Chapter 7
Part II

Gemilio Nikar walked through a hell of fire, steel and screams. Houses were alight all about him, and the helpless townsfolk who lived in them were crying out as invaders took their possessions and their dignity.

Ignoring them, Gemilio turned a corner, whereupon he found Aro Isattis, whom men called Handtaker nowadays. The commander of the Company of the Cat was holding council in the middle of the street in the sacked Norvoshi town of Nyrelos, with the implacable self-assurance of a man who did not fear the chaos all around him because he knew the makers of that chaos feared him.

"Ah, Gemilio," Aro said, "do join us." The circle of armed men parted, letting Gemilio take a place. "What word of our foes?"

"The Company of the Rose no longer exists," Gemilio told his commander. "The small free companies that marched with them, too. Overall the enemy took about two-thousand dead, we reckon, and six-hundred and twenty-seven captive. Hard to tell, though. We can count the ones we slew, but not so easy the ones the river took."

Gemilio suppressed a shudder at that. He was a killer, and knew it. He had spent his life since boyhood with war as his trade. He knew the ways of horse and foot, of flanking and encirclement, of fort and open field, of bow and pike and lance and sword. Yet in all his life of killing he had never seen anything like what Aro's Sunsetlander had done, the river swelling to blow away a host of men like leaves in an autumn wind.

"Naturally," Aro said, after a short pause. "And the Gallant Men?"

"The Gallant Men have been badly mauled, but they were at the rear, so only half a thousand of the lost were theirs, and the men who survived were all theirs, not the lesser companies. As for those that got away, they're Feran's task, not mine."

"Indeed. Feran?" Aro directed his gaze to the Myrish captain of scouts.

"Most of them deserted," the Myrman said. "About a thousand of those, my men say. They're running away north, northeast, southeast, south… They'll rape these lands so hard half of the children born here next year will be their sons and daughters, but we don't need to give a shit. They'll be no threat to us. A core of, we think, about four-hundred have kept good order and are marching for the Lesser Noyne. They're more of a concern, but they're moving too fast to rally the others. We reckon they're just trying to get away from us as fast as they can."

"Understandably," Aro murmured with a little smile.

"I told you: give me all the captives, not a handful, and I would work wonder and terror such as the world has not seen for a thousand years." The man who strode down the road towards them was tall and broad as an ox, clad in steel plate armour so bloodstained it was more red than gleaming, and bearing a bow of hue like burnt gold. "Commander, did I lie to you?"

"It was as you promised." Aro Isattis's composure was absolute, undaunted by the murderous appearance of the man who had killed a thousand men or more without lifting a sword. "Impressive work, Sunsetlander. I was not certain you were capable of it."

"I once was not." Captain Baratheon reached their circle and was granted a place therein. He paid no more heed to the raping, pillaging and burning of Nyrelos all around him than Gemilio or the other sellswords did. Every man of them had been in the midst of such things before, more times than they could count. "My time in this place has not been wholly wasted, commander. It never is, when there are secrets to seek."

"And which secrets made this?" asked Gemilio.

"The river-magics of the Rhoyne, that once drowned armies and imperilled all but the Valyrians." Baratheon's lips twitched upward, a flashing smile like the twist of a knife. "Lost, some would say, but not entirely forgotten."

"To the Gallant Men's misfortune," said the commander. His voice held solely amusement, not a trace of pity. "And the Company of the Rose, less significantly. You have served me well in this, Sunsetlander. Your brother's loss is my gain."

At that mention, Baratheon pressed his lips together, dark blue eyes glinting. He hated any mention of his brother, Gemilio knew. That was probably why Aro mentioned him so often when Baratheon sounded over-proud.

"Robert is no concern to the Company, commander," the Sunsetlander ground out through his teeth.

"Indeed. Now let us move on. Lorumis, your men had the bitterest part of the battle. What is their condition?"

"Poorly, commander," the Pentoshi captain said. "We lost three-hundred, dead and wounded. We expected worse, and it easily could have been, but the men are discontent. They'll need a few good hard sacks, with plenty of wine and women and loot, to assuage their anger."

"They'll have them," Aro promised. "The Gallant Men's remnants don't worry me overmuch. We can afford to delay here for a little while. Gemilio, yours?"

"Our losses weren't as bad as the centre's," Gemilio said with a respectful nod to Ranio Lorumis. "They were gripped by panic when they—"

"Stop them!" A weeping young man, mayhaps twenty, ran out of a house, following a group of sellswords who had emerged carrying bags of loot. His chest was still covered but his breeches had been ripped to shreds, showing his bottom, and there was white all around his mouth. "Stop them!" he screamed, pointing at the sellswords who had stolen from him. He was looking at the circle of men in finer armour, the commander and captains of the Company of the Cat, and his hoarse voice and pleading eyes were full of appeal.

The higher-ranking sellswords merely looked at him, making no move to follow them. Weakling, Gemilio thought with contempt.

The young man realised he would be given no help. "You monsters!" he wailed in Norvoshi. "You sons of whores!"

"I cannot say you're wrong about my mother," Aro mused in the same tongue, eliciting laughter from the sellswords. "But I do dislike your tone. Kill him."

The young man's eyes widened and he turned to run. He was not nearly fast enough. Swift as a snake, Baratheon drew an arrow to his burnt-golden bow and loosed it through the young man's throat. Blood gushed out. The raped man gave the faint beginning of a gurgle and stopped moving.

"Back to work," Aro said briskly. "We'll have an easy fortnight, that the Company may recover. Sack Harvos, Marenos, Rimnos and Lecos for a start; we can move on to others later. Feran, have your men ride far and around. I doubt there are any other hosts in the vicinity but it wouldn't serve to get complacent."

Feran nodded. "It will be done, commander."

"We'll gather more wood for arrows and spears and we'll do what we can for the wounded. Any other requirements?"

"The Company can sleep here tonight," Pomistis suggested, "properly guarded, of course. The men will like that."

Soft-hearted boy, thought Gemilio.

"We'll set up camp well outside Nyrelos," the commander said. "The men might like it, but the people here hate us and some of them would do their best to kill us in our sleep. They'd fail, of course, and we'd kill them all, but the commotion would wake us up in the night and mean we get less rest. Anything else, captains, for your men?"

There was not.

"And you, Sunsetlander. What of your… particular requirements?"

"I fletch the arrows I kill with, commander," Baratheon said. "I've no lack of those. But if you please, could the Company take more captives?"

The blood all over his armour left little doubt as to why.