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Blackfish Out Of Water by jacobk

Books » A song of Ice and Fire Rated: M, English, Adventure & Fantasy, Brynden T., Words: 96k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Apr 30, 2016 Updated: Sep 15, 2016801Chapter 33

ooOoo

The Sunset Legion was on the march. The men moved with the cohesion drilled into them by relentless training and now reinforced by hard experience. Beneath their disciplined tread I could sense their excitement. An enemy that we had been chasing for weeks was finally within reach. They were eager to have it out with the Golden Company. I felt my own heart race as my instinctive surge of adrenaline was reinforced by that communal enthusiasm. I had to forcibly fight back the urge to spur my horse forward and truly lead my troops into battle.

Instead I played the role of a responsible commander, riding at a walking pace behind the second column of troops. The reserve column was on my left while the ground to my right was clear all the way to the river, albeit churned up by the passage of Petyr's lead column. I didn't have quite the same commanding view of the battle that I had when the Legion numbered only a thousand as my horse no longer provided enough elevation to see the front lines clearly. Still, it was more than I would be able to see on foot. Several messengers rode with me in case I needed to send an order more complicated than drum and bugle would allow.

Ironically, Jon Connington would have a better view of the battle than I would. I had left him behind together with the minimal guard that would provide the initial defense of our camp in the event that we had to retreat to a fortified position. I'd ordered him tied up where he could look out over the valley. He'd no doubt thought it the height of arrogance, but in truth I thought it cruel to leave him in suspense as to the battle's outcome.

There may have been a bit of arrogance mixed in there, too. No matter how formidable the Golden Company might be their spears hadn't grown longer overnight. Things would get ugly once the Sunset Legion faced other pikemen but for now we had an advantage that I intended to exploit for all it was worth.

The drumbeat picked up in intensity and the legion surged forward as it hit flat ground and the moment of contact drew imminent. The men were letting out a battle cry now, an incoherent roar that I felt in my bones as much as I heard it with my ears.

Then one of the Windblown was riding across the front of the formation from the far right. He was shouting something. What it was I couldn't hear. I could see the result, though, as the first column slowed before coming to a halt. The second column soon followed suit, as did the reserves.

"Find out what the fuck is going on!" I barked out at one of the messengers. Though we'd heard the order to halt being passed along it was of course not accompanied by an explanation.

Before the messenger could leave another Windblown scout rode up to us. He'd been pushing his horse hard. It's breath was flecked with foam. The rider was fairly trembling himself.

"Captain Tully! There's a trench across the battlefield! It was hidden..."

I listened absently to the rest of the report as I saw the Golden Company maneuver for the first time. Their ranks opened up to allow their archers open lines of fire into our formation. A veritable storm of arrows lashed out, flat fired from close range.

Most of the men had the sense to kneel down and look down. Present the smallest possible target and let their armor do its job. Almost as importantly, that allowed our crossbowmen to return fire. Gaps opened in the ranks on either side of the trench, and the incoming arrows slackened a bit as their archers had to worry about their own safety.

Meanwhile, images flashed before my mind. The Golden Company, well ahead of us, choosing this valley as their battlefield. Myles Toyne, waiting for me in the middle of the valley. Creating that mental division of "our half" and "their half" and leaving us content to remain on our side. Riding back to camp... what an act, finding the bridge left over the trench without appearing to take any particular care at all.

We were in trouble. They had more missile troops than we did. Ours were better armored, but even so if this was going to be a game of standing at range and shooting at each other then we were going to lose. The only saving grace was that the trench would help our own retreat, but the sound of massed hoof beats told me that even that option was off the table for now.

The Golden Company had responded to our unbalanced cavalry formation as I'd expected. Even more so. I'd thought they would weight their formation towards our left flank. It appeared that they had sent just about all of the cavalry to our left. They had anchored their own left with the trench and, now that I looked, a line of spearmen braced to hold off our cavalry. The overwhelming might of the knights and squires of the Golden Company had swung out wide, ridden past the trench, and was now looking to smash our reserve column. They contemptuously ignored the token force of light cavalry and skirmishers, totally intent on administering the coup de grace.

Warrior preserve him, I'd put Rodrik in command of the reserve column for his patience. As the Golden Company charged forward, the reserves showed no sign of movement, still braced against the incoming arrows. The cavalry rumbled closer, individual banners now visible among the horde. Still there was no response. The roar of thousands of riders was making it hard to think. Still the reserves were frozen in place.

Just when I thought that we were surely beyond the last possible moment, three sharp whistle blasts echoed across the battlefield.

The reserve column turned as one, their pikes rising to vertical before falling into place to present a forest of spikes towards the oncoming enemy. I'm sure the riders were game to try their luck but the horses wanted nothing to do with impaling themselves for the greater glory of the Golden Company. All up and down the line there was chaos as horses came skidding to a sudden halt. Rodrik had cut it damn fine. In a few places horses were unable to stop in time and shrieked as they skewered themselves with their own momentum. The pikes held fast, braced against the ground as they were, and the reserves held their line.

The shock of the sudden stop transmitted itself back through the charging cavalry. What had been a coordinated charge soon turned into a massive traffic jam. Horses were packed together far more closely than their formation would ordinarily allow and milled about as officers bellowed, trying to restore order. It was a phenomenon that I had noticed when we fended off the Long Lances, which was why I had prepared Rodrik to give his next order.

"Column, ADVANCE!"

Ordinarily it's not a great idea for men on foot to charge at cavalry. The guy on the horse has a natural height advantage. He also can go much faster because, of course, he's on a horse. The infantry is liable to get outmaneuvered and run down, assuming they're good enough to avoid being cut down like grass.

This was not an ordinary circumstance. Our pikes more than negated the reach advantage provided by the horse and however fast a horse might be it can't go anywhere when it's hemmed in on all sides.

The legionnaires pushed forward with a yell, stabbing out at anything that came within their reach. It was brutal. It was beautiful.

I saw a rider pushed out of the saddle with a pike through his gut. His mount panicked until a merciful stab to the throat silenced it forever. Another horse took several spears to the chest, collapsing and taking its knight with it to the ground. The knight was bowled over and trampled by advancing legionnaires. One man who had lost his pike was ranging back and forth behind the front line of advance, briefly crouching over each fallen foe, his knife shining with blood.

The Golden Company cavalry had no intention of dying in place. They struggled to move but gradually managed to turn themselves away from the oncoming push. No doubt they intended to separate from the pikemen and then begin maneuvering to exploit the gaps this attack was creating in our formation. That was when the second part of our plan went into effect.

The Long Lances, five hundred of the heaviest cavalry we had on hand, crashed into the front ranks of the retreat.

The Golden Company's path of retreat was cut off on their right by their own trench. Going to their left meant moving towards our fortifications, not to mention that they would have a ways to go in order to clear the advancing line of pikemen. Behind them, that line of pikemen was advancing as an implacable tide. Their only way out was forward, where they now faced another roadblock created by the attack of the Long Lances.

The overall effect was not unlike what you would see if you dropped a rock in a narrow stream. What had been a relatively orderly flow of cavalry now became an outright rout, as they raced to get around the obstruction and away to freedom. Even so, many of them found themselves pressed in place, unable to fight back as the line of pikes drew ever closer.

My attention was drawn from the cavalry battle by another massive roar. I turned back to face the main battlefield and blinked. At some point the Sunset Legion had managed to make its way across the defensive trench. They had pushed the Golden Company back across the field and now had them on the run. It was only human for their morale to break as they saw disaster befall their cavalry.

The Golden Company fled for the safety of their camp, but it wasn't to be. With the infantry pushed back the cavalry on our right had easily vaulted over the trench and now cut off their line of retreat. The Golden Company were forced to run away from the river, around the hill and then north towards the Sorrows. The Long Lances and Windblown rode on to press the pursuit while our infantry moved to secure the enemy camp.

For my part, I finally advanced to the defensive trench and stared down, taking a moment to process what I was seeing. The trench itself was only six or seven feet across. If I were twenty years younger I could have run and jumped across it easily enough. Of course, in armor and carrying a pike, not so much. Spanning the gap at regular intervals were pairs of pikes spaced a couple feet apart. They'd been driven deep into the ground at both ends.

After I'd seen enough I backed my horse up and leaped across the gap. A group of legionnaires was gathered around something twenty feet past the trench. I headed that way to try and find out what was going on. The men parted when I drew near, and I dismounted when I saw Petyr stretched out on the ground. He had a strap of leather clenched between his teeth and a maester crouched over him.

Petyr's eyes were rolled back until just the whites were showing and the maester was obviously busy. I turned to the men around me to ask what had happened. They all tried to jump in at once but eventually managed to sort themselves out and tell the story.

Petyr had improvised some maneuvers of his own while I had been distracted by the cavalry charge. He'd come up with the idea of having the first rank of men lay their pikes down across the trench to form rudimentary bridges. The next couple of ranks had moved up and used the length of their pikes to push the Golden Company back from their side of the trench.

Then Petyr had led the charge. His pike braced under one arm and a lit grenade in the other, he had charged across the trench, throwing the grenade at the first man that he saw and lighting him on fire. He'd then laid about himself with his pike. He'd attack with such ferocity that he'd managed to carve out a bubble of space that was quickly filled with oncoming legionnaires. The Golden Company was caught out of sorts transitioning from a ranged attack formation to a melee combat formation, and the legionnaires had pressed home the attack with a fury. The routing of the cavalry was the last straw.

Petyr had suffered for his heroics. He had come under withering fire from enemy archers. I could see that he had been peeled out of his breastplate. The maester had cut away the gambeson underneath. It was badly stained with blood on his left side, just above and again below his hips. Blood also covered his cheek, although that seemed to be from a glancing blow.

The maester sat up straight and cut off the thread he'd been using to stitch. A moment later Petyr seemed to come back to himself. He spat out the strap when he saw me and started trying to push himself up. He settled down when I crouched down and rested a hand on his shoulder.

"Did we win?"

He sounded so very young. I nodded.

"Good. That's... I didn't know what to do. So I attacked."

I smiled. "You did good, Petyr."

He relaxed at that, falling back into a full body slump. His eyes never left mine or I would have thought he had passed out. A long moment passed in silence, Petyr only moving in reaction to the maester's continued prodding. Eventually he lifted his head and spoke.

"I'm cold," Petyr announced, his tone of voice oddly detached. I'm not a doctor, but that didn't sound good.

"The maester has you half out of your clothes. We'll fetch you some blankets."

"Blankets... I'm tired."

I'm not a doctor, but that really didn't sound good.

"You can rest later. You need to stay awake for now. Stay with me, Petyr."

He smiled, his eyes not quite focusing on my face.

"'salright. I'll just..." he said, before the next few words were swallowed by an enormous yawn. "Tell Cat..."

Petyr mumbled a few more words that I couldn't make out. His eyes slid shut and the back of his head hit the ground with a thud as his whole body went limp.

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Blackfish Out Of Water by jacobk

Books » A song of Ice and Fire Rated: M, English, Adventure & Fantasy, Brynden T., Words: 96k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Apr 30, 2016 Updated: Sep 15, 2016801Chapter 34

AN: Wine, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.

ooOoo

I'm not a doctor.

Fortunately we had a maester on hand to tell us that Petyr was still alive before I declared him a heroic martyr. There was a steady diet of bone broth in store for Petyr for a while but the maester was confident that he'd live. He'd be stuck in bed rest for the next few days and it would be a while before he made a full recovery. I cleared out the battlefield grit that had gotten into my eyes and started whipping the gathered soldiers into dealing with the tasks at hand.

As usual after a battle, there was plenty to do. The first order of business, securing the enemy camp, looked like it had more or less been finished while I was distracted. I could see my men roaming freely throughout the enemy fortifications and a knot of men that looked to be guarding prisoners. The next task was to take an accounting of the final results of the battle.

All in all, we'd come off rather well. Thirty-six dead, a few more seriously wounded who would be touch and go, and a shitload of minor arrow wounds. Our maester was going to be kept busy stitching people up for a while, but we didn't look likely to lose more than a few more men. On the other side the Golden Company had left hundreds of bodies and hundreds of prisoners behind. And that was just in the immediate vicinity of the battlefield. I could only imagine the slaughter being wreaked in the pursuit while we were taking stock.

When it came to tidying up the battlefield, the Golden Company had been kind enough to dig their own grave. We systematically stripped their corpses of anything valuable before rolling them into the trench that stretched across the battlefield. Our own dead were put off to the side and covered with blankets pending a proper burial. The horses that hadn't survived the ill-fated cavalry charged were butchered and fires built to smoke the resulting meat for preservation. It wasn't anybody's first choice of food but an army in the field couldn't be picky.

Not that tonight's dinner would be horse jerky. Far from it. Along with the Golden Company's camp we had captured the valuables that they had deemed important enough to grab and carry away after their first defeat. In addition to a sizable amount of gold, this included a surprising number of casks of fine wine. I ordered the men to leave them be for now and posted a guard on the wine.

It was probably impossible for me to provoke a mutiny after such a resounding victory, but that order drew some grumbles. The men cheered up when I explained that booze that good should be saved for a special occasion. Like a victory feast.

ooOoo

A messenger dispatched from the pursuit arrived at our camp just as the sun was setting. He reported that things were going as well as could be expected, but that given the ground that had been covered the main body of cavalry wouldn't be rejoining us until afternoon of the next day.

I made the executive decision that the captured booze would go to those of us who were present for dinner. I did make a note of what we had found so that the cavalry could be credited the value of what we would be drinking. Fair's fair. But a wise commander doesn't give an order if he's not sure he'll be obeyed.

The feast made for an interesting experience. Our chefs broke out the best of our rations and cooked up the fresh food that had been captured from the Golden Company. It was good, but it was simple fare. The kind of meal you might enjoy at the table of a prosperous farmer. The wine, though, wouldn't have been out of place next to the plate of a king. Arbor golds. Dornish reds. Some kind of essosi firewine that kicked like a mule going down. You name it, we were drinking it.

Really, though, the wine was only an accent note next to the real sauce that gave the meal its savor: victory. There was a buzz in the air. A sense of pride, triumph, giddy relief. I was more on the relief side of things myself. I'd been tricked by Myles Toyne. If the reserves hadn't turned in time. If Petyr hadn't found a way across the trench. If the men hadn't held up so well under the archery barrage. If one more thing had gone wrong, we would have been proper fucked.

But it hadn't. And on the strength of that razor thin balancing of accounts we had won a resounding victory that likely had decided the war in our favor. Hells, we might have ended the Golden Company. Those poor bastards were being driven hard into the Sorrows at night. The Father alone knew how many of them would make it out.

So I enjoyed my wine and for the most part kept my own counsel as I listened to the men around me. Most of them, being young men who were used to winning battles, were in a far less introspective mood. Boisterous songs, cheerful braggadocio, and spirited retellings of the day's events were the order of the night. The Windblown infantry freely circulated through our camp and shared in the celebration. I heard the occasional argument break out over who was really more responsible for the victory, but it was mostly in good fun. A few fights had to be broken up by the men I had detailed to stay sober and keep an eye on things-motivated by the promise of extra pay and a cask of wine held back for them for tomorrow-but nothing serious.

I sat at a table a bit apart from the main proceedings, accompanied by my lieutenants. They came and went throughout the night, spending time with their men before returning to the company of their fellow officers. The only constant presences at the table were Walder, Rodrik, and Jon Connington. As a noble prisoner who had given his parole Connington deserved to sit with us, but watching him sulk throughout the night it seemed he would have preferred to be sharing bread and water with the men we'd captured today.

As the night wore on and the firewine went down easier and easier Connington's attitude really started to grate. I finally set my glass down and leaned towards him, frowning.

"That wine isn't going to do you any good if you just stare at it."

He turned his glare on me then. He picked up the wine, downed it all in one go, and slammed his mug on the table. His eyes never left my face. I grabbed the jug we were using as a decanter and poured him a refill. Most of the wine ended up inside the cup.

"There you go. Cheer up, we're still going to let you go at the end of the war even if," I waved my hands around, vaguely, "there's nobody available to pay a ransom."

"Let me go? Go where? With my ancestral lands stolen and my company gone, where will I go?"

"Don't be so dramatic. There's always work to be had for a man who knows his way around the battlefield. Or," I said, smiling as the thought occurred to me, "you could come back to Westeros."

"An exile, come home in chains? That hardly sounds like letting me go free."

I paused for a moment, putting things together in my mind. I felt a strange sense of kinship with Jon Connington in that moment. Maybe it was the wine. But we'd both had our lives disrupted by the cosmic twist of fate that had brought me into this world. If things had gone according to plan he and Brynden Tully never would have met. Brynden would have spent his days in the Vale passive-aggressively spiting his brother, and Jon would have suffered whatever terrible fate had prevented him from appearing in the books.

I knew I'd changed things. But I also knew there were more powerful forces at work in the world than anything I could bring to bear. Forces beyond my understanding. Subtle spycraft and, I thought, even the supernatural. Could I really change fate? If I could make a real positive difference in Jon's life, that would suggest that I could. I'd probably derailed his death already, but what if I could do more? If I could help him, then I could help myself and my family. We were all connected by my mysterious, impossible existence.

Some of that was definitely the wine.

"You were exiled by Aerys," I said, focusing back on the moment, "Robert would forgive that just to stick his thumb in the Mad King's eye one last time."

"And all I have to do is bend the knee to the usurper?"

"Sometimes a little bit of groveling can save a lot of trouble," I said. "Why, one time there were these two women. Deana and Mina. Identical twins, save that Deana had a mole on her left cheek and Mina had a mole on her right. I-"

"Wait, you mean great-aunt Mina?" Rodrik asked, interrupting.

I blinked, losing my train of thought. It took a moment to trace the relations. The family tree in my mind's eye was fuzzy and kept swimming in and out of focus. After a moment I nodded.

"She used to bake me cookies and tell me bedtime stories," Rodrik wailed.

"That's her. She made such lovely lemon cakes," I said, nodding, "though I doubt she ever told you the story of the pirate captain and the naughty serving wench."

Rodrik lowered his head to the table, weeping softly. I waited until it became clear that he wouldn't be finished any time soon before turning to address the rest of the table. Where had I been going with that anecdote again? Oh, yes.

"While I don't recommend marrying an older woman, they do have a lot to teach a young man," I said, nodding once with conviction.

There was a general murmur of agreement around the table. I noticed that Jon Connington looked bemused, and I shook myself as I remembered his complaint.

"The point is, sometimes you have to swallow your pride to get what you want. You do want Griffin's Nest back, don't you?"

"Griffin's Roost is the barest part of my ancestor's lands. The usurper has carved them to pieces."

"Robert does have a temper," I allowed.

Or Jon Arryn was playing three dimensional chess. But if I said that I would have to explain what chess was. Then I'd have to explain Star Trek. Then I'd have to explain a whole bunch of things. I pushed the thought aside.

"The man is incapable of holding a grudge, though. It's one of his best qualities. Isn't that right?"

There was another murmur of agreement. After a moment Walder raised his glass and proposed a toast to the King's mercy. We all drank, although Connington took a little chivvying before he joined in.

"Look, I have business at court. If you come with me, bend the knee, be a good sport when Robert brags about kicking your arse in the rebellion, and-"

"He never-"

"Be a good sport," I repeated, speaking over his objection, "and make a good showing on the hunt, and I'd give even odds Robert restores your lands on the spot."

"Just like that?" Connington asked. He seemed a bit dazed by this turn of events.

"It might go more smoothly if you're betrothed to a reliable family," I said. Darla filled me in on the latest gossip whenever we saw each other whether I wanted her to or not, and this was an opportunity to advance my brother's grand plan to get the Riverlands in bed with all of Westeros. "My wife's cousin recently came of age. Tiny little thing, pale skin, dark hair. A bit quiet, if you like that sort of thing."

"My cousin Lelani needs a husband," Rodrik said, rousing himself back into a seated position. "Nobody would call her quiet."

"Not if she's anything like her grandmother," I said, chuckling. "I lost hearing out of my left ear for nearly a week."

Rodrik groaned and sank back down to rest his head on the table. I turned back to Jon.

"If you're looking for a girl with a bit more meat on her bones, Walder's got a... cousin? Half-sister? Cousin once removed? I can never keep track."

"Fat Walda," Walder announced, "shall only marry into a Great House. She will fit into no other."

He set his glass down and studied it for a moment. "I am drunk."

"There, you see?" I said to Jon. "Plenty of choices."

"You have given me much to think about."

He didn't seem as outright hostile as he did before, but he still looked skeptical. I leaned forward and pitched my voice so that it wouldn't carry beyond the two of us.

"You grew up with a dream. Then you got kicked in the balls and your whole life was torn apart. You built a new life and you just got kicked in the balls again. You're never going to have that old dream. It's gone. What you have to decide is if you're going to find a new dream, or if you're going to spend your whole life wallowing in regret."

Satisfied, I leaned back and took another swig of wine. The rest of the night passed in a bit of a blur.

ooOoo

My hangover the next morning confirmed two things. First, I was not as young as I used to be. Brynden's days of tying one on before bounding out of bed and charging off to battle might be clear in his memory, but they were in fact long past. The second fact was that even the best distilled products here had more than a bit of white lightning in their family tree.

Fortunately my hangover had largely cleared up by the afternoon when our cavalry returned. I had a feeling I needed to be at my best if I wanted to talk everybody into marching any further north.

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Blackfish Out Of Water by jacobk

Books » A song of Ice and Fire Rated: M, English, Adventure & Fantasy, Brynden T., Words: 96k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Apr 30, 2016 Updated: Sep 15, 2016801Chapter 35

AN: You know what would really help this war go more smoothly? Canals.

ooOoo

The Tattered Prince looked tired but satisfied as he approached me. He and Irrys reined in their horses in front of me. The Tattered Prince then reached behind him and tossed the Golden Company's standard to the ground. The gilded skulls chimed against each other as the standard bounced before settling in the dirt.

"So much for the Golden Company."

A moment of silence followed the Tattered Prince's declaration. I felt the weight of history in that moment as I studied the fallen standard. The Golden Company had been around for over seventy years. For much of that time it had been regarded as the premier sellsword company in Essos. And now they were no more. Suffering a dramatic defeat and vigorous pursuit, chased into the Sorrows without any group cohesion or supplies... some of the men might survive, but it wouldn't be the Golden Company of old.

I shook myself. I might be old, but I wasn't ready to rest on my laurels and live in nostalgia just yet. I'd press the Tattered Prince for a detailed report later, to record in my journal if nothing else, but for now I needed to focus on the future. There was still work to be done.

"We've secured their camp. We've made good progress retrieving their valuables. By the time the next supply flotilla arrives from Volantis we'll be ready to march north."

Both of them reacted with surprise, but it was Irrys who spoke first.

"March north? Why? Is over. We won! Now is time to negotiate surrender."

I kept my eyes on the Tattered Prince as I replied.

"We've spoken of songs and legends. How often do songs end with a negotiated surrender?" I asked. "Besides, imagine how differently the negotiations will go if we're camped outside the walls of Qohor."

"You're that eager to march through the Sorrows and beard the Shrouded Lord?"

Though the Tattered Prince's tone of voice was skeptical, his heart wasn't in it. I could tell that he wanted to be persuaded. I favored him with my best predatory smile.

"I think thousands of men with fire and steel are more than a match for snarks and grumkins."

ooOoo

Of course, thirst for glory alone wouldn't sustain us on the march to Qohor. Volantis wouldn't be able to supply us that far north, and foraging for supplies could really slow us down. Fortunately, the Golden Company had shown us a new path forward.

That was why I was waiting on the bank of the Rhoyne a half day's march north of the battlefield. The Golden Company's standard was planted in the ground on one side of me. A white flag on the other. A small chest sat at my feet. I was accompanied by a small cohort of men from the Sunset Legion. A larger group rested on the side of the hill a little ways away from the river. They weren't close enough to spring an ambush themselves but ought to e able to foil any attack by somebody who chose to disregard the flag of parley.

Pirates were not known for being sticklers for the rules.

We all tensed when a ship came gliding out of the fogbank to our north. I took a deep breath and relaxed my shoulders before gesturing at my men to stand down. There was a general sound of shuffling as they took their hands off their weapons and resumed their less hostile stances of a moment ago. The quiet splash of oars marked the time, the sound no longer muffled by the fog. I studied the ship as it approached.

It was a river galley. I counted a little over twenty oars split between two decks on the side facing us. While the galley might have lacked the size of an ocean-going warship, there was no mistaking this as anything other than a fighting vessel. The hull was pockmarked with scars from battles gone by. Splotchy stains had been preserved as macabre decorations, creating an impression that was at once sloppy and ominous. The boat was free of any identifying flag.

However ragged the appearance of the ship might be, the rowers were crisp and coordinated as they brought it in line with us and then reversed direction and settled into an easy rhythm, holding it in place against the current. I wondered for a moment why they didn't just drop anchor before I realized that they might not be entirely sure of my good intentions. An impression that was confirmed when a voice called out from the deck.

"You ain't the fella we met before."

I reached down and pulled open the chest sat by my feet. The contents glittered in the afternoon sun.

"My gold's just the same."

Usually that would be a statement about the value of the gold, but in this case it was literally true. The chest was filled with golden bracelets stripped from the bodies of the Golden Company. Their habit of carrying their wealth on their persons had proven quite the boon to us once more.

The man on the ship didn't say anything. He didn't order the rowers to move them away, either. I decided to press the point.

"The Golden Company offered you gold for food. They have no more need of food," I said, thumping the standard beside me, "and no more gold to spend. I'll offer you the same deal they did. Or are you patriots, who sell to one army but not another?"

That sparked some talk aboard the ship. The water carried the hum of conversation but the content was hopelessly gargled by the distance. I waited. The gentle splashing of the oars marked the time.

The conversation finally came to a halt, and the man called out once more. "You make bold claims, friend."

"I do bold deeds, friend," I replied. "If you've any interest in gold, come ashore and we can talk."

The universal rule, as applicable to investment banking as it is to piratical negotiations: by and large the person who has the gold dictates terms to the one who wants it. It would be convenient for me if this guy was willing to deal, but if he had some kind of sentimental attachment to the Golden Company I was confident I'd be able to find somebody else who was interested. I'd just rather not have to march all the way to Dagger Lake to get our food situation sorted out. Keeping everybody's spirits up in the Sorrows was going to be rough to begin with. It wouldn't be any easier if we were on half rations.

Still, a standoff between my desires and his needs was only ever going to end one way. Eventually the pirate came to the same conclusion and barked out an order. The galley turned and started forward again, grounding itself on the river bank. I was hardly an expert on such things, but it seemed to me that it hadn't grounded itself particularly high up on the bank. The impression that they were still poised for a quick getaway was reinforced when the rowers stayed in place. Only a few men from the top deck swung down to the ground and made their way over to us.

Two of the approaching pirates looked much like any other sailor. Large men, shaped by a life of hard labor that had engrained itself in the lines on their tanned faces. Their leader, however, was cut from a different cloth. Slender and graceful, he was wrapped in a cloak that was marked all over with bright pieces of silk. He would have fit right in as a bravo by the Moon Pool if not for his beard. It had been dyed bright green and was tied off in two forks after the Tyroshi fashion. His hair was hidden under the flaming red bandanna knotted across his head.

He stopped well out of arm's reach. The other two men stood at his shoulders. They left enough space clear that he wouldn't have any trouble drawing his sword, but his intentions appeared peaceful for now.

"Jaenor Caengaris," he said, giving a little bow that sent his cloak fluttering out behind him.

"Brynden Tully."

He raised an eyebrow at that. It still caught me by surprise when my reputation preceded me.

"I didn't think you barbarian knights were the sort to consort with pirates."

"Pirates?" I said, making a show of looking around. "We're at war with Qohor and Norvos. Attacking their shipping would be an act of privateering."

A smile slowly spread across his face. He cocked his head.

"You don't need to see my letter of marque?"

I waved my hand dismissively. "I'm not the sort to get hung up on paperwork."

"Come to think of it," he said, "I'm not sure just where our last prize hailed from."

I shrugged. "Tragic mistakes happen in the confusion of war. I'm no master of laws to parse out wrongdoing over every little mix up."

I waited for a moment for that to sink in before leaning forward and fixing him with a serious look. "Of course, if we're to work together more closely in the future, I expect you to avoid those kinds of mistakes going forward."

"Fair enough," he said, the amused expression leaving his face. "How's this going to work, then?"

"In two days' time we're going to be marching into the Sorrows. We'll meet you in the morning and pay for the days' food," I said. "You share the food with us after we make camp in the evening. If we make it to Dagger Lake without killing or robbing each other then we can talk about more ambitious goals."

"Oh? Suppose we need to settle on a price, then."

That was the cue for the haggling to begin. Jaenor seemed surprised that I had some idea what food ought to cost. For my part, a large part of me was still more comfortable reviewing numbers and accounts than riding out on to the battlefield. I was ready to pay a premium for supplies given our location, of course. I let him negotiate for a bit more than than that. Not enough to make me out as an easy mark, but enough to give him some incentive to keep working with us.

Once we settled on a price, he looked at me with renewed interest in his eyes. "About those other goals..."

"Attacking their shipping is all well and good," I said, then grinned. "But wouldn't it be more fun to take a prize from the Qohori navy?"

ooOoo

Two days later, our collective forces gathered just south of Chroyane. The unnatural fog of the Sorrows roiled before us, moved by winds that didn't seem to touch anything else. Just looking at it was enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Still, we were as prepared as we could be. We'd sent the bulky loot, mostly weapons and armor, downriver with the Volantine ships together with our prisoners. The gold and precious gems we'd kept on hand. The Volantines had been good enough to ferry us over to the east bank of the Rhoyne. From here until Qohor we'd be marching with the river on our left.

We had enough food in our supply train to get us through the Sorrows even if the pirates failed to show. We had enough water on hand to get us through the Sorrows as well. It was irrational to think that water in the Rhoyne got any less safe as we went upriver, but I didn't want to drink anything gathered under that evil mist. Judging from the enthusiastic reaction when I had announced our water-rationing plan, I wasn't the only one who felt that way.

Our supply wagons also contained one recuperating lieutenant. I had thought to send Petyr back to Volantis to be treated, but he had adamantly refused to be separated from the Sunset Legion. He wasn't going to have an easy ride of it, but the maester had conceded that it wouldn't actually impede his recovery.

All around the edges of the formation were men carrying torches. They were paired up with men with bows or crossbows. As we moved into the Sorrows the mists seemed to swallow the firelight. The torches still gave off enough light that the men were able to pepper the few stone men we encountered with arrows before they were close enough to threaten anyone. The marching column steered well clear of the bodies.

I felt a little bad about it, but I honestly had no choice but to give that standing order. The grey plague was a communicable disease that eventually turned its victims into rage zombies. I couldn't allow even the smallest chance that it would gain a foothold in the army.

When we set up camp we prepared it as though we were in a war zone. A ditch and rampart palisade, torches spaced around the perimeter, the works. Digging defenses in the muck was nasty work, but nobody complained. The feeling of the mist pressing down on you was enough to motivate even the most inveterate slacker into building defense on top of defense.

Jaenor showed up as promised that evening, so the men even got to enjoy full rations. All in all, I felt like the first day marching through the Sorrows went about as well as could be expected.

Then the nightmares began.

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Blackfish Out Of Water by jacobk

Books » A song of Ice and Fire Rated: M, English, Adventure & Fantasy, Brynden T., Words: 96k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Apr 30, 2016 Updated: Sep 15, 2016801Chapter 36

ooOoo

One little quirk of mine that is probably worth mentioning at this juncture: I never remember my dreams. I remember having had dreams. I just never remember what was in them. So I could have been spending all night since I got to Westeros seeing prophecies of the future, or browsing wikipedia, or whatever. I wouldn't know.

All of which is to say that I woke up on our first morning in the Sorrows feeling anxious and a little jumpy, but that was it. Frankly, those emotions could easily be explained by the creepy unnatural fog that we were going to be marching through for the next few weeks. I didn't have any inkling that anything was wrong until I went to fetch breakfast.

Ten pairs of bloodshot eyes turned to look at me as I approached the officers' table. My eyebrow rose almost involuntarily as I took a seat.

"I hope you didn't all spend the night tying one on."

They turned to look at each other. Through a series of glares, shrugs, and shaken heads, Rodrik was appointed their spokesman.

"You didn't hear, captain?"

"Hear what?"

"Most of the men had nightmares last night."

"Not just the men," one of the officers added.

"What sort of nightmares?"

"I saw the Shrouded Lord. He.." Rodrik trailed off, then shook his head. "I'd rather not say."

There was a general murmur of agreement around the table. I looked them over with concern. I really did sympathize, but there wasn't much I could do.

"This place is eerie enough to give anybody nightmares. If we keep moving, we'll be through it soon enough. The dreams will go away eventually."

The dreams were back again that night. By now some of the men were starting to show noticeable bags under their eyes. One night of bad dreams might have been a coincidence. Two in a row had me suspicious. I asked Jaenor if he knew anything about what was going on.

He shrugged. "The Sorrows have their ways of testing a man. Some pass. Some don't."

Left unspoken was the no doubt gruesome fate suffered by those who failed. While it was helpful to know that whatever was going on wasn't anything new, Jaenor was hardly offering me a solution to the problem. I was no pirate captain, ready to throw my crew overboard when they stopped carrying their weight.

I would have liked to devise a scientific explanation for what was going on, and use that to derive a solution. Hells, I would have settled for a superstitious explanation if it pointed us towards a cure. Unfortunately, I had a sneaking suspicion that a centuries-long fogbank covering hundreds of square miles that caused nightmares might just be beyond modern science. I'd recruited a septon to travel with us to provide blessings before battles and last rites as necessary. He was spending most of the day reciting prayers but seemed as helpless as the rest of us in stopping the nightmares.

The only resource left to draw on was a stubborn refusal to quit. That carried us through another day of marching, though the men were visibly weary and between the lack of sleep and the rough terrain we didn't cover nearly the distance I would have hoped.

The third morning I woke to find four men tied together back to back in the center of camp wearing nothing but their night clothes. They had tried to run off during the night. The sergeant tearing strips off of them was hitting the same notes that I would have: if you're so terrified of what's lurking in the mists, why run out there by yourself? I could hear the same lecture being delivered throughout the camp.

Two other men had successfully escaped our perimeter fortifications and vanished into the mists. Given the circumstances, I wasn't particularly inclined to send out search parties. That left the question of what to do with the men who had been captured.

Ordinarily the penalty for desertion would be death. The circumstances, however, were anything but ordinary. I ordered that the runners would be tied to each other and to a man in front and back, forced to march without their spears until we were out of the damned fog. I hoped that once we left the Sorrows behind the men would recover their right minds.

Another eleven men tried to run the next night. Six were caught.

The next day's march saw the first attempts to run off during the day. Subduing the deserters required a miserable muddy brawl. We barely covered half the ground that we had managed the day before. Even worse, the Tattered Prince reported that several of his outriding scouts had simply vanished into the mists. They could have suffered from the same madness as our men-the Windblown had had a similar number of night time runners-or they could have fallen victim to more conventional enemy action. I wasn't sure which scenario would be worse.

About the only bit of good news was that the pirates showed up without fail every evening after we'd made camp. Even if Jaenor Caengaris continued to be remarkably unhelpful.

"The Shrouded Lord's call is in their bones. Might as well just let them go."

I reminded myself that I was paying him for food. The advice was free, and worth every penny. He might have experience dealing with the Sorrows, but he didn't know the first thing about running an army. Displaying visible indifference to the lives of your men was one of the quicker ways I could think of to absolutely destroy morale.

The real problem wasn't that I couldn't get a good pep talk out of Jaenor. The problem was that I couldn't come up with a pep talk myself. I felt weirdly dislocated from the suffering the men were going through. I was probably having terrible dreams every night, but if I didn't remember them then I might as well never have had them in the first place. While that was a good thing from the point of view of my own mental health, it made it hard to connect with the men. I was a man tucking into a feast while trying to inspiring a starving horde to carry on.

I did put the word out to ask the men to volunteer if they felt they were near the breaking point. If we had to add people to the tied up marching chain it might damage morale, but it would be a hell of a lot better than having to subdue them by force.

The next day, our fifth of marching through the Sorrows, we had twelve people volunteer to be restrained and another three try to run off on their own. We managed to pick up the pace a bit, though we were still well off where I wanted to be. Not that we were on any particular schedule, but the faster we moved the faster we would be out of the fog.

We only had one person try to run that night. Six more volunteered to be tied up. I started to hope that we were over the hump. That things were looking up. Of course, that was the day we were attacked.

In the mists of the Sorrows it was impossible to see more than ten strides or so before everything faded to white. One moment everything was quiet. The same mucky, nasty slog that we'd been pushing through for the last week. The next instant the stone men were on us. They moved in an eerie silence and attacked without any regard for their own lives. The men on the front lines barely had time to get their pikes level before they were overrun.

More shouts drew my attention to our right flank. Another group of stone men had crashed into us from the side. The first square that they had hit had been completely unprepared, allowing several men to be tackled by the horde of zombies before their squad mates could turn and push the attackers off. Looking up and down the line where each square of a hundred men was marching independently, I could see them react to the threat by going into a defensive pincushion.

A freak gust of wind-or twitch of eldritch power, I couldn't really say-cleared much of the fog in the vicinity of the battlefield. Up ahead I could see a rise. A good fifty stone men were charging at us, but my attention was fixed on the figure at the top. He was covered in a tattered grey robe, and even from this distance I could feel the malevolence. It had an almost tangible presence as he seemed to hold me personally responsible for everything wrong with the world.

Our prisoners, the men who had needed to be tied up, they went berserk. Hissing, spitting, biting, they tried to attack their fellow legionnaires. Fortunately they were being held in the center of the square, away from the front lines. Still, it looked like ugly business getting them under control.

The long pikes proved their worth once more. If we'd been fighting off the stone men with one handed spears or, worse, swords, things could have gone differently. The stone men could suffer grievous injuries and continue fighting. They only stopped when they were physically unable to keep attacking. If they'd been able to come to grips with us they would have been able to do some major damage. Even if their bare hands wouldn't make for particularly effective weapons, their blood was a biological terror cocktail all its own.

Even for a magical plague zombie, though, crawling up twenty feet of spear planted through your guts is a tall order.

The stone men didn't show any sense of tactics or strategy. They simply charged forward, manifesting the single minded hatred of the Shrouded Lord. With the mist cleared, our crossbowmen could start whittling away at them from a distance. The stone men who survived that barrage impaled themselves on our pikes, and I felt a swell of pride. My men might be scared, but they were reacting to that fear the way a soldier should. By killing the scary things.

The clearing fog revealed that there had probably been not much more than a hundred stone men to begin with. They were unarmored and attacking with a single minded intensity. While intimidating in appearance, the main thing they were accomplishing was to die at a prodigious rate. My heartbeat started to settle as it became clear that the Shrouded Lord was going to run out of stone men before my men were going to break.

The Windblown cavalry charged up the nearly empty hill, easily evading the remaining few stone men in their path. Before they could reach the top the mist fell like a curtain, preventing the rest of us from seeing their final confrontation with the Shrouded Lord. I lost all sense of time. It could have been seconds later, it could have been minutes, but eventually the cavalry came riding back out of the mist.

Despite their best efforts, the Shrouded Lord seemed to have vanished into the fog.

We pulled back from the site of the battle before making camp. We left behind any weapons that had touched the stone men. The men who had been mauled were given mercy before we left them. Every man who had even been close to the stone men got a vinegar sponge bath, and we used vinegar to clean off any armor that looked like it had even a trace of stone man blood on it.

Oddly enough, even though we'd just seen upwards of twenty men die and had some unknown number of people at risk of greyscale, the mood in camp was cheerful. Well, cheerful in comparison to the mood the night before. I'd take a tangible enemy to fight and kill any day over nightmares and phantasms, and it seemed my men felt the same way. I decided it was time for a speech.

"Snarks. Grumkins. Night terrors," I said, then paused to look around. I at least had the attention of the men I could see through the fog. "Tonight, we are the most terrifying thing going. Little children look under their beds for monsters; the Shrouded Lord is looking under his to see if he's going to wake up with a spear up his arse!"

That brought a round of laughter. I let them settle down before I continued.

"The Sunset Legion doesn't spend the night huddled up trying to hide from danger. We are the danger! May the Mother Above show mercy to the next man who fucks with us, because I won't."

It wasn't a bed time story I'd ever tell to my kids, but the men seemed to like it.

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Blackfish Out Of Water by jacobk

Books » A song of Ice and Fire Rated: M, English, Adventure & Fantasy, Brynden T., Words: 96k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Apr 30, 2016 Updated: Sep 15, 2016801Chapter 37

AN: We are now on the first page of the ASoIaF section when sorted by reviews. Thanks everybody!

ooOoo

I stood straight with my hands clasped behind my back, contemplating what I was about to say. The Rhoyne was behind me, the sluggish flow of its current providing a bit of background noise. Above me the sun was visible. We were now in the thin mists on the outskirts of the Sorrows rather than the full overcast of the Sorrows themselves. Leaving that place had been a cause for celebration. Unfortunately, the three men in front of me had not come through the Sorrows unmarked.

These three were the only members of the Sunset Legion that developed symptoms of greyscale, a light but unmistakable dusting of grey on the palm of one man's hand and on the back of the other two's hands. At least, they were the only three who would admit it. I could only hope that nobody had been stupid enough to hide their symptoms. The last thing I needed was magical stone leprosy doing a slow burn through my army.

The three of them had all adopted hangdog expressions and seemed to find studying the ground a lot more interesting than meeting my eyes. The way rumors could spread they probably half expected to be executed on the spot.

"You did well, pushing the Stone Men back from our flanks," I began. "If not for your brave actions, many more lives could have been lost."

They all straightened up a bit at the praise.

"The good news," I continued, "is that you have grey scale. Not the grey death."

They all had very similar puzzled expressions on their faces. To be fair, it's not like I knew the difference before I talked to the maester to prepare for this little chat.

"If you had the grey death, you'd be dead and the rest of us would be infected by now."

I paused for a moment to let that sink in.

"The bad news is that catching greyscale is still pretty fucking bad."

The man on the left gestured back towards the Sorrows. "Are we gonna turn into... them?"

"The Stone Men are what you get when you dump a poor bastard in the wilderness and leave him untreated for years," I replied. "That said, sometimes the treatment doesn't work. Greyscale can be fatal. If you wish it, you will be granted... mercy."

I paused again. None of the men volunteered for execution. I hadn't really expected them to, but it helped to impress the seriousness of the situation on them.

"All right. Here's what you are going to do. Every morning you will be given a clean rag. You will soak it in vinegar and wrap it around the affected area. You will burn the old rag. You will never touch the affected area to any unaffected part of your body. You will never touch another person with the affected area. If you do not follow this directions, you will be executed. I will not have disease spread through this company by carelessness."

I looked them over. That last pronouncement seemed to have shifted them from feeling sorry for themselves to feeling a bit of fear of me. That was probably for the best. History was replete with examples of maesters who had spent much of their lives treating or studying greyscale without contracting the disease by following similar safety precautions. It was also replete with examples of maesters who had caught greyscale thanks to moments of carelessness.

"It wouldn't hurt to pray for the gods to contain the disease," I said. "There's also the option of removing the infected area. I'd recommend you take a few days to think on it before making that choice."

If carefully tended, greyscale progressed by slow expansion from the first affected location. It was possible to cut off a hand and then never see greyscale develop anywhere else on the body. Unfortunately, it was just as possible to cut off a hand and then have another random patch of greyscale appear and begin to expand. Rushing to start chopping off limbs was, according to the maester, not a great plan.

I waited a moment to see if there were any further questions, then dismissed the men. They filed over to the nearby maester to receive their bandage and vinegar rations. He took a moment to give them a little more detail on the proper course of treatment. Really, though, all we could do was try to tilt the odds in our favor. The rest would be in the hands of the gods.

Over the next few days several more men reported greyscale symptoms. I didn't press too hard as to whether they were newly developed or whether they had reported in response to my relatively humane treatment of the first men to come forward. I just repeated my expectations of them and bid the maester to keep an eye on them.

I could only hope that I was doing the right thing.

ooOoo

The advantage that a military galley had over pirates came down to economics. There was no technological edge available. One galley was pretty much like another. They'd all be wielding more or less the same sorts of weapons and wearing more or less the same sort of armor. The difference was that pirates had to worry about profit and loss, while a war galley only had to worry about military effectiveness.

Every member of a pirate crew beyond the minimum needed to overpower merchant vessels was a drain on the money paid out to everybody else. A pirate with truly grand aspirations might be able to overcome that problem by fielding so many ships as to defeat any military challenges and so bring in more profit, but your average river pirate was operating on a hit and run basis. If they tried to make a stand their enemies would be able to flood them with so many ships that loss was inevitable, so there was really no point trying to max out the military power of the ship. Instead, they focus on keeping a relatively small crew that's strong enough to tackle civilian shipping and fast enough to get away from military patrols.

All the math changed when you added thousands of allied sellswords into the equation. Once we passed Ar Noy we took to stuffing the galley full of Windblown soldiers and sending it up ahead of our marching column. The Windblown did their best to stay out of sight and leave the ship looking like an ordinary, albeit bold, pirate galley.

We were two days past Ar Noy when somebody finally took the bait.

I was riding near the head of the army. Ahead of me was a ragtag band of volunteers from the Windblown and the Sunset Legion. They were wearing little more than armor and smallclothes, and the Sunset Legionnaires among them had traded in their pikes for coils of rope tipped with grappling hooks. Many of the Windblown had rope looped over their shoulders as well. Everybody was armed with at least one weapon suitable for close quarters melee fighting. The legionnaires had their bowie knives, while the Windblown sported a motley assortment of gear ranging from axes to daggers to cutlasses to what looked like some kind of whip sword.

The Tattered Prince was big on discipline, but he was no stickler for standardized equipment.

However unusual their appearance, the group had no lack of eagerness for battle. When the telltale sounds of fighting drifted back to us from the direction of the river, they all raced forward. I let my horse out into a trot to keep up.

My heart leapt when the ships came into view. Not only had a Qohorik war galley taken the bait and closed to melee range with our ship, but Jaenor Caengaris had managed to maneuver so that the enemy galley was closer to our shore, and quite close to the shore. The two ships had come to a standstill, apparently run aground in the shallows by the shore. From the sounds of things, the battle was quite fierce. The galleys' decks both sat atop two levels of oars and were a bit too high for me to make out the state of things.

In all likelihood the Windblown aboard the galley should be enough to carry the day. Of course, there was no reason not to try and tip the odds further in our favor. As the ragtag group ahead of me came even with the ships, they turned and ran into the water without hesitation. Those with ropes began to ready to toss their grappling hooks, while those without prepared to follow them up the sides.

One man in Sunset Legion armor had other ideas. When the rope tossers paused to ready their throws, he raced on ahead. With the rowers pressed into battle, many of the oars from the lower set ports were resting on the riverbed. The upper set were largely hanging loose against the side of the ship. The eager legionnaire jumped onto one of the lower oars and raced up it until he reached the side of the ship. There he leaped up and caught hold of the upper oar port, hauling himself into a standing position.

He was searching for a handhold to scramble the rest of the way up onto the deck when an enemy soldier finally noticed what was happening. The soldier leaned over the side and stabbed down at him with a spear. The legionnaire swayed wildly out of the way, then lunged back and caught hold of the spear. He pulled hand over hand on the spear as he ran up the side of the ship, finally taking hold of the enemy soldier and yanking him over the side as he pulled himself up onto the deck.

Something about that guy seemed familiar, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

The rest of the squad hadn't been idle, of course. Using the ropes they steadily made their way up the side of the enemy ship. In the press of battle the Qohorik sailors hadn't kept watch on their shoreward side. The unfortunate soldier with the spear was the only one who even tried to stop our men from boarding. Once they were under attack from both sides the enemy quickly surrendered.

Just like that, our navy doubled in size.

ooOoo

We added three more galleys to our little flotilla before Qohor got wise and pulled back its river patrols. After that, our progress was uneventful. Well, uneventful for us. It was the usual sort of rolling disaster for the locals that an enemy army on the march always is. This far north we were well past the point of being able to ferry in supplies, even if our shipping wasn't tied up by being ready to fight. That meant we were foraging on the go, which in turn meant that we were stealing food from anybody who had it that was in our path.

I honestly didn't feel bad about it at all. Perhaps it was because by local standards we were practically saints. All three sellsword companies enforced a very strict no rape policy. We didn't kill anybody who didn't offer us armed resistance. We didn't even loot valuables. Admittedly that last was for logistical reasons rather than moral qualms, but still. To live in a market town, have a hostile army march through, and only lose the large stockpiles of foodstuffs? That's a pretty good deal.

Having to forage did slow us down a bit, but overall we made decent time. As we marched ever closer to Qohor, I started to wonder at the lack of organized opposition. By now they had to realize that we were coming. Of course, unless they were keeping a sellsword company in reserve it wasn't like they had a lot of options. And after hiring the Golden Company, why would you hire anybody else? If Qohor was busy training up a citizen army it would make sense to hold them back to fight with the advantage of city walls.

It still felt strange, marching on for mile after mile without encountering resistance. In Westeros, every little hamlet was expected to be able to raise a squad of fighting men. Those squads would glom together into regional assemblies to produce local militias. Essos had developed far more specialization. There were professional merchants, professional farmers, and professional soldiers. It was probably more efficient but Qohor was in a tight spot with their professional army gone.

We were less than a week's march away from Qohor proper when we crested a rise and their defensive strategy became visible to us. A line of soldiers stretched from the river on their right all the way to a sheer cliff on their left. The range of hills to our right had been growing more rugged with time. It appeared that the Qohorik forces had elected to make their stand at the point where the hills became nearly impassable. If we wanted to find another way into the city it would involve a lot of backtracking and extended circling around.

A fleet of over twenty galleys was anchored in the river. We wouldn't be getting through that way. If we wanted to keep moving towards the city we were going to have to go through this army.

We kept moving forward. As we drew closer, more details about the enemy forces came into focus. A chill ran down my spine when I finally connected what I was seeing to what I knew. This wasn't just any sellsword company we were going to have to fight past.

Qohor had called out its Unsullied.

ooOoo

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