Chapter 17
Once Stannis had asked the terrified Northman a few questions of Westeros, they released him back to the ranks. He fled like a man half-convinced they would eat him if he stayed six seconds longer.
"Now, then," Stannis said, when he and his captains were alone, "on the business of the company." At his gesture, they headed deeper into the woods.
"Which of us should hold command of camp in the meantime?" asked Alequo. That was the Swords of the Storm's way, in case the company should be attacked while the captains were meeting.
It was the commander who answered. "There is no need of it. There are no foes for miles around."
Above them, Justin could espy a distant dot, high in the sky.
"What of that?" said Marro Namerin, casting a pointed glance back towards the plains, to where Stannis had come from. "Something could have followed you out."
Of the great stone slab, naught was left there but jagged edges, torn and warped and half-melted by the scorching flash of sorcerous fire. The entrance to the tomb was a gaping void into the dark.
"There are no monsters in the Tomb of Onhyilarr. Well, no living monsters, at least. Men can be more monstrous than monsters, it seems."
On that, he said nothing more.
They walked for a few yards more, before Stannis said, "Nonetheless, 'twould be wise… Swords of the Storm!" He raised his voice to a shout. "Chop down a dozen of those trees. Cut up the trunks, wet the pieces in the Rhoyne so they will not burn, and block up the opening. If you can still see down, cut more. Afterward, pile earth atop it and build a small watchtower on the barrow, such that any man who lays eyes on it will think it only that."
The Swords of the Storm moved at once to this command, springing to move, quick as a crossbow.
"It would do," Stannis murmured, "if no-one were to return here."
"What did you find?" asked Justin.
"Only knowledge," Stannis said, "of a past twenty-thousand years forgotten. Forgotten, but not ended, to all our sorrow."
"What knowledge?"
Again Stannis did not answer.
He sat down without warning at a spot in the trees. Not just sitting, in truth; it was more like a collapse, as if he barely had the strength to stand. He lay against an old beech and closed his eyes. Justin and the other captains sat down with him. Three golden eagles came again and again with twigs of dry hardwood in their beaks and talons, to make tinder, and Horpe and Bozyno rose to gather wood. Two more eagles dropped a fresh-caught rabbit each in front of them. The great hunting birds went away, then returned with another two. They settled on the commander's shoulders, talons still bloody with the kill. Stannis ran his hands gently through their feathers.
The six of them—Justin, Alequo Nudoon, Bozyno Vunel, Marro Namerin, that wretched newcomer Horpe, and of course Stannis—sat around the fire, like they had done so many times as humble sellswords of the Company of the Cat before all of this, before the Titanfall those eight long years ago.
"It's just like old times," Alequo murmured, having the same thought.
"Simpler times," said Stannis. He drew in a ragged breath.
Marro, oft viewed as first among the captains, asked the question the others all wanted to ask. "What happened to you, commander?" he said. "You go in looking your usual self. You come out, looking… this." He gestured voicelessly at the gaunt, frail figure in front of them, hollow skin straining to stretch over the bones.
"Euron Greyjoy," Stannis said shortly. "I was spying on him. He has powers like mine."
Every word was like a hammer to the knees.
Marro spoke for all of them to sum up the matter. "Shit."
"Seven hells no," said Richard Horpe.
"Quite."
"What did he do in that tomb?" Justin asked. "Why couldn't you leave it?"
"I was watching him from the wind at that time and place. I should have been beyond his knowledge, beyond the sight of every kind of man and every kind of sorcerer, save one. That has never failed me before. I thought I was safe. I was not."
Stannis uttered it coldly, matter-of-fact.
"Somehow his spirit took hold of mine. I myself could not have done it. He ripped me from the air that was watching him and brought me to an abyss without end. He held me, there in the cold and the darkness, there in the silence, sightless, senseless, falling, forever."
For the first time Justin had ever seen, Stannis was actually shaking from the memory.
"I do not know how long I was there. It could have been an hour. It could have been a day. It could have been an eternity."
Justin laid a hand gently on the commander's shoulders. "My prince, it was three turns of the moon."
"Three turns of the moon." Stannis cursed vilely. "He must be around Westeros, all the way past Dorne and across the Narrow Sea by now."
"The men have been saying you're dead or imprisoned," Alequo added. "We've clamped down on that talk as best we can, of course, but you know sellswords. They gossip like grandmothers."
"At least I am here now," Stannis said.
"The men are not," said Bozyno, as blunt as always.
"What?" The skin of Stannis's hollow face pinched tight.
Justin flinched. We should have told him this more gently. "Commander, I'm afraid that in your absence there has been a certain degree of attrition…"
"They deserted," interrupted Horpe. "Two-thousand of them."
"Deserted? My company?" The frosty calmness of that low, cold voice was somehow more frightening than open rage.
Justin faced that fury head-on, unflinching. "My prince, half the company thought you were dead or imprisoned. You said you would be with us after a few days' delving and you came back in three moons. What did you expect them to think?"
"Massey, that is insolence," Horpe hissed.
"Don't talk back at the commander," Bozyno rumbled.
"Peace." Stannis sounded more tired than Justin had ever found him. Even after the Titanfall he had seemed more alive. Distraught, yes, despairing, hating himself, but alive.
"How didn't we see this coming?" Marro asked Stannis. "You've spoken of this Yurron Grei-dzhoi and the sorceries he can use, but you've never spoken of this threat before."
"I did not know he could perceive me as I perceive him," replied Stannis. "That was the danger I did not foresee. You must understand, the sending forth of the spirit has been my domain and mine alone. I have never met another greenseer. Sorcerers, yes, of many kinds: firemages and bloodmages, enchanters and spellforgers, skinchangers and waterworkers, necromancers and shadowbinders aplenty. But never a greenseer. There were only I and the one who taught me." He took in a deep, shuddering breath. "Or so I thought."
"Then how did you escape from this Grei-dzhoi?"
Justin silently applauded Marro for turning the talk to something that would less depress the commander.
"I didn't," said Stannis. "I knew not how. Greyjoy released me, I'm sure of that much. I suspect he wants the joy of killing me in person."
Oh.
That boded poorly.
Silence reigned for a long while. Alequo took the rabbits off the fire. Three were shared around the group. The fourth Stannis took all for himself, disregarding knives, shoving his face into the carcass and biting like a beast, a graceless frenzy of hunger.
"Well, the milk is spilt and there's no use crying over it," Horpe said. "Does Greyjoy have an army?"
"He is regent of the Iron Islands now," said Stannis. "He has thousands of men."
That was obviously not the answer Horpe had been hoping for.
"We've had worse odds," said Marro. "I'd wager on our thousand two-hundred over his thousands any day. So that's how we're going to deal with Grei-dzhoi. You don't watch him with your sorcerer's ways anymore. If he comes after you, we'll be there with you. We'll see him. We'll fight him. And we'll kill him."
"If he wants to kill you, he will have to go through the Swords of the Storm first," Justin said. "And he will find that harder labour than he hopes for."
Stannis did not smile, but his scowl grew slightly less fierce.
"Regardless, we've sojourned too long in this place," said Marro Namerin, Stannis's oldest associate on this side of the Narrow Sea, and all the other captains nodded in agreement. "Commander, are you strong enough to ride?"
"I think not," Stannis admitted. "I am hungrier than I have ever been, even after the Siege of Storm's End. I have never felt so weak. I will need weeks or turns of the moon to recover."
"You'll have it," Marro vowed. "Let's abandon the war in the Disputed Lands. It looks like it'll end soon anyway; Tyrosh doesn't have much fight left in her."
"We may have had something to do with that," said Alequo with a sly smile. The green hair atop his head testified that Alequo was himself a Tyroshi, but of course sellswords cared little for such things. Bozyno had fought against Pentos as well, and Marro had witnessed the Titanfall.
Justin grinned, remembering the last war. The Archon didn't see that coming.
"So we'll sail down the Rhoyne on the morrow," Marro said, "making for Volantis. We've no lack of gold this moment. We'll get a hero's welcome there, I'll warrant; and we can rest and see how matters go while we think of what contract to take next. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Justin and the others said. They looked to the commander.
He nodded.
The captains of the Swords of the Storm stood up. Alequo, strongest among them, a prodigiously large man taller than even Stannis, put out his arms and helped the commander to his feet. They began to walk back in the direction of the camp. Eagles went before them, though the sentries stayed vigilant and saw their faces ere letting them through.
"We can rest," Stannis murmured, a soft whisper such that Justin hardly heard it. "Not long."
Eleven swanlike ships glided down the Rhoyne in a line, one after the other. They made no effort with oars. They were carried forth by the flow of the great river and by a north wind that filled their sigilless black sails.
On the deck of one of those ships stood Justin Massey, one of the five far-famed captains of the Swords of the Storm, gazing forward from the aft. The wind cooled him little from the blaze of the Essosi summer sun. Hereabouts, even the nights were sweltering. Yet for all the heat and the risk, he was armoured in black iron, full-face-helmed with sable plume and armed with spear and shield and sword. So was every fighting man he had. Justin required discipline of them, more than comfort, and the Swords of the Storm did not fear drowning.
"Is that it? Is that it?" a boy of five was whispering. Like every army in the world, the Swords had servants, cooks and whores and petty traders following the men who earned the gold.
"Yes," said his father, one of the fighting men in full plate.
"You said it was big," the son said, disappointed. "It's just a dot."
The father suppressed a smile. "It gets bigger."
The movement of the ships of the Swords of the Storm was so smooth it defied belief. There was no crash of ripples on their sides. There was not even foam. They did not just sail, they glided like wisps of smoke on the wind, barely disturbing the waters that gave way smooth as silk before them.
That small grey dot on the horizon grew… and grew… and grew…
…and grew… and grew… and grew…
The little boy's jaw dropped.
Justin would never forget his own first sight of Old Volantis, namesake, fortress and capital of the mightiest realm of men in the known world.
The eldest and most powerful of the Free Cities was ringed in stone and steel. Towering walls of ash-grey granite stood around her, walls upon walls, walls upon walls upon walls, towers and fortified bastions sprouting among them as plentiful as mushrooms in the woods after rain. A hundred armies and a thousand khalasars had invaded against those walls. A hundred armies and a thousand khalasars had died there.
There were dozens of arches in those walls, Justin could see as his ship drew nearer. They were wrought not as pointed Westerosi arches but perfectly round, as was the Valyrian way. The arches were so tall and wide that two elephants could pass side-by-side beneath them. Though he could not espy it from this far, Justin well remembered that every arched gate was engraved from top to bottom with intricate carvings of dragons, serpents, gods and heroes.
The Rhoynar at the summit of their might, when they struck fear into the hearts of Valyrian dragonlords, had never got through these walls. In the climax of the Century of Blood, the long wars had ended when Volantis gave up her attempt to conquer far beyond her borders, not when she herself was ever in peril. For a hundred years after Valyria fell, Volantis had fought against Braavos, Pentos, Qohor, Norvos, Lys, Myr and Tyrosh all at once, and the Stormlands in Westeros, and all the hordes of the Dothraki from the east, and the Targaryens and their dragons, at the same time… and she had very nearly won.
Most cities of any noteworthy age—Gulltown, Lannisport, King's Landing for instance—had fallen many a time. Some cities had fallen only twice or once, and these held it as a badge of honour. Volantis could boast in truth that she alone had never, ever fallen. There was pride here, and power that the passing of ages had yet to extinguish.
Domes, temples and palaces stood aplenty too. High rooves of burnished gold, shimmering glass, white marble and black dragonwrought stone were so common it was hard to miss them. There must have been hundreds taller than the Red Keep or the Great Sept of Baelor.
The ships drew nearer.
The whole of Braavos could be swallowed up inside Old Volantis and be lost. So too Lys and all of its tributary cities. If some strange god were to pluck up King's Landing from wall to wall, with all her castles and courtyards and shops and squares and manses, and put it down elsewhere on the earth, he could put ten copies in Volantis ere she lacked the space to spare.
And outside the walls, there were the heads.
Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands of them. Long steel spikes speared out from the walls, cruel and unforgiving, and on every spike sat a head of a man. Long heads, short heads, hairy heads, bald heads, grey-haired heads, heads of boys too young to shave, heads of countless shapes and sizes. But they had some things in common. Every head was a man's, not a woman's. Every head was impaled. Every head had sunbronzed skin. And nearly every head was tied with bells.
A hundred hordes of hungry horselords had sought to conquer Old Volantis. This was the fate that had become of them.
This, then, was the first thing he had seen that differed from his memory of Old Volantis. There were more spikes than last time.
Two ships behind him, Justin glanced back to take a look at the commander. The skeletal figure of Stannis Baratheon was gazing at one of the heads, his deathly scowl somewhat less clenched than usual. The head was a skull of prodigious size, still clinging to scraps of copper skin, with long dark hair that dangled with more bells than any of the rest. There was a narrow-headed black arrow through its eye and digging into the back of the skull.
Ah, thought Justin. Fond reminiscing.
The ships drew nearer.
Outside the outer walls of Volantis's landward side, a glittering host awaited. Axemen, spearmen, pikemen; bearers of the dragon standards; longbowmen and shortbowmen and crossbowmen; trebuchets and scorpions and stonethrowers and pots of alchemical fire; slave Tigercloaks, promised grants of land and freedom for twenty years' service to the city, and freeborn men of the Dragonblooded Legion; mounted and dismounted; armoured men on armoured horses, heavier than Westerosi knights; and mighty elephants bearing whole parties of warriors. Volantis had them all. They stood there, shining in the sunlight, plainly ready to fight and kill.
They to the Swords of the Storm were ten to one. The Swords of the Storm neither stopped nor slowed.
At last, when the ships drew near enough, Justin called the halt. His ship, at the front of the line, stopped first; the others followed suit afterwards. At his order his men swiftly took down their sails, rowed to the right bank of the Rhoyne and set anchor. Thenceforth small boats took men to the shore. Justin, still in full armour, stepped with iron-toed boots onto ground turned to mud by men's pacing. He, Marro, Bozyno, Alequo and Horpe called out orders; the Swords of the Storm formed up battle-ready even before most of them had reached dry ground. At no point were they a confused muddle of men, ripe ground for an attack. They set foot at once in formation: a spear-pike-and-crossbows square that bulged and lengthened from its inside as more men stepped off the boats.
Justin strode ahead of the others and cried: "The son of the line of the storm, of the blood of Durrandon; prince of the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros; and lord commander of the Swords of the Storm: Ser Stannis Baratheon!"
His opposites in the other army stepped forth and cried: "The victor of Arios, Nemros, Kavadhos and Qohor; Horselordslayer, bane of the hordes of the East; lord of conquests, lord of battles, lord of hosts; of the ancient and honourable line of Vanore, five times Triarchs; of the Old Blood of Valyria, of the blood of the dragon, in unbroken line; and most puissant and mighty Triarch of Volantis: Andonno Vanore!"
A muscular young man in magnificent jewelled armour strode out from amidst the greater host, spears thumping on the ground and chants of "Ave! Ave!" following his every move. He held a golden sceptre and a sword of the dark grey steel of the Valyrians. His plate armour fitted him like a glove and was emblazoned everywhere with gods and kings and dragons, done in onyx, rubies and diamonds. To meet him Stannis strode out of the other, wearing a bow of burning gold and a sword plundered from the ruins of Valyria, armoured in black iron. They stepped towards each other.
The armies held their breath.
And they embraced.
"Old friend, it has been too long," laughed the Triarch.
"Likewise," said the commander.
The armies relaxed. They did not let go of their formations, not for a moment, showing what they were capable of; but their rigid preparedness was a parade-ground style, rather than real menace. For Justin had been in Volantis thrice before this day. The Swords of the Storm and the rulers of Volantis were well known to one another. They had been allies before.
A dozen Volantene noblemen of the highest and purest dynasties gathered around Triarch Vanore to attend him, without speaking. The five captains of the Swords of the Storm attended their commander. Vanore invited Stannis to make their way up onto his grand palanquin, curtained in cloth-of-gold. Between the two armies, surrounded by swords like a giant honour-guard, they were borne on elephant-back into the city. The Black Captains, meanwhile, rode with the high lords of the Old Blood.
"I did not expect to see you so soon, I must confess," said Triarch Vanore as his palanquin bore him and Stannis away. "Did you not mean to take contract with Myr?"
"I did. Other matters intervened," said Stannis.
"Then that is all for the good," Vanore said. "I think you will find our contract much more to your liking than any Myr would give."
"Mayhaps I will."
After that, the elephant bore them out of hearing.
One of the great arched gates with spiked Dothraki heads opened. Well oiled, the great stone slabs parted lock and opened wide, in silence. There must have been some cunning mechanism, for there were no horses or men to heave them.
"I note you have more heads than before," Justin noted in perfect High Valyrian.
"We do." The high-cheeked, armoured Volantene nobleman sharing his palanquin smiled.
A younger man, Justin observed. Many of the men around Vanore were. He wondered what might be the significance of that.
"Was there another attempt on Selhorys?" asked Justin. Stupid savages. One would think they'd learn to keep away from Volantis, especially after what we did to Khal Drogo. "I've heard naught of such."
"Not there. We have taught them better than that. They don't dare come so close to Mother Volantis; they know what we do to them if they do. But the Qohorik settlements are oft under threat." He gestured to some of the fresher-looking heads. "These were one such lesson."
They passed beneath the gate. The western half of Volantis was poorer than the east, but still grand. There were hovels and beggars in Volantis as in any city, Justin knew, but the honour guard of the soldiers and Swords of the Storm did not pass through places like those. They rode down straight roads, paved, not cobbled, and better-maintained than any in King's Landing that Justin had trodden on. On the sides they passed manses with decorative railings, gardens gorgeous in green and full to bursting with bright flowers, winesinks of the more civilised sort where fine wines were tasted rather than downed, and merchants' shops of silks and spices of a thousand colours, their proprietors calling out their wares. No-one stopped for them, but Justin guessed that many would be coming back. Sellswords' tastes ran towards the gaudy, and for sellswords the Swords of the Storm were exceptionally well-paid.
They have to be, Justin thought. If they weren't, we wouldn't have anyone.
They rode past temples and bordellos, gardens and manses, shops and stalls and warehouses, barracks and inns where a man could lie down for a night's rest, traders and tinkers and tailors and seamstresses and whores… and slaves, of course. Here and everywhere, men and women with tattooed faces dashed around, hurriedly going about their masters' business. There were market squares that could fit palaces, full of men and women and wares of every colour. And there were countless men hard at work upon new warehouses, new temples, new manses, new small rooms for the poor, new granaries, new ships on the docks, and new extensions of the outer walls. Justin was struck by how many there were, how plentiful the wood and stone and steel. This is a city on the rise, he thought.
They followed, ever onward, till the foremost ranks came back to the bank of the Rhoyne.
Justin's eyes followed a thin stack, then smooth black stone… smooth black stone… smooth black stone…!
Was there no end to it?
Before them, the Long Bridge of Volantis spanned the whole width of the Rhoynemouth. The other half of the city was the same size as this one, yet it seemed a fishing village, such was it so far away. The bridge's back stood high enough above the surface for a grand galleon to pass beneath it. It had no pillars, no arched back, nothing to support it except thin black slabs on each side that looked almost comically too small to bear its weight. Granite or steel would have long ago collapsed under the strain, but that weight was contemptuously ignored by the unbreakable black dragonwrought stone. Next to its gaping vastness, the greatest river in Westeros—the Blackwater, five times narrower—looked like a stream a man could jump across without wetting his feet.
Some of the newer sellswords let out exclamations of shock and awe. Justin did not. He had seen the greatest of bridges a dozen times before. Nonetheless every sight of it still awed him. It was hard to conceive that the wonder-wrights of Ancient Valyria could ever have existed in this mortal world.
The Swords of the Storm and the welcoming host of Volantis split into four columns ahorse, riding abreast. They filed in good order over the bridge. In front of Justin and behind him, long lines of armed men stretched as far as the eye could see. They had to ride long and far over the flat expanse of glittering black stone ere they came at last to the eastern half of Volantis, and, at its heart, a wonder mayhaps even greater.
The Black Walls of Volantis were wrought of dragonwrought stone like the bridge that led to them, spellforged in blood and flame and harder than diamond. Nothing in the known world could give it the slightest scratch, save for the also-spellforged steel of Valyria. Other fortress walls could be climbed. The Black Walls were several hundred feet high. Other fortress walls could be broken. Stonethrowers and trebuchets to the Black Walls were like throwing feathers at steel plate.
The outer walls of Volantis had 'only' never been conquered. The inner walls of Volantis were unconquerable.
Here at last the great procession stopped, with thunder of trumpets and snorting of horses. "This far but no further," Volantene heralds decreed. "The Black Walls are open to none but the Old Blood and those who are given leave."
"Are we not given leave?" asked Bozyno Vunel, not expecting it.
"No," said the Triarch, to nobody's surprise. Such an honour was exceedingly rare. "Save one. Your commander and I have matters to discuss, alone."
For the first time in his life, Stannis followed Andonno Vonare inside the Black Walls.
"I thank you for the honour, Your Excellency," he said stiffly. He disliked flattery, but he was not blind to the truth that this was no common invitation. And this was his most powerful ally in the world, stronger even than Handtaker, Sealord though he be.
"Nonsense." Andonno laughed. "I daresay I would be no Triarch, had not our Qohorik campaign gone as well as it did. Come, my friend, sit by the window, there's a lovely view of the river. Boy! More larn."
It was given. Larn was strange soup, cool and sweet, unlike aught Stannis had tasted in Westeros; but it was pleasant, especially in the Volantene heat. He could understand why the Volantenes were so fond of it.
"It is good," Stannis offered, haltingly.
"You plainly need it," Andonno said, glancing at Stannis's quickly emptying bowl. "Look at you." He gestured at Stannis's gaunt, almost fleshless form, skin clinging to tight bones. "What has befallen you?"
"A mishap with otherworldly powers. I was unprepared. It shall not happen again."
"If you believe it is of no concern…" Andonno said, though he looked doubtful. "Boy, more larn. Be quick about it. This is our special guest."
"I do not need it, truly," Stannis protested.
"A blind man could tell you need it."
They paused, then, for another few minutes. Stannis devoured his food. Eating so much, so sweet, made him feel sick, but it was anything to quieten the rats of hunger gnawing inside his belly that had bedevilled him since he escaped from Euron's thrall-sleep. Meanwhile he surveyed Andonno. The man was bulkier than he once had been, calmer as well, less fiery, more measured. His clothing was more splendid than anyone Stannis had seen before, of silk and furs and gemstones, shimmering to match his short-cropped silver hair and eyes like amethysts, telling of the Old Blood of Valyria. He seemed an older man than the rash, bold young lord Stannis had fought beside in the war against Qohor.
In time. Andonno leant forward. "Now. I am sure you can guess why I have called you."
"You have a contract," Stannis said at once.
"What do you know of what has befallen the Qohoriks since the flames rose above the City of Sorcerers?"
"Few sorcerers. Tricksters and pretenders for the most part, save for the High Temple's abominations," Stannis spat. He well remembered the High Temple of the Black Goat as he stalked through it alone on that night with the sword he had plundered from Ancient Valyria, slaying sorcerer-priests and dreadful misbegotten things. "They deserved what we did to it after I opened the gates."
"I don't dispute that," smiled the young lord, who, as a battle commander of the Volantene campaign, had been catapulted by that victory to fame and now Triarchal glory. "I speak not of the smoking ruins of that foul city. I speak of the lands around it, the plains and forests that used to belong to the cult of the Black Goat and now are ours."
Stannis frowned. "Little," he admitted.
"Then let me relate it," said Andonno. "Since that day, Volantis has been master of the southern Rhoyne as far as Dagger Lake, and of the Qhoyne, and of the Darkwash, and of the Forest of Qohor—the Forest of Vanore, some are calling it. We did not take all the Qohorik lands; Norvos took much, though they were Qohor's ally in that war, and we allowed it, for our Triarchs feared the other Free Cities would see us as overmighty. As always, many a tigercloak has been granted a plot of land. The Qhoyne, the Darkwash and the Forest of Qohor are replete with fortified settlements. Do you see what this means?"
"It means you are strong," Stannis said, thinking of the enormity. That was a domain larger than Westeros. "I suppose you must keep tariffs low and prices generous, and show naught but the highest respect and courtesy to the other Free Cities, for fear of Braavos's mistake."
His thoughts went to an enormous bronze fortress in the shape of a man's upper body, thrown back from the stone arch of its 'legs' by the scalding winds of a storm, while a broken man cradled a brave broken child who was his only hope of home, weeping in the rain. He tried not to think of it. Some things were too painful.
"All that is so. It also means that we, now, hold the sole western border of the Dothraki Sea."
"Oh," said Stannis, then, thinking of the implications, "Oh. You—Oh. Oh."
"Indeed," the Triarch said. "Every year, hordes of horselords pester every other Free City for tribute. All of them pay, some time or another, when the horselords look too strong. The horse-archers of the plains are fearsome foes, not to be underestimated. And paying off the khalasars is more profitable than fighting them, you see."
Stannis spat. 'Profitable.' Disgusting. Merchant thinking, among lords of men.
"All, that is, except Mother Volantis. We alone keep the same attitude to the horselords as did Ancient Valyria when the world was young. Whenever they set foot on Volantene soil, we hunt them down and their skulls join the spikes on the Outer Walls. We do not concern ourselves that this is more costly than paying off a khal. We kill them, regardless, for their breathing in our lands is an insult we do not allow.
"And so all but the boldest khals shrink away, favouring easier prey than the tiger. They avoid Mother Volantis and her lands. The boldest die here as Drogo did. We are not untroubled because we are stronger than the other Free Cities, though indeed we are. We are untroubled because we are greater in resolve for war. Until now. I as a Tiger am Triarch, the Elephants have lost their three-hundred-year-long stranglehold on at least two of the three, because they didn't understand that."
"What did they do?"
"They have broken the traditions of Volantis," Triarch Vanore said in a voice thick with disgust. "They have spat upon our ancestors. They have let Dothraki pass through our lands!"
That last was a screech of fury.
Stannis was stunned. "But Volantis has always held against the horselords. Surely they would not dare—"
Andonno cut him off, voice curt. "They dared."
"But we fought Drogo—"
"That is why Drogo came in the first place. He was emboldened, do you not see? Once we started letting khalasars through our conquered lands of the Qhoyne, they grew bolder, and sought to push their luck passing through the Orange Shore itself. Concede an inch to the Dothraki and they'll take a mile. The Elephants' craven cowardice put Volantis itself at risk. You and I threw back Khal Drogo; Volantis was saved. But that is why we had to do it. And that is why the Elephants lost the election and I as a Tiger won."
"Then why did they do it?" asked Stannis. "It seems madness."
"The city's treasury was less full after the expense of the Qohorik War. The Elephants are backed by merchants, not the lords of the Old Blood. They felt, better to concede the honour of Mother Volantis than to raise taxes to pay for the wars they fought, for that would be unpopular. Well, now they've learnt: it is the repute of Volantis which keeps their precious gold safe from aggressors. It will take a hundred years to recover the repute of immovable resolve we lost when those cowards bent over backwards and offered their arses to the horselords."
"Folly," said Stannis, "but predictable. This is what comes of allowing merchants a say in the ruling of realms. Nothing good ever comes of it."
"Please, Stannis, spare me the usual harping. This is not Westeros," Andonno said with a sigh. "In any case—the problem is, the Dothraki have grown too bold. We must teach them the lesson the Elephants forgot: that they must be terrified of us."
Stannis said, "And that is your contract for us."
"Yes. The Volantene citizens building farms and fortified towns in the plains and woodlands of Qohor have been complaining of Dothraki raids. They need protection. I was not elected to abandon them. Every horselord who comes too near to the border must lose his head."
"If they cannot pass through the lands of Volantis and Qohor-That-Was, they cannot reach the Free Cities at all. That is the wellspring of their wealth, for the most part. Losing it would destroy them. They cannot let you do this," Stannis warned. "They will fight."
Andonno smiled coldly. "I desire them to. Let them come to us. That will ease our path to kill them all."
It took several seconds for Stannis to wrap his mind around what Andonno was speaking of. For a moment he was stunned at the sheer ambition of it. "But—you—all of them—"
"How long have the Dothraki threatened and harassed all civilisation? How long have they turned great swathes of farmland that once fed the Kingdom of Sarnor and the Freehold of Valyria to useless wastes of grass, their 'Dothraki Sea'? How long have they been a plague of locusts to commerce and crops on our continent? And how long must it be, ere someone will raise a hand against them?"
Stannis could see how Andonno had won his election. The passion and fierceness of the Triarch's voice was such that he half wanted to pluck up a sword and march into battle against the horselords himself.
"I understand the anger, Your Excellency," Stannis said, "but surely that is too great a foe to tackle at once."
"For any other nation in the world, it would be. Not for us," Triarch Vanore said, his tone all brisk confidence. Stannis knew the Dothraki were many, but here in the Black Walls, looking outside at the amassed host of the mightiest realm in the world, it was difficult to disagree. "Our poor Elephant colleague Vhassar thinks elsewise, but he is always outvoted. Triarch Maegyr and I are agreed upon this course. The other Free Cities are aware and they have promised not to interfere; if we succeed, they will be much the richer.
"We have already begun our quest against the parasites. As soon as I was elected over that disgraceful coward Paenymion, Maegyr and I have been burning down vast swathes of the Dothraki Sea's grasses and building farms and fortified towns in their place. We deny the khalasars passage through any of our lands, be they the Orange Shore or the northern lands that the Elephants sadly neglected. The Dothraki are responding. There have been battles already. You may have noticed the new skulls on the Outer Walls. Soon the responses will grow. The khalasars will keep attacking us, drawn to Volantis as a moth to a flame. And we will keep killing them, beating and routing and killing, until they are too terrified to attack our people ever again… or too dead for it.
"That is not for you to decide. We are fighting already, with or without your Swords of the Storm. Our purge against the Dothraki has begun. The sole question that is within your power is: Will you take a contract to be part of it?"
When Stannis did not answer, Andonno said, "Let us rise." They did, and the Triarch led him out of the meeting chamber and into another.
His breath seized. It was almost blinding.
The floor glittered with jewels and gold. Heaps of gold, piles of gold, towers of gold. Golden goblets, golden plates, gold bars, rubies and garnets, amethysts and emeralds and diamonds.
"That," said Andonno, "would be your yearly wage."
Stannis spoke hoarsely. "That is… extraordinarily generous, Your Excellency."
"I thought so," Andonno smiled.
"I am very much impressed. Your offer is great, and your purpose seems most noble," Stannis said, trying to find the right way to say it. "I… Nonetheless, I must decline."
"What?! Have you sworn to another contract?"
"No," said Stannis.
"Then why?"
"Because I have another duty," said Stannis. "A duty that is obliged to me, by the powers I hold. In the far north of Westeros, the ancient Enemy of mankind have stirred beneath miles of ice. They have dug themselves out of their pits and come back to the Tower of Wailing. There they are gathering an army they mean to send upon this world. If they triumph, all of mankind will be extinguished. I cannot let them."
Andonno blinked. "I've never known you to jest, Stannis. These are fairytales."
"I do not jest," said Stannis. "You know my powers are real. Greenseers are real, skinchangers are real, firemages are real, demons are real, necromancers are real. All of this you know, for you have seen it. My captains, who have spent longer with me, could tell you: wraiths are real, sea-serpents are real, krakens and basilisks and soul-eaters are real. Well I have seen, and I tell you that this fairytale is real, too.
"Did you think the power of a greenseer comes without purpose? No. I was taught how to use my powers for a reason, by one known to me as the three-eyed crow. He was taught in turn by another, who was called the baseborn wolf. Someday I will have to teach another, though I will do it better than my useless fool of a teacher. Our powers exist, we exist, to protect mankind from the Enemy.
"Please, I tell you, Andonno, if you listen to me once in your life and disregard all else, listen now. The armies of the living dead are real. Their icy masters are real. They are gathering as we speak. I have seen the dread host at the Tower of Wailing, and nowadays I know that Euron Greyjoy has seen it too. The Enemy of mankind is real. Dreams are false, but nightmares are real, and we are awake."
"Then—" the Triarch's voice trembled— "then how do we fight this? What are you doing?"
"I," said Stannis, "have spent years trying to find a way to beat them."
"You have?"
"Nine years ago," Stannis said, "before the Titanfall, before the Sellsword War, before even the Great Northern War that preceded it, I ventured down into the dark in a place on the Braavosi shingle shore, known to those of us who study ancient ruins as the Temple of the Pharakienat. It is six-thousand years old. It was built before the beginning of Ancient Valyria. But I suspected, and I proved, that it is home to something much, much older.
"Tens of thousands of years before, the world was ruled by a race of creatures known to us as the Lords of the Deep. They dwelt underwater, once, but by their cunning artifices and sorceries they came to rule over the land and air as well. Nothing escaped them. The giants, the children of the forest and the race of men were to them no more of a foe than cows and sheep are foes to us today. Their mastery was absolute, unchallengeable.
"Their empire spanned the entire world, land and sea and air. They ruled it for uncounted tens of thousands of years. Until one day, all of a sudden, they disappeared.
"No-one knows fully what befell them, not even the greenseers. We cannot see that time, in that place. It is too perilous, even from the otherworld for those of us who transcend space and time and possibility. Come too close to that day or that place, let alone both, and you are swallowed by the yawning abyss of the most terrible power the world has ever known."
"By what?" said Andonno.
"Who knows?" said Stannis, not answering whether he did. "What I do know is, there is a power there, in the City of the Dead that was once the heart of their dominion. And when I explored the Temple of the Pharakienat, I found one of their outposts, and I heard a voice. It spoke to me.
"STORM-BORN, it called me. STORM-REARED. STORM-FEEDER. STORM-CALLER. STORMCHILD. It knew who I am and what I do. It knew things about me that no-one knows, things that no-one must ever know. It is real, it is powerful, it exists beyond the Only Gate, and if mankind is to survive against the Enemy, I fear it is our only chance.
"And so I planned to take that power and wield it against the Enemy… but not at once. I wanted to be careful. I want to know what lies in the dread city of Stygai, at the heart of the Shadow-On-The-World, before I seek it. The history of sorcerers is replete with those who disturbed that which should never be disturbed, and I did not wish to join them. So, over the years, I have been seeking out the outposts the Lords of the Deep left behind. I wish to understand them and the way they met their doom.
"Yet now there is no more time for my caution. I must make haste. Euron Greyjoy is a greenseer too, older and more powerful than I, and he too has been to the Temple of the Pharakienat. He knows of the Lords of the Deep, of dread Stygai, of the Only Gate into the night that never ends. He is heading there as we speak, and I must follow, as fast as ships can bear me."
"Then why not leave it to him?" said the Triarch. "If indeed he is older and more powerful than you, you can leave it in his hands. When the world is in peril, that's hardly the time to seek glory."
"Because he is not on our side," Stannis said grimly. "This has nothing to do with glory. If he finds that gate before I do, he means to use it, not against the Enemy. He means to tear down the Wall and let the Enemy in."
The greenseer fell silent.
They remained there, then, for a long while, the two of them: Volantene and Westerosi, Triarch and greenseer, leader of men and seer of things beyond the mortal world.
Then Andonno said, "So how do we stop it?"
Stannis exhaled, deeply, with relief. He trusted me.
"I will deal with Greyjoy," Stannis said. "I must go to Stygai. He caught me by surprise, last time, and held me prisoner in his mind for three turns of the moon. That is why I look as I do now. Next time I will not be surprised. I have a better hope of killing him than any other, so I will kill him. If I do, it ends there."
"If you don't?"
"If I fail," Stannis said, "these are the things you need to know. The Others are creatures of the cold and the light. They are vulnerable to the powers of heat and darkness. The cold preserves their armies, the living dead. Chopping off heads or stabbing hearts will achieve nothing; they will stay alive, stay killing. Only fire will destroy those armies. If they cross the Wall, you should call upon your alchemists; command them to produce wildfire. You will need it. Fire is not enough, though, against the Enemy themselves. Only sorcerous weapons which embody heat and darkness can wound them. Valyrian steel, forged in blood and fire, will slay them. So too will dragonglass, born underground in the heat and the dark. Dragonwrought stone would slay them too, so they cannot pierce through the Black Walls, but you must not let them get that far. If they do, they will besiege you there; and if they have reached as far south as Volantis, you have already lost."
"Understood," said Andonno grimly.
"Do you? There is no time for squabbles amidst mankind. They must be halted early, ere they can march long from the far north. Every city they overrun gives them hundreds of thousands of new soldiers. The living use men grown, but for the Enemy a child, a whore or a cow is a soldier too. So they must not get the chance. The living dead cannot be allowed to grow too numerous, else there is no hope at all. There must be peace among all men—even the Dothraki—if the Enemy comes."
"I understand," said Andonno again, "much as I despise it."
"There is one more thing." Stannis hesitated. He did not like being a beggar, but what choice did he have? "I must go to Stygai and back. That may take me a year. I cannot afford to lead my company for another year unpaid."
"You want me to pay you for the contract when you aren't taking it?" Andonno asked incredulously.
"No! Not that much, not nearly that much. I have some reserves and I will spend those. But… half a year's pay, perhaps? At half the rate you promised? I will swear to pay you back, if we survive." Stannis hated this cringing. "Please, Your Excellency. You know why it is needed."
"I do know. Volantis cannot pay you, though. I cannot by my will alone. It is not my gold to spend."
"But you are Triarch," said Stannis, confused.
"I am one of three Triarchs," said Andonno. "I know you, I trust you, but I am not Volantis. Do not ask me to persuade the others. There is not the slightest chance Triarch Maegyr or Triarch Paenymion will believe your tale, and it will damage me, and thus you, if I try."
"Volantis has much gold," said Stannis. Andonno nodded. "Then you have much gold. You can just pay."
"That is not how it works. I am not a king, Stannis. Volantis has no kings. Every man's power is limited by laws and other men, that we may never again know the tyranny of the Kings of Valyria. There is my wealth, and there is the wealth of Volantis. I cannot spend Volantis's treasury by my whim, without the consent of the other Triarchs."
"That is madness," said Stannis, angered. "You know the threat and you can do naught!"
"I…" Andonno hesitated. "There is something I can do."
"What?"
"I will pay you out of my own pocket."
"What do you mean?"
"House Vanore is not without means," Andonno said. "Less than Volantis, of course, much less; but we are an old family. I will need to sell some of my family's homes, but I can pay you enough for this, if you truly need it."
"I—" Selling home? Stannis thought of selling Storm's End. The thought was like a dagger to the heart. He did not know what to say.
"Go," Andonno said tiredly. "Take it. Pay me back afterwards if you live, from whatever contract you take next, be it mine or another. But most of all—Go. Now. Do as you have promised."
With deep respect, Stannis bowed low. "Your Excellency, I swear upon my father's bones, it will be done."
Stannis parted ways from Andonno with a squadron of household guards, a promise, and a huge cart of gold. When he left the Black Walls, he was soon to find his captains.
"So did you accept the contract?" was the first thing Richard Horpe said.
Stannis blinked. "You know?"
"With respect, commander, it was hardly a secret. The fighting has started already," said Justin Massey. "Half the city knows."
"So did you accept it?" Horpe persisted.
Stannis drew in a deep breath. He knew they were not going to like this. "No."
The fury on their faces told a thousand words.
"Why not?" asked Marro, his closest companion. "For another contract or unpaid?"
Stannis suspected they were going to like this even less. "Unpaid."
None of the captains of the Swords of the Storm looked remotely happy at that.
And they would like this least of all. "To Stygai."
There was an explosion of anger. The loudest of them was Bozyno Vunel, who burst, "You madman!"
"Commander, this really has to end," said Nudoon. "You cannot keep doing this. Ever since we plundered the City of Sorcerers, our reputation is above the stars. We have one man for each ten of the Golden Company and charge close to half what they do, and still it's easier to count the realms that haven't offered us contracts than those that have. We've fought for Braavos, Pentos, Myr, Lys, Tyrosh, Volantis, Norvos, all of the Ghiscari cities, Yi-Ti. Half the sellswords in Essos would flock to our banner, we would be the greatest free company in the world… if only you would do more actual fighting instead of spending most of your time on these damnable expeditions of yours!"
"Yes!"
"Of course!"
"Damn right!"
All of his captains called out their agreement.
"The men hate it, commander. I'm not sure you grasp quite how much they hate it," Nudoon went on. "They get no loot from your exploring. They get poorer pay than when we're on contract, for the company gains nothing but relics and old books. They're oft attacked, eaten and worse by monstrous unimaginable things. Every day in Valyria was horror upon horrors upon horrors; and I'd rather spend a week in Valyria than another day in Yeen. When we take contracts, the gold pours in like a waterfall. I tell you, you'd have no followers at all, if not for that. But you'd have many times more gold and more men in your service if you dispensed with your reckless wandering."
"Why would I need more men or more gold?" asked Stannis. "With what I have, I've no lack of coin to sate my hunger and my thirst; and a larger company would be less skilled. I will not recruit weaklings and braggarts."
"You wouldn't need to, commander," Marro said. "We lost ten times as many men in Yeen as any mortal battle we've ever fought. Do you think it does nothing to a man to see his friend's head get bitten off by one of those demon-beasts in Valyria? We pay thrice the wage of aught other free company, yet half a thousand men leave every year when their contracts are done. Did you never wonder why?
"It's because men know that to serve in the Swords of the Storm is to dance with death. If we did more fighting and less exploring, you'd have many more men. You wouldn't need to pick braggarts and weaklings. You could pick out the best of the best. I tell you, commander: your wanderings are weakening this company."
"Perhaps they are," Stannis said coldly. "You should recall that to be a sellsword commander was never my purpose. I drifted into it more by chance than by design. I was not born to these shores. I was born to the line of the storm, the line of Baratheon. I seek out powers that are not of this world for a higher duty than you know."
"What duty?" said Marro.
"Have you never noticed?" Stannis threw back at him. "Do you not see the pattern in the outposts I have been seeking for years: the oily black stone?"
"My prince," Massey said, bowing his head, "I do not understand."
"You wouldn't," Stannis dismissed. And he explained, at length, to them what he had explained to Andonno.
"So you're saying," Alequo Nudoon said, "if we take this contract it's literally the end of the world."
Stannis said, "Yes."
There was another long silence. Then Nudoon said, "Alright, commander. And killing Greyjoy stops this?"
"Yes."
"Good," said Nudoon. "Which means we don't have to stay there afterwards."
"Superb," said Massey. "So how about this? We go to Stygai, we kill Greyjoy—no fair fights, let's take him a thousand on one—and we get out of there as soon as we can. First we save the world. Then we take the contract from Volantis and make truly obscene amounts of gold."
The captains all looked to the prince. Sharply, at last, he nodded.
Vunel grinned. "Sounds like a plan."