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Chapter Text

Tyrion Lannister walked through the long winding hallways of the castle of his birth, his path lit by dozens of oil lanterns that burned more clearly than wooden torches, essential to keep the massive mountain fortress clear of smoke, and a great display of Lannister wealth in a way other than just simple gold. The halls and their great vaulted ceilings were high and wide, the stone filed down so smoothly over the centuries as to give almost no hint as to that he were inside the heart of a mountain and not a normal castle, but they were long too, and even longer for a dwarf such as himself. But he knew the quickest paths through the Rock, the same ones that the army of servants used when carrying out their chores and keeping the vast fortress clear of dust and dirt, and Tyrion knew for a fact that he could find his way through the labyrinthine tunnels of their home even faster than his brother Jaime could, even after a few years at the Red Keep away from the Rock, and it was for that reason that Sandor Clegane, the Hound, was following his lead, only rarely having been inside the heart of Casterly Rock and never once in its upper levels where Lord Tywin kept his solar.

And that was exactly why he was there - his father had sent a raven to King's Landing, summoning him and the Hound back to the Westerlands, for whatever reason neither of them knew...only that it was important enough for him to be fully ready to overrule Cersei's want for the towering Clegane to stay at her son's side, and upon their arrival at the gates Tyrion had been told to find his father and nothing more.

"How much further, dwarf?" the scarred Clegane grunted as they came upon an intersection where the hall branched left and right, looking both ways for any hint as to which way was correct. "We are going in circles."

"Not much further," Tyrion replied as he walked towards the right without stopping for a moment. "And no, we are not. The tunnels do loop on themselves, however, if you go left enough times."

"Who's damned idea was that?" Sandor asked as he quickly followed, never once letting the dwarf out of his sight.

"The miners," Tyrion answered. "They usually slept and ate inside the mountain whenever they could, so that they would not need to descend the mountain only to climb back up it in the morning. The tunnels looped on themselves to stop them from suffocating from the smoke of their cooking fires."

The towering Clegane grumbled wordlessly, and after a few dozen feet they came upon another intersection that he took a left on, and after another few minutes of walking, they came upon the elevator, a massive structure of wood and rope connected to a few dozen oxen arranged in a circle who lived outside on one of the mountain's flatter plateaus. Tyrion stepped ontop of it, and after a few moments of unease, Sandor testing it with his foot, the Clegane followed before the operator, a man with a chest as broad as that of a blacksmith, recognized Tyrion instantly and bowed before moving over to the levers, tugging and pushing with low grunts before, at last, the gears began to move and the platform began to rise.

"Why in hells is the solar so far from the ground?" Sandor growled as the platform jerked hard during its long ascent, the force shaking the tall and armored Clegane more than it did the small Tyrion.

"Because there is one on the ground," Tyrion answered. "My father prefers the one at the top of the mountain."

"Why?"

"Because my mother liked to look out at the sunrise," Tyrion replied quietly.

The rest of the ascent was in silence after that. He had never had a chance to know his mother, but from everything he heard of her she could have only have been a magnificent woman, and the only one in the entire world who could say to have ruled Tywin Lannister's heart. Sometimes, he wondered how his life might have been different had she survived his birth - would she have loved him how his father had not? Would she have protected him from Cersei's mocking and teasing? Would she have helped him find a place in the world of his own, or helped him do the things that he had wanted to do?

No matter how much he might have wanted to know, Joanna was gone, and he would never get the chance to know if she loved him or not.

A few more minutes passed, and at last the elevator came to a stop at the highest point of Casterly Rock, at the mountain's summit, where only the last dozen feet of a mountain three times the height of the Wall were between him and the open skies, and where, on the other side of the great and guarded door in front of him, the ancient Casterlys had laid the first stones of the massive fortress beneath his feet, a ringfort that had long since been replaced by something so much grander. 

The twenty guards were the finest men-at-arms the Westerlands had to offer, gathered from across the length and breadth of the Lannister domain and armed and equipped grander than most knights. They stood to attention at the sight of the dwarf, their halberds clanging off the ground in a respectful salutation that made Tyrion feel as tall and as respected as a king, and with smooth motions the two directly besides the door turned on their heels and each reached for one of the great door's two handles...and pulled simultaneously, flooding the entrance chamber with a golden light so brilliantly bright in comparison to the dim caverns as to make Tyrion wince as he stepped forward into his father's solar. Opening his eyes as he made the transition from dark mountain to bright building, he saw a chamber as large as the Red Keep's great hall, its ceiling just as high. Along the walls were long and intricate tapestries that told the tale of Lannister history and towering statues of Lannister heroes, each and every one twenty feet in height and so detailed as to look as though they might spring to life and step down from their pedestals: King Lancel I, who broke the might of the Reach for a generation and conquered swathes of its Lands, King Gerold, whose mastery of ships showed that the Ironborn's mastery of the waves was allowed only at the lion's indulgence, King Lancel IV, who cleaved off the heads of father and son with a single strike of Brightroar, King Cerion I, whose armies shattered three kings in one battle, and many more, great and noble men all, every one with a golden lion upon his breast and a king's crown upon his brow. Falling upon their cheeks and bodies was the radiant light of the afternoon sun, its brilliance shining from the six open windows of the ceiling, the shutters so high above and so wide that only a pole with a hook upon its end could hope to reach and close them, illuminating their faces in death just as it had in life before reaching the countless stone tiles of the floor, each and every last one hewn from the same gold-bearing rock as the mountain's heart, each polished to a shining perfection, making the specks and veins of the gold trapped within glitter like the prettiest of gemstones, looking as though he was walking upon a floor of a million golden dragons.

But it was at the far side of the room that the most dominating feature of all was shown: an enormous window of stained glass, a golden lion standing tall upon a field of crimson and looking towards the door, the light that passed through his eyes falling upon the very place where the doors stood, itself flanked by another two that led out to the great and private gardens that were supposed to be his mother's favorite place to relax. In front of it, at last, he found his father, sat upon a wooden throne behind a wierwood desk as big as a dining table, a servant dressed as richly as a nobleman filling his cup as the Lord of Casterly Rock read through a large, thickly bound book, another smaller one besides and a letter with a broken seal atop, three tall chairs opposite Tywin's own.

Without looking up from the pages, the Lord of the Westerlands spoke. "You are late."

"I am sorry, father," Tyrion said quietly, only raising his voice enough that he might be heard on the other side of the long room. "Rain washed out the road near the Golden -"

"Sit," his father said to the both as he cut his dwarf son off, raising an open palm towards the chairs as he stayed focused upon the pages in front of him.

Tyrion took the first step towards the table, Sandor giving his sword belt and helm to the first servant to cross his path before following in complete and utter silence, breathing so quietly as to sound as though he wasn't breathing at all, out of fear or out of respect, or a mix of both, Tyrion could not be sure. But it was obvious at a glance what chair was meant for him, as his father had clearly prepared an uncommon courtesy for Tyrion; a small wooden step, placed before the chair so that it might be easier for the dwarf to climb into his seat, and a plump cushion, so that he might sit at an equal height to any man. Tyrion was grateful for it, but all the more intrigued by the possibilities of why his father had summoned him to the Rock from King's Landing, and why he would prepare such a rare kindness. Tyrion ascended the small steps, sitting comfortably as the towering Clegane fell into his own seat, the dwarf seeing the unease in the Hound's hands and eyes - unease, when he was half a foot taller than the man on the other side of the table and twice as strong and could kill him before any guard could come closer, so great and fearsome was Tywin's reputation. Servants brought over cups for the two, silver goblets lined with gold, and filled them with an Arbor red as dark as blood, the Dornish never often selling wine to the Lannisters of Casterly Rock and the Lannisters of Casterly Rock little interested in buying it from them.

As soon as they were done, Tywin looked towards the servant. "Leave us."

There was no questioning of his certainty, nor an acknowledgement, only the sound of footsteps as they turned towards the door and left, every other servant following...and as the doors closed, the great chamber empty of all but the three of them, even Tyrion began to feel uneasy as his father's hard and stern eyes fell on him for a moment before the Lord of Casterly Rock began to speak at last.

"It would seem the third man I requested has not yet arrived, but no matter," his father started. "They have already sent a message as to their assent. I shall require yours and your secrecy, as not a word of this shall leave this chamber whether you carry out your task or not."

"Sandor Clegane," Tywin said first, addressing the half burnt Hound. "Give an honest answer, or give none at all. You wish to see your brother Gregor dead for what he did to you and your family, is that correct?"

"I do," Sandor said with a weakness that Tyrion had never seen in him, the dog timid before the lion.

"If you agree, then you shall have a chance to fell him with your own blade, at a time and place of your choosing," Tywin said, his voice hard like stone. "Do you?"

Tyrion nearly blinked after that.

Seven hells...what must my father want us to do, if he is ready to give up his hound and butcher so easily?

"Of course, my lord," Sandor answered with a formality that Tyrion had never seen him do, and with the barest hints of a smile upon his burnt face.

"Tyrion," Tywin said as he turned his attentions towards him at last. "Upon your sixteenth nameday, you asked to be able to take a tour around all of the Free Cities, as your uncles and my brothers once had. I will finance this voyage for you. Do you accept?"

Tyrion's eyes widened in response to his father's proposition. He had always hoped to have a chance to see the Free Cities for himself, as his uncles once had, to see the Titan of Braavos and the Black Walls of Volantis with his own eyes...it had always been a dream of his, but he had never had a chance...and here now as his father, giving him that long awaited chance...

His mind was made instantly.

"Yes," he said...and a question crept into his mind. "But...why me and not Jaime, for whatever this is?"

"Your brother Jaime is bound by the oaths of the Kingsguard and has no choice but to stay at the Red Keep, no matter how many debts I mention to King Robert," his father said as he reached over to the letter. "You will need to go in his stead. I believe I do not need to mention what will happen if either of you mention this to anyone, so I shall explain now as to why I summoned you both here."

Tyrion reached for his wine, and took the tiniest sip before setting it down once again, all his attentions and wits focused on his father, and not a single jape in his throat.

"I am sure you both may remember my youngest brother, Gerion," his father started. "A reckless man, but not one without a certain cunning talent for solving puzzles and mysteries."

"He went missing years ago, on his voyage to find Brightroar," Tyrion said with understanding, leaning forward in his seat.

"Indeed he did," Tywin nodded. "I had sent ships to find him, in case he had gambled away his ship and money, but they only managed to follow his trail as far as Volantis, where half his crew had abandoned him after he revealed his plans to follow King Tommen's path into the Smoking Sea. A foolhardy choice, as no one has ever returned from the ruins of Valyria, but Gerion was nothing if not daring, and sailed with slaves to replace his missing crew."

"And then he disappeared, without a trace" Tywin said...

...before adding with a sip of his own wine. "Or so it seemed."

"...Uncle Gerion is alive?"

"As you may know, it is part of the duty of the Lord of Casterly Rock to keep informants in all the major markets of the world, so that any attempt to devalue our gold through the use of lead or cutting can be controlled before it affects confidence in our coin," Tywin explained. "Even more so, our spies on the trade routes allow us to give Lannisport an advantage over its rivals, as they will know what goods are coming to the city before they arrive and can plan accordingly."

"One of these merchant ships, travelling towards the Summer Islands, was blown off course by a storm. They emerged near Sothoryos, far off course but able to correct their position by using the stars of the Ice Dragon as a reference. As they sailed westwards, they passed the ruined city of Gogossos, the Tenth Free City. They steered clear of it, as most men would, but as they passed the island they saw a wreck upon the shore," Tywin said at last, pushing the letter forward across the table's smooth surface. "A wreck of a large ship with crimson sails and a gold lion head upon the prow, an exact match as to the description of the one that he had taken east."

"If he made his way that far south, then he must have been returning from Valyria and been caught in a similar storm," Tyrion said in understanding as Sandor looked over, listening carefully.

"Precisely my thinking," Tywin agreed as he took the closed book and quickly flipped through the pages before stopping and pushing it across the table. It was a book about all the Valyrian steel blades of the Seven Kingdoms, and on the left was an extremely detailed image of the Royce weapon, Lamentation, its history written besides...and on the right was Brightroar, in all its majestic beauty, a true greatsword and not an inhumanly large one like the Stark weapon, its most iconic trait, its golden lion head and its ruby eyes, painstakingly drawn by hand. "If sailing into the Smoking Sea was not enough for him to think his search was a folly, then returning westwards could not have been because of anything other than him finding the blade."

"I have never heard of Gogossos," Sandor said at last, neither Tyrion nor Tywin surprised by his lack of knowledge on the matter. "What happened there?"

"It was a Valyrian prison, for their worst killers and madmen," Tyrion explained quickly. "They survived the Doom, only to all die from a plague not long after. It made their skin fall off, but not all of them died...some say they had sorcery, bloo-"

Then there was a clamour as the door opened, and all three looked towards the door to see a man step through; he was small of stature, but not a dwarf, and with a plain and common face, neither handsome nor hideous, and he had brown hair and a brown beard, sprinkled with grey, wearing a thick mantle of simple green wool and brown boiled leather beneath. A pouch hanged around his neck, and for a moment Tyrion didn't recognize him, not till he remembered the man whose company he usually kept at King's Landing, the adviser of an adviser.

"Forgive me for my late arrival, my lord," said the onion knight, the guards closing the door behind him.

"Ser Davos Seaworth?" Tyrion said as he looked to his father in surprise. "I must admit I expected a Velaryon or a Redwyne."

"Ser Davos managed to sneak past the entirety of the Redwyne warfleet with a full cargo during the rebellion," Tywin answered as the Seaworth captain sat upon the third seat. "He is one of the best captains in the Seven Kingdoms, and one of the few accustomed with sailing ships rather than galleys."

"Aye," Ser Davos added, wearing a small smile. "If you're going so far south as Gogossos, you'll need a sailer and not a galley. A galley would never make the voyage, not with so many mouths to feed and such a shallow draft. You'll be smashed in the first storm you see."

"And what is your payment?" Tyrion asked with interest.

"Twenty five thousand gold dragons," Tywin said flatly. "A princely payment, but one worthy for a man of his talents."

"It is enough gold for my sons, my grandsons and my great-grandsons to never need to worry about their own, and enough to build a proper keep for them," Davos explained. "All I want and nothing more. Your lord father offered it, and though my loyalties are for Lord Stannis, I could never turn down such a payment for one last voyage."

Tyrion nodded understandingly - he had never spoken with Davos, not much anyway, but if his goal was to simply get gold so that his line might live well for generations, then it was respectable and noble enough for Tyrion to be able to trust him for the time being. So long as someone doesn't try to offer a higher price...but a Lannister always pays his debts.

"Though I must say, sailing down to Gogossos in a straight line has never been done by a Westerosi before," the onion knight said. "Only the Summer Islanders and their swan ships have ever been able to do it."

"All the more reason to make the voyage, then," Tyrion said as he took another sip of wine. "The maesters will want to write of it."

"And all the more reason to be cautious, too," Ser Davos answered. "They say the Gogossosi used blood magic as often as we do cups."

"Magic?" Sandor asked with a mix of surprise, confusion and concern.

"Blood magic," Tywin said. "Whatever magic they had, it could not save them from death. Gogossos is ruins, nothing more, and I have little interest in it. Brightroar is what is wanted, it and nothing else."

"You, Sandor, are to go along and command Tyrion's guard on the way there, should any pirates or anyone else think to board the vessel," Tywin said, his words not a command and yet carrying all the subtle force of one...then, for perhaps the first ever time, it softened, to a tone that Tyrion had only ever heard him use with Jaime, the tone of a father talking to a son. "As for you, Tyrion, I give you the overall command. Should anything unexpected happen during the voyage, you have my permission to do whatever it takes to complete your task and bring Brightroar here again. Once you collect the blade, do not let it out of your sight."

"I wont."

"Good," his father acknowledged, pushing the third and final book across the table. "This book is from the Citadel, and contains everything the maesters know of Gogossos. It may not be much, but perhaps it could be of some use, if you are marooned there as Gerion surely was."

"Is the ship ready to sail?" Ser Davos asked.

"Built specifically for this task and this task alone," Tywin nodded. "It has the supplies you need, and a disciplined and experienced crew. They do not know why you are going to Gogossos, only that they are paid well enough to not care. That is enough."

"Then we best set sail as quickly as we can," Davos said quickly, rising to his feet. "It has been a long summer that could end at any moment, and we cannot hope to make such a voyage come the autumn, and by winter the blade could be gone."

"Then so we shall," Tyrion agreed, stepping onto the wooden steps and reaching for the small book, taking it in hand and climbing down from his seat and onto the stone tiles below, Sandor rising from his own not long after. "May we?"

"You may," his lord father answered.

With that, the three began to head to the door, Sandor collecting his sword belt and helm on his way towards it, but as the door opened and as the other two men passed through, walking further and quicker with their tall legs, Tyrion stopped as he heard his father speak.

"And Tyrion?"

"Yes, father?" the dwarf said as he turned to face him.

"If you lose the sword when we are so close to having it again," the lion of Lannister said lowly, his voice cold and hard like steel. "You will not be welcome here till you recover it. Is that clear?"

Tyrion nodded in understanding and silence, and then he turned for the door and followed the other out towards the elevator, the guards closing the door behind him and ringing a loud bell that ushered in the start of their downwards descent, the wooden platform going quicker down than it did up.

"It seems my dear father is as fond of me as usual," Tyrion sighed as elevator passed away from the guards with a clamour of rolling pulleys. "Why else would he send me and not Kevan or Stafford?"

"Because he trusts you more than them to get the sword?" Ser Davos asked with mild interest. "Why wouldn't a father choose his son for it?"

"Because he loses the least should I fall overboard in a storm and drown," Tyrion answered honestly. "Uncle Kevan is his right hand and Stafford is too old to make the voyage. He wouldn't have sent Jaime even if he wasn't in the Kingsguard."

"Aye, you might be a dwarf and he might not think much of you for it," Ser Davos reasoned. "But mayhaps this will be your chance to prove yourself to him."

"Or for him to have me thrown overboard."

"If he wanted you dead, dwarf, he could have asked me to throw you through the window," Sandor said with a low grunt. "He doesn't want you dead, he wants you to get the damned sword and bring it back."

"And now words about family from the man who wants to become a kinslayer," Tyrion replied deftly, the Hound grumbling in response. Changing the topic, he turned himself and his attentions to the Seaworth captain, and asked, "Are you certain you will be able to sail us to Gogossos?"

"I spent most of my life as a smuggler, evading the royal fleet," Davos explained. "Now, I captain one of its galleys for Lord Stannis, the Black Betha. It won't be an easy voyage; only the Summer Islanders are used to making such a long journey in a straight line, but once the course is set we should be able to make it to Gogossos, so long as we don't stray from our path."

"And what course are we going to take?" Tyrion asked. "You don't mean to sail straight to Gogossos from here, do you?"

"The ship's built for carrying a lot of supplies and doesn't need as large a crew, so we can go further without putting in to port," the Seaworth captain explained quickly. "But we'll need to sail from here to the Arbor, then eastwards past Dorne to Lys. There we can take on whatever we need to finish the voyage, and either sail on to Volantis and then go south past Valyria, or straight onto Gogossos."

"Which would be better?"

"That depends on whether you would rather have storms or demons?"

"Is there a difference?"

The Onion Knight laughed at that. "Not much of one."

The elevator clanked as they came down to the floor where they had first embarked, and Tyrion stepped off with a renewed energy, now that the unease of speaking with his father was over and done.

"Is it really just gold that has you coming on this voyage?" he asked with a genuine interest, curious about the man who would be captaining the ship on its journey.

"Not entirely," Davos answered honestly. "Lord Stannis says it helps young men if their fathers go awhile for a while, lets them learn how to be responsible and how to live on their own. Not many men want Seaworths as their wards or squires, but this will do the same, aye, and let me pay for my sons to have armor and training of their own and a strong keep to pass down. I might be no true knight, but my grandsons might be."

"You want to build a dynasty, then?"

"No," Davos laughed. "I just want to make certain my sons don't have to do the wrongs that I did."

The idea of what Davos had said then was almost entirely alien to Tyrion, the words almost feeling as though they did not make sense when put together, even if they did alone, but after a moment's hesitation and confusion he was instantly back to his norm, remembering how his own father had acted around Tyrion ever since he was a child, how even the moment's softness of his time in his father's solar just minutes before was just another means to an end - his father had once said that there was a tool for every task, and a task for every tool, though Tyrion had not expected it to apply to family as well as to quills and swords. Thankfully, the elevator came to a clattering halt on the floor where the operator stayed, sweat upon his brow from the arduous task of managing the heavy mechanisms, but for a time and a dozen floors of walking he remained silent, till at last the passage into Casterly Rock's incited him to speak again.

"You speak highly of Lord Stannis," Tyrion said, taking the opportunity that had presented itself. "Didn't he take your fingers?"

"He did," Davos answered. "It was justice."

"An odd way to give gratitude to a man for bringing you food, when Tyrells are feasting outside the walls."

"Aye, and for that he gave me a knighthood and lands of my own," Davos countered with a surprising swiftness. "For my smuggling, he took the first joint of every finger on one left hand. A fair trade, and one I would make again, as it bought my children a future without them ever needing to risk the gallows for smuggling themselves, or ending up in a bowl of brown in King's Landing."

"Most other men would have simply given you the knighthood without taking the fingers," Tyrion responded as quickly as Davos had. "Why does lopping off your fingers make Stannis better?"

"Because it was justice," Davos said again. "He doesn't let a good act wipe out the bad. He remembers both, and uses both when making his judgement. That's why I only lost my fingers and not my head."

"And what good would an onion knight be without a head?"

"Not much," Davos smiled. "He'd be dead."

"You know, Ser Davos," Tyrion smiled. "I think I am going to like you."

There was a low rumbling, the sound of Sandor Clegane laughing.

"Have I missed something funny?" Tyrion asked. "I like a good jape."

"A smuggler as a knight," Sandor said. "Can you even swing a sword?"

"Can you sail a ship?" Davos answered.

"...oh, I do think I like you already," Tyrion laughed.

"A good thing, too," the knight answered, attentions turning back to the dwarf from the Hound. "Nothing good ever comes of a crew who hates each other when at sea. They fall apart the moment something goes wrong."

"What might go wrong on this voyage, anyway?" Tyrion asked as they finally walked through the doors of the great hall and out onto the great courtyard, a small town in itself separated from Lannisport by high walls, where the men and women of the outermost part of the Lannister household were hard at work carrying out their daily duties, fetching water for horses and mending their iron shoes. "Storms? Running out of food and water? Dysentery?"

"All three and much worse," Davos answered with a grim understanding. "Seven help us if we lose our bearing on the last part of the voyage to Gogossos. It's easy enough to find which way is north and which is south, but east and west are harder, and there are no landmarks to help, aye, and no good maps of the Valyrian shore anymore either. It would be easier to follow the coast, since then at least we know that there is land nearby and that sailing northwards should lead us back to Volantis to resupply, but only the Seven know what's on those shores and if there is a reef we might strike."

"So, we have a choice between being ran aground and killed by monsters, or being blown off course and ending up lost and eating one another," Tyrion sighed. "Why can't we sail to the Summer Islands instead? The land of tits and wine instead of the isle of blood magic and death?"

"Because you'd never want to leave if we did," Davos answered. "Besides, if your uncle Gerion had made it there alive, he would've been able to book passage to Lannisport on one of their swanships, and none of us would be getting the rewards we've been promised."

"I suppose I will have to visit the isles at another time, then," Tyrion answered, wondering for a moment if his father's offer of paying for his tour of the Free Cities would count the Summer Islands too. "It isn't like my father will destroy the ship once we are done with it."

"He won't," Davos said with certainty.

Then the men passed through the least fortified gate in the outer walls of Casterly Rock, the mountain looming behind and casting a long shadow onto the fields and rolling hills beyond, but Tyrion's eyes were forward, on the greatest street in all of Lannisport in the midst of market day, the merchant stalls stretching down the length of the road and selling everything that could be found beneath sun or soil, mobs of townsmen and traders filling the space between, haggling and bartering over prices as the disciplined men of the city watch kept the peace and intervened whenever an argument grew too fierce. But even they stayed clear of the three of them, the crowds melting away every time they came close, if only because of how the Clegane was a head taller than the crowds, everyone seeing his black hound's head helm and moving out of their way. Tyrion was careful not to say anything as they walked, and neither did Davos or Sandor, all three knowing the danger that could come from speaking of their voyage in such an open, populated place, but Tyrion knew to listen, too, and heard voices speaking - of prices, of how the wines grown on the slopes of the mountains were good to drink but also surprisingly cheap due to having no real reputation to inflate the price, how Tywin's dwarf son had been recalled from the capital for whatever reason, how Euron Greyjoy had been forced into exile for bedding his brother's bride, how the Lannisters had built a new ship and crewed it with the best. He heard it all, even if much of it was simple gossip with no real value, and made certain to stay quiet and keep that way, lest someone with dangerous friends find out about the reasons for their voyage, someone who would know the value of ransoming back Brightroar, or someone with an interest in making sure they never reclaimed the blade even though they were so close to having it again.

Instead, he simply looked forward and whistled a jaunty tune, Fifty-Four Tuns, a drinking song that was one of King Robert's favorites, and did nothing more as he walked, not even looking back at those who looked at him, or those who shied out of his way. He could hear some speaking about him after he passed, if barely over the sound of clanging coins and trade, but everything he heard had the sound that they did not know why he was there, only that he was, and that was enough secrecy for Tyrion to be sure that they would not have any problems from Lannisport, not when they would be long gone by the time anyone else knew that they had set sail.

If my lord father has spies of his own in every city, then no doubt others have spies here, too.

When they came to the harbor, the great group of drydocks and warehouses and wooden cranes that made up the port from which the city drew its name, he looked around again, eyes searching for the ship that would take them on their southwards journey - he saw drunken sailors stumbling out of taverns and entering brothels, captains meeting with merchants and tax collectors on the quay, onloading and offloading their cargoes, he saw merchant cogs bobbing in the waters and galleys rowing in and out...and in the end, it was Ser Davos who saw her, and subtly pointed towards her with a tap of Tyrion's shoulder and a flick of his wrist, the dwarf unable to see it through the crowd of tall and burly sailors.

"There she is," the Onion Knight said proudly but quietly as the three started through the crowds, Tyrion letting Davos lead the way. "The King Gerold. She's a carrack, the same kind of ship as those that sail eastwards to Ibben and Asshai."

"A pity we aren't heading eastwards," Tyrion answered as he sidestepped a sickly and half-naked sailor, barely managing to evade his spew as he rushed past towards the waters, gagging on bad ale. One tried to pick a fight with Sandor Clegane, only to get pushed off the dock and into the water with a single shove, landing with a shout and a splash. "I hope none of these are our crew."

Then he looked forward...and at last, he saw the King Gerold, in all her majesty. At a glance she looked like a larger cog, and yet she was so much more, a ship that carried no oars and was instead propelled across the seas entirely by the wind, caught in the sails affixed to her two great and towering masts, where the enormous sheets of scarlet red and gold cloth were wrapped and ready. Her deck was wide, large enough that he could see a dozen men in armor gambling on its strong and seasoned timbers, yet the ship below was even broader, with room for a few months of food and water, along with replacement parts, perhaps even a sail. She had a small, triangular forecastle where a large scorpion had been placed, the ship's golden figurehead - a proud and roaring lion, just as the one of his uncle Gerion's ship had been - rising from the prow beneath the ship's bowsprit sail. At the rear was another castle, where the tiller connected to the rudder post and where another scorpion was mounted, beneath which were the captain's quarters. In the entire port there was none like her, and he knew from the first glance that she would be as strong as she was swift, and that if there was any vessel in the world that could take him and the others to Gogossos, it was the one anchored in port before him.

"She's beautiful," Tyrion said as they walked towards the wharf, finding what could have only been the entire crew alongside, dicing and drinking at the ship's side, the guards watching over them. "But why is it a she when it has a man's name?"

"Because you'll spend months inside her, just as a babe inside their mother," Ser Davos answered.

"Hold there!" came a shout from the crowd of crewmembers, and from them emerged a large, towering man buried in furs he wore over ringmail, a Northman with grey eyes and brown hair and a massive axe in his hands. "This is Lord Tywin's ship."

"And this is Lord Tywin's son," Sandor growled with a tip of his head towards Tyrion. "And who the bugger are you?"

"Artos, of the clan Norrey, axeman," the large man answered, looking down towards Tyrion with confusion. "You are a dwarf...?"

"I am," Tyrion answered. "Have you never seen one before?"

"Forgive his intrusion, Lord Tyrion, he most likely has never seen a dwarf before," came another voice, one Tyrion looked over to and saw a kindly old man with something akin to a maester's chain, but not quite the same - that of an imposter, or a replacement. "Clanswomen often leave deformed babes out in the snows to die, rather than waste food by feeding them."

"Sandor, remind me to never visit the Northern clans," Tyrion said before turning his attentions on the maester. "And who are you? My father has found a maester for this voyage?"

"I am Qyburn, my lord," the maester offered with a warm smile and a slight bow. "The Citadel took my chain, but they could not take my knowledge of the body, and so when your father sent out need for a healer for a long voyage, I was quickly chosen to join."

"And I and this man are to fight, if we should be boarded," the bulky clansmen said as another man came forward, this one having messy brown hair and all the looks of a sellsword about him...but a dangerous sellsword, with a wolfish face and deft movements.

"And you?"

"Bronn," came the answer. "Your father wanted swords, so he had us fight the best men he had."

"And a clansman and a sellsword won?"

"Aye, and this woman here," Bronn said with a shrug, gesturing to a woman sat upon a crate in the rear, a pretty thing with black hair cut short like that of a man and blue eyes. "A beauty and deadly, she is. Could geld a man with a single throw of an axe."

"And I'll geld you if you don't stop talking," she spoke with a harsh tone as she pulled an axe up from the timbers of the wharf before looking at Tyrion. "I am Esgred, of Pyke."

"...and an Ironborn woman," Tyrion said as he looked to Ser Davos with mild surprise. "It seems my lord father has found a motley band indeed."

"And me," said a freckled, red haired youth of some twenty years with the accent of a marcher, a longbow strung around his back and a quiver on his hip, arrows fletched with red and gold feathers to match the red and gold clothes he wore, the same as any Westerman archer. "I'm Anguy, from the Marches, the best bow in the Seven Kingdoms."

"Is there anyone else who is going to introduce themselves before we even board the ship?" Sandor asked with annoyance, Ser Davos simply shaking his head as he walked up the gangplank.

"Only the rest of the guard," Tyrion said as he saw some eight Lannister men-at-arms, wearing crimson plate, before turning towards the ramp and following the onion knight aboard. "Take their names for me, Sandor. I have planning to do."

The Hound grumbled loudly enough that Tyrion could hear the sound even on the deck of the King Gerold as boots fell behind him, the mix of Westerosi boarding the ship one at a time, but Tyrion was more interested in what Ser Davos had to plan, and followed him into the captain quarters, a lavishly decorated room with two feather beds - one for himself and one for the onion knight, he assumed - on either side of the room, blocked from viewing the other by a wooden wall that acted as supports for a long row of shelves full of maps, quills, books and all the tools of the navigator's trade. Below, a chest, a brief flip of the lid showing the tough key and the neatly stacked gold coins inside, no doubt his reserves of coin for buying new supplies on the journey, and he took the key and slid it into his pocket in an instant, locking the chest tight as Ser Davos brushed past his shoulder and took a map of the Sunset Sea, unrolling it on the large dining table in the middle.

"It shouldn't take us long to reach the Arbor, a few weeks at the most," Davos said with a tap of his finger on the Redwyne isle and Tyrion turned round and waddled over to the table. "A little longer from there to Lys, mayhaps a week at the most depending on the winds. But as soon as we get there, we'll need to decide - straight on to Gogossos, or onto Volantis and then southwards along Valyria's coast."

"I think it best if we decide when we get there," Tyrion said. "If the voyage has been easy and there have been no issues, then I see no reason not to sail straight on. Otherwise, Volantis would give us a chance to find our bearing and think. They welcomed my uncle and King Tommen, I see no reason why they wouldn't do so again."

Davos nodded...and then added. "I will say this: sailing from Lys to Gogossos in one go is doable, but it will take luck. The journey is the same length as from the Arbor to Lys, but we won't have land to help correct our course should something go wrong, or a place to anchor to make repairs."

"Would you really wish to anchor near the Smoking Sea?" Tyrion asked, sitting in a seat and placing the book atop.

"Honestly?" Davos asked, touching the pouch of bones at his neck. "No. I would rather risk my luck on the open ocean than risk travelling by it. But you are the one in charge, not me."

"Then we shall see how lucky we are," Tyrion said, flipping over to the first page and glancing at the pages. "Please, tell me once we have left the harbor...and send in that former maester when it is time for dinner. I would like to hear anything he has to say about our destination."

"As you will," Davos said with an obedient nod.

Then the former smuggler headed for the door, stepping out onto the deck and issued his commands with a loud, practiced voice...and after a few moments, a few minutes at the most, the ship was on its way away from Lannisport, towards the Arbor, and Tyrion spent every moment he had reading.

Qyburn gently dipped the tip of the soft cloth into the small bowl of fresh, clean water, glancing over at the tiny oil lantern that provided the heat to boil the wine for cleansing his needles before their use, before finally turning his attentions over to the first patient of the voyage, who had been injured barely six hours into their voyage with a split brow severe enough as to need stitches. Bronn. He walked over to the sellsword with the damp cloth in hand, examining the cut and the growing bruise around it closely, and then he began to wipe blood away, pressing hard on the cut to slow it down once he had. "How did you get this so quickly, anyway? Sandor Clegane? Artos? A fall, perhaps?"

"Esgred," the sellsword answered, his voice completely without even a hint of pain. "I thought she was only pretending, earlier."

"You thought she was pretending to not be interested in you?" Qyburn asked, concealing his amusement lest he find himself thrown off the ship so far from the shore. "A rather...forceful rejection of hers. What did you do?"

"I squeezed her arse below deck," Bronn answered without any regret.

That explains everything perfectly.

"Well, you are fortunate," the former maester said, examining the wound again with the blood cleared away before putting the pressure on again. "She doesn't appear to have inflicted any real damage, but you will need stitches to properly seal it."

"Must I?" the sellsword asked. "I've had worse."

"You can walk out now, if you so desire, but not without the risk of the wound going bad and festering," Qyburn said. "It'll spread across your face, you know, till the one side looks like Clegane's. If you don't die, it would be rather intimidating...though I doubt women will appreciate it."

Then the sellsword laughed. "Fine."

"Fortunately, the bleeding appears to have slowed enough for me to begin," Qyburn said as he took the cloth away. "Try not to move."

The sellsword didn't answer, which was an answer in itself, and so Qyburn walked over to the table that his primary work surface, the place he kept all his tools in the little room that was his to work in, and put the cloth inside the bowl for cleaning before putting on the thick, woolen mittens of a maester's medicine, flexing his fingers twice before taking out the hot, steaming needle and putting clean thread through its eye. Then he walked over, and even the seasoned killer in front of him seemed to recede further into his seat at the sight of the sharp needle coming close towards his eye, only to wince in pain with a pained grunt and a squeeze of the chair's arms as Qyburn began, half closing one eye as he focused all his attentions upon the work, speaking with what little he had to take the mercenary's mind from the pain. "Was it worth it?"

"It was," Bronn answered, closing the eye on the side and leaning his head to one side so that Qyburn could see better. "She was as soft as a pillow."

"Best not to keep doing it, lest she break something I cannot mend," Qyburn japed, reaching over to his table and taking a small blade to sever the thread and allow him to finish his work, tying a knot at beginning and end. "There, finished."

Then he turned to the table and set down his needle and thread, removing his thick mittens and picking up a wooden framed hand mirror to show the sellsword his reflection.

"Hells," Bronn laughed, pulling stray hairs away as he looked into the mir. "I've never had a maester sew my cuts before. You can barely even see the mark!"

"Most men never do," Qyburn said as he washed his hands in clean water, washing away what little blood had made it through his cloth at the start of it all. "They should be fully healed by the time we reach the Arbor, so I will remove them then. If it itches too much to stop you scratching at it, then tell me and I shall give you vinegar to use to stop it...and if it starts to get hot or red, tell me, as that means the wound is fouling and I do doubt you want to die from a cut eyebrow."

"Thanks," the sellsword said with what could only be genuine gratitude as he rose from his seat and headed out the door and onto the deck.

Now alone to clean up his tools, Qyburn started by pouring a small cup of apple vinegar from the great cask that he had arranged to be brought onboard, the versatile substance serving as the backbone of every maester's healing work, and dropped the used needle into it before dousing the flame of his oil lantern and putting the bloodied cloth into his wash bucket for clea- then came the bam, bam, bam of a fist knocking on the door, and he turned to see that not only had Bronn left the door open on his departure, but that the captain of the ship, Ser Davos Seaworth, was stood in the doorway.

"I saw Bronn on his way past," the captain said with an approving look in his eye. "You do good work, maester."

"Thank you," Qyburn answered. "Is there something I can do for you, captain?"

"Lord Tyrion wishes you to eat with us this evening," Davos offered warmly. "He's interested in whatever you might know about Gogossos."

"I must admit to having only the experience of my tutors at the Citadel about Gogossos, but I know other things that could be of use," the former maester answered, drying his hands. "Tell him I will be there shortly."

"Even a little more than what we already know will help," Davos said before nodding in understanding. "I will tell him."

Qyburn nodded slowly, returning to his cleaning as the captain walked off, making sure that everything was where it had been before he had tended to Bronn's slight injury, and he thought about the sweet reward for carrying out his part of the voyage as he did. The archmaesters of the Citadel had stripped him of his chain for his studies and experiments, cast him out of the great academy of the sciences and out onto the streets, all because he dared to further man's understanding of life and death and medicine in the best way possible - by studying the bodies of living men rather than those of the dead. They had portrayed him as a butcher, as a monstrous who abducted men and women from the streets and slashed them to pieces to see what made their bodies work, sewing them back together again as twisted misshapen abominations, but the truth was nowhere near as monstrous as his rivals for the silver mask and rod would wish them to be, but a thousand times more innocent; many of his first subjects were novices and acolytes who could not properly afford their tutorage at the Citadel, and whom willing participated in his studies in exchange for his own teachings and aid in forging their first link, and each time they did he never one touched a blade, but curiously studied other matters, such as what the lack of different foods might do to a man's strength, how people from different lands varied in height and girth, and a thousand other things. It was only on the poor, the sick and the homeless that he practiced his more invasive studies, and only then with their permissions, often given in exchange for treating their existing ailments that they could not afford to have treated by any other maester, a thing that had taught him the arrangement and proper function of living flesh and even that some small organs could be removed without harm to the man or woman they used to be inside, if any infection could be contained and dealt with.

But that was not to say he had not learnt other things in his studies of the body and in his long readings of old Valyrian medical texts and scrolls...things that the Conclave would not, could not, approve of, a thing that terrified men of science in the way that only it could, a puzzle that could not be explained by their understanding of the natural world around them...or any understanding at all. It was sorcery, true magic, as only the Freeholders of old had once wielded, and when all the other archmaesters condemned him and stripped from him their links, it was only Archmaester Marwyn, whose ring and rod and mask were forged of Valyrian steel and whose field of study was the very magics that all the others condemned, who stood at his side and defended him when all others would not, only he who would escort him out of the Citadel when the judgement was given and passed. It was that which got him stripped of chain and title, the latest casualty of the eternal war within the Citadel between those who considered sorcery and magic a science like any other, a force to be understood and studied, and those who considered it an unnatural blight amongst the world, a tool to be returned to its chest and buried forever. He was only grateful that those voices at the Citadel thought to challenge him publicly and have him banished from the order, rather than slip a poison into his cup and get rid of him that way, as so many other studiers of the old art and those who asked the wrong manner of question were dealt with.

But if the gods were kind, his reward would be enough to reverse the damage they had done, for it was nothing more than a simple letter to the Grand Maester from the Lord of Casterly Rock, asking for his reinstatement and the return of his chain. Nothing more. With the Grand Maester's protection and support, he would be free to continue his research...though in a safer location than the Citadel, perhaps.

Done with his cleaning and preparations, he walked out of his medical room and onto the upper deck, the first one with a roof and without the risk of rain and water. All around were most of the ship's crew, who had come below decks for the evening, dicing and eating or sleeping in the hammocks they set up between the ship's timbers, whilst next to his own room was the one for the ship's kitchen...or what passed for one, when little fire could be used for cooking due to the risk of the entire ship catching flame should a mistake be made. But for the most part, the ship was comfortable; the thick timbers kept the warmth inside even on the terribly cold nights of the Sunset Sea, and the crew was not all that large for the size of the ship either, giving a fair amount of room for all hands aboard, and the sails had the added bonus of not only smoothing the ship's movement, but getting rid of the horrid stench of a hundred sweating bodies at the oars below decks, and it was that for which he was especially grateful. Making his way through the relaxing crew and men-at-arms, past the soundly sleeping clansman, who held his axe in arms like lover, he made his way to the staircase that led onto the weather deck, where the stars of night twinkled brightly in the sky above, and where he could see the outline of the Ironborn woman Esgred at the tiller, steering the ship with a steady and practiced hand as she use the stars of the Ice Dragon's tail above as a reference, making sure that the wind did not change their southward course.

She had been a surprise for the voyage so far, and he felt as though there were other surprises in store, but he paid her no real attention and instead walked across the open deck to the captain's quarters, knocking twice before entering. It was a lavishly decorated room, as large as a lord's solar, and in the midst was the masterfully crafted dining table, perfectly square, with Sandor Clegane on the left, Ser Davos on the right and Tyrion Lannister on the other side, even though it was big enough to fit all three on the same side, a book by the Lannister dwarf's side keeping his attentions in a way that the sparsely picked meal on his plate could not. He closed the door behind him, trapping the warmth inside, and Ser Davos greeted him with a smile and a nod, Tyrion with a gesture to the empty seat opposite him, and the Clegane did nothing at all but drink some wine.

"Please, sit," Tyrion said after taking a sip from his glass. "Has Ser Davos told you why I wish to speak with you?"

"He has," Qyburn answered as he did as he was commanded, sitting in his seat. "You wish to know more about our destination?"

"Indeed I do," the dwarf replied, his mismatched eyes turning towards the maester at last. "My lord father gave me a book not long before we left, supposedly containing everything the Citadel knows about the city. I was hoping you might tell me more over dinner."

"Well, my lord, there is little known about the city," Qyburn said, raising his dining knife and testing the meal before him. "The city was once called Gorgai, when it was still a colony of the Ghiscari Empire, who used it as a trade post for the more distant Summer Islands and Naathi, who were too far from their home city to be easily reached."

"I understand the Valyrians massacred every last man, woman and child inside the port not long after the destruction of Ghiscar," Tyrion said with a grim voice.

"They did," Qyburn answered. "They thought it likely that the remote settlement might revolt not long after the dragonlords left and overthrow the Valyrian garrison they installed there, so they slaughtered the lot and brought in their own settlers rather than risk starting a dangerous precedent of revolts within the Freehold. They say the blood ran so thick through the streets that it looked as though a river had been born."

There was a small of unease in the air, then, a small fear of disconcern, the silence of which gave Qyburn the chance to more properly examine what had been put on his plate. It was not a bad meal, as far as sailor's fare went; a large helping of pickled herring, sliced thick and tasting more of onion and salt than fish flesh, steaming hot, three hardtack crackers like those that had been the backbone of the sailors diet for centuries, a dozen pickled onions the size of his thumbnail, a few slices of a thick and strong reddish cheese and, most amazingly of all, a palm sized bread roll, freshly baked and still warm from the oven. It was difficult merely heating up a meal on a wooden warship, yet alone cooking one, but actually managing to bake a bread roll was miraculous, and a testament to the cook's experiences in working whilst at sea, and he was genuinely grateful for it.

Qyburn sipped his wine, then, and reignited the conversation with his words. "The Valyrians themselves were at first interested in the port for the same reasons that the Ghiscari were - it provided a convenient stopping off point for raiders and merchants going onto the Summer Islands, who were forever a land of interest for the Valyrians. They played their princes against one another, you see, to make sure no real power formed that could properly protect itself against their slave raids or threatening."

"After that, they turned it into a prison colony," he continued. "The jungles of Sothoryos to the south are thick and uncharted, so any man who wanted to return to civilization would have to go northwards by sea, an impossible task without proper planning and plentiful supplies. The Valyrians were cruel masters even to their loyal slaves, who they made toil in the mines for gold and gem, but those sent to the prison isle - madmen, killers, dissenters and malcontents - found a far crueler fate in store."

"Guards with plenty of free time on their hands seem to get creative when they are bored," Tyrion murmured. "I am sure the Boltons and Wyls would learn much from them, and nothing good."

"Oh, but that was but the least of it," Qyburn said as he placed cheese upon cracker. "I don't suppose that tome of yours mentions blood magic?"

"Only a little," Tyrion answered truthfully. "Is there something the book is not saying?"

"The true question is: is there something that was known but not written?" Qyburn replied, taking a bite from the dry hardtack before washing it down with his wine, all three of the men in front of him waiting for his response. "The maesters of the Citadel have long been interested in...passing over the influence of spell and sorcery in their writings, that I can assure you."

Tyrion looked at him strangely, then. "What do you mean? Why would the maesters of the Citadel ignore the power of magic?"

"Because, Lord Tyrion, people fear the dark," Qyburn answered deftly. "Men fear what they do not know, what they do not understand. A knight can look at a blacksmith and see how his sword was forged, just as Ser Davos could watch a shipwright start the work of building a vessel, but magic by its very nature cannot be understood...and for men of science and reason like the maesters of the Citadel, who believe that there is not a wonder or a mystery in the universe that cannot be explained by reason, it is an anathema."

"That is why they do not write much of magic in their history tomes," Qyburn finished. "For how can you explain the unexplainable? How things happen when they otherwise should not? Instead, they place their stock in other matters, other ways things came to be, even if they are are a grave mistake at worse or a sweet lie at best."

There was a silence, and Qyburn saw the uncomfortable sea captain take a long drink of wine.

"A pleasant wine, isn't it?" Qyburn smiled, changing topic as smoothly as a warrior might change their stance. "Where is it from? Old Oak?"

"My lord father inherited a few wineries from his own father," Tyrion explained with a smile, raising his glass as he examined the red liquid within. "My grandfather had a taste for wines, and found it strange that the Westerlands had no famous wines of its own. So he made one."

"It's not as good as Arbor red, but it's cheaper," Sandor Clegane said, speaking for the first time since Qyburn entered, his scarred and burnt face twisted even more so in the oil light.

"We have nearly as many casks of it as we do herring," Davos added at last. "Lord Tywin could have given us more variety on the foods, but what we have will last long enough that it will all be eaten before any of it has a chance to rot. The Arbor and Lys will give us a chance to take on fresh supplies."

"If I might make a suggestion, my studies once revealed that a variety of foods is needed for men to be able to maintain their strength," Qyburn explained. "Fresh fruit, for instance. Perhaps we could take some on at the Arbor?"

"You studied foods, maester?" Tyrion inquired with interest.

"Not foods, but what their abundance and absence does to the body," Qyburn answered. "It is a strange thing. The strongest knight can dominate his foes on the field, but be destroyed slowly over a matter of weeks simply by lacking the right foods needed to sustain their strength. Scurvy, for example, cannot be fought with boiled wine, blades or bread mould, but a handful of blackcurrants a day for three days and it will be weakening, continue for a week and it will be gone entirely."

"Aye," came the voice of Ser Davos. "You can see it during a siege. The fresh food goes first, and the men start to weaken even though they've still got bread and salted meat to eat."

"What was your speciality, maester, if you studied this?" Tyrion asked. "Medicine?"

"Precisely so," Qyburn answered. "My knowledge of the body is second only to that of the archmaester Ebrose himself, if not greater. I know how to treat a wound gone bad with poultices of bread mould and vinegar and boiled wine, how to remove cataracts with suction and how to reroot knocked out teeth, and a thousand other things."

"Then why are you here, and not at the Citadel?" Tyrion asked with what felt like a hint of confusion...or, perhaps, because he already knew the answer and wanted Qyburn to say it himself. "If you are as skilled as you say you are, then surely you shouldn't be on a ship such as this?"

"I am exactly as skilled as I say I am, Lord Tyrion," Qyburn answered at last. "But as you may have already noticed, my chain is not like that of a normal maester, because I am no longer a maester. I was stripped of my chain for giving the field of magic legitimacy by considering it a field of possible study in the first place."

"The internal politicking of the Citadel is usually deadly, so I am rather happy to have only lost that rather than my life," he said, raising his own glass to take a sip. "But I would wish to have my chain restored to me again, and it is that which your lord father offers me for bringing my knowledge on this voyage. Vindication, for my hours of study and observation."

"You studied magic?" Davos said with surprise.

"Enough to have forged a Valyrian steel link for my original chain, yes," Qyburn replied...before returning the conversation to its original topic. "Now, Lord Tyrion, you were curious about Gogossos, yes?"

"I was," Tyrion answered grimly. "But I think the more I learn, the less I wish to know."

"Then know this, then; the things that the blood sorcerers and fleshsmiths of the Gogossosi did, even before the Doom, were...unnatural."

There was silence all around the table, then.

At last, it was the Clegane who broke it. "...did you just say "fleshsmiths"?"

Qyburn nodded solemnly.

Even the ocean seemed to go quiet then, not a single word more being said for the rest of the meal.

Tyrion couldn't help but smile widely as he stood at the King Gerold's prow beneath the golden light of the late morning, watching as the great ship rolled over the waves, her great red sails at their full for the first time since their departure from Lannisport, the tall ship finally having a chance to sail in all her majesty. It had taken the first few days for him to properly find his sealegs on the deck when the ship was travelling at speed, but with Ser Davos and the Ironborn woman serving as an example it hadn't been too hard to learn how to find his balance, and now that they were properly underway, closer to their first destination than to the port from whence they had started out, he was finally starting to see the beauty in the ship's hull, in the smooth curves of her timbers and the sleekness of her hull. She was prettier than any galley or merchant cog he had ever seen before, her tall masts and their scarlet sails cutting a sharp profile, but she felt strong too, so strong that he felt like he could sail her to the end of the world and back again, and for the crew - many of whom had served on war galleys or the like before - it was obvious at a glance how much they preferred it. They were smiling, taking the chance to enjoy the voyage itself without needing to focus on emptying out water that entered through the oar-holes or rowing, dicing and talking and laughing on the deck between carrying out the onion knight's commands, and even the former smuggler was as cheery as the crew beneath him as he got the chance to see what a true sail ship could do when the wind was on her side.

Tyrion watched the waves crashing into the strong prow, feeling the waters rolling beneath his feet as the ship climbed over them, splashing down again with a spray of ocean mist against his cheeks as warm and gentle as a lover's kiss, and he smiled as he felt the wetness. There truly was no more apt a figure to place upon her bow, for he knew that the ship must have surely had the spirit of a lion within its planks and nails and masts, a proud and golden beast yearning to run free once more, every wave conquered a rock leapt over and every destination a new hill to stand atop of as king. Energized by the cool and salty mist, he turned and heard the sound of laughter on the deck as Anguy soaked his own linen shirt in dark wine as the ship clawed its way over another wave, the marcher bowman so drenched he had no choice but to strip off his shirt and throw it aside for cleaning later...only for the ship to roll again and send it tumbling straight into the sea, to the amusement of every man on the deck and the archer's stunned amazement.

"I don't suppose anyone would wager a new shirt?" the archer said at last as he picked up the handful of die again and started shaking them in his hand. "No?"

"We're not that far from the Arbor, now," Esgred answered, sat atop the aft castle with a far-eye, watching out for any signs of reefs or storms on the horizon, the Ironborn woman seeming to get prettier with every day that passed, though perhaps because she was the only woman he had seen since they had left port. "You can buy another there tomorrow morning."

"Already?" Tyrion said with surprise as he stepped down onto the deck, never taking his hand from the railing in case a powerful wave sent him tumbling overboard. "I thought we would not be there for a few more days?"

"We don't need to stop like a galley, so we can sail on through the night," she answered, looking down at him with hard blue eyes. "We passed the Shield Islands a few days ago, and we'll pass by Oldtown today. By tomorrow morning, we should be in sight of the Arbor."

"Ser Davos," he said next as he ascended the aftcastle for himself, turning his attention to the captain stood besides the tiller, a crewmember keeping their course straight as Davos watched something in the water behind. "How fast are we going?"

"Six knots," the onion knight replied with a proud smile as he took count of the rope trailing from the ship's rear, pulling it in one knot at a time and wrapping it around the railing. "A fast galley can barely manage three."

"We're twice as fast with half the crew and with weeks worth of supplies in the hold," Tyrion smiled. "All we need now is a good weapon, and men won't have a need for galleys anymore. Is she right about the Arbor?"

"We might even make it there by tonight, if the winds stay on our side," Davos answered. "If the weather stays fine for the rest of the journey, we'll be done and home again before we would even notice autumn's arrived."

"No," Esgred said, peeking to the horizon as she did. "These winds come down from the North and end near Dorne, so once we make it past the Arbor and turn eastwards we'll lose them. We'll be lucky to make four knots, then."

"You've sailed these waters before?" Davos asked curiously.

"Many times," she answered. "Anyone from the Iron Islands who wants to go eastwards for trade or reaving has to pass through the strait, and every longship captain knows that the winds weaken on the south of Dorne. They will still be enough to push us forward, but not as quickly as we go today."

"Then we best make the most of the advantage we have whilst we have it," Tyrion said, thinking as he did. "Once we arrive at the Arbor, we will be able to find whatever it is we need whilst the men have some time on shore before we continue onwards to Lys."

"If she's right, then we'll need more supplies, unless we stop at Sunspear on the way east," Davos reasoned.

"I doubt the Martells will be very welcoming of us and Clegane, seeing as his brother caved in Elia's head," Tyrion sighed. "I would rather not learn about Dornish hospitality. We will have to make do without them."

"Then you'll need to find a food at the Arbor that won't rot in the time it takes for us to reach Lys, and enough of it that we won't run out on the way."

"I'll come up with something," Tyrion said, glancing towards the horizon. "Mayhaps a few more dozen barrels of pickled herring."

"Where your lord father found so much of the stuff before I'll never know," Davos murmured quietly. "I've never seen so much of it in one place before."

"No doubt there is someone fond of the stuff who found himself outbid by Lannister gold," Tyrion answered. "Mayhaps the ghost of the Mad King Aerys, or a particularly wealthy cat."

"Aye, well, if I were you I would find something that isn't fish for the men," Davos said at last. "They'll be bored of the stuff now, and won't want to eat much more of it. Variety will do, something to break up the routine a little."

"Esgred, your people spend most of their lives at sea," Tyrion said, facing the Ironborn woman, who turned round to meet him, closing the telescoping far-eye and moving a stray tuft of black hair from her vision. "What would you suggest?"

"Other than developing a taste for pickled fish?" She asked before starting. "A good cheese would do, since the hard outside helps keep it safe from mould and it can last forever inside a linen, but even if it starts to rot you can cut that section off. Crackers, too, but they have to be kept dry...ham, smoked and salted ham, and good sausages too, both could last long enough to make the voyage from the Arbor to Lys," then, seeming as an an afterthought, she added, "You will want to make sure to clean the hold out afterwards, though, and get rid of every last crumb."

"How come?"

"Rats and mice will run to the meat if it starts to rot," she answered. "They don't like the smell of pickled herring, it seems, since I have not seen any on the ship and we haven't a ratter to be hunting them down, but they will come aboard if you give them a reason to. "

Tyrion looked back at her, thinking - there had been something not quite right about her ever since she came aboard, but he hadn't been able to place his finger on it. She spoke too finely for one who was supposed be nothing more than an Ironborn woman from Pyke, she read maps too well to not have some experience with command and navigation, she moved too smoothly and held her axe with too much deft finesse, it all felt wrong for some reason, and he couldn't tell why...but regardless of it all, she was too useful as a navigator and sailor for him to feel safe asking her why.

"She's right," Davos agreed. "I might not have been on a voyage as long as this one will be, but she is right. Smoked sausage and some ham would make for a good change, and would keep for awhile too."

"Then we will see what they have at the markets when we arrive," Tyrion said at last, leaning onto the rails. "We have more than enough coin to be able to buy some good food and a few luxuries, and if it keeps me from being thrown overboard by mutineers..."

"If there is a mutiny on Tywin's new ship, then we have done things terribly wrong," Davos seemed to laugh as he spoke. "Everyone here knows that they won't ever see their families again if you go over the railings.""

"Then I best stay clear of them," Tyrion smiled, walking away from the rails. "Lest I fall over the edge and my father has everyone killed instead of giving them their reward."

"You might still get your tour, though," Davos answered warmly. "What about you, Esgred? What is your reward for being part of the crew?"

"The journey is my reward," she answered stiffly. "Everyone from the Iron Islands is a traveller at heart, and this ship gives me a chance to go somewhere few other Ironborn have ever gone before."

"I had thought you would ask him for the ship itself or a pile of coin," Tyrion said with mild amusement.

"He offered me gold dragons at first, but gold doesn't have much value on the isles. We pay the iron price," she said. "But experience does."

"And how many Ironborn raiders can boast of having sailed so far south?"

"Exactly," the Ironborn woman answered with a small smile and a nod. "Not many can. That's reason enough for me to want to do so."

Tyrion smiled, and curious, he walked over to the railings watching over the main deck before shouting down to the largely built Northern clansman, who was sat with the others. "Artos! Why are you here? What reward has my father promised you?"

"Why is it you want to know?" the clanner asked with suspicion.

"I merely wish to know my crew better," Tyrion said truthfully.

"Gold," came the answer then, Artos' voice as deep and powerful sounding as a drum. "It will help me feed my clan when the winter comes, as more food can be bought than we can grow ourselves."

"I'm doing it for a new shirt," Anguy japed, the men around him laughing before he said the truth. "He's offered me a place in the Rock as a trainer for his bowmen...I could make more money travelling and doing archery tourneys, but this would be regular pay and I wouldn't need to travel around anymore either."

"A smart choice," Davos said to the marcher, his hands on the rail. "You'll make more coin in the long run and have a place to spend it well, and it'll be safer for you, too."

"That's what I think, too," Anguy smiled. "It worked for you."

"Aye, it did," Davos answered, his voice soft and warm, as if he were speaking to one of his own sons. "Mayhaps one day your grandsons will have a keep of their own, like the Cleganes."

Anguy smiled then, hoping, and Tyrion was sure he heard Sandor grumbling somewhere beneath the deck, doing whatever it was he was doing.

"Something's on the horizon," Esgred said suddenly with a squint of her blue eyes before raising the far-eye again as the laughter died and an uneasy attention rose. "A war galley, looks like a two decker."

"Redwynes?" Tyrion asked, looking towards the distance to see the warship sailing towards them.

The Ironborn woman put her hand over her open eye for a moment. "Her sail is furled, but I see what must be the outline of a bushel of grapes on them, and men-at-arms aboard. Definitely a Redwyne ship, probably on patrol."

"Then we must be closer than we thought," Tyrion smiled. "Take us pass their side. If we're a little off course, we'll able to ask them for directions,"

"It won't take long for us to close the distance," the Onion Knight said as he took the tiller, the men-at-arms coming onto the deck in case they were needed, the massive Clegane behind them, his hound visor lowered and ready for battle. "They're coming this way."

"Probably curious as to what a ship flying Lannister colors is doing so far south," Esgred sighed.

Then there was the high wail of a horn, and their own hornman replied with two bursts of the louder and deeper roar of the King Gerold, and two sails were raised to slow the ship enough that the vessels might meet without the risk of having the massive carrack snapping off all the galleys oars as they passed...but Ser Davos kept them a fair distance away still, in case they thought to throw a boarding hook for whatever reason.

"Greetings!" Tyrion shouted as he stood by the railing, little taller than it was. "We're heading to the Arbor! Are we on the right course?"

"Almost," came the returning cry of a low ranking nobleman, a household knight stood on the warship's deck all in purple, grapes on his tabard. "But what in Seven's name is a Lannister ship doing here?"

"I am Tyrion Lannister," he shouted back, introducing himself before saying a half-truth. "My father has allowed me to go on a tour of the Free Cities! We're on to the Arbor to pick up supplies before going onto Lys!"

"That isn't exactly the truth," Ser Davos muttered quietly.

"I know," Tyrion answered. "But the things my father will do to me if the Redwynes claim it will make what the Valyrians did to the Gogossosi look like a mercy."

"He doesn't have a fleshsmith, though," the onion knight shuddered, remembering the eerie words said at their meal with the former maester a few weeks before.

"Very well!" came the replying shout at last. "You seem like you are heading off course! Here!"

The Redwyne knight pointed towards the horizon, holding his arm straight and steady for Davos to catch the bearing, turning the King Gerold onto its new course.

"The Arbor is that way!" the knight shouted. "We'll escort you the rest of the way!"

"We've been making great speed, but you know the waters!" Tyrion shouted back, smiling. "A barrel of wine to whoever makes it there first!"

There was laughter from the men of both ships then, and in the distance of the other ship he thought he saw a smile in reply to his challenge.

"Very well!" came the answer. "But a Lannister best pay his debts!"

"As will you!" Tyrion shouted in reply at last, before turning towards Ser Davos, smiling. "Ser Davos, it seems we won't have to buy any wine once we reach port. Full sail."

"This isn't a fair race," Davos laughed as the men unfurled the two sails that had slowed the ship down enough to match the wargalley's speed. "But I won't object to free wine."

"Fair? I'm a Lannister, Ser Davos," Tyrion answered as he gripped the wooden rail as the ship jerked forward, the winds catching in her sails and pushing her forward at full speed again. "I have a reputation as a cheating scoundrel to uphold. One moment."

"Fair winds to you!" Tyrion shouted back to the galley captain, barely hearing his own voice over the sound of furious drumming coming from the Redwyne warship's hold. "We'll see you in port!"

He swore he heard a curse in reply, but Tyrion simply smiled as the King Gerold sailed by, holding its speed at twice that of the war galley's briefly sustained top, leaving her behind before the oarsmen could even bring their ship around.

"I do hope the wine is an Arbor gold," Tyrion said at last.

Chapter Text

Tyrion smiled as he sat upon the edge of the ship's railing, watching as the nimble wooden body of the King Gerold rushed its way through the waves at full speed, cutting through the waters like a dagger cutting through cake, faster than any galley could ever hope to match...no matter how much the captain of the Redwyne galley might have wished otherwise. He tucked his small legs in behind the supports of the railings, so that he might not go overboard if the ship struck a strong swell, waiting for the thin fog of the early noon that concealed the isle of the Arbor from view to dissipate, eager for a chance to finally see the place where the grapes that made the famous Arbor reds and golds were grown and squashed into one of the finest wines in all of the Seven Kingdoms. But more importantly than simply visiting the island were the supplies he was to pick up; if there was anything that the Ironborn knew, it was sailing, and Esgred's mention of how the winds would be less favorable when heading eastwards and the need to pick up fresh supplies and plenty of them kept his attentions more than anything else, even the thought of pretty Arbor girls eager for Lannister gold and cupfuls of a good red aged and chilled in a cellar for a good fifty years or more.

"Thinking of the port, my lord?" Davos asked, leaning on the railing alongside.

"I have always wished to visit the Arbor," Tyrion said truthfully, tipping his head towards the onion knight. "My father would never let me go. No doubt he was afraid I would drown myself in wine if he let me go there."

"What other reason is there to go to the Arbor?" came the voice of Bronn, the sellsword on the deck and cleaning his blade with an oiled rag to keep the moisture of the ocean's mist at bay for a little while longer.

Tyrion laughed, and nodded. "I doubt there is any other."

"Might be a good idea for us to pick up a barrel or two on the return journey," Davos reasoned. "Arbor gold goes for half the price it does here than it does on the mainland."

"You've been to the Arbor before, Ser?"

"Aye, before I was knighted," came the grizzled man's answer. "Too many ships come and go through the port for the harbormen to be able to check them all thoroughly. A little sail ship can slip in and out before someone has made them pay their fees, and if you have a few friends in the port you can have your own cargo loaded and be off before they even noticed you there at all."

"We won't be so fortunate," Tyrion said with a glance to the ship's great and distinctive sails, massive sheets of deep crimson with a bright gold lion on each and every one. "How much are the fees? I won't have my beloved father needing to send another ship down here to pay a ransom for us to leave."

"Not much; the Redwynes make most of their coin through trade, and keeping the port busy means more trade," Davos answered, glancing towards the horizon as he did. "A silver stag for a day or two, normally. They might want more because we're bigger and take up more space."

"Then that is nothing that we cannot afford, seeing as my lord father was so generous when provisioning us for the voyage, even if he gave us more pickled herring than I ever hoped to see," Tyrion japed, to the Seaworth's amusement. "Can your friends get us a good deal on fresh supplies? It matters little what it is, so long as it is fresh and there is enough of it to see us to Lys."

"Not anymore."

"How come? Have they been knighted as well?"

"They got caught," Bronn said simply, sheathing his sword only to be glared at by the former smuggler with harsh eyes as he reached into a pocket and drew out a grotty apple of reddish-brown, biting deep before adding with a full mouth as the sweet juice ran down his cheek. "It wasn't me that did it, I was just in the tavern when it happened between jobs. The watch kicked the door down, dragged them out onto the street and knifed 'em then and there."

There was a moment's quiet, then.

"...then it would be best for us to not do anything that might get the watch's ire," Tyrion Lannister said at last. "Having a blade in my guts won't be good for our journey."

"Then it will be expensive to stock up again," Davos said quietly. "These Arbormen know that they make their coin from the traders, and that the ships that call in their ports have little choice but to pay what they ask for."

"Land in sight!" came Esgred's cry from the ship's aft castle. "Must be the Arbor."

"And here we are," Tyrion said with a smile as he jumped down from the rails, landing on both his feet with a soft thud, addressing all those still gathered on the ship's deck from that morning, most still gambling to pass the time between one command or another. "Ser Davos, I will need your help to find my way through the city, and Bronn to keep me safe from anyone who thinks us easy pickings."

"Him?" Clegane said with an amused scoff. "You'd be lucky if he doesn't stab you himself."

"Not much money that way," Bronn said with a shrug of his shoulders as he rose to his feet, buttoning his shirt.

"As for you, Clegane," Tyrion said, turning his attentions to the towering Sandor Clegane, a man so tall and so infamous as to be recognized in any crowd, a dead giveaway that Tyrion Lannister was on a mission of great importance to his house. "The crew will be on leave till we return. Find a good brothel and keep everyone out of trouble and close to the shore for when we leave."

There was a grumble, then, but the crew perked up at the news of shore leave and their chance to stretch their legs and feel a woman's warmth - since it was plainly obvious by now that Esgred would not be sharing hers and that she had an axe for anyone who tried to charm their way into her leggings - and spend some time away from the ship and its holds. Not many would remain on the ship, though Qyburn surely would, but Tyrion was certain that none would stay ashore and abandon the rest of the crew, that he knew, as the journey had been so entirely pleasant as to make the rich payments that his lord father was offering seem like easy coin...and of course, Sandor Clegane knew their faces and could drag them back to the ship, though Tyrion was sure that wouldn't be necessary, and turned his attentions back towards the Arbor, where he could see a soft blinking of light in the distance, that of a lighthouse and its laborers hiding and revealing the flame over and over again to draw attention to it, and it was as though the bursts of light drove away the mist the way fire might banish darkness, revealing the Arbor in all its majesty for him to see.

It was huge.

It was the largest island he had ever seen, larger than Dragonstone or any of the Iron Islands or any other island in the realm, and flatter than he might have expecting, rolling just as the northwestern lands of the Reach did, the sun shining off the hills and fields and making them look as bright as Lannister gold. On its shores he saw a town nestled within a natural harbor, a wealthy place of white stone houses and roofs of bright orange tiles, all dotted with the openings of windows for when the summer heat grew too great and all placed on good stone roads, and not far from the coastal town he knew to be Ryamsport was a small fortress on a nearby hill, covering the seaward approach towards the settlement and from where a road trailed down the hills towards a cove that was the home of some two dozen war galleys, separate from the rest of the harbor and eternally ready for battle, with scorpions and catapults at the ready and lookouts peering out towards the King Gerold and every other ship that came and went through the bay of the Arbor's most precious port town, and it was the port that dominated the town more than anything else; it was a grand thing, perhaps only a third the size of Lannisport's own and yet lavishly equipped with an arsenal of piers and quay walls and cranes and warehouses and drydocks and taverns and brothels and everything else that might be needed for ship and crew alike, and all of it was in good condition too, as much a sign of a healthy market and a wealthy people as the dozens of merchant ships anchored alongside, Tyrion recognizing the purple hulls of Braavosi traders and the banners of Lysene, Myrish and Pentosi merchantmen, most of them galleys but for a handful of sail ships like his own, even a pair of Summer Islander swanships, a forest's worth of timber between them all.

"Take us in," he said with a smile.

"Aye," Ser Davos answered, turning on his heels and marching towards the aft to take the tiller and steer her in himself. "Furl top and foresail! We'll be able to glide in on our mainsail and bowsprit sail alone, and do so without smashing our prow off the quay."

The crew hurried to the captain's command, and in a few moments the ship began to slow as the sailors raised the ship's sails and secured them tightly, the King Gerold's sprint becoming a leisurely walk, and he felt the wind move through his hair more softly than it did before and the sound of the waves and the caress of its spray become calm as the large sailer made its way into port, Ser Davos navigating with a deft and practiced hand and looping the ship around inside the bay before turning it around towards the end of a long pier, a place that would allow them to leave more quickly, the sailors rolling away the last of the ship's sails as she finally slowed to a halt and dropped anchor, the wooden lion coming to a complete stop alongside the wharf, quickly dropping the disembarkation ramp and going ashore with the mooring ropes to tether the ship at six different places, ensuring that it couldn't simply float away whilst everyone was ashore.

"Welcome to the Arbor and Ryamsport!" came the voice of an aging man dressed in Redwyne colors who looked towards Ser Davos, escorted by six men-at-arms in chain and followed by a gang of laborers, a hint of greed forming in his tone of voice as he smiled at the sight of the gold and crimson of the King Gerold's sails. "I am Desmond, master of this port, and I greet any who fly Lannister colors well. Who are you, and for what purpose is your visit? Are you merchant or messenger?"

"I am Tyrion Lannister, son of Tywin, and we are neither," Tyrion said, striding across the deck, the harbormaster's eyes snapping towards the dwarf and filled with surprised realization. "We are here to pick up supplies for the next part of our journey, as my lord father has seen fit to allow me a tour of the Free Cities and I want to waste no time."

"But of course," the harbormaster bowed deeply before returning to his full stature once more. "Shall I send message of your arrival to Lord Redwyne inland? He would be honored to have you here as his guest for a night or more."

"Alas I must decline, for my father has given us leave for only a short time," Tyrion answered carefully...before answering. "But we will need to stop here upon our return, and if I have time left...well, I am sure my father will be happy to know of Lord Redwyne and his hospitality."

"Very well then," the harbormaster said with another, slighter bow, sending away his waiting laborers with a flick of his wrist. "I will send a message that you are simply passing through, but that you might stay for longer later on if time's allow."

"Thank you," Tyrion smiled, the harbormaster weakly returning one of the same. "As for the harbor fees...I trust they are not too pricey? My lord father will not be happy to know his son was beggared by a harbormaster."

"No, not at all my lord," the harbormaster said quickly, trying to find the best words he could. "For you, an honored guest of my lords...there will be no fee, of course not, and I shan't trouble you with inspection either since you won't be here for long."

"Very generous of you," Tyrion said as he walked up the steps and down the disembarkation ramp, followed closely by the Seaworth captain and the smiling sellsword. "I will make sure to remember that my stay here was a good and quick one."

The harbormaster nodded and retreated with a bow, his guards following, and once they were out of earshot, once the three were amidst the crowds that dominated every harborfront in the known world watching the rest of the crew disembark, Davos smiled. "Remind me never to play cards with a Lannister."

"But Ser Davos, we have so much coin to play with," Tyrion answered cheerfully. "It could make you rich."

"Aye, and you have a face like a statue," the smuggler knight laughed. "At least now we won't need to pay for visiting or have our holds checked. That should save us some coin and trouble, at least for awhile anyhow."

"...and we are going to be spending a lot of coin today," Tyrion said as he turned towards his companions. "So where do we go? I doubt a butcher's stall has enough meat for a ship's worth of men."

"They do here," Bronn said flatly, glancing at the people all around and never taking his hand far from his sword before pointing down one of the streets. "Port like this always has the venders all in one place, taking orders for their warehouses so they can load all the ships at once and save time as they do."

"And it'll be cheaper than ordering it from a market too," Davos agreed. "Every port has its provisioners, and they make their coin selling by the load."

"Esgred suggested more variety in the food, and I agree with her. Another plate of smoked herring and I'll be as mad as Aerys was," Tyrion sighed. "We will need cheese, ham, crackers, sausage...wine too, and a lot of it all."

"We're not far from the heart of the Reach," Davos started. "Even if they have to bring some food over by ship I cannot see it higher than sixty dragons for the lot, along with a few luxuries."

"And..." Tyrion started, thinking back towards the unnerving meeting with the former maester not too long before and his tales of fleshsmiths and other Gogossosi horrors, all of which almost snuffed out his memories of the rest of the conversation, but there was one important thing he managed to remember through the haze of wine and herring. "...fruit. We will have need of it, if what Qyburn said was true."

"...that will make things more expensive," the onion knight sighed. "And it won't last long enough for us to reach Lys either."

"Then I will need to find something that can," Tyrion said. "I would rather not lose all my teeth and die on this journey because we ran out of apples. But we can deal with that later. Lead the way."

"Aye," the onion knight answered, turning away from the streets that led into the town and its market and down the harbor front, towards the warehouses of the west. "Even if it takes you a while to find a way, it doesn't matter too much; we've been making good speed ever since we left port, and even if we do slow down from here on we'll still be far ahead of where we would be in a galley."

"But every minute we spend here is a minute spent not travelling," Tyrion answered, turning his head to be sure that their sellsword escort was still there...and he was, moving with all the agility of a prowling shadowcat, ever aware of their surroundings and ever closeby, humming the tune of the Bear and the Maiden Fair softly as he followed. "How did you end up here before anyhow?"

"I finished one job and was waiting for another," came the sellsword's fast answer. "Most merchants take on a bunch of sellswords for when they pass the Stepstones, just in case, then let them all go after they make it through which lets them be picked up by another ship. Pay's regular. Not great, but regular."

"What made you stop doing it?"

"A mutiny did," the sellsword answered with a shrug. "Wasn't even us, it was the oarsmen who did it over low pay."

Tyrion laughed. "How did that end without you being thrown overboard?"

"Easy," the sellsword smiled. "We gave them the captain."

"I thought he hired you to protect him?"

"Aye, he did, but from pirates," Bron answered innocently. "He never mentioned anything about mutineers. Friendly lot once we got to port afterwards, even helped us find a ship to get back to Westeros. I think they all got hung not long after that."

Tyrion was about to answer when Ser Davos spoke again, smiling. "Here we are. The provisioners. "

Tyrion turned his attentions to to his surroundings, and they were not a market, not a where vendors used bright cloth and well carved signs to draw the attentions of wandering townsfolk and the occasional lord or lady, no, this was something much different, feeling more akin to a tavern than not; it was a large square surrounded by warehouses on all sides but the open one that faced the port and allowed for the passage of handcarts and the rolling of barrels and the carrying of crates, with a horseshoe like crescent of plain wooden tables in the midst with plain signs above saying what it was that they sold and a thick crowd of captains and their most competent and trustworthy crewmembers, making deals with one another and arrangements to swap cargoes and discussing prices and the weather and the movement of known pirates, sharing all the information with one another freely. Everywhere his eyes looked he saw another item of the seafarer's trade - there was not only stores of food and drink here, but rolls of thick sailcloth ready to be cut down to size or sewn together as needed, enormous coils of rope that were like great brown serpents ready to strike and devour him whole, next to an arsenal's worth of of racks that held oars and hammers and saws and every other woodworking tool one could find in the best carpenter's workshop. At each table sat plainly dressed merchantmen or the sons or workers of them, with large books full of records of transactions made and transactions waiting to be finished, writing with their quills as fast as any maester and regular dipping them back into their inkpots in a thirst for dark liquid.

There was no queue, no delay between men coming and going to the tables and placing their orders or asking when they would be due, and so Tyrion looked upwards and read the signs above before walking over towards the food vender, a brown haired man so young as to be no more than twenty five years of age, brow covered in the beads of sweat that came from the uncharacteristic warmth of the long summer and from being outside in the sun working and writing all day whilst dressed in thick, hard wearing work clothes of wool and leather, and it was work that he did; his hands moved twice as quick as those of Grand Maester Pycelle, though the writing was barely legible at all as a result, but Tyrion could still read it well enough to understand what it was that was being written and he saw a long list of ship names and their captains and what they had requested and what they would have to pay, covering page after page of thick waterproof parchment. Tyrion was rather taken aback by all of it, having never been to a store such as this before or even anything that was even remotely similar, no, his experiences with merchantmen were limited to seeing them in court or at their stalls and stores on the market squares of King's Landing and Lannisport, but here he was on their own ground, within a castle of commerce where coins were like banners and customers battles fought and lost.

"I will need the name of yourself and your ship," came the quick request, the man not raising his eye from his work for even an instant except to dip his quill into its well and continue his scribbling.

"I am Tyrion, of the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. My ship is the King Gerold. I am here to take on supplies."

The man looked up to him then, but if there was any amazement or even interest in meeting a Lannister of Casterly Rock, he showed none of it before returning to his work, flipping through a few pages to an empty entry before deftly writing down the name of man and ship alike. "What is it that you need?"

"Crackers -"

Immediately the man reached below the table and drew out a small package, just over a foot in length and not even a third of that across and almost perfectly square, its surface sheen with the color of thick wax around the packaging. "Thirty to a pack, each at least three inches across and half an inch thick, with ten packs to a box and fifteen boxes for twenty dragons or twenty five boxes for thirty. More and it's five boxes for three dragons."

"More than enough for our voyage," said Ser Davos quietly. "A good deal if there ever was one."

"Twenty five will do," he said, watching as the man quickly jotted down the number. "Now for cheese."

Again, the man reached beneath the table and drew out six small rounds of cheese one by one, each about the size and width of his own hand and as thick as the gap between thumb and forefinger, protected by thick linen wraps. "I have six cheeses, all matured for around six to twelve months and no longer or less; I have reds and yellows from the Riverlands, whites hard and crumbly from the Reach and medium Stormlander with cranberries or apricot, and have all of them in wheels this size and at twenty two pounds. Fifty stags for five wheels for the small ones other than for the Stormlander fruit cheeses which come at one hundred stags for five, or sixty stags for a mixture of all five. Prices for large wheels are two dragons a wheel or five dragons for three wheels and three dragons for a Stormlander cheese of either kind, with three wheels for seven dragons. Mix of both large wheels brings it down to five."

"The Stormlands are a wet place, but you would be a fool to say they don't make the best cheeses in all Seven Kingdoms," Ser Davos said with a smile. "And they might not make much wine, but they have the best ciders, too. Best to go with the large ones."

"That would be sixty six pounds of cheese for a crew of fifty five," Tyrion said with disbelief, looking towards the onion knight with surprise. "How much cheese could we possibly eat on our way there?"

"When you've got crackers as your main meal of the day, you want anything you can put on them," Ser Davos explained. "As many different kinds as you can get."

"Fine, give me two of each kind of cheese. The large wheels," Tyrion said at last. "I am a Lannister after all. It's not like I am going to run out of coin buying cheese."

The sellsword and the smuggler knight laughed then, and even the merchant seemed to smile ever so slightly as he jotted down the next bit of Tyrion's order. "Anything else?"

"Much," Tyrion said. "I will need fish, meat, butter, chickpeas, flour, butter, bread, honey, a basket of fruit and ale."

"Might be we're having a feast at this point," the sellsword laughed.

"Smoked fish is sold by the barrel, one dragon for four barrels," the vendor said, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he leaned on the table, thinking deeply. "Smoked meats are...two barrels for one dragon, or a coil of twelve cured sausages for sixty stags."

"Seven hells," Tyrion murmured under his breath. "How do the smallfolk ever eat with these kind of prices?"

"Food is always more expensive when the market is rich, but these aren't the kind of sausage you might see when you break your fast," Ser Davos explained. "They're five times as thick, so a single slice serves a man. Saves space over lots of small sausages, and the barrels are bigger too."

"Plain butter and honey both come in a pot one foot across and one deep, for thirty stags a piece," the food merchant continued. "Chickpeas and flour by the sackful, fifteen stags a piece, bread is six full loaves in waxed parchment in a wooden box to protect against mice and rats, six boxes for sixty stags. Fruit is by the basket with some one hundred and fifty apples or pears, a dragon per basket. Ale is a hundred stags a barrel, and good Reachman ale besides."

"I'll be damned if we run out of food before we reach Lys, and I won't have my crew eating little on the way there," Tyrion said. "Here is my final order, all at once: twenty five boxes of crackers for thirty gold dragons, nine large wheels of cheese for fifteen dragons and another three Stormlander ones for seven dragons, of either kind. Then I want six barrels of fish for one and a half dragons, four barrels of meat for two dragons, two pots of butter and two pots of honey for one hundred and twenty stags, two sacks of peas and flour for sixty stags, six boxes of bread for sixty stags and two baskets of fruit for two dragons. Oh, and four barrels of ale, for four hundred stags."

Then he turned to a stunned Ser Davos as the merchantman quickly wrote down the remainder of his order..

"When we return to the ship, take those barrels of pickled herring and send them to any sept that will take them in for charity."

"Very generous of you, my lord," Ser Davos said with a warm smile before adding more quietly. "And the men will call it a kindness not to have to eat so much of it."

"Precisely why I am ordering so much food and so little ale," Tyrion answered. "The herring may as well be sand for the thirst it gives."

"Alright, total price for the order is...sixty gold dragons and a hundred stags."

"Make that sixty one gold dragons," Tyrion said. "I have little silver, and feel generous."

The merchantman smiled properly then. "Very well, sixty one gold dragons. It should be at your ship by sunset and no later."

"Then we have till sunset to find a kind of fruit that can last from here to Lys without rotting in Dornish heat," Tyrion said, turning to Ser Davos. "Any ideas where to start?"

"If you need fruit that can last that kind of journey, mayhaps you should find some jam?" the merchant said softly, to Tyrion's interest. "The heat's been so harsh lately that the vintners have been worried that it might ruin the grapes and make for poor wine. You might be able to buy part of their harvest and have it made into jam if you have the coin for it."

Tyrion reached into his coin purse, took out a gold dragon and flicked it onto the table with his thumb.

"Then we best be going," he said as he turned from the table, towards his two companions. "Have either of you ever been outside of the ports before?"

"I have never had a need to," Ser Davos answered as Bronn shook his head.

"Then we will have to find them ourselves," Tyrion said, before walking towards the town, whistling as the two followed him.

And follow they did; the town was a large one, but not even a village when compared to the sprawling mass of squalid hovels and dank workshops that made up much of King's Landing's heart, and not too impressive when one had seen the stone streets of Lannisport glittering gold in the setting sun...but it was a safe and pleasant place all the same, much more so than many parts of the capital anyhow. Like any city or town, there was a certain kind of thinking to the way it was lain out and the way it had grown as more and more people lived within its boundaries, something that was as much a rule as how trees had trunks and leaves upon their branches, even if they might look completely different from one to the next - everything of importance and expense was close to the port, with the best brothels and the best taverns all within a few minutes walk of the piers so as to draw in sailors and captains fresh from their voyages and whose pockets were full of coin or those wealthy travellers passing from one place to the next, and then came the much cheaper ones that were like sponges to suck up the last little bit of coin from the crews and for the local dockworkers and the other laborers to use, then came the homes that housed the dockworkers and the workshops that helped support their shipyards by making tools and rope and everything else that might be needed in their day to day work, and then the town became as any other, getting wealthier the closer one came to the market and poorer as one got closer to the outermost parts of the settlement...and to where there were supposed to be walls, but weren't, though for one as learned as Tyrion it was obvious why none had been built, for what need was there for barriers of stone and mortar when the Redwyne fleets were a wooden wall in their war galleys and an army in its sailors and marines, ever ready to defend their island from all comers?

But past the empty space where any other town would have had the start of its fortifications, past the ground that would have been the foundation for walls, past the place where the shadows of towers would fall, was a sight familiar to every town and city of any true worth - the horsetrader, at the very edge of the town, his steeds left out on a makeshift pasture and with a stables all of their own as great as that of any knight, full of the destriers and palfreys that all the chivalry of the south needed in times of both war and peace, on the tourney field and off it, great steeds that were the result of generations of careful breeding and each worth near as much as a lord's ransom. Here, a young lordling might get his first mount or warhorse as a gift from their father just as an old knight could put his most trusted companion out to pasture so that they might be able to spend their last few years of life in peace and leisure away from the battlefield or the lists, and it was here that Tyrion would need to find a mount if they were to travel to the vineyards deeper in land in a timely fashion...but buying a horse solely for a single ride was folly, and trying to carry it on the rest of their voyage even more so. But he had a plan, as he always did, and he walked up towards the trader, a kindly looking old man whose brown hair had long since turned to grey and who looked to the dwarf with curious eyes, whistling as he did before coming to a halt, examining the horses on show in their pasture and looking for the strongest, most regal of them all.

"What might I be able to do for you, m'lord?" the horsetrader asked, coming over. "Are you in need of a steed?"

"I am looking for a few horses," Tyrion said. "It will soon be my nephew Joffrey's nameday, and the prince has always wanted a well bred mount from the Reach for his rides through the Crownlands...mayhaps one for my father and my brother, too, we Lannisters have always had an appreciation for good horses in the Westerlands."

The horsetrader's eyes lit up with a mix of greed and pride then, as clear as a bright burning torch in the midst of a dark night, and all beneath a realization as to whom he was talking to and to whom Tyrion was referring.

"Of course, of course," the horsetrader said quickly before whistling for a stableboy, a young lad of some eight years who must have been a grandson or some other relation by the look of him. "Find that brother of yours and bring me our best three palfrey, and quickly."

Their was a hurried nod and a quiet answer, and the stableboy ran off to carry out his elder's orders, and Tyrion simply turned towards the horses in the field, smiling...but cautious, as only a buyer examining the wares on offer before him could be.

"You breed fine horses," Tyrion said. "Even by the standards of the Reach."

"You honor me, m'lord."

"But I am concerned for one thing."

"...m'lord?" the horsetrader asked with obvious concern, afraid of having so great a purchase, so great a fame as to providing the prince's own steed, slipping from his grasp. "What is it?"

"How am I to know if you're steeds will stay as strong as they appear to be once we leave the Arbor?" Tyrion asked, before gesturing to Ser Davos Seaworth and the common sellsword Bronn. "These two men are horsemen from King's Landing, from the king's own stables, and few know horses better than them. They are to help me find a mount worthy of the prince and for a Lord Paramount and the son of one, but they have seen very fine mounts in other parts of the realm."

"Aye, we have," Bronn added. "In Dorne."

"Dorne...? You mean their Dornish sand steeds?" the horsetrader asked with unease and no little amount of fear. "Their horses are great indeed...but none can match the strength of a Reachman's steed."

"They let us ride theirs for a few hours, to prove that they are the best at breeding horses," Tyrion said. "Perhaps...no, it would be a silly thing..."

Just so, the horsetrader turned towards the stables and shouted. "Ready them for a ride, too!"

Tyrion smiled.

"Thank you," he said. "If they are worthy of the prince or of my kin, then I will make sure that the entire realm knows where they came from."

There was a quick and hopeful nod in answer, then...and despite Tyrion lying about everything, about his nephew getting a horse for his nameday, the steeds that were brought forth a few minutes later by the stableboys were genuinely worthy of the tale that he had spun, proud and regal things of pure seamless white in masterfully made saddles, towering and strong and yet of a steady temperament, like three equine knights of the Kingsguard ever ready to carry out their sworn and solemn duty. The elder of the two stableboys, the one that he had seen before, placed a small set of wooden steps besides the greatest of the three, one that had been prepared especially for him with a saddle meant for the short legs of a dwarf, and Tyrion calmly stepped forward and climbed onto the first of the horses, and his companions quickly followed, Bronn easily climbing atop the second and Ser Davos last, showing the naval origin of his knighthood in the difficulty of mounting a horse, but once he was on and in the stirrups he found his way quick enough.

"We will be back soon, and if they are good enough we will buy them, if there are none better in our tour of the realm," Tyrion said. The horsetrader bowed in reply...

...and off the three went, riding off towards the hills in the distance, their steeds ambling along so smoothly as to be both quick and comfortable for rider and horse alike, better than any horse that Tyrion had ever ridden before, and so much so as to tempt him as to try and make the arrangements to buy one for himself, but that would have to wait till their voyage was over and done with at the very least, since it was not like he could buy such a fine beast and then stuff it in the cargo hold for months on end.

"If this is what the horses of the highborn are like, its no wonder they stay on them all the time," Davos said contentedly as they rode, the road beneath turning rougher and grittier without bothering their horses in the slightest. "They can sit around for hours on end."

"Aye," Bronn agreed. "I've never been on a horse this good before. It's like sitting on a chair."

"What horses have you been on?" Tyrion asked, curious...before adding. "...where did you even learn how to ride?"

"If there's one thing that's looted after a battle, it's the horses," Bronn answered. "Besides, having a horse means you can run quicker if things aren't going well. That's why any clever sellsword learns how to ride."

"But you won't be able to run away if we get boarded," Tyrion said.

"Aye, but I can swim."

"In the middle of the ocean?"

"I can swim a lot."

"...are you going to abandon us the moment we run into trouble?" Ser Davos asked then, glaring. "I haven't heard you once speak of standing your ground once all day."

"That's because sellswords like me sell their swords for gold, they don't die for them," Bronn said bluntly. "I'll fight when we need to, and run when we need to. But I won't stand my ground and die, because gold isn't worth anything if I'm not around to spend it."

Ser Davos looked to Tyrion then.

"At least he's honest about it," Tyrion shrugged. "Where are you from, anyway? I am a Lannister of Casterly Rock, Davos is a smuggler turned knight, and you...?"

"Me?" Bronn asked before shrugging his shoulders. "I'm just a sellsword. Not much else to know."

"No great battles? No stories to tell?"

"Not really," Bronn said. "Been in so many fights they stop being all that exciting."

"Then who was your hardest fight against?"

"Eh, you wouldn't know them," Bronn answered. "It's not a good story anyway."

"I've read books."

"Gerold Hightower."

Tyrion laughed.

"You fought the White Bull?" Tyrion answered. "You look well for being dead for fourteen years."

"Might be I did," Bronn answered. "Might be I'm bored and just trying to make this ride go quicker."

"Then who have you truly fought against?"

"Who haven't I fought against?" Bronn asked, before shrugging his shoulders. "Braavosi are tough. Very fast on their feet. Dothraki like to think that footmen are 'neath them, so they don't try and fight them. They don't think it's fair."

"You've fought Dothraki?"

"Lots of times," Bronn answered, telling the truth this time by the feel of things. "There isn't much business for a sellsword in Westeros these days. Too quiet. Essos is where all the sellswords make their coin, and half of it is against the Dothraki here or there, usually supporting their own guards or the Unsullied."

"They only think other horsemen are a threat, so they go after them first, chasing them all round the field," Bronn added, voice filling with amusement. "Once, this one captain came up with an idea to put a thousand spearmen next to each other, split into two groups of five hundred with a gap between, and our horse charged down the mid, the Dothraki followed with those bows of theirs and charged straight into a wall of pikes. They don't wear armor either and spend more time on their horse than off it, so once you kill their horse they're easy to finish. Don't envy the horsemen who fight them, though."

"How come?"

"They go after them first because they don't like anyone else using horses," Bronn explained. "Don't want to get caught by them either. They don't like sellswords much. They don't like anyone who isn't Dothraki much either. They won't torture you, though, they'll just sell you to Astapor and the rest. And they hate the sea."

"Really?" Ser Davos asked. "Why?"

"They don't like a lot of things, but they really don't like the things their horses don't like, and horses won't drink seawater, so Dothraki won't touch anything larger than a riverbarge, and won't go through a thorn bush either. They love their horses too much to make them suffer riding through it. That's how the people in Andalos survive."

"People are still alive in Andalos?" Tyrion asked with mild surprise. "I thought they were all wiped out?"

"Nah, they're still around if you look hard enough," Bronn said. "Met some Andalosi in a tavern in Pentos once. Dangerous men, the lot of 'em."

"How dangerous?"

"Very. They keep to themselves nowadays, though, so you won't find them fighting anyone outside of Andalos."

Tyrion was ready to respond, but looked to the front and saw a large house and winery upon a hill in the distance, surrounded by fields of wooden frames and stakes and posts, all of which connected together to create an immense forest of grapevines, their leaves yellow in the light of the afternoon sun and hanging heavy with great bundles of bright green grapes...and yet, as they rode closer, he saw brown patches on curling leaves and orange scars on the grapes themselves, and heard the sobs of a horrified vintner, lost amidst his crops.

"Hello?" Tyrion shouted. "Are you alright?"

"It is all ruined!" came the reply, the sobbing man emerging from Tyrion's left, cheeks soaked with tears and with an apron covered in dirt and grime, clutching a bundle of off-green grapes in his hands. "The entire field! Ruined!"

"What's wrong? What's happened to ruin the field?"

"The sun!" came the answer, the vintner plucking a grape from the bundle and offering it to Tyrion with an open hand. "Taste! See what it has done to my grapes!"

Tyrion reached out and took the grape from the weeping farmer, taking it in his hand and examining it closely; the skin was shriveled and slightly brown on the one side, his thumb feeling a tiny crack in the hardened surface, and on the rest of it the color was pale and closer to a pale-white than the familiar green of a good grape. He tentatively put it into his mouth, bit...and winced, his mouth filling with immense sweetness and only the barest hint of the greatness that was a cup of the Arbor's famous golden wines, like a ghost haunting its old home and wondering what had gone wrong. It was a terrible thing, and he barely resisted the urge to spit it out onto the roadside, swallowing and swallowing again to keep it down.

"See? See!" the vintner cried. "The entire harvest is like it!"

"What happened to cause this? The sun?"

"Too much of it," came the answer, the winemaker falling into some semblance of calm. "We have had nothing but sun for a week, and it has ruined my fields with its heat and ruined the balance of flavor...and the wine...the wine is undrinkable. Worthless."

The winemaker slumped to the ground, then, holding his head in his hands.

"I am ruined," came a voice little higher than a whisper.

"Cheer up, friend," Ser Davos soothed, obviously troubled to see a man who had so little suffer so much. "What if we were to give you another means of selling your grapes?"

"How? How can I hope to sell them, to feed my wife and children?"

"We have need of jam," Tyrion said. "Months worth of it."

The vintner looked up to him in confusion, then, but hopeful. "...jam?"

"We are heading eastwards on a voyage," Tyrion explained quickly. "We have need of fruit to keep our strength, but fresh fruit will perish too quickly for us to reach our destination, but jam will last much longer, and I will give you twenty dragons for a hundred jars."

"But the grapes are too sweet -"

"With how long we will be at sea for and with what food we have, I doubt anyone will mind much how sweet it might be," Tyrion said. "They'll be happy to simply taste something sweet at all, and mayhaps the jam making will soften the taste."

"Twenty dragons..." the vintner thought aloud. "Twenty dragons...it isn't much, but I could feed my family with twenty dragons till the next harvest, if we are careful..."

"We wouldn't be the only ones to want it either," Davos added. "Many sailors come through this port, might be that they would want a spoonful of it as well."

"It won't be jars, it'll have to come in bottles," the vintner said, rising to his feet once more. "I don't have jars, but I have enough bottles for the harvest...will they do?"

"They could be sealed inside a pig's bladder, so long as they will last a few month's in the hold," Tyrion accepted. "But we need them by tonight."

"Tonight? A hundred jars of jam in so little time?" the vintner asked in surprise. "I'll need everyone in the family to help, and a massive pot..."

"Can you do it?"

"Yes, I think so," the farmer answered. "At the port? What's your ship?"

"The King Gerold, which has a golden lion on red sails," Tyrion explained, turning his horse about. "I will pay you then."

"Then I best hurry!" the vintner said, running towards his home as the three began their journey back towards Ryamsport, the sun hanging lower in the sky than it had before they had set out, making it all too clear that time was running out, a reminder that every moment was precious and that every second not spent travelling was a second their chances of recovering Brightroar grew that tiny bit slimmer, but Tyrion set such thoughts aside for the time being, focusing on the present.

"That was quick," Bronn muttered quietly. "I thought we would end up running all over the place."

"Aye, it was," Davos agreed. "But what now?"

"Now we return these horses and go back to the ship and wait," Tyrion said simply. "Then we continue on our journey or stay in port for the night if we must."

"Best to stay the night," Ser Davos reasoned. "It's easy enough to see which way we are going in day, but at night...one mistake, and we won't have the land to guide us back on course, and all the jam in the world won't save us then."

"Then we will stay and set sail at dawn...I'm sure the men will be happy for the extra time anyway."

"They will be," Davos smiled. "But you're not as eager."

"I admit to having found a fondness for life at sea," he replied. "But every moment we spend in port is a moment we are not travelling and another chance for someone else to find my uncle's shipwreck and take the blade for themselves. My father is many things, but understanding of failure he is not. If we return empty handed, it will be the Wall for me at best and a grave at worst."

"That might be so, but we are weeks ahead of where we would be in any other ship," Davos reasoned again, as he often did, the old smuggler more intelligent and clever than most highborn might expect. "Not many men go where we are going either, not if they don't have a reason to, because of..."

Tyrion knew the word that went unsaid. Fleshsmiths. The term had become a net that had caught all the other horrors that were supposed to exist in the far south, but he refused to think of it, and steeled himself with the knowledge that whatever horrors had once existed in the south surely didn't exist anymore, not with the collapse of Gogossos by plague and the loss of whatever sorceries they had practiced there. Surely...?

Instead, he said another word.

"Trade."

"Aye, trade," Davos agreed quickly, Bronn busying himself by whistling a jaunty tune and paying no attention. "Not much to buy so far south."

Tyrion nodded in agreement, and said nothing more, not a single word till they rode back to the town and returned the horses to their owner with a few muttered words of how they were good steeds and that he might come back for them later if everything was well, and not another word as they walked into the town and through the town to the port, where men with carts were hurrying around the dock in the orange light of the ever lowering sun, starting the task of distributing purchases to all the ships in the port, one at a time, but even that did not bring Tyrion out of his weary state - he was tired, tired from a long day at sea and a longer one ashore, and wanted nothing more than a good cup of wine and a good night's rest without needing to be reminded of fleshsmiths or blood magic or anything else of the sort, a chance to simply relax for a little time once more...

...but what did rouse him from his weary state was the sight of none other than Lancel Lannister, escorted by a pair of men-at-arms in Lannister colors, none of them people who had come with him and who themselves were followed by two more men with a cart of goods.

"Tyrion!" his young cousin said, striding across the port and buried beneath a cloak meant to make him look older and bigger and more knightly than he really was. "We were waiting for you since you went into town."

"We were busy with a matter, now what is it, Lancel?" Tyrion asked, his voice lacking any of the japing nature it might have normally had, replaced by a hardness that could come only from exhaustion.

"I bring a letter from King's Landing, from your brother. Lord Tywin told us of your journey a while ago, and Ser Jaime and Queen Cersei thought you might need some aid," Lancel said with a gesture towards the cart of supplies before passing the intrigued dwarf the letter, still sealed with thick red wax in the shape of a lion's head. "We also bring some supplies from the capital for you, on your brother's request...warm clothes for the nights at sea, a few flagons of spiced wine, soap, and a few other things."

"You must have set out before we did to reach here so quickly," Tyrion sighed as he snapped the seal with his finger. "No doubt my lord father told King's Landing of our journey whilst we were still crossing to Casterly Rock."

"I don't know about that, but I know your sister was happy to send you the things you might need in the south, as Jaime did. She even sent a tether to fasten you to the ship in case of a storm," Lancel said with a smile.

"How nice of her," Tyrion muttered before glancing at the writing, and instantly knowing that it was Pycelle who had written it, not Jaime, and that meant that it was real - his brother could not stand writing, and had little ability at it, and so always dictated to a maester his words and had them write the letters instead, something that meant that his true feelings had always had to be masked, but that he hinted to them the best he might.

To Tyrion, my little brother, whom I hope this letter finds well,

My message will be short, as I have little time to write it; the king is going on a hunt again and would like myself and Ser Barristan to provide his escort, but I have given as much time to this as I could spare. How are you?

If father and the king had allowed it I would be there with you on the way south, since King's Landing is as quiet and boring as it always is, but they both say my duties are elsewhere - father says that I should stay at the capital to show a Lannister presence at court and Cersei wants me around because she's sick of the place and doesn't want to be on her own here, but we all miss you a great deal. Robert was so drunk the other day he cried when he didn't have you to drink with him to the point that Jon Arryn had to come deal with him, and Myrcella and Tommen are bored. Joffrey and Cersei are like usual, but she and I thought that you might want some things from the capital whilst you're away, so Lancel should have all that with him if he hasn't died on the way to you, though only the Crone knows what she's sent you.

You're going where no Lannister has ever gone before, and Grand Maester Pycelle tells me things about Sothoryos and Gogossos that make me wish I hadn't asked at all. Stay safe, brother.

Jaime.

Tyrion smiled, then, smiled in the way that only the message of a beloved brother could create, and then he turned towards Lancel, folding the letter and keeping it close. "Load all of it onto the ship. We'll have room for it somewhere."

"...I think something's moving in it," Bronn said as he leaned over the cart and plucked out a small wooden box with a dozen holes in it, and for a split second Tyrion saw a hateful eye staring back at him from within followed by an angry hiss.

"That's from Cersei," Lancel said. "She said you might need a companion."

"Bring it aboard," Tyrion said as he started towards the ship.

Bronn shrugged and carried it aboard, following the dwarf and the Seaworth captain, and when he was safely aboard he placed the crate upon the ground.

"I think its a cat," the sellsword said. "Not a happy one either."

"Would you be happy if you were trapped in a cage for how long?" Tyrion asked. "Let them out."

Bronn looked at Tyrion for a moment, then shrugged again and found the small latch upon he side of the box, undoing it before slowly raising the door...

...and sitting still for just a few seconds was the most wretched creature in all of King's Landing, that vicious black tomcat with the ripped ear and the scarred face that stalked the grounds of the Red Keep, a monster to serving girls and seasoned knights alike. It looked around, snarled, and before Bronn could pull his hand back it sank its teeth into the sellsword's hand...and it was only thick leather gloves that stopped the black demon from drawing blood. Bronn yanked backwards quick, and just as quick the cat fled below decks with a furious hiss.

"Oh good," Tyrion sighed. "At least now we have a ratter."

Tyrion stretched and yawned as the King Gerold sailed lazily through the still waters of the Dornish coast beneath a sky of pink and orange, making slow but steady progress towards their easterly direction through day and night, but despite that all around he saw the Lannisport-raised crew were anxious and uneasy, quieter and less jovial than they normally were and eager to gain a few more knots of speed and a quicker pace to hurry them towards their next port, and it was all due to the land in the distance, sandy and dry and with hard shores covered in jagged rocks and with the occasional hidden cove. Dorne. Westermen and Dornishmen had never had much feeling towards one another, being too far from one another to truly care about what the other was doing, though in the distant past there had sometimes been alliances of convenience between Lannister and Martell whenever the Reach became too aggressive and too powerful for either side...but that was a long time gone, now, and any man who was loyal to the Lannister lion made sure that his sword was sharp and at his side whenever he was near the Dornish lands, and the same went for his crew. Even without being ordered to, the scorpions were manned and ready for battle, and the crew always glanced northwards towards distant shores in search of war galleys or others who might think that a lone Lannister ship a tempting prize, and Tyrion was thankful for their vigilance.

His father's men had dashed the skull of the Targaryen prince and butchered the Targaryen princess and violated their mother, that everyone across the realm knew, and another thing that everyone across the realm knew was that the Dornish were always a vengeful sort, nearly as much as the Northmen who had nothing better to do but brood over past misdeeds when the snow was too thick and the outside too cold, and neither the laws of men or gods would stop them from claiming it; they had murdered King Daeron the Dragon beneath a banner of truce and did unspeakable things to Queen Rhaenys of which even the maesters refused to give a full account, and a full blooded Lannister like himself, even a dwarf, would receive a similar punishment for the acts of his kin...and for that reason and that reason alone, there was no plan for them to dock at any place on the Dornish shore or to lower their guard for even a moment. The Dornish were said to have destroyed all their ships and never rebuilt them after Nymeria's War, and King Daeron had written in his book that they had not rebuilt it since due to a lack of both need and ready stocks of timber, but who was to say for sure what the Dornish had done since the end of the rebellion, what weapons they might have kept in secret? What ships they might have hidden away in remote places, or what plans they might make?

For that uncertainty of their security, caution and alertness of the seas around them was a certainty of action, and one the crew did entirely of their own accord. But despite the air of concern and fear, Tyrion could not help but see the beauty of the seas around and that of the Dornish coast itself, all beneath the light of a sun that was retiring for the evening. He had never been so far south before, never, and the first week after they had left the Arbor for what would be one of the most important parts of their journey had been a time of surprises - the days were baking hot, incredibly so when the sun was at its highest point in the sky, and nothing in his wardrobe was thin enough to let the little breeze there was through to cool him down, so much so that most of the crew walked around barechested for most of the day, including Esgred of all people, but that great heat became a chilling cold at night and the constant flux between one or the other made it impossible to become used to either, and only that bitter black mog his sister had sent from King's Landing to be their ratter was comfortable in it...and a brief glance to his left, where the cat was perched on the forecastle and contentedly licking its paws before knocking the remains of its meal, a half-eaten mouse barely three weeks old, into the water.

"He's a clever one, isn't he?" Anguy asked, leaning on the ship's railing, glancing down to the waters below, his new shirt fastened around his waist like a belt. "He never goes for the big ones, only the babies."

"Keeping the mother around means he always has more mice to eat," Tyrion answered.

"He's the Gregor Clegane of cats," Anguy said with amusement. "Always in a bad mood and always going after the little ones first."

"Best not to say that whilst Sandor is closeby," Tyrion warned quietly.

"Why?" Anguy asked. "Is he and Gregor close?"

Tyrion couldn't help but laugh, then, to the Marcherman's surprise.

"The two are as close as Dorne is to the Wall," he said. "You've seen Sandor's burns, haven't you?"

"Who hasn't?" Anguy asked. "He got those during the Sack, didn't he?"

"Oh, you really don't know much about him, have you?"

"He doesn't talk much, and I don't hear much about him either," Anguy shrugged.

"The reason you don't hear much about him is because he doesn't want to be spoken about," Tyrion said dryly. "He doesn't care for glory or songs."

"Just gold?"

"Just killing," Tyrion corrected. "And there is no one he would want to kill more than his brother. He gave him those burns, held him down in a brazier till the flesh charred black."

The archer stared back at him then.

"Truly," Tyrion insisted. "Ask him yourself if you don't believe me."

"I don't think Sandor would -"

"Would what?" came the gruff voice of the Hound himself, Tyrion turning to see the Clegane towering a foot over the Marcherman and in all his armor, burying him beneath a dark shadow. "Spit it out."

"I think I best get below decks," Anguy said quickly, striding across the deck and stopping only to glance at the half-naked Ironborn woman manning the ship's tiller and keeping the course straight and true, only to hurriedly continue on his way below when Esgred took notice and glared at him.

"What did he want?" the Clegane asked, his voice as quiet as he ever lowered it, looking towards Dorne and ready for battle.

"He was merely curious about you, is all," Tyrion answered. "It doesn't seem they hear much about you in the Marches."

Sandor grumbled in answer, saying nothing and doing nothing more.

"Why is it that you so rarely speak to anyone, even on so long a voyage?" Tyrion asked...

...and when Sandor looked back at him with grey eyes as hard as iron, burnt flesh taut and hard with the strength of a clenched jaw and made all the darker by the contrast of the light on the unburnt side of his face, Tyrion thought that he might die then and there, crushed by the Clegane's brute strength or hurled overboard to drown.

"My apologies, the heat -"

"Damn the heat, and damn you, too," Sandor snapped, the Hound simmering with a barely contained anger. "What of it if I want to speak to no one?"

"I meant no offense," Tyrion said carefully and quickly, "I merely meant that you have barely said a word this entire voyage, and not once since we left the Arbor. I was concerned. Nothing more."

Sandor leaned in, then, the hideously disfigured man looking at him with a harsh gaze...and then he relented, rising back to his full height and looking towards the sea.

"I have nothing to talk about," came the Hound's reply, quiet. "And no desire to."

"Why?" Tyrion asked, damning himself for his curiosity. "Surely you must have something to talk about."

"Like what?" Sandor answered. "A stupid jape? The heat? Westeros? What matter is any of it?"

"A story, mayhaps," Tyrion reasoned. "To pass the time. This voyage still has many more weeks to go, and a few words won't hurt."

"Once there was a dwarf on a ship and he was thrown overboard for talking too much," Sandor murmured quietly before sighing. "Damn you, dwarf. What is you want from me?"

"A longer story, mayhaps?" Tyrion asked. "Or an explanation as to why you have been even angrier than you normally are since we left the Arbor, if such a thing was possible?"

For a moment, there was silence, the Hound leaning on the railing. Minutes passed without another word, and Tyrion became tempted to walk back to his cabin and rest for the time being or write another word for the journal that had been provided by his father to log their voyage in detail, to account for all their purchases, struggles and victories.

And then he spoke, his voice a whisper that Tyrion had never heard the Clegane speak before, everything about him weak and gentle.

"It would be her nameday today."

"Whose?" Tyrion asked. "You must have loved her, for her to trouble you so?"

"What do you know of love?" the Clegane snapped, whatever softness that was in him a moment before completely gone. "All you ever do is whore and drink, and care about none other than yourself. Even your own family despises you, dwarf. You could lose them all and not shed a tear."

"I know more than you might think," Tyrion answered deftly, anger filling him and making him bring forth words he would never speak, not even when drunk. "And damn you for thinking that I do not know what loss is! I have loved a woman and had her snatched away from me and told that everything I loved was a lie as I saw her given to a hundred other men as she sobbed and cried for my help!"

"...I..." Sandor said with a hesitant voice, his face covered in surprise and regret. "I am sorry. I did not know."

"Few do," Tyrion sighed, leaning onto the railing as he spoke with a voice no louder than Sandor's own. "Her name was Tysha. She was my wife. I loved her, and all it did was hurt us both."

When he said those words, it was though all the fury and all the anger in the towering Clegane was banished, if only for a time.

"She was my sister," Sandor said at last, his voice solemn and sad as he admitted his greatest failing.. "Her name was Sansa. I loved her."

"She must have been special," Tyrion spoke, making sure that no one else might hear.

"No," Clegane said softly. "She wasn't. She was little more than plain looking, and her hands were like mine, too big for sewing needles. But she tried, she always tried. She always wanted to be better, to be beautiful, to dance and sing like the girls in all the stories did. She made others want to be better, to be the best they could be. To try, like she did."

"But Gregor knew that he could hurt me if he hurt her," Clegane whispered. "And now she is gone."

Sandor turned to walk away, then, to head below decks once more, and Tyrion spoke. "Hound."

Clegane turned back, and Tyrion plucked out his handkerchief from his doublet's inside pocket, a thin thing of red cloth embroidered with a golden lion in its centre and his family words below.

"Here, you have...mist," Tyrion started, correcting himself before he could make a mistake. "On your burnt cheek."

"Ah, bugger you, dwarf," Sandor murmured as he took the cloth and wiped down his burnt cheek, passing it back as soon as he was done. "Standing next to the water and making me get wet."

"I am a Lannister," Tyrion said with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders. "It is my job to plot and make people suffer."

The Hound laughed then, a loud and booming thing, walking towards the steps that led below decks and into what little shelter they had from the sun's fury, passing a confused Ser Davos on the way.

"What was that about?" Davos asked with concern. "From what Anguy said, I expected to find you in the water."

"Oh, nothing," Tyrion smiled, refusing to divulge the Hound's secrets. "Just a lively talk and nothing more."

"Aye, well, if you're alive it couldn't have been too bad," Davos said understandingly, leaning on the railings as he faced the Lannister dwarf. "Have you made your decision, yet?"

"On what?" Tyrion asked, looking to the distance to see a small barge fishing in the waters at the very mouth of a river, throwing their nets far.

"On our course," Davos added. "Two choices. Do we go onto Volantis and then southwards past Valyria, keeping us within sight of the shore...though bringing us close to the Smoking Sea and the ruins of the Freehold, or straight on from Lys to Gogossos in a straight line. We can do it, we have the supplies we need and anything we don't we can get from the city, but it means sailing over open ocean. It'll be quicker, no doubt about it, and Summer Islanders make voyages of that length often, but it puts us at risk of storm."

"But if we are lucky, we won't have to deal with anything like that," Tyrion said with a smile. "And if there is one thing we have had so far, it is luck."

"Straight on, then?"

"Straight on," Tyrion confirmed with a nod. "I want us to get to Gogossos as quickly as we can. Once we have it we can take as long as we might need to return to Lannisport. My father won't care, so long as we have the sword."

"Then straight on it is," Davos nodded in understanding. "We'll need to take on more spares when we dock at Lys, though. Sails and timbers and the like. The last thing we need is a strong wind ripping our sails and leaving us marooned in the midst of the ocean."

"But that would be better than being beached on the ruins of Valyria, at least," Tyrion replied before laughing to himself. "Why is it that everywhere we might go is full of monsters?"

Ser Davos laughed. "At least Lys won't be so bad."

"You're right," Tyrion smiled. "It only has slavers, pirates and sisterloving Valyrians."

"Better than whatever creatures are in the jungles of Sothoryos or wandering around Valyria, at least," Davos reasoned. "You're a Lannister; you have enough gold to pay off a pirate or a slaver and they won't want to come after you anyway because they know what your father will do to them if he gets his hands on them."

"Ah, the joys of being a Lannister," Tyrion smiled again. "We have a fortress with a mountain that has never fallen and is atop the greatest gold mine in all Seven Kingdoms, and we have a realm so defensible none could ever take it from us."

"You're blessed," Davos said. "I can't imagine what I would do with the wealth you have."

"We are generous with it too, always rewarding those who serve well."

"Is that what happened to the Reynes?" Davos asked, Tyrion laughing as the Onion Knight continued. "But no, my loyalties are to Stannis. You'll have to find another onion knight."

"Even if we were to give you a big pile of gold?"

"Even if you were to give me a big pile of gold," Davos said with a smile as he started towards the aftcastle, where the two took their meals. "Now, I think it is almost dinner, my lord, and this heat makes me want a cup of Arbor gold."

"Thank the Seven for that knight, whatever his name was," Tyrion said eagerly as he followed. "He paid his debts."

"That he did, and he did it with good wine," Davos agreed as the two men entered the cool shade of their cabin, the table already set for the last and greatest meal of the day. Ser Davos took the flagon of Arbor gold that was sat squarely in in its midst, pouring out a cup to the both. "Here's to the King Gerold."

"May she win us another hundred bets," Tyrion said, raising his cup. "And see us to the south, of course."

"If there was anything worth drinking to, that is it," Davos smiled.

And the two men clanked their cups together in celebration of another day successfully conquered and a few dozen more miles travelled towards their southern destination, something worth celebrating if there ever was one.

Davos' boots clattered on the deck as he walked towards the ship's aft with a sword at his hip and a helmet upon his head, watching carefully as the King Gerold slowly sailed through the great archipelago of the Broken Arm of Dorne, the Stepstones, a pirate's forest full of secret strongholds and loot caches and shipyards, and what unease or anxiety there had been amongst the crew as they sailed past Dorne had been replaced entirely by quiet fear, with few words said in the King Gerold's holds and even fewer on the deck, every man afraid of being heard or spotted by the infamous, bloodthirsty corsairs that plagued every part of the Stepstones. Every man who knew how to fight was armed and armored, and Sandor Clegane kept them on the deck as a show of force, to show that they would not be easy prey...but even with that warning, they had made sure to douse any flames that could be seen from the distance, even Qyburn's reading lamp, not that it would make much difference in the growing brightness of the early morning.

But still, every effort was being made.

"How fast are we going?" spoke the Northern clansman, Artos, his hard face half hidden by nasal helm and coif, long axe in hand and hauberk over a wool padded body. "We are slower than yesterday."

"Aye, we are," Davos answered grimly as he stood at the ship's rearmost section, pulling in the rope that measured the ship's speed. "We are managing two knots, mayhaps three."

"Why?" came the clanner's voice, Artos having little experience with the sea or sailing.

"The islands are blocking the winds, and there isn't much wind here anyway, not much that isn't against us anyway," Davos sighed. "These are waters made for galleys, exactly why pirates use them, and we are a sailer. Anywhere on the open sea and we would leave a galley far behind, but they can move free of the winds and we cannot."

"And we have no wind," Artos said with an understanding nod.

"Exactly so," Davos explained, wrapping the knotted rope around the aft rail. "If they find us here, it won't be to our liking."

"How come?"

"The smallest war galley carries twice our crew," came the voice of Esgred, the ironborn woman as armed and armored as any of the men, her axe fastened to her side and her great round shield leaning against the railing, looking out towards the horizon with an eyeglass. "Many of those will be galley slaves chained to their oars, but most of the rest will be fighters to keep the rest from revolting, so if we end up being boarded it will be two to one, maybe more, and the bigger the war galley gets the more men they have to bring over."

"That is true, but most pirates are not the bloodthirsty madmen most make them out to be," Davos reasoned. "They will run if they take enough losses and few of them are bold enough to try and fight a member of the Lannister household guard in full plate."

"True," Esgred agreed. "Our only problem is if we are hit by two pirate galleys at the same time. Even the best fighter would be overwhelmed then."

"Like a bear against a pack of dogs," Artos said with quiet understanding. "A bear can kill any dog with ease, but the more and more dogs that are there the harder it becomes."

"And the same thing counts for boarding," Davos explained. "We have some of the best fighters the Westerlands has, aye, some of the best that all of Westeros has even, but they can only fight so many men at once before they get overwhelmed and end up with a knife in the back. The same thing goes for ships too, as even the strongest ships on the sea can be sank by a dozen smaller -"

"...hells," Esgred cursed with a quiet voice as she gazed towards the ship's aft, peering through the eyeglass before lowering it, fear on her face for the first time.

"What do you see, Esgred?" Davos asked. "Is there something out there?"

"A pirate war galley, " Esgred said, handing Davos the eyeglass so that he might see for himself. "It looks like the Silence, Euron Greyjoy's own war galley."

Davos raised the glass to his right eye, covering his left with his palm and just as she had said, he saw a war galley of two decks and built for speed, trading the great fighting platforms of the forecastle of a normal warship for a smaller one in return for a sleeker body better able to cut through the ocean's waters, its sail a field of black cloth broken only by a great golden kraken and its hull the same dark red shade of crimson as freshly spilled blood...and it was travelling towards them at a furious pace, row after row of its countless oars closing the distance foot by foot and yard by yard, pushing the ship forward at a speed faster than the winds could propel the King Gerold, but no war galley, not even that of the cruelest pirate, would force their crew to row at such a speed if there was a reason not to, and that meant only one thing.

"He's coming straight for us," Davos said quietly before stepping towards the railing and shouting his commands. "Make ready for battle, boys! Man the scorpions!"

Immediately the door to the cabin he shared with Tyrion Lannister snapped open, and the dwarf, lightly armored in a small mail hauberk, hurried onto the deck and up the stairs to the aftcastle as quickly as his little legs could carry him. "Battle? Can we not outrun whoever it is?"

"Not in this weather," Davos said quickly before turning towards Esgred, the only one amongst the crew who seemed to know who the pirate ship was. "What do you known of the Silence and Euron Greyjoy?"

"Too much," Esgred said grimly, raising her shield and pressing it against the rails as she slid her left arm into the straps and fastened them tight. "If he takes the ship, he'll kill the lot of us. If we're lucky."

"...and if we aren't?" Tyrion asked with a clear concern.

"He'll cut our tongues out and sell the lot of us," Esgred answered flatly, hiding her black hair beneath a thick steel helm made in the Ironborn fashion, a grey thing with a length of chain that reached down to her shoulders and with a set of cheek guards and a noseguard that joined together with thick pieces of hard steel over the cheekbones, encircling the eyes with metal and masking all signs of her womanhood. "The unlucky ones will be tortured for fun, or drowned or burnt or anything else he might think of doing. Euron is mad and has always been mad, no one knows what he might plan for us if we fall into his hands."

"And he'll do it if we surrender?"

"He'll do worse because we surrendered."

"And if we can't outrun him...then we will have to fight," Davos said at last, glancing towards the distant ship for a moment before turning his attentions to the man at the tiller. "Bring us about, tillerman."

"...you don't mean to try and fight, do you?" Tyrion asked with stunned surprise.

"We'll have better wind," Esgred said swiftly. "Better to try and fight him than get rode down whilst trying to flee."

"Aye," Davos answered. "Might be that we can loop around him and flee that way, but more likely than not we will have to try and make a stand."

"Well...you are the two with the experience," Tyrion submitted. "You have command. If we are to fight, we fight."

"Then I say that we need to be aggressive," Esgred said. "It's easy for a man to be brave when he is chasing down a fleeing merchantmen, less so when it is willing to fight back. Euron is no fool. He'll withdraw if he thinks the enemy is too strong."

"Then I say that we stay at full sail and let what little wind we can catch push us towards them," Davos said quickly. "If we go towards them, they might think we're a pirate hunter, and more heavily armed than they thought."

"Now you're starting to think like an Ironborn captain," Esgred laughed beneath her armor as the ship swept around on its turn towards the Silence, little by little. "If we fire our scorpions as we pass, we might well make him think he has found a harder foe than he thought."

"Agreed," Davos nodded. "But they won't do much damage against a ship that size."

"They don't need to," Tyrion said. "The thought that we have more weapons should be enough."

"I hope so," Davos murmured quietly. "We don't stand much of a chance in a straight fight should they get too close."

The three looked at one another then grimly, knowing that this was the one and only chance that they had to survive, to see their way to Gogossos and back to home in one piece, and that to try and run would simply delay the inevitable, perhaps even make things worse should the weather turn against them even more than it already was...but like this, by turning against them now, they had a chance to fight the enemy by their own terms rather than on his, and even Davos knew that was a great advantage, the very same advantage that had made Lord Stannis's victory over the Ironborn at Fair Isle so shattering, denying the Ironborn longships their famous agility and sailing ability by trapping them between land on their east and west and between ships on the north and south, a hammer and an anvil on which to smash the ironmen, and it had worked. But for now, they could only prepare for battle, and everywhere Davos looked the men were readying themselves; Anguy stumbled up the stairs with a small barrel of what was surely a hundred arrows, placing it down on the most fortified part of the aft castle before testing the string of his longbow with a slight tug and sliding on a sort of leathery fingerguard onto his right hand, something that Davos had only seen the very best archers use, and on the main deck men-at-arms hurried into place with hand cranked crossbows, a weapon that any man could use after just a few days of training and with which any household guardsmen of the Westerlands would be expected to be more than familiar, bringing a crateful of quarrels onto the deck with them, and the Northman hurried down below decks and emerged again with a simple hunting bow and a quiver at his hip, unfazed by the weight of carrying so many weapons. Even Bronn had a shortbow from the ship's well stocked armory, a powerful little thing and a quiver full of deadly steel broadheads, leaving only Sandor Clegane without a weapon to throw, but with a full scorpion to command. More shields were brought up from below decks, to further barricade the sides of the ship from fire, and a fearful crewman brought up a pair, a small round thing for Tyrion and a full heater shield for Davos, its oaken surface painted with the Lannister crest rather than his own.

He took it, fastening it upon his arm as best and as quickly as he could, and as he did he heard the first sounds of battle, just as he had at Fair Isle - the thwash of water splashing against the hull of a charging war galley, only this time without the pounding rhythm of the war drums, the Silence coming towards them without a noise but for the movement of the ocean, closer, closer, close enough that he could see men upon the deck, a mix of men from all across the known world, Ironmen and Summer Islanders and Westerosi and Dornishmen and every other kind of man that he knew of, even the hairy Ibbenese, all ready for battle and all snarling with tongueless mouths and tattooed bodies, looking more like a horde of demons out of the deepest and darkest part of the Seven Hells than a crew of sailors.

"Fire!" shouted the Clegane, and in an instant came the loud thwang of the ship's scorpions, their bolts whistling through the air, one landing with a splash a few feet from the Silence's starboard side, the other striking on the bow, shattering on impact.

"I'll kill any man who misses at this range!" Sandor shouted as the men hurried to reload, the tillermen pushing the ship's turn as tight as he could, bringing them alongside in a maneuver that would give them a clear view of the Silence's middle, a chance to strike. "Ready!"

"And now things get bloody," Esgred said flatly, Anguy quickly notching an arrow with deft, perfect movements. "Best of luck, onion knight."

"Aye," Davos said. "You too."

Then the two ships passed one another by, separated by four hundred feet of clear blue water, and Davos dropped to a knee and huddled behind his shield as the hells came to the surface, the scorpions that were mounted upon the Silence's middle returning a volley with the same thwang as the King Gerold's own, and a second later he heard a split second's scream from his side and looked to see the tillerman tumbling over the railing, a scorpion bolt through his middle, and a second later came the volleying twangs of an exchange of archer and crossbow fire, arrows thumping all around as they struck the deck and buried themselves in the ship's wooden hull and the shrill sound of the dying cries of men who had no tongues.

In all this chaos, in all this bloodshed, Davos did the only thing that he could think to do. He prayed.

"Warrior above, grant strength to our arms and to our shields," he uttered as quickly as he could with a hushed voice, feeling the kick against his arm of an arrow striking his shield as he recited the words he had heard the ship's septon say at Fair Isle, all those years before. "Make our bows strike true and hard and put courage in our hearts so that we might carry the -."

"Shut your damned mouth and fight already!" Esgred shouted furiously as she picked up her axe and threw it, Davos emerging an inch from the cover of his shield to see the weapon careen through the air and strike a bulky Summer Islander in the midst of his face, the tall warrior crumpling to the Silence's bloody deck as his goldenheart bow fell into the waters of the Narrow Sea, bobbing in the waves. "Someone needs to steer this damned ship before they throw a grapnel!"

"Aye!" Davos said loudly over the noise of battle, scrambling with a half crouched run towards the tiller, never once lowering the shield for even an instant as he grabbed hold of the thick wooden lever with a mailed hand and pushed as hard as he could to the left, the ship swerving towards the right almost instantly.

He looked round, searching for any sign of the little Lannister whose father they all served, only to see Anguy rising and falling to and from the arrows in a cycle of deadly fire, aiming but for a second each time and sending another man plummeting into the waters or down onto the Silence's crimson deck, trembling and clutching at the broadhead arrows buried in their bodies. For all the chaos and fury that had raged just a few moments before, for all the slaughter that had waned for but a moment as the length of the King Gerold's body passed behind the Silence's aft and out of view of most of their crew but for a dozen men on the war galley's squat aft castle, trading arrows with the Lannister men-at-arms in a volley that saw more of them falling than not, the King Gerold's men-at-arms were almost unscathed; their plate armor, the best that the smiths of Lannisport could forge, was dinged with dents and the bare color of the metal beneath showed through long scrape marks in the scarlet paint, but it had weathered the fight and protected the men well, with only three men having had their armor pierced by their opponents bows and only one of them having been wounded by it and forced to retreat below decks for the maester's tending, the other two plucking the arrows out of the thick arming gambesons beneath and throwing them to the deck, whilst the quality of their skill at shooting and their the strong construction of their weaponry had proven its worth, triumphing over the quantity of the Silence's fire, and it felt that almost every time the men of the pirate war galley fired a volley of five arrows, the crew of the King Gerold replied with three and killed one.

And for a moment, Davos smiled. He had been a smuggler first and a fighter second, that was true, but he knew when a fight was more equal than not and when it was threatening to fall onto their side, and he could tell that this was a battle that they might well win.

"We should come about," Davos said quickly to Esgred, the Ironborn woman looking at him for a moment before drawing her sword and cutting off the arrows buried in her round shield. "If we can damage her sails, than they won't have a chance to catch us, not when the oarsmen are tired after rowing all that way."

"Then do it," Tyrion said, revealing himself safely in the wooden corner of the aft castle's wooden fortifications, sat squarely on the ground to make himself so low that he couldn't be hit by pirate arrows.

"Focus on their sails if you can!" Davos shouted to Sandor as the second scorpion fired another bolt that lodged in the Silence's hull, utterly ineffective. "They're easier to damage than the hull!"

"I haven't seen their captain," Anguy said quickly, raising another arrow as he picked off one of the few men who could fit on the Silence's aft castle, a Dornishman who collapsed onto their railings with an arrow in the eye, limp, bending over to take up another arrow as he pulled back the strong on the leather tab that covered his right hand. "I wanted to shoot him down."

"He's not stupid enough to step out his cabin when he's losing so many men to arrow fire," Esgred said quickly as the Marcherman let go of the string with a twang and sent another man screaming into the hells. "No one is."

"Shame," Anguy sighed, Davos looking over to see that the archers on the aft castle had fled rather than risk certain death by their fire. "The rest aren't fighting anymore. Too smart."

There was the thwang of another scorpion bolt, this one smashing through the shutters of the captain's cabin, placed beneath the aft castle just as it was on the King Gerold, and the sail ship circled around again, closer than before, some two hundred feet apart rather than four hundred, and that was closer than close range, melee distance for the archer of any warship...

...and when the King Gerold looped around again, it showed. Arrows rained down onto the Lannister ship as seemingly ever man aboard, ripping holes through the sails and striking the deck and lodging in it, hammering into shields and armored men and shooting down a few brave sailors who had taken up arms to help protect their ship and home from attack, one plummeting from the top of the mast with a loud wail and striking the ground with the sickening crunch of shattering bones, twitching for a moment before falling still and silent, but for every wound that was taken five men were killed on the Silence, and for every man that was lost another twenty went with him. Then Davos saw it, a grappling hook, careening through the air, falling a few feet short of the ship as a second clanked onto the forecastle and clanked onto the top most part of the railings, only for Sandor Clegane to quickly slash the rope through with a single strike of his blade and send it tumbling back into the sea.

"We cannot take much of this," he shouted, cowering behind his shield for protection and feeling and hearing the strike of another arrow against its surface, punching deep into its surface with a horrid thunk. "We need to stop them on the next pass!"

"I have an idea!" Tyrion shouted, rushing down the steps and onto the main deck, one of the man-at-arms falling back with his shield to protect the dwarf from harm as he scrambled below decks. "Keep firing!"

Davos swung back to the tiller, grabbing hold for another pass, then an arrow was fired and his shoulder exploded with a deep and stinging pain and the stench of blood flowed even stronger thorugh the air than it had before, and he knew in an instant and without looking that he had been hit, but he forced himself through it, forwards, onwards to the tiller, leaning on it with all of his strength and all of his bodyweight to force the rudder as far to the left side as it could it go, and the ship responded by turning towards the starboard side, riding the waves and with what little wind there was as it looped around the Silence once more in a deadly trade of arrows and quarrels, and this time one of the men-at-arms crashed to the ground and rolled off the deck with an arrow through the visor, dragged beneath by the weight of his steel. They were being whittled down, little by little and arrow by arrow, their constant movements delaying what felt to be inevitable, whilst the Silence's mad crew seemingly ignored their dead and pushed onwards, more men coming from below decks to replace those lost above and brought down by Lannister bows, and the massive holds of the pirate war galley surely held far more arrows and bolts than those of the King Gerold, as evidenced by the brigands shooting the moment the arrow was notched and without even bothering to aim whatsoever, the weight of fire a thousand times more important than its accuracy, but by the King Gerold's turn the crew got the briefest reprieve they could, out of the field of view of the main bulk of the Silence's own men, a chance to breathe and reload. On the deck appeared Tyrion again, running towards the forecastle and the Clegane with a hastily armored sailor behind, carrying a thick wooden cask in his hands whilst the dwarf ran with a brightly burning torch and a sheet of deep red sailcloth, the two men using the towering Hound, his shield and the wooden battlements for cover as they tore the lid from the top of the cask and ripped the cloth into rags and submerged them in the liquid and raised them out again dripping with...

...lamp oil?

"Put this on the bolts!" the Lannister shouted to the Clegane, the Hound staring at the flame closeby. "It is our best chance to do some damage!"

"Bugger you, dwarf! Do it yourself!" the Hound snarled, refusing to touch anything that the flame might take to or the torch.

"If we don't, we all die!" Tyrion snapped in reply, a rare furor in his voice.

In response, the Hound growled wordlessly, throwing his sword onto the scorpion as he picked the bolt up and held it down for the dwarf to reach, Tyrion wrapping the barbed tip in oily cloth, hands slick and shining with olive oil, and then the scorpion bolt was placed on the weapon once more and its tip lit by torch, the cloth setting ablaze instantly and burning furiously.

"Fire!" the Clegane shouted, stepping away from the blaze, and with a strike of a hammer to release the mechanism the burning bolt screamed through the air, a trail of black smoke, right as the King Gerold came around to the galley's side once more...

...and by the grace of the Seven who were One, by the will of the Warrior, his eyes saw a miracle as the bolt went through an opening in the ship's side, an opening made for an oar...and a heartbeat later, he heard the screams of men unable to escape from their chained oars as the fire took root in the wooden warship's heart, thick plumes of black smoke pouring out through the oar-holes. Men rushed from the fighting deck of the Silence to help their comrades below, only to be shot down as they did and only for another burning bolt to be sent forth, this time missing the ship completely and striking the waters past, burning out with a hiss of steam. Panic started to spread across the Silence's deck, some men leaping overboard and trying to swim towards the nearest island, some being swept under by the currents, but from the captain's cabin of the silence emerged a man in black armor and with a thick cloak of black and gold fastened by kraken shaped clasps, with a great round shield like that of Esgred's own and a sword that gleamed in the air from its sharpness: Euron Greyjoy himself.

"It seems I need a new ship," the Greyjoy shouted with a laughing voice, raising his shield to block Anguy's arrows. "A good thing yours is so close!"

"If you worship the Drowned God, then we'll send you to him," the Northman shouted back.

The answer came in the form of a boarding grapnel. Artos threw it overboard, but a dozen more followed a second later, and then a dozen more after that, and the decks groaned and the sails fluttered as the Silence's crew tugged and pulled, pulling the King Gerold towards the larger galley for boarding.

"Cut those bloody ropes!" Sandor shouted, but whilst much of the Silence's crew brought the two ships together, the remainder shot their arrows against a ship that could not escape, keeping the men busy with simply protecting themselves from the wooden rain, unable to do as the Hound commanded...

...and to the Seaworth's horror, he heard the familiar sound of two hulls clattering together, and the sound of a ramp falling onto the deck, then another, then another.

"Charge, you cowards!" shouted Sandor as he rushed forward with steel drawn, hacking down the first man to come onto the King Gerold's deck.

"For the Rock!" came the battle cry of the Lannister men, charging onto the Silence and turning the attacker into the defender, the boarder into the boarded. "For Lord Tywin!"

"Seven hells," Davos murmured, clutching at the throbbing wound in his arm, Esgred as stunned by the pure aggression as he. "They're brave."

"They are," Esgred agreed.

Then she charged down the steps and stormed the Silence alongside all the others, one of the men-at-arms, Tommen his name if Davos could remember right, trying to fight Euron in single combat only to be sent tumbling towards the edge of the ship's railing with a shove of his shield, kept from falling off only by the Ironborn woman pushing him forward as she came aboard, and Sandor Clegane met the Greyjoy man against man, fighting with such unrelenting aggression that even the notorious pirate was seemingly taken back by his fury for a moment before the air filled with the clanging of steel on steel, the two black armored warriors locked in single combat. But whilst they busied themselves with man against man, Davos looked to the others, and saw a massacre before his eyes, for even the most bloodthirsty and battle hardened pirate was no match for Casterly Rock's finest swords, men covered from head to heel in plate and trained by veteran warriors, and in the bloody fighting that was on the Silence's deck, each and every one of them was the equal to a knight, cutting their way through the mobs of more lightly armed and armored pirate-sailors with little difficulty, with only the Greyjoy's own soldiers, his own pirates in armor, posing any real difficulty...and more often than not, the sellsword Bronn dealt with those, moving through the melee with the agility of a shadowcat and stabbing men in their knees and backs or slitting throats from behind in a deadly combination with the Northern clansman Artos, whose great bulk made him a large target easy for one to become too focused on, or they were shot down by Anguy, having not moved an inch from the King Gerold's aftcastle and having emptied half the barrel he brought up with him...and all that meant that the Lannister men were going through their opposition like a scythe going through wheat, the bodies of tongueless men piling up on the deck like fallen leaves.

"You're a burnt man, Hound," came Euron's voice as the Greyjoy pressed the attack, beating the Clegane back across the deck, towards the railing, barely heard on the King Gerold. "You fear flames, even if you'll be going to a place full of them, and I will be the one to send you there."

Then the Greyjoy laughed, smashing his sword off of a barely burning oil lamp outside the door of his own cabin, the oil coating the blade and bursting into flames and making Sandor retreat backwards more and more with every strike, till the Clegane had nowhere else to run, his back pressed against the railings, and Euron raised his blade for a killing blow, bringing it down only for Sandor to meet it with his own steel in a final stand, brilliant orange flames caressing the black steel of his hounskull visor.

"Bronn! " Davos shouted as loud as he could, leaning against the railing to rest his wounded arm, the sellsword's attention snapping to him and the Seaworth looking towards the straining Clegane, and Bronn nodded quickly in understand and sidestepped his way through the melee, through the last of the Silence's crew.

And when he reached Euron, he did what he had done to every other of the men he had made his way behind, stabbing his left and right heels and making the armored warrior crumble to his knees with an awful cry of pain and a thump, and Sandor roared then, like an animal in its fury, and slammed an armored fist of utter hatred into the Greyjoy's helm with a bang of a hammer striking an anvil, a blow that sent him reeling onto the deck, crawling to escape as an armored boot came down on his back, Clegane stepping over and bringing his sword around for the finishing blow...and with the battle so clearly decided, with victory so near, the last of the pirates began to flee, leaping overboards to take their chances with the waters rather than to risk certain death by Lannister steel, and a cheer went up as the last bodies fell against the deck, the cry of triumphant men raising their swords high echoing through the air and across the seas, and Davos descended the steps of the aft castle with a smile, making his way to the ramp, Tyrion crossing over to the other ship, stopping Sandor from finishing the wounded Greyjoy with an open hand.

"Leave him a moment," Tyrion said quickly as he moved over to the wounded Greyjoy, crouching down and rolling him onto his front. "If anyone might know where other pirates are, he -

"Euron doesn't reave with others," Esgred said harshly, looking down on him with angry eyes. "He does it by himself. He's only ever cared about himself."

"Why...is that my sweet little niece that I hear behind that helm?" Euron laughed, pushing himself up against the wall. "You wouldn't let your uncle die, would you?"

"You're no uncle of mine," she snapped.

"Oh, but I think you are," Euron said, smiling warmly. "Asha Greyjoy, daughter of my brother Balon."

All eyes turned towards Esgred, then, everyone's, even those of Sandor and all the men who had fought at her side.

"What? Do you mean these Lannister men don't know?" Euron said with a loud laugh, taking off his helm and throwing it overboard, revealing a handsome face with dark hair and dark blue eyes and an eyepatch over his left eye. "Go on, make her take off that helmet of hers. We've got the family looks, after all."

Esgred growled, then, angry...and she took off her helm, and the resemblance between the two was clear. Black hair, blue eyes, a hard but pretty face, even her movements carried the language of a Greyjoy now that Davos thought to see them. There was no doubt about it, now. She was not Esgred, not some common lowborn Ironborn warrior woman, she was Asha Greyjoy, daughter of the Lord Reaper of Pyke himself and as high of birth as Tyrion Lannister.

"How does it feel to know that you're all fighting alongside the daughter of the man who burnt your fleet?"

"That was your plan, Euron," Asha snapped angrily. "And all it brought the isles was fire and death."

"Actually, you would find that it was your father's plan. He simply asked me to find the best way to do it, and what is a younger brother to do but do as his elder commanded?" Euron said with a smile.

"You've never obeyed a man other than yourself and your own damned desires.

"Oh, but I've obeyed many men; your grandfather, your father, your uncle Victarion, the king. And you are quite right, everything we did then brought fire and death, and I got rather tired of that, so I decided to strike out on my own for a change, sweetling," Euron said, his words obviously crafted to inflame his niece's temper. "Still, I hadn't expected you to come hunting for me. What did you promise them to get such a ship and such good swords, Asha? Did you bend over for the old lion?"

There was a crack of a mailed fist striking flesh, and Euron spat out blood, thick and red.

"How nice of you to speak to the only one who can spare you the sword," Asha said with a voice dripping with sarcasm, flexing her fingers. "I hadn't planned on fighting you during this voyage, but Victarion will be happy to know I did."

"Then if I am to die, what trouble is there in telling me what you are doing?" Euron reasoned, looking towards the dwarf. "You're Tyrion Lannister. You know as well as I that my skills could be of some assistance. More men owe me favors than you have had hot meals. Or whores."

Asha raised her axe to strike the killing blow, but Tyrion stepped forward, and she stayed her hand.

"What do you know about the south?"

"Westeros?" Euron asked. "Or further south...? Dorne...? The Summer Islands...?"

Then the Greyjoy smiled.

"No, you want Sothoryos..." Euron laughed. "You are either incredibly brave or mad. But might be that I do know a bit about Sothoryos."

"How?" Asha demanded. "How could you possibly know a thing about Sothoryos?"

"Because I have been there, niece," Euron said, taking a softer tone towards his niece than he had before, trying to find a softer side of her. "Take a look in my cabin if you do not believe me. Left table. You'll find a little cage, and inside my very own dragon."

"A...dragon?" Tyrion asked with surprise. "Dragons have been dead for centuries."

"Not everywhere, and not their kin," Euron answered, smiling. "Go on."

And so Tyrion went. The dwarf opened the cabin's door, stepped into a place that Davos could not see, and emerged with a small iron cage...

...and inside was a dragon, a tiny beast no bigger than a hawk, earthy brown in color and with a scaled belly as dark as good soil. It hissed at the movement, angry at the sudden disturbance of its rest, wings flapping against the iron, and then it stopped, looking around curiously in the daylight. Euron took the cage from the dwarf, flicked open the door and reached in, the small reptile leaping onto his wrist as he pulled it out, the Ironborn raider showing the creature to them all freely, the animal clearly scared of being close to the Greyjoy and yet even more afraid of moving away.

"...is this not proof enough?" the blue lipped Greyjoy asked, smiling. "A brown bellied wyvern, from Wyvern Point and nowhere else in the world. I thought to collect a few to sell to the Volantenes, for they do love them as pets, but I only managed to catch the one. Could be that I could guide you there, too. For a price."

"A price?" Tyrion asked. "You are the one surrounded by Lannister swords."

"True, but I would be of little use to you with my heels slashed...but a maester, which you surely have on your ship, could tend to that good enough," Euron said. "And mayhaps to drop me off in port on your way back."

Tyrion seemed to consider it, then, and turned towards Asha. "Why was Euron banished from the islands?"

"Banished?" Euron said quickly, clearly caught by surprise by the dwarf's words. "That never -"

"He raped my uncle Victarion's wife," Asha said flatly. "He is a cruel manipulator, and would play men against one another so that they might be weak enough for him to best on his own. Mayhaps he even killed his own father for not fighting in the king's rebellion, too."

"That's a lie, and you know it," Euron said quickly. "I was forced out because my plan to best the Westerlands failed, even if I told them all that it would never work."

Tyrion reached out with an open palm...and the tiny wyvern leapt onto his hand, happily away from the wounded Greyjoy. "And yet you are here, with a ship full of tongueless men, and would have slaughtered us all if we hadn't won. Even if she is Asha and not Esgred, she has not lied to me once on this journey."

"She lied to you about who she was!" Euron shouted. "Everything you knew about her -"

"Was true," Tyrion said. "She hid her name and her birth, but everything she said was true. Mayhaps we wouldn't have even won this battle without her aid."

Then the dwarf walked into the captain's cabin.

"Do whatever you will with him."

"Oh, gladly," Asha smiled. "But first...I need to get something as proof."

"Asha, niece," Euron said softly as Asha walked towards him. "You wouldn't hurt your uncle, would you? Remember how I threw you in the air when you were little? We've never been enemies -"

"If this was the otherway around, I could be a pregnant woman and you would still hack me down and laugh all the while," Asha said flatly. "If Victarion was here, he would give you what you deserve."

She flipped his eyepatch up, then, revealing a black gemstone in the place of the missing eye, and Asha plucked it out, tossing it upwards in the air before catching it with an open palm, glancing for a moment at the onyx gemstone before closing her hand around it tight.

"We've never been enemies," she said softly. "So I'll spare you. A good captain goes down with his ship, and this ship will sink when the fire burns through the hull, and with crippled legs and armor, you'll drown."

"Asha, please -"

"At least have the dignity to die like a Greyjoy, uncle," Asha spat harshly, before marching back onto the King Gerold, a weight seemingly off her shoulders as she went below decks...and after a moment, Sandor went as well, laughing at the crippled Euron as he did, and all but a few of the men-at-arms followed.

"Davos! Over here!" shouted Tyrion. "I found something."

"On my way," Davos answered, clutching at the arrow as he did, walking over the ramp and onto the blood stained decks of the Silence, past a grimly silent Euron and into the pirate captain's cabin...

...a place more lavishly decorated than that of the one on the King Gerold, filled with the trophies of an adventure around the known world - Davos could not place all of the items he saw there, all of the different relics and figures, but he saw things from all around Westeros and beyond; a powerful crossbow that was a masterpiece of Myrish engineering, swords of Tyroshi steel, clothes made from Lorathi cloth and Naathi silk, a bow of the Summer Islander fashion carved from goldenheart, the deadly thin blades of a Braavosi water dancer, a shaggy Ibbenese shield...and what was a thousand religious relics, all from gods that Davos could not recognize but that of the Faith, a small seven sided glass prism on a necklace of beads, placed far from the light so that it might not make the rainbow of light that was the true symbol of the Faith.

He reached out with his good arm and a hand dirtied with blood, taking it, and slipped it into a pocket before finally coming over to the dwarf, Tyrion stood before a table covered in maps of lands that Davos knew and some that he did not, besides which was a chunky wooden box in the corner and beneath which was a barred chest.

"Do you think these might be of any use, Ser Davos?" Tyrion asked with the wyvern perched on his shoulder, looking towards Ser Davos with eyes that went wide as he saw the arrow stuck in his arm. "You're wounded."

"It is not so bad as it looks," Davos answered. "But I'll see the maester when I can."

"See the maester when we get back on the ship, and no later," the dwarf said, looking back to the maps, the wyvern following his eyes. "I won't have my captain dying from a wound gone bad."

"Of course, my lord," Davos said, adding the title as a courtesy that the dwarf would rarely receive. "These maps could be useful. If he has been to Sothoryos, then he might have marked off reefs and other such things we will need to avoid."

"If?" Tyrion asked with a mild surprise. "You see the wyvern on my shoulder."

"Look at the rest of the room," Davos reasoned. "It might be that he looted the wyvern from any of the other ships he raided before trying to do the same to us."

"Certainly a possibility," Tyrion nodded. "Tommen!"

"My lord?" answered one of the Lannister red cloaks, stood in the doorway.

"Take these maps back to the ship," Tyrion said, and instantly the man-at-arms obeyed, taking the maps under his arm and marching back to the King Gerold, whilst Tyrion turned his attentions to the rest of the room. "...if there is gold here, we might be able to make good use of it."

"The chest beneath the table is like ours, if there was anywhere that he might keep gold, it would be there," Davos said, tapping his boot against the reinforced chest.

"And yet there doesn't seem to be a key," Tyrion sighed.

"No key, aye, but we have Artos."

Tyrion looked at him for a moment...and then he smiled.

"Artos! We have need of your axe!"

"Eh?" the tall clansman asked as he stepped inside the door. "Is this what your cabin is like?"

"No, thankfully," the dwarf said. "Would you mind opening this chest for us?"

The clansman walked past the two, pulling the chest out from beneath the table before trying to push the lid open...and without a moment's hesitation, he took the smaller hatchet from his belt and started hacking away at the lid, smashing his way through till there was an opening big enough for Tyrion's fist to go through.

And just as expected, Tyrion reached through and pulled out a handful of gold dragons.

"Spoils for the men, I think, and some to replace what we have spent," Tyrion said, smiling. "I will need you to take it back to the ship in a moment, but first the other one too."

The clansmen walked over to the box on the table, trying to push the lid open only for the lock to groan in answer, and like before, the clansmen used his axe, striking the locking mechanisms sides once, then twice, then thrice, then for a forth time, then he simply pulled the lock out and flipped the lid...and inside, there was a -

"It's a stone," the clansmen said flatly with his thickly accented and deep voice.

"No," Tyrion said with a stunned silence as he and Davos closed in. "Take the chest back to the ship."


"Alright," the clansmen said in understanding, dragging the chest across the floor by the hole, its bars whining loudly as they grated across the floor.

"Is that a...?" Davos asked with amazement, reaching out to touch the cool surface of the large round ovoid, feeling the tiny imperfections in the scales of blue and green, each glittering in the light that came through the pierced shutters as though it was encrusted with a thousand tiny emeralds and sapphires.

"It is," Tyrion said quietly. "My father will want that near as much as the sword. Bring it, and tell no one."

"I won't," Davos said quietly, pressing the lid shut again and carefully picking it up, the dragon egg much lighter than he had thought it might weigh, not a solid stone all the way through, and he walked out with it as though it were nothing more than a wooden case meant to protect the captain's journal, hiding it from Euron as he marched back onto the King Gerold with Tyrion not far behind, and only once he set it down on the table of their shared cabin did he let it out of his sight and head below decks to the former maester, hearing the snapping sounds of cutting ropes and feeling the King Gerold getting underway again...

...and as Qyburn dealt with the wound, he wondered whether or not he would need to ask Tyrion to invite the Greyjoy woman to their next dinner, since he was certain that they would have much to talk about.

Chapter Text

Tyrion smiled as he felt the familiar pulse of the King Gerold riding the waves beneath her hull, the wind fluttering in their proud sails as the scarlet light of the setting sun shone through the cloth, flooding the air with the shade of Lannister red as the men sang and ate and drank, drunk on the sweet wine of victory. Against the odds the King Gerold had not only managed to avoid defeat at the hands of a foe with superior numbers and who had the advantage of such speed as to decide how the battle was to be fought, but had defeated them and left the Silence a burning wreck, its captain surely going to the depths with it. It was a victory, and though they had taken losses, friends who had been buried with the greatest honors they could give them so far away from home, everyone knew that their victory had surely gone as well as it could.

"Now the rains weep o'er his hull," sang the men-at-arms as he descended down the steps from the forecastle. "And not a soul to hear."

There was a roar of laughter, then, and he grinned as he strode across the deck, the men raising their cups to him as he passed, looking to him not as their lord or captain, but as the who gave them victory. He had never been in battle before their duel against the Silence, never even dreamed of the chance of winning glory for himself, and yet now...now he knew why their king loved it so. It was his idea that had won them the day by setting the Silence's lower decks ablaze, and they knew it, and their gratitude and respect made him feel as tall and strong as his brother Jaime. It was a sight and feeling sweeter than any wine, and something that had made their triumph all the greater, and even that demonic black cat his sister had sent them seemed to be in a good mood for a change, happily licking its paws, enough that Anguy dared to pet it only to snatch his hand back when it hissed and returned to its cleaning, the earthy wyvern watching with concern from the railings above, the men-at-arms laughing at their friend's reaction.

"Put your hand near that cat again and you'll lose it," laughed Tommen as he leaned against the railing, cup in hand and visor raised to reveal a handsome face marked by sandy blonde stubble, "I saw that cat in King's Landing, and it's evil."

"You served in the capital?" Tyrion stopped as he looked towards the man-at-arms.

"Aye, but not for long, though" came the answer. "I was part of the household guard there before the Greyjoy Rebellion before I went west with your brother during the war."

"You must have done well to have made it to my father's guard," Tyrion said, smiling.

"Not good enough to escape that cat," Anguy said to the amusement of all as the black tom walked towards him and drove the master archer away without so much as a hiss. "Where the hell did she find that thing?"

"My sweet sister sent it from King's Landing," Tyrion said as the tom looked towards the wyvern with hungry eyes, only for the tiny dragon to swoop across from the aft castle to the fore, staying well away from its claws and jaws and making the black cat look elsewhere for an easier meal. "I'm sure King Aerys kept it around as a kindred spirit. Mayhaps to torture people."

"From what I hear, it used to be a pet for one of the royals," Tommen answered. "Before the Sack, anyhow."

"Didn't the princess have a kitten at Harrenhal?" Tyrion asked, thinking.

"Maybe its the same one?" Anguy suggested. "Maybe it still remembers her getting killed by Gregor -"

"Seven hells," growled the Clegane as he came onto the deck. "It's a cat. Who bloody cares where it came from?"

"It probably just came from Flea Bottom anyhow," Tommen shrugged, agreeing with the Hound. "Makes more sense than it being a pampered prince of a cat anyhow."

Anguy nodded in agreement before raising his cup for a sip, and so Tyrion continued onwards to the cabin that he shared with the Seaworth knight, where dinner was ready, and as the Clegane opened the door and as he followed him inside, he saw on the table that it was a great dinner indeed, a small feast to celebrate their success. Though the roast that was the king of the dining table would be nigh impossible to cook on a ship without burning it down in the process, there was steaming hot food all the same, and food that was much more appetising than what they had at the start of their voyage at that, for in the middle of the the table was a hearty dumpling broth, lightly seasoned and smelling like home, whilst around it were the traditional sailor's food and things that they ate alongside the rest of crew. Strong, hard crackers that kept well at sea, hefty smoked sausage wider across than his hand was, thickly cut slices of cheese whose white surface was marked with the red veins of cranberry, there was even a bottleful of the grape jam from the Arbor that Maester Qyburn had suggested they bring aboard, the crew having heeded his advice that such a food might keep them from succumbing to the rigors of scurvy and its sweet taste making it well welcome on their table. In the corner of it all was a small cask of ale, filled with the good Reachman ale from below decks, but almost as welcome a sight was the small bowl of butter, softened by the warmth of their lamps and candles, all part of a dinner that was not just to celebrate a victory, but to welcome a guest who had only just learned were aboard their ship...and one whose advice had helped them a great deal on their journey so far, and would help them a great deal more.

He whistled cheerfully as he walked over to the head of the table where he was always sat, a set of steps alongside the chair for him to climb atop easier and a cushion to raise him higher so that he was at an eye level with even the Clegane, just as there had been at Casterly Rock before the start of their voyage, and as he settled into his chair, Sandor fell into his, the two waiting for Davos to return from the maester. Sandor was quiet, even in the armor he almost never removed, looking towards his empty plate and nothing else, as if wishing to simply force their meal to appear on its silver surface so as to be able to return below deck again.

Unusually quiet.

"Are you well, Clegane?" Tyrion asked, placing his cup beneath the cask's spigot and carefully filling it. "You have said little since our battle with the Silence."

"I spoke about the cat," the Clegane answered flatly.

"And that was probably the one time you spoke before now," Tyrion said, setting his cup down again, only half full so as to not spill in a powerful wave. "My lord father gave me command of this mission. If there is anything that might stop you from doing your part, such as a fear of fire -"

"Seven hells, dwarf, must we talk about if you already know?" Sandor snapped, leaning towards Tyrion with a hard glare and making the dwarf wonder for a moment if he had gone a step too far.

"I apologise," he said, honest. "I merely wished to know what troubled you so."

Before the Clegane could answer with whatever words were in his throat, the door opened again and in stepped Ser Davos Seaworth, clean bandages neatly wrapped around his wounded shoulder in a perfect demonstration of the healing work of a maester, and though he was surely safe from the risk of the wound going bad, his face bore the pained expression that came from a wound cleaned with the orange ointment that was Myrish fire. He walked through the room to his seat with the movements of a man who had spent almost his entire life at sea, Tyrion silently grateful for his timely arrival and for the chance to speak with someone other than the fuming and quiet Clegane, almost as much as Sandor was surely happy to no longer need to talk about his own pains and fears, yet the Seaworth looked to the both of them and knew.

"Am I interrupting something?" Davos asked as he climbed into his seat, the chair nailed to the floor so as to stop it from sliding about in storms.

"We were talking about the battle, is all," Tyrion answered with a sip of his ale before. "How is the arm?"

"The maester does good work," Davos answered, filling his own cup. "But that fire of his hurt more than the arrow did."

"Better to have that pain than have your arm fall off," Tyrion reasoned, the knight letting out a laugh in reply. "Still, it is good to see that you won't be dying from a wound gone bad anytime soon."

"Aye, and I'm grateful enough for that," Davos smiled. "It wouldn't be good for anyone if I died from an arrow when you're planning to sail across the open sea."

"All the more reason to be grateful you are still here. As for our guest...will she be coming?"

"She better be," grunted the Hound.

"Aye, I spoke to her on the way here," Davos nodded. "She's making sure our course is straight. She'll be coming when she's done, though I'm not sure what we should say to her. She's as highborn as you, even if she does come from Pyke."

"Should we start with an apology for killing her brothers during the rebellion?" Tyrion japed before growing serious. "There is little planning that we can do. We would never have known who she was were it not for her uncle telling us so."

"But why wouldn't she tell us the truth about who she was?" Davos asked as he thought, leaning onto the table with his good arm and careful to avoid irritating the wound. "She wouldn't have had anything to lose if she did. Even Bronn would have been wise enough to treat her better."

He's right, Tyrion realized as he leaned forward to answer. Why would Balon Greyjoy's daughter lie about who she was? She has nothing to gain from it and more to lose. Her birth would keep her safe like armor. 

"Could it be a trap?" Sandor Clegane asked with a harsh voice as he looked across the table to the Seaworth. "You let her do all the navigating."

"I check her course myself everytime," Davos answered with a shake of his head. "Even if it was, there would be no need for her to be on the ship. She could have gotten off at the Arbor, booked passage on another ship and we would have still been attacked by the Silence."

"And might be they would have won without her," Tyrion added, thinking. "She would have met my father before the voyage, and everyone in Westeros knows that my father does not take slights lightly. Attacking us on this journey would be more than a slight. He would invade the isles, with or without Robert's permission."

"Not to mention that an attack on a Lannister ship would bring all the realms to the Iron Islands again, not just the west," Davos agreed. "An attack was definitely not what she was planning, and I doubt she knew that the Silence was here either. You saw yourself how she and Euron spoke to one another. There's no lost love there."

"Then why is she here?" Tyrion countered. "She must have more important things to do than come along with us to Seven know's where, and she could do all that without risking her life to pirates, storms or fleshsmiths or anything else."

"Whatever it is must be important," Davos shrugged, wincing instantly with regret before steeling himself and continuing onwards. "She wouldn't be here if it wasn't."

And then he looked to the pot that sat in the table's midst, filling the air with a delicious scent. "...mind if I start? It'll go cold."

"Not at all, so long as we all have a fair share," Tyrion answered before leaning back into his seat, thinking with crossed arms as the Seaworth reached across the table for the silver spoon that rested against the cauldron's edge, carefully scooping out three of the large dumplings and the broth that they floated in before tipping it out onto his plate, the smell becoming all the more intense...and all the more distracting in how they made him realize how hungry he was..

"Would you do mine, as well?" he asked, raising his plate for the Seaworth to give him a scoop before the Hound followed, Davos giving them all a fair share. "Where is -"

Then the door snapped open, a cold breeze flowing into the room through the opening that carried with it the scent of salt and sea, candles flickering upon the table from the sudden breeze as the Ironborn woman stepped inside. Unarmored since the end of their battle and their passage through the most dangerous parts of the Stepstones, she wore not the soft silky dresses of a maiden of the Seven Kingdoms, but hard boiled leather well suited for a life at sea and on the harsh isles that were her homeland, all without the colors or sigil of her line, but her shape and form and looks told that better than any crest ever could now that he knew what to look for. She was long legged and tall, nearly enough so that she would be able to look his brother Jaime in the eye, and she was agile and lithe as well, but not in the way that a normal noblewoman was, no, she was pantherine in grace, able to strike hard and fast as only a battle tested warrior could, but it was her face that caught his attention most, for he could see the deep blue eyes and raven hair that were known across all Seven Kingdoms as the telltale signs of Greyjoy heritage, traits which could be found in many songs and tales of reavers and raiders riding in on the waves of dawn. She bore the scars of battle on her cheeks, little scratches and nicks and marks, nothing disfiguring, nothing that would seem out of place on even a peasant girl or milkmaid and he knew that to be so lightly marked after so many battles as she surely had was nothing less than a show of her skill at arms, for there were trained knights who went into battle for the first time only to be maimed and disfigured, and yet there she was in all her striking beauty.

And she was beautiful in her own way, beautiful not as the delicate swans that were other ladies, but beautiful the way a mighty mountain might be, the hard beauty that the Iron Islands were known for in their men and women and metalwork and ships and castles and in the very isles themselves.

Or mayhaps it is simply because I haven't seen any other women since we left the Arbor, he thought to himself as the Greyjoy woman closed the door behind them, letting the cabin heat itself to comfort once more. Or because I am drinking ale on an empty belly. 

"Please, sit," Tyrion said as he had before with the maester, offering the seat opposite with an open hand, his words polite and diplomatic, as though he were treating with any normal lady. "Do you know why it is that we wish to speak with you?"

The Greyjoy woman stepped forth and sat in the chair in complete silence, more interested in the fine meal before her than in listening to his words, and for a moment Tyrion thought to repeat himself in case he somehow hadn't been heard, till at last she met him in the eye and he knew that this was no ploy or trick; there was as much iron within her as there was without.

She's like Clegane, he thought to himself as he met her gaze with his own, matching her eye for eye and stare for stare. You need to look her in the eye, else she'll never respect you.

Then she laughed, seeming to relax at last. "You're worried I'm leading you to your deaths, aren't you?"

"I will admit the thought came to me," Tyrion said honestly, Davos looking to him with surprise before returning to his meal. "But the fact that I am here in a seat and not on the ocean floor makes me think that was never your plan."

"If it was, you would have never made it to the Arbor," Asha answered simply, passing her cup to Davos to be filled with ale from their cask. "Every man who reaves in Essos must sail around half of Westeros first. A ship like this with bright red sails would be easy enough to find for any reaver worth their salt, and a longship moves quietly enough that the crew could have came in the night, had grapnels on the deck and come aboard before any of you realized what was happening."

Taking the ale from Davos, she took a sip before setting her cup down. "So yes, I'm not here to lead you into a trap."

"And I doubt you are here to see the world as you said," Tyrion said, watching with close eyes as the Greyjoy woman calmly took a cracker and slathered it with jam, utterly at ease and almost unnervingly so. "So why are you here? Why would a highborn woman of the Iron Islands be serving my lord father by joining his crew?"

"Why not?" she asked, evading his question and revealing that there was a sharp mind within, as well as a brave one. "Have I done anything to lose your trust? I've charted swift courses. Told you what food to find. Even shown you my uncle's ship. I haven't lied to you since we set out."

"So you are Asha Greyjoy, then," Tyrion replied, happy to nail down at least one thing and give him a place to work from. "But you did lie to us. Why didn't you reveal who you were after we left port? Why didn't you do it then?"

"Why not?" she asked again, shrugging her shoulders as she took the spoon from the midst of the cauldron and scooped a serving onto her plate, stabbing a dumpling through on her knife before looking across the table to him again. "Does it make that much of a difference either way?"

Tyrion leaned forward and closed his eyes with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He was no fool. Certainly, his wits were the one thing the gods had deigned to give him in return for all they hadn't in looks and strength. He could talk to people well enough. Provoke them. Find what made them who they were. Understand them. Talk to them. Yet here he was, frustrated by an Ironborn woman whose words were as slippery as an eel.

He sighed again. She was smiling, now.

"Must we do this?" he asked, growing serious and yet softer all the same. "I mean no harm to you, nor do I plan to use whatever you say against you. We all have our reasons for being here. I am here so that my father can see that I am not so useless as my size might make him think."

Then he raised his hand and gestured towards Davos. "He is is here to provide for his family so that they might live better than he did."

"Aye," Davos nodded, speaking for the first time since the Greyjoy entered. "Lord Tywin is paying me for the journey."

"And Sandor is here for a chance of revenge," Tyrion said as he moved his arm towards the Hound, the Clegane giving him a hard glare in reply and a grunt, yet thankful he said nothing more as the dwarf looked back across the table to the Greyjoy. "We're all going to be on this ship for months longer. All I want is to know why a Greyjoy is here so far away from Pyke, for your family have little love for mine. Nothing more. Is that so much to ask?"

She looked to him then, different, less playing and more serious.

"Fine," she said at last, voice hardening like iron. "I'll tell you why I'm here, because I know exactly where we're going and why."

A chill went down Tyrion's spine. He swallowed.

"You know of our mission? How? Who told you?"

"I've known since before we left port," Asha answered. "Iron Islanders are known as the best sailors and swimmers in the world, so most merchants take them aboard as part of their crew since they already know the oars and sails and won't drown if they fall overboard and aren't bothered by rough seas."

Then she smiled again.

"How else would our reavers know exactly where and when the most precious ships would be?"

"And it just so happened to be a merchant ship that found the wreck," Tyrion sighed. "Does anyone else know? Your family, mayhaps?"

"My father and uncles wouldn't listen to such news even if they thought to hear it," she answered truthfully. "I heard it because I have the wits to know that trading can be done with a ship as much as reaving can."

"This...changes things," Davos warned. "If people know about the wreck, then they might know why we are going there."

"They don't," Asha answered. "The only reason I realized was because they said it was a ship with red sails, no oars and a golden lion on the prow. If I hadn't known that your uncle Gerion had sailed east in a ship like that, then I doubt I would have ever realized it was his, yet alone what it might be carrying."

"Are you certain no one else knows?" Tyrion asked quickly and with a quiet voice in case he might be overheard by the crew, all of whom would know the value of Valyrian steel. "If anyone knows then we might be sailing into a trap, Ironborn or not."

"Not that I know of," she said with certainty. "You would need a man who knew enough about the Westerlands to know who Gerion was and who managed to meet someone serving on the ship that found the wreck. Even then most men who heard of it wouldn't want to risk sailing so far south only for there to be nothing there. They need proof."

"Then we should have little enough to worry about," Davos agreed. "I wouldn't sail so far south for just a chance of finding something. I would need to know that it was there for the voyage to be worth the risk. No one who has the ships and coin to sail so far south would do it for a sword that may or may not be there."

"Exactly," Asha said before continuing. "As for why I am here, what I said as Esgred is not as far from the truth as you might expect. This gives me the chance to go where very few Ironborn have ever gone before. That means more than you might think on the Isles."

"Because you're a woman," Tyrion said in realization.

"What?" she asked, taken by surprise by his words.

"You're here because you are a woman," Tyrion said, growing more certain as he saw the expression on her face change. "There are hundreds of songs and stories about Ironborn warrior women fighting alongside men, there are even some about them leading men into battle and being respected for it. But only a handful ever mention women as lords. You're the only child your father has left at Pyke since your elder brothers died and your younger brother was sent to Winterfell as a hostage, so surely he is raising you as his heir, mayhaps because he fears that Theon will have more of the North in him than the Iron Islands."

He saw how right he was on Asha's face, how taken aback she was by his words, unable to come up with an answer as swiftly as she had before. That was his answer. She was here to prove that she was as capable as any man. Sandor laughed to himself, a low bellowing rumble.

"You should have known not to talk to a Lannister," Clegane said to the Ironwoman. "They're too clever for their own good."

"You're only half right, dwarf," Asha answered before sighing. "Close enough that I may as well tell you the rest."

Then she slumped back into her seat, throwing her dagger onto the plate before her. "When Theon was taken after the end of the war, we were ruined. My mother lost herself. My father...for the first time in his life, he didn't know what to do with himself. He had lost his crown, his fleet, his sons. He would have been a broken man, were it not for my uncle Aeron returning with faith."

"What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger," she continued. "We were defeated, yes, but not dead. That was enough for him. To have a chance for vengeance. So we went on as we always did. We rebuilt our castles, built new ships and he groomed me as his heir should he die before we had won our vengeance. As you said, there was the fear that my brother might come back more a Stark than a Greyjoy and lead us all to ruin, but he was also afraid that he might not be able to do what needed to be done."

"To kill Lord Eddard Stark?" Tyrion asked. "It makes sense. He could well have grown to see him as his father after so many years."

"To kill Starks," she said, placing emphasis on the last letter. "My father would have his eldest sons killed. Two sons for two sons."

"You sound less certain."

"I might well be," Asha admitted. "We tried to take on all Seven Kingdoms last time. We gave you a bloody nose."

"And then you were crushed."

"And then we were crushed," Asha echoed with a sigh, taking a long gulp of ale. "We're not as strong as we were in the Hoare days, and the rest of the realm is more so. Three hundred years of peace and prosperity might make you soft, aye, but it lets you build. Build ships. Build castles. Build numbers. They used to say an Ironborn warrior was worth twenty greenlanders -"

Clegane laughed to himself.

"- but that doesn't help when there are two hundred of you for every one of us. We could win every battle and still lose the war because we would run out of men and ships first, and do so without doing enough damage to keep you down."

"And we are united, now," Tyrion agreed. "Seven Kingdoms with one king."

"Exactly," Asha nodded. "The Iron Kings of old played the realms off of one another and went for the weakest ones. We knew we could fight in one place for a time, abandon it when the resistance became too strong and then move somewhere else. But it doesn't work when the Seven Kingdoms are united. We don't have the men. They would never heed my word if I told them we would never be able to win another war."

"Because you're a woman."

"I have charted courses that have kept longships sailing straight and steady for days at a time, I've provisioned for my crew, I've killed dozens of men and led a hundred more into battle," she said grimly. "But because I was born without a cock between my legs, I am somehow not good enough to sit the Seastone Chair."

"My father might be willing to give me his support, but his vassals would not. I would be challenged at every turn."

"So that is why you are here," Tyrion accepted at last. "To get the support you need to press your claim to the isles. Does my father know that is what you are planning?"

"Your father is one of the men who are going to be helping me," she said, a smile starting to appear on her cheeks again. "My own would never allow Theon to take his place. He's been gone too long. But that means that the only others who might take my place are my uncles. But they fought in the rebellion, all of them. If any of them inherit the Iron Islands, they'll launch another invasion even if it would just lead to us being slaughtered again, mayhaps even unseated and replaced this time."

"But the Iron Throne has the power to settle such matters however it pleases, even in the favor of a woman, for how else would Arwyn Oakheart have been able to keep her family's seat?"

"So, you want my father to pressure the crown into allowing you to take your father's seat in your uncles' place," Tyrion said. "That's a large reward for a single voyage."

"It is, but having a friend in the Seastone Chair is worth more than just a voyage, even one like this," she said at last. "He helps me take my title, he gets an ally with a fleet and needn't worry about another invasion. My part here is as much to prove to my lords that I have the skill and courage to lead them, as few of them have ever dared to go so far south as Sothoryos. And none have ever gone to Gogossos. No Ironborn ever has."

"...why not?" Sandor asked, confused.

"It's not safe there," she answered simply, straightening herself out and meeting him in the eye. "The Ironborn do not fear any man, no matter how strong or dangerous he might be."

"But...the things there..." she quietened. "They aren't men."

"...fleshsmiths," the Clegane sighed under his breath, trying to seem strong and bold and utterly unfazed yet having an edge of unease coming through his tone all the same. "Whatever they made must be dead by now."

"I hope so," Asha replied. "They made more of those beasts by mating them with women. But even if they're all gone, there are still basilisks, manticores and the brindled men there."

"Anyway," Tyrion said more cheerfully, desperate to change the topic from the grim realities of their destination. "Has anyone heard any good sailing songs?"

The rest of the meal was more silent than not.

Davos gently flexed his wounded shoulder beneath the shirt as he stood on the aft castle, clenching his fist tight and holding his arm as though he had a sword in his hand as he rocked his arm back and forth, easing the healing muscle back into work as the King Gerold slipped her way over the smooth waters of the Narrow Sea, the winds once again on their side ever since they had made their turn from the easternmost of the islands of the Stepstones towards the southeast and into open sea, into the waters that the Lysene claimed as theirs, the last stretch of their journey before they turned their sails to the south and made their way towards Sothoryos. Their voyage was already nearly half done thanks to the great speed of the ship beneath his feet, and though they were further to the south east than he had normally went, these were familiar waters, well known to any good sailor and frequented by fleets of merchantmen, safe, and for the first time since they had made their way out of the pirate's forest that was the Broken Arm of Dorner the crew were at ease.

Truly at ease. There was no worry about an attack here when they were so close to one of the most maritime of the Free Cities, and though their victory over the pirates of the Narrow Sea had only served to make the crew more confident in their abilities to repel and attack and more comfortable with the risks of sea travel, the renewed spirits that their triumph had brought them had since faded away and left them facing an enemy that was not nearly as easy to defeat.

Boredom.

Though Davos knew that the singers made out a life at sea to be half glory and half bloodshed and death, much of the time spent sailing was time where there was little to do but occasional bits of repair and cleaning to make sure their ship stayed seaworthy and little else, time where the crew had little to do, and it had begun to take its toll on the spirits of the crew. The journey from Lannisport to the Arbor had been half as long as the one they were making now, if that, for the slow winds off the coast of Dorne had stifled their sails and made it take all the longer, and he could see it now. The sun was shining in what was a beautiful day for sailing, yet the men looked more tired than not, exhausted by the lack of anything interesting to do, and even the cards that were the staple of a sailor's life had been given up on after the hundredth game, the cards so familiar that they could tell what cards they had in one another's hands just from the creases.

Stories had been told and retold. Songs had been sang and resang. Conversations had and had again. It was the symptom of a crew that had been on the ship together for too long without rest on shore, and it was painfully frustrating, even for a veteran seafarer such as himself, a man who knew that this was but a reality of life at sea.

He could look to any member of the crew and know everything that there was to know about them, now, recognizing them on sight from a mere glance over the balcony as he brought his arm down to rest, as the maester had advised when he first mentioned the exercises and how they would help him heal. There was Tommen on the forecastle, who was a veteran from the war against the Greyjoys and who never quite let his guard down when Asha was around, trusting her little before she revealed who was she was and even less since, keeping a weapon at ready reach on his hip and glancing often whenever she stood on the aft as lookout. There was blackhaired Ty of Riverspring not far from him, whistling the tune of Bessa the Barmaid, a pious man who had been in service with the Sarwycks before that boy of theirs went eastwards to join the Red Faith, after which he had brought his skills to Casterly Rock after Lord Raynald's wits began to go in his age and joined the crew for coin so that his sons might learn to read and write and have the chance of knighthood as part of the Lannister household. There was the sight of the hardfaced and hardly haired Lucion pacing back and forth on the deck for a want of anything else to do, who had the thick accent of a man from the mountains and the large shoulders of a lineage that had earned its bread through toiling their hours away in one of the many mines that dotted the western lands.

All of them he knew nearly as well as he knew his sons, now, and all of them were tired of it all, on edge, and even the cheerful Anguy and Bronn were both seemingly out of optimism at this point. Davos was even sure that Bronn had even squeezed the Greyjoy's behind again because he would get hit and have something else to do other than standing around doing nothing all day.

They just need a chance to stretch their legs again, he knew, leaning onto the railing. Any other ship would have stopped at Sunspear on the way to Lys for a chance to let the crew rest. For a Lannister you might as well be pushing them into a pit of snakes.

"Any sight of Lys, yet?" asked the tired Tyrion, sat on the railings with a rope around his waist in case of chop, watching the wyvern soaring above as it hunted seabirds.

"We can't be far if there are gulls," answered the Greyjoy woman, not even bothering to raise the Myrish eye to look. "They never fly far from land."

"We should be there in less than an hour," Davos said, turning to face his comrades. "I've sailed these waters before."

"How far have you sailed, Davos?" the dwarf asked. "You've been to the Arbor, you've been to Lys, and those are long journeys for a smuggler out of King's Landing."

"I've been all over the Seven Kingdoms and been to most of the Free Cities," he answered honestly. "Only the ones on the Narrow Sea, though. Any of them more east than that and they were too far out of the way to be worth it or too dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Tyrion asked. "How so?"

"There's a reason you don't see many Qohorik or Norvoshi goods in Westeros," the ex smuggler answered. "Those cities are inland, so you either cross by land or sail up the Rhoyne. The first has Dothraki khalasars. The second is treacherous, as the Rhoyne has gone wild, so the currents will as often smash you against rocks as it does take you to your destination. Lorath is nearly as bad, as the waters are rough enough there to sink a ship nearly as large as this one."

"...how bad might it be in the south, then?" Tyrion asked. "Are we in any danger?"

"The Summer Islanders make the voyage all the time, so it cannot be too dangerous for us to make our passage," Davos said. "But we'll want to be prepared for the worst if it comes."

"Lys gives us a chance to pick up anything we might need," Tyrion reasoned.

"And we're going to need bolts of sail cloth, planks of seasoned timber, rope for rigging and nails, too," Asha said as she extended an arm as the wyvern swooped low, the tiny dragon perching on her arm with a small gull between its mouth before stepping off onto the railings. "And tools. Saws, hammers, everything."

"Do we need a carpenter as well?" Tyrion asked dryly, a jape from a weary mind.

"It would help," Davos nodded. "A little problem can become a big one if we're far away from a port able to repair a ship this big."

"I doubt you'd find one willing to come along where we're going, though," Asha added.

"I'm sure we can find what we're looking for in Lys," Tyrion sighed. "Though I doubt it will be cheap."

"Better for it to be expensive and hold together on the way than cheap and have it fall apart when we need it," Davos reasoned. "Regardless, the Lysene are proud shipbuilders and sailors. It comes with being an island. Everything we might need we'll be able to get at a good price."

"And food as well?"

"The Lysene are clever," Davos said. "They know how to bottle. They boil food whilst its sealed in a bottle, like wine. It cooks from the juice they put in, so it lasts ages."

"...doesn't that stuff make their faces stiff?" Asha asked. "Something in the meat?"

"That's why they stopped doing meat," Davos answered. "And fish. They never could figure out what was causing it."

"...what do you mean it made their faces stiff?" Tyrion asked. "They couldn't move their cheeks?"

"Or any other part of their face, like blinking," Asha shrugged. "It kills by stopping you from breathing."

"Oh, good," Tyrion sighed. "So now we must deal with dying from bottled food as well as whatever the hells is in Sothoryos."

"It's only the meats that can cause it, and even then not always," Davos explained, soothing the Lannister's concerns. "The Lysene know that's not safe, so they don't do it."

"They bottled strawberry pie, once," Asha said with quiet amusement.

"For a voyage as long as ours, we'll want some in the hold to give a change from the norm every now and then," Davos finished, not so much as glancing towards the Greyjoy. "But that means finding more pickled herring."

"Seven hells," the dwarf sighed.

"At least this time we'll know what to expect," Davos said, trying to raise the little Lannister's spirits, only for the dwarf to look as though he might throw himself overboard. "Best for us to find something for the men to do whilst we're at sea as well."

"Asha," Tyrion said, looking towards the Ironborn woman, his eyes brightening with an idea. "What do your people do to pass the time during a voyage?"

"They sing, drink and play the finger dance and see who loses the least amount of their hand," she answered bluntly, raising her right hand to show a short fingertip on her middle finger. "Best not to drink before doing the dance, though."

Tyrion looked at her, jaw agape.Then he turned back to the Seaworth.

"Do you have any ideas, Davos?"

"Bring a harp," Anguy said as he climbed onto the aft castle before the Seaworth could reply. "Your father gave us everything we could need, but he didn't give us anything we would want."

"A harp?" Tyrion asked. "Why?"

"No, he has a point," Davos agreed. "Your lord father gave us the best supplies we might've asked for, but nothing to do when there was nothing happening."

"It's as if he expected everyone to be working all the time," Tyrion said, laughing. "My dear father, always pushing people on. Anguy! What about this harp?"

"Have you ever been to the Dornish Marches?" the archer asked, smiling. "Our songs are marcher ballads. They're made to be song on the march, so they last hours. Some are meant to take days to finish, and the harp is the main instrument the bards use for all the good ones, since it's easy to play as you walk."

"It wouldn't be expensive to find," Davos suggested to Tyrion, in agreement with the Marcherman. "We could probably find three or four of them for less than a gold dragon."

"If it helps with moments like these, then it could cost a thousand," Tyrion said. "I'll try to find something to keep us busy during the last bit of our journey, but I think just seeing Lys will cheer us up more than any song could."

"Then you're lucky," Anguy said, squinting his eyes as he looked into the distance. "I think I see an island."

Davos turned, striding over the deck as Asha raised the Myrish eye, and the Ironborn woman grinned before passing the long tube to the Seaworth captain and letting him see for himself...and he saw not just an island, but a city, shining beneath the sun, close enough to be seen but still too far for the details to be clear. And yet it was not straight on, but a little to the side of where it should have been if their course was exact.

He cursed under his breath in silence.

"You were off by not even a degree, Davos," she said. "So close."

"Considering I charted this course in the Arbor, I would call that accurate," he said with a smile as he passed the lense back before turning to the dwarf again. "Its close enough that we would come straight out where we need to go in the south, my lord, but we might be off by a little distance, if this happens again."

"Might be best to let me chart the course next time," Asha seemed to suggest and tease at the same time, smirking ever so slightly. "Else we could end up off course again."

"You said yourself that the Ironborn never went so far south so its not as if ," he answered, smiling as her own smirk disappeared from her face. "In any case, we best make the turn. You know the tiller well."

Asha sighed, though it was more of an annoyed grunt than a sigh, and marched over to the tiller, grasping tightly with a bare hand as she pushed one way and forced the ship to turn the other, bringing their prow towards the distant city, the softest creak as the ship turned to face the loveliest of the Free Cities. Instantly the wind seemed to pick up, flooding their sails as if brought by the blessing of the Seven themselves to speed their journey, and the deck turned crimson as the sun shone through the scarlet cloth to bathe the planks in its glow...and with it, the crew themselves began to rise from the groom of a long and quiet journey, relaxing at last as men from below decks rose to the fore castle to see a sight that few Westerosi ever did.

Lys.

And what a sight it was, for if the Arbor was beautiful, then the isles of Lys were nothing short of paradise. Striding across the decks and down the steps with the small Lannister close besides, Tyrion smiling at the chance to see a sight that he wouldn't have had a chance to see but for their journey, he rose to the forecastle and moved through the crowd of murmuring sailors to see one of Valyria's heirs in all her splendour. There were dozens of islands, gemstones of pearl and emerald that shone in the sapphire sea, all of which combined were not so big as the Arbor, and yet the city built on their shores was half again as great as Lannisport and almost as grand as King's Landing itself, all of which were connected together by great bridges of glittering marble and all of which were home to ports great and small, every yard that the King Gerold sailed bringing new details for him to see. The beaches were not the grey stony things of the Crownlands or the Westerlands, but fine and pearly white, complementing the beauty of the buildings all around, and they were dotted by great palm trees, waving gently in the low breeze. The buildings themselves were old, certainly so, but fantastically constructed and marvels of art and architecture united as one, truly beautiful sights to behold that dated back to the days of the Valyrian Freehold, whose dragonlords so often visited the city to rest and relax away from the politicking of their busy and sprawling capital, yet there were newer things, too, things that were not so splendid, ones he recognized from the last time that he had visited the wondrous city. The quay itself that they approached was made from rough grey brick, not the beautifully crafted white that adorned the rest of the isles of Lys, and the warehouses and cranes and all the other things that adorned the harbor were new as well, like a blemish upon a maiden's cheek...and watching over the harbour were the reasons that so many young heirs and wealthy merchantmen and victorious mercenaries made certain the visit the city, for there were the pillow houses that were the home of the greatest beauties in all the world, women of hair as shining as silver and amethyst eyes, looks that could be found everywhere here, so true was the tales of an unbroken lineage that began with the Freehold.

"I've always wanted to visit a pillow house," muttered one of the sailors, leaning onto the railings as the soft curtains of the brothels wavered in the winds, brightly colored so as to be seen from even the horizon.

"You'll have to wait your chance," Tyrion said. "I'm going to visit them all."

Davos laughed, then. "Even a Lannister doesn't have that much gold."

"You've been to a pleasure house before, Davos?" Tyrion asked, a sly smile on a face that was ready for a jape..

"They're a good place to lie low, meet with friends you wouldn't want seen anywhere else."

"Do you have a mistress, ser?" Tyrion laughed. "Someone your wife doesn't know about?"

"No, but I someone better," he answered, smiling. "Salladhor Saan."

"Your very own pirate prince!" Tyrion laughed, others adding their cheer to his. "Not the sort of company I would expect you to keep. Why not a pretty Lysene girl, with sunshine hair? Or one of those fiery Dornish women?"

"Is anyone on here someone you would expect to be travelling with?" Davos asked back. "Besides, its unworthy of you when you're married like me."

"Half the realm would disagree," Tyrion answered. "But very well. More whores for me."

"I wouldn't be so eager," Davos said lowly, the cheerfulness of the men dying down as they saw his grim expression. "You don't know Lys like I do."

"How so?" Tyrion asked, narrowing his brow. "Is there something I need to worry about?"

"Aye," Davos answered as the ship sailed into the harbor, sailors already working to reef its sails without so much as a need for a command to be given. "Take a look at that statue looking down on the bay."

"What statue?" the dwarf asked, climbing onto the railing at the very edge of the rope's length, peeking onto the shore. "There are dozens, and all of them are women."

Davos raised his arm, then, and pointed towards one that towered over them all, a pale beauty that had been painted with lighter shades than her sisters, her cheeks covered in silver tears as she looked across the port with sorrow.

"That's the Weeping Lady," he said. "And on her cheeks are the Tears of Lys. This city is like a treacherous woman. She'll smile to you and take you into her bed, but the moment you stop paying attention she'll put a dagger in your back."

"But I am a Lannister," Tyrion answered quietly. "They surely wouldn't do me any harm for that."

"Because you are a Lannister," Davos said. "The Lysene married into the Targaryens before. If anyone across the Narrow Sea is a friend of theirs, Lys is it. Pleasure and poison are their specialties here."

Tyrion went wide eyed, then, and the men grew concerned for their safety, but Davos simply patted him on the shoulder and prayed that they would heed his words before stepping down the forecastle and onto the deck, looking above where the men were slowly reefing the sails.

"Hurry up, you lot!" he shouted so that he might be heard by even the highest sailor, crawling over the rigging, fumbling with the ropes as only men who had grown complacent could. "If we don't start to slow down soon we'll smash into the port!"

He sighed, watching them tangling the ropes as they worked, but slowly and surely, the sails began to rise onto the masts, little by little, the men remembering how to work and being joined by others, the rest of the crew working together to stop the ship from slamming into the hard quay and shattering its prow. Such damage would have taken weeks to repair, even months, time that they could not afford to lose even with them being far ahead of their schedule, for even minute that passed was another minute of risking that someone else might be blown off course and find the blade and claim it for themselves...and such would bode ill for what the Lord of Casterly Rock would do to them - all of them - for losing the blade simply because they couldn't stop the ship quick enough. Even Stannis probably wouldn't be able to protect him then. Who could, when the lion had a nigh limitless supply of gold and he had the responsibility of ensuring such a mistake shouldn't occur?

And so he looked above...and grinned as they finally tamed the topsail that had been lashing back at them in the wind, the foresail rolling up just a moment after and letting him feel the deceleration in his feet as the ship slowed to a more leisurely pace, as it had at the Arbor, and the city grew closer at a slower but safer pace, revealing the little nuances that came with being one of Valyria's daughters: though a city like Lys needn't bother with walls thanks to the protection of the oceans, they were there all the same, high things that were more formidable than all but the greatest fortifications in the Seven Kingdoms, yet they were placed with a master's eye to using the terrain and were built into the islands themselves, looking more like cliffs than not, every tower and every arrow slit placed according to the most precise of calculations to ensure that they had overlapping fields of fire with the ones beside, ensuring that any attacker would find themselves in a storm of arrows from the moment they stepped foot upon the shore and sally ports that were hidden in the sands and which would allow the defender to strike them in the rear as they pressed against the walls, something he only knew was there because he had seen one before when the magisters grew worried by the threat of war and turned their attentions to repairing their battlements. But unlike the walls of King's Landing, Lannisport and even Storm's End, these walls were not monoliths made as much to intimidate those beneath them as to protect the grounds within, but part of the surrounding city; their crenels were beautiful sculptures, bricks bore the marks of paint that had faded away centuries before, even the gatehouses were less aggressive looking than that of a Westerosi castle, their towers looking more like spread legs than not.

All this could be seen from the distance and with ease, for it was the exact reason why the Valyrians had raised the city in the first place. It was a place where their dragonlords and heroes could travel to rest and renew themselves, and it was for this reason that it was such a contrast from the heavily draconic stylings of other Valyrian fortresses and places, like Dragonstone, why it lacked seamless black walls like those of Volantis and why it bristled with towering palm trees and not scorpion towers like those of the other cities. It was unique. It was a city made to be unique. It was a city made so that those who visited it would notice that it was nothing like anywhere else in the Freehold, and that made Davos wonder. Had the dragonlords that had made the Valyrian Freehold invincible thought that what they had made was wrong, and so created a place that could never remind them of it? Were they taking to their terrible mounts to crush rebellious slaves all whilst having their own doubts, their own private treacherous thoughts that were never acted upon? Surely some of them would have realized that the untold suffering of the countless thousands who went to the Fourteen Flames to toil and die was wrong?

Or was he the one who was wrong, and they simply built Lys in order to have a change of scenery and to avoid being reminded of the stresses of their capital? Or was it between those things?

Seven hells, Davos, he sighed to himself. It is a city. Nothing more. If the dragonlords had any reason for making it the way it is, it died with them.

He shook his head to himself. Men always got philosophical when there was nothing around for them to do. It came with them seeing the same thing day in and day out. All the more reason to spend time ashore, even if it came down to simply standing around on the wharf waiting for the dwarf to find the right goods to buy for their voyage to Sothoryos and back.

And back, his mind echoed as an afterthought.

"Seven hells," he murmured in instant realization, making his way back up the forecastle as the ship passed the first length of quay, slowly and gently making its way towards an opening thanks to Asha's guiding hand, the dwarf still resting on the railings even though the rest of the sailors had returned ot their duties. "Tyrion."

"Yes, Davos?"

"We need food to get there and back," he said quietly. "We won't be able to pick up food whilst we are there as we would on any normal voyage."


"That is obvious enough," Tyrion said with a smile. "We just need to take more food."

"But Sothoryos is hot," Davos said. "It'll make the food go off in the holds before we made our way back. We will need food that can last us there and last us back, and enough of it to keep the crew alive, and it needs to be something that won't have the men throwing themselves into the sea for relief."

"We will need crackers, then," Tyrion said simply. "And something to go on them, of course."

"We will need more than crackers if we're to avoid a mutiny on the way there and back," Davos reasoned. "We'll need much more."

"You think the men woukld mutiny over running out of nice food?"

"When you're cramped in on a ship for weeks on end and are eating the same food every day, you get bored, and when you get bored you get frustrated," Davos said quickly. "It doesn't take much to make a man snap then."

"Then we best make sure they have more choice aboard here than they did in Lannisport," Tyrion answered, jumping down from the railing and unfastening the rope around his middle as they entered the port proper and passed a Lysene merchant galley as it departed, oars splashing softly. "You've been here before. If anyone of us knows where a good merchant is, it's you."

"Aye, well, then follow me," Davos said. "This city is full of -"

"Greetings, my friends!" shouted a merchantman from the stone quay as the anchor dropped, the sails reefed and the mooring rope tethered. "May I be the first to welcome a Lannister ship to Lys the Lovely! Might I interest you in a brief"

"Hells," he muttered under his breath. "You can never get rid of these..."

"What brings you to our fair city?" the merchant asked as he stepped forward towards the boarding ramp, smiling warmly with false courtesy. "May I?"

"We're travellers, not cargomen," he answered swiftly, stepping down from the forecastle. "We have no good to sell."

"Travellers?" the merchant asked with interest. "And where is that you are sailing?"

"We're on a tour of the Free Cities," Tyrion said, smiling. "My father granted me the chance for my nameday."

"Ah! You must be Tyrion Lannister!" the merchant said, smiling warmly. "There are few better places to visit on a tour of the Free Cities than here, at beautiful Lys. Might I be a guide? I am sure that there is something that I could be a service in."

He smiled again, looking to the little Lannister with warm and friendly eyes of deepest violet, entirely courteous at every moment. He was perhaps a little smaller than the Seaworth, and yet broadly built as if to defy the expectations most men would have of a merchant, strong and strikingly handsome as all the sons of Valyria were. Silver locks curled down to his shoulders, shining like cloth of silver and sure to draw the eye of many a woman, yet it was the bright colors of yellow and purple that caught his attention, colors known by any man who had listened to the songs that spoke of the brides of the Targaryen kings, and the small Lannister knew it even more than Davos, stepping down the ramp as he whistled the exact song, followed by Sandor Clegane, armored for battle and burnt visage driving the Lysene back across the quay.

"I do believe I have need of a guide," Tyrion said. "But I already have one...and you're a Rogare. Last I heard I would be more likely to be stabbed whilst standing besides you than not."

"Yes, yes, I am a Rogare, Lysando Rogare to be precise," the merchant laughed. "But my family's reputation has changed in the last few centuries since Lysandro. We're upstanding, charitable members of society. None make greater donations to the poor and the downtrodden than my family, owners of the Rogare Bank."

"Did the Braavosi not run you out of business sometime after the First Blackfyre Rebellion?" Tyrion asked. "After you lost hundreds of thousands of gold dragons backing the losing side."

"I will admit we haven't always had the best judgement," Lysando apologized before regaining his smile. "But we have since abandoned such politicking as unworthy of honest men such as ourselves. Now we provide maritime insurance for travellers such as yourselves."

"...and there it is," Davos sighed.

"For just a small fee, I can arrange my men to inspect your ship, determine its worth and then give you an exact price to pay, and for that, you can sail carefree in the knowledge that if your ship is damaged too much to continue, you can have an entirely new ship in under one month, stocked and provisioned so that you might continue on your way," Lysando said, proudly. "And if nothing happens, you get half of the money you paid back!"

"What if we were sailing somewhere...less than safe?" Tyrion asked.

"Oh? Like where?" the Rogare asked, intrigued. "Through the Stepstones? If so, I could easily arrange an escort for but a fraction more so that you can travel unhindered."

"Further south."

"The Summer Islands?" the Rogare guessed next. "They are beautiful this time of year, and ever peaceful. There are sights there that cannot be found elsewhere in the world."

"East of that," Tyrion hinted. "With sights that cannot be found elsewhere in the world as well."

Rogare looked back then, puzzled.

And then he blinked in realization.

"You cannot mean -"

"Oh, but I do," Tyrion smiled. "My father wants a wyvern, and so he shall have one."

Then the dwarf extended his arm, and the brown bellied lizard swooped down onto his wrist, tiny talons gripping his sleeve as the miniature dragon hissed at the merchant.

"Several, in fact."

"Well, it seems you are prepared well enough," Lysando said quickly, looking towards the scorpions. "And armed."

"Heavily," Clegane growled, towering over the Rogare banker as Lannister men-at-arms emerged on the deck, wondering what the cause of the delay might be.

"Then it seems you have little need for my offer," Rogare said with a polite bow of his head...and then hurried off, wanting nothing to do with a ship heading to Sothoryos.

"Well, that was a start," Tyrion mused before turning to the crew and giving his commands. "Sandor, Davos, Asha, with me."

Sandor nodded in silence, moving to the dwarf's side with Davos and Asha following close behind, the Greyjoy woman affixing a swordbelt around her waist before sliding down the boarding ramp and onto stone once again.

"Bronn, take the crew out drinking and whoring and whatever else comes to mind," Tyrion said. "One quarter of the crew at a time. If they want payment, tell them to send someone to the ship by sunset. I won't have anyone stabbed because they went around with their coin purse."

The sellsword laughed and grinned. "Gladly."

"And try not to get poisoned."

Bronn looked back at him then, smile fading. "Wait, what?"

"And someone will need to escort Qyburn to find any medicines that we might need for the last part of our voyage, so I am placing the maester under your care, Tommen."

"He won't break so much as a nail, my lord," the man-at-arms answered with a nod.

"Then we will meet here again at dusk for the next three days," Tyrion said lastly. "The next part of our voyage will be long, so make sure you have everything you want before we leave. Now, go and have fun. I'll have any man who isn't smiling by the time I return flogged."

The men laughed at Tyrion's jape, even Davos raising a smile, and the crew began to disperse, some staying behind to make sure that the ship was safe before their turn on land, the rest looking around to find a direction before being whistled over by the sellsword, the crew sticking together as much for directions as it was for safety, but Davos, Asha, Tyrion and the Clegane walked side by side and looking more like a gang in motley than not, yet whatever amusement the men and women in the busy harbour might have had was silenced by the sight of the towering Hound, even mercenaries busy offering their talents to one captain or another staying clear of him. All around were a mix of men from across the known world, greater even than the variety that he had seen at the Arbor or even King's Landing, the moorings filled with swanships from the Summer Isles, violet galleys from Braavos, cogs from Westeros, overbuilt whalers from Ibben and a dozen different kinds of pleasure barge, their wealthy masters making preparations to spend the next few days on the waves whilst the weather was fine, stunningly beautiful pleasure girls and boys on their arms and tending to their every need. Few people turned their attentions towards any of them or even towards their ship, a ship that bore the Lannister crest upon its sails and which any man would have known to have come from Lannisport and could have expected to be carrying a cargo of the finest jewelry made by the goldsmiths of the west.

And yet no one seemed to care.

"You'd think there would be more merchants coming to our ship in this weather," Davos said quietly, looking towards Tyrion. "I've been here before when a Lannister ship came to port with gold and merchants trampled each other into the rocks to be first."

"And yet here we are, with no one caring enough to collect a port fee," Tyrion muttered, his eyes on the stones in front of him, careful to avoid any wet patches that might send him slipping into the sea.

"That's why," Asha said, gesturing with a tip of her head towards a massive galley that was as wide and high as the King Robert's Hammer, the flagship of the royal fleet of King's Landing, yet twenty to thirty feet longer in length, a massive monster of a ship, yet she bristled not with scorpions or spitfires or catapults, but grated windows sealed with soft curtains.

And on her sails was a harpy, wings spread, her left claw holding a whip and an iron collar in her right, chains dangling from both.

It was a slaver's barge.

"...and this young woman, no older than twenty namedays, is trained in the almost lost art of weaving Naathi silk," boasted a Ghiscari slaver, stood upon a wooden crate, amber skinned and wire haired, laughing faced and dressed in a rainbow striped tokar, the long flowing gown of his people. "We will start at one hundred and fifty golden marks!"

"I'll have her," shouted a voice from amongst the crowds. "One hundred and fifty!"

"One sixty!" shouted another.

"Two hundred!"

"Three fifty!"

"Five hundred!"

"Seven hells," Davos uttered as they pressed into the crowd that was so packed with merchants and magisters and bodyguards and servants as to block the entire wharf...

...revealing the horrid show in all its detail, for in the midst of the clearing, protected behind an armed ring of eunuch warriors, were men and women stripped bare and arms and bound with iron manacles on their arms and legs, heads bowed and backs scarred, the air filled with the stinking sweetness of perfumes so as to conceal the stench of the dozens, no, hundreds, of unwashed bodies that had been confined in their voyage, and confined they were, for not far from them were simple wooden boxes with air holes cut into them, easy to maintain, easy to stack, a more efficient use of space than having them in their own rooms or even packed into a barracks. Even farmers would not pack their livestock so tightly together as that for fear of disease or fury, and yet here it was, carried out on men and women and mayhaps even children, packed like bricks in a wall. The sight made his stomach churn, bitter bile rising in his throat at the thought of using people as cattle in such a manner.

This was wrong. Truly wrong.

"Mother have mercy," he muttered under his breath, reaching into his pocket with his good hand to draw out the glass prism he had taken from the Silence after the battle, gripping so hard in his fist that he thought it might shatter. "If there is any justice in the world -"

"Come, we have to keep moving," Tyrion said grimly.

"We cannot leave these people to suffer like this, my lord," Davos said firmly. "We have to do something. There is no greater crime in the eyes of the Seven than -"

"- to keep slaves," Tyrion finished, nodding with understanding. "I loathe the idea more than you do, ser. But there is nothing that we can do."

"Is there something wrong, good sers?" asked a voice in the crowd, and out came a scarred Lysene man, dressed in scarlet and silver and carried atop a low palanquin so as to make up for the lack of his left leg that had been cut from below the knee, escorted by fourteen men, seven on either side. "It is not often we have Westerosi in our market."

Clegane gritted his teeth at the mention of the title of knighthood. Nothing infuriated more than being called a knight, that was something Davos had learnt over the voyage for certain. "Of course there's something wrong, you whoreson -"

"I meant no offense," the Lysene said, looking down on him with cold eyes, hair cut short to reveal the lack of an eye. "I am merely curious as to why men - and a woman, I see - are in my city."

"Your city?" Tyrion asked. "I thought this city was ruled by magisters, not lords?"

"Make no mistake, it is mine," the magister nodded. "Come. I see no reason why men of your sensibilities should be out here, witnessing...this."

He threw a hand towards the slavers, watching with stoic resilience as the Naathi girl was pushed towards her owner, only to refuse in defiance...only to rush forward when a whip was raised, its bearer laughing at her terror. With a slave sold, the slaver spat out a phrase in the guttural tones of the bastard tongue of the Ghiscari of Slaver's Bay, and a new coffin was brought forth, raised upright, opened. The dead body of a young man slumped out, a Summer Islander as big in build as Robert Baratheon was said to have been in his prime, not a single bead of cold sweat upon his brow.

He had dehydrated in the heat.

"Qrugh!" shouted the slaver in frustration. "He was a fine catch. Strong and swift. I could have easily had two hundred and fifty marks as a starting price for him."

"It is not something for the lighthearted, I fear," the Lysene said flatly. "Twenty five gold dragons for his corpse and no more. The maesters need bodies for their studies of healing and I have a swift ship and salt to bring it to the Citadel before the rot sets in."

"Done," the slaver answered, happy to at least recouped his losses.

"Keep the excess. I have little desire for it, and keep the body as well. One of my men shall collect it in an hour," the magister said as he reached down to his waist and threw him a coin purse, never once taking his eyes from the Lannister men before him. "Now, shall we?"

"Why should we follow a slaver?" Davos snapped. "You're all scum."

"Because there is nothing you can do here," the Lysene answered simply, placing hands together, smiling slightly. "Because you will never make it off the wharf if you keep being so...disreputable."

Davos almost swore then with all the curses he could think of, but Tyrion pulled his sleeve with as much subtlety as he could, making the smuggler notice the watching eyes all around, eyes that he had forgotten in his fury, the eyes of men angered by his words, as hateful of him as he was disgusted with them. It was for the sake of him and all the others that he sighed and followed, the slavers laughing at his flight, following the dwarf as he walked alongside the Lysene's palanquin, each corner carried by a strong man who bore a brand upon his outer arm, yet the brand was of a broken chain, not a connected one.

These must be free men, he realized, looking to the palanquin's passenger with confusion. Why would he employ free men when he can have slaves to carry him?

"Though I must admit," the Lysene said with a quiet amusement as they began moving away from the crowd. "It is not often that men have the courage to call a band of wealthy slavers scum to their faces."

"Why are you?" Tyrion asked. "Why are you helping us?"

"I would rather not give you my name, lest your father be so inclined as to use it against me," the Lysene answered firmly. "As for why I am helping you, consider it a debt repaid. You Lannisters are always on about paying your debts. I suppose it is only fair for someone else to pay one of theirs to you."

"What debt?"

"Why, the one that came when I killed your great uncle with a single blow of my sword on Bloodstone," came the answer.

"You're the man who killed Ser Jason Lannister?" Tyrion said with a quiet amazement. "You're right not to tell me your name. If my father ever learnt who you were -"

"He would be inclined to return the favor, though I do have plans in case that happens. Favors to be called in and the like," the magister said, leaning onto the arm of his seat so as to see them better. "It is quite the tale, I assure you, but I must admit to being more interested in what you are doing here when a slaver's barge comes into my port."

"We're just here to pick up supplies for the next part of our journey," Asha answered with a shrug. "Nothing more."

"She speaks the truth," Davos nodded. "We're here to rest and resupply. But why are your men branded with broken chains?"

"Because we are free men," came the answer from one of the men working to carry the magister along, spoken with the same loyalty that Davos might have for Stannis or Stannis might have for his brother, the unquestioning loyalty that simply was and nothing more. "The magister bought us our freedom."

"You're...not a slaver?"

"How could a man who keeps the Seven be a slaver?" the magister answered, meeting Davos in the eye.

"You keep the Seven? Here?" Tyrion asked, amazed. "Truly?"

"It was Jason Lannister who helped me find my faith," the magister answered softly, looking forward as they passed from the quay and the harbor and into the city proper, Bronn and the others heading into a pleasure house and leaving the four alone with but the magister and his retinue. "As most young men of war do...well, I looted his body the moment I got the chance."

"Truly? Were you so strapped for coin as to loot a dead Lannister?" Tyrion asked with barely veiled skepticism. "What were you armed with? A cudgel?"

"It's just battle," Clegane shrugged. "Looting is half of it."

"And he did pay the iron price," Asha answered, utterly unphased. "My uncles would be proud."

"I was a young merchant pretending to be a hero, then, covered in the latest Myrish plate, the best armor that money could buy, and armed with a sword of Tyroshi steel and riding on a Dornish sand steed," the magister corrected. "I was surely better equipped than him."

"How did he die?"

"Too focused on the front," the magister explained. "He was out on patrol trying to learn the terrain when he was ambushed, and he was fighting against some sellsword and finished him off as I rode up from behind at a charge and struck him around the back of the head with the edge of my sword. It ruined a fine blade, but it crumpled the back of his helm and smashed his skull. Quick. Painless. A good way to die, if I might say so myself."

"I would rather die in one of these pleasure houses," Tyrion said, growing more cheerful. "Smothered by breasts or drowned in wine. Mayhaps both."

"Who wouldn't," Davos muttered.

"In any case, I brought my steed to a halt, since at first I thought I had simply knocked him out," the magister continued. "I was hoping for a chance at a ransom, since there was no shame in such a thing and your grandfather, Tytos, was well known for his generosity."

"My father said he brought my family to ruin."

"He did, from what I hear of it, but regardless, Jason was dead," the Lysene said with a nod. "I checked his body. Not for coin, though. Information. Even here we know the Lannisters are one of the greatest families in the Seven Kingdoms, but then, we were not entirely sure who was leading the invasion. It was my thought that Lannister strength and gold would have made Jason the commander, and so I checked for any letters or the like he might have been carrying, anything that might be able to give us an advantage."

"Clever," Asha said.

"We were outnumbered twenty to one in that war," the magister said. "Cunning was never part of it. A foolish quest for glory, perhaps so, but cunning...? Never."

"But what I found..."

The magister reached into his breast pocket, aged fingers sliding through the cloth of his puffed shirt to pull out the strings of an an old wooden amulet in the shape of a seven sided star, each point beautifully carved into the figure of each of the gods and all positioned around another star within, one of crystal glass that caught the sun's light and shone forth a rainbow of seven colors upon the stones. 

"...was better than any letter, for I found myself that day. Not instantly, perhaps. But over the weeks that followed I lost a leg and gained faith. I learnt who I was and how I wanted to live my life," he said. "And what was right and what was wrong."

"Then what are you doing with his body?" Davos asked swiftly, unbelieving. "Why do you let the slavers do business in your port, if it truly is yours?"

"The body of that poor fellow will be given over to the next swanship I see," the magister answered, his voice honest and true. "With any luck, they will be able to take him back to his homeland, mayhaps even find the mother and father who lost their son and bring him home. As for the slave barges, it is more simple than you might expect. This city is built on the backs of slaves. Slaves clean our streets. Load our cargoes. Row our galleys." 

"And yet it doesn't have to be this way. I do what I can to push people away from the slave trade by using my wealth; I buy slaves and sell them to the Braavosi, who take them back to their city to free them so that they might have a fresh start or find their way home, if it still exists, but more, I own that port you moored landed on. It is a freeport."

"That doesn't seem very profitable," Tyrion said. 

"On the contrary, it is extremely profitable."

"How do you make coin if not for tariffs and fees, then?"

"Quite simple," the magister smiled. "The lack of tariffs mean that more ships dock there than not, so the pillowhouses and the taverns that I own see more patrons than not. The prices there are a fraction higher than they would be anywhere else, but the increased number of customers through the door means many times the profit. Ships come and go from Lys constantly, bringing new men eager to rest after their voyage, and so I can thus make a few thousand gold dragons a day."

"Seven hells," Davos said, amazed. "If you make that much gold a day, then couldn't you simply buy all the slaves that came here and free them?"

"I wish it were so, but it is not," the magister lamented grimly as they passed through the busy and crowded streets, freemen bowing their heads at the sight of him with the utmost respect and the Lysene going about their day with indifference. "I am the wealthiest magister in Lys, but combine the wealth of the others together and I am beggared in comparison. I can do much to reduce the number of slavers here, but not much to help the slaves themselves. Or to use a sailor's words, I can cork the hole to slow the ship from flooding, but cannot remove the water that gets inside. I work from within to try and change my home for the better, even if I must make use of less than honest means."

"So, your own people would think you are a traitor, then?"

"Mayhaps so, but I prefer to think of myself as a righteous demon, working to keep the others in the same hell I am in," the Lysene magister replied, tapping his right foot against the floor of his palanquin to tell the men carrying him to stop. "In any case, I think it best we depart from one another, lest either of us be harmed for our company."

"I don't suppose you could get us cheap supplies for our ship?" Tyrion asked, only for the magister to shake his head. "A pity."

"But I know someone who can," the magister replied, raising a hand to brush hair from his eyes. "Someone who I have been employing for sometime. So long as you care little where the goods were found...then you could get them for a third of the price you see on the market."

"Who?" Asha asked. "We'll need more than some street merchant can give."

"Best if you follow me, then," the magister smiled. "My manse is not far."

"Davos?" Tyrion asked, looking to the Seaworth.

"I see no harm in it, so long as the seller is honest," the smuggler in him answered. "More likely than not it came from some corrupt harbourmaster and isn't taxed. There's little wrong in that."

"Then I suppose we will take you up on this offer," Tyrion said. "Lead the way."

The magister nodded in an understanding silence, then tapped his foot on the floor again, his strongmen hoisting him with renewed vigor as they marched down the street, guards alongside and Davos and all the others behind, easily keeping pace as they proceeded through the city...and every footstep deeper into the heart of Lys revealed just how much of a city it was. The streets were filled with hundreds of people, mayhaps even thousands, and almost all of them were the silver haired and violet eyed scions of Valyria, strikingly beautiful to the last and going about their leisurely lives as their sellsword guards escorted them and as their slaves carried their belongings, the rattling of their chains deafened out by the noise of footsteps on cobblestone and the daily clamor of life in one of the world's largest cities, the noise of men haggling over prices, women laughing at the japes and poems of their would be suitors, the playing shouts of children running through the streets, the clatter of coins on counter and the hammering of the smith's trade and the grating noise of a carpenter's saw as he worked to support the city's vast fleets for his daily bread. It was no different than King's Landing in that way, and yet it felt utterly alien to be one of a few Westerosi so far inside the massive city, to stand out from the crowds in the way that the Targaryens must have surely felt in their own city, let alone their own kingdom...and then he realized.

This is how Tyrion must feel every day, he thought as he sidestepped a cart rolling towards the port with many jars of perfume, its master whistling cheerfully as a slave pulled it along. He's a dwarf surrounded by hale and hearty men. 

He looked to the dwarf then, understanding. Both of them were outcasts in their own way. Tyrion was a dwarf born into one of the most powerful families in all of Westeros, forever chastised for his lack of a strong body and barred from knighthood, yet Davos was born strong but into a family of no note from Flea Bottom, the most wretched part of the capital, a thing that so many noblemen and women of older families took little effort to ignore, forever reminding him of how he had risen from the gutter. 

They were outcasts. They were friends. 

"And here we are," the magister said as they stopped before a great manse, a great building surrounded by a small but strong wall that the main building could not help but rise above, as proud as any castle and thrice as opulent. "I have many rooms to spare, if you so need them, but I think it better if you were to stay on your ship, lest someone try and steal anything."

"Thank you for the offer," Davos smiled as the gate opened...

...and then he saw him on the steps, a smile on his face and a woman on his lap, dressed in a massive robe of golden cloth with tear shaped gemstones sewn into it every dozen or so inches, shining in the sun like mirrors, only for him to push the woman off his lap and rise to his feet, grinning widely as he saw Davos step forth.

"Davos, my old friend!" laughed Salladhor Saan, striding across the courtyard with his long sleeves dragging on the ground. "It is good to see you again!"

"Salladhor, you scoundrel," Davos smiled as the pirate prince walked over and threw his arms around him as a brother. "Why am I not surprised to see you here?"

"Ah, you know me too well to keep away, you old onion," the Prince of the Narrow Sea said with a jolly tone as he leaned back, clapping the smuggler on his arm. "If I knew you were coming I would have dressed in my good clothes!"

"...those aren't your good clothes?" Asha asked, surprised.

"Aye, these are just some trash I found on a Qartheen slaver last month," the pirate answered, his voice as honest as it could ever be, and then he narrowed his eyes as he looked the Greyjoy woman over before turning back towards the Onion Knight with a teasing smirk. "...you never told me you had such a pretty wife, Davos! How did an old dog like you find one so nice?"

"I'm not his wife," Asha said flatly, her voice turning to hard iron.

"All's the better!" the Saan said, opening his arms as he walked towards her, warm and jovial and joking as he ever was.

"Best not, Salla, she has a temper -" 

There was a crack as the Greyjoy woman threw a clenched fist with all the strength and speed the Ironborn woman could muster, striking the pirate prince square on the jaw...and Salladhor Saan, commander of a fleet of twenty four ships and one of the most feared pirates in the Narrow Sea, crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

Davos sighed. He tried to warn him. 

"Well, we seem to be making friends already," Tyrion said cheerfully as he walked into the courtyard, whistling. "So! I take it this manse has a bath?"

Chapter Text

Qyburn smiled as he looked to the horizons, seeing the distant smoke of the Fourteen Flames as a thin plume of charcoal grey drifting up from the horizon, the orange light of the rising sun darkened to a crimson as it struggled to break through the smoke and ash that came from past the edge of the world. Glancing down to the book in his hand and leaning against the railings to steady his fingers, he carefully pressed the freshly sharpened tip of his quill down against the page, sketching out the outlines of all that he could see, the darkened clouds, the dull orange profile of the sun, the dim place where the ocean seemed to disappear entirely, reaching out to the small table he had brought up from his room below decks and switching quills and colors as the ship slowly came to life again. Anguy emerged from below with a knife in hand, humming a marcher's tune as he strode across the deck to the railing on the far side, shaving a week's growth from his cheeks one stroke at a time, making use of the sunlight before it turned hot and humid as it so often was in the Summer Sea, and not long after came Davos and Tyrion from their cabin, the Lannister dwarf yawning tiredly as he walked out onto the deck.

"Working already, Qyburn?" the dwarf asked, walking over the steady and smoothly going deck. "How long have you been awake?"

"An hour, by my reckoning," Qyburn answered quietly without taking his eyes from the page, delicately drawing the circle of the sun. "Is there something that I might help you with?"

"Rousing my mind from tiredness so I don't walk off the side of the ship by accident," Tyrion answered, covering another yawn with the back of his hand before sighing wearily. "Seven...how did the Valyrians ever build their Freehold when it is so hot and damp at night?"

"Blood magic."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Tyrion murmured. "Truly?"

"No," the maester laughed quietly, at ease. "They had thinner blankets than any you might find in Westeros. Winter never came to the Land of the Long Summer, so they had no need to keep themselves warm at night as we might, no, they could just sleep with lace covers and be comfortable."

"I'm sure they envied us," Tyrion said. "Freezing in our castles whilst they kept warm."

"Oh, they did," Qyburn said, meeting the dwarf's eyes for the first time that day. "Valyrians liked ice, but they could never get any in Essos, it was too hot and dry even then before the Doom, so they bought it from your fathers, the Arryns and the Starks."

"The Starks?" Tyrion smiled. "I suppose they have enough ice to sell and more. They would've been happy to be rid of it. But if the Freeholders kept cool at night without it, what was it for? Cooling their drinks? Don't tell me it was for -"

"Blood magic?" Qyburn teased. "They used it for their drinks, yes, and kept blocks of it around so that their slaves might fan the cool air onto them. Nothing more. That was how the Starks got their sword."

"...you must be japing," Tyrion laughed, truly awake at last. "The Starks bought their sword with ice?"

"They might say they got their sword for some heroic deed or another," Qyburn said, returning to his drawing whilst he still had the chance. "One version of the tale I heard said that they were gifted it by the Freeholders in exchange for killing a renegade dragonrider, but it is a lord's work to make their deeds seem more glorious than they truly are, else the singers will have nothing to sing about."

"What a dull world that would be."

"Exactly so," Qyburn nodded. "Better for people to think they got it through heroism and not because the Stark of Winterfell was more tempted by the idea of Valyria paying once for as much ice as they might ever want with a sword than being paid in gold for every block they took."

"A wise choice, seeing how my father would pay a million dragons or more for the sword," Tyrion said, leaning on the railing, barely tall enough for his head to peer past the wooden timber. "What is it that you are drawing anyhow, maester? The sunrise?"

"Valyria."

The dwarf looked to Qyburn then, confused.

"From here?" Tyrion asked. "We must be near enough a hundred miles from Valyria. You must have better eyes than Anguy to see it from here."

"The Doom rules Valyria still," Qyburn explained. "The smoke you see on the horizon is Valyria, or what remains of her anyhow. Those clouds above are her funeral shroud, carried here by winds from the Smoking Sea."

"Seven hells," the dwarf said, peering into the distance. "Are we truly that close?"

"Aye," Davos said, walking over with freshly shaved cheeks. "We're still on course for Gogossos and have been since we left Lys, but that always meant coming past...that. Better from here than from Volantis, though. Else we would have to go closer, like -"

"Like Tommen the Lion King?" Tyrion asked. "I wonder what my father would do if he found out that we found the blade only for it to get lost in the Smoking Sea again."

"It'd be a kindness if half the things I heard about the Smoking Sea are true," the Seaworth answered with a hint of fear, glancing to the smoke rising in the distance. "There's worse things there than fleshsmiths."

"Oh yes, like demons and wyrms and other monsters," Tyrion sighed. "Why must everything outside of Westeros be deadly?"

"I wouldn't worry about demons in Valyria," Qyburn said honestly, dipping his quill into the pot of flaxseed oil and yellow ochre. "Demons are something from the Seven Sided Star, and the Freeholders cared little for the Andal faith. They feared neither gods nor men..."

"...though even they had the sense to keep their blood mages at arm's length, hence why they were at Gogossos when the Doom came," Qyburn reasoned. "Most of the "horrors" at Valyria are just men and women deformed by the poison raining down on them from the Doom, monstrous in appearance, yes, but men and women still.."

"Oh, good," Tyrion sighed. "We're going to the one place in the world more haunted than Valyria."

"Most of," Qyburn said again. "Choosing to go to Valyria over Gogossos would be akin to...jumping into the ocean in order to get out of the rain, or climbing into a mass grave to get away from a single, dying man. Both are bad, but one is much, much worse."

"I thought you said there were no demons in Valyria?" Davos asked with low concern.

"There aren't," Qyburn said. "What's there aren't demons, certainly not, but there must be something there, else Tommen would have returned to Westeros and we would not be on this voyage in the first place. Something other than ash and acidic rain."

"Acidic rain?" Tyrion asked, intrigued. "Another horrible thing that we should thank the Seven for not being in Westeros?"

"It happens in the Blackwater Bay whenever the Dragonmont wakes," Davos explained. "It comes from the sky like normal rain, but it can melt stone given enough time, aye, and burn skin too."

"We should be safely far enough away from the Fourteen Flames to be unaffected," Qyburn added with a nod towards the Seaworth. "Still, it might help to keep some lye or soap on hand, in case we are unfortunate enough to find ourselves out in the open when it comes."

"I'm less concerned about the crew and more about the sails," Tyrion said quietly and with grim awareness, glancing above to the main mast to see the great red cloth billowing in the wind, carrying them to their destination. "We could go below decks if that happens, but they can't, and if we lose our sails..."

"The Targaryens and the Velaryons kept their fleets at Dragonstone and Driftmark," Davos reasoned. "I never heard of them having much of a problem from it."

"At most it might strip the dye from the cloth and weaken the fabric," Qyburn added, returning to his work. "I cannot see it doing much more than that. Certainly not enough to destroy the sails outright, or the timbers for that matter. No, the bigger danger is in the rope soaking it up and burning the hands of anyone trying to climb the rigging."

"Aye, that could be a problem, but there are some leather gloves beneath decks and the men-at-arms have gauntlets, too," Davos explained to the dwarf captain. "There's enough for a dozen or more men to be able to work the sails till the next rain washes them out. It could take hours to get the smallest work done, but it could be done."

"...though we're lucky enough that we won't have to," the Greyjoy woman said as she walked across the deck, lightly dressed and with the Myrish eye on her belt. "We're sailing straighter than an arrow."

"Not that straight," the Marcherman laughed from the other side of the deck. "An arrow is only moved by the wind, but we're being moved by the air and the water."

"We're sailing straight, believe me," Asha answered instantly. "I saw the stars last night, and that's enough to know when you're going straight or -"

"Asha," Tyrion asked. "If you're here, then who is steering the ship?"

Asha pointed to the aft castle...and Qyburn looked to see a rope tethered from the tiller to the railing, keeping the ship sailing straight even though there was no one there to guide it.

"The Ironborn do it all the time," the Greyjoy smiled. "Let's you walk around and do repairs or eat whilst the ship sails."

Tyrion looked to Davos for advice, only for the Seaworth smuggler to shrug in answer.

"But things'll get harder from now on," she said quietly. "We're losing the Ice Dragon."

"Already?" Davos asked with whispered concern. "I thought we were going to have it till we reached Gogossos?"

"It's been sinking a little lower every night," the Greyjoy answered, leaning on the railings. "It took me nearly half an hour to find the damned thing last night since it was barely over the horizon. Three or four more days and after that it'll be gone."

"What then?" Tyrion asked swiftly. "If we lose the Ice Dragon, how will we know which way is north?"

"We won't," Qyburn said flatly, raising an arm to point southwards. "As we go further south, the Ice Dragon will disappear and it will be replaced by stars that few Westerosi ever see and which none of us will likely ever see again."

"And that would be wonderful if it didn't mean the risk of us all getting lost at sea and starving to death," Tyrion sighed. "Davos and Asha, you're both sailors. What should we do?"

"Look up and see if there are any stars we recognize and try and use them," was the smuggler's quiet answer. "Then pray to the Crone and hope we find our way north enough to find the Ice Dragon."

"The onion's right," Asha agreed. "We were bound to lose the Ice Dragon eventually, but there's other stars in the sky we could try to use. The Sword of the Morning -"

"The Sword of the Morning is so large that we cannot hope to use it," Davos said before she could finish. "It has barely moved an inch."

"What's the Sword of the Morning, other than a Dayne?" Tyrion asked. "I know the Ice Dragon, the Galley, the King's Crown and most of the others, but not that one."

"The greatest group of stars," Asha said as Qyburn placed his quill into its well and turned over to an earlier page in the book...

...to one where he had drawn the night sky during their passage through the Stepstones, a massive image that covered both pages with all the stars that he could see and name in the sky, utterly dominated by the great white belt that stretched from horizon to horizon and which bore a fitting name.

"The Sword of the Morning," he said, pointing towards the belt of brilliant white stars on the image. "The ancient Valyrians called it Timpa Geralbar, High Valyrian for the White Road. No matter where you are in the world, you can find it in the night sky, and the old Rhoynar said that it was surely because we were inside of it, like standing half immersed in a pond."

"And I thought the Daynes were supposed to be humble," Tyrion laughed. "Are you sure it cannot be used to guide us?"

"Too large and too easy to confuse the front of it with the back," Davos reasoned. "There can't be many who know which side of it is which."

"That is where you are wrong, ser," Qyburn smiled. "The silver link of healing may have been my passion, but like any good maester I had a bronze link in my chain as well."

"Could you navigate the ship?" Tyrion asked. "Make sure our course is straight after the Ice Dragon passes?"

"Mayhaps," the former maester answered, turning back to the page he was working on. "It depends on whether or not the wanderers are willing to help."

"Astrology? That'll help us little," Davos mumbled.

"Astronomy, not astrology," Qyburn corrected. "There is a difference. The latter is something fortune tellers use to scam stupid men and women out of their coin. The former is a science, built on firm foundations, not on whatever they saw whilst eating mushrooms in the woods."

"...you mean to use the wanderers to find which way of the Sword of the Morning is north," Asha smiled. "I've seen that done before. That was how my father sailed whenever he went reaving in Essos."

"It is a simple technique to learn, but hard to master," Qyburn nodded. "Balon Greyjoy is no fool if he can navigate by that, but the Sword of the Morning is not necessary. No, the Maiden alone should be enough."

"What is it that needs to be done, maester?" Tyrion asked, giving Qyburn the courtesy of his stripped title. "Do we have everything we need?"

"Fortunately, I have all the things I need for it in my room," the maester smiled warmly. "I've been writing of our voyage, you see, as a Maester Yandel learnt of my place on the ship and thought it might be of great value to his work...the World of Ice and Fire he calls it. Terrible choice of name, but sure to be informative and I have little better to do whilst waiting for Bronn to break his nose again."

"I'll make sure to send him your way rather than throw him overboard for the Drowned God to keep," Asha said with crossed arms. "Continue."

"All that I need done is to have my own Myrish eye and its stand brought up to the aft castle on a clear night," Qyburn said, finding a darker blue for the ocean. "With that I will be able to find the Maiden in her own house, and from there determine our course. But that will depend on whether or not the wanderers are in the right position, as they travel at their own pace, not ours."

"And if they aren't?" Tyrion asked.

"Then I can do it with any other wanderer, though it will be more difficult," Qyburn said. "All that needs to be done is for me to use my map of the heavens, find the wanderers in the sky, calculate their angle from the horizon and then map that to the round world. From there, it is a simple matter of using those numbers to find where we are compared to the White Road and thus which way is north."

"Still, there are other ways," Qyburn mused. "The ancient Valyrians had many ways for navigating, you see, ways that their children in the Free Cities learnt and which are why they rule the seas. They used them and their maps to find the right way towards the Fourteen Flames that were their fourteen gods when they prayed. But the Maiden is a wanderer who moves quickly, so it should be easy enough to find her."

"...aye, I'll have to see this myself," Davos said to the dwarf. "I've never seen it done before, or tried."

"That's the difference between sailors that are good and sailors that are the best," Asha laughed. "A good sailor does what they're told and does it well, but the best ones find a better way by themselves."

"That helped your uncle Euron well enough," Tyrion smiled. "At least till he drowned in the Narrow Sea."

"He's too rotten for the Drowned God to take him," Asha murmured with a low anger, her mood changing in an instant. "He probably washed up on one of the islands and bled out there."

"Not in that armor he didn't," the Seaworth said. "He'd have been dragged to the bottom by the weight of the steel."

"Mayhaps he cut through the leather straps and freed himself?" Qyburn suggested.

Tyrion laughed in answer. "Even if he did, Bronn cut his ankles. He would have either drowned trying to escape or burnt with the ship when it went down. If not, the wound would've festered before anyone else came along."

"Dead in three different ways," Asha smiled. "Even my uncle couldn't get away from that."

"Anyhow, - oh!" Qyburn smiled, remembering something he had wanted to ask the ship's captains. "I was hoping that I might be allowed to go ashore on Gogossos for a time once we have arrived."

"You're probably the only one who wants to go to that damned island," Davos mumbled.

"What for?" Tyrion asked. "Research?"

"Exactly so," Qyburn nodded. "Gogossos was never one of the Free Cities, no, but the knowledge that could be found there would be beyond price...though there is the small issue of the plague to deal with."

"Oh yes, the Red Death," Tyrion sighed. "The books told me well enough about that. What Aerys did to Rickard Stark would seem a mercy compared to having your skin come off."

"...is that what it said in the book?" Davos asked grimly.

"It said that nine in every ten men died screaming," Tyrion answered honestly, the Seaworth whispering a quiet prayer in answer. "No, none of us are going anywhere near the ruins, lest we carry it back to the Seven Kingdoms."

"What the gods denied you in body, they certainly made up for in common sense," Qyburn said with complete honesty. "Even I wouldn't want to go into the city knowing what fate befell it."

"No, I am more interested in the various creatures of the isle, particularly the brindled men," he continued. "No maester has ever seen one in person, you know, and we only have stories to base our work off of...a chance to examine one would settle many debates at the Citadel, and earn the Lannisters the gratitude of the Archmaesters."

"If you met the Grand Maester you would think he had a lion on his breast," Tyrion said. "But if the opportunity presents itself...you may have the chance. There's little reason to waste the opportunity."

"Rightly so!" Qyburn said with a laugh. "When we return to Oldtown, the Conclave will be eager to meet you for your part in expanding their knowledge of the natural world and the people of Sothoryos."

"If we make it back," Davos said fearfully, glancing towards the smoke rising in the distance. "The Doom took most of Valyria's demons with it, but Seven have mercy, the rest must have fled to Gogossos."

"And we're sailing straight there," Tyrion said, forcing a cheerful tone into his voice for the sake of the crew. "Where few have gone before! Explorers, that's what we are!"

"Aye, and we'll be exploring hell," was the smuggler's grim answer. "Brindled men,"

"What are you lot talking about now?" came the harsh voice of the Clegane, the Hound armed and armored for battle as he always was, his burnt face glistening with the light of the rising sun. "Scaring yourselves again?"

"It would seem that way. Maester, tell us something about our destination that will cheer us for a change," Tyrion asked, his voice almost pleading. "Something about Sothoryos that isn't monstrous or out for our blood."

"The ancient Valyrians found a way to use this one type of tree to make a delicious brown sweet," Qyburn explained. "It came from small white beans inside pods as big as your fist, which they found could be used to make a sort of butter for one's beauty, or made into a sort of brown block like a brick."

"What did it taste like?" Tyrion asked, curious.

"There is little known about it, unfortunately, as the Valyrians themselves never considered it important enough to get more than a passing mention in other texts," the maester said. "We do know that the dragonlords were fond of it, however, and that they sweetened it with sugar from the Rhoyne after building towns on the coast to try and claim the land for themselves."

"What happened to their towns?" the Clegane asked with a raised brow.

"They were wiped out," Qyburn said simply. "Even mighty Valyria and all its dragonlords and sorcerers could not tame Sothoryos for more than a few years."

There was silence after that.

Silence but for the Lannister dwarf's long sigh.

Tyrion smiled widely as he pressed his knife against the side of the freshly baked bun, sawing through with back and forth motions of his right hand, the warm air released from within carrying with it the familiar scent of yeast to his nose, the same scent he remembered from Casterly Rock and the Street of Flour of King's Landing, the smell of a Westeros a thousand miles away. It was the smell of home, and there was nothing he had began to cherish more during the long voyage than the familiar feeling of a soft, warm piece of bread in his hand, fresh from the small oven a deck below where the ship's cook made all their meals. When they had first set out from Lannisport months before, it had been a small luxury, a little thing he was grateful for, but now, so far away from the shores of the Seven Kingdoms, further away than he had ever been from the Westerlands or his father or his brother or even his sister, it was more precious than anything else, a gift from the father he had never been able to love to his son's hands.

I will have to thank him for finding a good cook when the voyage is done, he thought to himself as he wiped the knife off of his napkin before sinking it into the open jar of butter and spreading it with a flick of his wrist, watching the golden yellow melting into the white. It's helped make things bearable.

The voyage from Lys had gone well enough, with the winds and the seas calm enough to let them sail in peace and with not so much as a pleasure barge having been found on the seas, yet alone anything that could have been called a warship. Yet with every day that passed the temperatures grew hotter, hotter and more humid and then hotter still, a sweltering heat from which neither sweat nor shade could offer much relief, making the summer heat of King's Landing seem like an autumn's day in comparison...but they had thankfully made good preparations for it all at the city, stocking up on wine and smoked meat and keeping it packed below decks where the heat could barely reach and where the crew took shelter on the hottest days, singing whatever song Anguy could remember for hours on end.

He hadn't lied about those songs being days long, he laughed to himself as he placed the knife on the table again. Thank the Seven my father did not find a Marcherman to write his song for him, else they'd have never finished singing it to Lord Farman-

"You alright, Tyrion?" Davos asked from the other side of the table, pulling the dwarf from his thoughts and back to the cabin, where he and the two men he had set out with were eating. "You just started laughing."

"I was just thinking," he said to the Seaworth with a smile. "Were you saying something?"

"He was," Sandor Clegane said with a husky voice, taking a large piece of smoked ham from the platter in the middle of the table and throwing it into mouth, washing it down with wine.

"Today was another day with nothing much out of the ordinary," Davos said as the dwarf turned his attentions to him, the smuggler reaching for a jar of grape jam and slathering his bread in it. "Asha says she didn't see anything during her watch, and neither did anyone else, aye, other than that wyvern of yours sharing a fish it caught with the cat."

"All's the better if we don't see anyone," Tyrion smiled. "It means no one has heard of the blade, else there would be ships everywhere."

"We're nearly there," Davos smiled. "The weather's been calm the last few days, but it can't be more than a week away now. Mayhaps just a day or two if the wind picks up. "

"And then the long voyage back," Tyrion mused as he took ham and cheese from the platter and placed it on his buttered bread. "Had any thoughts as to our course?"

"Aye, and I'm sure you'll like it," Davos smiled. "Straight west."

"West?" Tyrion asked...before smiling. "To the Summer Islands. I thought you said you wanted to stay faithful to your wife, Davos?"

The smuggler laughed. "I do, but the Summer Islands are beautiful and they'll have plenty of supplies for us to pick up. Good northerly winds, too. And the Summer Islanders always talk about their hospitality."

"Summer Islanders talk a lot of shit," Sandor spoke.

"You've met Summer Islanders before, Clegane?"

"King Robert has a Summer Islander at the Red Keep, called Jalabhar Xho," Tyrion explained. "He's a prince in exile."

"He's bloody useless is what he is," Sandor said. "His people are meant to be great warriors. But they don't fight. It's all duels and one on one."

"Lord Stannis told me about him," Davos said, leaning back in his chair. "He said he could hit any target with his golden heart bow, even discs thrown in the air by the servants."

"That's because he has a goldenheart bow," Sandor said. "The arrows go faster, so you don't need to aim. Ask Anguy. Give the best fighter in the realm a wooden club and an idiot a sword and the idiot'll win."

"But how is Jalabhar a bad archer?" Davos laughed. "I've never seen anyone other than Anguy who could do that with a bow."

"He doesn't practice," the unarmored Clegane grunted. "Summer Islanders don't have battles, they only ever have one on one duels and it's all rituals and piss and no actual fighting. I could take over the Summer Islands with my sword by taking them all on one by one."

"That would be one to tell my father," Tyrion smiled to the Seaworth. "Yes, father, Sandor survived the voyage, but he became King of the Summer Islands and won't be coming back because he has a hundred wives and enough wine to drown in."

"Don't tempt me, dwarf," Sandor laughed, one of the few times since the start of their voyage. "If I had a kingdom..."

"Go on," Tyrion encouraged, taking a bite. "What would you do if you were king?"

Sandor paused for a moment, either thinking or hesitant, Tyrion couldn't be sure...

"I'd keep my own army," he said at last. "An army for the king. Not for any of the lord's. For me. Paid for by me and commanded by me. They'd train most of the time and learn how to march, too, so if anyone revolted I could crush them before they could gather their forces and become a real threat. It'd make me feared, and the Targaryens only kept the bloody throne because people were scared of their dragons."

"Clever," Tyrion smiled. "The King's Own Army!"

"The Royal Army," Davos suggested. "It'd go with the royal fleet."

"And I'd use it to crush robber lords," he finished. "Just march up to their lands, siege their castles and wipe them out. The crown can't do that unless it has an army, so they just ignore it, but I wouldn't. I'd make sure justice was done."

"King Sandor the Just!" Tyrion exclaimed as if he were a herald as the smuggler laughed and the Clegane smiled. "What about you, Davos?"

"I wouldn't know where to start," the smuggler said honestly as he thought. "I've never had much land. I wouldn't know what to do with seven kingdoms."

"You have more land than me," Tyrion said with a shrug.

"Aye," Davos nodded with suppressed amusement, trying to be serious, speaking with a growing confidence. "I suppose I would invade the Stepstones, first. Salla's good and honest enough to let people pay to sail through unharmed, but most of the pirates there won't and'll steal the ship and the cargo, kill the captain and take the crew to the slave markets like how they got that Swann girl. Taking the Stepstones would stop all that and make the seas safe."

"Then...I'll suppose I'll set up some charities for the worst off," the Smuggler said. ""

"King Davos the Charitable Conqueror!"

"What about you, dwarf?" Sandor asked, his voice free of any hostility. "What would you do?"

"Conquer the Summer Isles so as to get all the wine you want?" Davos asked with a smile. "Get them to call you King Tyrion the Lionheart?"

"If I wasn't before, I would now," the Lannister grinned. "If what Sandor says is true, they couldn't put up much of a fight if we made war on them."

"Your nephew could probably take them on and win," Sandor said.

"Then they would be damned if I landed twenty to thirty thousand men on their shores and named Jalabhar as Lord Paramount," Tyrion considered. "...and maybe make his position appointed rather than inherited. That way I can play the Summer Islanders against one another, make them vy for the throne's support and stop them from ever uniting against me."

"Devious," Davos teased.

"I wouldn't be a Lannister if I didn't have a few plots and schemes somewhere," he said. "After that's done, I think I would spend the rest of the time sorting out King's Landing. A bridge over the Blackwater, like the one at Volantis, then start building a city there and maybe some new walls on the north side to let the city grow."

"Why?" Sandor asked, confused. "Wouldn't crossing the river just make the city harder to defend?"

"It would, but it'd be worth the cost," Davos agreed. "I was born and raised in King's Landing. If there's anything wrong with that city, it's that it's too big for the walls. It's like getting a man grown to wear a boy's shirt; he can fit a little, maybe, but it won't be comfortable and it'll rip, too."

"You've seen Fleabottom," Tyrion said to the Clegane. "There are families of eight living in rooms smaller than this cabin and twenty families in a space as large as this ship. It's a dirty sprawl that killed half the men in King's Landing in the Spring Sickness, not to mention it breeds criminals and other kinds of scum...uh, no offense, Davos."

"None taken," Davos nodded. "I'd be the first to tell you that Fleabottom's a hole if you didn't already know."

"But building a new city on the south bank of the Blackwater and expanding the walls would let the place spread out a little," Tyrion explained, taking his cup of wine and having a small sip, savoring the taste. "That way, it wouldn't be so much of an -"

Then there was a flash of brilliant white light that flooded the cabin and eclipsed the dull flames of the oil lanterns. Tyrion looked to the open window with fright as the light faded...and before he could speak, there was the deafening bang of thunder that he could feel in his feet, vibrating up the chair's legs.

Instantly Davos bolted upright, pulling the napkin from his neck and throwing it onto the table, his face pale as he turned to Tyrion to speak only for the door to be thrown open by Asha.

"We've got a storm coming," she almost shouted, her voice cracking with fright. "And it's a big one."

"Direction?" Davos asked quickly as Tyrion and Sandor rose from their seats.

"Behind," Asha said as fast as she could. "It's gaining on us as well."

"Seven hells," Davos murmured before marching out onto the dark deck of the great carrack, his voice rising to a shout. "Everyone on deck! We have to reef the sails before the storm comes!"

"Davos!" Tyrion said quickly as Sandor dove below decks, shouting curses and hitting the walls with his fists to wake every last soul beneath, sailors rushing out onto the decks as quick as they could. "What do we do?"

"If you keep the Gods you best start praying," Davos said solemnly. "The hells have no fury like a storm at sea."

"Rope!" Asha said quickly, unfastening the rope from the tiller and taking it around her waist as the flashes of lightning and the boom of thunder came ever closer, the dwarf feeling the waters growing choppy underneath him. "Tether yourself to the ship! You go overboard in this and you are gone!"

"You can't mean to be on deck?" Tyrion asked as Davos marched up the steps of the aft castle to Asha, a spray of moisture from the sea soaking the deck and forcing him to wince as salt water entered his eyes. "It's suicide!"

"Someone needs to be here to man the tiller to stop the Gerold rolling in the waves," Davos said grimly, "And she cannot do it alone."

"You've got guts for a greenlander," Asha said with fondness, loosening the rope so Davos could fit in before tying the two of them together, hands on the tiller. "You sure you know what you're doing, onion?"

"This isn't my first storm," Davos said quickly, his face lit by lightning. "It won't be my last. Turn her into the waves -"

"And go with the flow, I know," the Greyjoy said in understanding. "Easy."

"And don't just stand there, Tyrion!" Davos shouted. "Rope! And that goes for all of you!"

Tyrion didn't need to be told again, and ran back into the cabin as fast as his legs could carry him, rain starting to pour through the open window as men on the deck shouted and hurried up the rigging to reef the sails before the storm could arrive and rip them from the masts. The dwarf shut them as quickly as he could, pulling the shutters closed and barring it in place, feeling the floor rising beneath him as the plates and the food and the wine slid from the stationary table and crashed onto the floor, glass and clay shattering into hundreds of pieces and silverware passing through the open door and out onto the deck and into the waves, never to be seen again...and as the deck rose steeper and steeper still, it was everything he could do not to lose his footing and go with it, grabbing onto the table's leg and hugging it with all the strength he had, feeling the acid rise in his throat only to crash back down into his belly as the ship rolled over the wave and crashed into the raging waters, the forecastle soaking as men shouted, struggling to keep their grip on the rigging and struggling to put away the sails. One of them lost his grip, screaming as he fell from the rigging and plunged into the cold waters below, disappearing from sight in a heartbeat, and the dwarf's eyes were transfixed by the sight, locked on where he had been and where he had gone.

We're going to die, a part of him seemed to mumble in quiet realization. We're going to die a day away from Gogossos.

It was only the feeling of another lurch beginning beneath his feet that broke him from his fright...and filled him with determination. He rushed as fast as he could to the chest at the end of his bed, throwing the lid open and grabbing the rope that tumbled out, a simple thing of strong flax rope dyed red and gold, a gift from a sister who had surely sent it as a jape or because their brother had told her to send something. Quickly looping it around his middle, tying a knot around his middle and leaving enough slack that the rope wouldn't rip him in half it was jerked, he fastened the other end around the nearest, sturdiest thing he could find - the legs of the bed, built into the ship's own structure to stop it from moving and pinning a man against the walls during bad weather.

"Hard to port!" shouted the Seaworth from above, and the dwarf rushed out to the soaked and darkened deck to see the nimble ship now sluggishly slogging with the waves, helpless and completely under their sway, Davos and Asha doing the best they could to keep with the changing currents, pushing and pulling the tiller this way and that.

But the main sail was still full, still blooming out as the winds caught the cloth and pushed, the ship moving forward as fast on one as it would on all the others. The fore, bowsprit and top sails were reefed and wrapped twice to make sure they wouldn't come undone, but the mainsail was as big as those first two combined, a vast sheet of red and gold that was bellowing at full and nigh impossible for the men on the rigging to tame, the fast winds making it hard for them to grab it and the angry seas makes it even harder for them to hold it long enough for the work to be done, and again and again he saw the cloth slip from the hands of a man and force them back to the beginning, the mast groaning under the strain.

"Is there anything you can do?" he shouted to Davos and Asha. "We can't take much of this!"

"We're doing well with how strong the storm is!" the Greyjoy woman shouted in answer. "Once that sail's in, we'll be -"

The dwarf heard the most horrible sound he had heard in all his life, a crunch like that of a stick snapping beneath a hard boot, but louder, like the snapping of a tree trunk with the last blow of a woodsman's axe. It was the main mast. He spun on his heels to see the pillar of hard oaken timber cracking and buckling, wavering in the storm's breath as they snatched the sails from the crew's hands and flooded them to full, the men shouting in fright as the wind's picked up to full - and then there was a crack.

Then he could only watch as a dozen helpless men screamed in terror as the upper half of the mast snapped, starting to tumble towards the starboard side with the last few timbers snapping like thin twigs, the rigging ripping from its mounts as the mast collapsed onto the forecastle, instantly crushing the lucky and dragging the rest with it as it rolled into the waters, dragging them down with it as the crumpled scarlet and torn lion of the topsail disappeared beneath the ocean's surface.

"Seven have mercy on us all," he spoke breathlessly, drawing the sign of the Seven on his chest as the sky filled with the flashes of lightning and the booms of thunder and the groan of buckling ship.

The crippled carrack forwards, the golden lion on her prow sinking beneath the waves only to rise again and again and again, the seas threatening to swallow them whole as the ship leaning towards the port side,

"She's rolling!" Asha screamed, terror filling the Greyjoy's voice. "We're going to broach! We're going to flood!"

"Hard to starboard!"

The Seasworth pushed the tiller as Asha pulled it to the port...and the ship answered instantly, moving against the waves and straightening and sending everything on the deck tumbling the opposite direction.

Including the dwarf.

He screamed as he slid across the deck to certain death, Tyrion slipping through the gangway, falling face first towards the water...

...only to yelp in pain as he felt the rope go stiff. He grunted as it caught him, the hard and thick linen catching him and squeezing his middle tight as he felt the cold water soaking through his shoes and through his socks and on his feet, the furious seas thrashing all around and drenching him in its white foam.

"Help!" he shouted frantically and as loud as he could. "I've gone overboard! Sandor!"

Then the waves came again.

For an instant, he thought he heard a bang.

Then there was dark.

Tyrion murmured quietly as his eyes began to flutter open, revealing a dull murk that became colors and colors that became shapes, his fingers pressing down to find soft cloth beneath their tips, the Lannister dwarf pushing himself upwards slowly, looking around with aching eyes and taking in the scarce few details that he could find all around him. He saw lights, oil lanterns burning dimly on the walls against the black shadows that threatened to flood the room from the corners, he saw wooden walls and wooden floors, scuffed but intact, he saw pots of herbs and bottles of physics and other concoctions and liquids...and it brought the memories of his last moments rushing back.

The bread. The storm. The screams. The water. Had it been a dream? Had the storm never came, and he had instead been tossing and turning in his bed? Was he drowning even now, the sights around him the last gasps of a dying mind desperate for comfort as the end came? Or...

...or had he survived? How?

The rope, he remembered, reaching to the back of his head to feel a bandage, his cheeks twisting into a smile. Cersei saved my life!

There was a soft humming in the hall past the door, and through stepped none other than Qyburn with butcher's gloves on his hands and a large jar in his hands, filled with water.

"By the Seven," the maester said with surprise, quickly setting the jar down on the table and setting his gloves ontop of it. "You lived!"

"Unless you're in hell with me, Qyburn," Tyrion said, laughing weakly, the movement making the wound throb.

"And you can still talk!" the maester smiled before placing his hands before the dwarf, three fingers on the left and two on the right. "How many fingers am I holding?"

"Five," the dwarf answered, blinking. "We made it through the storm?"

"You wouldn't have woken if we hadn't, I assure you," Qyburn said lowly, standing straight again. "We're still alive, though for a time we expected you wouldn't be."

"How bad was it?" Tyrion asked...before looking to the table and seeing the jar. "...and what were you planning with that?"

"I can answer both by saying that we were concerned about what might happen if we returned to your lord father without your body, either whole or otherwise," Qyburn said innocently, making it obvious what he had planned to do. "I did my best to tend to you, however, and it seems I did my best work as well. You are lucky to be alive, my lord."

"I'm a Lannister," he said, climbing down off the bed and onto the floor, swaying for a moment and leaning on the table as he struggled to find his feet on the floor. "We're always lucky."

"Careful," Qyburn said, reaching out to steady the dwarf. "I mended you once, I might not be able to do it again."

Tyrion couldn't place what it was that made him barely able to stand, only knowing that something was off. Then he felt it in the boards beneath his feet and in his legs and in his arms and in his ears as well, knowing exactly what was making him unsteady.

"Are we not moving?" he asked. "Are we becalmed?"

Qyburn shook his head, and for the first time since they had started the voyage, the dwarf saw the maester go grim.

"Davos wanted to speak to you the moment you woke, if you woke," the maester said, swallowing. "We...have a problem, you see."

"The mast?"

"That is a problem, yes, but we have an even greater problem than that," there maester said. "Much greater...I doubt you would believe it if the words came from me."

"How could we have a bigger problem than having part of the ship missing?" the dwarf asked, confused. "Did we lose all our supplies as well?"

"Gods!" came the voice of the smuggler from down the hall, quickly rushing into the room, Davos smiling wider than Tyrion had ever seen him smile. "The maester said you were going to die!"

"I said he was probably going to die," Qyburn corrected. "There is a difference."

"I almost did, from what I hear of things," Tyrion said, walking towards the Seaworth. ""

"Aye, if it wasn't for that rope of yours, you'd have gone in the sea," Davos said with a grim smile. "It's good to see you up and about, though I wish we had other miracles as well. "

"What's happened?"

"How much do you remember?" Davos asked. "Qyburn said you might've forgotten a few things."

"I remember the storm."

"Aye, then you remember most of it," the smuggler sighed. "We barely made it through. Some of us didn't."

"And the Gerold?" the dwarf asked. "I'm fine, but before I went overboard I saw the mast -"

"Aye, it's gone, and all fourteen men on it as well," Davos sighed. "We lost a third of the crew in that one storm."

We had set out with fifty, Tyrion swallowed hard. And that brings us down to thirty five. 

"Are we...stranded?"

"You have to see it for yourself," Davos . "It's down the hall. Can you walk that far?"

"Whatever it is won't keep me in bed," Tyrion said. "Lead the way."

Davos nodded, turning towards the door but keeping his eyes on the dwarf, whose staggered and confused steps grew all the more normal with each foot he placed in front of the other, finding his rhythm again. The halls were darker than they usually were, so much so he could barely see where he was going, Tyrion hearing the sound of cracking pottery beneath his boots and the soft squelches of walking in oil, the broken lamps yet to be cleaned away, and every wet step brought him closer to the way to the upper decks, where he could hear the pained groans of wounded men and the prayers of the fearful and the whispers of the anxious. A warm, humid breeze floated from the hatch that led to the lower levels, filling his middle with unease, Davos climbing down the ladder and helping the dwarf down into the ship's belly, into the cargo holds where they kept their provisions for the long voyage, the breeze growing stronger as he struggled to avoid tripping over fallen crates and battered casks, the light of lamps fluttering...

...and then he saw the Clegane, armed for battle and armored from head to heel, visor low. Besides him was Tommen of his father's guard in his red plate, besides him Bronn in his boiled leathers and Anguy with his longbow and the clansmen with his axe.

"See anything?" Davos asked quietly.

"Something's out there," the Clegane growled, raising his visor. "But we can't see shit in the dark."

"It can," Bronn said quietly, torch in hand. "I wouldn't go for a stroll if I were you."

"What is it?" Tyrion asked, confused. "Have we gone upside down?"

"Take a look for yourself, dwarf," Sandor said, coming to Tyrion's side with blade drawn, the smuggler following them into the furthest front part of the ship, the wooden rib's that gave the King Gerold strength shrinking...

...and then he saw the hole. Seven feet across and six and a half feet high, Tyrion went wide eyed as he saw the starry sky above shining down around the full moon, revealing a sandy beach covered in broken timbers and small pebbles, all lit and glimmering by the light of their torches.

"Seven hells," he murmured before turning to the Seaworth. "What did this?"

"The storm," the smuggler said solemnly. "We ran aground and ripped this hole. If we hadn't slowed down when we lost the mainmast we would have tore the whole bottom out and be trapped here."

"And where is here?" Bronn asked, keeping his sword close at hand as he looked to the shore. "I don't know what kind of trees those are and I've been all around Westeros."

"Here," is all Davos could say.

"Have we seen anything that might tell us where we are?" he asked. "Towers?"

"I'll light the shore up a bit, see if we can't see anything," Anguy said, taking one of his arrows and wrapping the tip in a spare bit of string before dipping it into a nearby barrel of lantern oil. "Got a flint?"

"Always," the clansman said, reaching into a pocket in his breeches and striking it off his axe, the shower of bright sparks catching quick on the arrow and causing it to burn as bright as any of their torches might.

"Thank the Seven for a Northman, or not," Anguy said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood before nocking the arrow and shooting it onto the beach, the flames taking root in the pearlescent sands and lighting a space of a dozen or so feet for them to see. "See, nothing -"

"What's that ball?" Artos asked, pointing out with a mailed hand. "There? Do you see it?"

"I do now," Anguy said. "I thought it was just a rock, but it's too round."

"I'm going to take a look," Tyrion said. "Do we have a ramp?"

Sandor turned round to a broken shelf, grabbing the wooden board and ripping it from its smashed fitting, throwing it onto the place where the hole met the shore. "We do now."

"Are you sure about this, Tyrion?" Davos warned. "We don't know what might be out there."

"Precisely why we need to find out where we are," Tyrion smiled. "I hope I won't be going alone."

"I'm not scared of some shadows," Sandor said. "I'll come with."

"I can cover you both from here," Anguy smiled. "The beach is flat. Might as well be a range."

"Hells," Davos sighed. "I'll come along."

Tyrion smiled, and with that he stepped onto Sandor's ramp, climbing down onto the shore. The sand was soft and thin and nearly as white as fresh fallen snow, but littered with small rocks as well, rocks that helped stop him from sinking into his ankles in the soft shore. Warm and humid winds rose from the south, bringing with them the strange sweet smells of flowers he didn't know and wet earth, too, and on the beach he saw seashells of all kinds as he began to make his way towards the

"This is the place, Tyrion," Davos said as they walked, the Clegane behind. "We're there."

"You don't mean -"

"I do," Davos said grimly. "I checked the maps not long after the storm settled and we found ourselves here. They're not good maps. No Westerosi mapper has ever been this far south. But they're right. We're at -"

"What's it matter?" Sandor spoke. "It doesn't matter where we're stuck if we're still stuck."

"No, it makes a difference," the Seaworth said, looking into the darkness that lead towards the chirping jungles and deeper into the island. "You know what they said about this place. Monsters. Sorcerers. Flesh-"

"That's enough of that," Tyrion said, his voice growing firm. "Panicking over where we are will help us little. We need to stay focused, and for now, that means making sure we are where we think we are. Neither my father nor your Lord Stannis would let fear get ahold of them if they washed up here."

"Aye, you're right," Davos murmured before smiling. "Half of it all is probably just sailor's stories anyhow."

"Exactly," Tyrion smiled, straightening himself out. "I am not scared of any fleshsmiths or anything of the sort, the way I'm not scared of snarks or grumpkins. They are children's stories, nothing more."

There was the quiet rumble of the Clegane's laughter. "There's some lion in you after all, dwarf."

"And who was it that saved me, anyhow?" Tyrion asked, trying to put the Seaworth at ease with a change of topic. "My father would to know who to reward, and so would I."

"Sandor was the one who dragged you from the water."

"I did," Sandor nodded. "I heard you shout and pulled on that rope of yours."

"Thank -"

"But you were dead."

"...dead?"

"You drowned like Robert in his cups," Sandor shrugged.

"I don't feel very dead," Tyrion laughed.

"Asha brought you back," Sandor said with all seriousness. "Pressed on your chest to get the water out, then took a breath and breathed it into you. Called it the "kiss of life" or something like that. Said that's what the Drowned Men do to bring Ironborn men back if they're underwater too long."

"She kissed me?" Tyrion asked with surprise. "And people say it is my brother Jaime with the charming looks!"

"I wouldn't say she did it out of love for you," Davos laughed. "More like she was worried what would happen if your father found out you drowned under her watch."

"When we return to the ship, I want us all to meet in the cabin," Tyrion said. "We're going to need to plan."

Davos stood still for a moment, then, looking around in confusion as he moved his torch about, the three still half a dozen feet from the stone ball.

"We're not alone," he said. "Something's out here with us."

"In this dark?" Tyrion asked with a smile, forcing himself to be certain that there could be nothing out in the dark. "Snarks, mayhaps?"

"...no," Sandor said, raising his visor, eye's narrowed, listening. "Quiet, dwarf."

The dwarf sighed...

...and then he heard it too. A soft pattering of feet on the sands, looking to the source to see only darkness and to hear it circling around.

"They were sailor's tales," he reassured himself quietly. "Surely they were just tales."

"It's looking for an opening, whatever it is," Sandor grunted, raising his shield. "It won't get one."

"We best hurry, before whatever it is brings -"

The Clegane slammed the flat of his sword against the the gold and black face of his shield, once, twice, thrice, again and again till he struck it seven times, and on the Stranger's blow he stopped...and there was silence.

"That scared it off," the Clegane laughed. "But whatever it is might come back with more."

"And it won't be scared by noise then," Davos said, walking as quickly as he could towards the ball.

"Are you sure it wasn't that cat?" Tyrion said, grasping for an explanation. "You know how sneaky it is."

"No," Davos said, standing besides the round rock, holding the torch close so that . "It was too big."

"And you, Clegane?"

Sandor grunted.

"That was no cat."

Tyrion swallowed his unease. If the stories of the horrors of the far south were not stories, then that meant that they were real...and if they were real...it bared no thinking about. Steeling himself, he crouched down besides the round stone, letting his curiosity replace his fear, seeing in the flickering flame of the torch that the surface had dimples and dents in it, like wood, smooth but not perfect.

A closer look would do, he thought, considering the possibilities. Mayhaps this is a waystone? Qyburn said before that the Valyrians used stones to mark their landing points...it would prove we are where we think we are.

He reached out towards the stone ball with trembling hands, feeling the smooth surface connect with his fingertips, raising it into the dim light of the wavering torch to see...that it was no ball, no, it was a skull.

But it had no eyes.

"...Seven have mercy," Davos gasped as he saw for himself. "That was from no man."

"No, it wasn't," Tyrion uttered breathlessly, staring into its mouth of needle fangs before looking back to Davos and the broken hull of the King Gerold. "Back to the ship. Now. Clegane, make sure we always have guards on that hole -"

"You don't need to tell me, dwarf," Sandor said quickly, raising his sword for a swing and looking around through his narrow visor, covering the little Lannister at all times. "We're being watched. Whatever it was must have come back"

"Aye," Tyrion said with a whisper, looking towards the groaning and chirping jungles in the distance. "We are."

And as he rose up the steps that led into the belly of the King Gerold, Tyrion saw the broken and vine covered summits of a city's towers, rising from the thick canopy in the far distance, crumbling and broken by centuries of disrepair, the black stone lit only by the light of the full moon above and the flashes of distant lightning in the furthest south.

They had reached Gogossos.

Chapter Text

The Gerold's captains quarters had been a beautiful, ordered room of finished walls and padded seats and shining silver cutlery before the storm, the Greyjoy woman knew, a lord's chambers fit to sail with and decorated lavishly. The storm had little mercy for it. All the glass cups and stoneware plates had rolled and slipped from the table in the storm, not having the benefit to be nailed down as the table was, slipping and sliding and smashing into the far wall. Knives and forks and spoons had flown through the air and embedded themselves in the finishing as the ship had rolled, like fangs in some beast's maw. Salt water had spilled through the cracks in the shutters and soaked into the flooring and into the bedding, filling the thick air with the stench of damp and cold food. There was no light in the dark room, no. She knew it all by instinct, by the sound of her boots squelching on the floorboards, by the smells in the air, by the strength of common sense.

But she didn't care for any of that. She didn't care for the smashed plates or the smashed glasses or the broken bottles of wine or anything of the sort. She cared for one thing, hoping and praying to the gods - whether they be Old, New, Drowned or even Fiery - that it, of all things, had held strong. It didn't matter where they had gone, or what they might find out on that pale shore, none of it mattered if the simple little cabinet affixed to the right wall had failed to survive the storm. She felt around blindly in the dark, fingers feeling smooth finishings, wetness, wood, cold - iron latch. The latch.

Shutters. She traced the line of their opening with the finger, searching for the other at the top...and unsnapped the two, throwing them out. The sound of nightly waves gently lapping against the shore filled her ear, coming with the chirping of strange birds and stranger insects from the black forests to the south.

She didn't care about that, either. She cared only for the dim light that managed to flow into and fill the room, thin rays that came from the moon and stars above. She cared only for the small cabinet that sat on the right wall, its face of glass and wood still intact, damp to the touch and yet intac.

"Come on," she whispered, hoping, praying as she undid the little metal bolt. If water had made it inside, if water had damaged the rolls within... "...please be lucky..."

The bolt clanked loudly as it slid out of place. She hoped. Hinges struck by seawater crunched the salt in their hinges. She hoped. Her hand reached in and felt cold parchment on her fingertips. She hoped. She pulled it out, into the evening light and placed it on the tabletop, still in place thanks to the nails into the deck. She hoped...

...and let out a breath of relief as she unfurled it to see a map, the dry ink kept away from the water. If that had failed, if water reached it, they would never, ever be able to find their way back to Westeros. They would die -

"I want guards on the hole," came the bitter voice of the Clegane as he came onto the deck outside, heavy boots making a heavy noise. "If anyone abandons it, they can stay in the woods."

"Aye, I don't think you'll need to worry about anyone deserting here," Bronn rumbled on the deck in answer. "More like you'd need to force people to go ashore."

"Why?" asked the Marcherman, Anguy's voice unsettled. "What did you find out there?"

"...you wouldn't want to know," Tyrion murmured, a long silence filling the air before he continued. "Davos, bring the maester above deck and to the cabin. And Sandor, I'll want you there too. We're going to need a plan."

The dwarf saw her, then, and she waved him in as Sandor grumbled quietly, sword resting over his shoulder as the smuggler shouted down into the lower decks for the maester. She hadn't thought much of the Lannister when she had first seen him, thought of him by the stories that came to the Isles of how much wine he drank and how many whores he bedded and how deformed he was and surely how much a fool he was. That was the greatest one of them to be wrong, she knew. Tyrion was many things, but he wasn't a fool. He took counsel, asking the opinions of those around him to guide him like a captain asking a navigator to find their course. A man clever enough to do that was never a fool.

"Count your blessings, dwarf," Asha said, smiling at the small mercy they had been given. "The maps are fine."

"Then we might be able to find our way out of here," the dwarf said, looking for himself. "...though they won't be much help when we have a hole in our ship."

"It wouldn't matter if the ship was fine or not if we didn't have a map," the Greyjoy woman said, placing it carefully upon the table's surface before using pieces of broken plate to weight its corners down. "It'll be hard enough navigating our way out of here as is."

"It can't be much harder than sailing away from...here...can it?" Tyrion asked. "This is Sothoryos. Sothoryos is in the south, so going away from it takes us north."

"It does, but finding east and west are going to be far more troublesome," she answered without taking her gaze from the map, placing a finger on the northern coasts of the green continent. "If we don't find that out, then we'll sail off course and could end up starving to death in the Summer Sea."

"...or end up going east into Slaver's Bay," the Lannister sighed, rubbing his brow. "As if this voyage wasn't going badly enough without the risk of being captured by slavers."

"It wouldn't be so bad for me," Asha half-japed. "There's not a Ghiscari sailor who doesn't fear the kraken enough to not let me go. Targaryens said we couldn't reave in Westeros, they never mentioned Essos."

The dwarf allowed himself a laugh in answer. "And I suppose I would best make use of my Lannister wit to get to safety. Even a half-man is surely worth at least half a ransom."

Asha laughed with him, welcoming the break from the gravity of the situation as the others came inside. Sandor Clegane, a not-knight horrifically burned on the side of his face by his infamous elder brother. Ser Davos Seaworth, a lowborn man who had been rewarded for his relieving the siege of Storm's End by the garrison's commander taking an axe to his fingers. Qyburn, a maester whose studies were too extreme even for the Citadel. Together with the Greyjoy woman and Lannister dwarf they made a motley crew, but now, after so long, she had grown to respect them and see their strengths the way she had Tyrion. Sandor was deadly in a fight, but with the strength and wits to be useful out of it and was a better leader of men than he might have thought. Davos was a born sailor, with such an understanding of the waves that even the men of the Iron Islands would look at him with respect. Qyburn was knowledgeable about thousands of different topics and with a deft mind to help him master a thousand more, as well as being a master of healing.

If they were to have any chance of surviving the green hell that was Sothoryos, they'd need to work together perfectly...but for all that strength and knowledge and learning, they were silent. Quiet hung over the room, broken only by the sound of the jungles to their south. Even the Clegane looked grim, the moonlight catching on his undamaged cheek and making him look a maiden's fantasy...just as it made the burnt side a thousand times more awful to look upon.

The silence said more than any word could.

It spoke of flesh smiths, cutting and hacking and sewing people apart only to put them together again in twisted forms.

It spoke of screams echoing from a lost city, condemned men and women crying out for a salvation that never came.

It spoke of beasts half-human and half-monster, lying in the darkest and most forbidden corner of the word.

It was Tyrion that broke the silence, as he had all the times before.

And he did it with a long breath.

"Let us not try and speak all at once," he japed before growing serious, climbing into his seat to meet the others more eye to eye before turning his eyes towards the Seaworth and Asha both. "I was half-dead for most of the storm, from what I am told. The Gerold...how bad is it?"

"We can't tell, not this quickly," the Seaworth said quietly as he thumbed the bag on his neck, but with a growing strength. "Before we went ashore I was having some of the sailors looking at the ribs, seeing if there was damage there, but your father spared no expense on this ship."

"Ironwood timbers glued to oak," Asha explained before the dwarf could ask. "Gives them flexibility so they don't crack in a hard wave, but keeps it strong. A carrack can make it from Lannisport to Yi-Ti, storm or no storm. There shouldn't be any serious damage there."

"The Gerold was overbuilt," Davos agreed, giving a smile that raised the spirits of all the others. "The ribs look as if they have held...and aye, we would know if they hadn't."

"Forget the ribs," Sandor rumbled. "There's a hole big enough to walk through."

"It can be fixed, can't it?" Tyrion asked, getting a nod from Davos. "How well? How fast?"

"Only a fool goes to sea without a few carpenters in the crew," Asha said with crossed arms...before looking to Tyrion with a respectful nod. "Luckily, none of them went overboard."

"It'll be timber that's the problem," Davos said.

Sandor gestured to the window where the jungle lay beyond, incredulous.

"Shipbuilding timber is not something that you might find in that forest," Qyburn said. "It is more than mere wood. It can take months - even years - to dry, during which time it gains its strength. If it hasn't that time to dry, it remains weak...it could even rot."

"Do we have much spare?"

"Some," Davos thought, tapping the table with a fist. "This is oak, same as the chairs and beds."

"That won't be good for the mood of the crew," Tyrion sighed. "First we crash ashore on some Seven forsaken island, then we take their chairs and beds."

"...there is another option," Asha said, adding in at last. "We Ironborn aren't nearly the backwards fools the rest of Westeros likes to think we are. We know more about building ships than anyone, even the Braavosi."

And then, as if she completely changed topic, she turned towards Qyburn.

Father will have my head if he hears about this, she thought to herself before opening her mouth to speak.

"Does the cook still have his oven?"

"...his oven?"

"You have to come past the kitchen to get to the top deck," she explained. "Does he still have his oven working?"

"I think so," the maester nodded, before asking with confusion. "I do not see how that might help us, though?"

"After my father's...unsuccessful...rebellion cost us most of our fleet, we had to rebuild," Asha started, speaking to the Lannister. "We didn't have many ships left after Fair Isle, and fewer still ready for battle. As Qyburn said, it can take months or years to age timber in a storehouse to the point that its good enough to work with, not like how the Reachmen can build it with green - wet - timber that rolls in bad weather."

The room hung on her words.

"We found a way to age it in one month."

"How?" Davos asked, astonished. "The royal navy takes two years to get enough timber for one ship -"

"It's an ironborn secret," she explained. "It was how we rebuilt the Iron Fleet so fast after the war. The greenlanders - you - had to spend years waiting for your wood to be ready to work with and could only work on a few ships at a time. We could age a hull's worth of timber in a month, even a few weeks for the smaller ships, and keep our shipyards busy every day, launching longships as fast as they can be built. Rebuild the fleet, rebuild our strength. Why do you think no one, not even the man this ship is named after, was able to keep the Isles down for more than a few years?"

"...and you can do this?" Tyrion asked hopeful. "With what we have here?"

"I've seen it done, but I've never done it myself," the Greyjoy admitted. "I don't know how well the wood here might take to it, and you'll still need to find a way to coat the timber, but it's better than nothing."

"But that still leaves the main mast," Davos sighed. "We have cloth for a spare sail. We haven't beams of wood long enough for a spare mast."

"And without a spare mast we won't travel fast enough to make it back to Westeros before we ran out of food and water," Tyrion nodded. "Speaking of food and water..."

"...we lost a lot of our supplies in the storm," Davos said, continuing on from the dwarf. "Food, mostly the dry goods. Bread, sausages..."

"Oh good," the dwarf sighed. "So even if we do mend the ship, we will starve before we get home."

"I believe this is where I can help, Lord Tyrion," Qyburn answered with a raise of his hand. "Though men are right to be afraid about setting foot on Sothoryos, there are foods here we could eat. Some of my books mention a number of edible fruits. And of course, even Sothoryos has meats to hunt. It mightn't be perfect, but it would be better than starving."

"Meat that is more likely to try and hunt us," Tyrion sighed.

"So would a mountain lion," the Clegane said with a heavy shrug. "Hit them with a spear and they still die. Shouldn't be too hard to put together a party, and we could smoke the meat on the shore. Robert's done that before, keep his hunts going on as long as he can."

"Seven hells," the dwarf laughed. "It seems we might be able to make it through this after all."

"But there are dangers," Qyburn said.

All the confidence that might have built up over the meeting was gone as quickly as it had came.

"What dangers?" Davos asked. "Flesh smit-"

Sandor growled. "If I hear that word one more time, I swear -"

"Actually," Qyburn said. "I was going to raise another problem. Disease. I have never had the fortune or otherwise to see a man inflicted with such plagues, but there are afflictions a plenty in this land. Sweetrot, the Dancing Plague, green fever, wormbone -"

"Wormbone?" Asha asked.

"It is exactly what you think it is, good lady," Qyburn answered. "You drink water that is the home to eggs, and thousands of worms will eat your bones from the inside out till it is time for them to take flight and they burst from -"

Tyrion took a long, long breath.

"Sandor, would you show them what we found on the beach?"

"I thought we weren't going to bring it up?" Sandor asked. "Avoid scaring the crew?"

"We may as well add snarks to our grumkins. Show them."

Clegane reached down to his belt, towards one of the satchels that had a place on every knight's middle, only this one wasn't filled with food or maps or bandages or anything else, but by a skull. He took it out and placed it on the table for all to see.

Asha blinked, leaning in close.

"What in the Drowned God's name..."

It didn't have eyes.

"...oh," Qyburn murmured, taking it up and pondering it in the moonlight. "This is another danger."

"What in the seven hells is it?"

"A good question," the man who was once a maester thought aloud. "One of the eyeless things that live in Sothoryos."

"One of?" Tyrion caught quickly. "There are more like it?"

"Oh, most likely," Qyburn said before placing on the table and clearing his throat. "Being...realistic, we do have a chance to leave this land alive. Our talk makes that clear."

And then he said what Asha was sure was coming.

"It is not a great chance," "The dangers I have mentioned before are but a fraction of what is truly here. Sothoryos has never been conquered. Even the lands beyond the Wall have been tamed, for the Thenns have built a realm of their own. Such has not happened here. The Ghiscari failed with their lockstep legions. The Citadel failed with companies of sellswords set out to simply take plants and learn as much truth as possible. Even Valyria, with all their dragons and all their sorcery, failed to hold this land for more than a few decades."

"The Green Hell," Tyrion murmured.

"Someone has been doing their reading," the old maester smiled and nodded. "We have a chance to survive. That means we must be careful. This is not like Westeros, where a man can get lost in the woods and emerge safe a week later. Everything here is a danger, except those few things that are not. Only by being cautious will we have any chance of surviving."

"Reasonable words," Tyrion nodded.

"And one more thing," Qyburn said, raising his hand once more. "We will need water as well as food and timber."

"...aye, he's right," Davos nodded after half a moment's thought. "We'll need a spring."

"Or fire," was the Hound's quiet answer. "It cleans water."

"I wouldn't trust springwater, not here anyway," Tyrion said before the maester could. "The maester has made it clear enough why not."

"Then how?" Sandor asked. "The rivers will be the same, and you can't drink saltwater."

"We could try and boil off the water from the salt, but that won't be easy," Asha reasoned...before an idea struck her. "But there was a city here. This is Gogossos we're on, if those ruins in the distance are any clue. A city needs food and water."

"And that means there is a source of clean water in the city," Qyburn agreed. "Some, pure water. The Valyrians for all their power were no masters of water magic as the Rhoynar were. They will have needed a natural source."

And then it clicked.

"A well," Asha said in instant realization. "They must have dug a well. It should be clean if it was away from the surface. Clean enough for boiling to work."

"But that means going into the city," Tyrion said, rubbing his brow once more. "Seven hells. You know what the stories say about that place."

"If we are ever to make our way back to Westeros, we will need fresh water," Davos nodded grimly. "We can't get it anywhere else."

The dwarf looked to his hands, as if counting some invisible numbers, as if thinking.

"How long could we last for if we were to ration?"

"Not long enough, not unless we left half the crew here," Davos said. "We wouldn't even have enough hands to man the ship, then."

"Then we have no choice, then?" Tyrion asked.

Asha shook her head.

"We're going to have to go into Gogossos."

A long and pregnant silence filled the air. It was one thing to crash into the shores of an accursed island on the shores of the Summer Sea. It was another thing entirely to venture into the black heart of the Tenth Free City, where the blood mages of the Freehold itself had been granted self-rule and allowed to do as they will. Where they had mated women - women like her - with creatures of all kinds, dogs, cats, wolves, snakes, even the creatures of the sea, and made the twisted not-men that came of such unions into sport in the blood pits, different fleshsmiths vying to produce the strongest, most dangerous creatures.

She checked her belt by instinct, feeling for her dirk. It was still there, on her hip. She would have to keep it closer than ever on this accursed island, to ensure that she didn't fall into the terrible hands of whatever of their monstrosities still lived on the damned island. She would sooner gut herself.

She opened her mouth to speak, to say such things, but before she had the chance there was the twang of a bow, of an arrow being loosed - and a heartbeat later, there was an awful screech that sounded as though it came from the depths of the hells themselves, then fast movements away from the ship.

A heartbeat later, there was an awful, high pitched screech and the sound of fast movements away from the ship..

"Run off, you faceless fuck!" Anguy shouted. "And take your damned friends with you!"

Asha and the others bolted onto the deck as quickly as they could, Sandor and Asha both drawing their weapons, but Anguy waved down to them.

"Something was trying to sneak on board by coming around the backside of the forecastle," the Marcherman said quickly, readying another arrow as Bronn came up alongside, bow in hand. "I've never seen anything like it before in my life, and there were a dozen more of the things behind."

"...aye, and they don't bleed red, either," Bronn muttered under his breath, leaning out over the side to take a better look. "Pale as snow it was and walking on hands and feet, but when Anguy put an arrow in it the damned thing bled green. They soon ran off when he got the hit, but they ain't scared easy."

"What in the Seven's name was it?" the archer asked the maester.

"One of the creatures of Sothoryos," he said. "Faceless...things. Not men. Something else. They live in caves. Ruins. Mayhaps they thought the Gerold a place to nest. But coming around from the side shows cunning."

"...we have lamp oil, don't we?" Tyrion asked, quickly. "Set the beach ablaze. A few fires with whatever broken wood we have. For the Warrior's sake, don't let those things near the ship."

"I don't plan to," Anguy answered. "It was like something out of a nightmare. I saw its teeth, and gods above -"

"Not another word, marcher," Sandor commanded, knowing that the rest of the crew was listening. "You put an arrow in it and it bled. If it bleeds, we can kill it. That's enough for me."

"Besides," Bronn reasoned, leaning on the railing. "It's not like they're wearing armor. Soft targets. I'll take that over a man in maile any day."

"You heard the captain," Davos shouted down to the lower decks. "Fires! On the beach!"

"And we'll need a watch," Asha said. "Every angle."

"I can do that," came the voice of Artos, the Northman sat in a seat on the corner of the deck, sharpening his axe and yet so quiet she hadn't thought to look to him at all, a shadow surrounded by shadows. "I was a watchman before I came to Lannisport. Sneaky wildlings tried to steal our women and crops."

"You haven't slept in hours already," Asha said. "You'll fall asleep."

The clansman reached into a pocket, and took out a tiny bottle of oil with a small cork, which he unpopped to reveal a leather ring with a pinprick hole in the middle. He dripped a drop out onto his left finger...

...and rubbed it under his eyes. The smell of mint and nettles wafted through the air, and Asha blinked.

"I won't now," Artos said, packing it all back into his pocket.

"...what even is that?" Tyrion asked with surprise. "Something a maester made?"

"Mint oil with nettle extracts."

"...doesn't that burn?" Qyburn asked with interest. "Surely it must hurt?"

"It does," Artos said flatly. "It is extremely painful. I was used to it by my thirteenth name day, as a watchman isn't allowed to sleep."

"Seven hells," Anguy laughed. "I should probably be more afraid of you than what's out there."

"I won't have him alone on it," Tyrion said to Sandor. "One man on the front castle, one on the aft -"

"And one on either side," Sandor nodded. "Two shifts will do. I'll be on this one."

"We still have the far-eye 'neath decks," Asha explained to the dwarf as he turned to her. "I'll keep with the others, see if I can't find anything of interest."

"Then I best try and get some rest," the dwarf said, walking back towards his cabin...

...only to stop half way and look towards her with a playing smile. "Oh, and I wanted to thank you for saving me."

"I did."

"With a kiss," the dwarf japed. "I am sure my father will be delighted to see me turn into a dashing prince."

Asha laughed, and half the crew laughed with her. The wyvern swept down from what remained of the foresail to the broken stem of the mast, sniffing.

"Don't make me regret it, dwarf."

"How could you ever regret saving me?" Tyrion asked, walking into his chambers backwards, the shadows seeming to shift behind him. "I am a dashing Lannister, with quick wits, enormous amounts of coin -"

Artos' axe was a blur as it flew through the air, over the Lannister's head and into the darkness behind him.

There was the wet sound of a wound.

A body crashed to the ground.

Something died.

"Came through the window," the Northman said quietly before spitting a word as a curse as he walked to the cabin. "Wildling rats."

"Seven hells," Davos murmured. "They're sneakier than they look."

"Aye," Artos answered, dragging his axe onto the deck...

...and the Sothoryi with it. Davos made the sign of the seven sided star on his chest and half the crew did it with him. The others let out curses and sounds of disgust. Even Asha's stomach almost turned at the sight of it.

It was no man, even if it had legs and arms and feet and hands and a head. Its smooth and glistening skin was as pale as fresh fallen snow, the skin of a thing that had never seen daylight. Its lipless mouth was filled with needle thin fangs and the forked tongue of a snake. Its footlong fingers had an impossible number of joints, growing into razor claws. It lacked any of the things that made a man a man, with nothing to be found between its four kneed stilt legs, legs that would have allowed it to surely stand up to a dozen feet if it dared to stand straight. Its fatless and slick body lay in a pool of green not-blood, filling the air with a stench of bile so bitter it made her eyes water.

And it had no eyes.

Merely flat flesh around the stub, slitted nose.

All of them looked on with horror.

All of them except Qyburn, who crouched down with a curious look in his eye.

"Would someone help me get this down below decks?" he asked, almost excited. "The Citadel will love to learn of it. Oh! And tell the cook I might need to borrow one of his cleavers!"

There were no more japes after that. Only quiet, anxious watching from the aft castle, Asha stood peering out into the darkness with bow and axe and dirk at the ready, careful not to trip over the dwarf as he slept besides the tiller.

And Asha knew he wasn't even trying to sleep.

The shining sun of early morning bathed the island with its golden energies, transforming the island utterly with its heat and light and so much so that it hardly felt to the Clegane as though they were still on the same island, as if they had somehow been moved from the hell of a Sothoryi night to the shores of the Summer Islands. The bleak and bone white sands of night had become smooth, sandy shores that shone like crushed silver, smooth and rockless. The quiet jungles that had echoed only with the sounds of chirping insects and howls of bloody death had came alive with the musical tones of birdsong. A cool and comforting breeze rolled in from the Summer Sea to the north, replacing the thick, humid air of the night before. Even the shadows that lurked in the edge of his vision and moved with him, the twisted creatures that had came the night before unable to withstand the warmth of the sun.

Sothoryos had transformed into the Summer Islands. Sothoryos had transformed into a paradise.

Or that was what the singers might call it, anyway, those men who would look to its shores from afar and without setting foot, without seeing the true danger that lurked within. Sandor dared not remove his armor, not here, not now. He slept in it. He ate in it. Now he was outside beneath the warm sun, sword fingers flexing and shield arm twitching. He had barely slept the night before. Who could, when the creatures had proven themselves able to sneak up on an open plain? When they had seen the twisted thing that lay on the deck, like some demon that had crawled out of the hells themselves? Who was foolish enough to let their guard down here? Who could be mad enough to have even a heartbeat of weakness in land that even Valyria with all their armies and magic and dragons could not tame?

Sandor cared little. He kept his mind sharp. His attentions focused. He had a task to do. An order given.

They were doing what they had been ordered to do by the Lannister dwarf. Head to the edge of the woods, find anything that might have came from the Gerold, but more importantly than that, find food and water and timber. Food. Water. Timber. That was their key. That was how they would get off of Sothoryos. It didn't matter if they found Gerion and the blade or not if they couldn't make it back to Westeros, for then they would just be another shipful of Lannisters lost overseas. Just like Gerion before them. Just like King Tommen before him. Most other men of the Seven Kingdoms would have grumbled at the work of searching the woods for food, scrounging and foraging, yet Sandor welcomed the distraction, the chance to get away from the whispers of the crew and the fear they had for it and the stories more than anything else. They terrified the crew. They even unsettled him sometimes. But was it the Green Hell that they called it?

No.

He had seen hell with his own two eyes in that brazier, felt its coals burning into his flesh, heard the screams of the damned in his own cries and in Gregor's raging laughter. That was hell. To be burnt. To be tortured. To be powerless to resist. That was the true hell.

Sothoryos was a dangerous place, more dangerous than any place he had ever been.

But he had his sword and his shield, his armor and his strength. He was not powerless, not now, not ever again. He was a killer in a land of monsters, yet stick them with a sword and they still died. Artos proved that. He had fought in battle. Killed men at Pyke, running them through and throwing them off the walls to die in the waves below. He had slaughtered and killed and burnt at King Robert's command. He had even been brought along on hunting trips with him and the boy prince. What difference would it make if he sheathed his blade in the guts of a boy barely a man grown, or in the breast of a wolf, or in...whatever these Sothoryi creatures were. They were all alive until they weren't. The boys screamed. The dogs howled. What noise would the Sothoryi make? They were all alive. They were all things of skin and blood and guts. They were all meat.

And he was the butcher.

He snapped out of his quiet daze, his obedient following.

Someone had said his name.

"Aye, Sandor, you alright?" Bronn asked, looking towards the Clegane, leaning on his blade. "You ain't said a thing since we left the ship."

"You talk too much."

"First thing I've said since I've left the ship," he japed as the tired Qyburn leaned down, inspecting a plant on the ground. "Might be the first thing I've said all day! How's that too much."

"Because the island is full of creatures, and if it doesn't have eyes, how else does it hunt?" Sandor asked, his voice rasping and hard.

"He is right," Qyburn agreed, wiping his butcher's gloves on his robe. "If they haven't eyes, then they must surely have some way to know where we are. Hearing, mayhaps. Fortunately enough they seem to have little taste for day."

"Like bats?" the sellsword reasoned.

"It would seem so," the maester nodded. "I have yet to finish my studies, but before we came I did manage to fix a few organs in preservative for when we return. I am sure the Citadel will be most...intrigued."

"But in any case," the maester continued, tapping the plant on the ground with the tip of his shoe. "We best continue looking for food. This one is poisonous."

"How badly?" Bronn asked, curious.

"Enough to kill some twenty good men," the former maester answered. "Mind your hands on the thorns, as they are dripping with -"

Bronn took his sword and plunged it deep into the bulbous plant, pressing down on it with his boot before pulling it out again, soaked in juices.

"Might as well," the sellsword shrugged, careful of his now poisoned blade. "Might be it'll save my life."

"Or kill you when you nick yourself on it," Sandor said, raising an armored hand to another part of the jungle on their left, a little further in land, yet still close to the shore. "We'll look there next."

The group moved through the forest together on his command, but it was like no forest he had ever seen. Even in the Kingswood and the Rainwood there were clear pieces of ground where the treetops above blocked the light, leaving but a thin undergrowth of dead leaves, broken sticks and a few saplings clawing at the ground and the light in their struggle to survive. Sothoryos was not like that. Gogossos was not like that. Every patch of ground, every last square foot, all of it was covered in something or another. Flowers and bushes and other plants grew on the ground, used as step ladders by vines to climb onto the tree trunks that seemed to rise into the sky forever. The largest butterflies he had ever seen in his life danced through the air, going from red to green to blue to violet to orange to yellow, never staying in one place for long, each and every one with wings larger than his hands placed side by side. Beads of water dripped down from the canopies, dinging like tiny bells whenever they struck his armor, and bright little frogs the size of arrowheads darted around his armored legs, careful to avoid being crushed underfoot...some even jumping onto his armor and sticking to the side before jumping elsewhere.

One thing caught his attentions as they came through the woods. One thing he had noticed from the stories. One thing he had seen all around him.

There was nothing with fur here. No foxes. No bears. No wolves. Not even mice. Everything was scaled, feathered or slippery skinned. Why? Because it was always summer? There were foxes and wolves and dogs in Dorne, and winter barely existed past the Red Mountains. But here there was nothing. Not even wild dogs or pigs. The only things he had seen with fur were the large white moths that came towards the Gerold the night before with little woolen coats. Surely there should have been dogs? Gogossos was a city and they would have had dogs.

Did the Red Death kill them, too? Or did something on the island get them?

That was more concerning than any tale. Dogs were tough because they were cunning. They could always find a place to stay, always find their way to food, always find their way to drink. They weren't bothered by eating scraps or drinking dirty water. They simply endured wherever they went. There were even packs of wild dogs in the capital.

And yet here there was no sign of them. What could possibly have done that? Had the Valyrians and the Ghiscari before them simply not brought any? Surely not.

The sweet scent of flowers filled his nose, thicker and heavier than it had ever been in Westeros even in the height of spring and summer, near enough to bring his eyes to water and his nose to itch. His boots squelched in the soft earth, still muddied with the storm water that had brought them ashore in the first place. The rays of light that pierced the treetops shone down and revealed tens of thousands of thin specks of pollen and dust wafting through the air. The vines and undergrowth grew thicker and thicker still. He'd need to use his sword to cut through -

Then they stopped. Qyburn turned to the side, and all attentions snapped to him. Sandor's sword hand tensed, ready to rip the blade from its scabbard.

But there was no threat before them. No danger.

Just a simple, spiky plant that had caught the maester's eye.

"Ah!" Qyburn said, leaning down with a smile. "Here is one of the fruits we are looking for!"

It was like no fruit Sandor had ever seen before in his life. Apples were fistsized. Peaches grew on trees. Pears were smooth. Grapes came in bunches. This was none of those things. This was some melon sized, barrel shaped thing covered in spikes, with a small, sharp shrub on top, growing out of a single, large crimson flower on the ground.

"...are you sure that's a fruit?" Bronn asked as Qyburn took a knife from his belt and separated it from its plant, lifting it up from the ground. "It looks like the Gregor Clegane of conkers."

"It is a fruit, despite appearances," Qyburn explained, examining it with curious eyes. "I have never seen one with my own eyes before, but it was said in the book that they are much like an orange inside. All the better to keep away scurvy, and it should be filling enough."

"It looks like a mace," the Clegane muttered.

"A little," the maester accepted with a smile as he came over to the Hound. "Would you mind crouching down, Sandor? I can't quite reach the bag."

The bag. It was a large, burlap sack thrown onto his back, its handles wrapped around his shoulders. The hope was that they would find enough food to fill it, but they had set out just after sunrise and this was the first thing they had found that wouldn't make the man who ate it die...or wish he had. He grumbled wordlessly, slouching down enough that the Maester could grip the bag's opening and slide the fruit inside, carefully placing it as close to the bottom of the bag as he could reach to keep it from bruising.

Even the fucking fruit here has scales, he couldn't help but think. Why is everything like that?

They continued on a few feet more before coming to a halt as quickly as they had started, the maester yawning before pointing towards one of the nearby trees.

And that's what it was. A tree.

But by the Seven-who-are-One, it was like the fruit and the rest of the strange island in that it was like no tree that he had ever seen before in his life. He had seen oaks and pines and ironwoods and even weirwood trees, with red leaves like hands, half of which could all be seen in a single moment in the godswood at King's Landing, then dozens of different other kinds of tree out in the Kingswood, some tall, some small, some wide, some narrow, some brown, some white.

This had nothing in common with any of them. It didn't have bark or anything that he would call it. It didn't even have branches. It was a towering splinter, with a trunk no thicker than his arm from wrist to elbow that rose a dozen or more feet into the air, to a crown of thick, green fronds with long, thin leaves.

"The Smith must've been drunk when he made this bloody island," Sandor sighed under his breath.

"There, at the top of that tree," Qyburn said, pointing up to the top, where a half dozen great orbs, larger than a man's head, were waiting, nestled safely beneath the green blades. "Those are nuts. There might be one on the ground, too."

"Seven hells, that's a nut?" Bronn laughed, rummaging around the tree's base to find one that had fallen, its furry brown exterior marked with three bald dots at the bottom. "Seven hells! It's got a face on it!"

"You jape, but it is mayhaps the least harmful thing you might find on the island," Qyburn reasoned, taking the giant nut from the mercenary's hands. "They come from the Summer Islands, or so it seems, and they grow near the beaches. That is how they spread, you see, if what the Citadel thinks is true. They fall from the tree, roll into the water and float till they reach a new shore to grow on. The Summer Islanders make bread from the pulp inside."

"I can't climb up there," the sellsword said, giving the tree a brush with his hand. "There's no grip on it at all. Might be we could shake them loose?"

"Stand back," the Clegane commanded, lowering his visor and raising his shield to cover his bulk as the others moved to a safe distance.

Then he shook the tree, quick and hard - and an echoing bang went through the air as one of the nuts crashed into his shield, only to roll off intact, cushioned in the fall by a grown, hay like armor. Another fell, rolling towards the maester, who snatched it up eagerly, and then half a dozen more, leaving only the most stubborn ones behind.

"Pick them up," he said to Qyburn and the sellsword. "And cut off any part that we don't need. This sack'll get heavy with so many nuts in it."

Bronn burst into laughter.

"You should tell Asha about your heavy nutsack," the sellsword japed, leaving his blade next to the tree as he picked up one of the giant orbs and stripped off the outer, barky shell, leaving only the hard nut within.

Clegane said nothing in answer, not wanting to give him even the pleasure of an answer. Instead he turned his attentions away, letting the two fill the sack on his back. Only he had the strength to walk around with it, he and the Northman who was sleeping aboard the Gerold, and even Artos couldn't easily walk around in full plate, with shield and longsword, with so heavy a weight on his back as a sackful of food. No, he turned his attentions elsewhere, keeping an eye open for anything that might be a danger, anything that could be of use, anything that could -and there it was.

An apple.

A simple, harmless looking apple, one of many on the large, plain looking tree's branches, each and every one a bright, familiar green, just as they were in Westeros. Colorful birds played amongst them, singing. He looked to the others, gathering up the headnuts and stripping their shells with their hands and knives and looked back to the tree, the apple in easy reach, its leaves glistening with the moisture of last night's storm. What harm could it be? What harm could an apple do? He had seen more threatening fruit in the orchards outside King's Landing when they grew wrong and ended up jagged instead of round.

He reached out with his shield hand, plucking it from its place. The wetness rolled down its skin and into his gauntlet, slipping in through a joint in the armor...and for a moment he felt a cool, refreshing tingle.

Then he felt pain. Awful, stabbing pain. It was as if a hot needle had been jabbed into his skin, then another, then ten more, then a hundred. The Clegane threw the fruit to the ground, growling and biting down as it burned - and then the maester was there, pouring his wineskin through the same joint the water had flown into and wiping away the pain in seconds, leaving but a tender, stinging throbbing.

"A Sothoryi apple," the maester explained quickly. "The fruits are deadly to even the strongest men and the poison leaches out into the rainwater. Some amongst the Free Cities would pay a royal ransom for them, for there is no cure for their poison."

"Why the fuck is it poisonous?"

"Look at the birds," Qyburn said, the Clegane snapping his attentions to the trees.

Then he saw it.

Then he realized.

None of them were eating the fruit. They were singing. They were making nests. None of them were eating the fruit.

"They won't eat them, because they know how dangerous they are," the old man reasoned. "Were I a few seconds slower you would have lost your hand...and if you had taken a bite you would have lost your life regardless of what I did."

"But you found things to eat," Sandor answered, flexing his hand and feeling a dull, aching throb where it had stung.

"A handful of things on an islandful of plants," Qyburn smiled. "Just because one can eat nuts and a melon doesn't make the island anywhere near safe, and only one of those two is native to the island. "

And then there was the frantic blasts of a man roaring into a horn, blaring it with desperation. Howls and shots echoed in the distance, and Clegane snapped to alert. He knew that sound from Pyke. He knew that sound.

Battle.

"Guard him with your life," Sandor snapped to the sellsword, pointing to the maester with his sword as he used his other hand to remove the sack from around his shoulders. "If he dies, you die."

"Aye, you don't need to tell me," Bronn said, taking his blade up. "I'll stay here with Qyburn, away from the fighting."

"Good," the Clegane nodded. "Come when the fighting is over."

And then he was gone, running through the jungles, as fast as he could without losing the energy he would need to fight. Heavy growls filled the air, growls like no man could make, and with them came shouts and the sounds of battle. The earth was slippery beneath his armor, threatening to give way beneath him, to throw him into the mud and delay him all the more for it, yet it was no more slippery than the mossy rocks of Pyke, rocks he had stormed with blade in hand. He pushed through the undergrowth, through the vines, through the flowers, through the pollen and the moths and the butterflies and onto the shore - and into battle.

And a battle it was. The King Gerold was under attack, the walls of its hull and the towers of its fore and aft the battlements of a siege, covered by sailors and archers loosing everything they could, horns blowing as the Lannister dwarf took up a bow for himself. Lannister red cloaks, elite fighters all, were the sallying force defending the gate that was the breach in the hull, using trees that had been felled whilst they were away to slow the attacker's path, barricades and half-walls that they would have to get over and which would give the Gerold's men more time to move and more time to fight.

But it was the attackers that caught his attentions most, pressing the Lannister men back. They were not the pale, slender creatures of the night before. They were not even men like the Andals or even the Ibbenese.

They were monsters. They were walking titans of flesh and bone, standing eight to ten feet in height and built more heavily than even his brother Gregor. Their scarred and tattooed bodies were covered in mismatching skin, blacks and whites and browns all mashed together in stripes and swirls and dots and patches, and their heads were covered in mops of wiry black hair. Hides and skins and scales and wood and stone covered their bodies as armor. But it was their squat faces that caught his gaze most, faces of heavy jaws and sloped brows and fla, pug noses and deep, beady eyes.

They were the brindled men, he knew, yet they were not men. They were beasts forged in the guise of man, an exaggeration and a mockery of the men of Westeros and Essos and everywhere else in the world.

And they fought like demons with their stone axes and wooden clubs and tree stump shields, making up for what they lacked in metal with raw strength and endurance.

And one saw him and charged, every step a vaulting leap of its powerful limbs, screaming curses as arrows rained all around, some lodging themselves in his flesh and doing nothing to slow the Sothoryi in his blood hungry rush.

Sandor quickly undid the straps of his shield, as fast as his hands could go, knowing he would need both hands for this, both hands if he was to ever have any chance of survival, barely having time for it to fall before the beast was on him and before it struck - and he would have been killed, then and there, if he didn't manage a last, desperate leap to the side to get out of the way. The beast spun on its heels...

...and the two met eye to eye, separated by a few scarce feet at the treeline as fighting raged all over the shore. The Hound's grey eyes met the Sothoryi's brown, and the look he saw was his own reflected back. This beast was just like him. This beast was just like him.

It was a butcher.

And Sandor was the meat.

The attack came with frightening speed, an axe blow that would have split a man in twain, yet the Hound ducked back, letting the weight of the weapon carry the brindled beast with it...and Sandor countered with a howl, both hands on his longsword, all his weight behind it, all his strength -

- and his arm exploded with pain as heavy force vibrated up his arm, teeth rattling and joints shouting.

The Sothoryi had caught his blade in his left, a thick stone wrapped in a leather mitten in the palm of his hand.

It smiled, squat face contorting with amusement.

Then it laughed, the noise booming and deep.

It smiled and laughed just like Gregor did.

Fire, a part of him screamed, feeling the flames on his cheek. The fire.

"Sandor," his sister laughed, the noise melting to screams.

His rage was on him.

He yanked his blade back with such speed and strength that even the Sothoryi looked surprised in its dim face before he brought it back again in another strike, and then another, then another and another and another, an unending, crushing volley of blows that the brindled beast howled and fought against with raw strength and raw ferocity and anger, yet Sandor was beyond anger, beyond ferocity, beyond strength. His muscles burnt, yet he didn't feel it. The sound of battle grew all the louder as they came closer to the shore, yet he didn't hear it. Lannisters and Sothoryi locked in a duel to the death, yet he didn't see it. There was only the fight. There was only the clash of steel on stone, two killers locked in single combat.

There was an almighty bang as steel triumphed over stone. The blade pushed forward, hacking through as though it was cutting leather. The force of the strike sent Sandor crashing towards the ground, his blade tasting the sand.

And on its tip was thick, dark blood, so dark as to be almost black.

He looked up, just as the brindled warrior looked down. A line was on his chest, down the midst, thin and straight. Then it blossomed. Blood poured forth in a tide of entrails, the air stinking of iron as it flowed out of the brindled beast's disemboweled body.

And before the beast crashed onto its knees, before it died, it looked to him with what any other man might have thought to be respect.

But there could be no hesitation, no stopping to rest, no, he had to press on. One Sothoryi had fallen at his hands, but there was half a dozen more and even outnumbered they were taking a toll upon the Gerold's crew. HE took a breath, his body burned with pleading to rest, yet he charged forth once more, catching one of the Sothoryi from behind as it moved to finish off a downed redcloak, Clegane slashing out its heels with two, heavy strikes to send it crashing onto its knees before striking its thick neck once, twice, thrice, the fourth blow breaking through and removing its head.

Then there was another, bigger than the others, stronger, decorated with a belt of heads - and a thunderous clang and a screaming ring sent him crashing to the ground as everything around him exploded into chaos, an axe blow striking his helm and dazing him.

But he still felt the hand on his belts and could still see the snarling face before him and could still smell its sour breath as it lifted him off the ground with a single hand...

...and threw.

The Hound flew across the sands for but a heartbeat - and crashed into them with a pained howl, his limbs screaming, his visor falling open, his body begging for breath, and there it was, advancing towards him with axe in hand.

This was it.

This was the end.

This was where he would die. Not in Fangtower. Not in the Westerlands. Not even in Westeros. Here, in Sothoryos, in Gogossos at the edge of the world. His fingers reached for his blade. Let him die standing. Let him die fighting.

It wasn't there. His hands caught empty sand. There was nothing there.

"Lord Sandor!" shouted a voice, the captain of the men-at-arms rushing to his side, Tommen wielding a heavy spear as he rushed to defend the Clegane, to fight the beast himself and cover his retreat. "Back to the -"

"Get back to the ship, you damned fool," he spat, blood coming with his words as he staggared to his feet, finding his dagger for one last attack. "Get back -"

The guardsman thrust his spear towards the brindled butcher, the Sothoryi swung his axe and wood splintered, the weapon snapped in two, the free end falling into the brindled killer's waiting hand.

"Get back!"

It was over in an instant. Tommen barely had time to shout before the Sothoryi brought his own spear down upon him, plunging its steel tip through the top of his shoulder and down into his chest and through his heart and through him utterly, slapping the dying man aside with nary a care. Anguy's arrows struggled to find an opening in the brute's armor, struggled to find a way to kill him, with those few that slipped through being walked off, little more than bee stings. They were being overrun. There had not even been ten of them, but for a storm battered and exhausted crew they may as well have been a hundred. Everywhere they pushed them back, everywhere they advanced forward. Everywhere they came closer and closer to the breach, and everywhere they learnt, picking up the shields of falling back Lannister men and using them to protect themselves from the archers on the Gerold who were almost out of quarrels to loose.

And then there were howls. Horns. Howling, long horns. The wail of the crowds around the executioner before the blade fell.

Arrows shot out of the jungle's edge, deadly and accurate.

But they didn't hit the Westerosi. They didn't hit the Gerold. They didn't hit Sandor.

They hit the brindled men. The Sothoryi jumped around, caught by surprise from the rear, the Westerosi on the Gerold free to fire on their more lightly armored flanks and hind...and Sandor, free to rise to his feet, free to pull the dead Tommen's sword from its scabbard. Violet banners flickered in the treeline, then pushed through, onto the beach.

It was an army over a hundred strong.

Shields were closed together in a wall of wood and iron, spears low. There was the cry of a command in a singing tongue and the ranks dispersed, breaking their formation. Javelins shot out from the squares, and at last, at last, he could see them. They were men. Men. Not Sothoryi. Men. Violet scalemail covered them from neck to knee, matching the violet facings of their shields. Their helms were open faced, revealing the look of -

"Essosi!" Tyrion shouted with amazement and relief.

The Sothoryi began to flee, yet the Essosi refused to give them that chance, refused to allow them to retreat, refused to let them escape after the battle. The bows of the men in the woods shot out at them, shooting their joints, their knees, their feet. Anguy's bow struck one in the back of the head and sent it tumbling over, dead. Spears stabbed into their breasts, and when they forced themselves forward to try and overwhelm one man on his own a dozen more followed into their guts and necks. Shields closed in, barring them in, preventing them from pushing them apart. One fell, then another, then another.

The last, the leader, the one that had felled the captain of the guards, was the last. A dozen arrows and a dozen more littered his body, yet still he pushed on, breaking into the jungles...and away. Gone. A slaughterer that had slipped away.

Sandor bit down, rising to full stature at last. He would get him. Mayhaps not now. Mayhaps not for days. Mayhaps not even for weeks. But he would get him. He would kill him. But that would have to be later. For now, there was the matter of the Essosi...

...and the one that must have been their leader emerged from the jungle, a man as tall as Sandor, covered utterly in a flowing violet robe that dragged on the ground behind him, fastened with clasps of golden dragonheads, leaving only his head and the Valyrian looks of violet eyes and silver hair exposed. These were not just Essosi, Sandor knew. These were Volantines, the self-proclaimed heirs to the Valyrian Freehold, once the most powerful of all the Free Cities before the Age of Blood. One didn't have to be a maester to know how they dared to take on all of Essos at once and how they were on the march towards victory before Aegon the Conqueror came with Argilac the Arrogant to finally overwhelm them.

And here they were now. 

The Volantene footmen stood at attention as their commander passed, forming up in twin columns on either side of him as Tyrion and Davos and Asha and all the others came down through the hole and onto the shore.

And then the Volantene stopped before them and laughed.

"Well, well," the towering Valyrian said, looking them over. "I hadn't expected to see Westerosi here."

"Who the bloody hell are you?" the Clegane grunted before Tyrion had the chance to stop him, the dwarf only just emerging through the hole as he heard the last word.

"Is that such a way as to speak to your rescuers?" the Volantene laughed, brushing a silver strand from his sight before looking to the Hound with violet eyes so dark as to be almost black as the others came alongside. "Allow me to give you some friendly advice, Westerosi. Burn the timbers."

"What?" the dwarf asked.

"The trees," he gestured. "Burn their wood. The Sothoryi hate the smell of it, for it must remind them of wildfires. Burn it and it will keep them at bay. I would suggest doing so, as we might not be around to save you again."

"Indeed," the Volantene said, looking to the others and commanding without a word being said. "We wouldn't have came at all if we hadn't found these two in the woods."

"Aye," came the voice of the sellsword with Qyburn at his side, the pair coming out from the formation's iron heart. "We kept gathering after you went back and stumbled into these men."

"Had we not intercepted the bulk of their numbers on the way here, I imagine they would be boiling your bones to make glue," the Essosi smiled. "What you had were but the vanguard. There were some forty more in the woods, and their best warriors as well."

"What did we do to anger them so?" Davos asked, his brow covered in the sweat of battle.

"You existed," the Volantene said flatly. "Sothoryi do not need a reason to fight or kill. The fact you were around to die is reason enough for them to give you to their gods either here on the battlefield or on their altars."

"Still, it is a rather pleasant change to see people here that are not interested in combat. Might I have the blessing of your company for a meal at our camp?"

"Your camp?" Tyrion asked with surprise. "You have a camp here?"

"Oh, most certainly," the Essosi smiled. "But I do forget my manners. I am Master Daerion Aurentys, of the Freehold. I do welcome you to Gogossos, though our lost little sister city no longer quite impresses as it once did, I imagine."

"Tyrion, of the house Lannister," the dwarf said with the best courtesy he could muster, offering his hand. "We would be eager to meet with you."

Daerion did not return the gesture.

"Delightful," Daerion smiled, looking towards the King Gerold and its damaged hull. "And whilst we are there, you may talk to my carpenters about the damage to your ship. I would happily provide the timber and anything else you may need to continue on whatever voyage you are on."

Tyrion looked to Ser Davos, then, just as he did to the Clegane.

Then he looked back to Daerion and nodded. "Mayhaps I will."

"Then I shall leave a small number of my men here, to guide you to us when the time is right."

"Not now?" the dwarf asked.

"We have a matter to attend to first," the Essosi answered as he turned and began walking once more towards the jungle's edge. "We were in the midst of it when we stumbled upon those two. You may join us once the matter is settled, which affords you time to bury your dead."

He uttered a command in his native tongue, and half a dozen men remained behind as the rest marched forward, following their commander inland.

"Oh, and I do hope you depart the island soon," Daerion said at last, looking back to them with dark eyes as the men marched on without him. "Gogossos is no place for the unprepared, I promise you that."

Then he was gone.

"How friendly," the dwarf sighed. "And I was wondering how our day could get any worse."

"He wants us gone," the Onion Knight said to the three. "I doubt he even wanted to save us."

"But at least he did that," Asha reasoned. "He didn't need to. He could have killed us all and set the Gerold ablaze to get the rest of us. He didn't."

"Bronn, Qyburn," Tyrion asked quickly and quietly as the rest of the crew moved to start dealing with the wounded and the dead - the former numerous, the latter less so, thankfully. "What did you see out there."

"We found some stones," Bronn explained, quieter. "Columns covered in all sorts of letters."

"Valyrian glyphs," Qyburn said with more certainty. "Waymarkers for the city, it seemed. I didn't have a chance to read them before the Volantines found us."

"...why in the name of the Seven are Volantines here?" Davos asked. "It doesn't make sense."

"It doesn't, but I aim to find out," Tyrion said more quietly. "Whatever it is could be important, and that is why we must go to the meeting."

"What?" Davos asked with surprise.

"Asha and Bronn, come with me," Tyrion said. "I could do with some daring swords if this goes wrong, as well as people who can keep an eye out and notice things."

"I'm coming along," Sandor growled.

"No, you are to stay here," Tyrion commanded. "You're wounded."

"I can still fight."

"So can my nephews. That doesn't make them any good at it."

Sandor grumbled. The dwarf had a point. He was wounded.

"Fine. But if you get yourself killed, dwarf, it'll be your own fault."

"It already would be for being on this voyage in the first place," came the shrugged answer.

"You can't mean to go with them?" Davos asked. "They have enough numbers that we could all kill three of them and still have men spare. If they capture you..."

"...I won't be able to escape," Tyrion nodded, understanding and aware of the dangers. "But they don't want to capture us. They simply don't want us here. Besides, it gives us a chance to learn the area, see what is out there, see how strong they are...and if they have been here a while, they might know where Gerion's ship is."

"Assuming they haven't plundered it for themselves," Asha sighed. "I'll come along. Better than standing around here chopping trees all day."

"If it means a hot meal and not having to eat those nuts we found, then I'll come with too," the sellsword nodded before pointing towards a large tree. "Bag's over there, before anyone asks."

"...and maester," the dwarf asked quietly. "How many Volantines know the Common Tongue?"

"Outside the Black Walls it is used often, but within...few," Qyburn said. "Mayhaps only Daerion does."

"Then I would think it wise for us to do some scouting first," Tyrion said, turning towards Bronn. "These columns. Can you take me there?"

"You know Valyrian?"

"A little," the dwarf admitted. "It was not as if I was training in the courtyard."

"Shouldn't be hard to find my way back there, but you'll want to lay low."

And that was the end of it. The dwarf smiled as much as he could this far south and set off with the sellsword and the Ironborn woman in tow as the others fell back to their works, the exhausted maester tending to the wounded, the Onion Knight overseeing the cutting of timber and the making of firewood in case what Daerion said was right...

...and Sandor, finding a corner where he could collapse into a slumber without being disturbed. 

Chapter Text

The jungles of Gogossos were thicker than any forest that Tyrion had ever encountered before, covered in growth on every surface, so thick that even the best of the royal trackers and huntsmen would have been bogged down and barely able to proceed. Even Robert himself would have struggled to make headway. But not them, not the crew he had sailed with and seen all the way to the far south and to where the maps ended. The steps of the sellsword Bronn were light and carefully planted, moving through the undergrowth with little less speed than Tyrion might have when walking on the Gerold's deck, like a shadowcat moving through the snow and leaving no trace of its passing. Besides him was Asha in her armor and with her shield and axe, an axe that made quick work of the dangling vines and saplings that blocked their path and were trampled underfoot.

Gogossos was a savage land, filled with dangers of every kind imaginable, but let none say that the crew of the King Gerold weren't giving it their best, fighting to survive in a land that had stopped the greatest nations of the world and even the desperate Rhoynar dead in their tracks. Let none say that they weren't fighting for it with every drop of strength and cunning that they had to give, that they weren't doing everything that they could possibly do to survive here. Barricades on the shore had surely saved their lives even before Sandor had returned, for although the Gogossi trees were felled in a different manner from their Westerosi kin, they still fell.

Had they not been felled, had they not slowed the push of the Sothoryi, they would surely have died. They had planned for many things. Food. Water. Timber.

And it was nothing that they had planned for that had saved them. Food. Water. Timber. How could they have possibly forgotten protection? How could they have possibly allowed themselves to think that the dangers here were only bound to the darkness of night? How could they have possibly been that stupid?

I should have known we needed to build a palisade before we did anything else, he couldn't help but think. Men died for that mistake. I won't make it again.

The captain of his father's guards had died for that mistake. Tommen had died for that mistake. A single, piercing strike through the top of his breastplate. Not even Gregor Clegane could muster that much strength and that much force for a single blow. No one could. He had a wife and three sons, the youngest of which was still a babe in arms, the eldest a squire. How was he going to explain that to them? That the man they called father was dead and buried on some sandy shore a thousand miles from home? That they would need to find a new way to put bread on the table without his wages, or how they would need to find a place to stay now that they had lost his rooms in the Rock? How was he supposed to tell a mother that she would never see her son again, not even have the chance to give him a proper burial? How was he supposed to tell a child that their beloved father was never coming back?

How was he supposed to tell all the widows and orphans, the sisters and mothers and betrotheds and all the other kin they had died...because of his failures?

The thought had never occurred to him before. Tommen was not the first to die upon this voyage and wasn't likely to be the last, either. What was he supposed to do when he returned? Did he not at least owe the dead a few hours of his time to give them respect? Did he not owe them his own life? Could he not spare a few gold dragons to ease the burdens of their loss on their kin? Might his father do it as a reward for their service? Did a Lannister not pay his debts?

Mayhaps. Mayhaps not.

The snapping of a twig by Asha's misplaced foot was a welcome respite from the thought of it all. Gogossos was a welcome respite from all the coffins that would lie empty. Anything was a welcome respite from that.

"Careful," Bronn warned, half serious and half japing. "I don't need to say what lives in these woods, listening out for a heavy foot."

"I'm trying to be careful," Asha answered from behind her helm. "I've never seen so many damned roots on the ground, or any that looked like hooks."

"Might help if you keep eyes closer to the ground than up," the sellsword answered, seeming to almost skip over a gnarled root, surrounded by small growths clawing their way upwards for light and life. "You'll hear anything here before you see it in these woods."

"...for once, you're making sense," Asha sighed, looking about. The green all about was almost impossible to peer through, so thick was the growth. "Are you sure we're heading the right way?"

"Oh, aye," the sellsword answered, looking back at the Greyjoy with a smile. "No lady under my care has ever gotten lost when I was trying to show her something."

"No lady under your care has ever put an axe in the back of your head, either," the Greyjoy woman answered. "That doesn't mean it can't happen."

Tyrion allowed himself a small smile. When they argued like that, it almost made him forget he was marooned in Gogossos with a hole in his ship.

"I thought Greyjoys prided themselves on hitting someone face to face?" the commonborn mercenary asked with a smile, so confident in his stride as to turn around and walk backwards, facing away from where they were going...and with his every foot finding the proper place. "Wouldn't be very Ironborn of you to stab me in the back."

"You don't hear the Northmen complaining about that, do you?"

"I don't think Artos can complain about anything," Tyrion japed. "From what he says of his village, the Sothroyi wouldn't last a week."

"I think he's full of it," Asha laughed. "He told me he used to sleep on a large stone slab when he was in the North, with nothing else. Even the wildlings use furs."

"Have you seen his arms?" the sellsword asked. "He doesn't need furs when he's already got a coat of his own."

"But that would still ruin his back," Asha pointed out. "Why do you think every ironborn raider has his own bedroll for? It isn't about comfort, it's about the pain you have when you wake up the next day and can't do anything."

"As if Artos would ever complain about the pain," Tyrion laughed, hopping over a large root as he did. "He's too stubborn to admit it."

"...you think he's telling the truth, then?" Asha asked. "About the slab?"

"No, 'course not," Bronn began, reasoning as he turned back towards the front, speaking over his shoulder with a sly, knowing smile. "Stone gets cold. If there's anything a clansman knows, it's the cold. If you tried to sleep on a slab like he says he does, he'd freeze his cock off that night then and there."

"And I suppose you would like that? Less competition?" Asha japed back.

"And have more Northern girls?" Bronn asked before laughing. "Why'd you think Artos came so far south for? That Stark girl was meant to be the most beautiful Northern lady in centuries, and she was horse faced."

"She was good enough for Robert though, wasn't she?" Tyrion asked..before laughing to himself. "Then again, who isn't good enough for Robert?"

"And what about Rhaegar, then?" Asha asked, her voice strained from the work of axing through another, thick sapling to clear their path. "He ran off with her."

"His parents were brother and sister, and so were the ones before them," the sellsword shrugged. "Might be that his wits were gone, like Aerys. Might be that he never had 'em in the first place. Besides, Elia wasn't much to look at either. Too boyish."

"How would you know?" Asha laughed.

"Met her," Bronn answered innocently. "Tasting the Dornishman's wife might sound nice on a song, but there ain't that much to taste. Tyrion's got bigger teats than she did."

Even the dwarf couldn't help but laugh, then. "And when did you meet her?"

"Before the rebellion. Wherever Rhaegar went he went dragging her around with him," the sellsword said, hoping over a loose looking root that could have caught his boots. "Doesn't take much to get into a tourney. Takes even less to get into a melee, and there''s good coin there."

"I haven't heard any stories of a sellsword winning the melee at Harrenhal," Tyrion laughed.

"More coin in it if you lose."

Asha realized it before Tyrion did, and realized it with a laugh. "You were a fall rider?"

"What's that?" Tyrion asked as Bronn only smiled and laughed to himself.

"Knights and lords go to the lists to make a name for themselves," the Greyjoy woman explained. "The more dangerous and skilled the foe, the more glory there is in beating them. Bronn would ride in the lists, best a half dozen riders..."

"...and then lose to ones that had paid him beforehand," Tyrion nodded with understanding before looking to the sellsword, following in his footsteps. "How many people did that?"

"What, paid for me to lose? I've lost count. It was good coin, though. Can't do it anymore since I'm too well known to put bets against myself nowadays. That could get you a lot more coin."

A loud, almost birdlike chirp chimed happily in the air...and then the wyvern zoomed down and rested upon the dwarf's shoulder, happy and content. Tyrion laughed. Ever since they had came ashore, the wyvern had been leaving the ship only to come back later, leaving in the mornings to return in the evenings, belly filled and ready to sleep. Where the vicious black tom couldn't stand the island and hated every moment of being so far south, of being in the wet heat of the jungles, the wyvern had came back to life proper, utterly revitalized by being in its home again. It was eager and happy in a way that it hadn't been even the day before they had arrived, the little false-dragon that had been snatched from its homelands delighted to be there once more.

Yet for all the hours it spent away, for all the love that it had for Sothoryos, it always came back.

It always came back to Tyrion.

I had asked Gerion and Tygett to bring me a dragon for my ninth name day, he couldn't help but smile as the little brown beast looked around with dark eyes, examining their surroundings. I just got a smaller one than I thought I would.

"I'm surprised that thing is still alive," Asha said, the wyvern turning its head towards her with a curious and yet familiar look, recognizing the Greyjoy woman.

"Might be it thinks the same about you," the dwarf said, finding his footing again as the brown belly balanced itself on his shoulder, brown scales seeming to blur into what little bark there was in the jungle perfectly. "This is its home. It knows this land better than any of us."

"And it can fly," the dwarf added as an afterthought. "Few better ways for anything to survive here than by not being on the ground."

"I'm just surprised it recognizes you," Bronn said, glancing over his shoulder again. "Not like its a pup or anything."

"It is dragonkin, and the Valyrians did say their dragons were more intelligent than most thought. They could do sums."

"Smarter than half of Westeros, then."

"Mayhaps," Tyrion smiled. "How much further is it, anyway? I thought you didn't travel that far from camp."

"...aye," Bronn said at last, looking back and around with confusion. "We should've been there by now.

"...I saw this coming," Asha sighed, removing her helm and shaking her dark mane loose as she looked around with free eyes. "We're lost, aren't we?"

"We're not lost," the sellsword said, speaking for the first time with true force and true confusion in his voice as he looked all about. "We're just not where we're supposed to be."

"What?" Asha challenged. "Has the island changed shape since you walked?"

"Might be it has," Bronn said, drawing his sword and pointing to a small notch on a crooked tree to his left. "I marked the trees as me and Qyburn were walking along. Landmark. Only problem is I'm sure this one was done two dozen feet back."

Tyrion laughed. "It couldn't have walked."

"Who's to say it couldn't?" Asha asked, a lot more guarded as her fighter's instinct's woke. "Who says the Gogossi didn't do to plants what they did to animals?"

The dwarf's laughter died in his throat. She had a point. Why couldn't they have done work on the plants as they did to the animals? Why couldn't they have shaped them into monsters, too? Why couldn't they have been made to grow legs and walk?

"...actually," Bronn said, glancing at the wood close. "I don't think this is one of mine. It's more round. My sword is straight."

"Seven hells," the Lannister uttered, the wyvern sensing his growing unease and turning tense. "You don't think it was the brindled -"

The wyvern hissed.

They all fell silent as a single, large moth fluttered into the area. It was a massive thing, as large as a royal hunting bird, yet it floated on the air with a delicate beat of its vast, fluffy white wings, each of the four marked with three round dots on either side of the darkest ebon, as dark as night. It looked around with matte black eyes, its darkly haired antennas twitching and turning as it floated on its gentle pats, its neckl.ess head turning on a coat of downy fur as soft and beautiful as a newborn kitten's. It was the least harmful thing he had seen in his entire life, like something that would have been in some story for a young girl or granted wisdom or some other fantastical thing. It didn't seem to fit in with the rest of Sothoryos, and all of them seemed struck still and dumb the sight of it there. How could it have possibly made its way here? How could it survive in such a land as Gogossos? How could something so sweet, so gentle, so beautiful survive here? Why couldn't he take his eyes away from it?

Why couldn't he move, a thin thought nagged at him quietly, buried beneath an ocean of beauty?

But the wyvern hissed and hissed and hissed as it floated towards the dwarf, the Lannister struck still by the sight of its great, softly beating movements, by its vast, deep eyes - and the wyvern pounced, leaping from his shoulder to strike the fluttering moth in the wing, breaking the grace of its movements as small fangs and smaller claws ripped into it with a fury.

"Aye, that's enough of that," Bronn said suddenly as the wyvern called, breaking the dwarf from his daze as the wyvern leapt back - and then the sellsword's blade was through the giant moth's back.

Great wings fluttered with surprise, beating faster as it slid off the blade in a tide of green ichor so dark as to be borderline black, legs kicking furiously - and a great blade burst from what had been a mouth concealed in its cloak, as long as a knight's greatsword and just as wide, but hollow, hollow, a feeding tube that ended with a razor's edge. Asha struck it off with a single blow of her axe, smashing the edge of her round shield into its body again and again and again...till at last, its twitching stopped.

Yet the wyvern hissed on as it returned to its perch on the dwarf's shoulder, and for every hiss Asha struck another blow against the white beast. She cleaved off its wings. She hacked off its legs. She cut her way into its belly and ripped out its guts with her own two hands, throwing them onto the ground by the fistful. Bronn plunged his sword into it with fast, murderous stabs, thrusting deep into its white coat only to turn it emerald with its blood as he pulled the steel back again. They cut the thing apart, shredded it utterly, and only then did the wyvern stop its cries of alarm, and only then did they stop.

"What in the seven hells was that thing?" Tyrion asked.

"Dead is what it is," Bronn answered as he sheathed his sword, picking up one of the wings and giving it a rub. "Couldn't take my eyes off it."

"Look at this," Asha said, raising the tube to reveal it was flat and narrow at the end, tapered to a stabbing point. "What in the gods' name does it eat with this?"

"Blood," Tyrion realized. "It drinks blood. The book mentioned vampiric bats as white as snow, but they're not bats, they're moths."

"And the wings lull you into a trance," Bronn murmured. "That's...new."

"Another Sothoryi surprise, just when I began to think it was running out of them," the Greyjoy sighed...before poking the shredded beast with her axe. "I hope there aren't many more of these around. I'll take the Sothoryi over this any day. But that wyvern of yours wasn't bothered."

A long silence went through the air. All three of them had been struck dumb by the sight of the graceful vampire, yet the wyvern had warned them with its hisses and jumped to fight something it couldn't match, breaking the daze and allowing the sellsword to act. If it hadn't...

Tyrion reached into a pocket, fingers searching before they pulled back with a broken piece of cracker, a snack he was saving for their walk. The wyvern looked to it with hungry eyes and took it from him happily, raising its wings to use the tiny, vestigial claw to steady it as it bit, chiming and chirping happily.

"Remind me to never let them out of my sight again," Tyrion said as the false dragon ate and as Bronn took up the hacked off blade and pressed it into the wound in the tree, matching the two together.

"Bloody things mark the trees," the sellsword sighed before placing the tube in the sheathe of his sword. "Might as well take it with us, though. Never know when you might need another blade here."

"It won't help us much if we're stuck in the damned woods," Asha sighed, wiping the green blood from her weapon on the moth's own wings.

Bronn nodded, thinking.

Then he smiled as he looked to the wyvern. "Back in a bit."

Before Tyrion could even process what he had said, before he could even answer, Bronn put a foot against the tree...and climbed, grabbing onto imperfections in the bark and pressing his left leg close against the trunk for stability. The cords of vine were his ropes, the maths of overgrowth his tethers, and up and up and up he went, a dozen feet from the ground before he sat on a thick branch, looking all around.

"Do you see anything up there?" Tyrion half-shouted, unwilling to risk drawing too much attention to themselves in the jungles.

"Oh, aye!" Bronn shouted back. "We went past the damned thing! Just head thirty feet back the way we came, then turn right! I'll be with you in a bit!"

"Climbing down is going to be harder than climbing up," Asha sighed before waving the Lannister over, heading back the way the sellsword said. "He'll catch up."

"Assuming he isn't eaten," Tyrion sighed, walking at the Greyjoy's side. "And to think we have only just started to see what is here."

"How much worse can it get?"

"Would you truly, truly want to know what else is said to be in these jungles?"

"...tell me some, but not all," she said before shrugging. "Better than walking in silence."

"You know what a manticore is, don't you? Those little beetles with the faces of men and venom that kills the moment it reaches the heart?"

"Is there anyone who doesn't know?" she asked.

"This land is where manticores come from, those that are not bred in Essos," Tyrion explained with outstretched arms, as if to hold the world around him. "The first manticores came from Sothoryos, and they are far more dangerous here than they are to the north. They know the land, and their green shells blend into the undergrowth, so you might not see them until you are bit."

"They don't sound too dangerous, so long as you have thick boots."

"Did I mention that they can fall out of trees?"

Asha was quiet for a moment.

Then she put her helmet back on.

"You might want to find some armor, dwarf."

"A pity there isn't a blacksmith around here to fit me in plate," he japed. "Besides, they're smaller here as well, but no less venomous. I doubt there is any armor on the ship small enough for a dwarf that would help."

"" ...and then she started, more quiet. "...there was something I've been meaning to tell you."

"Is this the part of the tale where you admit your undying love for me? Tyrion laughed. "I hadn't thought you the romantic."

"No, this is the part of the tale where I admit that I don't think we're getting off of Sothoryos," Asha said. "Things are worse than I thought yesterday. Much worse."

"...how so?" the dwarf grew serious. "Is there a problem with the wood?"

"Oh, the wood is easy enough to treat if you know what you're doing," Asha answered. "The problem is that we were hit by a southerly storm."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning the winds blow south," she said simply, already accepting what she said. "Which means we can't sail north without going into a headwind. We can't go back the way we came."

"...seven hells," he murmured, the grim nature of her words sinking into his heart in an instant. "How did the Valyrians do it, then? Or the Ghiscari?"

"They would have had to sail west to the Summer Islands, and that is where things get hard," she said, looking around before reaching to the ground and picking up a fist-sized pebble of stone, shaking it in her hand to get the dirt off. "Davos doesn't know this problem because he only ever sailed the Narrow Sea, but the Iron Islands have been trying to figure it out since before the Hoares."

"...well, we have plenty of time to figure it out," Tyrion shrugged as they came to a halt, waiting for the sellsword to catch up. "Might be Lannister luck will help."

"I damn hope so," she said, leaning against a tree as she lowered her shield to rest, freeing up her other hand for her axe. "It'll make us the most famous sailors to have ever travelled the waves."

"First off is something you already know," Asha started, raising the rock and showing it to the dwarf. "The world is round. The Ghiscari figured that out millenia ago with their sums, and the Valyrians confirmed it."

"They calculated it was round by placing posts a thousand miles apart and measuring the lengths of their shadows, didn't they?" he asked, remembering his maester's lesson. "They were the bases of a triangle with the sun as the third point...which let them figure out the world is some twenty five thousand miles around. "

"Now, since the world is round, then things stay simple," she said, using the tip of her axe to press against the stone, drawing from its top to the bottom. "One way is north, the other is south. You can tell which is which by using the Ice Dragon, whose blue eye takes you north and whose tail takes you south."

"The problem is east and west," Asha sighed. "Maester's call it longitude. The Iron Islands call it death, because nothing gets sailors killed like this does. Entire fleets get lost and die because of it."

Before he could say a word, before he might have a chance to offer insight, she raised the stone again.

"What we Ironborn try to do is this," she started, placing the axe's corner on the stone. "We figure out where we set out from. We figure out how far away the destination is, then we figure out the speed..."

She drew a line with the axe corner.

"...and times the speed by the hours we have been sailing for to find out how far we have travelled and where we should be. If a ship is travelling six knots and has been sailing for three days, then six times seventy two gives you the amount of knots it has travelled...which would be seven hundred and thirty two. That's dead reckoning."

"You know, Asha," Tyrion said with respecting surprise. "You know a lot about sums for an Iron Islander."

"Even my uncle Victarion knows this," she said with pride. "He's a reaver and a killer, not an idiot. Sailing takes more sums than you think, and Greyjoys are born to sail. The problem with dead reckoning, though, is that mistakes add up. If the wind blows you off course even a little or if you haven't been travelling at the same speed for the whole time, then when you try and do your sums you'll end up off..."

"...and when you try and do them again after that, you'll be using the wrong numbers and up further astray," Tyrion nodded with understanding. "Then what? What can we do?"

"...there is a technique, called running down a westing," she said. "It's an old Ironborn trick, but odds are it'll get us all killed."

"What is it?"

"If we can figure out our latitude, which we can, and our location, which we can, then we can do this," she said, placing the axe against the stone once more...before drawing straight westwards and down. "Work out how many miles west we need to know, then sail straight west. When we are around where we need to go we turn dead south to the Summer Islands."

"I don't need to say why that can get us all killed," Asha said, laughing to herself. "We don't have maps that go below the Summer Islands. If we travel too far west or too short we'll go straight into open sea."

"Or we could find land that we don't recognize," Tyrion murmured, scratching at the stubble of unshaven cheeks. "If that doesn't work, then what can we do?"

"There isn't anything else," Asha said, tossing the rock up only to catch it with her hand. "That's the only way it can be done...but there is one thing that might save us."

"I am open to any, any suggestions you have," he said honestly. "I am no Ironborn sailor."

"It wouldn't make much difference if you were," Asha murmured grimly, the rock falling from her hands into the soft earth. "We know that the sun rises differently in one part of the world to another. The Night's Watch and the Freehold figured that out. If we could tell what time it was in Westeros, how high the sun should be in the sky, we could use that to figure out where we should be."

"But we can't be in two places at once," she said with a simple shrug. "So unless you can find out whether it is dawn or not in Lannisport from here, there's nothing we can do."

"...bugger," Tyrion sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with a growing exhaustion and a growing sense of despair as Bronn came up behind them, walking so quietly that the dwarf only knew he was there when he saw his shadow. "We'll...we'll have to figure that out as we go."

"Have I missed much?" the sellsword japed.

"Nothing you would have wanted to be here for," Asha answered before tipping her head towards the right. "That way?"

"Aye, that way. Goes in land."

There was an awkward silence that followed. They weren't anywhere near in land and had already encountered monsters worse than anything to be found in fairytale. Slender not-men that walked in the night and moved as quietly as shadow, but could unhinge their jaws like snakes. Massive vampiric moths that could daze a man into inaction and drink the blood from his still beating heart. Brindled men larger and stronger than even Ser Gregor Clegane, wielding clubs as thick as tree trunks. They hadn't even gone in land, where the book his father had given him grew vague and spoke of things as walking lizards with dagger claws, basilisks as large as lions and apes as great as keeps. They hadn't even gone in land, where even the maesters were not sure of what was fact or fiction, yet where it was whispered that the darkest and most terrible beasts in the entire world could be found....and where the forests and growth would be so thick as to turn into a labyrinthine of tree and vine and bush, filled with creatures that hungered for the flesh and blood of men and where every puddle was a pond of disease and death.

No one wanted to go in land. Tyrion didn't want to go in land.

But the Volantene.

But the column.

The Valyrians had been able to tame this place for a while, and the Ghiscari did it without dragons, he reasoned to himself, lied to himself, comforted himself. Mayhaps it isn't too dangerous in daytime.

"Well," he said suddenly. "We best not keep waiting. What'll the singers say of our voyage if they find out we stood around all day?"

"And they were never heard from again?" Asha asked.

Tyrion took a long swig of his wine skin, cherishing every drop.

Then they went in land.

Never had anything in his life felt more dangerous than to walk in land on Gogossos.

The jungle grew thicker and thicker still with every footstep, the light dimmer and weaker as it struggled to pierce the canopy. Strange flowers bloomed from the ground. Sothoryi insects of a thousand varied forms wandered the earth, some as small as hairs, others as large as cats, paying little attention to the Westerosi. Rustling noises came from the leaves above and from the twigs around, yet glances revealed only shadows and blurs. A warm rain started, the Gogossosi jungle echoing with the sounds of bubbling water and falling droplets.

His fingers trembled, feeling for the sword he kept at his hip. He had never done it before. Never felt the need to wander with a true weapon of his own. That had changed quickly on these shores. There was danger everywhere. Danger. Danger.

And it was beautiful.

Vibrant colors that came in shades he had never imagined before blossomed all around, daring him to reach out and take them. Birds sang and insects chirped, the jungle never silent for even a moment. The sunshine that managed to break through to the earth shone like strands of gold. For all its danger, it was beautiful in a way that the maesters had never written, had never dared to imagine. It was a beauty of a kind that the singers could never capture, if there were any songs of which to speak, a vibrancy that defied the most beautiful painter, a resilience beyond that of a sculptor's marble or stone.

It was as haunting as a treacherous woman, beautiful and dangerous in equal measure. Sweet, like poisoned wine. Never forget that it is dangerous, a part of him whispered. This land stopped Valyria when neither the Rhoynish or the Ghiscari could. 

When he returned to Westeros...if he returned to Westeros...he would have to write a book on it of his own, something that might help any of those men who might go to the green hell that was Sothoryos - and he nearly yelped as there was the echo of shoes on his stone as the earth beneath him turned hard, dragging him back to the present.

"Seven hells," he mumbled to himself, hoping and praying that the others hadn't seen it, focusing himself on the present, on the task at hand and not his surroundings. The forest had grown thinner and weaker here, thinner and weaker as they came towards the very outermost edges of the city from which the island took its name. The ground was marked with the crumbling stones of old roads and old paths and old squares, cracked and overturned from the growth that had pressed up from beneath, yet there was no denying the sight of the black spires that rose in the distance, overcome with vines and marked by years of age and wear, peering out to the world from behind desolate black walls. .

The city of the flesh smiths was right there. Perhaps the most damned place in the entire world stood before him. Old, crumbling houses lay all around, their empty windows and empty doorframes filled with shifting shadows. and the creaking of ancient boards.

And but a dozen feet away, the thing that they had set out to find was there, Bronn not even having to point to it or draw the dwarf's attentions to it.

The column.

It was a towering and thick thing, yet column was no word for it. It was an obelisk of the darkest black, wrought of the same, seamless stone as all the great works of the Freehold had been, the very same techniques with which they had forged the castle of Dragonstone beneath the mont. Such stone was utterly indestructible, completely immune to any form of damage, whether it be the thundering bangs of lighting, the crashing of heavy waves or the heavy clanking of rams and trebuchets.

But not even the sorceries of Valyria had been able to conquer the wilds of Sothoryos, and it showed here. The stones that would shrug off storm and sleet had become overgrown with vines, mattered with mosses and earth that filled the recesses of the carefully inscribed glyphs that covered its surface. Its base, once an elaborate thing covered with gold, was decrepit and ancient, its gildings rubbed off years before and leaving but striped patterns that gleamed in the light, like the eyes of a predator.

And there was a somber air to it, a sense of sadness that seemed to linger in the air, like an old and broken knight reminiscing about his glorious youth. This was a dead place. Gogossos had been a city of blood mages and their creations, but it had been a city all the same, filled with men and women and children and cats and dogs and rats and mice. It would have had bakers and smiths and carpenters and all the other craftsmen needed for such a city to live.

And now they were all gone. Gogossos was dead, its people gone, its structures crumbling, the entire city naught but a haunted ruin.

That thought struck him fresh, in a way that his mind hadn't been able to harden itself against as he had the threat of death or the creatures of this Seven forsaken land. Gogossos had been a thriving city. Now it was gone. Now its people were gone. Just as happened to Valyria. Just as had happened to the Ghiscari. Just as had happened to the Rhoynar. Just as had happened to countless peoples before them. The city had rose from nothing and returned to nothing, as countless cities before it had. Just as Harrenhal had rose from an empty field and turned to crumbling towers, so too had Gogossos rose and fall. That was a fate that could fall upon any of the great castles of Westeros. Highgarden could one day be overgrown with rosebushes, the songs of chivalry and the trumpeting of the tourney fields heard no longer. The Eyrie could become nothing more than a ruin, its ramparts crumbling off the mountain side to return to the earth from where they had been hewn.

That was a fate that could one day fall upon Casterly Rock he knew. When the mines ran dry, when house Lannister was all but extinguished, when the great halls and galleries and mountain lay empty, what would remain?

The statues of the Hall of Heroes, looking down upon empty rooms?

Beggars and outcasts that lived in the vaults, digging through the rubble to find a speck of gold?

A few last lions, clutching at the glories of their forefathers, wishing they could walk amongst the castle when it was still filled with the giants of the past?

Was that how the Volantines felt when they thought of Valyria? Like a son, clutching at the sword of their fallen father and trying to keep his name and deeds and memory alive?

He swallowed hard.

No. He couldn't let himself get bogged down. He couldn't lose the momentum. He couldn't lose his focus. That was the one thing he had that might save him here. Wits. Cunning. Focus. He focused his attentions entirely on the stone, thinking back to his maester's lessons on Valyrian glyphs and on the Freehold and about anything and everything that might be of use, anything that might let him survive yet another day or find a means to do so.

"This is the one?" he asked the sellsword as he reached out, brushing the loose grime from its surface.

"No, but there's more all around if you keep walking," Bronn shrugged in answer. "All of them look the same. Qyburn says they're markers, says where the city begins and ends."

"Doesn't the beach say where the city ends?" Asha asked as the dwarf dug through the moss, revealing more and more of the letters. "Hard for the city to continue underwater."

"Aye, that's true," Bronn nodded before smiling. "But this is Sothoryos, ain't it? Might as well say that you're going to die past the line of them."

"How very nice of the Gogossosi to warn us," Tyrion answered. "I'm going to try and read it, as much as I can anyhow."

It would take hours, perhaps even days to clean it all and hope that the stone itself hadn't been conquered or corrupted by the living nightmares of the far south, and yet...he could still make out some of the words. Tyrion placed his hand upon the warm stone, feeling the damp moisture of the jungle sticking to its smooth surface, tracing the glyphs with his finger tips.

"What does it say?" Bronn asked, curious.

"Nothing good, most like," Asha answered, looking around the ruins with searching eyes.

"Victory," Tyrion said, moving over to the next word. "Over the Ghiscari, I think - no."

"Over what?"

"Over death, I think," the dwarf answered, taking his hand away. "It speaks about blood magic. That surprises me less than it would have when we first set out."

"I'd be more worried if you were still surprised," Asha answered. "Anything else?"

"Small things," he said, grateful for the distraction of reading it. "Much of it is history, or so it seems. The date of the city's founding, its first Freeholders...oh, and what happened to the Ghiscari city that came before. Gorgai."

He turned to them.

"No, you don't really want to know," he said, before looking back to the stone. "This part mentions when it was given the responsibility of serving as the Freehold's prison for the most dangerous and mad of its criminals, and - oh! This section mentions how Gogossos actually sold fruit to passing merchan-"

Before he could finish, before he could do anything, he saw a blur in the edge of his vision, so fast and so sudden he thought it was but a dance of the light in the treetops...till he saw the pottery, a broken vase beside the step of a broken house.

It was wobbling.

"...something is out there," he turned towards his shipmates.

"Aye," Bronn answered, flatly, sword in hand and his back towards the Lannister. "I'm not going over there to look for it."

Then there was the snap of a twig behind them.

Tyrion's back went up against the obelisk as he drew his own sword, fingers trembling, and the other two stood with him, weapons at the ready. Was it the brindled men, back for a second attack? A beast that had caught their scent? A walking lizard, ready to burst from the trees? What was it? What was out there? How would he die? Torn apart by claws? Crushed by clubs? Drowned in his own blood? Poisoned by some manticore he hadn't seen?

Another crack. A quiet, humming noise, like the fluttering of wings.

But the wyvern on his shoulder made no noise, contentedly licking its wings clean.

"Is someone out there?" he asked, loud enough to be heard, quiet enough to not draw unwanted attention.

There was another crack, and on the left a swirl of red -

"Tyrion?" came a voice that the dwarf didn't expect. "By R'hllor, is that really you?"

The Lannister blinked.

The red wasn one other than the red robes of Thoros of Myr, that red priest that had languished in the king's court at the Red Keep for years, tall and fat and one of King Robert's closest friends, perhaps even as close as he claimed the Lord Stark was. He had been the king's drinking companion for many an evening, much as he had been Tyrion's, being so drunk and jovial on occasions that the king had once called him Thoros of Beer. Tyrion knew well that he had been sent to the capital in the days of the Mad King, sent to try and convert the fire-loving Aerys to the Red Faith, only to fail and lose his own faith in the process, yet their priesthood cared not so long as he remained on the other side of the Narrow Sea where he could do them no harm till an order had came months before for him to set out east again.

That was the last he had seen of him - getting drunk with King Robert, celebrating his departure.

Now here he was at the edge of the known world and in the treeline of Gogossos, a thousand miles from where he should be.

"Thoros?" the dwarf asked, stunned. "How in the seven hells did you get here?"

"You know him?" Bronn asked with surprise.

"He's the red priest from the capital," Tyrion smiled. "I would call him a friend."

"Aye, and that goes both ways," the red priest said warmly as he walked over with a laughing smile, his hand resting on the sword on his hip as he looked to the Greyjoy and the sellsword before turning back to Tyrion. "I hadn't thought to find you here, or any other Westerosi for that fact. How'd the hells did you come so far south?"

"Unkind weather. Did the Volantines bring you along?"

"Aye, me and a red priestess, though he likes her more. Can't imagine why he'd like a buxom beauty like her over drunken Thoros, but he does. Lady Melisandre has his ear and his bed too, if what I hear of things is true, though I wouldn't count on that much."

"See you found the city," Thoros whistled, kicking the obelisk with his boot. "Gogossos was a bad place, even in the Freehold. High priests wanted nothing to do with it when Daerion came along, said it was the heart of darkness."

"I can see why," Asha mumbled...before narrowing her brow at Thoros in sudden realization. "I remember you. You came over the walls with the burning sword at Pyke."

"And you are...oh," Thoros started, noticing the Greyjoy kraken on the breast of her ringmail before going tight lipped. "Aye, now this is awkward. Sorry for killing your brother."

"Maron was a wretch who had it coming," Asha growled. "He was a liar, a cheat and a bully, too."

"...sorry for not killing your brother sooner, then," Thoros said with arms open and an innocent look on his common face. "I hadn't had much choice either way, though. Robert wanted swords. Robert got swords. They still call him the Storm King there?"

"They do."

"No wonder. Drowned God hates the Storm God and the Ironborn hates the Storm God too," Thoros shrugged. "Must sting when the Iron Islands get bested by a man from the Stormlands. Could've been worse. Could've been a Tully conquering Pyke instead of a Baratheon."

And then he grew serious. Serious in a way that Tyrion had never seen him, as serious as Jon Arryn or his own father could be.

"...aye, but however you lot got her,e you have to get off the island," he said quickly and quietly. "You can't stay here, not if you want to live."
"Why?" the dwarf asked. "Other than the beasts -"

"Daerion," the red priest whispered, uttering the word as though the man was stood behind him. "He's planning something."

Tyrion looked back at a him, a solemn and grim look in his mismatching eyes. He had known from the very start that there could be no easy explanation for the Volantines coming this far south, especially in such great numbers as they seemed to have. Volantis was ever vying for superiority over the rest of its siblings, skirmishing with them for trade posts and for fragments of Valyria's glories.

"What is it?" Tyrion asked, quiet, pleading. "What is he planning, Thoros?"

Thoros swallowed, before admitting as quickly and as quietly as he could, speaking as if he could be heard. "I don't know. He doesn't keep me close, not like he does Melisandre. But he knows things. Things he shouldn't know. And he has the men out looking for artifacts -"

"Artifacts?" Tyrion stopped the priest, catching the word. "What artifacts?"

"Tablets," the red priest spoke. "Ancient ones, coming before the Doom - "

There was the snap of another twig, the step of another foot on stone, and all looked to the source to see another man, another warrior. A Volantene, violet scalemail marked with streaks of gold and white, helm held under arm to reveal a mane of silver hair, eyes of bright violet set deep in a hard face.

"Master Aurentys will inform all of you of their purpose and origin if the matter should concern you. It would be wise to not skulk around, searching for yourselves without his knowing."

"Aye, that's true, but don't mind me, Qoherion," Thoros said, rising to his full stature, dusting off his hands before clapping them on his midst. "Was just out for a stroll and happened to bump into a friend of mine -"

"How convenient that you find someone you know in the many, many miles of Gogossos, and how convenient that you manage to survive long enough to do so," the Volantine spoke, walking towards them with disciplined, measured steps. "I would have thought that you would be better at lies than that, though it seems you disappoint me once again."

"I've gotten good at it," Thoros smirked. "Seems like all you Volantines can feel is disappointment these days."

"Disappointment is the natural state of Man," the Volantene answered simply. "You merely add to my burden of it, much as I shall add to yours if you think you can give away secrets and betray not just the master, but your own order's interests."

"But that is not why I am here," the Volantene sergeant said, putting on a smile before turning his attentions to the Westerosi. "I would not stay here if I were you. It is too dangerous for the unprepared, and that is no subtle threat, but a statement of fact. The beast has not yet been caught."

"...the beast?" Tyrion asked.

"The beast of Gogossos," Thoros mumbled before speaking more clearly. "The most dangerous thing we've found on this damned island so far. Strong, fast -"

"- but more importantly, intelligent," Qoherion said before the red robe could finish, hand on his sheathed weapon. "It hunts our sentries, yet it kills them in ways that no beast might do. Necks snapped cleanly, throats torn open, spines severed with pinpoint strikes, all before a cry could be sounded in every occasion. It is a predator that hunts men, not for food, but for sport."

"And, perhaps as you may have learnt to your displeasure if we hadn't arrived, it hunts in and around the city," the Volantene finished, raising his right arm rigidly and gesturing forward with a flick of his wrist. "The master has ordered us to hunt it down."

Some two dozen men emerged from the trees, but these were not like the rank and file he had seen before, not regularly trained troops intended to fight upon a battlefield. These were different. These were huntsmen. These were men whose scalemail had been painted a dozen different shades of green to blend them into the jungle growth, whose armored boots had been replaced with leathers to lighten their steps, whose spears had been cut half way through near the tip so as to break off in their prey and whose steel glistened with beads of poison. Each and every one of them had the grizzled, hard faces of veterans...and not all of them had the Valyrian look, either. There was the bronze skin of a Rhoynar or a Dornishman on one of them, the blonde of the Andals on half a dozen others, even the grey eyes of a Northman and the shaggy brow of an Ibbenese.

There was no "finding" this beast, Tyrion knew. Daerion had known it was there long, long before they arrived. That only raised questions.

Many, many questions.

"In any case," the Volantene spoke. "We were heading back to our sombāzmion when we found your tracks. You would be wise to follow us there, and not only because it should be time for your meal with the master. You do not want to be away from shelter and fire when it grows dark."

The spears and bows of the Volantene infantrymen could have made his mind for him, but it was not that which saw him so happily accept the offer of their hospitality, to make him click his heels together and follow with eager steps, neither Bronn or Asha hesitating to do the same.

It was the shift of a shadow between houses, the wail of distant screams and the cracking of twigs that made him so eager to leave.

Thoros still hummed.

The journey to the Volantene encampment was a long one, made longer by the silence of the walk and longer still by the ever present threat of danger that loomed all around, filling the air like the fog of a cold autumn's day. The thick green jungle was everywhere here, everywhere, so thick that the growing darkness of the coming night would make it as black as the longest winter, lit only by the thin daggery rays that managed to pierce the clouds and canopies both. But for now, for that little while longer, the warmth and light and safety of the day remained, the sun lingering over the horizon as if reluctant to leave them alone in the depths of a Sothoryosi rainforest. The dwarf was grateful for it, truly grateful, but more than anything else, he found himself grateful for the Volantines being here and willing to take them with them, for although they were quiet and spoke little, their numbers and steel kept the creatures and beasts of the land at bay.

Even the beasts of Sothoryos aren't bloodthirsty enough to attack an armed party, he thought to himself. They're too cunning for that. 

But what gift they might have given in the form of their protection, they had taken in the comfort of their journey. The Volantines and the men that had came with them had no desire to be lost in the midst of the jungle after dark, no one did, yet they set a harsh pace in their march through the undergrowth, an advance that came from knowing the ground and knowing the way back to their camp, yet one that the dwarf could barely match. His short stride made him take two or three steps for every one of theirs, and it was not long before his legs began to burn with the ache of the exertion...yet he dared not slow down, dared not allow himself to fall from the head of the group, for the night was coming and the dark would soon grow hungry.

He didn't want to be there when it was. He couldn't think of a man in the Seven Kingdoms who could survive a day in the jungles on their own, yet alone a night, nor any who would wish to try and make the attempt. Even the Mountain would not be so foolish as to try.

So he followed. So he pushed himself. So he kept pace, and kept the same silence that the Volantines did. It was a good idea, he realized. A man could barely see for a dozen feet around them in Sothoryos, so thick was the growth, yet there was no barrier to sound, no thing that could stop the sound of voices for carrying through the green to the ears of some monstrous beast.

Even the wyvern, perched on his shoulder, seemed to understand that now. It dug its foot talons into his clothes so tightly that it punctured them, using the strength to hold it in place so that it need not use its leathery wings to steady its balance. Dark eyes darted around them, watching, always watching.

His legs and lungs burnt together as one, his breath hardening with the strain of the quick march, joints wearily working to try and keep pace and yet falling further and further behind the head of the group. It was getting harder and harder to keep pace, harder and harder to stay with the group, and Asha and Bronn noticed, slowing down that little bit to drag the group out longer and take the worst of its edge from it...but on they went still, the dwarf looking down to keep an eye on his feet and to keep his footing certain, on and on, left and right and left and right and left and right -

"And here we are," Qoherion said, the group coming to a halt. "We will move more easily, now."

Tyrion looked up, and so alien was the sight in front of him after so many months at sea that he blinked twice, his mind racing to remember what it was.

It was a wall. Iwas the wall of a city, made from crumbling stone that had collapsed and made an opening in its perimeter, broken crenels overgrown by moss and vines, yet it was a wall all the same. This was not simply jungle anymore. This was not even the outskirts. This was Gogossos proper. The city itself.

And what a sight it was, stretched out before him through that breach.

The jungles of the south had been aggressive and vicious since the fall of the city to the Red Death in the Age of Blood, crawling and clawing over the the city, yet vines could not eat stone no matter how hard they tried. Neatly paved streets, as neat as those that had been found in Lys, would have rolled out before him, the gaps between the stones filled with grass and flowers and trees that had managed to take root and lift the slabs up from below with their roots. On the flanks were what was left of well built homes, built from firebaked brick that had grown weak and crumbly with age, grey and dusty and covered in vines that clawed through them and past broken shutters up to broken roofs. Tatters of cloth still fluttered in the winds from the stone columns that had been street posts, the names of each district lost to the ages, just as the banners above them were. Old carts and wagons lay broke nat the way side, half eaten by worms, some of them still carrying what little remained of their ancient wares, others instead marked with pieces of broken bone that had been the final resting place for so many Gogossosi when the Red Death came and killed nine in ten.

The fact that they had managed to survive for centuries here, in the green hell, spoke to the sheer grit and determination of them...and, perhaps, to the strength of their sorcery as well. But whatever means they had of surviving until then, however they had managed to conquer the unconquerable for even a short time, their work was undone in the Red Death. Too many of them died to keep the nightmares at bay, and so the nightmares had came into their city and into their lives, and took what few the Red Death had left behind. Who knew how many had died between the two? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? A million? Did he even really want to know?

He didn't. He let his mind drift from the matter as Qoherion continued on, leading them through the empty streets as the sky grew ever dimmer, leading them by some instinct. Tyrion was lost in it all. King's Landing was a city alive and well, a city of countless sights and sounds and smells. Bakers sons wandering the streets with their carts selling fresh bread, carrying that hearty smell with them wherever they went. Babies howling and children playing and laughing as their mothers talked amongst each other and went to visit the market stalls. The ever present stench of the overflowing sewers that grew all the more nauseating in summer where the piss evaporated in the summer sun.

Gogossos had none of that. There were no bakers sons wandering here, no babies crying out for their mothers, no sewers overflowing. Gogossos was a dead city. Silence reigned over it, mingling with the smell of flowers and dust, a scent that hung over the city like the perfumes of a funeral shroud. Even ruined it had all the buildings that made a city whole, yet it lacked the blood to make it live, the people for whom it had been raised. There was no laughter, no sobbing, no anger, no heroism.

Only the sounds of the wind blowing through the empty streets and through empty windows into empty rooms, punctuated by the soft sounds of their steps on the ground.

He needed a distraction, yet he felt as though he should not speak here. This was a dead place. A cemetery for men, women and children beyond counting. It didn't feel right to speak, not when there had been so much death. It hung over it. It hung over the entire city. Every building. Every stone. This was not just a dead place. It was a damned place, as damned and cursed as Valyria itself might be after the Doom.

But he still got his distraction. The wyvern licked his neck, forcing a laugh out of him as he looked to it to see it look skywards.

His eyes followed its gaze, and found that the darkening sky was filled with a great many brown specks that soared through the sky like a flock of birds, chirping happily in a musical song that could go on forever, yet they were no birds. The eager noises of the creature on his shoulder proved that well enough. The little wyvern turned towards him with chestnut eyes that seemed to ask his permission, hopeful and happy, and the dwarf only smiled before it unfurled its wings and leapt off of his shoulder and rushed into the sky to meet others of its kind, the great many welcoming the lonely one with happy little roars that sang like a choir of a thousand tiny dragons.

"You would be wise to stay away from wyverns," the Volantene sergeant spoke quietly.

"We would all be dead if we had," Tyrion said simply and with the silent agreement of the others.

"And you are lucky to not be dead because of it," Qoherion stated. "The brown wyvern might be the smallest of all wyverns, but it is the most dangerous of them all, even more than the shadow-wings. They attack in numbers of a hundred or more."

"Not ours."

"For now," came the quiet retort. "It will prove its true nature to you soon enough, but not here."

Then they rounded a corner, one of many in the dead city's labyrinthine depths, but the street that lay beyond was not a silent street, not a place of emptiness, but a place of life and activity. It was a piece of the port, perhaps some private dockyard for warships or for a wealthy merchant to offload their traders, but whatever its origins, it was a piece that the Volantines had raised their banner over and jealously guarded. Though the wooden piers had collapsed into the water and rotted away centuries before, the stone quays to which they had been connected had withstood the years well, protecting the rest of the shore from the ocean's fury. Volantine footmen were in strength here, with some groups marching on their patrols around the grounds and others working to clear the last of the obstructive growths or piling up the bodies of death Sothoryi - whether they be the brindled men or the albino beasts of the night - to be burnt.

Someone called out a challenge in their sing-song Valyrian, and Qoherion answered, his words fluid and high pitched...and he waved for them to come forth.

"This is the oldest port in the city," Qoherion explained, leading them forth down the uneven roads. "After the city fell to the Valyrians in the wake of the Third Ghiscari War, Gorgai became Gogossos, a penal colony for the worst criminals that the swelling Freehold had to offer. This fortified port would be their destination."

"Didn't the Valyrians throw people into the Fourteen Flames?" Bronn asked. "How bad did you have to be to be sent here?"

"Bad," Thoros mumbled, the red robed priest coming up from the rear as the sergeant spoke in his Valyrian once more, dismissing the rest of the men who had escorted them.

"Very bad," Qoherion answered simply before continuing on. "In any case, the master says you are to have free roam of the grounds, but this is no leisurely Westerosi port town where you will find your idle pleasures."

"I won't blame you for wishing it was, though," the red priest allowed himself a smile to the dwarf. "I know I do."

"It never was," Asha sighed as she looked it over. "You have your barrackses in the warehouses?"

"And guards in the towers," the Rh'llorist gestured with a tip of his head towards one of the slender, candlestick spires that rose from the portside, the violet banner of Volantis flying proudly from its walls as firelight burnt in its summit for the first time in three hundred years. "Can't forget them."

"Indeed, and you would be wise to remember that there is but one exit and entrance to the dock," Qoherion explained, gesturing with an open arm down the length of the street to a heavy barricade of brick and wood and stake. "We have taken the stone from some of the older buildings to brick up the side paths. The Sothoryi have one way in and one way alone. If they try to attack here, we can form the ranks of our mentyn in the street and cut them down."

"...menteen?" Bronn asked the dwarf quietly.

Tyrion shrugged. He knew enough words of High Valyrian to make conversation, albeit casual conversation, but he hadn't a first clue what a mentyn was. It translated loosely as formation, but there was surely a great deal more to it than that, some specific meaning that he was unaware of. It made little difference, though - it seemed to him that the Volantines had the strength of numbers they needed to hold their position in the port, and they could certainly deal with the King Gerold and its crew if there was the need or the desire.

Let's hope they don't want us dead, he thought to himself, watching as some of the Essosi men doused a pile of Sothoryi corpses in pitch before setting it ablaze before looking into the bay. It won't be much work for them.

And there it was floating in the waters of the bay and anchored to the ancient moorings of the port, the means by which the Volantines had crossed the perilous seas that separated the two sister cities from one another.

A carrack.

A grand carrack, much like the King Gerold in form, only larger, larger and wider and taller too, a thick hull of heavy timbers marked along the broadsides by hatches and frames that bore the shapes of dragons and their jaws, weapons ready to be pushed through and revealed at a moment's need. Vast violet sails were reefed upon its towering masts, crowned by a crow's nest that had become home to a group of watchmen and archers both, keeping their eyes forever on the city, forever searching for a would be attacker, their hands forever ready to raise horns to their lips and alert the warriors below.

But it was not just one of them that lay there at rest.

There was an entire fleet of them.

Fourteen wide bellied and dragon-prowed carracks, each and every one marked with a golden glyph beneath their painstakingly painted figureheads, each and every one named for one of the Fourteen Gods of Old Valyria and each and every one sculpted for them as well. Meraxes. Balerion. Vhagar. All three were there, the dragons of the Targaryen conquerors born anew in wood and iron and cloth.

And there was one more of their number. Syraxes. King of the Valyrian gods. Master of summer and spring, master of life and blood, master of war and dragons, for it was his fiery breath that had burnt life into their iron hearts. At least, that was what the books he had read said of the Valyrian view, but there was no denying that his ship was the greatest of them all, the flagship, leader of the fleet and built for the duty that it had been given. It was larger still than any of the others, lager and strong and far more dangerous for it. All of the carracks before him now had a large and widely built fore and aft castle, home to catapults, yet on the Syraxes this had been extended: a half-deck stretched over the craft's midst from fore to aft, a fighting platform for marines to use in battle and to reinforce the hull and grant her stability in harsh weather...as well as shielding yet another battery of weapons: spitfires, not scorpions, spitfires that could let loose a gout of burning oil and ignite the hulls of its enemies.

And she was sat at the far end of the harbor, as if acting as a gatekeeper that lesser vessels must ask if they wished to travel out to sea. Scores of laborers - slaves, most likely, or sailors Tyrion thought - were bringing the contents of its holds and those of its sister ships ashore, weapons and supplies to feed and reinforce the small stronghold that the Essosi had established here at the edge of the world. Some men walked with ballista bolts over their shoulders, others rolling casks of ale or wine, others moving a handcart's worth of swords, others still carrying sacks of flour, all under heavy guard.

"Seven hells," Asha murmured at the sight of the grand warship, revealed to her as they entered the harbor proper, the ocean's mist spraying gently. "She's a predator."

"Indeed she is," Qoherion smiled. "The Syraxes is the master's flagship, leader of our expedition fleet. Many a pirate has died screaming in the flames of her roused anger."

"How many men did you bring with you?" Tyrion couldn't help but ask. "A hundred?"

"More than you might think," the Volantine answered. "The most obvious of us are the master's guardsmen, but there are sailors as well, who are at work clearing the port and offloading supplies and assembling war engines to put into the towers.

"The Sothoryi are tough bastards, I'll give you that," Thoros smiled. "But they're not tough enough to survive a scorpion bolt to the chest. Once those are in the towers they won't bother us here again."

"You must be planning to stay here a while," Asha said with a moment's realization. "Are half those ships carrying just supplies for the return?"

"Aye," Thoros answered before the Volantine might. "And more oranges than I thought I would see in a lifetime."

"The master wished for them to be brought aboard, and his judgement is sound," Qoherion explained. "The Orange Shore has that name for a reason."

"Mayhaps, but we didn't need to eat one every damned day when breaking our fast," Thoros sighed. "I used to like oranges. Can't stand the taste of them now."

"There will be many, many more before we return to Volantis, priest," the Volantine laughed to himself.

"What else did you all have to eat during this journey?" Asha asked innocently.

"Beets," Thoros said with a weary sigh. "Volantene beets."

"Your Thoros is more accustomed to Westerosi foods," Qoherion spoke as Tyrion's eyes began to wander. "There was more than just oranges and beets. We had breads, crackers, meats, cheeses, wine...a wide variety of fruits...much and more."

"With so many people around, I guess you could only have one meal a day?"

"Two, actually. We broke our fast in the morning with crackers, cheese and oranges, then for dinner we had an assortment of foods. Why?" Qoherion asked. "Was it not the same as what you might have?"

"I'm only curious," Asha smiled. "So, flavorings? Just salt?"

Then Tyrion saw something.

Nestled in a far corner of the quay close to a collapsed pier was something, placed under the heaviest guard. They were black crates, no, not crates, cages, shielded from the light of the sun and the outside world by thick veils of black cloth that only gave the slightest hint to their contents in the rippling winds. A dozen men came towards them with a hand cart, two thirds of them fighters armed and armored for battle, and they carefully lifted one of the cages into the back before rolling it along by strength of arms alone, pushing it into a narrow backstreet.

"Salt?" the Volantine sergeant answered, utterly unaware of what the dwarf had witnessed. "If that is what passes for seasoning in the sunset lands, you truly are deserving of pity. Volantis sits on the trade routes between east and west. You cannot even begin to imagine how many spices end up on our markets."

Clever woman, Tyrion thought to himself, crouching down to do up the laces of his boots so as to look busy. And people think Greyjoys are fools. 

The dwarf counted his blessings. Anything that was placed under such heavy guard, anything that was being moved in such a manner, anything that did both of those things here in the ruins of the most damned of cities was not something he wanted the Volantines to know he had noticed. But what was it? What was in those cages? It could not be slaves, that much was obvious; the cages were too small and they had no reason to hide them under cloth, even for the comfort of the Westerosi. Artifacts? Then why the cages?

Tyrion may have had the body of half a man, but he was no fool. Whatever was in those cages was something important and something alive and something they did not want anyone else knowing about.

That made them something he wanted to know about.

"Cinnamon?"

"And far more, but enough small talk," Qoherion said at last, leading them once more. "The master will speak more with you, if you are still interested in asking by then."

"Happily," Asha said...

...before falling back towards the rear of the group, letting Thoros and Bronn take the lead as she stood besides Tyrion, the sellsword taking the hint and making talk with the priest to cover their noise.

"See them?" she asked quietly, little more than a whisper that he could barely hear over the noises of the rousing port and Bronn and Thoros japing and laughing.

"The cages?"

"Aye, the cages. There aren't slaves in them, but if not them, then what?"

"Wyverns, mayhaps?"

"They wouldn't put wyverns under the cloth," Asha reasoned quickly. "They don't need to hide them here. Mayhaps to keep them away from the flocks, but they wouldn't be taking them away from the ships."

"And that means they are offloading them," Tyrion nodded. "It must be something they brought from the north."

"What could they have possibly brought with them?" Asha asked before shaking her head. "And there's the food. They aren't planning to be here for long, they've brought too much fresh food for it to last. A fortnight at most?"

"I think we will need to talk with their "master" to find out," Tyrion sighed. "But we will want to be subtle about it. There are too many of them -"

It was the sound of laughter that broke him from their hushed talk. Volantine infantrymen and sailors alike looked to the dwarf and talked amongst themselves in their flowing Essosi tongue, laughing and japing amongst themselves. He didn't need to remember his High Valyrian to know what they were talking about. He had heard that sound before. He had heard that kind of mocking laughter before. He had heard it in many places before, in taverns and brothels and in the streets and on the roads and in the Red Keep and even from his sister's own mouth. He had grown used to it, the way a warhorse might grow used to the sounds of battle and the cracking of lances.

It bothered him not.

Let them laugh and point their fingers and make their japes in their Valyrian, he couldn't help but think to himself. Half of them will probably be dead before they leave.

One of them - a guardsman in violet scales - reached to try and touch the dwarf, to try and stroke his head, but Qoherion's iron gaze saw them snatch their hands back and straighten themselves, and a whispered word had them turn pale and march off.

"Your kind are rare in Essos," their guide said dispassionately. "It is said that rubbing the head of a dwarf brings luck, and there are many here who would want luck."

"Tell them they can't have any. I need it for myself."

"Might be its the other way around," Bronn japed. "We did smash up on this island after all."

"Then by all means, rub my head," the dwarf laughed. "If my bad luck was enough to bring us all here, mayhaps my good luck will have us rescued by Summer Islanders."

The group came to a halt outside a large violet tent, a vast thing of good cloth embroidered with golden thread that marked it with Valyrian glyphs and images of dragonkind, all erected on a plot of wild grass besides an old apple tree that had grown feral in the Sothoryi jungles, vines creeping up its branches and drooping down, a shaggy beard for a wildling tree. Even with the sun still yet to pass beneath the horizon and giving them a few final rays of light, he could still see the glow of light that came from within illuminating the cloth and making it glow, its heavy flap marked by daggery rays that slipped through the seams and brought with them a good warmth and the sweet smells of food. .

"This is the master's pavillion," Qoherion said simply, pointing with an open hand. "He is expecting you, and so you may enter immediately."

"Thank you for leading us here," Tyrion started, honestly grateful. "And for keeping us safe in the woods."

"It was the master's will," Qoherion answered with a slight, almost respectful bow, before leaving them alone.

The moment his back was turned, Asha slipped around the side of the tent and began tugging on the bottom edges of her surcoat, the great golden kraken on its surface seeming to come alive with her movements.

"Asha?" Tyrion asked in confusion.

"Greyjoys aren't loved in Essos," she said quickly and quietly, lifting the tabard up over her head and leaving naught but the bare metal of the maile beneath before turning the cloth inside out and putting it back on, sewing lines and golden squid hidden entirely behind a field of black. "Reavers pick off the ships of the Free Cities more often than not, and the last thing I want is for a Volantene commander at the edge of the world to know I'm Victarion's nephew with no other Greyjoys around."

"It isn't like half his army hasn't seen you with that on already," Bronn laughed.

"Half an army that wouldn't know a Greyjoy from an Arryn," she countered, fidgeting and stretching a little to shift the tabard back into its proper place. "Call me Esgred again."

"Fine," Tyrion shrugged before walking through the flap...

...and instantly being struck still by the sights and smells within.

Though the meal was nothing compared to what could be found on the high table of the Red Keep or of Casterly Rock, compared to a sailor's fare and to the scraps they had been gathering it was nothing other than a feast, a grand banquet that forced aside any fears or concerns or anything that might have made him doubt the hospitality of his host, tongue aching and mouth filling with saliva at the sight of it all, something that made him realize he hadn't had a true, proper meal in far too long. It wasn't plates of crackers, pickled herring and watered down ale. It wasn't even ship's sausage with a bread roll and a few slices of cheese..

It was a dining table of black ebonwood whose sight and smell filled the air with the mouth watering aromas of dinner and home. Two freshly baked loaves of bread sat in the table's midst, blades placed besides them ready to make the first cut, the one on the left bearing all the beautiful signs of white bread, the one on the right darker and dotted with roasted nuts and the dark dots of spice. Steamed vegetables and baked fruits sat in serving pots of fine stoneware, protected from the air by gilded lids of glass carefully placed atop, promising a worthy complement to their main and a worthy dessert in equal measure. Two pies of puffy pastry steamed contentedly, surfaces painstakingly decorated by a patient and steady hand to create a pattern of scales, matching the fish that had been cooked within. A pot of soft Essosi cheese, seasoned with parsley and chive, sat on a flank, next to another pot of good, salted butter and a wheel made from six different kinds of hard cheese wedged together. Three different bottles of wines had been brought out for the occasion, with one cold from being held in a dark cellar and another steaming from its reheating, a flavor for every kind of taste.

But it was what was in the table's heart that caught his eyes the most.

It was a roast.

It was a great long leg of pork, drizzled with thick gravy and with a bowl of applesauce besides, ready to be scooped over, every last piece of it cooked to perfection, even the crackling. It was enough to make him drool...and drool he would, if it weren't for years of eating at his father's table reminding him of his manners.

And there for them were seats, readied with feather stuffed cushions and plates of Yi-Tish porcelain and silvered forks and knives, all ready for their use. The entire pavillion had been lain out and decorated with such care as to be closer to a palace than to a tent, something that would shame even his father's, his brother's and his king's own...and all three of them at once. Everywhere his eyes fell, there were things of decor, ancient things from ancient realms, long lost: a set of drawers to the right was home to the display stand of three, curving Rhoynish blades, the bookcase at the far end of the room of violet cloth had a family of seven stone carvings of the Andal gods, hewn in the days before they had crossed the Narrow Sea. Flowing proudly from the left wall was a flowing tapestry that saw a dragon dueling against a harpy in magnificent color, woven in the newborn Free Cities when Myr was still but a babe suckling at Valyria's teat. Beneath it was a flock of wooden lambs, tiny things like the toys that Tommen might have played with when he was young, carved with thick limbs, though Tyrion couldn't be sure where they came from - Lhazar was famous for its lambs, but so was Valyria, whose people had been shepherds in an earlier age.

Those were only the pieces that he could place, a handful out of a hundred. There were cloth banners with some strange long, serpent-like beasts with antlers on them. There were bows with double curves of golden wood. There were blades wrought of black glass as long as swords and as short as daggers. There were acorns covered in red leaves and lined with veins of crimson. Skulls of strange beasts and scrolls from strange lands.

All that was there and so much more was with it, and past it all was the man himself.

Daerion.

Draped all in purple and with his heavy mantle on top, the matching colors upon his already large frame made him seem all the greater, more broadly built, filling the chair with a body that matched the presence that filled the room. He had the slightest slouch to the left, a slight lean upon that arm of the chair that was like a throne, a gesture born not of disinterest or disdain, but of a confidence that flowed rich and powerful, falling short of arrogance. Every part of him was neatly done, yet not overly so: his silvery locks were combed straight, his clothes clean in cloth and clean in line, all featuring enough flaws so as to not look too perfect, to risk that unnerving sensation of looking towards a being without flaw. But it was his eyes that caught Tyrion's attentions most, for they were the eyes of an intelligent man, judging the dwarf at the same time that the dwarf judged him in turn, noticing things about him in an instant that others would not have even thought to watch.

And he only smiled as his and the dwarf's eyes met, a slight, knowing gesture, like a dragon, looking down upon the face of its attacker and knowing before the blade was struck that it was a futile gesture, authoritative and strong.

He didn't look like a king.

He looked like the perfect king.

He rose from his throne, welcoming them, with a respecting and gracious bow of his head. "Be welcome beneath my roof, as thin as it may be."

"Gladly," the dwarf answered, all the words of the sergeant and the jeering of the sailors wiped from his mind by the sights before him and the watering of his hungry mouth. "Are we the only ones here?"

"You are," Daerion nodded with a smile. "My cooks have cooked a small feast for us, and surely a meal tempting enough for you to give proper introductions...?"

"Esgred, of the Iron Islands," Asha said, taking up the veil of her false name once more before gesturing with a flick of her wrist to the sellsword. "This is Bronn."

"Of King's Landing," the sellsword added with a half-japing and half-serious voice. "And the dwarf doesn't need introducing."

"Indeed he doesn't," Daerion agreed, reaching towards the table's head with a graceful movement to lift up a bowl, raising it carefully above the rest of the food before delivering it to them. "Still, it is a pleasure to be able to have a chance to speak with you like this, rather than before the amassed numbers of our respective peoples."

He lowered the bowl towards the dwarf, revealing its contents: red grapes that had been stewed in wine with a hint of spice, flesh softened and skin loosened and swollen.

"You must forgive me, as I can see how eager you are to have a proper meal," their host started before offering them the bowl of wine and grapes. "But it is as much a Volantene tradition as it is as a Valyrian one for you to have one of these, first. Meraxes favors guests and celebrants in equal measure, yet it is Syraxes that we honor, for the offering of hospitality is a contract of trust as well."

And then he smiled. "You might know the concept as guest right. Valyria was known to have many minerals beneath the slopes of the Fourteen Flames, but salt was not one of them."

"And so you offer something that honors your gods," Tyrion nodded, reaching in to take a grape. They were warm and sticky and soft to the touch, threatening to fall apart in his fingers, yet it was the sweetness that caught him off guard the most, so sweet as to be almost sickening and made stronger still by the months at sea without any of a baker's treats or anything else made with sugar.

But he swallowed and kept it down, and so did the others. By the Essosi's own words, they were protected under guest right now...or at least whatever might pass for it across the Narrow Sea.

"Please," the master motioned to the seats with an open, inviting hand. "Take any of them and eat whatever you please."

He didn't need to ask twice. Tyrion all but scrambled around the table to a chair near the table's head, and Bronn and Esgred moved nearly as fast, all three climbing into their seats before Daerion was even near his own. Even the courtesy of waiting for their host to sit was all but forgotten as hungry ahnds reached out to take knives and spoons and begin claiming food for themselves - Bronn hacked off a slice of roast as savagely as he had stabbed the moth before, juices pouring down the steel and on his hand, but the moment it fell free the Ironborn woman plunged her dagger into its side and scooped it off onto her plate as the sellsword laughed.

"Damned reavers," Bronn japed with a smirk. "But if you wanted my meat, you only had to ask."

"It wouldn't be half as filling," Esgred answered with a smirk of her own, raising it on the tip of her blade to take a bite.

Daerion only laughed at the display, as did the dwarf, Tyrion reaching not for the meat, but for a simple round of bread big enough to fill his palm and no more. It was still warm from the ovens and wondrously soft, the mere touch releasing more of that sweet, delicious smell of a freshly baked loaf that brought his mind from the depths of the green hells of Sothoryos to the lands of Westeros and the mountains of home...if only for a moment.

"Fresh bread," he said, squeezing it ever so slightly as if in disbelief. "How did you get fresh bread here?"

"My patrols managed to find one of the city's bakeries, no doubt placed near the docks to feed hungry sailors," the Valyrian explained, finally beginning to claim food for himself now that his guests had started. "It was easy enough to clean them out and refuel their ovens for our use. Everything else came from supplies that we brought with ourselves from the homeland, including the meat we butchered for the day's meal."

"...seems I was part of the wrong crew," Bronn murmured with a smile Tyrion hoped was merely playing.

"You brought pigs with you?" Tyrion asked with as much surprise as interest. "Here? To Gogossos? "

"You did not?" Daerion asked back. "Did you sustain yourselves on your voyage entirely off of cured meats and pickled herring?"

"Not entirely," the dwarf japed, softening the surprise and finding his balance once more. "There were crackers and cheese as well."

"You Westerosi have little experience in such long voyages, I take it?" Daerion asked, gesturing towards the woman at Tyrion's side with the slightest move of a finger. "With the exception of her, who is Asha of the house Greyjoy, I presume?"

"You...know who I am?" Asha asked, surprised. "Tyrion wouldn't have figured it out at all if it wasn't for -"

"Euron?" Daerion asked again, seeing the answer on their faces. "I thought as much. As for how I recognized you, good lady, it is rather obvious. Black of hair, blue of eye, the shape of your cheeks and chin, the movements in your step and the grasping of your fingers that speak to a master-of-arms providing you with training. Temper that with the understanding that there are few Ironborn woman warriors outside of song and story and it becomes obvious who you are."

That took even the Ironborn woman off guard. He had seen through her the moment his eyes had been on her, caught all those tiny movements and parts of her heritage that she could not mask behind her false name and the denials that came with it. Not even Tyrion had been able to do that, or any of the men on his crew.

"Still, you have little to fear from my men," he continued, filling her cup. "Westerosi women are...not well regarded amongst Essosi, particularly those of Valyrian heritage."

Asha laughed at that answer. "Are you saying I'm ugly?"

"Based on how your ship most likely sailed from Lannisport, you almost certainly went into port in Lys, where the silver hair and violet eyes of Valyrian, Orosi and Tyrian heritage remain strong, as well as the immense beauty of such things," was the answer, a careful maneuvering around her question. "Even your good queen Cersei would pale in comparison to the beauties found there."

"Don't tell her that," Tyrion laughed, happy to simply be able to relax and dine without danger. "She thinks those stories are lies made up by the Valyrians to flatter themselves."

"Might be they are," Daerion answered with a contemplative voice, as if thinking aloud. "All but a handful of stories are made up by someone or another. Only rarely is the truth written down in its true, original form. One could even make the argument that the entire world is but a story, and everyone of us but a reader of it, following the words to see where they lead."

Then he smiled once more, helping the dwarf with his knife to cut some from the roast. "You are a reader, aren't you?"

"A dwarf doesn't do much other than read," Tyrion nodded, taking the cut he had been given as the Volantine began to carve one of his own. "Though there was not much to read about Gogossos, only a few scraps about what monsters the maesters think might be here, some ideas as to what happened to the fleshsmi- Gogossosi and what their sorceries may have been like."

"Unfortunately, that is so. Fortunately, I do believe that - to borrow a phrase from the Braavosi - we may hold two different sides of the puzzle," Daerion proposed as the meat fell easily onto his waiting plate. "Though Gogossos was a daughter city of Valyria, it was kept isolated from the others, both by simple geography and by design. Gogossos was a city that was not ever meant to make contact with the rest of the Freehold, and so it didn't. Not till the Age of Blood did it begin to emerge from its isolation, and I am sure you yourself are well aware of what that entailed."

"Blood magic."

"Without Valyria to provide oversight - and indeed, it was oversight - there were none to keep the Gogossosi in line, to prevent their skills from turning to...excess," he spoke as he returned to his seat at the head of the table, plate placed carefully on a waiting mat, steaming slowly. "Much of what they did can be summed up as not suitable for dinnertime conversation, and is surely things you know by now already. No, I am more interested in what stories you maesters heard, and which were those that came to Volantis."

And so Daerion leaned forward, paying no attentions to the plate in front of him, no, placing all his focus on the Lannister dwarf.

"I am most interested to hear your tales and would happily accept them in return for my hospitality, but first there is a matter," Daerion started before sighing with a fresh breath. "I have been informed that my men found you wandering in the jungles, besides one of the city's waystones. I would have hoped that you would remain out of our affairs, not merely for the sake of privacy, but for your own wellbeing. Sothoryos is not a place for you. "

"But it is for you, is it?" Asha challenged, even with her mouth half full of pork.

"Considering that my cook staff is larger than what seems to remain of your entire crew, yes," the Aurentys said...before smiling and gesturing towards the food with his cup. "Fortunately, it seems that you were found in time to be able to come and join me for that promised supper. But I am a reasonable man, and there is, I think, a chance to bargain here. Tell me the truth of your purpose here, the true reason you have came so far south, and I shall tell you much of my own. I am very curious as to see what brought Westerosi, including a Lannister and a Greyjoy both, so far from their homelands."

"Might be I would feel comfier if I knew what you were doing first," Tyrion answered with a swallow, entirely willing to let the Volantine talk as much as he might whilst the dwarf ate, fork stabbing deep into his first cutlet of meat and already promising there would be a second and a third. "You have said nothing about why you are here at all."

The Volantine laughed quietly.

"Yes, I do suppose it is the responsibility of the host to lead the discussion," he started with a smile before quickly moving on. "The purpose of my expedition here is rather simple: the Old Blood of Volantis, those men and women born within the Black Walls, are the people closest in all the world to the culture and heritage of the Freehold. They still govern themselves in a democratic manner, as the old cities had even before their union beneath Valyria's banner and they still speak High Valyrian. They even still eat the same recipes as their forefathers once did."

"With that said, Volantis is a very wealthy city, sitting on the crossroads of east and west. What that means is that merchants from across the world come through their ports, filling the city markets with trade that swells ever more with each and every year that passes. Yi-Tish silks, Westerosi wines, Myrish craftsmanship, all of it flows to Volantis, a city of all the world's desires, just as Valyria had once been."

"Yet there is one commodity that they cannot buy, and perhaps the most important of them all," he said, reaching out to extend his arms, gesturing to the entire city. "History."

"Hard to put a price on dust," Bronn murmured.

"But much easier to put a price on goods that belonged to the glorious years of the Freehold," Daerion smiled once more, cutting the roast on his plate into smaller, bite sized pieces. "Volantines are very proud of their history, for they have much to be proud of. Even small things better connect them to that past, that treasured heritage, and remind them of what had been. Such things are worth far more than their weight in gold."

"So you are here to loot the city?" Asha asked. "Seize anything of interest?"

"More like find the things of particular historical value and collect them for delivery back to the city," Aurentys explained. "There is much more to it than that, but it does cover the basics of our purpose here well enough, I feel. And now I would hope you uphold your end of the bargain, though I think I am aware enough of what has brought you here, now that I have had time to consider the matter."

"Oh?" Tyrion asked. "What might that be?"

Daerion smiled, swilling the wine in his cup.

And then he said simply and all at once, "The wreck of your uncle's ship, of course."

And the dwarf froze. He knew. He already knew. He couldn't have learnt it from any of them. There hadn't been enough time for news to spread and even then it was known of by the ranking officers of the ship only, not by the deckhands and men-at-arms.

That meant only one thing.

"You found his ship?"

"Only a fool would land in Sothoryos without searching the island from off the coast to find an ideal landing spot," came the quiet, almost disinterested answer as he impaled a square of his roast and raised it to his lips. "Your uncle's vessel is not far from here, though I myself had little interest in rummaging through a shipwreck. My aim is focused entirely on recovering items and artifacts of note and importance of Valyrian origin, not Lannister."

"Still, I see no harm in having one of my sergeants lead you there on the morrow with an escort party. It is too late in the day to mount a serious attempt now."

Tyrion knew what Daerion was trying to do even now. He was trying to control the conversation, to steer it to the places he wanted it to go and away from those he didn't. He was trying to pry the Westerosi for information at the same time that he covered his own. He was trying to get the Westerosi and the Lannister to divulge their purpose here, to see how they would react to the news of Gerion's own marooning upon the damned shores of Sothoryos.

But even still, he couldn't help but frown at the news. Gerion's ship had indeed found its way to Sothoryos. It had indeed been wrecked on the shores of Gogossos.

And if Gerion had been wrecked here, then he would have died here.

Gerion had indeed, surely, surely, died here.

Gerion had always been the kindest of his uncles, kinder than even his own father had been, an uncle that understood that it was not Tyrion's fault that he was born a dwarf or that his mother had died birthing him and a man who held neither of those things against him. He did not have the bitter temper of Tygett, forever resenting how he stood in Tywin's shadow. He was not quiet and eager to serve the way that Kevan was, content to be a follower and never a leader. He was none of those things. Gerion was a japester, a joker, a man that looked at Tywin and Tygett's battle for dominance and Kevan's obedience and Tytos' pleasure seeking and laughed at what had become of the Lannister pride.

It had always felt to Tyrion as though each of the brothers had played a part in building the Lannisters back to glory after his grandfather's years. Tywin was the cold and calculating brain, with Kevan as his loyal right hand and Tygett as his armored left...and Gerion was the heart, the soul, the velvet to Tygett's steel and the compassion to Tywin's coldness. He was the one that saw in tournaments not just a chance to bolster Lannister glories or to test one's skill at arms, but also a chance to entertain the commons, to make them loved as well as respected. He was a laugher, whose japes made him and Jaime laugh just as much as Tyrion could make Tommen and Myrcella laugh. He had been found in the beds of many a woman, just as Tyrion had, and could name where a bottle of wine came from just from the smell and taste alone, just like Tyrion could. He was bookish as well, more fond of reading than fighting and more fond of loving than reading, just like Tyrion, and he had even given the young dwarf a book about the wonders of the world when he was young and taught him to recite all sixteen from memory.

Gerion was just like him, he was like Tyrion writ large...

...and he had died here.

The dwarf swallowed. He swallowed hard. Gerion had been just as clever as he was, just as eager to travel as he was, filled with wit and cunning in every part of him, and where had that Lannister wit led him?

An early grave.

He had to take back control of the conversation, for his own sake.

"You have brought a lot of men for someone who is meant to be searching the city," Tyrion answered with a dry throat and a sudden thirst for wine. "You have near enough an army."

"An army is what you need this far south," Daerion answered, taking the wine flagon and pouring the dwarf a full cup, yet never once taking his eyes from the Lannister's own. "I would not trust a dozen men-at-arms to keep order here. The Gogossi ānogar aeksio failed to do so, with all their creations of flesh. Did you know they found a way to mate metal with bone, to fuse weapons into the very being of their constructs?"

"...ahnogar...ikseo...what?" Bronn asked, quiet.

"Blood Masters," Tyrion and Daerion said at once, the Volantine taking over the discussion once more. "Even the Lords-Freeholder were unnerved by their presence and considered their abilities to be...unnatural. There are accountings in Volantis, written upon our oldest scrolls, about some of their creations. Many amongst them considered it to be an art, you see."

"...oh, this'll be good," Asha murmured, knife clattering on the plate as she used her spoon to grab fried carrots from the table.

"They found themselves forty slaves, all accused of trying to flee from their master and all given the highest possible punishment: to lose their legs," Daerion started. "Naturally, this doubled as an execution."

"I can't imagine how," Tyrion said dryly.

"Only that the Blood Masters - I believe you call them flesh smiths? - found a way to keep them alive the entire time," the Volantene continued. "And so they carried out the punishment. They removed their legs, using a water wheel to power a spinning blade, like a sawmill, and then the arms as well, from the elbow down, then removed great tracts of skin, muscle and organ from what remained of them. And the eyes, of course. They took the eyes of all fifty."

"Then they started sewing."

Tyrion thought he could hear even Asha choke, then. This wasn't medicine as the maesters might do. This wasn't even torture. This was just wanton butchery worse than anything even the wildlings might do, worse than anything the Mad King had done even in his greatest depths of insanity. At least they had the sense and the grace to kill men before hacking them apart.

The flash smiths had done their work whilst they were alive to feel their bodies being reshaped, sculpted, bones broken and muscles melted and skin stretched into abomination.

"When you read the accounts of its being...it truly, truly is something that is hard to explain in words of the Common Tongue, so you must forgive me," Daerion paused, searching his memory for suitable words. "Firstly, they sewed together fourteen of their brains, merging their minds together. For the arms, they arranged each and every arm in sequence, so that each one gripped the next. A chain of fingers, clutching the next limb."

"...seven hells," Bronn whispered, aghast and staring.

"This built the arms, and the legs were built in a similar enough manner. Long things, flowing down, made out of knee joints that were sewed together, end on end, till it stood ten, fifteen feet high. Ankles and hip joints, too. It stood like a man, but could move fluidly, like a snake. Muscles were put with it, give it strength, but it was the eyes that it was said they took the most pride in. Dozens of them, all over its body, so it could see in all directions."

"They even engraved its bones with glyphs and spells," Daerion said as though he were talking about poor weather, leaning back into his seat and raising his cup of wine, glaring through the glass at the ruby liquid within. "That way, it could take the pieces of the fallen and add it onto itself without fault, mend its wounds, grow larger and stronger with every killing."

"But more than anything else, they gave it tongues. The fourteen brains...they hadn't merged. They were still people, enslaved by a body with a will of its own," Aurentys murmured, remembering. "They could see everything around them, feel everything it felt, know that it was made from pieces of what they once were."

"The only noise it made were screams, you know, twisted things uttered by half a hundred voices at once. It was a lesser creature, meant for the fighting pits. The Blood Masters thought it would make for a fine spectacle."

"...and what did the Valyrians do?" Bronn asked. "The dragonlords...?"

"They set it and every man and woman involved in its creation ablaze with dragonfire, hurling their ashes into the Fourteen Flames to ask the gods to give them judgement," Daerion answered, a breath of relief leaving the Lannister without him realizing. "It was an abomination they said, a crime against the Fourteen they claimed to create such a twisted parody of life."

And then the Master leaned back in his seat, smiling.

"So as you can see, I am keeping this many guards around for a very, very good reason," he laughed. "If that was one of their lesser creations, and it brought down such terrible punishment upon them, I do wonder what they might have created here, in the land where their monsters were made."

And then there was the dawning of realization on the Volantine's face.

"That may not have been a suitable topic for mealtime conversation, I do apologize," he said with an acknowledging bow of his head and with an earnest apology. "But it does lead us back to my first point about comparing findings about the city. As I said earlier, the Gogossosi were kept on a tight leash by the Valyrians, who saw the island as a place to...forget...about their problems. Rogues, traitors, murderers, all were sent here. Even damned dragonlords stripped of their mounts were brought here to die, sentenced to live in exile as punishment for crimes against the nation."

"This is where things begin to blur," he nodded. "We have much information about their exports, coming from the fighting pits of Ghiscar and much of the rest of Essos. Warbeasts of various kinds, created for truly unique shows. This was something they could only do after the Doom, and before then they exported much in the name of sugar, various fruits and so on, grown with prisoner labor."

"Slaves, you mean?"

Daerion Aurentys scoffed with dismay.

"Is it honestly that much different than how your own family sends condemned men to die in the mines of the Rock?" he asked. "It was that which they were practicing. These men were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives here. Why is using their labors to pay for the cost of their upkeep a poor thing? They were still alive. They could even be rewarded for good work. They were simply prisoners."

"In any case," he spoke once more, before the dwarf could interject and try to counter his point. "That is not the matter of question. The matter of question comes to the fall of Gogossos. For nearly a hundred years, the city had burnt brightly. It was a Free City in role, if not in name, larger still than your King's Landing. According to what logs we had and what we have been able to find out, Gogossosi blood mages made up one in every eight men in the city. Their creations? One in every five."

"Seven hells," Asha said. "You'd have twenty monsters for a hundred people."

"Not all the things they made here were monsters," he reasoned. "Much of it was using their sorceries to better conquer the land. Livestock, for example."

"What kind of damned cow do you make with blood magic?"

"The kind that can survive here."

Tyrion and Asha shared a glance. He had a point.

"Unfortunately, we know rather little about their magic itself, how it was conducted and where it was done," Daerion said before raising a hand to explain. "Knowing that would tell us the places that are the most likely to contain...unpleasantries. We could then plan to avoid them, lest we release the Red Death into the world once more."

"I am afraid we didn't have any mention of any of that," Tyrion said, honest. "All our tomes covered was the nature of the beasts and dangers here here...the brindled men, blood creatures, plagues..."

"A pity, but that is about the jist of it all, is it not?" their host laughed, raising his cup once more. "I once met a man from Lhazareen, one of what the Dothraki call the "lamb men". He said that treating animals was to treat things like a chain. The soil, the water and the sun is eaten by the grass, the grass is eaten by the lamb, the lamb is eaten by the man. There can be many steps in this chain, many different ways for it to form, but in the end, it all leads to man."

And then he took a sip.

"Here, things are different. Everything eats something and everything is eaten by something. It is no chain. It is a circle. The Sothoryi survive by hunting in the jungles and eating the animals and plants they find there. Wyverns eat the Sothoryi. Walking lizards eat the wyverns. Everything eats something and is eaten by something."

"It is actually rather comforting in a way," Daerion spoke.

Tyrion, Bronn and Asha all burst into laughter.

"How the hells do you find that comforting?" the sellsword asked.

"There are two great fears to be found in this land. The first is the fear of the unknown, of the darkness that lurks all around. The second is a fear of death," he explained. "Yet the fear of death that you feel here, that fear that some terrible beast will emerge from the woods and eat you, is the very same fear that the sheep, pigs and chickens have in their fields. The fear we have of being eaten is the same fear that they have, and understanding that in turn uproots the fear of the unknown because you then know what is out there: something that wants to eat you. What matter is it, then, if it is a Sothoryi or a wyvern or a walking lizard?"

"Orosi philosophy," Daerion smiled at last, raising his cup as if in toast. "Let it not be said that Valyria alone had all the glories of the Freehold. Her sisters had their fair share of triumphs."

"Sisters?" Asha asked.

"Oros and Tyria were not subjects of Valyria, though they were both part of the same Freehold," Daerion explained, far more eager and far more quick than he had been about anything brought up before. "They were in a state of perpetual alliance with Valyria itself and all three were part of the Freehold, which was born of their confederation. They had been bitter enemies, once, but when the Ghiscari Empire overreached itself and began trying to enter the peninsula, the three cities joined together in alliance and made the world quake with their strength combined. I must admit I am quite surprised...do you honestly not know this?"

"Maesters tend to speak of Valyria mostly for its conquests," the dwarf admitted. "And the slavery and the sorcery as well."

"You are missing half the tale, then," he continued. "This is why Volantis is referred to as the first daughter. It is absurd to think that the Valyrians first went north, founded a city there and then came back later to found cities closer to the capital. No, Oros and Tyria were Valyria's sister cities. They were all what you would think of as Valyrian in heritage - violet eyes, silver hair - and all spoke dialects of what would become High Valyrian, but they were not one the same, in the same way that the Westerlands, the Reach and the Riverlands are all part of the Seven Kingdoms, but are separate realms within that realm."

"How come Valyria didn't crush them with their dragons?" Bronn asked, back to eating.

"Valyria did not have its dragons then, not truly," Daerion answered. "They had only begun taming them, and had little understanding of how to use them in battle. The entirety of Valyria may have only fielded some...ten, twenty dragons, with no idea how to deploy them in battle. Most of them would not even allow their masters to ride them, even if they had any idea how to make a good harness to serve as a saddle and to guide its movements."

"Indeed," he chuckled to himself before taking a sip. "There are stories of the Valyrians deploying their dragons only for them to avoid the battle entirely, coupling on the mountain sides or going to sleep even as the Valyrian footmen fight against the other cities. It was only when the cities began working together that dragons were truly tamed. Oros was famed for the quality of its craftsmanship, and so were the ones to make the first bardings and create the first reins and stirrups a man might need to control a dragon. Tyria was rich and mercantile, and their coffers were deep enough to allow the Valyrians to devote themselves more properly to training of their mounts and to experiment."

"Divided, they would have been easy pickings for the Ghiscari Empire, but united..." his amusement grew into a laugh proper. "...they forged the greatest realm the world had ever seen."

"...then how come the Free Cities all say they come from Valyria?"

"Because Valyria is a geographical concept as well as a place," the answer came with a shrug, a gesture that looked as if to ask why he had asked such an obvious question as the Volantine wiped his blade on a spare napkin before cutting into a loaf of bread. "You come from Westeros and are thus Westerosi. I come from Essos and are thus Essosi. It is possible to be from either of those lands, however, without being a Crownlander or a Volantine."

"So the city of Valyria was in a land...also called Valyria?" Bronn asked.

"It makes more sense in High Valyrian," the master said, taking his slice and placing it on his plate. "Valyrīha is the name of the city. Valyre is the name of the peninsula. Valyry is a Valyrian person."

"Why is it like that?"

"Why does your Quptenkys Ēngos - your Common Tongue - have so many the sounds?" Daerion countered immediately. "They're cold. Their hat. Over there. None of which are to be confused with dare, or with deer or dire."

And then their host laughed.

"And you say High Valyrian is strange," he said before drinking more of his wine, even the dwarf laughing for a moment.

Then he saw it.

The bread.

The Volantine had cut it perfectly. So perfectly that it looked to his eye as straighter than a blade, with not so much as a single crumb lost to fall. So perfectly that it was a uniform slice straight down, creating a slice of bread that was as thick on the top as it was on the bottom. The cooks in King's Landing couldn't slice like that, nor the ones in Casterly Rock. Nor could Ser Ilyn Payne or any of the knights, or even his brother Jaime do it, with Valyrian steel or otherwise. No man should be able to cut bread like that, so perfectly that not a single crumb fell when he lifted it.

And yet Daerion had.

His movements were beyond fluid. Beyond graceful. The words seemed clunky in comparison to the reality, now that Tyrion was actually paying attention to the Essosi's actions. They were perfect. Every movement was exact. Every gripping needing no adjustment. Every extension of his arms letting the cloth flow around him like water. He had seen and bedded dancers who could not move with even half as much grace. It was almost unsettling how smooth it was.

He looked towards Asha. Their eyes locked. No sounds came out of his throat, yet a hundred words were said in that one moment of silence before he looked back to his plate and wore his smile anew.

"Tell me, my newfound friends," Daerion smiled warmly, reaching out to fill Bronn's cup as the sellsword offered it. "Do any of you know the reason why the Valyrians sent their blood mages here?"

"Common sense?" Bronn suggested. "Who wants men who can do what they can do around?"

"They fell out of favor, more like," Tyrion answered. "Used until they had no use, then thrown aside."

"Because even the Valyrians couldn't stomach what they were doing," Asha said. "It was too much, even for them."

"Of all three answers, yours is the closest, Lady Greyjoy," their host nodded. "Have you ever seen Dragonstone? The castle, not the island?"

"Once or twice," she shrugged in a way that said she had seen it far, far more than her answer.

"Then you will have seen the draconic motifs that cover its stone," the master spoke, leaning back into his seat, setting the flagon down in a single motion as he did. "Dragons were sacred to the Valyrians of old, much as they were to their sister cities. The Fourteen were not believed to be in the sky above as the Seven are, or in the streams and soil as the Old Gods are, or in the sea as the Gods Before Them were."

"No," he continued eagerly. "They believed that the home of their gods was in the core of the world, nesting there like a dragon within its egg. The Fourteen Flames were their entry ways into and out of the world, a window and a door in one. This is a simplification of course - I cannot expect you to be familiar with the intricacies of the faith - but dragons were believed to thus be a gift from the gods; they combined fire and earth into one in dragonflame and dragonbone, as well as being found greatest in number and strength around the Fourteen Flames that were, according to the faith, the entryway to the domain of the divine."

"Dragons were thus venerated as holy creatures in their own right, and when they died, they were delivered back to the Fourteen Flames and cast within, delivering them back to the gods that had forged them," Daerion finished. "They were sacred."

And then he spoke so quietly Tyrion could barely hear him at all.

"Not even that could keep them from the hands of the blood sorcerers."

"How has your stay here gone, anyhow?" Tyrion asked, changing the topic quickly before it could degenerate into sorcery and trying to take control of the conversation once more. "Have the Brindled Men been a problem?"

"They have, though they have been little more than a nuisance. They are strong enemies, and cunning, but they lack organization or complex strategy, and fight poorly in more open terrain where they cannot ambush you."

"The Sothoryi don't bother you much?" Bronn asked, grease on his chin as he ripped into another piece of ham. "Aren't you worried about raids?"

"I have been in more battles than you have had hot meals, sellsword," Daerion answered as if it was fact. "But it is so: the Sothoryi bother me not. Besides, as I told you before, the smoke keeps them away. Indeed, it keeps many of the threats of this land away...at least, for a time. They will inevitably realize that it is no wildfire they are fleeing from, but I intend to be done with my visit here before then."

And then he laughed.

"I apologise if that was rough," he admitted with amusement. "It has been a long day. Sothoryos can be a beautiful place, but only if you have the strength to keep the dangers at bay...and doing that requires much hard work. Would any of you like more wine?"

Asha offered her cup eagerly, and Daerion did the work of a good host and reached for the wine flagon, lifting it carefully towards the Greyjoy woman with one hand and using the other to help steady her grip...and Tyrion saw something on his left hand that he had never noticed before. A round, black stain on his third finger, looping around the flesh. It was the mark of a ring. It was the mark of a promise ring. It was the mark of a tattoo, of the age old Valyrian practice of forever marking the flesh of a married man, no matter where the band itself had gone and no matter where the fortunes led them, to show that the binds that their gods had wrought were truly permanent. That was so ancient a practice that not even Aegon the Conqueror had done it - perhaps in his grandfather's day, but by the time of the Conquest it was surely dead, at least in Westeros and the Narrow Sea from what his books had told him.

Perhaps it lives on in Volantis, he thought, the wine and food sharpening his mind and giving him new vigor. They are obsessed with the past, as he says. If it was to survive anywhere, it would be there.

But then there was the grace.

Then there was the bread.

Now there was the ring.

His stomach turned. He was starting to wish he had made his way back to the King Gerold after all.

"The monument," the dwarf said, feeling parched again and raising the cup to his lips. "Victory over death?"

The Volantine laughed.

"You have your dialects confused, good dwarf," Daerion said with amusement. "It is not victory over death that the obelisk spoke of. It is victory over life, for it was the limitations of life that the blood mages of Gogossos had conquered. Through their studies, they had learnt many, many things."

"How to breed monsters?" Asha asked bitterly.

"How to heal the unhealable," Daerion corrected, an edge of hostility cracking his reply before he regained his polite, hospitable demeanor, recognizing his failure as a host. "The same sorcery that could be used to bind two creatures together into one could be used to heal the worst of all wounds - the ones that were inflicted not in life, but before birth, those failures of flesh and blood that came by sheer, random chance and by no failing of their own."

And then he gestured towards the dwarf.

"With their knowledge, they could have corrected even your ailment, Tyrion of Lannister. You would have been born not a dwarf, but a babe like any other, free to grow into a man proper," he smiled. "And why not? Why are some babes forced to suffer from deformity and why are some to die before they draw their first breath, whilst others grow strong and true?"

In that, there was a very, very tempting thought. One the Volantine followed up on immediately.

"Why must we leave such things to chance? We do not leave babies sick and leave their fates up to the gods. We do everything in our power to make them healthy again. We do not leave the wounded where they fell and let the so called gods decide whether they live or die. We tend to their wounds, sewing and cleaning, so that they might have the greatest chance to live."

And then he raised his knife, gesturing towards the dwarf with its sharp tip.

"Why can we not do the same thing to those who have yet to be born?" he asked at last. "Why can we not remove chance from this one last thing, and ensure that all children are born strong and healthy, now and forever? Do we not owe those yet unborn that? Can we not take the lives of animals, who are capable of so little, and use their energies to strengthen man, who is capable of so much?"

Tyrion felt like the thought should have revulsed him. He felt like it should have been something disgusting. He felt like all the times that the maesters and the septons and the books had told him of such blood magic being evil should have made it an absolute thing that needed no thought. He felt like he should have thought it evil.

He felt like he should reject his argument and counter it with one of his own.

But he didn't. He sat in silence.

And why not? Could anyone understand the fate he had for the crime of being born a dwarf? Of the suffering he had known for the curse of killing his mother as she gave him life? Could any man or woman of able body understand the burden that it placed upon his shoulders to be so deformed that children might run from him in the street in horror of his misshapen face, or would be lovers who could not bare the sight of his mismatched eyes? Could anyone know the pain it had gave him, of the wounds it had made before he had learnt to accept his role and wear it as armor?

There was no question of it.

His father would have happily sacrificed every last dog in Lannisport, stray or otherwise, to have had that protection during Tyrion's own birth, the Lannister knew with all his heart. He would have done all that even if it meant only that his mother would have been guaranteed to survive. If it meant that his son would come out of her with a strong body and not that of a deformed dwarf? Tyrion couldn't imagine the price he would pay, the things he would do, to have both such things come to pass. Would he have collected animals for it, till every last cat and dog in the entirety of the Westerlands had been rounded up and given to the knife? Or might he have instead reached down to the dungeons deep within the bowels of the Rock and find some condemned soul that the realm wouldn't miss? Someone who could disappear without questions being asked? Would he be able to resist that? To avoid the temptation to trade one treacherous man for the life of his beloved wife and for a strong, golden son to carry on his name?

His father would not turn it down.

Would any lord in Westeros be able to resist that temptation to ensure their sons were strong and their daughters beautiful and both of them quick witted and healthy for the rest of their days? Would any lord be able to resist the temptation to ensure that their line would produce worthy heirs? Would even the commons be able to resist that temptation? To gut a few ducks and save their sickly child from dying in the cradle?

The lords of Westeros would not turn it down.

Was there anyone in the world who could resist the sweet allure of that?Could Tyrion himself resist that? Could he?

Could he really resist that sweet, sweet promise of wholeness? Of never needing to be mocked for his stature or for his deformity again? Of being able to stand before his father not as a dwarf, not as a halfman, but as a full, proud man? With his deformed face corrected to match his brother's striking looks? To change the trio of Tywin's children into a perfect group of beautiful daughter and handsome sons, one martial and one not? Could he resist that chance to be whole enough in his father's eyes to have the Rock? To have the ladies of the realm look towards him with the same eye they had for Jaime? Could he resist that? Could he? Should he?

They had talked much about the nature of blood magic during their journey, but all that time they had talked about the abominations that flesh smithing could produce. This was different...

...wasn't it?

This was not making monsters, but mending the wounded, was it not?

And it was done using the blood of animals, not men, and animals already died to cover his table and fill his plate and to make up his clothes, did they not?

Why was it evil to take the life of a pig and use its energies to make the crippled walk again or to correct the failures of the womb, when men and women and children ate bacon and sausages and eggs when breaking their fast?

Why was the one good and the other evil, when the animal died and was consumed in both?

It was tempting. It was more than tempting. It was a dream. Like a prayer turned into a miracle by the gods above and placed that tiny inch out of reach. He felt as though he only had to reach out...

And then he remembered the monsters. The creature Daerion had spoken of. The flesh things Qyburn had mentioned. How many people had been made into horrors beneath the blades of the flesh smiths? How many men? How many women? How many children? How many Jaimes? How many Cerseis? How many Joffreys and Myrcellas and Tommens?

How many Tyrions had died screaming to perfect that bloody art? How many of their little dwarf bodies had been cut apart to discover some secret? How many had been sewn together to make abomination? One? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? More? Beyond counting?

He didn't know. He couldn't know.

His throat was dry again, and he downed his entire cup in one. The entire tent was silent but for the crackling of the flames and the rippling of the cloth.

It was Daerion that broke it, the sound of his cup going onto a leather coaster snapping them from their daze.

"Either way, it is something interesting to think about, no?" he asked, smiling. "I do enjoy speaking with foreigners from outside of Volantis. You always have different ways of thinking, different ways of viewing the world. Your perspectives can be...enlightening."

"...I think it best I retire for the evening," the Lannister said abruptly.

"Truly?" Daerion asked with disappointment. "We have yet to have dessert."

"Dwarfs need not eat much, and tire easily," he said, hoping that the lie might work true. "It has been a long day, and a longer journey."

"Oh," Daerion sighed. "I had hoped you might stay longer. We have much to talk about...still, we will have a chance to continue on the morrow when we break our fast."

And you have to stay here, he reminded himself. He knows where Gerion's ship is and you don't.

"...though you have reminded me of the hour," Daerion said, wiping his hands on his napkin before rising from his own seat, towering over the rest of them. "There is a matter I must attend to. The business of managing a camp at the edge of the world is never done."

"What about us?" Bronn asked, a cracker covered in soft cheeses in his hand.

"Please, feel free to eat as much as you might wish," their host smiled. "Better that it fills hungry bellies than go to waste. You are my guests and are entitled to all the hospitality that I have to offer, even if I myself am not here to give it in person."

"And such hospitality means I cannot allow you to try and wander your way through a lost city in the dead of night," Daerion smiled to the dwarf. "I will have one of my men find a suitable place for you to stay. I am sure there are cabins aboard the Syraxes or one of its fellows that should be most comfortable, even for a man of your station. I imagine you would find that more hospitable than being in a tent on shore."

As much as sitting in a dragon's mouth and hoping it doesn't swallow, Tyrion couldn't help but think before he gave his answer. "On shore will do."

"That is your choice, but the offer was made," their host nodded in acceptance. "Simply stand outside of my tent for the time being. This area is safe. You won't find a single Sothoryi within these walls other than dead."

The dwarf nodded, and started towards the flap, one step at a time. The discussion had killed whatever appetite he had left, but there had been few moments at the table he had gone without eating something, and his belly ached with the fullness. But before he could push through the flap into the world beyond, Daerion spoke once more from the head of the table, tidying its place for his departure.


"Still, if you have your doubts about my intentions, I would be delighted to bring you along on one of my ventures into the city," Daerion offered with an almost diplomatic smile. "There are such wondrous things to see...and more, it is said in Volantis that there is nothing even half as lucky as a dwarf, for the gods love them so."

Not nearly enough, seeing how they brought me to this damned island, the Lannister sighed with a silent thought. Why couldn't we have crashed into the Summer Islands, the land of tits and wine?

"After which, I suppose I would be able to introduce you to my carpenters," Daerion offered. "Then your ship can be repaired and you can continue back towards Westeros with whatever brought you here."

And there was the hostage. The carpenters. He needed them. He needed their skills and their arms to repair the King Gerold and make it fit for the return voyage, else they would never make it off the island in the first place, yet alone make it back to Westeros with Brightroar.

If it was still there. If the Volantines had been able to find Gerion's wreck, after all, there was no reason someone else couldn't do it as well.

But that didn't bare thinking about. Not now. Not when so much had been done to bring them here. Not when he was so tired from the long day and eager for rest.

"I will find a tent," he said tiredly.

"I will have Qoherion spread word about you, then," their host said at last, letting him go out into the night.

And it was night. The port was dark and cold, cold with the winds coming in from the Summer Sea, yet he could see, the earth lit by the flames of torches and the stars of the night sky and the brilliant silver of a full moon. He was not entirely sure where he was going as he wandered. He had been hungrier than he had been in months at that Daerion's feast table, the long journey rousing an appetite that had grown to slumber from the long journey and the small meals that had covered his plate and grown smaller still with their marooning here at the end of the world...and he had drank too much wine on his empty belly before food.

Only a fool drinks on an empty stomach, he thought with the voice of King Robert Baratheon in his ear. You'll get drunk from a cup or two.

And so he wandered. He was still within the grounds of the port, never even going near the way they had entered, even after violet eyed and silver haired troops came up to him with blades ready for a fight only to realize he was not some Sothoryosi monster that slipped through. He wandered and wandered and wandered, till he found some creates in the far corner besides the old harbor master's building, a lean to fastened to the side of its walls from old crates and old wood. He stumbled his way in...

...and simply collapsed onto a blanket mat, not even bothering to undress himself to sleep. His eyes fluttered closed almost the instant his head struck the downy cushions that surrounded him on all sides. He wasn't even sure why they were there, why the lean to existed at all, but the dwarf cared not. He wanted sleep. Some long, desperately wanted sleep. His eyes grew heavy, his mind drifted to the back...

...and then the voices came. Not voices from within, but voices from without, outside the lean to. He rolled towards one of the openings in the wood, his small stature masking his movements and revealing no trace of him within - and froze.

It was Daerion.

Daerion and a woman.

Daerion and a woman and two guardsmen carrying a heavy stone tablet they strained to carry.

No one else was around. Not Asha. Not Bronn. Not even Thoros or Qoherion. None of the other guards could see here. The harbormaster's building created a blind spot that the towers could not glance towards.

And then he heard the voices.

"It is a pleasure to see you again, my dearest lady of red," Daerion smiled ever so slightly, leaning down to take her hand and plant a kiss upon its surface before rising to his full stature, so tall he would stand over even Sandor Clegane. "I trust your search has been most fruitful?"

"It has, though I grow concerned about the content of these tablets," Melisandre answered, the two men carrying the hefty block of stone bringing it to their master for inspection, struggling with the weight of the hefty, black tablet. "The text leads into the darkness, not the light."

Daerion reached out and took the stone, lifting it from the two struggling men with a single hand as though it weighed nothing.

"Perhaps," he said, the Volantine men only able to stare back at him in stunned awe that matched Tyrion's own as he saw the Essosi carrying the hefty stone slab, examining it as though it were parchment and weighed as much. "But shadows are born of the darkness and the light, for they cannot be without both. You know that as much as I, good priestess."

He placed his free left hand upon its black surface...

...and by the gods old and new, the glyphs burnt with an eye-stinging glow of crimson and gold. The words melted away, the very stone shifting and changing form before him, the glyphs turning to blank stone for a heartbeat before they turned into new letters, new words, new text, changing every few seconds like the turning of a page. Images flared into existence, images of a kind that the Lannister had never seen before in any of his texts: strange geometries that rolled and rippled, first seen from the front and then from the side and then from an angle, then turning towards the sign of strange beasts and stranger rituals and bloody sacrifices of dozens of men and women and children and -

Nothing.

The magic spent, he took his hand from its surface with a sigh of disappointment, the glyphs returning to their original shape.

"This one does not contain the ritual that I seek, though it is closer than before," Daerion spoke, passing the stone back into the hands of the waiting guardsmen, the pair struggling to carry the weight, a thin plume of grey smoke rising from the slab. "Where did you find it, good lady?"

"It came from deeper in the city," the red lady spoke. "The Sothoryi make their homes in the Gogossi center, where the inner walls still stand strong, but even they dare not go into the vaults beneath the city."

Cisterns, he realized at last, all those years of experience managing the waters of Casterly Rock rushing into him at once. Gogossos must have had a cistern of clean water, else they would have all died within weeks.

Daerion pondered her words for a half moment.

And then his voice was absolute and commanding, filled with an authority he had not shown before, the very same authority that Tywin Lannister might have, unquestioning and unquestioned, the kind of voice and presence of command that made men kneel entirely of their own accord.

"The vaults beneath the city are most likely the most dangerous part of the island, seeing that they were a place for the sorcerer's failures and failed sorcerers to be thrown away and forgotten, even if some of them did store the lore we seek. We will deploy our strength in force, push the Sothoryi out of the more outer quarters of the city and open the vaults for further exploration. This will then open an avenue of approach into the core of the city, where the most important records are likely to be found."

"Is that wise, good Daerion?" the Lady Melisandre asked. "The tunnels beneath the city are far from the light of R'hllor. The Great Other rules them, and twisted things lurk in their darkness."

"All the more reason to delve into their depths, good lady," Daerion answered firmly. "By doing this we may take the battle into the darkness itself, and win for your Red God a most resounding victory indeed."

"And then, of course, once I have found the sorceries for which I am searching, we will be free to depart after their conclusion, knowing that what we have done will change the world forever," Daerion smiled. "And do not worry, my good lady. I will happily uphold my end of the bargain. You and your faith will have everything that was promised to you and more."

The red priestess bowed before him, bowed, like the lowliest of peasants before the highest of kings, like the most pious of priests before their holy god made manifest, and once more he took her hand and kissed it before letting her leave, letting the Volantine warriors carry the heavy tablet away.

And then he turned away from her, their matter settled, and Tyrion saw something that unnerved him more than anything he had ever seen before in his life, yet alone on this journey.

His eyes.

They were red.

Tyrion did not sleep that night.

Chapter Text

The first thing that Asha realized when she woke was that the floor was still, a thought that cut through the haze of tiredness and drink alike, and brought all the events of the night before flooding back into clarity. Cutting a swathe through the jungles. The obelisk and the red priest. The Volantines and their encampment. Wine, and food, and food, and food. Her stomach ached with fullness, so much she must've eaten in a blur of pork and wine. The dull pain was good. It was nice to have a proper meal after so many weeks and months at sea, even if it dragged her reluctantly from sleep. Tired eyes blinked open, wincing at the low brightness that managed to pierce the tent cloth, and she yawned and stretched out - and yelped in sudden surprise as the movement sent her sliding off the side of the bed, the blankets dragging the newly roused Greyjoy to the floor. Her elbow slammed into something, sending a sudden ring of pain shooting up her arm, half a second before her shoulder slammed into it a heartbeat after -

"Fohk!"

- moments before the rest of her struck the hard ground. The yawn and curse turned into a bite down, an instinctual clenching of the jaw that banished the last lingering thoughts of trying to get more sleep, forcing her eyes open. She blinked for a moment, thinking, remembering. Everything came back to her not in a single moment, not clearly, but in the tumbling, blurry remembrance of a woman who had a cupful too many. But it came, quicker and stronger than it did when she first woke, more detailed. She was still in Daerion's tent, another part of it, another false room of violet cloth she must have stumbled her way into the night before, but still the same tent. The bed was no mere hammock or some spindly thing of ropes and thin pieces of wood, but a true and proper one made from good timber, with downy pillows and a feather mattress, so soft and comfortable she must've fell asleep the moment she found her way onto it. The rest of the room was as lavish as the other had been: bookshelves and cabinets, some sealed with gilded locks and thick frames all etched with neat and flowing draconic patterns...and her arm, still tingling from the strike, drew her attentions sidewards to find a squat bedside table, a humble little thing of the same dark wood as the rest...and a luxury beyond anything else in the room for certain. It was one thing to bring a bed, another entirely to bring so small a table a thousand miles from home and over an ocean for one week ashore. There was a word for that.

Decadence.

"Only a Volantine would bring you to Gogossos," she laughed, using the small table to help herself back to her feet. The entire room was as lavish as the other had been, a proud display of wealth and power...and either experience or idiocy, a part of her couldn't help but feel, a feeling that sent her walking across the room to look at the collection more closely. Oh, it was all well and good having a feather bed to sleep in when a voyage was going well, but when something went wrong it would barely be worth the wood it was carved from. It was the mark of someone so experienced that they had no fear of getting lost, or so stupid that they had thought it something useful and worth taking.

But the closer she came, the more she started to think that it was the former in both accounts, not the latter. There were things there that she had heard of before, but never seen in person. Things that no man could simply walk into a market and buy. Things that he should not have had. There were the milk-white vases of distant Yi Ti, decorated with the intricate paintings that a master artist had to spend days working upon, but the patterns themselves were not anything like the ones that she had ever seen before in the markets of Lys and Myr, no. The figures were different. The artwork was different. The men were in Westerosi plate, the fortresses around them the guess of a man who had never seen them in person before. Above them all in the clouds soared dragons, proud and invincible, and each and every one marked with three heads. Some made battle against one another, and that was enough to tell her what it was meant to be: the Dance of the Dragons. She had never been so far east as to reach the lands of the Golden Empire and its man-god, but she had seen their whitewares in the Free Cities, seen their merchants and their monkey-tailed coats, and she knew that the greatest of them all were ones with the wealth and the power to take requests, to take a fortune in gold and silver back to their homelands and return years later with a work done exactly to the purchaser's desires.

It was anything but cheap. If one was not a merchant prince, a king or a Lannister, they would not even bother talking about it.

But Daerion had one.

Then on one of the other shelves was a frame with a glass pane to protect the contents within. Carefully pinned into place as to stand proud for display, four colors of black and white and blue and yellow were separated by grey chains, chains that bound them together in the dead center. A hint of char crawled along the edges, the images of boat and tree and grape and bird distorted by the great heat and faded by the sheer age of the fabric that carried them. It was a banner that no Greyjoy or Iron Islander would ever forget, the sigil of a family that took them to the peak of their glory and plunged them into their darkest days.

It was a Hoare banner. It was a Hoare banner from Harrenhal. They were rare. They were enormously rare. Black Harren had met his end in dragonfire, flames so hot they could melt stone, a heat so great it could turn cloth to ash in the wind in an instant. It was a testament to the sheer size of his castle that a number of them survived to be pulled down by the Targaryens and the Tullys afterwards, who had gathered them up and burnt them all...or so they had thought. Some survivors of the garrison had managed to preserve a handful for whatever reasons were their own. One ended up at Volmark, for there was a time when they sought to claim the Hoare mantle through the blood of Harren's great aunt, only to meet their fate in the same fashion as their kin - in fire and blood. Another found its way into the hands of Harren the Red, his supposed grandson, who flew it at the head of his "host" of bandits and brigands and other rebels. The last of the ones she knew about had gone to the Night's Watch, where a mournful brother and Lord Commander had kept it as a reminder of his lost kin, taken with him to a funeral pyre that marked the death of the last true Hoare. There were few others. Men sewed their own, pretenders clawing at the legacy of the Hoares, but true, original banners from the reign of Harren were as rare as a fish with teats.

But Daerion had one.

There was more.

A glass box contained the fragments of a shattered ruby, mismatched pieces that roughly arranged to make the head of a dragon. She didn't need to be a maester to know that they might've came from Rhaegar's breastplate when the stag slew the dragon with a single blow at the Trident. Men had clutched at them in droves, dragonmen snatching for a reminder of their beloved prince, stagmen to offer them up to their heroic champion, and many more besides to sell to any man who might've had the coin to buy it. Robert's hatred for his foe was so deep that he had bought many and destroyed them all, or so it was said, with only those that survived the battle in the hands of Targaryen loyalists living to the present..

But Daerion had one. Her eyes turned across the collection, looking for anything she might recognise, as if challenging herself to place them all -

- and a shadow fell across the shelves, and Asha turned to see Daerion himself. The full length of his silver hair was wrapped into a neat braid, hanging onto his back. Wearing a thick tunic adorned with a sash of tiger skin, it was only now that he stood so close that she realized how large he actually was, a match for the Hound in size and build...yet where Sandor was hard and brutal, the Volantine was graceful and smiling.

"Admiring the collection?" he asked. "Or are you just wondering how I gathered it all? "

"Hoare banners, Yi-Tish vases....a Dothraki arrow, here. Where the hells did you get it all?"

"That one is from Essaria, Valyria's dead daughter and the only Free City to have been utterly destroyed," the Volantine answered, stepping close and following her gaze towards the relic. "I found it in a vase, smashed beneath the rubble of a broken building. As for where I got it..."

Daerion smiled.

"...I tend to pick things up on my travels," he nodded. "There is much you can find if you are willing to wander, and more still if you have an idea of the right place to look. I am sure that your Citadel in Westeros has a similar collection of curiosities, but these are ones that I have gathered myself. Reminders of past journeys and history besides, but rare things, too. The mummers jape that Urrax gathered all the most beautiful things before he was slain by Serwyn. I suppose I am gathering the most historical."

"Or dustiest."

To her surprise, he laughed.

"You could call it that, but there are some truly interesting things in here, things you simply cannot find anywhere else," he said, going quiet for a moment before continuing. "Tell me, good Greyjoy, have you ever heard of a man named Aurion?"

"He was the fool who marched thirty thousand men into the Doom, wasn't he?"

Daerion laughed.

"I suppose that is one way to remember him, but yes," he nodded, reaching for one of the drawers. His fingers grasped the knob and pulled back, only for the lock to click in answer. He twisted and turned, left and right, some minute mechanism within ticking and clicking with every turn. "He was not merely a member of one of the Forty Families of Old Valyria, as the Targaryens waiting out the disaster on Dragonstone were. No, he came from one of the most powerful of the families, and more, he was a Triarch of the Freehold besides. The gulf between him and Aegon the Conqueror would be as vast as the gulf between the Targaryens on their dragons and the men they burnt at the Field of Fire."

"It was mere chance that saw him away from the city at the time, resolving some dispute or another between the Free Cities when the Doom struck. Many men looked to him for guidance, for the death-throes of the Freehold terrified them...and yet rather than stand in support of the traditions that made him who he was, of the very meaning of what it meant to be a Valyrian," Daerion said, his voice darker, harder. "He did away with the Freehold and called himself Emperor."

The drawer clicked. The Volantine pulled, the panel lowered, and his hand reached in...and with the utmost care, he slowly pulled out a crown resting upon a cushion.

A crown of fourteen dragons.

A crown of ancient glyphs.

A crown of Valyrian steel.

"What he forgot is that Valyria had never had an Emperor before," Daerion continued. "It didn't suffer his claim for long."

"Is that his crown?" she asked, surprised. "Didn't he perish in the Doom?"

"He did, and the Doom still rules Valyria," he nodded. "But its grip is not nearly as tight as it once was. The fury of the Fourteen Flames is waning ever more. If you have the patience to retrace the steps of the supposed Emperor, it is only a matter of having the courage to go forth into the Land of the Long Summer and find his last resting place. This was there, and more besides. but I would call it the proudest piece of my collection. Divorced of its origins it may not be the most valuable, but there is a...weight to it. A reminder."

The Volantine considered the crown for a moment, letting it rest upon his fingers. Even forged of gold and not the legendary metal of the dragonlords, it would have been a magnificent thing. Dragons with gems for eyes, reds and golds and blues and whites and blacks, a different color for every pair. Each head was proud and strong, and looking so lifelike that it seemed as if they were but a moment from taking flight. The glyphs were even finer craftsmanship than that, not that she could read what they said, so neat and finely done as to seem the work of sorcery, not smithing.

Mayhaps it was, she thought to herself. "Of what?"

"That it can be more important to work for the world than for oneself. That one man can make all the difference," he said, quieter. "Had Aurion never crowned himself and never returned to Valyria, he would have been a less powerful man, perhaps, and certainly a less proud one. But if he had, the Targaryens and the other Dragonlords who had survived the Doom with him might very well have answered his summons, bringing the strength of their warmounts east. The Free Cities would have been welded together into a new Freehold and the Dothraki thrown back into the plains from whence they came, never to burn the city of Essaria to the ground, never to ravage Essos. Where now there is the chaos of quarreling siblings, city against city and family against family, slaughtering one another in droves for feuds the men dying in war never saw, there would have been but a single power, a Seven Kingdoms of the east."

"Mayhaps," she said.

"Mayhaps," he nodded. "But the thought remains. We could have all lived in a better time...and if we could have done it once, then we might yet be able to do it again, and give to the people the world they were always meant to have."

Daerion was quiet, then.

Then he laughed, sliding the crown back into the drawer and locking it with a twist.

"My apologies, good Greyjoy. I merely meant to tell you that that my people know you are here, and that they'll have something for you and your companions to eat soon....but they are having trouble finding the both of them. The sellsword - Bronn - they found in a ditch, but they haven't found the little Lannister anywhere. I was wondering if you might have any idea of where he is?"

Asha shrugged. "He left early. Probably sleeping in a barrel or something."

"I can only hope so," the Essosi said, turning back towards the cloth to leave. "If he left the grounds at night, then the chances of us finding him alive and well are...slim."

"He's not fool enough to wander off like that here, even when drunk."

"Hopefully, good Greyjoy. I would hate for a guest of mine to have left my tent after a meal only to end up filling the belly of one of the Brindled Men," was the quick answer...before he glanced back, more graceful. "But speaking of eating, my cooks have put a put a small meal on the table if you wish to break your fast."

Even the morning after the feast, Asha was still so full that the thought of eating anything at all barely entered her mind. Still, she nodded in understanding and unsaid thanks, and Daerion returned the gesture before moving through the fabric and into the large, false hall of the tent. The flapping of more cloth told her he had left entirely, and the warming smell of freshly baked bread with a pinch of cinnamon and raisins caught in her nose, rousing what little appetite she might've had left, pushing her into the main room. But before she did, she took one last glance at the cabinet, one last glance at Daerion's collection, and something more caught her eye, something that was half hidden in the low shadow of a direwolf skull, nudged into the light by the locking and unlocking of the drawers far below.

It was a glass bottle, sealed with wax and cork and wax then silk and then wax again, all beneath a cap of gold and silver.

Within was an arrow, the fletchings of orange and white and black that marked it faded and old. Volantine colors, Volantine make. A thin crack wandered down through the shaft, wisping and weaving til it reached the arrowhead at the bottom, bent and warped as it was from the strike.

And impaled on the arrowhead was a small cluster of scales, no more than half a dozen. The flesh beneath had long since faded and grown pale, the moisture drying away over time, but it hadn't rotted, no, it had been protected from the worst of decay by the seals that covered the glass.

But the scales remained, as dark as a burnt out coal, thick and heavy and resting over one another like armor.

She didn't need to be a maester to know where it came from.

They were the flesh and blood of Balerion the Black Dread itself, from when Aegon the Conqueror had flown it to war against Volantis over three hundred years before. It shouldn't have even existed in the first place, for how could a Volantine possibly recover the arrow that they had shot into a dragon's hide, to say nothing of how it should've rotted to dust or been demanded back by the Targaryens themselves?

It more than anything else should not have been there on that wall...and yet it was, and Daerion had it, too.

Or a fake, a part of her realized, the thought making her laugh as she walked through the cloth and into the place that had been the dining room of the night before. The smell of roast pork and gravy and honey and all the rest still hung in the air, half-buried by the smell of new foods: a small plate of spiced bread rolls that sat in the center of the table, twin pots of jam and cheese not far away. A far more humble pitcher of earthenware sat in the midst, water most like, or ale so thin as to be barely worth the word, a few equally plain cups around. It was little different than what she might've had on the Gerold, but the lavish meal the night before left her with no complaints, so Asha walked back to the chair she had kept before, snatching a roll from the midst of the tabler and kicking the seat open enough to sit in with her foot. She fell into the seat, filled her cup with drink, leaned back -

- and then Bronn came in, staggering and stumbling and threatening to trip over himself with every step.

"Fucking sun," he growled, his elbow over his eyes. "Fucking Volantines."

Asha laughed. The sellsword winced.

"What did they do to piss you off?"

"They woke me up, threw me straight out into the sun," Bronn answered, lowering his arm and looking straight to the floor. "Didn't give me a chance to wake up or anything, just straight into the light. It stings."

"Where in the Seven Hells did you even sleep?"

"Hells if I know, I barely saw shit before I got here."

He winced again. Suddenly the sellsword was bobbing about, struggling to stand. His hand caught on the edge of the table, clutching tight to hold himself up. His face was pale, a cold sweat on his brow.

"I think I've been poisoned -"

Asha laughed again, harder than before.

"Like fuck," she said. "You drank so much you're still half pissed now."

"I ain't drunk," he answered, pulling out a chair and crashing into it hard. "I've had more cups than that before."

"Cups of swill from Fleabottom, mayhaps," she said. "Volantis is sunnier than the Arbor, so their wine is stronger than Arbor gold."

"....really?"

"Ask Qyburn when we get back, he'll tell you the same thing," Asha answered, ripping a handful of bread from one of the buns. "But that ain't what got you. You've been away from wine too long and gone all soft."

"I've been drinking ale and wine since we left Lannisport," Bronn insisted.

"Ale and wine that's been watered down til you have a better chance of getting drunk off milk."

Bronn seemed to think about that for a moment, quiet, before sighing and slumping down over his plate, poking at the rolls in the table's midst with testing fingers. "Why the hells would they water it down so much?"

"Get drunk and you start getting wobbly," Asha shrugged as she took a bite. The Volantine bread was still fresh from the ovens, still filled with a warmth in its core that bolstered raisins, currents and a dash of cinnamon into a decent meal. "You'd fall right off the rigging and into the sea if you don't smash your head open on the deck first."

"Might be a mercy," the sellsword mumbled, taking a respite from his struggle to look up with pained eyes at the empty seat where the Lannister had sat the night before. "Where's the dwarf?"

Asha shrugged, honest. "Ain't seen him since he left last night."

"Hells," Bronn said quickly. "You don't think he got drunk and walked off into the city?"

"No one can get that drunk here," she laughed. "He's probably pissed up in some crate somewhere."

"Aye, well," the sellsword admitted quickly, albeit groggily. "His father wouldn't like it much if we came back to Westeros without him."

"You saw what Qyburn was going to do if he didn't wake up," Asha said, pausing a moment for another mouthful. "He was going to bleed him out and jar him up for the return, and it isn't like you don't know where we are. Might be that the old lion doesn't give a shit what happens to him if he was willing to send him to this place with just one ship."

"Might be, but it isn't like he didn't try and prepare," the sellsword shrugged. "He got us lot, and we ain't dead yet."

We would be, if it wasn't for the Essosi, she was half tempted to say...but refrained, in case it might be the thing that finally breaks his spirits. She wasn't stupid. Sellswords were interested in one thing, coin, and they'd always flee like rats the moment the tides turned...but for all that, Bronn was a brave one, holding it together at the edge of the world where other men would've pissed their britches.

"We've been lucky so far," she chose instead, shrugging as she tossed the rest of the bun into her mouth, rising to her feet and wiping the crumbs from her hands. It was tempting enough to stay in the tent and carve her way through whatever foods they might have to offer her, to have good and filling meals rather than sailor's fare...but she had better things to do with her time, and none more so than trying to find out why the Volantines were truly there - she wasn't fool enough to think and believe that Daerion would come so far from his homeland with so many ships and men to try and find more relics for his collection. They were here for a reason, even if she didn't know what it was. They were looking for something, even if they hadn't found it yet.

And if Volantine slavers wanted something on an island that was both infamous for and lost to blood sorcery, she doubted it would be anything good. The morning light worked in her favor, for most of the guards were bound to be still rousing from their beds and still groggy and tired from sleep. That'd make it easier, much easier, to take a look around without drawing too much attention.

So she reached for the cloth flap, ready to step outside, her fingers slipping into the opening - and Asha winced at the brilliant, piercing light of dawn, so bright as to be nearly blinding. The sellsword cursed, recoiling from the light. "Fucking hells, Asha! Why'd you do that for?"

"I ain't staying around here all morning," she said, her eyes aching and stinging as they quickly adjusted to the morning sun. "We've got stuff to do."

"Like what?" Bronn asked, shielding his eyes from the piercing rays of the Gogossosi morning with a greasy sleeve. "Aren't you going to wait here for the Lannister to come back?"

"I'm going to take a look around," Asha said simply. "Aren't you wondering what they're actually doing here?"

"I ain't paid to find out," the sellsword answered honestly, daring to peek out from behind his arm, hungover eyes reddened by the harsh light. "I'm meant to be protecting the ship and the dwarf."

"And a good job you've done of that," the Greyjoy laughed, pointing to the empty chair. "One's smashed up on a beach, the other's gone for a walk in a city full of monsters surrounded by Volantines."

She peeked out through the parting in the cloth, gazing at the open world beyond -

- and looked back to the sellsword, speaking quieter words. "They're up to something. I don't know what it is, but it ain't good."

"Of course they're up to something, they're at fucking Gogossos!"

"Then why the fuck are you still sat there?" she asked, her words half-mocking and half-serious. "Are you going to wait for them to bring back the Red Death before you take your arse off the chair?"

Bronn was oddly quiet in answer to that.

Then he stood.

"Alright, fine," the sellsword sighed. "It'll be better to die out there than in a bed with my skin peeling off anyway."

"If it helps, just remember that you're doing this for Tywin Lannister and that he'll bury you in gold when you get back."

"Might be he will if we can't find the little lion," he mumbled under his breath before his voice grew louder. "Where to first?"

"The docks," she said. "You've seen the ships they've got, the numbers. They must have over a thousand men here, mayhaps two thousand."

"Might be he's telling half the truth," Bronn suggested. "Lots of men makes finding one thing easier."

"If that was true he'd have brought a hundred or two, not a thousand or more. The only reason they'd have to bring so many is because they're either planning to stay here much longer than they said, or because -"

"- they're expecting a fight," the sellsword realised.

"That's why we need to take a look," she said, not bothering to wait for answer before turning -

- and pushing straight through the cloth and into the brilliant light of a Sothoryi morning, so bright and warm that even Asha could not help but wince at the sheer intensity of it all. Not a single cloud lay in the sky to break through the sweltering heat, and what breeze came from the sea felt more as if it was blowing hot air than not. Even the Essosi who came from hot and humid Volantis found it uncomfortable, their guards staying in the cooler shade and with pitchers of drink and bowls of salted crackers close at hand, others wandering around bare chested...but for Asha, who came from the dank and wet Iron Islands and slept the entire night in chain and leather with an axe on her hip, it was worse still, a green hell where the air was so thick with damp from the southern jungles that she could feel it on her cheeks and in her breaths. It was hotter than the shores of the Arbor, hotter than Dorne, hotter than the Stepstones, so hot that the sun itself was as dangerous as the creatures in the jungles were. She wouldn't be able to wander the grounds for long, before the sun addled her wits and left her dazed and dizzy and useless. She had to make every moment of clarity count.

So she moved. She walked quickly, letting the sellsword catch up, covering his tender eyes from the sun with a raised hand.

"Fuckin' sun," he cursed again. "Can't it rain again?"

"It rained for a day straight, that's why there aren't any clouds."

"That maester said that it can ran here every other day. Even every day sometimes."

"Then this is the other day," she said...before looking around, uncertain where they were. The Volantine encampment covered most of the docks, a labyrinth of twisting roads barricaded or not, crumbling warehouses, dusty brothels and half rotted taverns, none of which she had seen with the sun high in the sky. It'd have confused anyone and mayhaps got them killed, but the Volantines had been clever enough to put down signs for those of them that might read, saying what was where and how to get to it. It should have made wandering the grounds easy.

But it was all written in Volantene script.

She hadn't even seen Volantene script before.

But before she could even say a word, before she could even try and guess the meaning of what they had written, Bronn shrugged his shoulders and tipped his head towards an alley. "This way to the dock."

"How'd you know?"

"Woke near the docks."

"You said you didn't see shit on the way here," she laughed.

"I leaned on the walls a little," he answered with another, innocent shrug. "The air's all wet, but that doesn't stop it from being a bit cooler. Nicer there than here, anyway, and you won't cook under all those silk dresses and gowns you have."

"Silk? Dresses?" she asked, squeezing the pitch of her voice upwards in a mockery of a greenlander's ladylike graces. "How did you know, ser? Are you my Florian, and I your Jonquil?"

Bronn roared with laughter, the Ironborn woman laughing with him as she followed, still laughing even as wandering Essosi gave them confused looks when they passed by. Much of the harbour was in ruins but for the occasional monument of blackstone, worked with the sorceries of the old Freehold...monuments that the Volantines decorated proudly with their own banners and symbols, violet cloth fluttering in the gentle breezes where the colors of the old Freehold might've once soared, their men standing where dragons had walked with thousands of prisoners behind them. That in itself was almost something to laugh at. The Volantines proudly called themselves the true heir of the Valyrian Freehold, but to her eyes they weren't even worthy of being called its shadow. Even still, she noticed what they were doing, what they were working on. Men hacked and hammered at old buildings with picks and hammers, mining the ruins for stone to raise barricades in the side streets, thick and tall. Others were working to put new ladders onto old roofs, using the tops of houses like the ramparts of a castle, patrolling from above, whilst others still worked on making the buildings liveable, patching holes and cleaning out the dust and debris, turning them into barracks and dining halls and staging grounds.

This is no encampment, she realized. They're building a fortress.

There was much work to go around, but the Essosi had the numbers to do it: scores upon scores of men, and more and more and more of them still, were to be found everywhere as they came closer and closer to the water. More and more Volantines, hard at work at resurrecting the defenses of the port and transforming rows of houses into walls and streets into gatehouses. So great was the number of men that it would have seemed a reconstruction, a resettlement, had she seen any women. There weren't any. They walked for what was sure to be the better part of an hour, and she saw not a single one of them anywhere, not even in the kitchens where they might've kept them at work cooking meals or mending clothes.

That was odder still. It was the Volantines themselves who were doing all the menial tasks. Men from within the Black Walls or without, it made little difference - they were the ones doing the labor. That raised a question, a question that echoed stronger with every glance to an Essosi man beating away at stone, kneading bread or brushing the floor, no matter how grumpy they might've been.

Where were the slaves?

It was almost a relief when they came out onto the stoney walks of the harbor's front, where the soothing sound of the waves and the feel of the sea's kiss upon her cheeks placed the Greyjoy on familiar ground. The water was different here, as clear as glass at times and as blue as the mid-morning sky, far from the dark tides of home...but for all the differences from the shores she knew, it was a comforting thing to see. A thing she knew and understood, in a land of things she didn't. Much as the sellsword said, the coast was much cooler than the inland city, where the walls of buildings on all sides worked to turn the streets into a kiln, but with an open bay looming before them, broken only by the occasional lesser island in the distance where patches of green jungle and pearl white sand broke the endless blue of glittering sea and open sky, the shores were as comfortable a place as they were beautiful. It was easy to forget in the dark of night that the lands of Sothoryos had a beauty and a grace to them to match their dangers, but gazing out upon such a sight, it felt like a different land entirely, a land born of the traveller's tales of Pyke, where the oceans were calm and full of fish, the land vast enough for every son to raise a hold if they had the strength to claim it, the woods filled with foes worth fighting and who had yet to fear the might of the sons of the sea wind. A land of promise and glory and opportunity, waiting to be won.

Or so the bards would have it. The truth was that such beauty and grandeur was as deceptive as water. They could look safe enough, but lower one's guard for even a second and it would have your life. That thought, that realization, broke whatever hold it might've had over her, pushing her back to why she had came to the docks in the first place.

The ships. She had been able to see them in the low light of the night before, just barely, but now she saw them truly. Now she could see all of them, see them with the eye of an Ironborn, with a gaze and an experience that none of the others from the King Gerold could match, not even the Onion Knight.

What she saw was a fleet. Fourteen ships of a Volantine fleet, come to the edge of the world and all from the same city, yet unique in their own ways. Most of them were big and tall, thick and strong builds that were the carracks of the east - an equal for their Westerosi cousins - and birthed in the shipyards of Volantis side by side, but not all of them had been born equal. A sailing ship was a balance of things, and the balance here was skewed one direction or another: some were larger and more bulbous than others, built more for trade and hauling cargo than for sailing to war, probably carrying the bulk of their supplies, whilst others were somewhat longer and leaner, trading size for speed.

But one ship towered above them all. One ship so massive she could've seen it the night before, a true giant.

Her name was Syraxes.

Asha had been able to see that the ship was large in the moonlit night of the evening before, but it was only in day time that she truly realised the sheer scale of the Volantine flagship. The King Gerold was large for its kind of vessel, a carrack meant to do more than simply travel familiar searoutes, bigger, bulkier, better built and with larger holds and fighting deck both - well suited for their voyage to where the maps ended and the unknown began. But if it was the Hound of carracks, then the Syraxes was the Mountain of them. It was a true monster of a vessel, carrying more scorpions than a castle and with mayhaps as large a garrison of troops, all supported by a dozen or more spitfires ready to let loose a torrent of burning oil at any ship that dared come too close. The lavish decorations of gold leaf and the maw of a dragon upon its bow and the massive Volantine banner fluttering from its aft may have looked well and good in the bay, but they changed nothing: the Syraxes was no mere transport to carry warriors from one place to another as longships often were, no, it was designed and built to hunt warships and reduce them to burning wrecks. That was what she was for. She was a shipkiller. There was more to war at sea than building larger and larger war galleys, the Syraxes was proof of that, and her fire could have turned even the greatest ships of the royal fleet in King's Landing into charred flotsam.

The Greyjoy didn't fancy the chances of the King Gerold against it, even if they were able to mend her damaged hull...and they wouldn't be able to outrun her, either, not when they were missing a mast and had half their rigging ripped off in the storm. Damaged as the Gerold was, Syraxes would be able to chase them down and burn the carrack's hull to cinders, if her marines weren't able to get their grapnels aboard first and storm the ship...and they wouldn't be the slaves or oarsmen of a war galley, but a hundred or more marines in heavy armor, death wrapped in steel scales and violet cloaks, supported by scorpions that were just as easily able to nail a man to a deck as they were able to shoot fire bolts to burn the Gerold's sails.

But that wasn't what she was thinking about most.

Why the hells is it here, she wondered. Why did they send the Syraxes here?

Syraxes was big, but ships as big as her were lubberly, slow and awkward to control, as her swifter siblings nearby proved. They were made for battles on the open sea, built for pitched fights where they knew the enemy would be there and knew that there would be other big ships to fight, not for patrols where they had to chase things down or escort work where they would need to chase off smaller ships that would slip away from them long before they got close. It shouldn't have been here, so far from Volantis where she might be used to fight the colossal war galleys of the Free Cities. She was simply not built for this kind of work. Even ignoring her lack of purpose, she would have slowed the entire fleet down to her pace, costing time that in turn cost water and food and wages, and a ship such as that had an upkeep to match a lord's ransom.

Syraxes should not have been there.

And yet she was.

"Why the hells is that thing here?" she murmured aloud, glancing to the sellsword. "They shouldn't have a ship like that here."

"Might be they thought a storm could come?" Bronn suggested with a shrug. "Or pirates?"

"You need good steering to get through a storm, and a ship like that won't have that," she countered swiftly. "And I haven't met a pirate who's mad enough to try raiding in the middle of open ocean. It only takes a few turns and you've utterly lost your bearings and end up sailing off to nowhere."

"Maybe it wasn't meant to be for this. Get here, get something valuable, take it back?"

Asha paused, looking back at the overbuilt warship. Could that have been the answer? She knew that the Lannisters and their mountain of gold tended to have heavier warships than most to protect their gold fleets, those ships and crews that dared to set eastwards with holds packed to the brim with coin bound for the Iron Bank or for King's Landing, too heavy as it was to try and take it over land and too valuable to risk on the currents of a river barge...and perhaps too proud of origin for any man to try and send it by anything other than something carrying Lannister colors. Such ships were mongrels, half-warship and half-hauler, excelling at neither, but better than either at so specific a role: better armed than most merchants, better able to carry cargo than most warships, Lannister gold ships were tools made for a singular task...and though they were often protected by war galleys and the like, the gold ships themselves were not, using the speed of their sails to escape if their escorts are overwhelmed.

It almost fit. Almost. Syraxes was too heavily built and heavily armed to be a treasure ship. Judging from the size of her, she would barely have had enough room in her holds to support her crew and soldiers so far from her home waters, yet alone carry a haul of gold within her belly.

"It'd have to be something very small, but very valuable," she answered, uncertain. "Even gems would barely be worth it."

"Might be the Volantines expect to find something very valuable here?" Bronn suggested with another shrug. "Valyrian steel?"

It isn't the Essosi looking for that, a part of her japed, daring her to say it aloud.

"Mayhaps," she shrugged back. "I've heard before that the Valyrians used blood magic to make it. Might be Gogossos has a tablet or something that says how?"

Heard was an understatement, not that Bronn or anyone else knew that. The Reader loved his books like they were sons and his library like it was a wife, and the man could talk for hours about the things within...but less could be said of his loyalty to any single topic. One day he would read of medicine, the next the ways of money, the next history, the next conjectures and contemplations by the maesters of the Citadel. Rodrik was always reading, always chewing his way through one dusty old book or cracking scroll or another. Valyrian steel had been the topic of one of them, a book written by some dusty old maester who had been put in the ground a hundred odd years ago, who managed to pen nearly two hundred pages on the matter without daring to say anything for certain. The Qohoriks may know how to reforge Valyrian steel without losing its properties, and maybe some of the greatest Myrish and Tyroshi artisans might know the same. Dragonfire or dragonbone might be used, either to fuel the furnaces or as part of the forging itself, mayhaps. Page after page of uncertainties that barely deserved to be put to parchment, frustrating him to such an extent that he could not help but explain it all to Asha years before, to read to her page after page of ifs and maybes and perhapses.

The blood magic was one of the worst parts of it, not because of the grisly nature of it, but because of how uncertain the author had been bordered on utter uselessness. Did they do it by plunging it in the hearts of loving wives and newborn babes when the metal was glowing hot? Did they quench it in blood? Who's blood? Dragonblood? The smith's own? Some slave? A loved one? Before they started forging, or afterwards? Did they have to make Valyrian steel ingots before they could make Valyrian steel blades or armor? Were they used with blood or dragonbone?

Asha didn't know, Rodrik didn't know and the writer certainly didn't know either.

But the thought made her smile, even here. Rodrik and his books would've made quick work of all the mysteries of Gogossos, she had no doubt about that...and if he could, anyone could. They just had to think about it.

"Maybe that's why they're here," she continued with a renewed, quiet energy. "He said he's after relics and history, might be he is, but not the kind he wants us to think he's looking for. He ain't after dusty old cups and statues, he wants books."

"Then...what's in the cages?" Bronn asked, matching her quietness with his own. "There's something in 'em, something nasty."

Asha dared him with a smile.

"Let's find out," she said.

The sellsword stared back at her, disbelieving. "We're surrounded by Volantines. We aren't even going to get close."

"We don't have to," she said, raising her hand -

- and pointing towards one of the towers that dotted the inner port, a slender thing with a crumbled top that had fell off years before and smashed off the quay and into the water. It had once been a lighthouse, mayhaps, or a watchtower, it didn't make much difference now. But whilst the Volantines themselves had not bothered to try and repair its summit or put a scorpion atop the rubble, it still had a fair view of the bay as a whole from an empty window on the second floor, as good a place as any to look from...and on the floor beneath that was an archway, unguarded, protected from the elements by an overhang of stubborn timbers that had mayhaps sheltered merchants or clerks or peddlers trying to hawk food at sailors.

All that was well and good, but it would've meant nothing if there was none of the cages nearby to be seen.

But there was. Sitting in the exact same place as they had the night before at the end of the longest stretch of the stone pier was a group of false boxes, each wrapped and then wrapped again in pitch black cloth to keep out the light. Fluttering shifts in the wind rippled the fabric like the waters of a moonless night, giving the barest hint of the thick bars beneath. Whatever was within them was something that the Volantines had brought with them, something important, something that they needed to do whatever it was they were doing here, mayhaps something so important and so valuable to them that it was why the Syraxes dominated the port. Whatever it was, the Volantines would not have brought it if it was not important.

That made it interesting. That made it something she wanted to know. It might've been mad, might've been foolish, but she had came to the edges of the known world on what so many others would've called a one way voyage, only to find that Volantis was there first. Only a fool would think that slavers from Essos, forever yearning to take their place atop the Free Cities as the head of a reborn Freehold, would have anything good in mind when looting a city infamous for fleshcrafts and sorcery. She was not fool enough to not know that. They were up to something. Something that Daerion hadn't dared to explain.

And if it was something they were keeping secret here, it was sure to be something terrible.

"We get to the base of the tower, climb up to the window, then wait," she explained quickly. "Maybe then we can start to find out what the hells they're doing here."

The sellsword sighed, Asha walked -

- and Bronn reluctantly followed. Though old and ancient, the stones of the quay were still strong and sturdy where wooden piers would have long since rotted into the water, holding firm and fast beneath her. Even still, she made sure to move slowly, as if without purpose, as if wandering randomly. The sun was still but barely above the horizon, and many of the Volantines were sure to be still within their beds yet to rouse and the last rotation of the night watch weary and tired and ready to rest for themselves, but that did not mean that they were careless and unaware. She took a step. They could not afford to be careless here. No one could. She took a few more. Asha could see them in the corner of her eye, see them pacing in their towers as others came out to help with the work of raising their scorpions. They were watching for monsters, for Sothoryi, for the brindled men. One step. Two steps. Three. Four. Five. A pair of Westerosi wandering the grounds were beneath their notice, beneath their concern.

A few more steps, and she was beneath the overhang, out of the sight of those in the towers, kept from their gaze by weary old timbers that had gone a grey-brown over the years and the stubborn slate tiles that protected them. The air hung with the stale scent of slowly rotting timbers, and the low creak of the beams in the sea breeze didn't fill her with confidence, nor Bronn. The sellsword moved quicker, towards the arch that led into the tower proper, with all the haste that a hungover man in dawnlight could muster. Broken pieces of wood rattling on old hinges were all that remained of its door, but he pushed them aside with the side of his sleeves, peeked inside, cursed, then turned back before Asha was even able to see what was inside.

"Aye, not going in there," the sellsword said, simply, closing the remnants of the door as best as he could. "No wonder the Volantines ain't done it either."

Asha laughed. "Why?"

"Spiders."

"How big?"

"Gogossosi big," he answered...before holding his hands a foot and a half apart. "Fangs like sewing needles and with one of those moth-things in its web, and yellow too."

"You've got a sword," Asha reasoned. "Can't you just stab it?"

"Qyburn says the yellow spiders are one of the worst ones," he answered with a shake of his head. "They bite you and it rots from the inside, till you just burst open with maggots and flies everywhere. I ain't trying that, not when there's probably another right above the door. I'll kill men for coin, but there's not near enough gold in the world to make me go in there."

Anywhere else, she might've laughed and called him a liar and a craven. Spiders weren't that big. Spiders weren't that dangerous. Only children and the cowardly were terrified of something that small and feeble. Even the largest of them was but a boot away from being a smear on the wall.

But this wasn't anywhere else. No. This was Gogossos, where the moths were the size of cats and sucked the blood from your chest, where eyeless walkers scurried and scuttled in the dead of night with mouths of needle-thin teeth and other horrors and monsters lurked in the dark, yet to be written in the books of the Citadel. Suddenly she found even she couldn't blame the sellsword for not wanting to go inside and simply cut his way through, not that she was going to tell him that. Even Victarion would sooner burn the tower down than not.

"Hells," she cursed under her breath. "If not here, then -"

Heavy footsteps and the clattering of scalemail cut off her voice and killed the words in her throat, and Asha turned to see a company of Volantine men marching up the quay, some twenty or thirty strong, armed and armored for war. Spears and shields rose and fell with their steps, their sergeant glancing towards the pair in their poor hiding place, uttering a command to his men and leading the party onwards, pass the Greyjoy and the sellsword -

- and every last one of them paid as little attention to her as Daerion had said they would the night before, not so much as glancing in her direction as they kept on walking, kept on with their patrol. That was nearly as strange as the ships were. There were reasons why sailors long at sea started to spot mermaids and sirens in the waves where others saw dolphins and walruses, a reason why the busiest brothels were the ones closest to the harbor fronts. Men travelling overseas were not known for their chastity. The lingering gazes of the King Gerold's own crew was proof enough of that, to say nothing of Bronn himself...and whilst Daerion might've said that she was too Westerosi to appeal to them, Asha knew that was damned well not true in the first place. The silver haired and violet eyed Lyseni sailor who deflowered the one and only daughter of the Lord Reaper of Pyke didn't complain about her looks, and that was at Lys of all places, a city famous for brothels and pillowhouses full of beauties from across the world, and especially those with the Valyrian look. Even the Ironborn who might man the decks of her own ship were not nearly so restrained as the Volantines were, who gave her all the attentions that they spared for the stones.

It was odd.

But as odd as it was, it was an opportunity. Men who paid no attention were men who did not think to cover themselves and keep their secrets, and Asha was able to walk over to one of the wooden beams that held up the roof and lean on it in the guise of boredom, letting her see right into the center of the Volantine square...and see that the men there were not carrying weapons as those around them did, but platters and bowls, tightly wrapped with cloth to trap in the heat. An acrid and bitter smell leaked out from imperfect seams, waxing and waning in turn with every step as they made their way towards the end of the walk. In a few moments the patrol was beyond them, and Bronn came closs, sniffing the air.

"That's meat that is, or was," he said, his voice a whisper.. "Burnt to hell and back."

"What the hell eats so much burnt fucking meat?" she asked.

"Dragons?" the sellsword offered.

"Dragons are dead."

"In Westeros, aye, but you've got the wyverns here," he suggested. "Might be they eat burnt meat too?"

"Only things that breathe fire eat burnt meat," Asha said, as if speaking with the Reader's voice. "Wyverns don't breathe fire."

Then she realized.

They were walking to the cages.

They were feeding whatever was inside.

Her eyes widened. She moved quickly, trying to get into a place where she could see. Bronn followed, thoughtless, wordless, but knowing, knowing, and she moved, and moved, and peeked. The patrol marched on, and on, all the way to the end. They came up to the cage with the greatest of care, all of them that were armed lowering their spears and sheltering behind their shields as their leader reached for the cloth, as the others drew close with the meat, and then, and then -

"What are you doing here?" came the familiar voice of Qoherion, so sudden it nearly made her flinch. "You two shouldn't be wandering about here. It isn't entirely safe."

Asha glanced back as Bronn swore under his breath.

The patrol was moving on, pots emptied and platters cleared..

Hells, she cursed inwardly.

"Thanks," she said outwardly, playing the role of the hapless lady, looking to Qoherion and resisting the temptation to break his sharp, Valyrian nose with the blunt side of her axe. "We've been looking for Tyrion, but he's been lost all morning -"

"I am not nearly so foolish as to not know that you are putting this on," Qoherion answered, the tiniest hint of a smirk on his cheek. "I would recognise you, even if you weren't wearing your armor still."

"Seven hells," she sighed with a mixture of real and false frustration, as much an effort to draw his attentions from what they were doing as it was honest. "Who doesn't on this godsforsaken voyage?"

"I didn't," Bronn smiled.

"But as for what you are doing," the Volantine said, ignoring the sellsword's comment. "Skulking around the grounds is a poor way to repay the master's hospitality."

"Even to find a lost Lannister?"

"Even to find a lost Lannister," the Volantine said...before considering. "But that is a fair reason, seeing where we are. In truth you might have a better chance at finding him than us. We are...less familiar with the way he might think."

"Last we saw of him was the night before, wandering out of the tent," she said honestly. "He probably went for a piss, then fell asleep somewhere. A dwarf like him could be anywhere."

"His dwarfdom is exactly why we are having trouble finding him," the Volantine sighed. "There are barrels and crates here, any of which could have him. He could be in a ditch, under a half broken wall, or beneath a bed. Still, the master commands and we obey. He will turn up eventually, even if we must search til sundown."

"Aren't you bothered by having to spend hours chasing down a dwarf?

"It is not my place to question the Master," Qoherion said with pride and true devotion. "He is a noble soul, filled with purpose. A hero. Where he leads, we follow."

"Why?" she asked. "Does he pack your bed with whores and your pockets with gold?"

"I'd serve him if he did," Bronn laughed.

Qoherion's stoic, flat expression showed he was far less amused than the sellsword was. "Because he is a man worth following."

Then his gaze narrowed, his back straightened, and he met her gaze with all the strength of a man genuinely insulted. "And I would not so much as think to mock the Master whilst you are within his walls, Greyjoy. He saved my life more than once...he does not deserve such disrespect."

That was something interesting, something useful.

"He saved your life?" she asked, putting a false softness into her voice, as if apologetic.

"He has saved all our lives, " the Qoherion said, before pointing out to the ships in the bay with the fingers of his left hand, the right never once leaving the grip of his sword. "There is not a man in this expedition who does not owe their life to the Master in one way or another over our voyages."

Asha smiled, ever so slightly. Bronn realized it not even half a heartbeat later, and Qoherion after him.

Voyages. Plural. A simple word, an easy error, but one that said that this was not the first time they had been to see before.

"I have said too much," he sighed. "You Andals and your Common Tongue are tricky."

"She's not an Andal," Bronn said first. "She's from the Isles."

"All Westerosi are Andals to Essos," Qoherion answered quickly, as if trying to push the mistake out of their minds. "You call all of us Essosi, we call all of you Andals or Westerosi, mayhaps sunset savages if angered."

"Sunset savages?" she countered. "Was that why your cousins got smashed at Bloodstone?"

"My cousins?" the Volantine returned. "Volantis had nothing to do with the Ninepenny Kings. That disgrace belongs to Myr and Lys and the others, not us. Were we there, mayhaps you would have a dragon for a king and not a stag."

"Those stags mopped the floor with you the last time you fought."

He shook his head.

"It was not your Stormlords that bested us, it was the dragon of the Targaryen qrimpālekio," he said, spitting the word as a curse. Traitor was the literal meaning, she knew enough Valyrian to know that, but it was not nearly so polite as the word in the Common Tongue was...but the act of uttering it and breaking his calm seemed to force Qoherion back to his usual, rigid self. "But that is enough of history, and of things that the master would prefer us not to talk about."

"Is there anything he lets you talk about?" she asked, her words as much a mockery as they were serious. "Or is he planning to have your tongue out if you say another word?"

"The weather is nice here," Qoherion answered.

"Is that a jape?"

"Mayhaps," the sergeant answered. "There are things we can talk of, but others that the Master wishes that we do not. If you want to talk, then talk. I will answer what I can, so long as it doesn't go against the Master's wishes."

"Aye, I've got a question," the sellsword said. "Why'd you only call him the master? You aren't a slave."

"You treat that master of yours like you worship the ground he walks on. Why?"

"It is...complicated, at least in the Common Tongue," the Volantine said after a while. "Some concepts might not translate well."

Asha shrugged, and the Volantine took it as a sign to continue.

"Volantis is not like your Westerosi lands. It is a freehold, albeit one that is not as grand as the Freehold was." Qoherion admitted. "Instead of having lords born into power, ours are voted for."

"Like pirates?" she asked. "Half of them elect their captains after they turn."

"Or brigands," Bronn suggested for himself.

The expression that Qoherion gave was one of a man who could not be sure whether they were making a serious comparison or a slight. He weighed their words, considering...

"...more or less," he finally accepted. "But not everyone has a vote to cast. The Old Blood within the walls always can. They are men and women like the Master, so they are born with...what is the word for it...citizenship."

"But above the slaves and below the Old Blood you have people who are free, but who do not have the right to vote," he explained, before gesturing to himself. "For us, we must first serve if we wish to become citizens. There are many ways forward...wealthy magisters can pay with gold, slavers can pay in flesh, but those who are neither must serve and show that they are ready to die for the freehold if they wish to earn partial citizenship."

"Partial?"

"Full citizenship as the Old Blood has is passed from father to son and mother to daughter. Partial citizenship is not. Free men have freeborn children, but that does not mean that the child has the right to vote. I serve, as my father did before me and his father before him. Service guarantees partial citizenship...but there is more to it than that."

"Like what?" the sellsword asked, with the swiftness of a man barely understanding what it was they were talking about.

"That is something you need not know," was the easy answer, and Qoherion looked down the quay to see a group of his men, awaiting his presence. "I must leave you both, there are matters to attend to. But please, if you must wander the grounds, do try not to make any trouble. And don't wander off, either. Not every part of the port is as safe as we might hope it is, what with that beast running amok."

"No luck chasing it down in the night?"

"No luck, and another man with a broken neck. Whatever kills them is so fast or quiet they have little chance to defend themselves, and more, the creature thinks enough to hide its work in plain sight," the Essosi said, starting to walk towards his men. "It put him in a chair and made it seem as if he had fallen asleep on his watch. It was only when the next rota came that we knew he was dead."

He looked back at them, hard violet eyes looking them over. "Be careful, Westerosi. Should it still be here, a lone pair are easy pickings,"

With that warning, he walked on. Bronn looked to her. "Aye, well, that's enough wandering the port then."

"Why?" she asked, her words as much to taunt him into bravery as they were for herself. "Afraid of things in the dark?"

"In Gogossos? Who isn't? A lackwit?"

"You haven't even seen the men he's said are turning up dead, and you believe him?"

"Don't need to believe him, just need to use my wits. If he says there's something in the city that is running around killing people, I ain't gonna go and try and find out if he's telling the truth," he said with a surprising wisdom. "If he's wrong, he's wrong. But if he's right and I find it, what does that get me? A broken neck?"

"But what about finding what they're supposed to be doing here?"

"I'm for that," he nodded. "But not if it gets me killed. We can't tell the rest what we've seen if we end up dead."

Asha sighed. She hated to say it, hated to admit it, but the sellsword was right. They couldn't tell Tyrion anything if they were captured by the Volantines for walking somewhere they weren't meant to go, for finding something they weren't meant to find. They couldn't go back to the King Gerold and warn the rest of them about the things they had seen and found and learned of if they were killed in the backstreets by some monster that stalked the port. They had much to learn, much to do, much to find out, but it helped the others little if learning it got the pair of them killed.

So she nodded. "Fine. We'll stay in the port, but we're going to look at the rest of their ships."

"Boats don't bite," the sellsword accepted, smiling. "Let's go."

Asha looked away from the sellsword and the cages not far down the harbor and back to the waters, to the Volantine fleet. She looked about, searching, looking for anything unusual -

- and spied an odd looking ship not far from the Syraxes. From the front it had looked like just another carrack, like just another merchantship that had been conscripted for war, but the more she looked at it the stranger it seemed. It was the Meraxes, one of the fourteen gods that the Volantines had named each of the ships of their fleet after, but she didn't know enough about their faith to know if the name was apt or no. What she knew was ships, and what she saw in front of her was a true mongrel, a bastard born of different lineages and different ways of thinking that had been hammered together into a single hull. Carracks had a slight curve to them, a line in the way that their fore and aft castles were raised. This one had both castles, but was flatter, less curving, wider, fatter. It was a squat thing, and where the other ships had a graceful beauty to them, the Meraxes was ugly. Asha had trouble making it out from the angle, had trouble with the glare of the water shining on her eyes, she couldn't be sure exactly what she was seeing, so she started towards it, walking back down the wharf and away from the cages and towards the Syraxes and then around onto another walk, where the odd looking ship was moored. Thick loops of rope kept it bound to the wharf, culminating in a knot the size of a man's head just to be sure, but all that would have been nothing without the iron loops that the Volantines had hammered into the stone and bound in place with fresh mortar. A boarding ramp was extended onto the shore, a ramp that remained almost entirely unguarded but for a dozen or two sailors still on the deck, talking amongst themselves. Sailors, not soldiers, yet heavily armed and armored ones at that, with padded jackets and knives so long they were almost swords.

They didn't challenge the pair, but they looked to them with suspicion and distrust, so she stayed back, looking as if she was admiring the craftsmanship of their vessel. Still, there was talking and whispering, and weeping too...

...but it wasn't the Volantines who were sobbing.

"Away with you, endīha ," one of the men called out.

"What are you hauling?" she asked, defiant -

- and the men answered with the clattering of boots on the deck, reaching for a crate by the railings. What they took out were massive, Myrish crossbows, their strings already drawn and ready to fire, bolts dropped into place. Before she might even have a chance to take the shield from her back, a half a dozen quarrels were aimed towards her, ready to loose with but a single flinch of a finger, and a fair few at Bronn, too.

"Last chance," came the warning.

She raised her hands, and stepped back, once, twice, thrice. Bronn followed. The Volantines didn't lower their weapons til those three steps turned to ten, then ten to twenty, heading up the steps to the fore-castle and keeping aim til they were off the wharf entirely. Only then did they stop aiming, leaving a pair of men to watch from the distance, and only then did the Greyjoy swear.

"Fucking Essosi," she growled. "I only asked what they were carrying."

"Aye, and nearly got the both of us killed!"

"Who in the seven hells would've guessed they'd bring out crossbows as an answer?"

"Half of Essos," he answered, half a jape and half a fact. "Did you see anything interesting, though?"

"Heard, not saw." she said, doing her best to look at the ship again from their position. Flat, fat, ugly. Heavily armed. She had seen all that before, but one thing she had seen closer up was the bulges of the holds went ever so slightly past the railings, the slightest hint of a pear-shape.

That answered many questions, because she realized she had seen the type before. Merchant ships with bulges like that were a merchant's trick to try and cut as much off of port tariffs and inspection costs as possible. Half the fees she'd ever seen were done by the amount of foot space on the deck, so building a ship with a pearshaped bulge in the waterline was an easy way to cut the fees a little...few harbormasters had the time or the desire to try and figure out how big the holds really were, so they'd begrudgingly let them in. But there were problems with that: it could make the holds awkward to fill and empty even in the best of times, and they had to carry bags of sand inside of them as ballast to keep the shallow draft stable in open seas lest they roll in the wind and waves and capsize from not having enough weight to sink them deeper into the water. That meant that they usually carried bulky and heavy goods like iron, sacks of flour, barrels of wine, even statues if they could keep them stable on the waves. Cheap things that were just about worth the voyage if hauled in large numbers.

But she was too big and too heavily armed to be a merchantman, but too heavy to be a warship. She was somewhere between, a bastard mix of trader's hull and warrior's fighting deck. A warship with the body of a merchantman, meant to look like a trader from the distance? Why? Privateer? There were pirates in the Narrow Sea who'd gladly take coin for work like that if it meant a port to put into where they didn't need to worry about a knife in the guts. A smuggler? Too heavily armed and too big to not draw the attentions of patrols at the shore, who'd think it was a -

- and her eyes went wide with sudden realization.

Meraxes wasn't a warship.

Meraxes wasn't even a merchant ship.

Shallow draft for shallow shores. Weapons to fend off patrols and protect the raiders. A fighting deck for boarding actions. A large hold to fill with cargo, hard to get out of at the best of times.

The weeping. The weeping more than anything else.

Meraxes was a slaver ship.

Meraxes was a full slaver ship. She had heard of them, but rarely seen them with her own eyes, and even then only anchored in the ports of the Free Cities, never at open sea. They travelled in fleets, Victarion had told her once, bands of a dozen or two dozen strong, escorted by half as many warships that would not even bother with a warning if one got too close to their charge. There was a reason for that, he said. Braavosi pirates tended to pick them off for prize money if they tried to travel on their own, and such "cargo" was liable to break out of the holds if they had the chance, to say nothing of what they would do if they saw Ironborn sails on the horizon. But with their escorts and with their holds empty or full, the sails of any slaver's ship were a thing to put terror into the hearts of any man or woman whether they were on the waves or not, for there were endless tales of empty villages and burning wrecks that were left in their wake.

She had heard the stories herself. It was one thing to be carried off to the Isles in thralldom or as a salt wife. A slaver was something else entirely. Something worse. Men and women, bred like cattle. Babes, born into servitude that would not end until death, raised to think and feel that there was no such thing as freedom. Slaves, carried from city to city upon the waves in boxes so small as to be like caskets, stacked one atop of another with but the tiniest opening for food and water and inspection by their keepers. Coffin-ships, they were called. Some Lysene pleasure barges did the same, she had heard, a harem of women boxed like toys for their master to choose from at leisure. Other ships were more open, letting the slaves walk and sit, chained to the walls. It wasn't for their benefit. Dead men didn't sell.

And there was no way out. Any children of a thrall were born free, given to the Drowned God and made free, so free that they might even rise to nobility as the Codds did, and the Humbles.

A slave was forever a slave. Their children would be slaves. Their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, onwards and onwards and onwards, til either their line ended or they somehow became free.

That realization explained much,, that understanding said much, but not all, but one simple little thing.

Why did the Volantines bring slaves to Gogossos?

It was a question that answered itself as quickly as it came into her mind.

Why did anyone bring slaves to Gogossos? Why did anyone bring them to a city that burnt through Men the way that Tyrosh might go through iron, or Braavos through trees?

They were raw material. They were fodder and fuel for the rituals and "works" that the fleshsmiths had wrought, doing to living meat and bone what carpenters did to freshly felled trees and tanners did to cattle.

They turned them into things.

Even Asha grew pale, then, and Bronn saw it.

"Aye? What was it?" the sellsword asked, seeing the expression on her face shift.

A Volantine guard walked past.

The Greyjoy leaned in, as if to kiss the sellsword. Bronn laughed as her hands went around his back, pulled him in -

- and whispered.

"Slaves," she said, her voice no more than a breath. "A shipful of slaves."

It took no more than a heartbeat for Bronn to realize the meaning behind her words. It took longer still for the guard to move on.

"Oh, shit. You think -"

"They're trying to find blood magic," she whispered, before pulling back. "We have to find Tyrion."

There was laughter.

Daerion's laughter.

"It seems I may have beaten you there," he said, the pair spinning on their heels to see the Volantine...

...and stood besides him was a haggard, quiet Lannister, looking as if he had aged a decade in a single night. His clothes were dirtied with the grime of the dead, ripped and torn in places. He looked more a beggar now, and smaller too, smaller in his presence, smaller in his weight. Behind him was the very company of men that Qoherion had led the day before, his supposed monster hunters, though the colors of their armor had been swapped for hues of grey and brown to better match the city than the jungles, and all but a few had an amused look to them, as if knowing a jape that they had not heard. All of them but Qoherion himself, who stood at the back, as grim as ever.

Tyrion wasn't smiling, either.

"We had searched the ground, but not thought for an instant to look above it," the Essosi explained warmly. "Would you believe that he was hanging from a window on one of the towers?"

"I was drunk," the dwarf said, with all the passion of an eighty year old septon.

Asha's eyes narrowed. Blood sorcery. Valyrian crowns. Who was to say that he hadn't a glass candle, too, and broke the dwarf's mind?

The dwarf blinked. One eye, then the other. Once. Twice. Thrice. No one noticed but her, so close he was to the ground as to be beneath the sight of the Essosi.

He was lying.

"Thank you," she said, with a false smile and a false friendship. "We were looking for him around the docks, see if he might've found his way here when the day warmed."

"Qoherion told me as much when I met him," said, raising a hand and gesturing with but two fingers to bring the sergeant forth. "He was the one that found your friend whilst surveying the grounds for entrances for our...unwelcome guest."

"I was merely carrying out my orders," Qoherion nodded.

"Seeing that we are together now, I do think it is safe for us to release your friend into your care," the master commanded. "I am afraid your friends have broken their fast by now, Tyrion, but I could always have something made for you, too."

"Thank you for the offer," the dwarf said without once looking at the Essosi, walking towards Asha. He met her eyes. He mouthed the words.

Fleshsmith.

"But I haven't the room," the little Lannister said with a liar's thanks as he took his place besides the Greyjoy. "I have a small belly."

"The offer was made," Daerion smiled widely. "But I had hoped to speak with the three of you together for more than just offering my hospitality. I have news, good news, mayhaps even better for you than it is for me."

The Lannister dwarf didn't answer with words, or gestures, or anything. He simply looked at the Volantine, who allowed a brief pause as if waiting for him to ask before continuing with somewhat deflated enthusiasm.

"I had thought that we might need to trade knowledge with one another and see if our joint strengths might be able to solve the mysteries of Gogossos, but I am gladly mistaken," he smiled. "We have had a breakthrough, and we shan't be needing to stay much longer. All we need is but one last push into the city's heart, then we will be done and homeward bound."

"Good news," the dwarf said ever so quietly, never taking his eyes from Daerion for even a moment.

"Indeed," the Volantine smiled widely. "But since we are leaving in but a few days, and since I am no monster willing to leave people stranded here at the edge of the world, I have decided that there is no harm in lending you a helping hand for nothing in return. Every good ship has a few carpenters aboard, and I have many of them. They'll be ready to make their way to your vessel soon, with tools and timber to get you back on the waves as quickly as they can."

Bronn smiled. "Aye, well, that's good."

"Today it is you in need of help, but tomorrow, mayhaps it will be me," the Essosi said warmly. "Call it charity."

"What about the missing mast?" Asha asked, careful. "You'd need a dock to fix that."

Daerion smiled, then gestured to the port all around with wide shoulders and opened arms.

"How fortunate that we happen to have one right here. Once your ship is able to float, why, it should be easy enough for one of my own vessels to tow you here where they can finish the work in the docks."

Or sink her on the way there, a part of her whispered. This is too good to be true and you know it.

And as if he knew exactly what Asha was thinking, Daerion continued with his charming, disarming smiles and looked to Tyrion, whose face was a grim mixture of skepticism and fear. "And as proof of my good intent to you and your crew, I will have Qoherion lead you to the wreck of your uncle's ship, too."

"What?" the dwarf asked, caught off guard.

"Are you so surprised?" Daerion laughed. "I am not your enemy, good Lannister, and my offer is sincere. I am not here to steal from your uncle's wreck. I have no business there. It is Valyrian and Gogossosi relics that I seek, not Westerosi or Lannister ones. My forces have found new sign that there might be a vast cache of them within the city's heart. They will need to be recovered from the Sothoryi, from the Brindled Men, but once that battle is won we can prepare ourselves for the return, and deliver all that we have found into the hands of those who will appreciate them."

"Are you certain, master?" Qoherion asked. "A battle could be taxing...we might need more time to muster, allow our -"

"The Sothoryi might put up a fight, but they are little match for us in truth," Daerion soothed. "Spears are able to drive back horses, bulls and elephants without much trouble. I do not fancy the brindled men any better than they are at breaching the mentyn. Narrow streets favor close formations, and I would hope we can have our carts and wagons ready, along with the rest of our...special weaponry. It should more than suffice to drive back the Brindled Men and clear the path."

The sergeant bowed before his master, instantly deferrant. "As you wish."

"As for you, Westerosi," the Volantine master continued, almost apologetic now. "That is one of the reasons I might wish to help you along your way a little faster. My forces here are strong, but battle against the Sothoryi is like to rouse the full fury of the brindled men. We can hold them off for a time and gather what we need, but we will not be able to stop them forever. Once we are done with our work, we will be leaving. Should you not have left the isle before then, I loathe to think what anger the Sothoryi might take out upon you, to speak nothing of how they might yet strike at your ship and crew even whilst we remain here. For that, I think it wise to see you back to Westeros as soon as possible."

So he can fuck about in the city without us in the way, she knew.

The dwarf knew it too. "How generous."

"Of course, it is that attack that means I must insist that the three of you are brought back to my presence after you have been to the ship...the Sothoryi will be infuriated, and liable to attack anything that moves once the battle begins," Daerion added, with fair reasoning. "It will be safer for your group to move back to your ship after nightfall. Before then, there is the risk of being ambushed, and the Sothoryi are very dangerous in ambushes."

"He's right," the sellsword agreed. "Better chance of killing the eyeless ones than the big ones. Seems to me like we can get things done and get out of here."

The little Lannister was stuck by that, she saw it, she knew it. Daerion was offering him everything he wanted, everything he was there to do, all carefully planned out, as safe as a babe left to the care of a pit of vipers. Asha was no fool. They were trapped. Decline his offer, reveal they know and mayhaps die then and there. Accept his offer, follow his men and mayhaps die in an hour, or live to see a battle that would provide an all too easy way to die then instead. Many ways to die, few ways to live.

The dwarf sighed. He didn't hide it, he didn't pretend not to. He sighed openly. Her fingers flinched, far from the scabbard.

"Something wrong, good Lannister?"

"Only that I had hoped for a chance to rest before doing anything," the dwarf answered with Lannister cunning. "But let's go."

Daerion turned with a smile, and gave his commands to Qoherion in fast, flawless Valyrian. The sergeant nodded, waved to the company, and moved ahead of them, leading them towards the edges of the port. It felt like a trap, but a more survivable trap than the one they were already leaving. She kept quiet, let the dwarf do the talking.

"I shall meet you all there," their Volantine host called after them. "Mayhaps you will even find something to bring back to Lannisport!"

None of them answered. They walked. They walked and nothing more. Not a single word was said til they were well on their way out of the port, the rough stones of the crumbling roads growing bumpier and more overgrown with every minute, vines creeping down from the buildings as defiant bushes and trees began to emerge from cracks in the masonry. Before long the cooling breeze and midst of the coast was gone, the suffocating heat of the jungles returning in full, but the overhead growth grew so thick as to bathe the entire world in good shade, dulling the worst edge of it. The sound of the sea grew distant and quiet, the chirping of insects and birds near and loud. Whatever familiarity Gogossos had was banished, utterly banished, and her nerves sat on edge, her eyes glancing at anything and everything that might be a danger, even as Qoherion and his trackers pushed forwards...and even as the dwarf fell further behind them, closer and closer to the Greyjoy. By the time they found a narrow ravine, a bubbling brook barely worthy of the name where tropical waters trickled out to sea and where strange green beetles made their nests, far from their path. It took time to cross, time that the dwarf used to come further back towards her and Bronn.

The Lannister dwarf was so quiet that his words were barely even whispers. "Daerion is a sorcerer."

Bronn stared back at him, as if he had stuttered. "What?"

"The bastard's a fleshsmith," Asha nodded in swift agreement. "We figured out that he was looking for something here. He's brought something, too, in those cages, but we couldn't figure out what it was. Guards everywhere."

"It must be something he needs for...whatever it is he's doing here," was the dwarf's fast answer. "Whatever it is, I doubt it will be something to our liking."

"Aye, and he's got the blood he needs for it too," Bronn added. "Asha says he's got a ship filled with slaves in the port, and the sisterfuckers are guarding it."

"And how fortunate it is for him that another ship of people smashed into the shore," was the little Lannister's answer. "And the Sothoryi bleed, too. He has as much blood as he might need."

Tyrion went quiet at that. A minute passed, then two, then three.

"So, we have a sorcerer who has brought an army, slaves and whatever is in those cages to an island destroyed by blood magic," the dwarf sighed. "Mayhaps you should have just let me drown."

"Do try and keep up," the Volantine shouted from in front. "The Master says to bring you to the wreck. He would not want you dead before then."

There was little talking after that, only the sound of Asha taking the axe from her hip and taking the shield off her back and into hand.

If they were going to try and kill her in the jungle, she wasn't going to die alone.

****

The jungle of this part of Gogossos was more alive and vibrant than any other that Tyrion had yet seen, a place of blooming flowers that filled the air with the sweetest scents, where the birds were black and blue and red and white and all the other colors of the rainbow, singing sweetly, yet not for even a moment did his tired mind and aching body allow him to grow even the tiniest complacency. Wyverns chirped cheerfully, mayhaps even the brown wherever it was, but the dwarf never raised his gaze from the ground, not out of fear, not out of unease, but vigilance and care. Manticores lived in these jungles, wandering and nesting, at home in this land where the emerald green of their scales matched the undergrowth. That was reason enough to mind his steps, to see and watch everywhere his feet might fall, but a war was being raged at his feet, a war he was careful to avoid being caught in and a war he leapt from place to place in with the longest steps he might muster, all as he struggled to keep up...but a war that he couldn't help but watch when he might, a welcome distraction from the usual horrors of the isle and from the gnawing thought that yearned to make itself known. An army of ants tens of thousands strong had marched on a manticore nest, an army led by captains the size of coins that spat burning acid. The manticores had sallied in numbers to defend the old clay pot that was their keep, barbed tails dripping with venom to kill any man, mandibles snapping with the force to break skin, jumping forwards and backwards as if readying to pounce.

What followed was a slaughter writ small. The ants came and died, ripped apart, their captains punctured and poisoned. But more came, and more, and more. They overwhelmed the far larger, far stronger and far deadlier manticores with sheer weight of numbers. They sprayed acid in their faces, blinding them, disorienting them, and as they lashed out wildly unable to see the foe their lesser enemies grabbed onto their legs in mass numbers and ripped them limb from limb. Slowly but surely, slowly but surely, the ants marched forwards, pushing over the corpses of the dead even as Sothoryi wasps descended, devouring the wounded. All this happened not far from him, yet as far beneath him as he might've been beneath the Mountain. It was a welcome distraction. Better that the monsters of Sothoryos be tiny, easy to avoid and distracted by war. A part of him might've laughed at it all, but still, he didn't. He knew better now. Knew better than to lower his guard in the jungles. As tiny as they were, a danger was still a danger. He kept his steps careful. Away from the ants, or at the least in front of them so that they might march around. Away from the manticores, or at least behind them so they would see him and his boots as naught but another log and ignore it in favor of battle. He hopped from place to place, careful.

He looked a mummer. Others would've laughed, were they not doing the same.

"Fuckin' things," the sellsword grunted, wiping his boot against a tree as acid tried to chew through the leather. "One of the big ones sprayed my boots."

"Watch your step," Asha teased, half-mocking and half-serious. "Trip and they'll have your eyes."

"We have some lye, if you loathe them that much," Qoherion called back from further ahead. "Though you should have simply worn armored boots. Even a manticore cannot pierce steel."

"I might've, if I knew I was coming over here," Bronn answered, taking a breath before jumping over a line of ants. "What are these? They're the biggest bloody ants I've ever seen."

"This is Sothoryos," the Volantine said simply. "I do not know the name of them. I doubt even your maesters have names for them."

"How much further to the ship?" the Lannister asked, weary.

"We would be there already, were it not for the...delay," the Essosi sighed. "The manticores were settled up in their nest the last time we came here, and had little interest in us. They are not even native to Sothoryos, did you know that? The Gogossosi kept them for their studies."

"What for? Torture?" Asha asked. Her brow was covered in sweat.

"I cannot know for certain, though I am sure the master would," Qoherion answered. "From what I know, it was to see if their venom could cure some of the other, terrible sicknesses in Sothoryos."

"What could be so bad that you'd rather drink manticore venom than die from it?" Tyrion asked, hopping over a dying manticore. Distracted and as small as they were, they were no real danger. Their poison was lethal, immensely so, he had read as much before, but their barb could not get through the leather of a good pair of boots, yet alone ones caked in thick, Sothoryi mud. "Isn't it always lethal?"

"Wormbone," was the swift answer. "The thought goes that they could have found a way to kill the worms but not the man with it, or so I have been told, but even death by manticore would be a mercy compared to that to be sure. There are reasons we do not drink any water we find here, only ale and wines we brought with us. The worms feast on your marrow, and eat your bones from the inside out, til you take a step and your legs shatter like rotten timber and worms burst from the wound break."

The Volantine was quieter.

"They say that you can hear the worms gnawing away as they feast on your skull, or feel lumps moving in your cheeks as they make their way to and from your teeth."

There was a quiet for a moment.

"Aye, I'd take the manticore over that," the sellsword said at last. "It's quick, ain't it?"

"You die instantly if it reaches the heart," the Lannister answered, before the Essosi might. "Qyburn said as much."

"We've had some luck in stopping it," the Volantine sergeant added. "A few of our own men did not take the work of clearing the buildings seriously enough to wear their gloves, and so were stung on the hand. A man can live with a few fingers less if you are fast enough, though you do need to be fast to trap it there."

They talked onwards, talked among themselves, and he was sure that Bronn had started skipping over even the tiniest puddles of water, even if it meant treading on more ants or the risk of angering a manticore. Tyrion paid less attention to the words, and more to the world around him. Even on the ground there were flowers. Small ones as thin and wispy as a blade of grass, big ones as large across as a foot. The Sothoryi wasps brought the dead and the dying up to the petals and lay them down within, only to promptly begin ripping them apart, able to eat and take their time without the distractions of the war around. The sight was grisly and brutal, for some of them were still half-alive as the wasps began to tear into their bodies, crippled manticores twitching as the wasps bit off their stingers, rolled them onto their backs and began eating the softer flesh beneath. It all said something about Sothoryos, some story that the singers might cry out as a tale of lost innocence in war, or mayhaps about how there was no escape from battle, or some such. He wasn't giving any attention to that. He wasn't thinking about that. He wasn't even thinking about the ants.

He was thinking about how it was better to be within in the danger of wild Sothoryos than to spend another moment around Daerion. Even from the moment he had first saw him on the shores, he had the wits not to trust him, not to trust what he called the truth of his purpose in Sothoryos. No man, not even the Volantines, would have made so difficult a journey to the south as to bring back mere baubles and antiques. That was not the truth, had never felt to be the truth. No one was fool enough to do that, to believe that. He knew he was up to something. He hadn't known what.

But now he did.

Fleshsmith, his mind echoed. The word gnawed at him, the way the wasps did to their prey. Fleshsmith. Daerion is a fleshsmith.

A part of him thought it all mad. A part of him clutched at that, clutched at the idea that he was losing his wits in the southern heat.

But it made sense.

There were the cages. Why would a man coming so far south bring cages with creatures in them for?

There was an army. Why would a man merely there to gather relics bring cages with creatures in them for?

Then there was the talk of slaves. The Volantines kept slaves, true, but why bring so many more mouths to feed so far?

Then there was the perfectly clean cuts.

Then there was the tablets where the stones flowed like water.

Then there was his eyes, eyes as dark and red as fresh blood.

What answer could there possibly be to that? What maester could explain that? What book? What answer was there, other than the one pounding against him? The one he knew - knew - to be true?

Fleshsmith.

Fleshsmith.

Daerion is a fleshsmith.

The thoughts gnawed at him, the way Qoherion said the worms would. If he was a fleshsmith, then were there any others? Had Volantis begun to master the sorceries of Valyria and Gogossos? Was that why they were there? To claim their tomes and magics for themselves? To use sorcery to conquer Essos? Was that it? What was he planning? He spoke of healing the wounded and fixing the crippled before, spoke of the good that blood magic might do, but Tyrion knew better than to trust him, knew better than to trust any of the words that left his mouth. Volantis and sorcery were a dangerous mix indeed, for the Volantines had tried to rebuild the Freehold once before - it took the might of almost all the Free Cities, the Kingdom of the Stormlands and Targaryen dragons to put them down, and all that weight and all that power had only been enough to batter them, not break them. If they had sorcery, if they had the power to shape the bodies of their slaves to create horrors, to unleash plagues and death upon their enemies and their enemies alone, who knows what they might do, how far this Second Freehold might reach?

To all the Free Cities that can be brought beneath their whip?

To the Narrow Sea, where death could leap from isle to isle?

To Westeros, too?

That thought was bitter. That thought stung.

But for all the thoughts that came, for all he could think of, he couldn't be sure what it was that Daerion wanted at the edge of the world, the place where the maps ended and the unknown began Mayhaps healing was all it was. Mayhaps not. A part of him wanted to flee, and bring warning back to the Rock. Mayhaps that would be enough. A Lannister fleet, a hundred strong, with the might of the Seven Kingdoms behind it, even those of the Free Cities that might come to their aid. King Robert would be there, and Jaime too, and he could ask the king to bring the Alchemists Guild and wildfire if they had it. The city could be razed to the ground and the secrets of Gogossos kept secret forever.

But a part of him wanted to know, a hungry curiosity that would chew at him til it was sated. There were countless questions here, begging for answers. Gogossos was the last heir of Valyria's legacy of sorcery, the one and only one of its children that carried even the tiniest spark of magic. It was the last ember. There was sure to be knowledge there that couldn't be found anywhere else in the world, things that the maesters of the Citadel or mayhaps even the Dragonlords themselves didn't know. Secrets of flesh and blood, bone and sinew. Texts and tablets and scrolls the likes of which he would have never seen before, a door that might never open again if closed. What was Daerion planning? Cages, slaves and an army too. What was it all for? Could he truly leave before knowing what it was that the Volantine was there to do? The Essosi seemed eager to be rid of them, and mayhaps that was an answer in itself - did they want them gone so that they could proceed with whatever work they wanted without the risk of interruption? What was it that they even wanted?

The thoughts were exhausting, as dizzying as the Sothoryi heat. His hand fumbled for a wineskin, but felt naught but deflated leather on his hip. A manticore crunched beneath his heel, and the ants marched all the more eagerly around him. The world turned.

"Aye, Lannister?" the sellsword asked. "You alright?"

"I'm fine." His voice was a hoarse, thin whisper. "Thirsty."

Bronn slowed his pace and fell back towards the Lannister, plucking his own aleskin from his belts as he did. He popped the cork, took a long swig, then took Tyrion's own and filled it with what he could spare before passing it back to the Lannister. "Tell that father of yours I stopped you from dying of thirst, too."

Tyrion nodded with a weak thanks, and took a sip -

- and the moment the drink hit his tongue, there was relief. It wasn't wine and it wasn't even ale, but some mix of the two: Westerosi stout blended with Volantine wine, dulling the sickly sweetness of the Essosi drink. To a man used to the rich wines of the Red Keep, it would have been swill. To him, in the Sothoryi jungle, it was better than an Arbor gold. One swallow turned to two, two to three, and he pulled the skin away from his lips with a breath.

"Thank you." His voice was stronger, firmer. "I should've filled my skin before we left."

"I wouldn't have." Bronn smiled. "That wine of theirs is shit. Tastes like you're drinking syrup."

"Are you two looking for a tavern?" Asha laughed, looking back to the pair of them as she wiped the sweat of her brow on her sleeve. "The Volantines are still going."

"We best keep moving," the sellsword agreed. "Jungle's trapping all the heat."

Tyrion nodded. Bronn clapped him on the shoulder, but stayed close. The steps were awkward and tight at first, his eyes struggling to focus, and the ground feeling more like the deck of the Gerold at sea than dryland, wobbling and trembling...but with every move, with every breath, his footing grew that little bit stronger again, his mind focused, and he found his bearings once more. Picking up a little speed, he took longer steps, but careful steps, lest he tire himself out again in the great, Sothoryi heat.

And as he walked, as he began to hear the sounds of the shore in the distance, another thought made itself clear. Stay or leave, one thing had to be done before anything else, one thing had to be found before anything else.

The sword.

Without the sword, the entire voyage would be for nothing. Their struggle and crash into the shores would have been for nothing. Every moment, every minute of every day would have been for nothing. The men who had died for him at the Stepstones, or been swept overboard in the storm, or killed by the Sothoryi, the lives of one third of the crew who had fallen along the way, all of it would have been for nothing if he did not return to Lannisport with the blade that was the entire purpose of their voyage. He had to get the sword. He had to. There was not a part of him that doubted that, not now, not after so long and so hard a journey. He had to get the sword. Without it, there was no meaning to it all. No meaning to their voyage.

It was more than important. It was vital. So vital as to be more important to him than finding out exactly what it might be that the Essosi were planning, or whether or not they should be running back to Westeros. No matter what it was he chose to do, it had to be done with the sword in his care.

And mayhaps, mayhaps, if they were lucky, if the Seven gave them a miracle, it would be done with a loving uncle at his side.

That was the thought that pushed him onwards, past the warring insects that littered the ground. That was the thought that kept his mind busy as they walked. Not Daerion, not the arts that he was sure to practice. Not Gogossos, and all the creatures that lived in its depths. Gerion and Brightroar. A hero and an uncle, a sword and a symbol. Home. Home in the mountains, home in the Rock, home in his chambers. A comfy feather bed, the coolness of the winds and shade, the taste of wine upon his lips, a stack of books as tall as he was. That was home. A thousand, thousand miles away, but still home, always home.

That was the thought that drove him on. One step turned back to two, two to three, five, ten, a hundred. He kept his pace as best as he could, walking ever onwards, til at last the Volantines began to fall back, to slow down and form up with the rest of them. Qoherion emerged from the lush growth of the jungle, even the often stoic Volantine looking worn from the heat of their walk.

"Here," the Volantine sergeant said at last, pointing ahead, to where the sound of lapping waves was strongest. "Your uncle's ship. Mind your steps. We will be right behind you."

"You aren't turning back?" the Lannister asked.

"If the beast is here, you will be happy we are." Qoherion looked about, watching the line of the trees. "We are safer in numbers."

Tyrion looked to Bronn. He shrugged. Tyrion looked to Asha. She nodded.

"Fine." Tyrion glanced back, back towards the city. Back towards the fleshsmith, back towards the battle he planned. "You have to guide us back there anyway."

Not that I want you to, a part of him lamented inwardly. I would sooner take my chances with the Brindled Men than be around your master.

Qoherion smiled, if the tiny flick of his cheek could be called a smile. "I am glad that there is something that we all agree on."

The dwarf nodded. Qoherion was but a man. A man more like Stannis Baratheon than not, but still but a man. Tyrion had no quarrel with him, no fear or anger. It was Qoherion's master who troubled him, and what orders he might give to a man who would not hesitate to carry them out. Tyrion moved forwards, the rest of the group coming behind him -

- and after a minute, after a but a short walk, they came towards a crest that overlooked the shore, cooler and brighter and a thousand times more comfortable than the undergrowth, a place free of manticores and ants, free from Sothoryi monsters and Volantine sorcerers. A place where the low flutter of old cloth echoed off the sands, where rotting timbers creaked and groaned in the ocean winds. He saw the sky before he saw the shore, the shrubs too high, but he heard Bronn sigh, saw Asha remove her helm. Still he pushed forwards, forcing his way through the leaves and branches until he might get a clear view, but they pressed back, stubborn.

"What is it?" he asked.

"See for yourself," Asha sighed.

Tyrion emerged into the light. He looked to see his uncle's ship.

His eyes widened.

The damage made it all too clear why his uncle Gerion never made it home to Westeros. When the King Gerold had struck the sandy shores of Gogossos, it had struck prow on, mayhaps by some genius of Davos and Asha in steering the ship whilst the dwarf clung onto life below decks, mayhaps not. Whatever had happened, it had allowed the ship to climb up the shore, for the sand and earth to flow around the hull much as water might do upon the beach. It had dug a trench as it made landfall, but other than but a break that had formed where the force of the impact was greatest, but for dents and scrapes here and there, the ship had survived with nary a scratch. If they had the timber they needed and the time to use it, they could repair the hull and push the ship back down and float it out to sea on a high tide, with or without the "assistance" of Daerion and his Volantines. She would have been crippled for the loss of a mast and so much of her rigging, for certain, but she might well be able to limp along the coast in sight of the shore until they eventually reached the Summer Isles and could put into a proper port for repairs, where Lannister gold and Lannister promises would see them home again. They could even do some of the lesser repairs with the spares they might carry in their hold .

That was not something that could have been done for Gerion, not for him and his Laughing Lion. There was nothing that could have been done for them.

No one needed to be a shipwright to know why. No one needed to be Ironborn or a smuggler to know why. The reason was obvious. Terribly, terribly obvious. Much had happened to the Gerold, but much could have been worse.

The Laughing Lion had gone through the much worse.

It had struck the shore broadside first.

The damage done from that was nothing other than utterly catastrophic. The entire beach for a hundred yards around was littered with the shattered timbers of the carrack's spine and lower decks, pieces of timber skeleton that had been ripped out of her as she slammed into the shores. Some were still intact enough to show their place in the greater whole, curving and bent, yet far more were so destroyed as to be nothing more than brick sized lumps whose nails stabbed out into empty air, the sheer force of impact undoing the work of hammers and mallets. Splinters a foot or more in length stabbed out of the trees and sands, like arrows left after battle. Crates and barrels had been hurled free of their holds as the bottom of the ship was torn out from beneath his uncle's feet, thrown ashore to bounce and roll and smash off the sands, their contents broken, rotting, washed away or stolen. Only the top deck was anything near intact, protected from the impact by the sacrifice of everything beneath.

Even shattered into a thousand pieces, he could still see those painfully familiar lines. He could still see how the hull might curve towards its bulging bottom, how the masts might have risen up proud and red, how the rope of the riggings might have been arrayed from hull to mast and mast to hull. He could still see how the decks might seem beneath the surface, how men might make their way through to its holds. He could see where the cook and his oven might stand, where the maester or healer might do their works.

He could see the King Gerold. It was the same ship, the same design, brought into the world by the same hands in the same dock to the same design. The same shipwrights and the same carpenters had built a twin for him, a brother to the ship they built for Gerion.

That thought sent chills through him, cold, bitter chills of what could have been. Were it not for the skills of Davos and Asha, were it not for the experience of the both of them, then what was before him now would have been the Gerold's fate, too.

And what happened to the uncle would have happened to the nephew.

"Dwarf?" the sellsword asked, tapping the back of his leg with his boot. "You've gone quiet."

"I have," he answered, meeting Bronn with mismatched eyes. "That could've been us."

"Could've," Bronn shrugged. "Wasn't."

Tyrion might've laughed at that, were it another ship, another day. Not this one. Not this day. The Laughing Lion was a burial ground, whose scarlet sails hung across her shattered body as a funeral shroud. A part of him wanted to turn away, to know that there was nothing left for him there. But there was one thing. One chance. One small, miniscule chance that could have spoken of the glories his uncle had seen and done. One small chance to complete the mission of a loved uncle and a loving nephew both. One chance to recover that which had been so carelessly lost all those centuries before, one chance to finish what Gerion had started and do what he had died to do.

Brightroar.

He didn't laugh. He looked down, surveying the near shore, trying to find a way down the slopes. With one careful step after the next, he tested the slippery sands of the dune, and crept down, one foot at a time. Bronn followed him, the deft sellsword moving down with an ease to match Tyrion's own at thrice the speed. Asha's steps were less graceful, less careful, sand streaming down the false-dune from her armored boots, but all three made it to the bottom with ease, without stumbling down the dune...and there, at the bottom, it became far too clear how vast the wreck was. There were little bits of the wood left bigger than he was, so forceful was the wreck. Out of the entire ship, mayhaps a twelfth was still together in the way that the builders had made it. Even the lion that might've decorated her bowsprit was shattered half at the middle to reveal the wood beneath the thin layer of gold, the other half nowhere to be found. The fluttering of fallen sails echoed in the air, sending waves of cooler air with their rippling motions.

The Essosi came from behind, Qoherion's shadow falling upon the dwarf from atop the dune and amongst the growth.

"We will give you some time alone," he said, quieter, solemn. "Your uncle was a brave man to sail into Valyria. My homeland and yours might differ greatly, but courage is courage. He deserves respect."

"He does," Tyrion said, genuine, grateful. "Thank you."

The Essosi merely nodded in answer, and turned back towards his men, giving his commands in Valyrian and ordering the group of hunters to stay close together, to stay near the shore. Looking back to his guards, Asha and Bronn had moved ahead: the sellsword was wandering the shore as if lost, occasionally glancing into the crates and barrels, but Asha moved amongst the debris with purpose, looking over the broken timbers with a knowing eye, testing their strength with a kick. Both of them were moving towards the upper decks, towards the few parts of the ship that might've been intact, towards the aft castle. Tyrion moved after them, looking straight forward and never around. Timbers to the left, timbers to the right, and not one of them he might've wanted to see. Asha waved the sellsword over, the pair of them lifting what little remained of the Laughing Lion's boarding ramp up into place...but before any of them might walk on it, before Tyrion was close, Asha tested it with her fist.

A bang echoed. Birds and wyverns fled.

The wood held.

"After you, Lannister," the Greyjoy said as the Lannister came near. "She's yours."

"Is it safe?"

"As safe as a wreck can be." Asha pressed against the ramp with her boot, harder this time. The wood still held.

Tyrion took a breath - and stepped onto the ramp.

The wood groaned.

The wood trembled.

But the wood held.

He walked. One step, two, three, and onto the deck. For all the years, for all the wear, for all the damage it took in the storm, for all the rot that surely grew within its frame, the deck merely creaked and did nothing more. Even here, protected from the worst of the impact, the ship was battered and bruised. A half dozen planks were missing, gaps that revealed the darker depths below. Moss and vines clutched at the timbers and climbed up her railings, flowers blooming in the search for sunlight. Splinterly spears jutting out wildly were all that remained of the masts, like the stumps of some great tree, and scratch marks covered every piece of wood.

The sound of the sellsword's boots falling onto the deck was a relief from the sight. Then came Asha, whose armor made her the heaviest of all. The deck groaned, and for a heartbeat he felt the urge to leap overboard and onto the sands...but stubbornly and in defiance of their weight, the deck still held. Asha stepped off the plank, moving towards the mast. There were few complaints from the wood, and it seemed to him it would make the least groans and complaints the further they were from one another. He moved, aimless, thoughtless -

- and the Greyjoy spoke.

"Well," Asha said, looking around, testing the deck with her foot at every seam. "This isn't too bad."

"Seven hells," Bronn laughed. "If this isn't too bad, then what is? Sinking?"

"Look at the way she broke up," she answered instantly. "She must've been in a storm when she wrecked. They lost all the masts. That only happens if she rolled at sea and the waves snapped them off like twigs. Then she rolled again, came back upright and hit the shore sideways, tore out the bottom and had the top deck slide over the wreck til it got here. That means the holds took the worst of it"

"How does that make things better?" Tyrion asked, his voice grim and quiet as he looked across the debris, searching for anything that might've marked his uncle's last place.

Asha grabbed a handful of faded and worn sail with a knowing smile.

"It means they had to take this cloth out after they got here."

The dwarf froze at that. They took it out. They took the sails from the wreck.

That meant only one thing. One thing that made him turn towards the Greyjoy proper, one thing that filled his heart with the faintest hope, dragging him from the mire of the wreck.

"Do you..." His voice died, hesitant. What were the chances? And yet, and yet,, he forced them out. "Do you think they might've survived?"

"I wouldn't call it certain, but mayhaps," she answered with honesty. "Bright red sails are easy to see from a distance, so you'd be more likely to be rescued if you raise them. It'd be the first thing anyone who survived a wreck would do."

"Either way," she murmured as she looked across the wreck with careful, watching eyes. Her voice strengthened. "The size's about right for us. We could salvage some of the wreck, help Davos repair the Gerold. We need wood for repairs and a mainmast, too. There might be something for us here...it'll be worn, but it'll do to get us to a port where we can get some proper timber."

That thought felt sour and bitter to Tyrion's eye. The Laughing Lion might've carried a few surviving men ashore, mayhaps even his uncle Gerion...but even if it had, it had become their tomb, the last resting place for good Lannister men and a good Lannister uncle. It was a coffin, and the idea of breaking down such a thing was a grim thought, a perfect and terrible sign of how desperate things had become.

But just as it might have been his uncle's grave, it was his uncle's ship. Gerion would have wanted him to do it, if it meant that they could live to see another day. That was what he would have done. He would have paid his respects, mourned the dead, then done whatever he had to do to avoid joining them.

"Mayhaps, if there's anything useful," he said, quieter, less hopeful.

"There's bound to be something, but don't walk off on your own," the Greyjoy warned.

"Worried about what the Volantines are talking about?" Bronn asked, as if setting the air for some jape -

- only for Asha to crouch down, and point straight to one of the planks. The dwarf looked at first, uncertain, but then he saw it, saw that it was no mere graze, no mere wear of the years it had spent on the shore. These were something else. These was deep, clawing scratch marks that had bitten into the oak like an axe.

"Look at these," Asha said, crouching down on the broken deck and placing her fingers against the deep, gnarling scratch marks. "These weren't from the storm. Some beast did these with claws."

Bronn peered over the Greyjoy's shoulder, then laughed. "Those weren't claws."

"You have a better idea, sellsword?"

"Aye," he answered, walking over...and placing his boot atop the scratches, showing that every line matched the line of a hidden toe. "Those came from a foot. See how there's no others behind us? Means it came from up there," he pointed at the smashed aftcastle. "Must've climbed up the wood, over the top and dropped down here."

"Over that much shattered timber?" Asha asked before laughing. "It'd have slipped and broke its neck, or got stabbed on the wood."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Tyrion sighed. "This damned island is full of monsters. Who's to say that there isn't one that can climb over a pile of wood?"

"Or survive a snapped neck," the sellsword mumbled.

Tyrion didn't ask. He didn't want to ask. Instead, he carefully walked his way across the deck, feeling the boards beneath his feet, taking his time, taking each and every step towards the cabin one at a time. The door was no comfort. It was covered in claw marks, shallower and longer than that on the deck. There were dozens, hundreds of marks, hanging loose from broken hinges. Holes large enough to fit his head through shone light into the inside, showed that there was no monster laying within, only a cabin as ruined as the ship. Bronn moved ahead of him, blade in hand, using the reflection of the polished steel as a mirror to peer through the gap of the door and into the pitchblack corner.

Something was there.

Something breathing.

Something clawed.

He tapped on the wood, drawing Asha's attentions. He mouthed a word.

Shield. Shield.

The Greyjoy walked over, letting the sellsword put her helmet back on. Tyrion drew back, Asha gripped her axe tight, raised her shield -

- and shoved her way in. Something leapt at her in the dark, something fast and pale and white and fast, clawing wildly as it screeched, but Asha fought back, pushed back. Her massive Ironborn shield slammed into its face and claws and body, driving it back, driving it reeling to the ground, and Bronn darted in as fast as the creature had pounced, plunging his blade into the monster's albino breast, once, twice, thrice, again, again. The Sothoryi rolled and clawed, trying to get away, trying to escape the steel, but then Asha was on it, hacking and cutting and hacking and cutting. Its wails were so long and loud that the Volantines started to hurry over with their own weapons, bows nocked and spears ready, but Tyrion waved them off. Only when the cries died in its gurgling throat did the pair slow their butchery, and only when the rapid tremblings of its flesh ceased did they finally stop. Bronn stabbed his sword into its skull through the mouth, then dragged the useless body out into the day, a thick and shiny trail of emerald blood coating the deck. The attacks and cutting had been so relentless in making sure that it was dead, truly dead, that the dwarf could barely recognise what it was at all, not till he saw the distinctive flat face of the eyeless walkers that lurked in the dark and wandered freely at night.

It had claws, long and sharp. Had the Lannister walked in without noticing, without thinking, it would have opened his neck from ear to ear on the first swing.

"The shit was in the corner," the sellsword panted for breath, his bloodied blade dripping beads of green. "Might be it was sleeping, might be it was waiting for you to go in."

"It seems I owe you twice now, sellsword." Tyrion laughed. He didn't know where it came from. "A Lannister always pays his debts."

"Aye, I hope so," the sellsword laughed with him. "Might be I'll get a castle of my own if this keeps going."

"Will you two stop laughing and look in here?" Asha shouted from within. The dwarf smiled at the sellsword, turned, and walked into the cabin.

Then he saw why Asha called him in. The room was much like his. A great table to take one's meals on and do their writing, drawers and cabinets to store tools and texts and maps and inks and quills, a great big bed to sleep on, then shelves and a few chests and boxes for clothes and shoes and keepsakes and everything else. He knew all that would be there before he came in, knew it was going to be the same as his own Gerold.

That wasn't why Asha called for him.

It was because the room was littered with bones. They were everywhere. Gnawed and broken and bleached. Bones covered the floor, from the door he entered to the broken shutters on the far side. The table was scratched deeply, and shards of broken glass clinked and crunched beneath his boots. The bedsheets were rotten and caked in filth and grime, stinking of damp and dirt, the mattress torn open to get to the feathers within. Boxes were rummaged through, chests battered and rusty, clothes torn and shredded. Even the chairs, nailed to the deck to keep them from moving and there in a storm, were ruined. The cushions had been torn open and used for bedding by the eyeless thing that had nested in the corner. Dented plates and broken cutlery were heaped against the walls and half buried by sand and cloth and whatever else the Sothoryi had done to hide the gleam of tin and silver.

For the tiniest moment, even he had no idea what to do next, no idea what to say or do next. He was pulled back to the grim mood he had emerged from but a moment before, pulled back down. This was his uncle's ship, his uncle's chambers, his uncle's tomb.

But Asha moved. She rolled eight skulls across the ground towards him with the side of her foot.

Each and every last one of them was eyeless.

"This must've been a nest," the Greyjoy said, looking around for more skulls. She found more. Another six joined the ones before the Lannister, differing ever so slightly. Some were ridged, others had dimples where the eyes might've been. One even had a handful of teeth in its jaw, true teeth like those a Man might have, not the needle thin fangs of the rest of their kind. That made it worse than than the others. Made it more human. Made it more monstrous, more twisted, more mad, but the sight of so many together dried his mouth and filled him with unease. He looked back to the Greyjoy, desperate to forget. "Must've been twenty or more of them here before they died."

"...what from?" he asked, quieter.

"I haven't a clue." The Greyjoy crouched down, picking up one of the bones, a rib. It had a deep gash, half through to the otherside. It wasn't a claw mark. Too clean, too deep, too regular. It was a swordblow. "This one died fighting, but one of the others has bite marks all over it. Mayhaps your uncle killed some, and the rest killed each other til that one was left?"

"Oh good, kinslayers," he sighed. "As if this place wasn't cursed enough already."

"Better that they are killing each other than us," she said, looking about.

Then, suddenly, she spoke again. "I don't see a man's bones here."

"What?" He looked down, looked at the bones. Some were close, but never right. Legs that had too many joints, arms that were too thin, fingers that were too long. He was no maester, no healer, but he read. He knew when a bone did not fit, knew when it was too long or too misshapen to come from a Man. Even the bones of the squat men from Ibben weren't that different than those of the Andals or the First Men or the Valyrians. These were, and try as he might, he saw only skulls that had no sockets for eyes. "There's only those creatures here?"

"Looks it to me, too," the sellsword said, peering through the door before coming in. He kicked one of the skulls out the shutters, and laughed. "None of these bones are from any of us, just more Sothoryi."

"And they don't eat bone," Asha said, picking up a heavily chewed bone before throwing it out the window, as Bronn did. "Chew on it, aye, but don't eat it. Probably breaks their thin teeth."

"Then...where are the bodies?" Tyrion asked as Asha crouched down, checking more of the bones. "There are no graves outside, none that I saw....they must have made a fight of it. Cuts on the table, and a hack in a bone done by a sword swing."

"Might be that they weren't here when those things came," the sellsword suggested. "Fought elsewhere, then these came back to the ship."

"My uncle wouldn't have gone without leaving guards."

"He might've not had the men."

Tyrion was about to open his mouth to answer when Asha stood up, holding a box in her hand - no, a book, he realized, a book wrapped in leather, scuffed and scratched and damp and mouldy, too. A pin of gold worked into the shape of a lion sealed the sheathing, untarnished, unbroken and proud. Proud. The sigil of all Lannisters writ small, shining in the dark. She plucked it off and put it onto the table, letting the leather sheath fall away and reveal the book proper, a tome two or three inches thick, with leather bindings so hard as to be more like armor than not, armor that had protected the parchment within.

"Might be this has your answer," Asha turned, offering it to Tyrion. "It was nearly under the bed."

Tyrion reached out with trembling hands. The bindings were heavy and cold. He knew what it was before he opened the cover, before he even held it close. It was everything. Everywhere his uncle went, everything his uncle did, everything that might've happened. It would be there.

"What's that?" Bronn asked. "Captain's book?"

"My uncle's journal," Tyrion answered, his voice little more than a whisper as he brushed the grime from its cracking cover with his sleeve. "Everything about the voyage, mayhaps even what happened after they got here."

"Good of your uncle to write all that."

"I have one just like it," he murmured under his breath as he turned back to the sellsword, nodding towards the door with a tip of his head. "Watch the entrance and keep your eyes open for anything Sothoryi, and the Volantines, too. Asha can guard me here as she looks for anything else useful. Maps, if they have them."

Words were said, but Tyrion didn't hear them. He didn't care to. His fingers traced the thick bindings. Simple things, plain things. It didn't matter. It was Gerion's book, Gerion's words, mayhaps the last that his uncle ever said or wrote. It was all that might be left of him, now. There were no words for how he felt, no words for what it meant. Gerion was a teacher, who gave him books to sharpen his mind when others saw a dwarf who was a waste of training in sword and shield, and even that Gerion urged him to continue and try, suggesting weapons more suited to his height. Prove them wrong, he said, even a little lion can have claws. He saw the potential that no one else saw. He saw that he could be more. Gerion was a friend, who japed and laughed with him when few others would. He saw that even born a dwarf, he was still a child, still a boy, still a Lannister. He needed the love of his kin, the love of his family. He saw that Jaime was the only one close, so he joined them both with japes of his own, and brought Tygett too.

He had been like a father to him. He realized that now, holding the book in his hands. He taught him to tumble and roll, to laugh and jape. He taught him that, dwarf or no, he was a Lannister. What the gods had taken from his body, they had given to his station. Let men mock him for his height, let them whisper japes behind his back. They lived in hovels, and he the Rock. He taught him that lesson. He taught him the most important lesson of all.

Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not, his uncle told him once. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.

The words sent chills through him, even years after they were first said. They were wise words. True words. He had done as Gerion said. Let others laugh. Let them jape. He had his gold. He had his chambers in the Rock, and men and women hurried to his every whim.

But Gerion was gone. Gone to Valyria, and ended up here.

Tyrion had wanted to go with him, once. To see the world at Gerion's side. His father kept him behind, and so all he could do was stand upon the port and wave to his uncle and watch his ship sail into the distance.

That was the last time he saw Gerion. That was the last time he saw his Laughing Lion.

Until now.

He wasn't sure he wanted to open the cover.

His hands moved. The cover opened. Protected from the elements by the sheathings and the thick bindings that had taken the brunt of the wear, the pages within were stained things, distorted and warped by the water that had assaulted their edges and by the constant shifts of hot and cold. Cracks spread along the borders where the parchment had grown stiff.

But protected, enduring, the ink survived. His uncle's words survived. Blurry and smudged in places, but readable. The last words of Gerion Lannister. The last words of the uncle he loved.

A part of him didn't want to look. To keep it a mystery. To keep the hope alive. Mayhaps he escaped. Mayhaps he never found the blade, and that was why he never returned to Westeros. Mayhaps he was spending his days on the Summer Islands where no one knew.

But the men that died pushed him on. For his crewmen, for the Laughing Lion.

For Gerion.

For Gerion most of all.

He looked to the first page

And he read.

Here we are at last! The great journey begins at last! I can hear the singers already - Gerion Lannister and the quest for Valyrian steel! Today we left Lannisportm and the Rock has slipped over the horizon!

But for my own reference, I'll be marking each day as another since setting out, keeping track of the days, but mayhaps not writing anything for those where nothing interesting happened. I am keeping this book more for my own benefit than anyone else, even if my dear brother Tywin is like to read through the entire thing from start to finish when I get back so that he might find out what I did wrong and scold me for the mistakes. Still, mayhaps the maesters will want it too, when they write the glorious tale of Brightroar's triumphant return to Westeros, and the hero - nay, legend - that brought it back.

Or at least that's what I hope they'll write, anyway. Mayhaps they'll write how I smashed a Lannister ship on one of the Shield Islands instead, for all I know of what is to come, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't confident. I've been asking Tywin to finance this voyage for nearly a year now, so it isn't like I had no idea what I was getting myself into. But telling him that I am aware that this won't be anything near easy was enough to win him over eventually, no matter how foolish he might think I am for trying to sail into the 3e3ast. He didn't involve me in much of the planning, which isn't anything too far out of the usual, but here we are. I suppose the Laughing Lion is as good enough a name as any, though I am still sad that Tywin refused to allow me to give it a name of my own. Why couldn't it have been the Beautiful Maiden, so I could jape about her being wet on the deck? Or the Lion's Sword, so I could forever write in this log that I sheathed it in port? How subtle must I be for him to not catch these innuendos? I always did figure that brother of mine had a lusty side, and that seems true if he was able to catch all of them...or mayhaps he was just never going to allow me to name the ship I was going to be sailing to the Smoking Sea and to certain death if he is right.

I suppose that will be a mystery for future generations to unravel when they read about this in the Red Keep and the Rock. Mayhaps they will try and figure out what happened to their noble hero after he returned only to mysteriously disappear after Tywin read his journal, too. And while they are at that, they can try and figure out where in the Seven Kingdoms did Tywin Lannister find this much pickled herring.

That was the Gerion he knew, always japing. The thought made him smile, made him laugh. "You and me both, uncle."

Asha looked to him in confusion. He shrugged. The words didn't sting as he thought they might. They didn't hurt. They felt...good. Familiar. Comforting. Comforting more than anything else. It was good to read. No fear, no terror, merely japes. That was Gerion. Even Gogossos didn't seem so terrible with his words around. He turned the page to the next, careful to avoid damaging the parchment, and there was a neat row of some dozen or two dozen lines struck at the top of the page, a counting of the days before the next entry.

On he read.

We sailed a little too close to the shores of Dorne today, close enough that the Dornish were able to shout all sorts of curses at us as we sailed by. Lionlover this, oathbreaker that, murderer and babekiller. They mustn't have recognised the colors on our sails. This is a Lannister ship, not a Clegane one. None of them were nobles, merely the peasantry, but they were angry enough to throw stones at us when I had hoped to put into a fishing village for some water. One of my men - a man named Meribald from Lannisport - took one on the shoulder, but cursed so bad you would have thought he was dying. There was barely a bruise, the big babe. Still, one of their lordlings came along to see what all the fuss was about and stopped the mob, and we shot no arrows in defense, so the Westerlands need not worry about us starting a war so soon into our journey. That we will save for the return trip, when we are so drunk on wine that we ram into a fishing boat when everyone's too drunk to handle the tiller.

Still, we weren't going to make ourselves comfortable in a place where we weren't welcome, so we sailed onwards and have gone back to our ale and wine, rationing it a bit more carefully than before. Mores the pity for them, I haven't any silver or copper and would have had to pay for everything in gold dragons A gold dragon for a barrel or two of well water would be as big a bargain as Lann the Clever had when he took the Rock. Their loss.

But other than for that, this leg of the voyage has gone well enough. We spotted a pirate war galley on our way through the Stepstones, but they didn't have the guts to fight a ship with the Lannister lion on its sails. We didn't even have to loose any scorpion bolts after them, they saw us and then turned hard northeast towards Myr. Mayhaps a Myrish corsair? Salladhor Saan? I doubt it is him, as I wouldn't be here writing this book and would mayhaps be awaiting a ransom in some dungeon somewhere and a sigh from that brother of mine.

Whoever they were, they didn't come back when we put in for the night near Bloodstone and lay anchor, let the men stretch their legs a little and make sure we don't hit shallow waters in the night. I had my own reasons, though. Old Jason Lannister was waiting for us there, dear old father's youngest brother and my own uncle. It took a few hours to find where he was from the little clues that we had from the last of the Blackfyre rebellions, but we found him, not long after the sun went down. I brought the old lion a wine, raised him a toast to a hard won victory over the Ninepenny Kings, then poured the cup over his grave. A Westerlander red, that was, one of Tytos' favorite. The old lion would've liked a wine after so long, I think, and better it to be a taste of home than not. When we are done with the first half of our voyage and heading home again, I think I'll stop here on the way back. I loathe the idea of bothering the dead in their rest, but he should be brought back to the Rock at last, where he belongs. We hadn't the time for him before, not with the fighting going back and forth and not when we had to get back to the Westerlands in a hurry, but we do now. He deserves that much at least, and Ty would be sure to find a good place for him in the Hall of Heroes where he can rest with his brothers and father both. No man should have to lie away from home.

My lamp grows dim and hungry, but we have made good progress so far. With any luck, we should be at Lys before long.

He was less joyful, now. Less eager. Familiar challenges, familiar work, but that would be another thing for him to do if they could make it back to the Stepstones. Jason Lannister. Tyrion had no memory of the man, in truth. He was dead long, long before Tyrion was born, other than that he was his grandfather through his mother's side. More than that he didn't know. But Gerion was willing to bring him home, and that was reason enough for him.

That would be another thing for them to do.

He read on. More lines, more strikes, but a drawing too this time - an island city, a paradise of manses and pearly beaches, covered with statues of women. One stood taller, far taller than Tyrion saw, and her cheeks were covered in tears...or mayhaps smudges. His uncle was no artist, but still, Tyrion smiled at the sight of it all. Lys the Lovely, Lys the Beautiful. He should've taken his time there, visited the pillow houses, drank more wine, but the journey called and so they went.

On he read.

We are making good progress in our journey eastwards so far. We've stopped at Lys for a while to take on supplies and to ready the Lion for the next long step eastwards...and, of course, to have a little fun on our way, a little break from the drudgery of sailing. The Free Cities are vaster than any city in Westeros, that much I've known since dear old father let me travel to Essos on my sixteenth name day, see the beauty of the east...but being here now, again, it feels even bigger than it did before. Lys is one of the smaller of the Free Cities, one of Valyria's younger babes, but it could eat King's Landing whole and still have room for most of Lannisport.

But it isn't just vast. It is beautiful. Curving arches, streets flanked by gardens and statues, a soft and almost perfumed scent everywhere you go. The Freehold of old had raised the city to serve as a retreat for the greatest of their number, for their Dragonlords, and the beauty of that heritage shines still. Even the commonfolk there have silver hair and violet eyes, like their Volantine cousins might. It felt odd, wandering through their streets with gold and green instead, and the Essosi are ever "curious" of Andals and our loathing of slavery, but Lannister gold opens many doors that would otherwise be closed. A few coins in the right pocket and we were able to put into one of the private docks, where we could load our holds all the faster and without having to anchor off the shore waiting for a berth. The faster we get into the port, the faster we can take on supplies and the faster we could leave and get back to what we were really heading out for. Dragons well spent.

And no, Ty, I didn't use the gold you gave me to open many legs. I could have, but didn't. Bask in the power of my restraint, and look somewhere else to find somewhere I brought shame to the Rock. Who knows, mayhaps that would be that I didn't open many legs and show off Lannister wealth by ploughing my way through the city like a Darry through their fields. At least you cannot complain about me not showing it off at the market - fresh supplies are easy enough to come by here, and I paid only for the very best. White flour from the Reach, fresh fruit from the Crownlands and a great big wheel of hard cheese from the Stormlands, so big across the King's Justice could use it as a chopping block. It all cost far, far more than it ever would have in Westeros, but a man pays a price for the taste of home. And of course, being that it all has to be shipped by men who are eating some of the cargo on the way here, which I am sure doesn't help the price much. Still, good supplies are worth the gold, and I had the Lion looked over by some Lysene divers, as it seems the waters at Bloodstone were not nearly as shallow as we might've hoped - ever since then, we've had this strange pull to the right. The rudder had hit something under the water, probably a shallow rock or something, but they were able to fix it without too much trouble.

A good thing we noticed it. A pull like that during a night time voyage in the Smoking Sea would be as like to see us smash into the shores and get stuck in Valyria than not. It did cost us some time, though, so we did spend some time in the city, making sure we had everything we might need. More rope, more sails, some spare timber, nails too, and some more armor for the men. Plate is well and good, but the sailors need protecting too, not just the men-at-arms. Some padded leathers were useful enough. But whilst getting all that at the market, I met a man asking if we were heading south or to Valyria or anywhere similar, asking if he might buy passage to one of those places with a small group of three or four. I am not lacking the wits to realize that bringing strangers aboard this ship on this mission would be a fool's errand, so I politely mentioned that we were not taking passengers, for our business was the business of King Robert. A fair enough lie, and one that worked well enough.

Still, I have never met a man so...the maesters would say "unsettling", but I would say "not right". There was something deeply wrong with him. Not with his mind - that seemed as sharp as a razor - but with his...his everything. He moved too smoothly, spoke too clearly, knew things that he shouldn't know. He claimed to be Volantine, but I went to Volantis to celebrate my growth into a man as part of my nameday tour of the Free Cities...and there was not a note in his voice that wore the accent of that city. He sounded almost Westerosi. I asked why he wished to come along, and he wouldn't say. Only that it was for "love and duty," which is damnably vague and sounds to my ear and eye like a polite way to say that he was going to kill himself. Either way, I wasn't going to allow him aboard the Lion. With how deft his movements were I dare not think what he could do in a fight. He took the rejection well, thanked me for my time and set off to find someone else to bring him and his belongings to Valyria.

And that was mayhaps the strangest thing of all, because he had but a little luggage: a few changes of clothes, some jewelry, a book...and two dozen different cages of varying sizes. I know some men have some strange desires of their lovers, but cages, fire and a good chance of never being seen again in the Smoking Sea must be amongst the strangest yet. I'm sure Robert would have a good jape about that. I'll have to tell him when I get back. Daerion Dragonfucker? I'm sure his Grace would get a laugh out of that.

"Seven hells," he said, drawing Asha's attentions to him, the Greyjoy tossing a handful of half rotten maps back into the cabinet. "He met Daerion."

"What?" she asked, coming over -

- only for him to point at the line, showing her. "There. Daerion."

"Daerion Dragonfucker?" Asha laughed...but then she read the lines before, and grew far more serious. "He wanted to take the cages to Valyria?"

"Empty cages," he corrected. "I imagine they are not nearly so empty now that he is here."

"Valyria's a hell. What is there alive that he might want to take?"

"I'm not sure, but we will have to find out...and he's not a Volantine sorcerer, either."

The Greyjoy's eyes narrowed. "Gogossosi?"

"Mayhaps." His voice was quieter. "Whatever he's planning, the Volantines are supporting him. They must have given him what he needs to get this far."

"Qoherion said before that Daerion saved his life on a voyage into the east, and you've seen some of his collection. He had even more in the back," she continued. "Hoare banners, a Valyrian steel crown....he had a bottle, with scales in it. Things he shouldn't have. He's been doing this for a while, travelling, picking things up."

"And everything he's been doing has led him here," he nodded, grim. "I wasn't missing the night before, I heard him talking. He's looking for something, some kind of ritual, and he knows exactly what it is he needs. You mentioned he has slaves, they and whatever is in those cages must be part of it. The Red Faith knows whatever it is, and they're helping."

"Who? Thoros?"

"Not him, another, a woman, the one Thoros called Melisandre. She's leading the search for him," he remembered. Blood sorcerer, blood eyes. "Volantis, the Red Faith...they're working with him."

"On what?" she asked.

He couldn't answer. He didn't know. Volantis gave him ships and an army, the power he might need to take the shore and build a fort. The Red Faith sent its priests, one of whom was searching for the ritual he sought. He had been to Valyria with his cages, taken something, brought it back. He had slaves whose blood would be enough for whatever sorcery he might have planned. All this had been brought by a blood sorcerer to an isle where the art was at its most infamous. Why? What did Volantis and the Red Faith stand to get in exchange? What was it all for?

"I...I don't know, not yet," he admitted, pulling the book back towards him. "But I am going to read. There must be more, but have you found anything?"

"Nothing useful. Just old maps, rotted through. I'll tell you if I find anything that isn't a pile of rot and mould."

He nodded, then went back to the pages. There was something different, this time. Different in Gerion's writing, the way that he had put words to parchment. Less energy, less joy, less excitement merely to be on the way east. He wrote one word above his entry, surrounded by notches.

Volantis.

That was the end of what Tyrion and Tywin and all the others had known of him. Tywin had tried to search for him after he failed to return, managed to track him as far east as Volantis. Nothing else was known but for the words of those deserters that had tried to make it back to the Westerlands, only to be caught by the men at the port and given over to the dungeons of the Rock. The Lord of Casterly Rock was known for many things, but mercy was not one of them, especially mercy to those who had abandoned his kin. Tyrion knew little of their fate, only that those of them that were caught never saw the sun or the stars again, but he knew the stories they said, the fear that had driven them to abandon Gerion on his voyage. Mayhaps that was fair, for few men hadn't heard the tales of the ruins of the Smoking Sea, of the ghosts and demons that had been unleashed with the Doom. Mayhaps it wasn't.

Still, he read on.

We reached Volantis today, and it is the first time that I have been to this city since Tytos let me go on my tour. It hasn't changed much. It is a city of two souls. On the one hand it has all the pride and power of being the first of Valyria's daughters, a heritage that they are immensely proud of and which makes a Volantine into a Volantine. They might look very similar to the Lyseni, the same pure heritage, but they have little in common. It is the history that makes them different. Volantis is older, far older, being the first of the Free Cities to be founded and given self-rule, and much like Valyria, it sits at the gateway where the east meets the west. Merchants from Qarth, Yi-Ti or far Asshai come here to trade with the rest of the Free Cities and Westeros. Everything can be found in these markets - if you can't find it, you don't really want it. That seems to be the thing that keeps the Tigers down, keeps them from trying to rebuild the Freehold again and subduing their kin. The city is rich, the people safe, their own little Freehold powerful beyond its size by the sheer weight of its coffers. I asked around, and the answer is "why change" when it works so well?

And so they don't change, seemingly content to let coin do their battles for them.

On the other hand, it can be a darker place, for much as its mother did, Volantis keeps a great many slaves, so many that they even have some of them keep the rest down without needing to bother the freeborn with it. Oh, there are still those who are freeborn doing work, too, and some of them even have the right to vote in their elections and decide who the next Triarch might be. Indeed, it seems that it is the votes of these freemen that are keeping the Tigers out of power, as the Old Blood within the Black Walls leans more in favor of war than those outside the gates. But still, there are countless slaves here. Slaves in the brothels, slaves in the kitchens, slaves cleaning the streets, slave mummers to make the other slaves laugh. Slave guards who keep the other slaves in line.Give a slave a title, a cloak, a weapon and double his rations and suddenly he'll be willing to keep the rest of the slaves down and do it with a smile. Mayhaps that is the worst of it all. Slaves will keep other slaves down if you let them think they are better than the men they keep in chains. He'll ignore the suffering of men no different than he was, and more, he'll make it worse.

Mayhaps that makes them feel better, makes them feel more free. I don't know. I don't think anyone can know. Still, I had to prepare for the next stages of our voyage. More supplies. Lamp oil, ink, candles. They sell ones scented with golden roses from the Reach for women in their baths. I bought more than a few, them and ones with bellflowers and fircone in them. From what they say of Valyria, the place will reek of ash and smoke and sulphur. Then there was food, and I was spoiled for choice. Wine, wine, wine. Some ale, too. Fruit, and more kinds of orange than I knew existed. Meat too, can't forget meat, and fish, and everything else. Mayhaps too much, no, surely too much. We could barely fit it in the holds.

The men asked, laughing, where we were going that we'd need such a feast.

And I told them. None of them knew. Ever since we set out from Lannisport, no one knew where we were actually going. Tywin had never said a word to anyone about where they were going, merely promising good coin when they came back, and I didn't either. Whenever asked, it was merely "east", because few men would be eager or willing to sail where we were meant to be going. They had to learn of it eventually, though, and today was that day. I think the only thing that stopped a mutiny was that we were in port, and those who might've revolted simply left instead. I told everyone that I would be in my cabin if they wished to talk truthfully about it all, about the dangers. None came. A few hours later, I came out to find only twelve crew left, out of fifty. The rest had gone, walked off into the port and never looked back. Too few to continue the journey, far too few, and few are willing to join.

That brings me to the worst of it.

I had to buy slaves to make up for the lost hands. Seven forgive me for what I have done, for I know I shall not...but when this voyage is over and done, when we make it to Westeros, I will make sure they know they are free men. I'll beggar myself if I must to give them good lives. It is the least I can do when I know that my coin has let some slaver fill his galley holds with raiders so that he might take a hundred more innocents into captivity. Better still, I'll ask Ty for a war galley so that I might let the slavers know that, whether on land or at sea, a lion is still a lion. I took on a crew to replace the sailors, and slave-soldiers to replace the men-at-arms. Eunuch warriors, called Unsullied. The man said he was a reseller from Astapor, buying them by the hundred and breaking them into smaller groups for households and the like. I didn't care. I wanted to get it over and done, and gave him the coin.

But with them manning the sails and guarding the decks, we're able to tip our sails southwards once more.

That is a small condolence, though. Meribald met me below decks as I was accounting the supplies, ready for the next turn. He said "may the Seven have mercy on you, Gerio' Lannister."

I hope they do, Merry.

The writer's mood changed, and their writing with it. The letters were bolder, better formed. They were prettier and cleaner to look at.

Still, not all the news is bad. I heard word in the city that Cersei has given birth to another son - our new prince Tommen. He might be a Baratheon and not of the Rock, but I hope he grows to learn that the little lion in him has finally been restored to all its glory when the sword makes it home. Mayhaps that's the thought that I should be keeping? I'm not doing this for myself, I'm doing it for all Lannisters, for everyone with even a drop of lion in them. I'm doing this for Tommen, and Myrcella, and Joff, too. I'm doing this for all the men and women at home. Jaime in his gold, Cersei in her dresses, little Joff and littler Myrcella and now Tommen, littlest of all.

And Tyrion. Tyrion too. The gods might've not given him the height of a Lannister, but I can give him a chance to see and feel the sword of one. He might be a dwarf, but he was born a Lannister, he has the Lannister name, and that means that he is a Lannister. He has as much a right as any of us to wear that name and see Brightroar at the Rock, and he surely wouldn't be the first Lannister dwarf to touch it, either. We spent thousands of years as Kings of the Rock, and you'd have to be mad to think that we haven't had our fair share of dwarfs in that time. Mayhaps we even have a dwarf king, buried somewhere in the Hall of Heroes?

I just have to get it, first.

Written in smaller words, close to the bottom, was another line, faded and blurry.

Remember to collect coin from Stafford. He thought she was having a girl, and twins too.

Tyrion smiled. That was his uncle, for sure. Always lucky, always making his bets and always claiming his winnings. Were he the Lord of Casterly Rock, the words the singers loved wouldn't be that the Lannisters always paid their debts, no, it would be that the Lannisters always collected them. Tourneys, melees, births, Gerion was never afraid to make a friendly wager. That was one of the things Tyrion loved about him. A challenge here, a bet there. It didn't need to be money, even coppers. A jape, or something silly, or a book to read or a thing to do. That was Gerion. Daring, with a laugh on his lips and a coin in his hand, friend to any who would sit and talk.

But that wasn't the only reason he smiled. Even a thousand miles from home, even with no one around to judge his words, Gerion still called him a Lannister. He had never lied about what he said, never told him one thing and then said another behind his back. He had been honest the entire time, loving and honest. The text proved that, proved it utterly. There was no way that couldn't have made him smile, even there, even in Sothoryos, even in Gogossos, even in the cabin of the Wandering Lion, shattered upon the shores.

But it didn't last. It couldn't last. Tyrion knew what happened next, and the joy of one moment made the next sting all the more. Volantis was the last time that anyone had seen or heard from his uncle.

But it hadn't been the end of Gerion Lannister. The text below proved that.

So he read on...but there was something different with this entry. Each and every one had some strikes at the top, some simple lines drawn as a counting of the days from one to the next. This one had lines, but some of them were struck through and scribbled out, or quickly brushed with the side of his hand and made into cloudy smears. Others had been half removed, then hastily drawn back into place, and so badly mauled were the strikes that Tyrion had trouble getting a good count. Five? Eight? Fifteen? Twelve, perhaps? He couldn't be sure, nto when Gerion himself hadn't been.

The day is...I'm not quite sure anymore, actually. I am not sure of half as many things as I thought I was now, but there can be no mistaking our position - we are in the Smoking Sea, and the crew - those few who didn't desert me when they learnt of my plans and those I had to buy to finish the voyage - are enjoying that knowledge little. Most probably thought that there was some error in the words, some thought that we were going to be sailing around Valyria and not to it. All the more unfortunate for them, as the others knew it and are probably on their way back to Westeros right now, even if they can never show their faces in Lannisport again without their heads ending up on a spike for desertion.

I wonder if they were the wise ones. I wouldn't call them cowards for turning back, just sane. This place is like nothing I have ever seen before, like nothing the maesters said it would be like. I barely know the words with which to describe it. Hellish? No. This is not the Hells, but it is a close substitute. There is neither day nor night here, not really. The skies are forever filled with smoke and the air carries the stench of brimstone. Distant fires light the sky with their dim glow. It reminds me of being with Tywin when we went to fight the Reynes and could see the campfires burning on cloudy nights, but there are thousands more, and even there you could see the stars at night or the sun pushing through the clouds, but here you can't. The black clouds roll on forever, from the ship to the horizon and beyond. Not so much as a wisp of light comes through. We might as well be sailing in the Rock lit by torchlight.

I have never seen anything of its sort.

But the crew are having the worst of it. I can spend most of the journey within my quarters, mapping and planning and reading, or at least pretending to be doing those things. The crew has to work on the decks, stuck in perpetual twilight where neither day nor night ever come, just more hazy light and more smoke and fire from where the earth cracked open, along with the occasional candle that we might spare. They would be comfier in a storm. At least storms are things that they have seen and heard of before, things that they are familiar with. The Smoking Sea is like nothing else in this world. It is the one and only one of its kind, and there is nothing that can prepare a man for sailing in a place where even dragons died. The sla Unsullied warriors aren't afraid of it, though. They make up most of my guards and fighters, now, but they're keeping the peace, and I think their fearlessness helps everyone else stay calm, too. Either way, we're sailing onwards.

Still, there is always a bright side. At least now I can say proudly that I've been to the Smoking Sea and proved that the sky would be cloudy, not clear. Take that, Tyg. You owe me gold, and I intend to collect. Fog, my arse.

Tyg, Tyrion thought quietly. Tygett Lannister. His other uncle. Mayhaps the most martial of all the brothers, surely the best sword and surely the most rash. He helped train Jaime, built his skills, sharpened his edge, but it was the same boldness that saw him rush into battle that saw him clash against his brother, Tyrion's own father, Tywin...but he had rarely ever been anything other than kind to Tyrion himself. He was a Lannister born three hundred years late, the kind of man who could keep the lion's banner soaring in battle, keep the Ironborn and the Reachmen at bay, never backing down from a challenge and never turning down a fight. The Kingdom of the Rock had constant need of such courage and fire, but the Warden of the West rarely did. He was not built for peace. Peace made him bored, boredom made him frustrated, and those frustrations made him quarrel with the Lord of the Rock when other men might keep their silence in fear of the man that slaughtered the Reynes and Tarbecks like cattle. Tywin respected him for that, respected him for having the spine to speak his counsel openly, rather than meekly agree with everything that his lord had to say, even if he rarely approved of the blatant disrespect that came from talking out of turn and reaching beyond his place as the third-born brother.

He had said as much at the funeral. Not long after Gerion had gone east, Tygett went to a tourney, brought good glory to the Lannister family, then caught a pox on his way back to the Rock. The journey made what might've been a minor sickness into a grave one, and not even the work of Maester Creylen could save his life. Gerion would never have known, not when he was so far east. He would have thought him alive and well, til he came back and found out that they had buried his brother.

But the death of Tygett and the disappearing of Gerion robbed Tyrion of both uncles.

Both friends.

Still, he read on, welcoming the written words as a distraction from darker memories.

We saw a great wyrm today, or at least that is what I think it was. It was an enormous serpent, the size of a dragon, yet with a body segmented like a worm and a mouth like a leech had lain with a snake and made some monstrosity. It was sensitive to the light of our torches and was using them to track us, but once they were extinguished it was lost, and it had no taste for water, either. But we saw one fighting against another of its own kind, beating their bodies against one another like the towers of some castle just decided to get up and wrestle, shouting and screeching all the while. I don't know if they were fighting or fucking, mayhaps both, but the noise they made was so loud we had to cover our ears and so high it cut straight to the bone. I left my book about the history of the Targaryens at Casterly Rock, else I might've had a try at guessing if these were the creatures that got Arya Aerea Targaryen and wounded Balerion the Black Dread himself.

And I'm not sure if it was just mayhaps a trick of the light, or a sign I'm losing my wits to the fumes here, but I could have swore they breathed fire. They certainly ignited one on the Lion. The crew were struggling with the dark already, fearful and afraid for their lives. Seeing the wyrms fight one brought it to a boiling point.

There was a mutiny. Gerold. Tygon. Meribald. All three are dead. They thought I had gone mad, that we needed to turn our sails about and make our way out of this smoke whilst we still could, before we lost what little bearings we still had, before those monsters saw our ship and slaughtered our crew. I'm not sure how it happened, but there was fighting. I had the wits to bring some fighters from the Free Cities with me. Unsullied, they're called. I think I mentioned them before? The haze is bad for my memory. They crushed the mutineers, and with them the last few Westerosi men under my command. Tygon was the last. He was the navigator. He said I had lost my soul in this voyage, even as the slave soldiers sheathed their shortest spears in his belly, then stabbed him in the neck to stop his gurgled prayers for the Mother's mercy before tossing him into the water.

I think he was right. I am sailing into the darkness in far more ways than one. I just hope that there will be a reason for it all. Something that makes all this worthwhile. Something. Anything. It doesn't even have to be Brightroar. It just needs something to show that this - all of it - was not in vain. That the men that have died and those that have been bought have not done so for no reason. We just need to get to wherever it is, find something worth carrying and bring it back. I would be happy with that. I could live with that, I think, and say that it wasn't so bad since we didn't return empty handed.

Is that too much to ask? That there be some reason for all of this? For all the death? For all the pain? Is that truly, truly too much?

Mayhaps it is.

At least I am finding new things, here. Things I didn't even expect to find. There were black lights shining off the starboard bow the other day, darkening the world with their glow. I haven't the words to explain it, but it makes me wish I had a maester aboard. It would've been fun to try and hear them explain how that worked. A pleasant changes from all the silence and the quiet and the blood, and mayhaps they might've even given me a good answer. It isn't too unheard of after all. I've read that the glass candles of the Freehold could do such things. I hope it means that we're on the right direction, and not about to veer off into Oros or Tyria or what not.

Mayhaps I should've brought that Daerion with me. He said it'd be hard to navigate here but that he had a way to make it the city. Mayhaps he did, mayhaps he didn't. Either would be better than this, wandering about in pitch black hoping we don't slam into rocks and get stuck.

That's one of the worst parts, I think. I would sooner kill myself than get stuck here. This is a bad place. You don't even need to look at it to know it is. You feel it, in your bones, in your skin, in your soul. We shouldn't be here, but here we are anyways, sailing deeper and deeper in. But I won't lie and say that it is easy. There are things here, in the water. You can always see them in the fringes of your sight on the deck, but when you look properly you see nothing but ripples. One of the slaves managed to get a look and lost his wits, babbling in tongues before falling overboard into the murk. Needless to say, we didn't even have a chance to rescue him before whatever it was dragged him down screaming.

I've ordered what's left of the crew to stay away from the railings and raised the wine ration, too. If we have to sail through hell, we might as well do it with a glass of red in our hands. Mayhaps being drunk will keep whatever the hells he saw from getting us, too.

At least the wine keeps the thoughts at bay.

Tyrion swallowed. He swallowed hard. Asha saw. Asha saw and Asha spoke before he could even get a measure of his own feelings. "Something happen?"

"There was a mutiny," he answered with a dry throat. "They saw something in the distance....the men panicked, those who hadn't fled at Volantis. My uncle was lucky to survive."

"What was it?" she asked. "Demons?"

"Gerion thinks it was a wyrm," he answered. "A massive one, as big as a castle."

"...wyrms?" Asha asked, thinking. "The things at Valyria?"

"The maesters said they were distant kin to dragons, but Gerion describes them as being like leeches that could breathe fire."

That caught even her off guard. "...breathe fire? Really?"

"The Citadel wrote it, and Gerion too."

Asha was quiet, then. She leaned against the walls.

"That must be what they have in the cages. We saw them taking food to them, but we couldn't get a look. Qoherion got in the way. But they were feeding them burnt meat. Only things that breathe fire eat burnt meat, like dragons."

"Or wyrms," he answered wearily. "Gerion wrote that Daerion had a way to find his way there. He must have found his way to Volantis, then went to Valyria with them and the cages. Then captured wyrms, and brought them here."

"Why?"

Tyrion didn't want to think about that, couldn't think about that. All that came to mind were the thoughts of his uncle sailing through the horrors of the Smoking Sea. All that came to mind were the thoughts of his uncle being attacked by wyrms, of dying the same horrific fate that the Targaryen girl did, centuries before. Cooked from the inside out by by wyrmspawn, the hatchlings rolling and tunneling across their flesh as they searched for a way out. He could see it. Even here he could see it. Gerion would have smiled at him, and smoke and death would pour from his lips as his eyes boiled and burned, as he melted from the inside, as a tide of worms burst from his guts -

- and Asha shook him hard. Tyrion was pale, as pale as fresh fallen snow. He felt sick. She said something. He didn't hear it. She said it again.

She slapped him. The crack of her gloves echoed through the air, and searing, stinging pain raced from his cheek, dragging him back to the present with a yelp. His hand rushed by instinct, trying to cover the blow. He nearly dropped the book, and would've, if he didn't realize.

"You're a Lannister, dwarf," she snapped. "Act like a lion."

"It's hard," he said, weakly. "Gerion loved me as a nephew."

"Gerion isn't here." Asha rose back, ready to slap him again if needed. "And if he was, what would he say if he saw you like this? So grim and silent that you can't even talk to save your own life, and look more like you're going to throw up than answer?"

"He was my uncle," he snapped back, almost shouting. "He loved me when no one else would! No one but him and Jaime! Not my father, not my sister -"

She didn't let him finish before she spoke, her words cutting through his own. "What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger."

"What?" he asked, suddenly weaker, suddenly quieter.

"Your uncle is gone. Whether he be dead or missing, it makes no difference. He's still gone." Asha's words were firm, but not harsh. Hard truths. Hard words. "You can stand there, stewing in his loss, or you can learn from what he did and figure out where he went wrong so we can get back to Lannisport and tell everyone he lived a hero and give him the respect he deserves...or you can mope, learn nothing and we can all share in his fate and hope your brother Jaime does better when he ends up here too."

He tried to counter that. He opened his mouth, a witty retort brewing...

...but it never came. The counter didn't come. She was right. A part of him hated that more than anything, hated the fact that she had uttered words that he could match with all his wit, but she was right. Gerion was missing. Whatever had happened, Tyrion couldn't change that. He couldn't reach back to him at Valyria and stop the mutiny. He couldn't reach back to Lannisport and stop him from leaving in the first place. He had gone over the seas and gone to Valyria and ended up in Gogossos where only the Crone knew his fate if the later pages gave no clue. He couldn't change that.

He couldn't change what happened to him.

She saw it on his face.

She drove it in.

"You love your uncle, as I love mine," she said. "I'd look for him if he went missing or chase down the man that slew him, and I would mourn too...when the time was right. Now isn't the time or the place. We're not safe here. If you lose yourself to grief then you'll just end up as lost as he is. Who'd be left to sing of Gerion then? Who'd sing of you?"

"Not my father," he sighed, understanding, nodding. "But you're right. I can mourn when we get back."

"And it isn't as if you've found his body," she added, as if to try and cheer him, even as she walked back to the cabinet, tugging on a locked section only to smash the glass in with a clenched fist and a gloved hand. "For all we know he might still be alive here, and you won't need to mourn him at all."

And if he is, it doesn't help him if I am sobbing over his book, a part of him reasoned, wit and cunning accepting her words. Damn you, Greyjoy. Why are you always right?

"Fine," he said at last. "And Asha?"

She looked back at him from across the room.

"Thank you," he smiled...before rubbing his aching cheek. "Though I wouldn't go around telling everyone you slapped some sense into me. My father wouldn't approve when we get back."

"Yours wouldn't. Mine would," she japed, pushing her arm into the cabinet nearly up to the elbow as she rummaged inside. "There's barely anything in here worth having."

"Barely?"

"Gold dragons," she answered. "I must've found half a dozen so far. That uncle of yours hadn't spent all his coin before he got here."

Tyrion laughed.

"Knowing my uncle, he might've had more than he set out with."

"Was he a merchant?"

"A gambler, and a very good one. Give him a few stags at a tourney and he'd give you a dragons at the end."

"Must be that Lannister luck."

"That and he knew when to quit," he answered, walking over towards the table to let the book rest against its side as he read, taking some of the burden from his hands. "He wasn't fool enough to keep doubling down if things started to turn against him. He always made his bets carefully. If he started to lose, he'd take what coin he had left and leave before he ended up with less than he started."

Asha laughed, pulling out a small box from the back of the cabinet. A small iron lock held on stubbornly, so the Greyjoy began working on it the way that only an experienced reaver might, trying to slide the cutting edge of her axe into its seams. He couldn't help but smile. She might've not been the greatest beauty in the realm, but she was far more useful with that axe of hers than Cersei might've been in her dresses, and fun too. Asha cursed to herself as she struggled with the lock, and Tyrion finally went back to his reading.

But this time, he kept her words in mind. What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger. Wise words, and strong ones he kept in mind as he started to read once more.

Today, we finally reached Valyria, sailing beneath the smoking chimneys of the Fourteen Flames, or what are left of them. I made sure to celebrate it with the crew, popping open the last bottles of Arbor gold we had to celebrate for everyone to share. Valyria! VALYRIA! Queen of cities, fairest and greatest of them all! First men and first ship in three centuries to lay eyes on it! Living legends, each and every soul aboard! People were smiling, laughing. We had made it that far, we could go further still. The worst of it all behind us, the hardest parts done. An easy finish, and then an easier journey home to Lannisport, where gold and glory await, and plenty of girls, too, eager to hear the stories of the men that sailed through the Smoking Sea and came out with proof and plunder.

I wish the cheer of it all was as real as what I said. It isn't. The Fourteen Flames are a welcome enough sight, hard as it is to try and find out which one is which, but this place is more grim and foreboding than anything else. This was the place where the great Freehold was born, where all of Essos could be ruled in a single room filled by the most powerful men and women to have ever walked the earth. Dragonlords, who thought they were second only to the gods themselves, if that. The largest city in the world, so vast that it was to the Free Cities what they are to Lannisport, so massive in area and numbers it could devour half their number. Millions of people lived here, once. Slaves in the pits and dragonlords in their manses, but far more than that. There were bakers and carpenters, smiths and butchers, priests and beggars and all the rest. Squalling babies, their mothers, their fathers, people, people beyond counting.

And now they are all gone. I see ruins, endless ruins. They go on, and on, and on. Not one soul. Not a single one. Just us, sailing in silence broken only by the low rumblings of the Fourteen Flames and the cracks of distant thunder.

This is a cursed place. That is the truth of it. No place that has seen so much death can rest easy, so haunted by ghosts. I have no wish to join them, but it'll take more than wishes to keep safe here. The waters are treacherous here, so much so that we've had to sheathe all but one mast and use spare planks to support the tillerman and steer. We dare not go fast, lest we smash ourselves on the rocks or hit a half-submerged ruin. That is giving plenty of time for us to get well acquainted with the shore, draft together our own little map of the area to keep us from sailing in circles.

And that means we've noticed things moving on the shore. Not animals. Not people. Objects. Bits of broken stone and fallen timbers. I thought it might be another of those wyrms for a while, mayhaps one of their babies - Young? Spawn? Hatchlings? Pups, perhaps? I'm not quite sure what to call them - if they have such things, but there's boot prints as well. You can barely see them in the light, but the soot reflects well when it has been disturbed.

I daren't take the ship closer to try and find out, as I think I don't really want to know what could be making those marks here of all places, but I decided to have one of the men use a Myrish eye, keep searching the shore, and they saw it too. A shadow, barely seen in the dark. They said it was a man, and that was enough gazing ashore for one day.

"Bronn!" Asha shouted outside, snapping Tyrion from his concentration. "I need help with this lock!"

"Aye, and what makes you think I can break locks?" came the answer back.

"You're a sellsword, and sellswords are all cowards who steal from the baggage train after a fight."

He could hear Bronn laughing from the cabin. "You tried going through the case?"

"The woods just for show," she said, Bronn peering inside to take a look for himself. "There's a metal box on the inside."

"Tried prying it?"

"Doesn't give."

"Hinge probably rusted," the sellsword shrugged. "Try the back."

"I think there's another hinge inside that's holding it shut."

Bronn laughed, then, and came over, and even Tyrion's interest was peaked. It was a small case, a jewelry box mayhaps, made of good dark wood that had been protected from the passing years by the cabinet's glass pane....and the way that Bronn weighed it in his hands said it weighed more than it looked. "Have you looked for a key?"

Asha shook her head. "Can't find one anywhere."

The sellsword shook the box in his hand, listening to the quiet rattling on the inside. Something rolled inside the lock with every tilt and every turn. "One of the tumblers is broke."

He shook it again. Another rattle. "And there's two locks. Must've been one of those expensive boxes from Myr. Kind ladies keep their rings in."

"Can't get in, sellsword?" Asha laughed.

Bronn smiled. "Didn't say that. Some nails in the joins, back of your axe as a hammer and I'll have her open. Myrish boxes are meant to look hard, it doesn't mean they are hard."

"Where in the Seven Kingdoms did you learn to break into Myrish lockboxes?" Tyrion asked with a smile, peeking up from the book. "Were you a thief or brigand before you became a sellsword, too?"

"Might be I was," Bronn shrugged, putting the box on the table. "Might be I just got good at looting and getting more coin that way. I'll be back in a bit with some nails."

Tyrion laughed, and went back to his reading. Valyria. Valyria the beautiful, and Valyria the cursed. There was more to it than that, more that could be said, but Tyrion kept Asha's words close, wielding them like a shield. It was good to know what had happened, good to read his uncle's words, but there was work to be done, mysteries to be solved...still, he wanted to mourn, wanted to weep for the wreck and the fight and surely whatever else had happened to his uncle. He wanted to mourn the man who was everything a Lannister should be, a man with the same wit and cunning as Lann himself. But he couldn't. Not now. Not when they were still in danger themselves. Not when a blood sorcerer had come to make the island his own, and brought with him a fleet and an army and priests and wyrms and a plan, and Seven only knew what else he might have. He might even have reinforcements, already on their way from Volantis to tighten his grip with a thousand more men. Asha Greyjoy was right. There was no time to mourn. No time to grieve. He had to find out what happened. He had to find out whether or not Gerion succeeded. He had to find out if the sword might have ever made it to the isle to recover in the first place...and then, mayhaps, he had to find out what to do next.

He couldn't grieve for his uncle.

But he could read his journals, and so he read on. The entry was long, and the others hd interrupted him before it was finished, but he read on even as the sellsword came back with a handful of nails and began his work of cracking the lockbox open.

I daren't imagine what kind of man it would be to live and walk around here, in blasted ruins littered with the bones of dead dragons, great and small, and by the Seven, how many dead dragons there are here! I've seen the drawings the maesters made of the Dance, and I was young enough to visit King's Landing myself in the days before Robert took over and got rid of all the dragon skulls, so I know what they're meant to look like, but gods above, there must be hundreds of them, even thousands. I see wingbones jutting out like thorns, piles of spine and tail that had fallen apart over the years, and skulls, some as large as houses, larger than Balerion even, some as small as those of a cat or a dog, hatchlings that had emerged from their shells in time to die in the Doom. There's not enough light here to get a good count of them all, and I dare not light anything more than a candle in case we truly are being watched, but all but a handful of the Freehold's dragonlords had been here when the Doom came. This was the place where the Freehold was born, where their dragons were born. There must have been thousands of them, hundreds of them as big as Balerion the Black Dread was in the days of Aegon's Conquest, some bigger.

In a way, I suppose it could be a bit of butter on the bread of our voyage, a little chance to get some other, more worthy things to fill up the coffers for the return voyage to Lannisport or to show that brother of mine that we could do another voyage in the years ahead and do what old Tommen had tried and failed. But I would be lying if I said the sight of it doesn't make me worry. Three dragons destroyed the might of the Westerlands and the Reach at the Field of Fire, some three hundred years ago. Arrows, bolts, stones, none of them could stop the mounts of Aegon and his sisters. Even the downing of Meraxes was something that was more of a fluke than not, and even now the Maesters aren't sure if the bolt slew the dragon or if the impact did, and Balerion itself may as well have been a castle with wings for the size of it.

And here they are, dead and burnt til only bone was left, stretching off into the horizon.

If the Doom could do that to dragons, imagine what it did to the people.

No, best not. Fortunately, I shouldn't need to stay here long. See, I managed to get a map of Valyria. Not an original, of course, but a copy. The Volantines are forever obsessed with all things Valyrian, especially the Old Blood within the Black Walls, but here just like in Lannisport and Oldtown, new wealth tries to copy the old. There's a fashion amongst the merchants to buy Valyrian relics and antiques, wear Valyrian fashions and what have you, and maps of Valyria are a part of that as display pieces to be pinned on a wall of some such. The mapmakers copy the originals line for line, and they are anything but cheap. I bought the largest they had, so big it covers the entire table from corner to corner and has it all in lavish detail, down to the smallest alleys.

And this gives me an idea.

See, Valyria was the greatest city in the world when the Doom happened, which means these ruins are huge. It could take forever to find where Tommen went, if he's still here at all, but I'm no fool who didn't do my reading before coming out. His ship was a six decked galley, packed to the absolute brim with supplies, and what its oarsmen consumed he had the riches to replace on the way east and the wealth of Volantis to support him, who sent barges to resupply his ship for the last leg and make sure he could get where he wanted to go without starving to death on the way there. That's all obvious enough, but whilst the maesters might've neglected to write down how wide it was, common sense has my answer. A six deck ship has to be wide to avoid tipping over in rough weather, which means that he wouldn't have been able to take it into the inner city where the ruins are too close. Nor did he lack the wits to take it into somewhere he might get stuck in a dead end since no one could ever turn it around, which means he would stay on a straight through. I have map of all the roads, and that makes this much, much easier than it has any right to be.

And that map says that he was most likely near the outskirts of the city, where all the manses and temples might be. We are already on the way there, on a single sail. We could go faster, but it'd be mad to try our luck when there's bound to be sunken buildings beneath us and wrecked ships, too. Slow and steady, with plenty of time to react to something unexpected. Patience will get us much further here than haste.

As if to punctuate the end of the sentence and the end of his uncle's writing, there was a loud and awful bang as Bronn began hammering the nails into the box, pressing their sharp points into the crack of the seam, then driving them in, one at a time and careful with the amount of force, to pry the gap open, wider, wider...and slowly, but surely, it worked. The gap grew wider, even as the luck stubbornly held in place only to grow ever more exposed.

"Now you need to smash that bit out," the sellsword said, passing the axe back to Asha. "I ain't doing it for you. It'd ruin your axe."

"I've got a better idea," was the Greyjoy's answer. She took the box and its pried up seams and wedges it on the table's edge, pushing in and in until it was utterly stuck.

Then she flipped her axe around to the flat side and swung with all the strength she had. The bang echoed so loud that Tyrion winced, and a piece of flying box soared past him out onto the deck. The rest of it crashed to the deck and skidded on the wood to a halt against the table's nailed down legs...and something shiny and gold went soaring through the air, straight into Bronn's quick hand.

"What is it?" the dwarf asked as the mercenary examined his prize.

"Necklace. One of them fancy ones with the painting inside. A woman and a girl."

The sellsword gave it him without even needing to be asked. The box had done well, protecting its charge well from the years, allowing it to shine in all its beauty: a pendant, shaped like a lion's head, so richly and precisely detailed that the goldsmith that worked it had etched the lines of hair into its mane, with eyes made of tiny pellets of silver to better catch the gaze of any viewer. A tiny mechanism behind the mouth popped it open into two halves, revealing twin portraits: a young woman, beautiful and blue eyed, with curling locks of dirty blonde on the left, and a young girl, so young then that she was still more a baby than a toddler, with a tiny length of Lannister hair but her mother's eyes. He knew the both of them: the woman was Briony, Gerion's mistress and lover, the other was his one and only daughter, Joy Hill. The woman was gone now, and Tyrion hadn't seen her in years, but he knew Joy. She was still there, still at the Rock, a sweet and lonely soul that prayed for nothing more than to see her father again. Tiny strands of hair glittered, faded, but enduring, woven into the tiny canvas that bore each image.

This was something important to Gerion, mayhaps the most treasured and precious thing that he had taken on his voyage. Something that Tyrion should bring home with him, to the daughter that deserved to have it.

Tyrion closed it with care, then put it deep into his pocket, safe.

"I'll get it back to her," he said, as if speaking to Gerion. "Keep looking. Anything helps. You can keep the coin, but maps, writing, all that is useful."

Bronn promptly moved over to help Asha search the cabinets and drawers and shelves, pocketing gold dragons as he went. Tyrion didn't care for the coins. They had little value here, so far from a merchant, but the books and the writings and the maps and everything else, they might have value, might have an importance beyond their simple appearance. They might not last like gold or silver, but they were far more useful here than either. Tyrion was about to return to his pages when he saw a shadow in the door frame, and the Volantine sergeant stepped through, trailed by all his men, moving as quietly as they might manage. A spear was in his hand, his shield at the ready, and Qoherion looked about, gazing into every shadow before hurrying into the cabin. His men poured in behind him, closing the door tight and flanking it with their spears, huddling behind their shields for safety. Others went towards the smashed shutters, forming a shieldwall in front.

"It is here," he whispered, even his often stoic voice cracking with a hint of fear. "The beast is here."

"What beast?" Bronn asked first, careful with his voice. "Another of those eyeless things?"

"No, something far more terrible than that," the sergeant said. "Even the brindled men do their best to avoid it."

"The hells is it, then?" Asha said, taking her axe up for battle again.

"We...we do not know," the sergeant replied. "The master is the only one who knows -"

There was the creaking of planks, the crunching steps of old timber.

It came from above.

Everyone was silent. No one moved. Tyrion did not turn his pages, Qoherion took no steps, Asha did not flinch and Bronn kept his hand on the grip of his sword.

Another crunch. Another step.

A long and deep breath.

Another step. Another crunch.

A breath.

The deck trembled and groaned -

- and there was no crunch, no snapping of timbers, only the soft patting of feet on sand. Tyrion opened his mouth to speak, but Qoherion raised a finger to his lips. Silence reigned, the Volantines counted. One, two, five, ten, twenty, sixty, a hundred. Only then did any of them dare to speak, and even then only with a whisper.

"It prefers fast fights, fast kills," the sergeant said. "It never stays in one place for long."

"Aren't you meant to be hunting the damned thing, not the other way around?" Asha asked. "Why'd you hide?"

"It caught us by surprise, and in a bad place, too. It is one thing to fight the beast in the open, but here, there is much cover for it to use." Qoherion came over to the table, rearranging the debris, with a broken wine glass as the cabin. "It is much, much faster than you think, very strong and very, very accurate. It can toss a stone through the slit of a helmet from a hundred feet or more. All of this makes it dangerous, but it is the fact that it has the wits to know how to sneak and hide that makes it lethal."

"How lethal?" Tyrion asked...and saw the answer on Qoherion's face. "How many men have you lost since you came here?"

"To the beast? Thirty four," the Volantine admitted. "We cannot stop the damnable thing."

"They call it the ghost," one of his men said, one of the Andals from before - dark haired, dark eyed, and speaking his words with a grim, somber tone. "The Ghost of Gogossos."

"Your master Daerion wants us to stay safe," Tyrion said, quickly, hoping that the words might have enough truth in them for the sergeant to believe. "What...what is this beast? This Ghost?"

Qoherion swallowed, as if tasting his words. Then he spoke. "It is a creature built for the fighting pits."

"Oh, here we go again," Asha sighed, leaning against the cabin wall.

"But not the fighting pits of the Free Cities or Slaver's Bay, the pits of Gogossos," the sergeant continued, ignoring the Greyjoy's words. "The master says it was a champion of the pit whose creators sang their spells to control it, only for it to break free when they died of the Red Death and none knew the words to calm it. It never knew anything other than blood and battle, so fight is all it does."

"It'd be nearly four hundred years old. Shouldn't it have...died of old age? Grown weak?" Tyrion asked. "Even Balerion the Black Dread died of age."

"You must remember that it was built, not born. It does not age, for the men that made it did not allow it to. It will be as dangerous in a hundred years from now as it was a hundred years ago. It has been killing since the city fell, and so it has three centuries of experience in hunting and killing men here. The entire island is its fighting pit now."

Then the Essosi straightened. "It would be best if we stay here for a while longer."

"Aye, might be he's right," the sellsword agreed. "Better that we stay here and let the thing get further away than get picked off in the jungles one by one."

"Exactly," the sergeant agreed. "I do not wish to intrude on you in this place, but it is safer for all of us if we stay together."

Tyrion sighed, but he nodded. He couldn't be sure that it was not some Volantine ploy, some scheme of Daerion to keep an eye on them under the guise of protecting them from some creature that they hadn't seen...but this was Gogossos. Of all the places in the world where mad sorcerers might've made for themselves an ageless killer, it was there. Eyeless fiends stalked the night, men as large as Gregor Clegane lay in the jungles and armies of wyverns as small as birds soared in the sky. Why couldn't there be one more monster in a land of monsters, one more demon to prowl the depths of the green hells of Sothoryos, and why couldn't it have been made by the sorcerers, the skinweavers, the fleshsmiths?

So he turned his attentions back to the book, albeit standing closer to the walls so that none might peer inside. Qoherion, taking this as an acceptance of the presence of him and his men, gave orders that saw the entire group stay on guard by all the entrances, joining the ones at the shutters to peer out into the jungles and the shore, forever watching for a sign of their hunter, leaving Asha and Bronn to their search. Tyrion looked at the pages, but he didn't read, not straight away, not for a while, instead peeking up to make sure that the Volantine and his hunting party were not watching too closely. Only after he was certain they weren't did he begin to read again, and now, he would have to watch his words as well as his thoughts.

But still, he read on...and saw the excitement in his uncle's writing.

Oh Father, Mother, Maiden and Warrior and all the rest, we did it. We actually did it. It was damnable murder to get it, but we have it. We found King Tommen's flagship - the madman had made it to Valyria and got out, but lost his ship on a half submerged volcanic tunnel of some kind that smashed a hole in the bottom and burnt out not long after. It was easy enough to moor close by, come over on a rowboat and board the ship. Though the sheathe is ruined, the steel endures - Brightroar is in my hands.

Tyrion grinned. It was everything he could do not to say it aloud, to reveal to the Volantines why they had came so far south. Gerion had done it. Gerion had travelled through the black plumes of the Smoking Sea to the ruins of Valyria and found King Tommen's ship. He found Brightroar. He found it. What countless other men would have called impossible, what Tyrion's own father had called madness, his uncle Gerion had done. He had done the impossible, completed the mad. He had got Brightroar. That meant that Tywin was right. He had been on his way west.

Gerion had been coming home. That was the worst thought yet, the saddest thought, the thought that hurt the most. He had been so close. So close to being back at Casterly Rock. All he needed was luck, the tiniest amount of luck, and he would've been home. The greatest challenges of all should have been behind him, the rest but an easy voyage back to Westeros.

That hurt. That stung. Even with Asha's words ringing in his ears, it helped little. Gerion had been lost on the return trip, when everything should've been at its easiest...and he was still lost.All the wit, all the luck, all the success, and he still ended up in Gogossos, still ended up with his ship smashed into the sands. What did that say of their chances of making it back to Westeros?

"Are you well, good Lannister?" the Volantine sergeant asked. "You are pale."

"Didn't get anything to drink before we left," the sellsword covered. "Might be he's still thirsty."

"Thirsty," the Lannister said weakly, nodding, taking up Bronn's lie. He reached to the skin, and took the tiniest sip. The ale and wine helped. A part of him wished he might down it all, and then more still. A part of him wished he did not have to read his uncle's journal sober, but he still did. "The weather here is too hot for a Lannister."

"The mountain winds keep you cool?"

"The Rock is cool enough inside without the winds, but they do help," he answered. "Your men must be used to it by now."

"It is not the heat that gets you here, but the humidity," Qoherion reasoned fairly. "Volantis is very humid, very wet, and warm winds from the peninsula give it hea, but it is still no match for this island. I would not wish to stay here longer than I must."

"And how long's that?" Asha asked.

Qoherion looked to her, knowing, then looked back to the Lannister. Tyrion gave him a false smile, a smile that felt dirty and wrong, wrong to utter in the wake of his readings, and went back to the text, continuing where the entry had left off.

Ty, if you are reading this, there are wonders on that ship of a kind you couldn't imagine. He must have sailed around the entire peninsula, searching everything. There were crates upon crates filled with Valyrian scrolls - some of them were damaged, but others spoke of sorcery and prophecy and answers to questions I've been wanting forever, things that even the Citadel doesn't know. There was gold as well, and gems, and beautiful sculptures, and - you won't believe this, but I swear on mother's grave - a statue of Valyrian steel, a massive, fourteen headed thing he must have taken from a high temple or something. It must have weighed at least a dozen tons, but Tommen's ship was a massive six decked galley and he could fit the thing into his hold and carry it along. I wish I could have brought some back to you as proof, but you know what Valyrian steel is. It isn't like we could take a chisel to it and smash some off.

But that was just what we could find. The lower decks were flooded to the brim with stinking water, but if we had more time I might've tried to send a good swimmer down there to see what they could find, or mayhaps rip up the decks and have a peek that way, but we heard noises from the shores and felt the tremor of a wyrm, so we fell back to the ship and cast off again just to be on the safe side. I can't risk staying around any longer than we have, not when I have Brightroar, not when we have so much and are this close to bringing the sword back to the Rock. As much as it might tempt me, I dare not stay to make a second attempt, not when we'll need room for supplies and more once we return to Volantis, not when we're so close. We can't lose the sword a second time. I won't allow it.

But before we cast off, I managed to get a few things extra. More gift for when I get back, dear brother. It'd have been naught but bones by now and his vestments dust, and if there was one thing that the damned ship had in abundance it was both of those. We didn't have the room or the time to get them, that'll be something for a future voyage mayhaps. I still found it, not far from the blade: his crown, the true crown of the Westerlands and the Kingdom of the Rock. Not the little paltry thing that Aegon Targaryen got rid of, but the original crown, forged in the days of the First Men. The Crown of the Rock, worn by Lannister kings for as long as Lannisters were kings. I'll be bringing it back with the sword, and gods, what a beautiful pair they make. Even besmirched by ash and dust and in dire need of a good clean, I can't say that there is not a weight to them, a beautiful weight, a presence and a history. The first king Lancel had that crown on his head and that sword in his hand when he slew the Gardener king at Old Oak, and the fourth beheaded a Hoare king and prince with one strike. King Gerold had both when he smashed the Ironborn in their own waters and sacked their isles. Even the king that shares my nephew's name, Tyrion I, had them, to speak nothing of all the other great men in the Hall of Heroes, a crown on their head and a sword in their hands. They are a pair, meant to be together, and if King Robert says anything about us having a crown again I'll drink him under the table myself.

But that wasn't all that I took from old Tommen's ship. Like me, he had an eye for making as much coin from this venture as possible, and we already know he planned to give the Volantines a good share of the spoils in return for their hospitality and assistance with maps, advice and other such things. We couldn't get to the main holds, under the water as they are, but we could reach the upper ones that used to be part of the fighting deck. There's a king's ransom worth of dragonbone, and sacks of old Valyrian coins of fourteen sides, struck in gold. And gods above, the gems! They must've been mined from the Fourteen Flames in the slave pits, but they are huge and beautiful. One was the size of a melon and hadn't even been cut yet, but it looked like a ruby to me, and there are sure to be jewelers back at Lannisport eager to take a look. There was even more than that - lockboxes and chests, coffers and cabinets. We couldn't get them open as the locks were surely rusted through and we hadn't the time to smash them open or carry them off, but I bet there must be something truly valuable in each - mayhaps even more Valyrian steel blades, or even a dragon egg or ten. Who knows? Perhaps Tommen even found a suit of Valyrian steel armor? Better yet, mayhaps he even found a scroll with the secrets of how to make Valyrian steel? Imagine what that would do to Lannisport if it became the one and only place in the entire world where Valyrian steel could be made and new swords forged!

Whatever it is, we will have to come back for it in the future. Supplies are running low, but we should be able to make it back to Volantis if we are lucky and take care with our food. Once we are there, we restock and come west. The crew knows what they have, but they care only for the fact that we'll be leaving the Smoking Sea and that they'll all be free the moment this ship touches the wharfs of Lannisport, with gold dragons for each and every man. Even the Unsullied. I'll knight the lot of them myself if I can find a septon to witness it. As fearless and calm as they are, they've truly earned the title for themselves.

"Asha," he asked, a thought forming. Where else could it be? Where else could he have put the sword and crown? "Have you tried the chest?"

"The thing's locked tight, and reinforced on the inside. Even Bronn ain't going to be getting inside it."

The sellsword laughed. "Give me a hammer and I'll get it open eventually."

"The chest?" Qoherion asked, examining it for himself. The chest had been a beautiful thing, once, etched with a beauty beyond that of Tyrion's own, but scarred and aged it had long since lost its charm and grown ugly. Nailed to the floor and with heavy steel bands wrapping within and without to reinforce the oaken timbers, with double locks, it wasn't a thing that would open easily. "The master brought a locksmith. I am sure they can get this open with time."

Of course he has a locksmith, Tyrion dared to say. He's looting a city of monsters.

"They would have to come here," he chose instead, turning the pages as he spoke. "I doubt your smith would want to come here and get killed by a three hundred year old monster in the jungle."

"Perhaps we could cut it out?" the Essosi offered. "These timbers are old. They would not take long to cut through."

"And draw the monster back with the noise so that it can strike when we're all tired out?"

The sergeant considered that for a moment, then nodded. "Fair point. Perhaps we can come back whenever the Ghost lies dead?"

"It would be easier if we can just find the key instead."

"If," Asha said. "The Drowned God probably has it under the Summer Sea. You'll never find it."

"Can't smash it because of a monster, can't crack it because of the strength," Tyrion sighed. Can't pick it because the locksmith makes his keys out of meat and sinew, for all I know. "Can't find the key because of a storm. Mayhaps the Seven don't want us to open it?"

"I heard a song like that once," Bronn mumbled, pockets jingling with the sound of coins as he moved -

- then there was a soft thump above them. Not the hard crunching of the beast, not the steps of the Ghost of Gogossos, but a softer, quieter thump, like a pillow thrown across a room, but even a noise with so little power behind it was enough to silence them all, see hands clutch at weapons.

Then a wyvern appeared. A small, brown wyvern no bigger than a seagull, swooping down to sit on the shuttered frame. It looked about, curious. It wasn't his, wasn't his brown. This was a different one, bulkier, hardier, with a sharper, almost beaklike mouth that snapped open to reveal a dozen fangs. It took a shallow breath, and let out a call, half a roar and half birdsong. The noise would have frightened a mouse, but it did nothing to the party, nothing to the Volantines in their armor, or Bronn in his leathers, or Asha in her mail, or Tyrion with his book.

But then another of them appeared besides it, swooping down from above.

And then another.

And another. Five. Ten. They started filling up the space around, sitting on the broken timbers. Twenty. Twenty five. Forty. What had looked to be the shadow of a cloud outside was nothing other than an army of wyverns, some as small as birds, others as large as dogs, all in the striping, earthy shades of the brownbellied wyverns, all of them baring their fangs and looking on intently. The number swelled. Some eighty wyverns dove down.

"We're leaving," Asha said, putting on her helmet and turning towards the door.

"For once, Westerosi, you are speaking sense," Qoherion agreed. The Essosi reached down to his belts and into a pouch, pulling out a mesh of steel scales, a veil of darkened metal that he quickly affixed to the face of his helm, then reached in again to take out a glittering, shiny ball of polished metal covered in dimples and pits, a ball that caught the light just as it caught the attentions of every wyvern that saw it. "The master says this will work as a decoy, though I know not how long it will last."

Violet eyes narrowed. "Whatever you do, do not bleed. They can lose sight of us in the jungle, but they can track the scent of blood for miles. They will have us all if one man is cut."

"Do we have to leave? Now?" Tyrion asked, glancing towards his uncle's journal. There were more entries to read, more things to learn. More things to know that his uncle had done and seen. He looked towards Asha's iron expression, pleading in his eyes. He begged without saying a single word. The sword, the sword, where was the sword? What of Gerion? What of his uncle? He begged.

But she didn't soften. She shook her head. He spoke, hoping words might work where pleading failed. "We still have things to do -"

"Essosi's right," Bronn agreed, giving the dwarf a shrug as he cut him off. "Wyvern's are waiting. We've got to leave sometime, and they'll strike the moment we do."

"Better that we leave now before any other flights arrive," the Volantine warned. "If they do, they might not wait."

"I haven't any armor," Tyrion protested desperately -

- and Qoherion looked to one of his men, took his shield and offered it to Tyrion, the notched not-square of violet standing near as tall as he did. The Lannister blinked, disbelieving, til Bronn reached over and took it from the sergeant, testing the grips in his fingers. He smiled. "Stay close, Lannister. I ain't going to have you ripped apart by a pack of wyverns and lose the rest of my pay."

"Have you all lost your wits? We'll all be in the open!"

"They will come from above and follow until we reach the trees where they cannot fly so freely," the Essosi said. "A shield will serve to keep you safe."

"This is mad!"

"This is Gogossos," Asha said, simply.

"And Gogossos is mad," Tyrion sighed, closing the journal and wrapping it tight in the leather sheathings, hoping and praying that they might keep it safe now as they had for all the years since the wreck, pressing it into a gap in his belts to wedge it between leather and man. He took up a place besides Bronn, letting the sellsword lift the shield up, over their heads, carrying it with one hand as he kept his sword in the other...and then they all started to move. The wyverns outside watched in utter, hungry silence as the Volantines and the Westerosi both moved towards the door, forming a wall of shields together, the sergeant holding the twinkling ball in his hand as they drew closer and closer to the cabin door. No one spoke. They all knew what was about to happen, what they would have to do. Any man that fell behind would be left behind, left to be torn apart and devoured by a hungry pack. It would be a run, as fast as they could across the sands, sands covered in debris that hid every monster, watched from above by the rest of the pack.

"On a count of three," Qoherion started. "One, two, three -"

The Essosi threw. The shining ball shot through the back shutter, away from the party, glittering like all the stars of the night's sky. The wyverns leapt into action altogether as wine, diving upon it, screeching with a hundred voices that melded together into a mad, wailing cacophony of clawing feet, beating wings and and howling mouths, clawing and biting at the polished metal. Others descended from above, black shadows looming over the ground like the Targaryen dragons writ small, coming to investigate the fighting and feuding below, others ignoring the fight, watching, waiting.

They ran. They ran out the door as fast as their legs might carry them, leaping down from the Laughing Lion's broken body onto beach sands that burnt hot beneath their feet. Shields rose skywards as the first wyverns began to dive towards them, as a handful began to break off from the distraction and leap into the air, unfurling their wings to take flight. The Volantines moved together, staying clouse, shouting in their bastard Valyrian, locking shields and waving spears, and Bronn and Asha moved with them, trying to cover each other, trying to give the wyverns no opening. Still they dove to the shields, hacking and clawing with their feet and shoving their razor maws through every opening, screeching and spitting. Tyrion ran in Bronn's shadow, legs burning, chest aching, panting for breath with the vaulting leaps he had to take to keep up with their quick strides, pushing desperately for the dunes and the cover of the jungles.

Then the noise drew the rest from the ball, and the entire fury of the pack descended upon them, a horde of wyverns a hundred strong, rushing together as one force. They called to one another, grouped with one another. They began striking together as a group, working together. They slammed into the shields en-masse, pushing men backwards, pushing men down, trying to force them off their feet, trying to knock them off balance, trying to knock them out of position. Wings came from the left and the right, diving low towards the ground only to sweep their wings upwards, hard turns that saw them come from below the shields. Blades punched out in answer, Asha's axe hacking off a wing, Essosi spears puncturing bodies. Bronn's blade darted out like a wasp's sting as one tried to claw Tyrion's cheek, tried to tear out his eyes, the sellsword's steel piercing its scaled breast and the heart within before yanking backwards, soaked in steaming scarlet, the body flopping uselessly to the ground. A larger one, the size of a hunting hound, descended upon Asha's shield, clawing in, grabbing onto wood and metal, then threw out its wings, beating, pulling, tugging, pulling at the arm beneath. Another came, and another, joining their strength, a fourth coming down, attacking her axe arm -

- and the Greyjoy let go of her shield, and ran, and ran, rushing beneath the cover of the rest of the wall as they came upon the slopes of the dune, trying desperately to climb sand that slid beneath frantic boots. The wyverns clawed at it angrily, chewed at its face, but then a call sang and out and a group of them came together, lifting it from the ground through the combined strength their wings. They soared above them all as the men tried to cover themselves from clawing feet and biting maws, words shouted that could not be heard over the mad screams and shouts and screeches and calls and howls of the hungry swarm. Through the tiniest gap, Tyrion saw the shield fall, and a bang echoed as it struck one of the Volantine men, stunning them, forcing aside their shield.

The wyverns were fast. One dove in, catching his wrist beneath its jaws, twisting it to the side when it could not pierce the armor, forcing the spear from his grasp, then more came, and more, and more, the flock turning away from the others as they found a vulnerable man. He shouted and he struggled and swung about, but they went for his joints, went for his fingers, went for his face, and shouts turned to screams when ravenous mouths found flesh. It was the Andal, dark hair and dark eyes, torn from skin and socket. Others were already clawing at his armor, others realizing the straps were vulnerable, chewing and gnawing at the leathers to strip him of armor. Others dove on his face, fighting amongst themselves as they bit into cheek and brow and lip and nose, ripping and tearing and chewing and swallowing.

They were eating him.

Tyrion nearly pissed himself then and there.

"Up the slope!" Qoherion shouted, his voice barely able to pierce the feeding frenzy. "Forwards! Not one glance back!"

Another dove in for Tyrion. Bronn's shield slammed out, the draconic sigil on its front sending the wyvern tumbling back onto the sands, disoriented, confused, sent it hurrying away in search of an easier meal. Tyrion clawed at the sands desperately, sinking his hands into the pearl white as he rushed up, once, twice, thrice, slipping, sliding back, catching hold again, clawing, clawing, clawing -

- and up, onto the crest. He didn't look. He didn't turn, he didn't look. He ran, and ran and ran. He ran as the ground slipped, as his foot caught on tangled mats, and ran still, till his hand caught the bark of Gogossi tree, till his lungs burnt and bitter bile rise in his throat, til his legs threatened to give beneath him and send him tumbling face first into Sothoryi mud. He panted, he gasped, choking for breath, and through frantic eyes he saw others. Bronn, his brow covered in sweat, his sword hand soaked in blood, all cheer and daring banished. Asha, with scratch marks on her helm and rents in her leathers, crashing against a tree for breath. Qoherion too, the Essosi's shield covered with deep cuts and scratches, as if he had fought a pack of lions. More came, and more behind, panting, exhausted, battered and bloodied, more the survivors of battle than a hunting party.

"One lost," the Essosi panted, removing the steel veil to let him breath. "Only one?"

"One," Bronn agreed, reaching for his skin and taking a long, long swig. Tyrion joined him. He needed ale. He needed wine, wine enough to drown himself in. Trembling fingers struggled to grasp the cap. "Just one."

"What the hells was that?" Asha asked, breathing, tossing her helmet aside onto the earth. "You didn't say they knew tactics!"

"If I knew, I would," the Essosi answered quickly, honest. "The ilībōñosi things think."

"The bastards think? Is that your answer?" she snapped, lurching back to her feet. "One of your men is being eaten on the fucking shore!"

"Did you have a better plan?" he shouted back with true fury. "Do you think I like to leave my men behind to die, Vesterosi beqes?"

Asha's mailed fist struck before Tyrion even had a chance to say a word, striking the Essosi sergeant across the jaw. Qoherion reeled backwards and dropped his spear, but his hand rushed to his belt to draw his sword, his men came forth, and Bronn darted in, his sword going straight to the sergeant's throat, so close that wyvern blood dripped onto his neck. The Essosi stayed his hand, and for a brief moment, silence was everywhere.

"I don't know what a beckez is," the sellsword said, butchering the Valyrian -

"It means a sow, or breeding bitch," Tyrion explained, thoughtlessly. Glares came, Asha's harshest of all.

"But I know this fight'll just get us all killed," Bronn continued, ignoring the Lannister's words. "Might be you'll win here, might be you'll lose, either way they'll follow the blood. They ain't going to care who swung first and we'll all end up like him down there."

"And I would rather not escape one death only to walk right into another," Tyrion added, more carefully this time. "Manticores, ghosts and wyverns are deaths enough for one day."

Asha grumbled, but Qoherion said nothing. He raised his hands, and pointed to his mouth, but no one, not even his men, understood. He put a finger on Bronn's sword, on the blood, and pointed at his mouth.

The Greyjoy laughed. "Mouthful of blood and can't talk?"

The Essosi's expression was answer enough in its own right.

"What about the wyvern blood?" Tyrion asked. "They can't track that, can they?"

Qoherion shook his head.

"Will it keep them away for a time?"

Qoherion nodded.

Tyrion heard steps. Soft, pattering steps, so close as to be right behind him, to be right behind the trees. A beast, a monster, sneaking up on them all, mayhaps drawn by the stinking smell of wyvern blood. He bit down, his hands snatched for a weapon, catching on his own belts. They found the grip of his sword, tore it from their scabbard with a wailing rasp, and he thrust it out into the air -

- and steel clattered on steel as the strike was frantically parried to the side at the last second. Thoros of Myr looked at him with horror, red robes fluttering in the shore breeze and soft leather boots caked in Sothoryi dirt.

"What in the Red God's name are you doing?" the red priest asked in surprise, looking over them all. "What the hells happened here? You look as if you've walked out of a battle, and Qoherion has a sword at his throat."

"Wyverns," Tyrion said, quickly sheathing his blade again. "I thought you were another beast."

"If I was a beast, Tyrion, you'd be truly damned," Thoros laughed, before looking to Bronn and pointing at his sword with the tip of his own, wave-bladed sword. "Might be you'd be willing to take that away from his neck, eh?"

"So long as we don't all start killing each other, aye," the sellsword answered...without taking his blade away.

"I'd hope we don't. These robes are good at hiding blood stains, but I've only just had them cleaned." Thoros looked over the men, and his mood darkened. "I count one less than last I saw. That's enough for one day. There's enough death here already without us needing to slaughter one another, isn't there? Is that fine, Qoherion? What'd Daerion think if we all start killing each other?"

The sergeant nodded again, his hand coming away from the grip of his sword. His men relaxed with it, cautiously lowering their weapons, but Bronn still kept the blade at Qoherion's throat until they were out of quick reach, drawing his arm back with care to avoid opening the Essosi's throat. Then he turned and gave Asha the shield the sergeant had given him, replacing the one she lost...but he didn't clean his weapon didn't wipe it on a leaf or on a branch or in a puddle or on his clothes or anything else, letting the stinking smell of wyvern blood slowly dry. If the sergeant was right, it would keep the wyverns at bay all the more so, but Tyrion hoped it wouldn't draw the attentions of anything else in the woods, either, of creatures far more willing to move through the jungle depths than the brown bellied wyverns were. Thoros smiled as the group reformed together, even with the Volantine sergeant staying grimly silent and giving his orders with vague, waving hands and gestures, but orders his men understood and followed.

Unsurprisingly, the red priest decided to not mention the sergeant's sudden silence, and instead looked to Tyrion and the book on his belts, safe and unharmed.

"Is that from the Lion?" he asked.

"It is, but I didn't have the chance to read all of it," Tyrion answered, honest. He knew Thoros well, knew he was mayhaps the one and only man amongst the entire Essosi expedition that he could trust, however the hells he had gotten there. "There's more pages, and the last entry I read mentioned nothing of being here."

"I'd be glad to let you sit and read, but Daerion has other things in mind. He's making his march on the city center, planning to push up one of the main roads with most of his strength."

"And fight the brindled men in the streets on their own land? Has he lost his wits?"

Did he ever have them, a part of him wondered, silently. Friend or no, truce or no, those were not words he wanted any Volantine to hear.

"Say what you will, but he's ready for whatever it is," the red priest answered, waving the group over as he started to lead them back towards the city. "The man's got an army and the war engines he might need to support it."

"Scorpions?"

"On carts, too, with big wooden shields to cover the crew. Some have nets, meant to tangle the Sothoryi, make it easier to hit them. A few have pots of fire to lob. The brindled men are tough, but no one likes being burnt."

"Not you, Thoros?" Tyrion smiled. "What happened to your fire god?"

"Just because the Lord of Light is the god of flame doesn't mean I want to jump into a bonfire anytime soon," came the laughing answer. "If I did, who'd be around to introduce all the fair maidens of King's Landing to his loving warmth?"

"How did you even get here?"

Thoros went oddly quiet, and glanced over his shoulders at the rest of the group. Qoherion was trailing, trying to resist spitting out the blood of Asha's blow, and his men hung close with him, with Bronn and Asha ahead.

"I'm not sure how," the priest said, quietly. "Melisandre knows more about it than me. She's stronger in her faith, a real believer. Me, I couldn't even convince a fire-loving maniac in King's Landing that there was a god of flame who loved what he was doing. The fire of her faith is like a burning forest, but mine's something humbler...a candle, mayhaps."

"Hard to believe that fire is good when you see Rickard Stark burn."

Thoros nodded, grimly. "Aye. Might be that was the thing that did it. I might still wear the robes, but I'm no priest. I've less faith in the words we say than half the men that she puts around the night fires do."

"Then...why you?" he asked.

"That's the oddest thing," Thoros nodded. "The high priests barely said a thing to me before we set out from Volantis, just that they didn't want to come here in person. Might've been that they just sent me to die in their place, someone the faith wouldn't miss much, but they said that Daerion asked for me by name. The priests picked her, but Daerion picked me."

"But don't even ask me why," the red priest warned with a smile, using the tip of his sword to push a thorny plant aside. "I'm still trying to figure it out myself."

"Has he ever said why?"

"No, but he asks a lot of questions," came a quieter answer. "About Westeros and about Robert too, them and the Targaryens. A little about Aerys and Rhaegar, but more about the early ones...Aegon, Maegor, Jaehaerys the Wise too. He's planning something, that I know, but I haven't the first idea what."

"He is," Tyrion agreed, speaking as quietly as he might. "I read in my uncle's journal that a man named Daerion tried to buy passage to Valyria years ago...with cages."

"Cages like the ones he has on the wharf," the red priest nodded. "Might be he needs them for whatever ritual he's got her looking for. She knows the spells you need to get the tablets to work, enough to read through them and find out what's inside, but I think Daerion knows how to use it."

"I would wager all the gold in Casterly Rock that he does," Tyrion said. "I saw it with my own eyes. He put his hand on the tablet, he read it all for himself and the moment he looked away his eyes were red."

"Seven hells. You don't think he's...one of them?"

"A flesh smith?"

"A blood sorcerer, but close enough," Thoros took a long breath, then sighed. "This makes things worse. Do you have any idea what?"

"Whatever it is, it must be something important. Something that got him the support of Volantis and your Red Faith both. Something that needs the wyrms, a blood sacrifice and a ritual he can find here and nowhere else."

Thoros opened his mouth to answer, to think, but the ground stirred, a trembling motion that stopped their talking and their walking both, brought the entire group to a halt. A low rumble echoed through the jungle air, and wyverns and birds alike jumped into the air, soaring back above the canopies. Trees creaked, branches stirred, and all of it came from a small, green hill off to the left.

Tyrion blinked.

The hill moved, the light glittering off of dull green scales. A rumble echoed, and a plume of warm air rose from nostrils. A wing rose, a brilliant and beautiful skin covered in a dozen different shades of green, blending the body into the land around it. He recognised it, then. Recognised it from what he had seen before, from the brownbelly that had sat on his arm to the pack that had devoured the Andal at the shore, from the texts of the Citadel to the words of Qyburn.

A wyvern.

Not the lesser ones that flew in packs, not the little one that rested on his arm and shoulder. A wyvern of a different breed, a larger breed, much larger. A true wyvern, a brindled wyvern, some thirty feet long to his eyes. Smaller than a dragon, with a triangular jaw that gave it a shape akin to a bird's beak. Smaller than a dragon, lacking the flame that burnt within their breast. Smaller than a dragon, but with a far greater ferocity and anger when roused. Smaller than a dragon, but scaled and armoured as if it was one, with a crown of ebon horns that rose from the back of its head. Men called them the tyrants of the southern skies, and now he saw why. It was dragonkin, as related to the mounts of the Valyrians as he himself was to the Lannetts and Lantells and Lannys of Lannisport. To any man, to any singer, it would have seemed a dragon.

To Tyrion, it was. He had asked Gerion for one, once. He had asked Tygett for one, once. Both had told him dragons were gone from the world, gone and never to be found ever again.

And rousing before him but a few dozen feet away was a dragon. He had seen and touched and felt the skulls of the Targaryen dragons, hidden away in the dark so far below the Iron Throne. He had dreamt of dragons, once. Dreamt of soaring amongst the clouds on dragonback, with all the people of the world beneath him, ants in the shadow of a dwarf. He had even dreamt of burning Cersei with it, once. His favorite stories were always the ones that had dragons in them, strong and powerful and huge. Even the words of his uncles couldn't have broke it, dulling the edge and turning a love into a fascination.

A fascination that made him stand his ground as the wyvern moved. Trees groaned, branches snapped and plants were crushed beneath the bulk of its rousing body.

A fascination that made him look as the wyvern's eyes slid open, revealing vast orbs of a bright, emerald green. A long and dark slit cut down through the middle, so round as to seem almost manlike.

A fascination that let him stand still as others hid for cover as the wyvern sniffed, sharp tongue darting out of its mouth to taste the air. The blood, he realized. It could smell the wyvern blood.

And it saw him. It looked towards him with a flicker of interest in those great green eyes, the tiniest moment of recognition. The dragon-animal moved. It turned, rising up on thick legs, balancing its stride with the movement of its wings. Its back was broad. Broad enough for a man, broad enough for a dwarf. It could be ridden, he realized. He would need a saddle, and reins -

- and the dragon's maw opened.

His eyes widened.

The wyvern yawned. The noise was strong, strong enough to shake the trees, to send animals running, to snap Tyrion out of his daze and cover his aching ears. It drew a breath, and yawned, and yawned, and yawned...and then, at last, it began to settle back down, tired eyes drawing closed again beneath thick, scaly lids. The giant turned, nuzzling against itself, tial under head and head over tail. It shifted ever so slightly, letting itself bath in the bright heat of the Sothoryi day. It pulled its wings close against itself, a blanket of green.

And then, as quickly as it had roused, it went back to sleep.

Thoros, Bronn, Asha and all the others were frozen, stunned by the sight.

Tyrion was grinning.

He had seen a dragon.

Dragon, the thought echoed. Wyverns are dragons.

His eyes narrowed.

Something fell into place. Some realization burnt into existence.

Sothoryos had wyverns - dragons without flame.

Valyria had wyrms - flame without dragons.

Gogossos had sorcery. Sorcery to mate animal to man and man to animal. Sorcery to merge bodies, to build creatures.

Wyrms, wyverns, sorcery.

Tyrion realized.

Then he looked to Thoros and whispered.

"He's making dragons."

Chapter Text

****

Within Gogossos...

Though the walk back through the jungles was surely calmer and surely safer than being on the beach or being amongst the war of manticore and ant, Tyrion felt as though he would rather be anywhere else, as though he would rather be walking directly into the maw of the Seven Hells themselves than return to Daerion as the Volantines planned. It was a quiet walk.Steps trampled plants, beads of condensation and water dripped from leaves. Birds and wyverns sang.No one spoke. Not one word. He knew the truth, now, knew what it was that the Volantines were planning. Thoros knew and the jovial laughter of the red priest was gone. He wanted to tell the others. He wanted to tell Asha, wanted to tell Bronn, wanted to run through the jungles back to the Gerold and tell them all of what Daerion surely dreamt. He wanted to get off the island with a damaged ship or no, and sail back towards King's Landing with a warning, and bring the full power of Westeros upon the isle. Robert would listen, he knew. Robert hated Targaryens more than he loved his wine and whores, and that hatred of dragon princes and dragon kings would surely extend to the dragons themselves. Where the king led, the realm would surely follow, bringing everything they might need to overwhelm Daerion and his men. He wanted to tell them.

But he couldn't. He couldn't say a word. He was trapped, a lion caught in a cage. Qoherion and his men were all around, and another patrol had joined with them on the way back towards the city, back towards Daerion and his gathering host. They had closed in, too, and Qoherion had spat out the blood that blocked his speech after they got far enough from the shore that he was sure the wyverns - great or small - would not be able to follow. They surrounded them entirely, a circle with Tyrion and Asha and Bronn and Thoros in the midst, all within easy hearing. Not one of them would escape if the Volantines wished them dead. Not one of them would live to reach the Gerold, yet alone Westeros, if he said what he knew, so he couldn't, he couldn't. He couldn't tell Asha and Bronn without seeing them all dead, with spears in their backs and blades in their bellies. He couldn't run to the Gerold, not without the Volantines surely following with siege engines and catapults to burn her on the beach.

He couldn't say anything. Not yet, not here, not now.

But he could think.

But he could know.

And he knew. He knew what he was planning. He knew he was making dragons, now. Wyrms could breathe fire, but they could not fly. Wyverns could fly, but they could not breathe fire. The two combined would be a dragon, a giant that could soar from above and lay waste to the mightiest armies and the strongest fortress. He had the knowledge. He knew how to use the tablets, to manipulate them. He had brought everything he might need: an army to conquer the city, wyrms to use in the ritual, slaves to fuel the sorcery with their life's blood.

But surrounded by Volantines, there was nothing he could do with that knowledge, nothing that wouldn't get him and his crew killed and allow Daerion to work without even the possibility of interruption.

So he stayed quiet, as quiet as a ghost. He said nothing, even as Bronn and Asha japed between them, even as Thoros answered back to Qoherion's questionings in a weak voice that turned his Valyrian into mumbled whispers. He was the only other one who knew the truth, but he said nothing of it. Westeros was more his home than Essos had ever been, the Lannister knew, and he kept the secret.

But that was all they could. Keep the secret. Keep the silence. Keep walking, and hope that an opportunity might come...even if he didn't know what he might do with it if it did come. Run and be hunted down? Hide and be found? Fight and be killed?

Again, he didn't know what to do. Again, all the wit and cunning of Tyrion Lannister struggled with it, struggled to find some answer or solution that might let him leave alive and well, some means to leave Gogossos with Brightroar and his life alike.

There was an answer to that. Daerion wanted him gone. If he asked for the sword, if he asked for the help, the fleshsmith would be sure to help and send him on his way. Brightroar would return to Casterly Rock.

And then Daerion would complete his work. Sorcery would merge the flesh of wyrm and wyvern to bring about the rebirth of dragonkind...only this time they would be ageless creatures, utterly immune to the ravages of time and utterly under his thrall, enslaved to his desires with a strength of control that not even the Targaryens of the Dance of Dragons might match.

Tyrion dared not imagine what a fleshsmith of all people might do with such power.

But he knew that it would be no victory, no glorious triumph, no celebration worthy of song and story, no. It would be none of those thing, for it would be the beginning of the end, the last glimmer of the setting sun before the darkness of night fell and the world turned cold and dark.

That meant that there was but one thing to do, one thought that kept his mind busy as his body walked along in the absence of mind and wit. Brightroar or no, Daerion's work had to be stopped. There was obviously something missing from his plan, something that he needed to come to Gogossos to recover. The fact that he had brought an army was proof enough of that. The fact that he hadn't been able to complete his work in Volantis with the wyrms there and a wyvern bought from a passing ship was proof enough of that. In a way that a mummer would laugh at, Daerion had been honest - he was looking for something, mayhaps a relic, mayhaps a text. Whatever it was, it was sure to be the missing piece, the thing that he needed to complete his work and mission. Tyrion knew Daerion was looking for it. He had seen it with his own eyes, heard it with his own ears, and heard the words of others who knew it too.

That was the one thing he had in his favor. He knew what Daerion was working towards, yet Daerion did not know that Tyrion knew. He was the lion in the long grass, watching the hunter and yet unseen in turn. Daerion had an army, a fleet, sorcery and supplies and every advantage that a man might have in material, but he didn't know that Tyrion knew what he was planning. That was the one advantage that he had. The one and only one. Surprise. A man could be the greatest hunter in the world, but if he didn't know that he was being stalked until the lion was on him, it mattered little. To them they seemed but helpless, shipwrecked Westerosi, hardly at all a threat to his plans, something that could be brushed aside with ease if it proved itself a danger and something that could be ignored otherwise. It was that helpful ignorance that was useful, that ignorance that could keep them alive and mayhaps, mayhaps. allow them to stop him.

So he did his best to feign ignorance, to give not even the slightest hint that he knew their secret. He started to hum and whistle, jape and look about, ever the curious Westerosi fascinated and fearful of the land around. They walked, and walked, and walked, and still he kept up the guise, a mummer playing his part. Another Volantine party came past them after a while, their master shouting words of singsong Valyrian to Qoherion, who answered with words of his own before joining their groups again and continuing on their way. They were thirty, then forty, then forty five. Still he walked, still he hummed, going from the Bear and the Maiden Fair to the Dornishman's Wife to Six Maids in a Pool, on and on, ever innocent...but ever watching, ever listening.

And still, Qoherion said nothing. He knew what Tyrion was doing, knew that he was listening for any wandering words. The glare of the Volantine sergeant was enough to keep the men that formed in behind them silent and quiet, to keep secrets hidden behind closed lips. No words, not even Valyrian, were uttered as they walked their way back towards the city, but it was the journey that said as much. Their band formed a narrow line as it marched through the grasses, but they never came back upon the manticores and the ants, no. They took a different path this time, a path where snakes hung in the tree trops as large as the branches they coiled around, red and yellow and white and black, where one was slowly devouring the twitching limbs of a vampire moth. The marching of so many men in armor was enough to keep the creatures at bay, the clattering of scalemail and the gleam of spears and shields as much a warning to such creatures as their own colors and calls. No animal dared to draw near, but that was little comfort. They were not heading back to the port. They were heading to the city.

They were heading to battle.

And Tyrion was helpless but to go with them. One step, two, three, they walked on and on and on. He couldn't look past the thick leaves of jungle trees and bushes to see the sun, to see where it hung in the sky and how much time might've been spent. He didn't know how long they walked for, only that it was enough to hum half a dozen songs, only that it was enough to make his legs ache with the pinprick pains of a long journey. He thought to ask the Volantine how much longer it might be, how much further, but held back, held the words down, bit down, and walked on. He hummed another song. Bessa the Barmaid, one of Robert's favorites, one Tyrion could sing with half a bottle of wine in him. Still they walked. Oh, Lay My Sweet Lass Down in the Grass, though he couldn't remember exactly how the second half of it went, and what should've been a graceful love sung turned into mumbling murmurs. Still they walked. He was running out of songs. When Willum's Wife Was Wet came next, one he wouldn't have known at all were it not for Anguy, who'd picked it up whilst at an archery competition in Maidenpool for one of Lord Mooton's name days.

And as the last note faded away into the jungle, as he took a sip of ale-and-wine to moisten his throat, as he began to start the Rains of Castamere at last, the overgrown stones ofa city in ruin began to emerge from the growth. He could glimpse the overgrown bricks of crumbling houses between the trees and growth, could feel the ground harden beneath his feet, could see the jungle growing thinner as only the boldest and strongest shoots emerged from cracks in masonry. The march slowed, and Qoherion led them forwards with his right hand raised upwards, a silent warning. Their sprawling party followed in his lead, creeping ever forwards, hands readying on weapons. Tyrion was not fool enough to not do the same, and as his right hand rested on the familiar, comforting pommel of his sword, the left pressed on the cover of Gerion's journal, like a child clutching at their bedsheets in the midst of a moonless night. The earth was crumbly here, the stones loose beneath his feet, wobbling on long, gnarling roots that had clawed their way into the soil beneath and pressed up from below, yet with every step forward the ground grew stronger and more solid...and the view of the city ever clearer. This was not the port, where old warehouses and dockyards dominated the grounds, where old stalls were slumped over and broken, where walls of rubble blocked the side streets and where towers had become a home to scorpions and sentinels alike.

This was the city. This was Gogossos proper, far removed from the sound of the waves and the gentle breezes of the Summer Sea at rest. As they emerged from the trees at last, as they returned to hard stone beneath their feet, he saw that the walls he had seen were those of old homes, large - if humble - things of mossy brick and peeling plaster and crumbling timber. Each and every single one of them had openings above the ground floor, windows that had let out the damp heat and let in cooler breezes, but their shutters had long since fallen from their hinges and whatever curtains might've hung within had either rotted away or been taken, leaving naked and dark openings that groaned and breathed in the low winds. If the Volantine control of the port had brought even the tiniest life back into the land, some spark of what might've once been, then what was here was still the cold, quiet of a dead city.

The Volantine sergeant stepped forward, peering out into the windows, into the street.

"Rytsas?" he called out in his Valyrian, his hand resting on his sword. "Iksis mirre tresy hen Volantis kesīr?"

His voice echoed through the empty street.

There was no answer.

"This is not right," Qoherion said, suddenly. "There should be sentinels here. They should have shouted out a challenge."

"Might be whatever got them will get us, now that you've shouted out and told them we're here," Asha answered flatly.

"Not when there are so many of us," the sergeant answered, turning to the company of Volantine men. "Amīstan korzion!"

Prepare steel, Tyrion understood. Prepare for battle.

The answer was swift. Spears were readied, shields raised, and the group crept forwards, but it was Thoros that came to the head of it all. His robes let him move in dead silence, without the rattling noises of armor. Still, he kept his blade drawn and gripped tightly, clutching onto the grip with both hands. The steel trembled in his uneasy grasp. He waved for Qoherion in dead silence, mouthing words, Valyrian words, as he stepped lightly towards the leftmost house, towards an open door, the noise of the rest of the column masking his steps. Tyrion stayed back, ever careful, and Bronn and Asha drew close, looking here and there, glancing at shadows and the slightest of noises.

The red priest moved towards the door, creeping up the wall. His arms drew back, lifting the longsword over his shoulder for a swing.

He peered inside.

For a moment, he was still. For a heartbeat, Tyrion thought he might be snatched and pulled inside, as if the very house itself might come alive and eat the red priest whole.

But it didn't. Nothing happened. Nothing but a weary sigh as the red priest drew back from the opening, meeting them with grim eyes as he lowered his sword.

"The Ghost got them," Thoros said simply. "More than that you needn't know."

"They would have been an easy target on their own," Qoherion answered bitterly, leading the company forwards. "We will get it for this, and for all the other men it has slain. That I promise."

"How do you know it was the Ghost?" Tyrion asked. "Couldn't it have been the brindled men?"

"No, this is the Ghost's work," the red priest nodded. "Not even the Sothoryi can do what it did. See for yourself if you don't believe me."

"...would I want to?"

Thoros shook his head.

"I would leave guards to keep their bodies safe so that they might be brought back to the ships," the Volantine sergeant said...only to sigh. "But such would only leave more men to die at the creature's hands. We move on."

"Dīnagon va," Thoros shouted to the company, echoing the sergeant's commands...

...and the company began marching once more, but guarded now, ever vigilant. No one dared to lower their weapons, and no one dared fall out of place of the Volantine column, where nine rows of five men fit easily into the empty streets. Tyrion stayed at the head of it all with Asha and Bronn and Thoros and Qoherion, too, and tried his best to keep his eyes forwards as they passed the door, tried his best to not see whatever it was that the red priest had seen. He did not want to see, he told himself. There were enough horrors on the isle of Gogossos already without discovering what the Ghost could do to him. Wyverns, the brindled men, the eyeless creatures that stalked the night. He needn't see the works of another. He didn't want to. He didn't.

His curiosity pleaded at him. A part of him wanted to know, but so much else didn't.

So he bit down. He walked. He closed his eyes. He deafened his mind with the thoughts of home. Casterly Rock stood towering in the first days of winter, where mountain slow drifted down with every breeze to coat the world in a blanket of cold white. He thought of Jaime, accepting Tygett's challenge of trying to fight on the icy stones of the courtyard, laughing with every slip. He thought of their father frowning at that, saying that it was unseemly for a Lannister to be seen in such a way. He thought of Gerion, saying that it was better that Jaime learn to fight in snow and ice in the courtyard than on the battlefield. He even thought of Cersei, the snow melting in her golden hair as she watched their brother practice.  How many years ago was that now? It was the winter before the Year of the False Spring. Two hundred and seventy eight years since Aegon's Conquest, he counted with a far greater care than he might ever do otherwise. He would have been five, and brother and sister both would have been twelve.

There were gasps. Someone coughed.

He thought hard. There were girls in Cersei's shadow, girls who wore hoods and hats to protect themselves from the snow in a way that Cersei herself didn't. A true lioness did not fear a little cold she said. What were their names, now? He couldn't remember, not really. He couldn't remember their faces, even. Where had they gone? One was a Farman girl, weren't they?

There were mumbled prayers to the Lord of Light.

He thought harder. One was a Farman girl, true, but he was sure he could never place the other...Cersei was always surrounded by girls and bedmaids, daughters of lordlings and household knights, but even Tyrion knew she hadn't really liked any of them. What did he have for dinner that day? What joke did Gerion give him? What story did the nurse say before bed?

He wasn't sure, not really. It was too far back to remember...but still he tried. It was that try that carried him past the door, past the reach of his curiosity. When he finally opened his eyes again, when he dared to know the world around, they were half way down the street, far removed from the door and the gruesome sights within.

"Didn't look, Lannister?" Asha asked. She was smiling. "Don't have the guts?"

"I wouldn't look for all the gold in Casterly Rock," he admitted honestly. "This isle is hell enough already."

"Aye, well, I did," Bronn shrugged. "Dead is dead, ain't much difference either way."

"Then don't tell me," he insisted. "I don't need to know yet another way I can die."

The sellsword shrugged and said nothing.

Asha didn't. "At least it'd be quick."

"Haven't you tortured me enough?" Tyrion asked, japing words that he didn't truly feel. "You brought me back to life in time for me to end up here."

"You'd rather I let you drown?"

"And drink and feast in the Drowned Gods halls, with mermaids to tend my needs forever?" Tyrion asked. "It would be better than here."

"Sounds better than most places," Bronn mumbled.

"My uncle Aeron wouldn't know what to do with you, dwarf," the Greyjoy japed back. "Either the sea spat you out because it didn't want you, or you've got a little Ironborn in you after all and the Drowned God sent you back."

"A little Ironborn," Tyrion said knowingly. "Mayhaps my sigil should be a sea lion."

She laughed at that, and might've given him a jape of her own, were it not for another group of Volantines heading towards theirs from down the street, calling out to Qoherion and the rest in sing-song Valyrian, too quick and too fluid for him to catch. Whatever it was, it was something that put a smile onto the sergeant's face, and the group proceeded with a renewed pace once more, pushing deeper and deeper into the city. He was no mayor, no lord of a town or city, but he recognised the layout of the streets, recognised the way that the city had grown over the centuries. This was a piece of the city meant for craftsmen, but not smiths or woodworkers, no, this was like the jeweler's streets in Lannisport, where the buildings were as much workshops as they were homes, large and towering and well built and lavishly decorated with all the wealth that a truly skilled artisan might muster.

It should have been comforting. It should have been something familiar, to remind him of home.

But the houses were silent.

But the houses were dead.

And try as he might to ignore it all, he couldn't. It was familiar. Hauntingly familiar. It reminded him of home in all the worst ways. It reminded him of what he was doing. It reminded him of what Daerion was planning to do.

And that reminded him that what he saw all around him could be the fate of Lannisport should the fleshsmith succeed. Mayhaps. He didn't know his aims, didn't know his goals, but he knew what he wanted, and there was not a piece of his body or a pinch of his mind that thought that a man with such sorceries should ever be allowed to possess such power as dragons. Even the Valyrian Freehold had driven them into exile, so damned were they and the twisted arts they practiced. That pushed him on. That urged his steps forward, and kept his stride strong even when his body yearned for a rest.

It made the sight of Volantine banners deeper within the city into a cold comfort. Affixed atop a barricade of carts and wagons, a number of the Essosi stood on watching guard, the rest of their forces mustering for war behind their vigilant gaze. He heard the rolling of carts and wagons on the cobblestones before he saw them, and heard the noise of an army gathering together - men, talking, the sharpening of swords and spears, the clitter-clatter of Essosi scalemail. A whistle cried out at the sight of their group, and Qoherion led them forwards again, towards the barricades.

"Qilōni is konīr?" a voice challenged, another Volantine appearing in the windows of a building behind the wooden wall.

"Iā idañe tresy hen Volantis," Qoherion answered, shouting back to him. "Skorkydoso is ra?"

"Istiti gaomagon yn iā dorolvie ra, yn kesi memēbagon aderī," came the quick answer. The man laughed. "Kessa sagon iā adere vīlībagon."

"Naenie vali emagon morghūltan lēda lī udra isse pōja relgos," the sergeant warned...then tipped his head towards the barricade. "Ivestragī īlva isse."

"...the hells did he say?" Bronn asked quietly, leaning over to Tyrion as men hurried to move the carts and let them in. "Naynee...valley Immagun?"

"They're nearly ready to march," the Lannister answered with a whisper. "The man in the building says it will be an easy fight, but Qoherion said many men have died expecting an easy fight."

"He isn't wrong," Asha reasoned fairly and less quietly. "My grandfather Quellon died in an easy fight at the Shields."

"To use one of your Westerosi sayings, better safe than sorry," Qoherion said for himself, drawing the attentions of the three back to him, back to the open way ahead. "Come along now. The master will be expecting you."

Tyrion nodded. Tyrion followed. Tyrion did everything he could to seem an obedient little dwarf, trusting and friendly and utterly unaware of anything that they might have planned. Qoherion's second glance was the hint he may have gone too far, done too much, so he made sure to frown, to seem more grim and uneasy. It worked. The sergeant looked forwards, leading them towards the opening where Valyrian words grew ever louder. Asha and Bronn both looked to him, but he gave them a knowing nod, even as he prayed in utter silence that the Volantines had no knowledge of what he knew. He didn't know if it was death beyond the barricades, didn't know if they were going to stab him in the back or use their crossbows, or if it was another false honesty, but he still walked, hoping, hoping -

- and past the barricade was neither blades nor bolts, but a road. One of the city's greatest arteries and a match for the major lanes of King's Landing, the road was wide enough for three carriages to roll on either side of one another, a true and proper road where the surface was made of thick stone slabs that had stubbornly endured the three centuries since the city's fall and held firm and strong. The Essosi were everywhere. Essosi were on the battlements they had made of carts and wagons and barrels and crates, others atop old houses and stood on look out. Essosi were on patrol and guard, marching around in groups of ten or twenty, checking forever that the sentinels they had on watch were unharmed and ready, calls of Valyrian going here and there as they took answers from each and everyone. Some Essosi were even further down the road, working on their siege weapons, scorpions and small catapults that had been affixed to handcarts to help them move through the streets, others loading the carts with supplies and bolts and stone sacks and barrels filled with sand, and others still steadily pounding away with hammers, fastening on scavenged timbers of wood to protect the weapon crews from dart or javelin.

All of them was not even a third of the force present. The rest were soldiers mustering in the center of the road, forming up their ranks for the advance to begin. There were hundreds of them, too many for Tyrion to even guess. Two hundred? Too few for sure. Three hundred? Four hundred? Seven knew that there couldn't be five hundred. Four hundred, he reasoned. Four hundred men carried across the oceans of the south to a distant isle, fed and nourished by the food of their homeland a thousand miles away across stormy waters. That was no small feat...and the sight made Tyrion's stomach churn with unease. This was just their soldiers, the armored men they might have kept aboard their ships for boarding actions and coming ashore. There were sailors, too, the men who had manned and steered the Volantine warships to the edges of the known world. They weren't here, of course they weren't. They would be guarding the port, protecting their ships and supplies whilst the rest of their men fought inland, even if some sailors had donned armor to serve as troops and bolster the strength of their forces all the more.

And even with that, he had hundreds of men, then and there, in front of the Lannister's eyes, hundreds of men in scalemail with thick oval shields and long stabbing spears.

Daerion had an army. A true army, ready to make war.

What did that say of how many men that Daerion had here? How many soldiers? How many sailors?

What did that say of Tyrion's chances?

That was a thought he dared not dwell on, and one that the rough sounds of Bronn's voice was a welcome distraction.

"He must've been keeping them all over the port," the sellsword shrugged. "Ain't that many of them really."

"You say that, sellsword, but that's probably the biggest army you can get here," Asha answered back, wiping the sweat from her brow on the back of her sleeve. "You saw how much food we had to have on the way here. Most've them must be sailors."

"Daerion wouldn't have left the port unguarded," Tyrion said, his voice weaker, quieter. "He would have left some men there."

It was Qoherion who answered, the sergeant coming towards them with but one of his number as the rest went off to join their comrades. "The master says that you Westerosi have a saying: a man on a wall is worth ten under it."

"The brindled men are near as big as your walls," Bronn said, pointing towards a barricade. "Might be they could just reach up and grab your man straight off the top."

"Perhaps, but unlikely," the Essosi reasoned. "The ones at the port are taller and stronger than these here, and as long as the arms of a Sothoryi might be, the reach of a scorpion bolt is far longer. But that is not why I am here."

The sergeant turned towards the man with him. "This man will lead you to the master."

"Not you?"

"I would have done so myself, but mustering an army for war is a thing that requires my instruction," Qoherion explained. "He speaks nothing of the Common Tongue, but he will see you to him."

And with nothing more said, with no chance to say anything more, Qoherion turned and walked off, leaving them with an uncertain Volantine, a young man of some twenty namedays, cheeks glittering with silver stubble. For a moment he seemed as lost as what to do with them as it so often felt Tyrion was on Gogossos, but after a moment he mumbled something in a bastardized form of the Common Tongue, so rough and broken that the Lannister couldn't even begin to make sense of it, then started off down the road. The sellsword shrugged and followed, but with the Volantine's back turned, Tyrion raised a finger to his mouth. Be quiet, he warned without a word said. There was nothing to say that the soldier leading them didn't have an understanding of the Common Tongue, only that Qoherion said he didn't. For all they knew he was a native Westerosi, one of the dragonseeds that the Targaryens had left behind on their island who had gone east and joined up with the Volantines. The chance was slim, but it was a chance that he couldn't take. He couldn't afford that risk, not here, not when there were four hundred reasons to say not a single word that might find its way into an understanding ear.

So he said not a single word.

Not one word.

Yet despite his tight lips, the walk was anything but silent. Though Asha and Bronn followed his lead and kept their mouths shut and words swallowed, the Essosi were busy and spoke with a freedom that the Lannister dared not match...and spoke with words that he could understand. Not one of them spoke in the Common Tongue of Westeros, only in a flavor of Valyrian that was almost too quick to catch, almost too different to understand. Almost. None of them seemed to take the care that Tyrion did with his words, and so he heard it all. One soldier called out for more bolts for the scorpion carts at the rear, only to be told that they would have to use ones meant for ships instead, thicker and broader than the ones used by the other weapons and a hell for the arms of any man unfortunate enough to have to load them. Another mumbled that they hoped to find a cosy bed for a change, only to be barked at by their commander for not properly fastening the straps of their shield and placing themselves and the men around them in danger should one of the brindled men be able to tear it from his arm. They said all that, as any man might do before battle.

But it was the prayers he heard the most. The Red God was strong in Essos and strongest of all in Volantis, that he knew. Though a few of the men seemed to keep to the gods of the Old Freehold, much of the rest kept to the Lord of Light. Here as in Westeros, as in any place where men might live and fight and die, the Essosi prayed before battle. An old house that had crumbled onto a sidestreet had become a bonfire, a blazing inferno where Thoros of Myr and the red woman held their sermon with many men gathered around. Though the words of Thoros were the ones of a man who questioned his own faith, the woman's - Melisandre, he realized and remembered - were anything but doubtful, and many men followed her words and lead.

It was nothing like the solemn words of septons before war, nothing like what he had seen before his father's men went off to fight in the Greyjoy Rebellion.

No, it was singing. Beautifully sang Valyrian, as sweet and warm as a lover's kiss and as graceful as the finest dancer. It was Melisandre and she could sing. Thoros struggled to keep pace with her, his words more like a blacksmith hammering at uneager steel, a wavering pitch that couldn't quite keep the tune straight as it tried to match a woman who sounded better on her own than half the choirs in Westeros did. Her voice was as loud as it needed to be and as clear as Myrish glass, flavored with all the accent of her homeland, graceful, elegant, perfect. She had the beauty to match such a voice, too...but when he looked at her, all he could think of was that night in the dark, when Daerion took the tablet from his men, when his eyes burnt crimson and myth and legend leapt out of the shows of mummers and the fearful writing of maesters to become something far too real. That thought was enough to sour even her brilliant beauty, but the sight and sound of Thoros suddenly and awkwardly mumbling part of the song, a part he had forgotten entirely, was enough to bring him out of whatever sour mood the thought had put him in, enough to put a smile on the Lannister's face even as faithful Volantines looked to their priest with dismay.

That smile made the walk far quicker and far easier than it might have been otherwise. Still, he was grateful he didn't have to walk far. The Volantines were wary of being attacked before they were ready, that much was obvious, and they had kept their presence here a tight one - far from the walls and towers of the port, everything and everyone was kept in close order, with little space and little distance between one thing and the next. Still, Tyrion had half expected to see that the Volantines had taken a building to use for planning and command, a house where they might organize themselves away from their encampment. They hadn't. Instead, the Volantine soldier led them down the length of the road, towards the open end of their rallying ground. Companies of men marched by, taking one final chance to practice their formations before the coming of battle, taking one last chance to organize and make ready for combat. Siege engines were inspected for readiness, swords checked for sharpness and sheathed in belts, spears gripped and lifted upwards.

Then they reached the end of it all, the edge of the grounds.

And there he was.

Daerion.

Fleshsmith, his mind screamed at the sight of him. He knew him. He had seen with his own eyes what Gerion had wrote. He had seen with his own eyes what Daerion had done. The tablets. Text glowing, stone flowing. He had seen it all, he knew it all. He knew what he wanted. He knew why he was there, watching his troops. Even in their armor, even with their spears and shields and stabbing blades, he seemed to tower over them all with no armor more than a padded jacket. Arms crossed beneath a cloak made from the pelt of a tiger, a thing of white and black and orange, the Essosi - if he was Essosi, a part of him wondered - watched the men marching by with a confident, if disinterested, eye. The glint of shining silver caught the dwarf's eye, drawing his gaze towards the clasp: a star shaped thing of fourteen points, bearing the symbol of a dragon, a one headed dragon that soared ever upwards.

He waved to one of his men on the far side. They looked. He nodded.

A call rose. A horn wailed once, twice, thrice. On the last, it was met with the prickling noises of a dozen or two dozen whistles sounding one after the other, all the way to the rear. The pace of everything around picked up, and men started to form their ranks as the first line prepared itself to march.

They were nearly ready, now, nearly ready for battle and war, nearly ready to claim the heart of Gogossos for themselves and give it over to their master. Did they even know what he was planning, a part of him wondered? Did the Volantines and the red priests know that he wanted dragons? Did they know that whatever bargains they might have had with him might be worth nothing the moment he had them?Did they beleive as Tryion had that they were there merely to loot and plunder? Did they think he was looking for some sorcery capable of healing? Did they know?

Tyrion didn't, and for a split second his mind went blank with unease as Daerion met his gaze.

The sorcerer smiled, welcoming them with a nod.

"I take it you found what you were looking for at the Lion?" he asked warmly. "I would hate for you to have came this far to the edge of the world only to return home empty handed."

"I found his journal," Tyrion said, revealing a truth that was obvious, patting the comforting leather in his belts. "But little more than that."

"A pity," Daerion offered with a sigh. "If you have any need of assistance, I am sure my forces could be a great deal of help, if you are willing to say what it is that you are looking for?"

"It is a...Lannister matter," were the Lannister's careful words. "We can't talk about it except among ourselves."

"Even with those who saved your lives?" Daerion asked. "You were sure to die on the beach if it weren't for our arrival. Does that not prove our good intent to you, even without the feast and the help in finding your uncle's ship?"

He laughed, then. "Or is all this because I didn't shake your hand when you offered it?"

That was something Tyrion had barely remembered at all in all that had happened since, but it was useful, a good distraction, a good way away from the other topics. He took it. "Mayhaps. It was a bad impression."

Daerion stepped towards him, then, towards him and Asha and Bronn, his army forming up only a half a dozen feet from them.

"Then I hope this is a better one," he said. "I was curt on the beach, rude, and for that I apologise. I had worried that you might make a nuisance of yourselves, but now I think your presence may have been a blessing after all."

He offered his hand, just as Tyrion had.

"It is not often that Westerosi and Essosi stand together as friends, but I hope that today is one of those days and the beginning of better times between our peoples. What say you, good Lannister? Shall we go forwards together?"

There was nothing in the world Tyrion wanted more than to turn him down. He knew what he was. He knew what he was planning. He wanted to ignore that hand the way Daerion had ignored his. He didn't want to be near him. Who knew what knowledge he had, what sorceries he might unleash. Who knew what things he had done, or even how old he might be. What if he was Gogossosi? What if he was not merely a blood sorcerer, but one of the original fleshmiths of the isle? How many men might have died at his hands? How many women? How many children? How many dwarfs just like him? How many of their bodies might've been cut apart at Daerion's hands, how many lives ended to fuel a quest for knowledge no man should have? How many monsters might've been made by those fingers?

He didn't know. He didn't want to know.

But he knew that for all that he might have wanted,for all that he thought and hoped and valued and cared for, he couldn't do it. He couldn't turn him down. Westeros and the Westerlands and Casterly Rock and Jaime and all the others depended on him, now, depended on seeing things through to the end. It was about more than Brightroar, for even a Valyrian steel sword was still just a sword. This was far more important, far more serious.

He could not turn him down. Whether he wanted to or not, he had to take his hand. He had to. He had to.

So he took it.

Daerion's hand was warm, his grip delicate, his movement slight.

It lasted but a few moments, moments that felt for but a heartbeat as if they were amongst the worst in his life. Tyrion took his hand back, put it in his pocket, feeling as if it would never be truly clean again, as if he would never be clean again.

Still, the Lannister smiled. He forced the smile to his cheeks, forced it there and held it there with every ounce of will he might muster. Fleshsmith, his mind howled, fleshsmith.

"We will," his voice croaked out, suddenly weak and feeble. He swallowed hard. He spoke again, stronger this time, mayhaps. "We will."

Daerion smiled once more. He offered his hand to Asha.

She shook her head.

"Bad luck to shake hands before a battle," she said.

"Truly?" Daerion asked, pulling his arm back towards him.

"Aye," Bronn agreed.

No, Tyrion heard.

"Well," the Essosi or Gogossoi answered. "Let us hope it has not gave us too much bad luck."

"Why?" Asha asked, half mockery and half serious. "Don't think you've got enough men?"

"I am confident enough in my troops and the weapons they have, but luck never hurts."

As if to punctuate his point, as if to prove the meaning of his words, another whistle wailed. The entire Volantine host was gathered, now, formed up into a neat column that stretched down the street, some three hundred men in the front, siege engines behind them and a hundred more men behind them to cover the rear, a reserve in the case the worst came to pass. Qoherion came up to them at last, accompanied by a number of other men that must have been Daerion's own retinue, one carrying the banner of their home city high and another carrying a horn, a pretty and gilded thing carved from dragonbone, etched with images of victory and Valyria both. Neither of the red priests were with them, but even from here he could spot the familiar red hues of their robes billowing at the back of the host, safe from direct combat.

"Are the troops ready to advance?" Daerion asked his men.

"Of course, master," Qoherion nodded and bowed together as one. "All of our forces have been instructed as to the plan and are ready to carry it out. We are ready to march on your command."

"Let us begin, then."

Qoherion bowed once more, then reached to his neck and pulled a whistle out from amongst his violet scalemail, a small and simple little thing that made a piercing screech from the depths of the Seven Hells the moment he blew on it, the Lannister wincing hard as the noise stabbed into his ears, like a knife scratching its way down a plate. It lasted but a heartbeat, and the sound of the sergeant's voice was a sweet relief from it.

"Memēbagon!"

A flurry of whistles and a shout from the weapon crews answered, and suddenly the Volantine host was marching forward, the old stones of an old road clamoring with the sounds of splinted boots and the rattling of scalemail and the groaning timbers of rolling wagons pushed along by unlucky men cursing their misfortune. Some four hundred men set off to war, but their group kept pace alongside, some twenty rows from the front. Tyrion was sure that there were few places safer on Gogossos than there, surrounded by four hundred men armed and armored, but that was little comfort. They had not been asked if they wanted to leave and Tyrion did not bother to ask the question. He knew the answer, knew what would be said without even a single word uttered. Whether Daerion might mask his words under the guise of it being for their own safety or not, he and Asha and Bronn were going to be kept alongside the host, "escorted" by the Volantine troops as they went into battle. Tyrion didn't know why and didn't ask why, even as his mind tried to grasp an answer. To keep them from returning to their ship? If that was such a problem, why not slaughter them all and be done with it? To make a show of force? Was their rescue at the shore not enough of one already? To bring them to a convenient death? Were the wyverns at the shore not convenient enough already, and why would he even want to be so crude when he could just kill the three of them, hide their bodies and say they disappeared in the jungle?

No, Tyrion realized. He had a thousand ways to be rid of them with ease, and the fact he took none of them meant but one thing.

He wanted them alive.

Why, Tyrion didn't know, but it didn't feel as if he wanted them for his rituals. If what Asha said was true, they would have the slaves for that, plentiful fuel to burn on the altar of blood sorcery like the wood tossed into a hearth to cook a roast. Why might he possibly want them alive then, if not for sacrifice? Study? Did he plan to cut Tyrion open and find out why he was a dwarf and Bronn a full man? Was that it? To hack him open and measure his guts and keep the dwarf alive as Daerion took his bones out? Or was it mayhaps one other thing, one thing his mind struggled to grasp.

What if he was being genuine? Did he want to keep them safe?

It was Daerion's own voice that brought him back to the world, away from his thoughts.

"You have gone quiet, good Lannister," he said, with what might pass for honest concern. "Is everything well?"

"The city is...grim," he said, words that were half a mask and half honest.

"It must remind you of Lannisport and King's Landing, but that I imagine only serves to make the tragedy worse," the sorcerer reasoned fairly. "A city is still a city, and a city is meant to be a busy place, noisy and full of life, and yet this one is not. Empty buildings, devoid of all meaning without the people that gave them purpose. There is always something sad about that."

Tyrion wasn't sure what to say in answer to that, only that it was his own feelings given word. Daerion seemed to notice that, seemed to read it on the dwarf's face and continued.

"Even born as a prison, the city that rose here was kin to the Free Cities and lain out in much the same way, born from the same ideas," he started. "This street would be one of the rōvēgrie ñuhoso, a main roadway. The Freeholders always thought that it made more sense for shops and stalls to be found only on the main roads, that it was safer for people to visit them if they had no need to go onto crowded sidestreets."

He pointed past the advancing ranks of his army and at the buildings on the far side, pointing towards one in particular: a squat thing that completely lacked a wall at the front, but had an arch instead, a low and looping thing that went from left to right across the full length of the building. The bright light of day made the contrast too strong for him to clearly see whatever lay within the shadowed dark, especially with Volantine troops in the way, but he could barely make out a counter inside, or a table, mayhaps a desk.

"Is that a tavern?" he asked.

"Close," Daerion explained. "It is, or was, a cook shop. Have you been inside any of the homes here?"

"Couldn't pay me to," Bronn said for him.

"If you did, you would have seen that few houses here have a hearth," the Essosi continued, explaining even though no one had asked, but a part of the dwarf welcomed the distraction. "There are half a dozen reasons why. How hot it can be, how there was little room to build a house on in the safety of the city, the scarcity of good fuel to burn and more besides, but all of it meant that they could not cook food in their own homes, but the cookshops had ovens and hearths aplenty. If you wanted a hot meal, it would come from there. The crowds here would have been at their thickest around the arches, the people of the city coming to collect food for dinner."

Then he sighed once more.

"And now there are none."

"I'd never have noticed," Asha said, words dripping with sarcasm. "Are you sure they aren't all inside?"

"I am merely trying to make some conversation," Daerion apologized. "The walk will be slow and boring otherwise...marching into a city is anything but fast. What of a new topic, then?"

This was a chance, a useful chance, a rare chance. A chance to get Daerion to talk without arousing suspicion, to pry out the little shards of knowledge that Tyrion might need to understand the full plans of the Essosi, or even if he was Essosi at all.

He took it.

"Asha told me you have a collection of things from your travels," he said, finding the strength to speak normally, to suppress his feelings behind a wall of false normalcy. "You must have been all over Essos, like Lomas Longstrider. Were any of the places...interesting? Special, mayhaps?"

"Are you asking if any of them stand out?" Daerion paused, thinking...and then continued, speaking with an energy, speaking honestly. "I have been across the known world and a little beyond in my travels and seen things you would never believe. I have seen the throne of Yi Ti, sailed with the whalers of Ibben, stood amongst the khals at Vaes Dothrak and seen their handiwork in the ruins of Essaria, to name but a few."

"Why?" Bronn asked.

"Why not?" Daerion countered swiftly. "Travel can be its own reward if you let it, and there is more to it than merely seeing new lands. Meeting new people, seeing new ways of doing things...that is the most precious thing of all, far more so than gold or gems."

"How?" the sellsword asked again, unbelieving. "You can't buy bread or stab a man with what you saw a thousand miles away."

"Or hire sellswords," Tyrion said. Bronn smirked knowingly.

"No, it can't," Daerion nodded...before giving his true answer. "But neither can a man who does not know what a coin is, or who has never seen a sword or spear. An apprentice smith does not simply walk up to an anvil and suddenly know how to forge a breastplate, no, he has to be taught by someone who does. Without that teaching he would know nothing, and without countless thousands of such things happening everywhere we would have no smiths at all, no carpenters, no farmers, no skilled men at all. The world would be a far worse place for it."

"The same thing happens on a far larger scale between lands," he continued, going deeper. "The Andals had not the first idea of how to work steel until the Rhoynar taught a few of their smiths who went on to teach others, teaching more and more til all of them knew. Then they brought that with them to Westeros and the First Men learnt it from the Andals little by little, until eventually it was common knowledge there, too. Now, think of every other profession, every other trade that takes a skilled eye and an experienced mind to solve. Healers and architects, strategists and cooks, sailors and carpenters and, yes, smiths, too. Think of everything that we might know in our lands, then imagine what they might know in distant Yi Ti, or Asshai, or further beyond in lands that know as little about your Westeros or our Free Cities as we do about them."

"The Andals and the Rhoynar were right next to one another, yet what one learnt from the other was enough to change Westeros forever," Daerion smiled, graceful, even regal. "Imagine what we might learn from those in the far east, or the furthest south, if we make the effort to reach out to them and listen to what they have to say."

"The master is wise," Qoherion approved. There was that hint in his voice, that tone of something that went beyond mere obedience, but into honest praise, honest admiration. "Even the mighty Freehold knew to learn from those it conquered."

"And what have you learnt?" Asha asked, neither a challenge nor a jape. "You've all those things in your tent, so you must've been to the east just to get them."

"Well noticed," Daerion laughed. "Yes, they have all been picked up over the travels, though I will have to admit that I had less time than I might have wanted to learn from the peoples I met. There is only so much time you can spend ashore, after all, before you have to start heading home. But to list a few..."

He raised his open left hand.

Then Daerion pulled in his thumb.

"First, I learnt how to sail with the Ibbenese and how to keep one's bearings well into the open waters of the Shivering Sea, something that proved very useful in getting here. Sailing across the oceans is always difficult enough, but the Ibbenese have their own methods, things they use to let them find their way to the whaling waters east of the North. Hard work, let none say otherwise, but better for work to be hard than to see their children starve for a lack of meat to eat or freeze for a lack of oil to burn. "

His first finger was the next to close.

"Secondly, I learnt how to use a bow on horseback at full gallop and still have the aim to strike a man dead from a hundred yards away with a bow. The Dothraki are infamous for their raids, but meet them at Vaes Dothrak where they will shed no blood and they are amicable enough if you bring something nice to drink. Even the horselords can scarcely resist a pint. I will be the first to admit that skill is less useful here where there are no horses, but that does not make it any less impressive."

Then the long middle finger.

"Third, A courtier in Yi Ti taught me how to make exact copies of written letters using block cuts, pressed into ink. Such a simple thing, but something that can save you a great deal of time if you know what you are doing. It takes a great deal of time to carve the blocks, but if you do it properly you can produce exact copies of a missive over and over. That makes organizing a fleet such as ours far easier when you can stamp out a list of supplies for every ship rather than write it over and over again."

A ring finger, unmarked by the dark grey stain that might be half hidden on the right.

"Fourth, I had the great privilege of watching a Myrish healer cure a blind woman by removing her cataracts with a needle without damaging the rest of the eye, drawing them out and dropping them in a bowl of water. Their vision was blurry afterwards, but better for them to see things as a blur than to see nothing at all."

Even if some kinds of sorcery could do better, Tyrion heard without it being said.

The last finger.

"And, of course, I visited your Westeros and learnt a great many things about preserving food for long winters, and checking the health of seeds for the next planting season once the snow melts and spring comes again. Not everywhere is so harsh as your homeland as to need such things, and so most simply do not have them, but what helps you and yours to preserve their food for a three year winter is just as able to keep the food in our holds fresh even in a long voyage."

Daerion laughed, then.

"Humble things, perhaps, but that is just a few of the lessons that I have learnt during my travels. There are so many others that I could talk for hours and still not have said it all. Have you not learnt something interesting on your voyage?"

"That I never want to come to Gogossos again," Tyrion said honestly, his words joined by the quick agreement of Asha and Bronn both.

"That is...a fair lesson, I suppose. I have been to a great many places over the years, but there is nothing worse than an empty city," Daerion's usual, eager mood faded, then. "It makes little difference whether it is here, Essos or Yi Ti, it is the emptiness that makes them so terrible to behold that even a city ruled by tyrants is better."

He was quiet for a moment, then. Thinking. Contemplative. A graceful sorrow, like a courtier at his king's funeral.

"The sight of it is almost enough to bring a tear to one's eyes, is it not?" he asked them all softly. "This city was inspired by the queen of cities itself, even if it was but the palest reflection of Valyria's splendour and beauty. The Freehold gave much to the world, filling it with wondrous things. The very layout of the Free Cities is but one, as pretty as they might be from dragonback, but what of Lys, whose ageless beauty is worked in stone? Or the sprawling monuments of the peninsula, or even the Black Walls of Volantis?"

"All wondrous works of the Freehold," Daerion said, quieter still. "It makes you wonder what other, magnificent things were lost in the Doom."

Pits full of slaves condemned to die in the Fourteen Flames, a part of him yearned to answer, to finally strike back, to counter his words with cunning wit. To raise the truth of the realm Daerion adored.

But he didn't. He couldn't. He had to choose his words carefully for the sake of his own life at least, for the sake of Westeros at the most. "Dragonstone is a beautiful castle. I had never seen stone worked so fine before I saw it with my own eyes."

He still hadn't seen it, but Daerion didn't know that.

"Masonry was an art that dominated the old cities, for stone was the building material of choice," the Aurentys smiled, explaining it to him with that innocent, graceful voice he had within the tent. "With the Fourteen believed to be within the world's heart, it is easy to understand why they chose materials close to them. They didn't worship the stone, of course not, but it was felt that it was...special, at least in some way."

"They had spells to work it, didn't they?"

"They did, for the Dragonlords of Old Valyria were strong in sorcery, as were their sister cities. You have seen the walls of Dragonstone, but the same practice was used wherever the Freehold truly claimed. The Dragonroads of Essos, for example, or the Black Walls of Volantis. Both were built by spell, as were some of the deeper parts of this city. Though it is far heavier than Valyrian steel, it is just as impervious to harm. No trebuchet can damage a wall built of Valyrian stone."

"But the structures themselves were not the greatest achievement of the Freehold no matter how grand they might seem," Daerion said with honest admiration. "No, it was what they represented. Valyria could build them across Essos, here in Gogossos and on your island of Dragonstone because of the strength of their Freehold itself, because Valyria could not merely reach them and travel to them, but administer them, govern them, bring its power and resources to distant lands and make them their own."

"Dragons make everything easy," Asha quipped, unimpressed.

Daerion's answer was so quick that it was as if he knew exactly what she was going to say before she said it.

"That was not because of their dragons, good Greyjoy. The Targaryens had dragons, yet they could barely hold the Seven Kingdoms together and project their rule to all corners of their realm," he explained. There was something to his voice, something...not eagerness, but something else. Familiarity, perhaps. "No better example of that exists than the Dance of the Dragons, where they plunged themselves and their kingdom into civil war because of the failures of your Westerosi laws."

He turned back towards Tyrion.

"Had the Freehold tried to work with such legalisms as yours, it would never have reached the heights it did." He paused, as if to find the words. "That was the greatest of all the strengths of the Freehold, its greatest achievement and the thing that drove it to power: laws. Compare your Westeros and the lands of Valyria. A woman might need an escort if she is to travel just from village to village in your lands, but in the Freehold, they could walk a thousand miles between each of the Free Cities completely alone and arrive unharmed."

"Then there are the merchants. A Valyrian tradesman could travel far without fear of brigands or thieves, and even farmers and fishermen could toil without the fear of raiders on horse or ship. Generation after generation of Essosi could live and die without seeing a single sword drawn in anger, or a bow used against a fellow man."

But then he softened.

"Was it perfect? Beyond criticism?" Daerion asked, only to answer for himself. "No, of course not. But is it better than today? Where Dothraki khalasars prowl the plains of Essos and when sellswords play the Free Cities off of one another for coin?"

He did not wait for their answers, whatever they might be. He simply smiled again, and let Qoherion say it for him. "Yes, of course. How could it not?"

"And that is why Volantis more than any other deserves respect," Daerion added. "They remember the days when there was only Valyria, so strong in its power and so confident in itself that even the Dragonlords themselves settled their disputes in courtrooms rather than on the battlefield. And why? Because they believed in the law. Men do not want to resort to violence at first, they turn towards it when everything else fails and when they have no belief in the law as a means to settle their disputes."

"That is why you had the Dance of the Dragons, the Blackfyre Rebellions and even your own Robert's Rebellion," the sorcerer continued with the same passion and energy as before. "Rhaenyra did not believe the law would be fair in its treatment of her claim, and so she rebelled. Daemon Blackfyre did not believe that Daeron would allow for a council that might dethrone him if it found his claim wanting, and so he rebelled. Robert Baratheon had his entire revolt brought about by the fact that the Mad King failed him entirely by calling for his head and killing his allies when they came to him with a fair and reasonable dispute, and so he rebelled."

There was a moment's silence, then. The words sank in like stones falling through thick mud.

Daerion laughed, and then looked back to Asha. "So, do you see now what I mean?"

Asha's answer was fast.

"No."

That caught the sorcerer off-guard more than anything else that might have been said. For a moment he seemed genuinely lost as what to say, all the confidence and all the energies of but a few moments before struggling to find its footing again.

Qoherion was the one that spoke. "Se Vesterozia gaomagon daor pendagon, sȳz āeksio."

"Gaoman daor mazōregon bona," Daerion answered. "My sergeant thinks that it is a waste of time to talk to you about such things, but I disagree."

"Why?" Asha asked, bored, teasing, making a mockery of his words. "Might be he's right and we Vesterosi are all too stupid to understand what you're saying. That's what he said, isn't it?"

"Because of all the lands that I visited, your Westeros is among the most splendid."

That caught Tyrion's attention.

"What?" he asked. "Westeros?"

"Being born there I imagine you have never had the chance to realize how wondrous your homeland truly is, merely growing up with it as the norm. But for an outsider coming rarely to your sores, you quickly start to realize that Westeros is far more than you might think."

Asha laughed. "You just said Westeros was worse than Valyria, and now you're saying -"

"- that for all its faults, it is still better than almost everywhere else," Daerion answered and countered as one.

Tyrion tried to keep up with the discussion, tried to match him, tried to keep pace and gain some understanding of the way that Daerion thought. This was something important, he realized. Some key piece of the way that he might think and view the world. Something that could tell the Lannister how he thought and how best to use that against him. Something useful. Something so very, very useful.

But for the life of him, he couldn't keep up. His wits were struggling to work with him, pressing back when he tried to think. The creeping claws of a growing tiredness were starting to sink their way in, the sleeplessness of the night before slowly but surely taking its toll, slowing him down, breaking his focus and replacing it with a growing fog that left him struggling to comprehend what Daerion was saying. How many hours had he been awake, now? A full day for sure, but then what? Six? Eight? Twelve?

He didn't know. He'd lost count.

But the tiredness, he knew that. He couldn't put it together. It was a blur, a blur of words that he struggled to place into order, yet alone understand.

Still he tried, still he thought, and grew tired, struggling, trying -

- and Tyrion yawned.

"The lion roars," Daerion japed, his sergeant laughing. "I apologize if I have been boring you, good Westerosi. Mayhaps we should pick a better topic."

"No," he tried to insist. "I can still understand."

"Then I will say but one more thing. In truth, your Westeros is not so much flawed as it is...incomplete," Daerion reasoned at last. "But this is best to be a topic for another time, I feel. It is perhaps something too complicated to discuss on the march to war. After we have won would be a better time."

Bronn looked at Tyrion and shrugged. The Lannister might have struggled to keep track of things whilst tired, but a part of him wondered if the sellsword had fared any better...the man had surprised Tyrion with how much he knew, but he would wager a fistful of gold dragons that he knew nothing about Daerion's talk of laws and justice...and as if to give the Lannister the mercy of a break, it was Bronn who looked to the Essosi and spoke.

"How come you're so sure you'll win?" the sellsword asked. Asha's glance shared the question. "Each one of them is near enough as big as the Mountain. A spearwall ain't going to stop that."

"A spear can stop a horse," Qoherion challenged.

"Horses don't use clubs."

"And horses do not walk upright on two legs. What of it?"

"It is a fair concern, sergeant," the master added, turning his attentions to the sellsword. "The Volantines hold very close to what the Valyrians one did, in more than a few ways. The mentyn is an example of that. Even the dragonlords knew that they could not be everywhere, and that they would need foot soldiers to hold the ground that their riders claimed. And of course, the Freeholders knew how to recognise a good idea."

Even in the murk of a weary mind, some part of Tyrion still recognised what he was talking about. "The Ghiscari legions?"

"They were the foundation of the idea, but the Valyrians adjusted it to suit their own needs. They traded two of the three spears for a stabbing blade for fighting up close, changed the shield to be larger and more defensive and gave them more armor. All the same, it is a defensive unit, not an offensive one, but I expect the Sothoryi to be the attackers here. We may be the ones pushing into the city's heart, but they will see our attack and sally."

He smiled then, as he often did.

"That will turn an offensive situation into a defensive one, where the terrain -" he gestured to the walls on either side, the houses and buildings that would cover their flanks. "- works to our advantage and covers our weaknesses well. There are reasons why even the bravest of your knights would think twice about charging a line of spearmen from the front, and I aim to force the Sothoryi to make that exact error."

Tyrion frowned. Even with all the strength that Daerion had around him, even with his scorpions and spears and all the other power he had, the Lannister was not so sure. He had seen the full fury of the Brindled Men on the shore, seen how they could lift a man as big and tall as Sandor Clegane himself from the ground and toss him like a child throwing away a toy. What kind of formation could hold against that kind of strength? When giant hands could reach past the shields and grab the men that carried them and pluck them from their places? How could that work?

How couldn't it, a part of him reasoned. Daerion had spears. Spears could stop knights on horseback, and even the Sothoryi were smaller than a man on his mount. Tyrion might have been a dwarf, but he had been trained in arms, and his uncle Tygett had told him that the greatest worry he might ever have was that a tall man had reach, and reach won fights. Long arms let men hit an enemy without being hit, but a spear was longer than any arm. The sword may have been the most famous and noble of weapons, like a pork roast at the feast table, but the spear was the bedrock of war, the bread that might be ate with every meal.

And  they did not need to kill the Sothoryi. They merely had to hold them in place whilst the siege engines slew them in droves.

Daerion could do it, he realized. That thought forced the cloud of tiredness aside. That thought pulled him back. Daerion could win.

The master spoke. The sorcerer's words seemed ever friendly, ever warm and now concerned, but Tyrion never allowed himself to forget what he was. Fleshsmith. Sorcerer. Butcher.

"Is there something troubling you, my Westerosi friend?" he asked. "Mayhaps something that I could help you with?"

Mayhaps you could jump in a fire, the Lannister thought. At least then that'd be one thing sorted.

An idea formed, crawling out of the dark where some part of him still struggled to work with all that the Essosi had given him. A thought, half curious and half cunning.

Tyrion had a chance, here. He had a hance to steer the conversation. He had a chance to learn of useful things, plainer things. Things that were not nearly so vague as his talk of kingdoms and freeholds, but of things in the present, things of his work here on Gogossos. He would have to be careful. He would have to be more careful than ever. He would need all his cunning, all his wit.

And he would need his strength. He would need to be like his father, like Tywin Lannister.

He had to take charge.

He started with the reach of a fumbling hand towards his wineskin, and a raised hand that asked in silence for a moment's pause. He took a sip, long and deep. The skin was getting lighter, but the ale-wine helped. It quenched a thirst he barely knew he had, the odd-but-not-unpleasant taste cracking through the tiredness like a ray of sunlight piercing clouds. A little ale and a little wine, enough to bring him his wits. He capped it, carefully, always carefully, and returned it to his belts.

Then he spoke with a fresh energy. Cunning, careful, and coming from a direction that seemed all too innocent.

"I was thinking of the reign of Maekar Targaryen, one of our kings," Tyrion said innocently. "He brought much law to the lands of Westeros too, more than had been seen in years. He crushed brigands and robber-knights wherever he went and brought back order wherever he went."

"I am less familiar with the history of your lands," the Essosi seemed to evade, but couldn't. He had said too much, revealed too much familiarity with Westeros. He had to answer, and answer he did. "But he sounds a noble king indeed."

"He was, but then he fought the Lothstons," Tyrion added. "There are half a dozen different accounts of what happened to the Lady of Harrenhal. Have you ever heard of her? Danelle Lothston?"

"Was she not believed to have turned to sorcery?"

"Indeed," Tyrion smiled. "They say she met the last of Aegon the Unworthy's mistresses and learnt how to keep her youth from her, just as Shiera Seastar did. Why, they said she bathed in the blood of maidens and girls to keep her youth, among other things that the fleshsmiths would have looked at fondly."

Daerion smiled.

"You Westerosi must be a truly superstitious people at heart, are you not? As if you thought that there was not enough of a curse on Harrenhal already, your singers felt the need to make it into your very own Gogossos."

He looked closer. There was something different in Daerion's gaze. He peered closer, looked harder. The sorcerer was watching him now.

"Tell me this: if she was truly vested in half the sorceries that they say she had mastered, that you say she had mastered, why did she not simply sweep Maekar aside when he found her guilty of witchcraft? That is what a blood sorcerer would do, why not her?"

Tyrion did not hesitate to answer. He spoke, thoughtlessly.

"Seeing how he was dead before the turn of the moon after the siege's end, might be she did."

"That would be a feat worthy of Gogossos, seeing how she was dead," Daerion answered, a swift dismissal. "Had she truly been anything of the sort of sorcerer that lived within this city, your Maekar would never have made it to the walls. There is a reason why the tales say that all the men and women and children of this city were killed by a death that came from the blood pits, good Lannister, and that is because it is true. If she was sorcerer, why would she not merely create a plague of her own and destroy his host?"

"Mayhaps she simply didn't know how?"

Daerion laughed, then. His gaze changed. He didn't suspect Tyrion, now. He saw Tyrion as but a dwarf, trying to be clever about things that he did not understand...and Tyrion was not going to try and tell him otherwise. Better he think him a fool than not. It let him mask his wits in plain sight, let him move more openly without fear of being caught and slaughtered.

"Mayhaps. I would find it more likely that she was no sorcerer, merely something that most Westerosi lords might be scared of."

"And that is?"

"A woman with power of her own."

Asha laughed, then, but didn't say a single word.

"She laughs, and yet it is so," the Essosi continued. "Whenever a woman in Westeros shows that she has strength, some source of it is found that is beyond her body. The same thing was said for your Visenya Targaryen, who had the strength within herself to best even the greatest knights of your realm in single combat. For that, she was damned as a sorcerer. Only a fool would actually think it so, else she and Maegor would not have taken nearly so long to crush the Faith Militant."

Daerion continued before the Lannister even had a chance to try and contest his point.

"Of course, that is primarily a failing of your maesters, rather than something inbuilt to Westeros," he acknowledged. "Lady Oakheart rules in her own right, and has since before Robert's Rebellion, yet none call her a sorcerer. It is only when they try and challenge the king - your so co called "father of the realm" - that they start writing in their tomes of how they bathe in maiden's blood, or eat newborn babes for supper. Few men have the bravery to challenge tradition, and questioning the practices of the past is the first step towards an attack on the present. Your lords would not look fondly on it, not when so many of them have so much to lose should an elder sister suddenly seem to have a stronger claim.."

"And Essosi books are more honest?"

"More honest and less honest, in their own way. They have their own failings. The works of your Citadel are ever fond of both your kings and the Hightowers who are their patrons...and why would they not be, if it is the backing of those patrons that keeps them and their quill from the gutter? Essosi writings are much the same, albeit in favor of their own city as a whole rather than its leader in particular, or at least that of the magister who funds their words. A wise man reads Westerosi books about Essos, and an Essosi book about Westeros. That way, you get the truth of all things."

Tyrion dared.

"And what is it that your Essosi books say about Danelle Lothson, then?" The Lannister asked, allowing a mask of curiosity to hide his attempt to steer the words back towards where they needed to go. "Is she not a blood sorceress?"

"As I have said, I am less familiar with the history of your land than of mine," Daerion answered, suddenly ignorant. "But I am sure that they speak nothing truly ill of her. A butcher, perhaps, a mad woman, most certainly. A sorceress, however? I think not."

Because you would know, wouldn't you, he thought to himself. The glyphs, glowing. The stone, flowing. The eyes, crimson and bloody. Daerion knew full well what sorcery was, even if he feigned otherwise. That was something Tyrion knew, even if the Essosi had yet to learn that he had. He had his sorcery, he had his wyrms, he had his army and soon he might have even have dragons, but he still did not have any idea that Tyrion knew. That was one thing the Lannister was certain of, even here where nothing was truly certain at all. Daerion did not know, for if he did, he would have every reason to put the Lannister and the rest of the King Gerold's crew to death and avoid the risk of undesired interruptions.

But he didn't. Tyrion lived.

"Why not?" he asked. "You say she is not a sorceress, fine. Why would the maesters call her that, then, and why would any lord be scared -"

It was Asha that cut him off, not Daerion.

"Of a woman with power of her own?" she asked, taunting. "Because if it happens once, it can happen again."

"Your realm has far more than a few weak lords, men who lack the mental strength and willpower to rule. That is why," Daerion added to Asha's words. "It is not how hard it is that you swing a sword that makes you a leader. It is about the certainty in one's own actions, the confidence to consider the words of others without accepting them outright,that are two of the most important things that make a good leader...and they can be found in anyone. There are plenty of people who simply lack the will to be a good leader, but find themselves in that position anyway simply by virtue of being born at the right time and to the right parent. A strong arm does not make you king, nor do quick wits or even a mastery of words. It is willpower, the determination to persist against all odds to get something you want. That is what makes a man into a leader and makes a leader into a king."

"I'm sure Rhaegar's chest didn't want to be caved in by Robert's hammer," the Lannister japed. "A pity for him it was fated to get caved in."

Bronn laughed. "Might be it was just luck. Half the singers I've heard say that Daemon Blackfyre died looking like a goose. Might've been the same thing could've happened to Robert."

"Robert Baratheon, brought down by arrows?" Asha added, laughing with the sellsword. "He'd have been a true stag, then."

Daerion was not laughing.

No, for once, he seemed entirely serious.

"Fate is in the hands of men, good Lannister," the Essosi continued. His voice felt colder, harder. "It is not by the will of gods or by the whims of prophecy that some men rise to greatness and change the world whilst others do not. There is the thought that the world is like a potter, shaping them like clay. That is a lie, meant for children. A comforting lie, yes, a way for one's self to blame some unseeable force for their error rather than accept that they had robbed themselves of success through their own failures. It is still a lie."

"The truth of the world is far less comforting, and yet it is the truth. That truth is that good choices provide the strength that one needs to to get ever greater chances for strength and from there ever greater possibilities, till you eventually have the power that you can simply reach out to the so called whims of fate and make of them what you will."

He met the dwarf's eyes with his own, violet gaze, like a tutor speaking down to a young child.

"That is the truth of the world, little Lannister. It is not the potter, but the clay to be worked. A strong man can simply make the world what they wish it to be, or work themselves till they have the means to do far more."

"It seems I have much work to do, then," the dwarf answered. "Mayhaps I could still make myself taller than my brother Jaime?"

Daerion smiled in answer, as he often did.

"Mayhaps you still can. You merely need to find the right strength to do it."

Daerion did not need to say what strength he meant. Tyrion already knew. Sorcery. If there was ever a place in the world where it could be found, it was sure to be here. The magics of a dead city. The thought had tempted him before, tempted him in the tent, tempted him more than anything else. Daerion had seen that, he wasure. There was not a thing in the world that he might want more than to be a whole man, to stand an equal in height to his brother Jaime and their father...but still, the thought haunted him. There was only one way that they might have learnt such sorceries, and the thought of others like him left horrifically disfigured by the "studies" of blood sorcerers soured his stomach, to say nothing of the men and the women and the children who had died to do it, used as fuel like the timber in a baker's oven. It was a good thing. It was a horrific thing.

And it was a thing that made him ask, that pushed words from his mouth without thought.

"Is that why you are here?" Tyrion asked. "To find some strength?"

The very second the last word left his tongue, Tyrion realized what he had said. He realized he may have said too much, revealed too much. He realized that Daerion might know and understand, might know to put them all to death -

- and yet he did not. He spoke as usual, and met the Lannister with the eyes of a man genuinely interested in their talk. If he knew, he did nothing.

"I have my own plans," Daerion smiled at the dwarf, Tyrion unsure if the gesture was true or false. "But if you must know, then know that I intend to do what any good man should do. I intend to stand back and watch the world march on without me no longer, and instead reach out and take its fate into my own hands. As is said in the famed Orosi philosophy, a man has the moral responsibility to make the world a better place if he has the means to do so, else he is damned for his inaction. The same goes for the baker watching the beggar starve and die in the alley as it does for myself, here."

"And here I thought you were being honest since we came ashore," Tyrion japed back with words that were not truly a jape, trying to pull things back, divert things. "Or are you going to make the world a better place with those relics you are gathering for Volantis?"

Daerion laughed at that, a soft noise, but a laughter born of honest amusement, not mockery. "You act as if one can be done without the other. Does remembering one's heritage not give them a surety of purpose, which, in turn, gives them the drive they need to make the world a better place? Is that not the true way that the world is worked - by men, filled with determination, realizing that it can be changed and shaped at will? And are such men not motivated by the memory of what was, and the dream of what might yet come to be?"

He looked at Tyrion, then, and saw uncertainty on his face.

"If you really must know, there is a relic within the city's center of great value," Daerion explained. "One of but a handful: a complete set of Valyrian steel plate armor."

Tyrion couldn't be sure if he was lying or telling a half-truth, both to try and cover the true nature of his purpose here, but the interest he gave was not entirely false. "Truly?"

"Truly," Daerion smiled. "Such works were never common. Valyrian steel was rare even in Valyria itself, showing well why it is hard to find even in Essos and why your Westerosi lords cannot simply travel east and buy one there. But it takes far more metal to make armor than it does to make a blade. One would need enormous power and influence to have one in their possession...a Triarch of the Old Freehold itself, for example."

That was something more interesting, more interesting in an honest way, and a welcome respite from other things they had discussed. "There were Triarchs in Valyria?"

"Indeed, three Triarchs. The reason goes back into antiquity, when the Freehold was still loosely held together and not the more rigid structure it took on later. The Freehold had a strong framework of law, as it was thought that the only way to keep the newborn Valyria from destroying itself was if the Lords Freeholder had a means to wage their battles in courts of law rather than upon the battlefield. Splitting power over three people was key to this, as it meant that not only would any action need a majority of support, it would always ensure that there was at least one individual willing to listen to a given complaint."

"It is one of the things that the Freeholders designed to keep dragon from fighting dragon," he reasoned. "Your Dance of the Dragons is not so much a failure of the Targaryens as it is a failure of the law itself. People are more likely to resort to taking matters into their own hands if they have no faith in the law to settle their disputes, as I said before. The same goes for a claimant to the Iron Throne as it does for a vigilante dealing out their own justice in place of their lord...only with dragons, things get far worse."

"But that is a topic for another time. Valyria had three Triarchs, and a sign of their station was armor, but no Triarch came here unless absolutely needed. This place was made a prison because it was remote, far removed from Valyria, but that same isolation made it a poor place to one of the three to visit. But rather than leave the blood sorcerers to their own devices and leave them to do whatever they pleased to those interned here, an Exarch was installed here to rule in Valyria's name. They had armor. When the Doom came to Valyria, the blood sorcerers....deposed them," he said delicately., needing to say no more of what horrors would have surely befallen them. "With their demise, the armor fell into the hands of the sorcerers, and the most powerful amongst them took it for themselves. Call it a symbol of their office, like the little pin that your Hand of the King might have."

"From there, it passed from sorcerer to sorcerer -"

Daerion froze. He looked to Qoherion, raising a hand in swift silence. Qoherion shouted. "Keligon!"

"Sothoryi," the master said for the three. Tyrion could not see them, could not hear them. He peered, standing on his tip toes as Asha and Bronn vied to glimpse towards the front of the Volantine host, staggering slowly to a halt. The march had taken them down the streets and around corners, slowly but surely bringing them towards the very heart of Gogossos....

...but the road in front was no open path. It was a fork in the road, a break in the great artery that had gone through its length and saw it split into two other equally sized streets, hard turns and hard corners. Some left over from when the city was still but a newborn, he realized, where the ground he stood upon would have been outside its walls and staring up at a gatehouse. Now, he looked towards buildings. Houses, four floors in height, once home to merchants and other men of wealth and power. At first, it seemed empty, more dead steets and more dead homes.

But then he saw the shadows in the windows. Then he saw the Sothoryi. Giant brutes with coarse hair and scarred bodies as tall as the mountain, who moved into the view of their windows and looked down at them with cold, hard eyes. They had no weapons, no clubs or axes, no bows or stones.

He heard them before he saw them. A thunderous boom that pounded through the air, echoing through the streets. Then again, and again.

Then he felt it, felt it in his bones, felt it in his teeth, felt it waving through the air. War drums. Massive things, giants, as far removed in stature from the things of a bard or of a galley's oarmaster as Tyrion was from the Mountain that Rides. The Sothoryi playing them beat at them with clenched fists, beating them like a smith at his anvil. Even from three dozen or four dozen feet down the road, the noise was almost deafening, the rhythmic pounding drowning out even his thoughts.

The Essosi formation took one step, two, three, coming to a slow and gradual halt. Orders were shouted at the tops of Volantine lungs, barely heard over the beating, and men looked around them, trying to see why they were drumming, trying to find the source of the noise, trying to see where the enemy they were meant to be fighting was.

Then it came marching around the corners, and the world stood still. A horde of Sothoryi, shouting and mocking and laughing and cursing in their tongue, a mob, sprawling and disorganized and powerful, some fifty to a hundred or more came around the twin corners, forming together into a unified host in front of them. They were no disciplined force, no armored wall. They were not the formations of the Esossi. They were a patchwork army, a mismatch of wooden spears and tree branch clubs, of rocks and javelins to be hurled and wooden shields lashed together with lengths of vine and stone slabs tied to one's wrist. They moved and howled with all the energies of a riotous mob, like a stampede, yet they held back, held their ground at the road's head, shouting and jeering in their snarling sharp tongues. They beat stone weapons off the ground in a mocking taunt that the Essosi were too foreign to understand.

But they understood the meaning. They saw the strength that the Sothoryi could use, saw the size and power of their massive bodies. They saw the brutal and merciless savagery that they could unleash when their bloodlust was roused. Some of the Essosi dared to step backwards, only to be met by the piercing glares of their commanders and the disapproving, slowly shaken heads of the me behind as they pushed them back into place. Words were said that he could not hear. Comforting, scolding, he didn't know.

But he saw Daerion. Where even the plainfaced and stoic Qoherion seemed concerned by the horde ahead, his master did not. He did not move. He simply looked towards the Sothoryi with a mild dismay, examining them like how a master-of-arms might look over their newest and rawest recruits, or like a young lord's hope of sun and good weather for their morning ride broken by an inclement cloud. He made no move, made no gestures, did nothing that might hive his thoughts away.

Not till he turned towards his second and spoke with absolute certainty.

"Qoherion," he commanded. "Form ranks."

The Volantine nodded instantly, relaying the master's will with a flurry of quick Valyrian. A trumpeter sounded his instrument, and the entire formation came to a quick and silent stillness, standing to attentions. Then Qoherion raised a whistle to his lips and blew, hard, the wail interrupting the pounding drums, shouting his commands for all to hear with a powerful voice.

"Mentyri! Gierūljagon qogrossi!"

"You...you can't possibly think you can fight that?" Asha turned towards the Essosi. "You would be mad -"

"They are the ones that would have to be mad to charge into the mentyn in a narrow street," Daerion said swiftly, cutting off the Greyjoy before she might finish. "We have the advantage, though it may seem it not. Let them come. They will break like waves against the cliff, for if a spear can stop a charging horse, it can stop a Sothoryi who weighs a full third less."

The response was instant. Splinted boots hurried on the stones of the road, orders of lesser commanders and the leaders of groups little more than a whisper against the clash of road and drum. A wall was made, from side to side, from house to house, a barrier of violet shields and glittering scales and sharpened steel. The Volantine troops drew in tight, closing their ranks to bolster their shield wall further still, til it bristled with spears like a rose did with thorns. More men formed up behind, a reserve ready to reinforce the front, and then the siege engines, and ten the rest, the entire host gathered for war...and formed up in the traditions of their forefathers, in the battle tested ranks of the mentyn that the VAlyrians had learnt from the once invincible armies of Old Ghis, the Volantines seemed to be the very image of discipline and order. The purple banners of their city soared proudly in the cooling winds, and no pounding of drom or road by the Sothoryi was enough to break them, no taunt enough to overcome them. It was a sight worthy of song, a part of him thought. Essosi or not, Volantines or not, in service to Daerion or not, here were men, staring down the fury of Sothoryos and daring it to strike them down. Where the brindled men were like the waters of a dam threatneing to shatter its timbers and surge forth, the Essosi were were like a cliff, ordered and unrelenting.

For just the briefest moment, there was nothing more than that. Two armies, staring each other down.

Then the pounding of the drums grew louder, faster, harder, the Sothoryi shouted, screamed a cry that sent chills through his spine, every fibre of his being telling him to run, to flee -

- and then they charged. Large weapons were raised by larger arms, shields lifted. Stones were hurled from the backline to smash off Essosi shields. Some struck true, breaking bones and sending men crashing to the ground, shouting and screaming and writhing in agony as they were dragged back from the line by those who dared. Others fell, dead and still, place taken by the men behind.

"Scorpions, quickly," Daerion commanded -

- and Qoherion whistled again. "Raedes!"

A split second, a blur of movement, the clanking of gears and the twangs of rope snapping forward. Bolts shot from the Volantine war engines into the charging mass, over the heads of their men and into the Sothoryi. Thick shields were punched clean through, huge bolts burying themselves in the flesh behind. Shouts, so strong and so loud he could hear them over the drums, over the charge as warriors fell with mortal wounds. One punched through one of the Sothoryi into the man behind, another struck with such force as to nail the body it struck to the road, the brindled man struggling for but a heartbeat before falling still like meat on a skewer. No one, not even the Brindled Men, could survive the strike of a scorpion's bolt.

But still they came. They charged through the bolts, they charged, and charged -