Chapter 20. The Demon Of Essos I
Robert made his way into the Iron Bank of Braavos. But he was no longer treated like a King there. He had to leave behind his Kingsguard and enter the marble-adorned, high-ceilinged building, airy and echoey as he took each step.
He only had a lone Ser Barristan with him, without his sword. The man leading them looked to be a Keyholder of the Bank, a descendant of the twenty-three founders of the Iron Bank. Nothing grand, there were thousands of such descendants.
"This way."
Robert walked into a massive hall, rectangular in shape. It looked and felt empty, with a massive marble table at the end, behind it three large chairs. As he expected, for him as a visitor, there was a minor stone bench, not even a chair. There were gigantic doors on the right and on the left tall windows letting in the sunlight. The floor was covered with dark marble, contrasting with all the rest that was gray.
The guide left Robert and Barristan alone in that tall chamber.
"They leave no chance to diminish you," Ser Barristan commented, distaste in his tone. "You're the King—"
"Just a client to them," Robert cut in. "They don't see a king, only a fat purse. They bow to nothing but their ledgers and the coin they squeeze from men like us. Don't brood on it, Ser Barristan."
Clack!
A massive door behind the highchairs opened and three men walked in, their garbs refined and lavish, their footsteps loud.
"You are wise, King Robert Baratheon." The man in the middle spoke in a fluent common tongue. "I have the honor to be Tycho Nestoris, a humble servant of the Iron Bank of Braavos."
As the three men took their seats, Robert also sat down on one of the stone benches. He appeared like the odd one out in that hall. Unarmed yet imposing, sitting and still appearing so tall. His beard was trimmed but still lush and full, his face toned as his muscles.
"What can we do for you, King Baratheon?"
"I'm here to speak on the Lannisters and the realm's purse," Robert grunted, words rarely heard from a king better known for drinking and whoring. "Aye, I crave a bit of gold—but only with assurances and fair deals."
Tycho Nestoris leaned forward on the table, arms folded. "My ears are open."
"The darn Lannisters have bled their mines dry. Centuries of digging, and not a damn speck left. Tywin's borrowed from you before, that much I know. But now? He can't pay you back and wage his war on me. Not both."
"So, you ask the Iron Bank to fund your war against the Lannisters, with the promise that, once victorious, you shall settle both their debt and your own to us?" Tycho Nestoris finished before Robert could continue speaking. "Certainly, the idea of Lannisters running out of gold sounds ridiculous but… the evidence suggests otherwise. To my understanding, all but three kingdoms stand behind you."
Robert nodded. The Iron Bank had informers everywhere. He reckoned the bastards even knew the color of his shit from a month ago, so he spoke truthfully. "Westerlands and the Ironborn will bend soon enough. And Dorne… bah, Dorne is Dorne—neither friend nor foe, just a damned thorn in my side."
"And what do you seek from the gold wemayloan you?"
"Men, of course! Sellswords—more the better, and that's that. With the Reach at my back, the Golden Lion won't stand for long." Robert indirectly requested the money by revealing his plan. The Iron Bank knew how much it costs to hire sellswords.
The three representatives of the Iron Bank became silent and began murmuring to each other. Their little discussion went a little too long, and Robert slowly started to lose his patience. His foot tapped on the marble floor like a beating heart.
"King Robert Baratheon." Tycho Nestoris turned his gaze upon the King at last, his smile firm. "Your offer is most intriguing, yet regrettably untimely. You misapprehend the nature of your enemies… or perhaps your Master of Whispers is not quiteyoursafter all."
Robert looked at Ser Barristan, and then back at Tycho Nestoris. The hair at the back of his neck stood on end. "Are you refusing me?"
"No." Tycho Nestoris suddenly stood up with a dismissive smile. "I bid you farewell, King Robert. You may have reshaped your realm and forged a new path for yourself, but you failed to see the storm brewing in the East. You may yet triumph over men, but with dragons returning, your time is running out. The Iron Bank does not waste its coin on losing ventures."
"Such disrespect!" Ser Barristan boomed in anger. "You speak with the King of the Se—"
"Four," Tycho Nestoris corrected smoothly. "Four kingdoms, for now. But soon, perhaps none at all. The terms are set—just not in your favor."
Creak!
All of a sudden, countless footsteps became audible. The massive doors on the right all opened and men poured in, all adorned in golden armor, swords, shields, and capes. The men displayed luxury and splendor, even their sword hilts were jaded with gems and gold.
"What is the meaning of this!" Robert bellowed, up on his feet. He had no weapon, however.
Almost two hundred men poured into the hall before a passage was parted in the crowd. A young man with blue hair and purple eyes walked forward, arms folded. Behind him was another man, a face that Robert almost recognized. But even behind him was a Dornishman that he truly knew.
"Oberyn!" Robert sneered at the smug Dornishman. "Jon? Jon Connington?"
"Not so wise to cross the sea, Your Grace." Oberyn's lips curled into a sly smile, his hands resting casually behind his back. "But, I suppose I should thank you. You've made it so much easier for the true heir—King Aegon VI Targaryen."
"This boy?" Robert's gaze was sharp, his eyes seething as they locked onto the young, blue-haired figure. "Aye, he has the eyes, but that's not enough. Any fool with purple eyes can claim to be the rightful heir. But you—Jon—did you forget how you barely survived my hand at Stoney Sept? You sucked Aerys' cock, got yourself exiled, and now you side with the same madness? By the Gods, I should've killed you back then."
Aegonchortled and tried to speak."Heh, he's as amusing as the rumors said. You're an usurper, Robert Baratheon. You stole the throne from my blo—"
"Your mad blood? Your grandfather went mad, your father turned to abduction and raping—your blood's as foul as a sewer rat, if you're even a Targaryen!" Robert roared, uncowed by the armed men surrounding him. "So what's your plan, eh? Kill me here? Sail across the sea? Stannis is my true heir. The Tyrells will hand their girl to him if not to me. Do you think you can face the full strength of four kingdoms?"
"With just the Golden Company? No," the young man—Aegon Targaryen, or so he claimed—said. "But you're overlooking something. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The Lannisters and the Ironborn will stand with me, and they'll do so gladly."
"Hah!" Robert roared, his voice thick with fury. "Lannister? Aye, madness runs through your veins. You stand with Tywin, the very man who sent that beast, the Mountain, to butcher and rape your mother, your sister, and you? Oberyn, is this your defiance of Dorne? Licking the boots of a Lannister? Pathetic!"
"Enough!"Aegonshouted and waved at his men. "You're coming with me, Robert. You will pay for your crimes against my family."
Ser Barristan stepped in front of Robert right then. "Over my dead body."
"Stand aside, Ser Barristan,"Aegoncontinued."You've earned your honor, and I would not be the one to end your legacy. You deserve to see a Targaryen on the throne. Let the usurper face his reckoning."
Already, Robert surveyed the men he was up against. There were almost two hundred in that hall. He had no blade with him. And as far as he knew, the Golden Company had ten thousand men under its command.
There was truly no way to escape.
Not that he wanted to.
"Stand aside, Ser Barristan!" Robert growled, shoving the old knight aside with a harsh grip. "Get back to the ship. Take Sansa and Myrcella back to King's Landing. Tell Stannis what happened, and for the love of the Gods, don't let him take the throne. I'll be back… with Aegon, Oberyn, and Jon's heads in tow."
Robert was the biggest man in the room. He also knew that he was the strongest, inhumanly so. But he had no weapon and the place was too cramped. He needed space to move around and attack. He didn't want Ser Barristan to die either.
"I'll go with you, pretender!" Robert growled, taking a step forward. "No fight, if you have the sense to let Ser Barristan return to the ship."
"He's free to go. I have no animosity towards him."Aegonshrugged.
Ser Barristan, as expected, was unwilling to part ways. But Robert threatened to relieve him of his duty if he didn't go away.
"But Your—"
"Seven Hells, Barristan. You don't think you can save me just with your fist, do you? Even if you had a sword you couldn't," Robert retorted and stepped closer to Aegon. "Go back and do as I said. I'll return eventually and…"
Robert's gaze landed on the three representatives of the Iron Bank.
"When I return, the Iron Bank better be prepared to repay for this treachery. To conspire against me like this… I'll throw away my crown if I don't turn your proud bank into rubble."
Nobody knew where Robert's confidence was coming from or why he was being so compliant.
"Chain him!" Jon Connington shouted.
Quickly, five men came forward with heavy chains and shackles. Both his hands were quickly cuffed, and then chains were wrapped around his arms and back so he couldn't move his arms entirely.
Before being taken away, Robert looked back at Ser Barristan and gave a confident nod. "I'll be back, Barristan. Stronger than ever."
The men of the Golden Company laughed while Oberyn andAegonchuckled, dismissing his words as simple ramblings.
If only they knew.
It wasn't the King who was stuck with them.
It was them, now stuck with the King, the Demon of Westeros.
It was hard to tell where the pretender and Oberyn were taking him. All he knew was that he was on a boat first, then crossed a hill, and then got onto a boat again. There was a long line of similar boats, all filled with sellswords, and as he'd expected, he wasn't kept on the same boat as the pretender.
But the fact that they didn't try to kill him yet made everything clear. They simply couldn't afford to kill him. After all, as long as he lived, he was the King, and his surrender would mean the surrender of the Iron Throne. If he were killed, Stannis would be crowned the King, the Tyrells would support the stoic man, andAegonwould have to fight a long battle.
The best way to get the throne was to make Robert give it willingly.
Not in a million years.Robert grunted, feeling the tug of the iron chains around his arms. He had already tried to break them and he now knew that he could. It wasn't a lie when he claimed he could lift an elephant.
He truly was inhumanly strong. That was the very reason he followedAegon.But again, he didn't know if he could battle ten thousand men and win. There had to be a limit, after all.
Seated in the middle of the small boat, chained up, the only other man was behind him, rowing him. There were boats with Golden Company's men at the front and the back, all with six men each.
"A man believes you can."
"What?" Robert glanced back at the sudden advice from the man rowing the boat. "What are you rambling?"
"A man can end them all."
Robert frowned and looked at the other boats. Then he looked back at the man. "Who are you?"
The man smiled but never looked at Robert's face. "Valar Morghulis."
"Valar dohaeris," Robert instinctively replied. Why, he had no clue. It just felt like the most appropriate response.
The man nodded at Robert's reply. "A man is called Jaqen H'ghar. He serves the Many-Faced God, as do you."
Robert knew right away the man was Lorathi. Only they spoke in that fucked up manner. But still, the meaning behind the words was understandable.
"Why did you give me the coin?" He asked, looking ahead to avoid suspicion.
"A man did not choose this. The coin chose. A blessing from the Many-Faced God, for one who wears a mask as we do," Jaqen said, his voice smooth as still water. "It is given to me to lead you through Essos. This is the way of things."
By now, Robert didn't doubt miracles or gods. His existence itself was the greatest magical feat of all time. "Aye, but I'll have to survive first."
"A man sees you fight, a man sees you win. Not in one night, nor in two. But six? Perhaps."
"Hah! The Many-Faced God is a prophet now?" Robert laughed.
"Many-Faced God is all gods, and all gods are Many-Faced God. He sees, he knows. Is it not so, Wolf who became Stag?"
Brows raised in shock, Robert looked back at the man's face and for a moment met his eyes. Then he shook his head and looked ahead. "Seven Hells!"
That was all he could mutter. His well-guarded secret that no man should ever know.
How in the bloody hell did he know?
"A man should not be surprised. The Many-Faced God sees all, yet he asks for nothing. Not like the demon. A life is given, a life is taken—such is the way."
Robert shook his head annoyedly and refused to talk anymore. In silence, he awaited the eventual arrival at wherever they were taking him.
It was a gigantic camp with tents for as far as he could see. There were countless horses and even elephants. This was it, the camp of the Golden Company. And from the words he'd heard, this was somewhere outside the town of Selhorys.
Not long after being brought into the camp, he was uncuffed and thrown inside a metal cage with long bars and a cloth on the top to cover from the sun and occasional rain. They even brought him large servings of food. The treatment made it clear that they didn't plan on killing him yet.
Robert sat down and ate, awaiting the sky to darken. He watched the men go around and tried to map out the area. He could see the distant tent, the largest among all, made of golden cloth, surrounded by pikes with gilded skulls.
He expected Oberyn orAegonto come and speak with him that night. But even as the camp descended into silence slowly, nobody came to him. There were no guards around his cage, just tents, and occasional night patrol.
He still waited hours past midnight.
Then, he stood up and grabbed the vertical bars of the cage. He tried to push them apart and…
That was easy.
He succeeded without even exerting himself. The metal bars simply bent away to his will. But he was a large man, so he had to bend them a lot to make way.
I can walk out of the camp if I want.
He looked towards the direction he reckoned the exit was. But then he looked back at the golden tent in the distance.
Such an opportunity will never arise again. I can battle and kill without care and test the limits of my magical ability.
Was this the right action? He truly didn't know.
But this was what he had in mind from the beginning. If his ability was truly so magical, and if he could grow to an absurdly inhuman level, he'd have no need to fear the Lannisters or the Ironborn. He wouldn't need to fear the Tyrells backstabbing him. Nor the Dragons that Daenerys had spawned.
It's time to test the limits of this body.It was rare for him to still address Robert, but in that moment, he did.Let's carve a legend out of your name, my old friend.
He stepped out of his cage like a beast on a hunt. He heard all the minute sounds around, the distant footsteps on the ground. No, he didn't want to pounce on the first walking man. He wanted a weapon, preferably a warhammer.
It was impossible for him to blend in the camp, as his height was taller than that of some of the smaller tents. But he walked around nonetheless, poking his head inside some tents to see what weapons the men carried. There were swords, spears, and maces, but no Warhammer.
Eventually, he found a big enough longsword for himself and settled with it. He knew the single sword wasn't going to cut it for the night he had planned.
Let's begin.
He looked left and right and walked into one of the tents.
"Haaaa!" He roared and slashed the sword right at the midriff of a sleeping man.
The man was cleaved in half like a hot knife through butter. Intestines and organs spilled, blood sprayed everywhere, drenching Robert first and then pooling on the floor. There were four other men in the tent who woke up to Robert's cry, but they were too stunned by the gore.
"Ha!" Robert swung his blade sideways, not even using two hands for a longsword. The blade sliced through three men as they sat on the same level, all three heads removed from their bodies and rolled away like balls, yet again spraying blood.
The last man stood up, fright in his face. He screamed at the top of his lungs, just what Robert wanted.
Woosh!
Robert pierced his blade straight into the man's chest, slicing the tent behind him. He kept pushing forward until the tent got torn apart and he once again appeared in the open, his victim still stuck on the blade that had run through his heart, dead.
By then, the scream had woken up all the nearby sellswords. They had all grabbed their weapons and came out, but most of them wore no armor.
"Haaaaaaa! You brought this upon yourselves!"
With a roar, Robert lifted the dead man high with his sword, towards the sky with such ease that most men there went pale. Not all of them were mighty men. While the core of the Golden Company was still made up of descendants of men who fought for the Blackfyres, over the past century a steady trickle of outlaws or men from the losing side of other wars had joined their ranks. It had also been joined by other sellswords simply seeking better opportunities whose ancestors were never from Westeros.
In front of Robert, they were nothing more than pigs to be slaughtered.
Thud!
Robert swung his blade and threw the man stuck on his sword at a couple of men in the distance. The blood was everywhere, especially on Robert's own frame. His hair, his beard, his face, his raggy tunic—all were drenched in crimson.
I don't feel any resistance.Robert noticed it. It had been a while since his last battle. Now, he felt nothing when slicing through bodies. Even bones didn't register as his striking force was too strong. It all felt like breaking tiny twigs.
Too bad for the men around him, they had just woken up and had no armor on themselves.
Let's keep moving.
His imposing frame had instilled hesitation among the men of the Golden Company.
"Come on!" Robert rushed in a random direction and sliced his blade in a horizontal arc. The men put up their swords to block, but Robert's blade cracked through every single sword and with almost perfect precision, beheaded four men in one strike.
Since they were of different heights. Some got chopped from their necks, some had the misfortune of getting sliced from their jaw, and some from their forehead. The heads flew high and eventually dropped near other men.
It was pure panic beyond that point.
"Ugh!" Robert noticed his own longsword had cracked because of his rough handling. This was why he wanted a warhammer.
"You!" He randomly looked at another man holding a longsword and charged like a bull. He stabbed straight through and pierced the first man's chest. But he kept pushing and stabbed the other two men behind him, killing them on the spot, skewered together.
"Thank you." He grabbed the new longsword before the dead could fall to the ground.
From there, the carnage resumed.
It was slow, but some of the more experienced sellswords started to wake up to reality and began ordering others. Instead of standing in place, orders were given to wear full armor and bring long spears.
It backfired when Rober snatched the said spear and began stabbing every living creature around him. Right into their skulls. It didn't matter if they wore helmets. His brute strength pierced the spears through everything.
10 dead.
50 dead.
100 dead.
I feel nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Other than panting breath and his energy slowly waning, Robert felt nothing. Of course, he received wounds all over his body from some arrows and spears that flew his way. But nothing stopped his onslaught.
It truly was a slaughter. Even when he kept moving around the ground got covered in dead bodies and blood. The gray tents turned bloodsoked and Robert… it looked as if he had no skin anymore, all coated in blood.
"Yeaaaaaa!" His teeth gleamed white with the roars.
500 dead.
The trick was in continuing to move around. He never allowed them to surround him from all sides. And at times when some tried to charge at him with a horse, he cleaved through the horse and the rider at the same time.
It was inhuman. Organs and limbs flew in the air as if toys. Not a single soul in the camp recognized Robert as a human anymore.
But that was when the first elephant was unleashed at him. The men of the Golden Company jumped aside and allowed the elephant to attack the demon.
"Ugh!" Robert stood his ground but didn't slash or stab at the elephant. He knew he'd only be crippling the animal, not killing it in one slash. That was a simple rule he'd held on to. To kill fast and painlessly.
Shhh!
The elephant was strong. Its trunk tried to smack him to the ground.
Thud!
Robert fell back. The next thing he knew, the huge elephant tried to stomp him with its front right foot.
"Not so easy!" Robert gritted his teeth and used his arms to block it.
No man. No man was ever recorded or ever fantasized about holding such strength. Only the creatures in Old Nan's stories could accomplish such feats.
A human not only stopped an elephant's stomp but pushed back.
Robert Baratheon, the Westerosi King, pushed back and stood back up on his feet, pushing back the shocked elephant despite his smaller size.
"GO! LEAVE!" He roared at the elephant and punched at the trunk with all his strength. He knew it wouldn't wound the creature but surely pain it enough to feel scared. "And you!"
Robert grabbed a spear from the ground and sent it flying at the mahout. The spear flew so powerfully that it dragged the body of the man with it, off the elephant's back.
By then, the elephant was scared and refused to fight Robert anymore.
Nor did Robert stay in one place.
1000 dead.
I feel nothing but my body can't move anymore.
He felt limitless strength in his body. But his lungs were giving up. His eyes were turning hazy, and although he fought valiantly, he had suffered deep flesh wounds that bled continuously.
His aim was to reach the golden tent but the sellswords were protecting it the most. He'd already seen the terrified faces of Oberyn,Aegon,and Jon in the distance, sitting atop their horses as if ready to escape.
Escape from a lone man that they had brought as a prisoner.
Escape from a lone man who killed a thousand of them.
In one single night, the Golden Company went from 10,000 men to 9,000.
Sadly, that was the extent of what Robert could do in one night.
"Valar morghulis."
Before he blacked out and fell on the bloody ground, Robert heard that familiar greeting. He just chuckled and lost himself to the necessary slumber.
Aye, he knew the dangers. What if they killed him in his unconscious state? That idea worried him, but not too much.
He'd died twice already, why bother with a third?