its head, clearing aside curtains of ash. The skin of its face was clinging tight to sharp shards of bone. And from its face, blinking in the light of the nighttime campfires, it opened its eyes: both dark blue.
Richard Horpe fell to his knees.
Fear struck Jorah's heart. He had heard from the old veterans of the Swords of the Storm that some of the things in Valyria could do strange things to men's minds. Was this creature such? Jorah kept aiming, and his finger tightened on the trigger, holding his Myrish crossbow steady for the shot. He looked to Alequo Nudoon to give the order to loose bolts against the beast. Then Nudoon knelt too, and his heart despaired. Then Marro Namerin knelt, then Justin Massey and Bozyno Vunel knelt too, the last of the Black Captains; and the Swords of the Storm in all their masses followed after them.
Jorah had no idea what was happening; he prayed he was not making a mistake; but he would not die for nothing if the whole company were to abandon him, and so belatedly he too hit the ground, both knees on the cold earth.
"My Swords," said a low, hoarse voice, as cracked as the sandstone, from long disuse. "Rise."
That was when Jorah Mormont realised who he was seeing for the first time.
Stannis Baratheon, exiled brother of the king of Westeros, commander of the Swords of the Storm, known and feared as 'Prince of Sunset' among the peoples of Essos, looked nothing whatsoever like how the other Swords had described him. The burly, thick-muscled, gigantically tall warrior-lord was nowhere to be seen. What Jorah could see was a figure so gaunt it was almost a skeleton, yet somehow still alive: tall, to be sure, but seeming-frail as twigs. Yet the slender man bore on his back a bow of burning gold, and all the Black Captains who knew him well by sight had knelt before him.
He is still alive. Jorah rose back to his feet with a gladdened heart. It had been too long, and the spirits of the company had been sorely beset; but their commander was back among them once more.
"My captains," the commander went on, "come with me and retire to sup." He looks like he needs it, Jorah thought. "We have much to discuss."
Around them, the rigid order of the ranks dissolved. Jorah took deep breaths to calm his fear and shock. A low hubbub of noise arose. The Swords of the Storm were putting away their swords, spears, shields and crossbows. Helms were taken off, and shirts of mail too. Their dread had been needless. The horror they had feared arising from the tomb where their commander had vanished and never come out… well, perhaps it was a horror indeed. But it was their horror.
The Black Captains gathered around the commander, heading away towards the trees, to speak privily. Jorah was quietly glad of it. As deadly as the Prince of Sunset was to his enemies, and as good a sign as it was for the Swords of the Storm that he lived still and had returned among them, he was fearful indeed. Jorah did not wish to be too close to him.
"Oh, and one more thing," the Prince of Sunset called out. "The one who kept pointing a crossbow at me." He looked straight at Jorah. "Come too."