Chapter 16 A King's Mercy
A Septon once told me that as we sin, so do we suffer. If that is true ser Hood, then tell me… Why is it always the innocent who suffer the most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?
Spymaster Varys -
Excerpt from Robin Hood, by Aenys Targaryen.
---
Eddard woke with a pounding in his ears.
In the frantic panic of someone being woken up unexpectedly, his first thought was that someone was attacking him.
Then reality set in, and his muscles, which had been so tense a second ago, went limp.
It was just drums, from someone playing loud, annoying music.
He knew the musician as well, and he sincerely wished he would die a painful, horrific death.
Lago kept on beating the drum frantically for several minutes before he stopped.
Long and loud enough that none of them could possibly have remained asleep, and the entire group was now wide awake, and pissed.
He heard several dark and angry mutters around him about Lago, and what his fellows wanted to do to him.
It was incredible, how with all the horrors this group had seen, been experienced to and feared and hated their masters, it was this youngling that managed to wake all the hatred of hundreds of men and women.
It wasn't that Lago was the worst of his wretched kind, he most certainly was not. Last week, Eddard had seen Baggo decide to take a child no more than eleven from her parents, rape her, then leave her without a word once he was done, leaving the poor girl to sob and be cradled by her parents.
What separated Lago from the rest was how bloody petty he was. Sleep was one of the very, very few luxuries that they were afforded with no strings attached, and this bastard took great joy in cutting it short, for no other reason than that he could.
For a second, he contemplated whether he would try to get back to sleep… but the red glow outside the opening to their lodging told the story of a rising sunrise.
And as such he got up, though not without a groan from how tired and groggy he felt.
"I'm gonna kill him," Robb announced. "I'm gonna fucking strangle that brat, then rip his head off."
He rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you are Robb."
Despite his tone, he didn't actually have much doubt Robb might kill the man, then let the punishment fall as it may.
Robb was young still and had not been with them for long enough for his fire to be beaten out of him.
Not like Eddard had been.
Still… despite his angry words, Robb didn't make a move to go over and strangle Lago then and there. His bloody retribution wouldn't come just yet. Not as long as he had hope.
Hope.
It had been so long since Eddard had had hope in his heart, and this time hadn't woken it either.
Robb had been one of many unfortunate souls picked up by this accursed and monstrous gathering known as a khalasar. And like the rest of them, he had a brand across his forehead.
The horse lords tended to vary how they marked their slaves. Some with iron collars, some with metal shackles around their wrists, and some with various marks. Their Khalasar used brands on their foreheads, burned into them with searing iron.
It was a sign of how new Robb was to being a slave, that he still had a tendency to absently run his hand across the scar. Eddard had stopped that after a few months.
It was something you learned to live with after a while. Like many other things.
"Anyhow, wanna go get water?"
---
Vaes Dothrak began to wake up as they walked.
The traders the Dothraki allowed to travel through and from the city in exchange for "gifts"(Robbery was a better term in Eddard mind) began setting up their stalls, their fellow slaves also began waking up, and beginning their chores, or just going to pick up water, just like Eddard and Robb were on their way to do.
There was an astonishing number of slaves in the city.
10 000 slaves lived here regularly, and many more followed even the smallest Khalasar to this city.
The one he was unfortunate to belong to had no less than 9 000 or so.
2 for every warrior in the khalasar and a huge portion of it's 60 000 population.
All of whom were now spread out across this city.
Two other Khals had also come to Vaes Dothrak at this time, and as such, the enormous city had a population of over 200 000 souls, if he had calculated it right.
The slaves were a mixed lot, from pretty much every corner of the world, even more so than the countless traders. Giant men and women from lengi, people from Nefer with their huge eyes and milk-white skin, the white-haired men of Mussovy with their yellow and orange eyes, big-headed Jogos nhai from the other side of the mountains, summer islanders, ghizcari with their dusky skin and scarlet hair, men and women from the free cities and of course…
"I still can't believe there are so many slaves from Westeros." Robb said in a tone that was a mixture between baffle ent and anger.
Eddard snorted.
"Why wouldn't there be slaves from Westeros here?"
"I… I always thought the King's dragons kept us safe…"
"On land mayhaps," Eddard responded in a tone like he was explaining something very simple, to someone who was dumb as a post.
As they walked they passed a group of younger, blonde girls from Westeros, each dressed like whores, and undoubtedly used like ones by their masters. Poor bastards.
"No raider would ever dare attack Westeros itself, that is true enough. Valyria may be gone, but none have ever forgotten it's power. Especially not here, in the east."
"But out on the sea… Well, there's plenty of folk like us who are unfortunate enough to wash up on Essoss shores, but the vast majority of us poor saps who end up here are fishers or traders who are taken by pirates out at sea."
"Still, I don't see how that could lead to this number. There has to be thousands of us here…" You looked around watching the people as they passed, and true enough, there were thousands of Westerosi here. Or at least of Westerosi races.
"You forget slavers bay." Eddard reminded him. "The slavers breed Westerosi they gain their hands on, just like they breed everyone else too. Us Westerosi are regarded as a hardy folk. Perfect for physical work."
After a short pause, shutting up as a large elephant crossed the road in front of them with it's litter, Eddard continued.
"Like the rest, the slave cities pay tribute when the Khals come knocking wanting a "Gift" for not attacking them. And a few thousands of slaves is a pretty good gift that satisfies most Khals."
"... Gods I hate the east."
Eddard laughed, the first time in quite a while.
"I doubt most Westerosi would disagree. The east has always been a shithole filled with barbarians."
As they walked past Dothraki, Eddard was glad the ignorant savages didn't understand proper tongues. No, they rarely cared enough to learn valyrian, much less the language of civilized folk.
There was only one thing the Dothraki were good at. Killing. But then again, from what he had seen in his decades in the east, none of the easterners knew how to fight. Not well at least.
As they stopped for another large group crossing the street, this time some folk from Qarth also with an elephant, Robb suddenly got serious.
"So… You found anyone that can help us with…" He turned around as if he was afraid someone would stand just by and listen in on their conversation with eager breath. "You know…"
"I found someone from the forests of Qohor who knows how to hunt and make food from caught meat." He replied, no smile coming to his lips, even as Robb burst out into a grin.
"Good… Great! Then we just need some muscle to help with the plan." His face suddenly turned predatory. "I suppose it's too much to ask that Lago will be given guard duty on top of it all."
Eddard snorted. "Well be in a gathering of over 35 000 warriors. It'll be a miracle from the stranger himself if we actually manage to pull it off."
"Don't be so pessimistic man, we'll pull it off!"
Ah, the brightness of youth.
If you don't believe in the plan, then why are you joining it?
Out loud he said: "I suppose. Once we get to the forest, it will all depend on how much they fear the place…"
"Yeah… It would be very, very bad for us if they just ignored their taboo for going in, and just kept chasing us through the woods."
"Yes. We'd be instantly captured and dragged behind the khalasar until our skin was flayed by the ground."
A silence followed.
"You… Mentioned you'd seen escapes that succeeded before…"
"No, I said I'd seen escapees that weren't recaptured. I have no idea whether they actually manage to make it to a safe haven, or if they died alone in the wilderness."
"Right… We need that hunter."
As they continued to walk, they kept talking about the plan.
The plan to escape back to Westeros.
As far as escape plans went, it was hardly the worst Eddard had heard. The worst one had simply been to kill a Dothraki and steal his horse to escape.
It had not ended well.
Really, it was for the best Robb had this plan, or the man would have gotten himself killed sooner or later.
The plan was simple enough.
In the near future, there would be a marriage between their Khal's son, and the daughter of another Khal.
All well and good, the politics at the top didn't matter much for the slaves.
No, what mattered was the wedding place.
Just by the great woods to the north, where the Dothraki refused to enter due to the supposed forest spirits that lived there.
By itself, it was a decent enough chance to escape if one knew how to hunt.
Robb however, had been that oh so elusive creature that was the smuggler.
And as such, he knew a spot smugglers frequently visited to avoid the Ibbenese fleet. If they somehow managed to make their way there, it was a good chance they might find a captain that was one of Robb's friends, and they could sail with him back west.
If they were unlucky, they would be taken by a crew that was not friendly with Robb, and they would find themselves either dead or sold as slaves again.
And that was assuming they managed to actually make it to the forest itself. All they had to do was butcher their guards, steal their horses, and make it 8 kilometers across an open plain without being spotted or killed by their vastly superior horsemen overlords.
He had never sat atop a horse in his life, yet somehow he was supposed to do it on his first try.
Sink or swim Eddard. Sink or swim.
Why was he doing this? He had been content to let dozens of other escape plans pass him by without ever feeling the need to join. And he had done that when he was young and strong.
Now he was in his 40's maybe his 50's, and his body had begun to protest the moment he did something strenuous.
The ultimate betrayal that was, the betrayal of one's own body.
And yet it was now, as his hair became white, and his strength was starting to fail that he had decided to join some young firebrand on a daring escape plan.
Finally, they reached the water hole, and even at this early hour it was crowded and they had to stand in line.
Far away in the sky, a black dot that was a bird soared.
"Any plans for when you get back home?" Robb asked, sounding curious and jovial at the same time.
He thought for a moment. "Well, assuming my sister is still alive, I'll go live on her family's farm. Even if I'm too old for labor, I could help out sewing I suppose."
Gods know he had enough experience with that. It didn't go a week, where he hadn't sewn two dozen pieces of clothing for the Khalasar.
Robb sounded disappointed. "That's it? You just wanna go work on a farm again? Come on man, there has to be something you wanna see or do when we get back?"
"... I do wanna see White Harbor again, and the Sept of snows." And he did. Gods almighty he wanted to feel the old north wind on his face, and the smell of salt in his nose again before he died. And the sight of a white harbor, and it's mighty white walls and the new castle above the city itself.
Gods he missed that.
Finally, it became their turn. Robb sighed as they began filling water pots and dumping them on a litter. Eddard was too old to help him drag the litter, but at least he could help him fill water.
In the sky, the faraway bird seemed to have grown slightly bigger by the time they were done with filling the water.
They began their walk back towards the buildings they had been assigned, much, much slower this time, as Robb carried a litter full of pots, and the number of people they had to stop for, slaves as they were, increased dramatically.
Eddard both loved being in this city, and he hated everything it stood for.
Vaes Dothrak was the only place in dothraki society where slaves were allowed to go relatively free. And why not? Escape from here was impossible. There were no chances to escape across the flat knee-high grass in either North, east, west, or south. Not without being spotted by a Khalasar.
So long as you didn't try and leave the city, and you didn't go somewhere you were not supposed to, you had relatively large freedom here.
It was generally regarded as a good place to serve by Dothraki slaves, and he had more than once dreamed of being sent here to assist the dosh khalin. It would have been a simple, safe, and easy existence.
That was what he had been about for so long. Easy and safe.
He had accepted his fate long ago. The spark he had needed if he wanted to escape was long, long gone. He was a craven. He had grown numb to the deaths, the rapes, the atrocities around him. It had been the only way he would have been able to survive.
Many a time he had been with a khalasar as it passed the mountains to braavos, and every time, some young man or woman had decided to risk it, and try the crossing to freedom.
Many had been riddled with arrows long before they even reached the mountains, and been dragged back to camp as carcasses to show everyone the price of trying to escape. But many had not. How many of them, if any who had made it across the mountains, he did not know.
He had never tried.
It wasn't that he did not want freedom… It was just that he didn't have the courage he needed to risk his life for it.
He was a craven. That was just the way it was.
So why, why did he plan to go with this young man's gambit to escape the khalasar, trek through a haunted forest and gamble with whether he would find friendly smugglers at the end of the road.
He did not have an answer.
"So, what about you Robb? You have any plans for the future?"
"Yeah… I'm gonna stay in Westeros. Probably stop smuggling, and become a trader. Provided I can find the coin to start up anyway."
A trader. He had once fancied himself a trader. In truth, he had just been a crewman on a trading ship. It had been his captain who was the trader.
He was dead now. A Dothraki boy had shot him during a game with his fellows.
All the rest of the surviving crewmates who had joined him in chains had died by now. Only he remained. Only old Eddard.
He was about to reply when someone just by suddenly shouted something. He didn't know what he shouted, it was some queer eastern tongue.
Both him and Robb stopped and turned to look at the man, some Lengi man. So did many others as well.
The man, tall and fair stared up into the sky, with terror and fear marring his soft traits.
Then he shouted the word again and pointed up into the sky.
Instinctually, Eddard turned his head to look at where the tall man, a head taller than anyone else was looking.
His first thought was that it was just the bird he had seen earlier. Then he squinted. No… That was no bird. For one thing, it was much closer now. And it was large. Much, much larger than any bird had ever been.
Like a black Boulder against the sky, it came towards by them as if hurled by a catapult.
Black wings, large as sails, so large they had blacked out the sun, and left the army in darkness.
Yes… He remembered now. He had seen this creature before. When he had just been a farmhand, that had been called to war by king Torrhen.
It was a dragon. A black dragon. It was Balerion, the black dread. King Aegon's dragon.
King Aegon…?
Why was the king here? What possible reason could the king of Westeros have form coming here, so far, far away from the west?
As he was contemplating that question, he, and all around him stood still, and stared up at the black dragon as it came lower, and lower as it neared them.
Then, without warning, the slow descent changed into a dive as it fell downwards, and it only spread it's wings as it was just above the rooftops of the city.
Eddard saw the glint of black fire, just in time.
He threw himself to the side, and barely, just barely avoided being caught in the black blaze as the city turned to an inferno of unnatural black flames.
Poor Robb however, was shackled to the litter with water pots.
Amongst the screams, the sound of fire burning, and the stamped as people began to run around in sheer panic, Eddard heard the pots shatter and burst to pieces from the heat of that black inferno.
As he clambered to his feet, and leaned up against the wall of the building, instinctually backing away from the heat that threatened to swallow him, he stared, in horror at Robb, who had been consumed by the fire wholesale.
The young man was still burning, being much more flammable than the road beneath him, where the flames were beginning to sputter and go out as he watched.
Robb's flesh was black and charred, and his eyes had popped in two small explosions of blood, the red liquid steaming away from the heat. Now, he looked like a skeleton, enveloped in that black, unnatural fire, and as Eddard stared in complete shock and horror at his young friend, the fire burned away what remained of skin on him, and the body, that had fallen over the litters metal front, literarily fell to pieces as the skin turned to seared ash from the black flame.
Eddard could not move, just stand there, back against the wall, frozen in a terror unlike any he had ever felt in all his years upon this earth.
All around him were screams and wailing.
Reality asserted itself when a rider galloped through the street, and Robb's blacked skull was crushed like a grape under the horse's hoof.
He had to get out of here. Now.
His feet began taking him towards where their Khalasar held their horses. All around him, people ran in all directions under the sun. Slaves, Dothraki, traders. All were gripped by the same, all-consuming fear of the flame.
People fell to the ground and were stomped beneath hundreds of feet.
A rider stupidly tried to force his way through the mass of people by just riding them down, and for his trouble, his horse broke a leg as the tightly packed mass didn't part for him.
The scream of the horse carried even over the cacophony of screams and shouts from the mass of terrified, scared people.
Then, suddenly, half of them were consumed in fire.
Suddenly, the pressure of people moving shifted instantly, as half the people who were pressing died, and the other half began pushing away from the suddenly appearing fire.
Eddard was shoved HARD into the wall of a building, and with the pressure around keeping him there, out of breath and mashed again the Wall.
Finally, the pressure lightened, and he fell to the ground, heaving, and breathing. He felt like someone had just beaten his git and chest with hammers, so hard had the pressure been.
As he just lay there and felt just how weakened his age had made him, thoughts flew through his mind.
Why was the king here? Why did he want to kill the Dothraki? Why did his own king plan to kill him?
He wasn't sure how long he lay there in pain, just listening to the knittering of fire, the stampede of distant feet, and above all, the wailing and screams of men, women, and children.
Finally, he forced himself to his feet. Gods he felt beaten up. Around him, the Black fire had died out, and the street he had been laying on was deserted, save the maimed, the dead, and a few unfortunate souls who hadn't been smart enough to leave.
Himself was amongst those, along with a few dogs, a cat, and a child.
The child, a young girl of mayhaps 7, was kneeling by a charred corpse and bawling her eyes out.
His instincts told him to get moving. Run. Escape.
Instead, he slowly walked over to the girl.
The scarlet hair, along with a brownish copper-colored skin told him she was from slaves Bay. The Iron shackle around her wrist told him she was a slave.
He was about to try and say something(What was there to say in a situation like this?), when an elephant suddenly burst down the street, alight and burning in black flames.
For a brief second, he just stood there gaping at it as it charged in a pained and burning frenzy, then he bent down, heaven the girl up, and began moving.
The girl did not come willingly, and she clawed and screamed, but that was nothing compared to the pain he felt from lifting a load like this, much less as he started running.
In his youth, he would have lifted a load like this with one hand and laughed about it. Now, he almost buckled trying to carry this girl in his arms.
Thankfully, she stopped squirming, as she let out a horrified scream, seemingly having seen the elephant charging and screaming.
The sobs however did not stop, and she kept repeating a word. Mhysa. Mother in the ghizcari tongue.
Eddard burst into a sideway alley, desperate to escape the monster at their feet.
The elephant thankfully did not chase them down the sideway, and instead just kept going, screaming all the way, until a massive "CRAAASSSHHH!" Sounded from the direction it had went.
Eddard forced himself to just slump into the wall back first, as opposed to slumping to the floor as he desperately wanted to do.
It was at that moment that the sun went out.
What?
He stared up, the horror overcoming even his pain. Was it within the power of dragons to put out the sun?
The sky was black and Grey, and… He squinted.
No… The sun hadn't gone out. It was just the smoke. The smoke was so thick and all-encompassing that it had blocked out the sky itself.
But the light wasn't gone. Oh no. Down the corridor, he could see light. But daylight it was not. It was the glow of fire.
The great city was not like white harbor, or King's Landing. Even when it was "filled" by several khalasars as it was now, the city was mostly empty, and it had not taken long before people had cleared out of their section.
That this section was now mostly empty, apparently did not matter much to King Aegon, for Balerion suddenly swooped by and set the section of the city right by them alight in one sweep of black fire.
The buildings, made wood, clay, and rock were far more flammable than the Rocky road, and a tower right by went up in black smoke, before the red fire began to intermingle with the black, creating a haunting dance of scarlet and ebony dancing together.
Horrified screams carried through the air, and Eddard realized with a shock that all the buildings had been full of people.
They joined the chorus of screams the wind carried already.
As Eddard stood there, tired and sore and in shock staring at the building his king had just turned to ashes, he realized something.
The screams… the screams from the poor people inside didn't stop… They just continued.
Was… Was he imagining the shadows dancing?
The darkness grew all-consuming, only broken up by the glow of the red fires that were endlessly fighting the black for supremacy.
A rider passed by the two of them, screaming in fear. Several followed.
The air itself was jot and torturous to breathe, the air biting like red-hot daggers into his lungs.
They had to move. The buildings they were between had begun to catch fire.
With a move that made every sinew in his body scream, he forced himself to stand.
He wanted to live dammit!
Then, feeling like he had just accomplished the most arduous task he had ever done, he began to stagger his way back to the main road.
As he reached it, he realized another problem.
While the road did not burn, the heat From repeatedly being bathed in Dragonfire had not left it, and several parts of the road were starting to melt.
He was standing there, looking over a road where the stone was beginning to look like lava when he saw him.
Had he not been facing the direction that the dragon was coming from, he would not have been able to avoid it.
As it was, the stream of blackfyre once more engulfed the road, straight where they were.
Right by them, an unburned building had an opening. All he had to do was cross a searing hot section of the road.
The black fire came.
He made the decision.
With a scream bitter pain, he ran. The first few steps his soles were still there. Then they burned and melted under him, the slag fastening themselves to the rock beneath.
Then he screamed. But he kept going. Somehow. As they crashed through the door, the black fire once more engulfed the road where they had just been.
This time, Eddard did not rise.
Instead, he lay on his back screaming in agony from the pain in his feet, where he had burned away the skin of the bottom of his feet.
The girl had crawled had disentangled herself from him, and was staring down at his feet in a horrified expression. Then, fire. Both of them looked at the entrance, as the wood, began to burn just from the heat outside.
The girl screamed, and Eddard thought she would leave and run away, but instead, she grabbed his arm and desperately tried to drag him away from the fire.
As if a seven-year could drag a grown man anywhere.
Not that she needed to. As he saw his death approaching, one, final burst of strength came in alive in him. He began to crawl, tears in his eyes and curses upon his lips from the pain in his now useless feet, and all the rest of his body.
There were two exits from the room.
One was to the other side of the building, and the fire was already visible on the other side. The other was a set of stairways up.
Somehow, they managed the slow, bitter, and painful climb up unto the roof.
Once there… It was over.
As he leaned up against the edge of the roof, there was no more strength left in him. He would not be able to make another escape now.
And even if he could, the fire down below made sure they couldn't go anywhere.
The girl was frantically running around the roof trying to find some escape, a miracle, or something.
Eddard instead stared out on the sea of fire.
The buildings in the direction of the outer parts of Vaes Dothrak had begun to crumble, giving him a surprisingly good look at what was happening beyond the city.
The Dothraki sea burned.
Black and red danced across the horizon, a wall of fire-making sure none could escape.
He had burned a circle all around them, Eddard realized. That was why the sky was blotted out, even though the smoke was not so thick from the city itself to warrant such complete darkness.
King Aegon had enclosed the city with a ring of impenetrable fire, that none could pass.
Eddard had seen fires on the Dothraki sea before, from lightning strikes, but this… This was something else.
He means to kill everyone, he realized. Every man, woman, and child. Slave, trader, and slaver alike. They would all die here together. Over a hundred thousand souls would burn here today.
This… This was a butchery on a different level. This was a total slaughter.
Suddenly, the sky was lit up, and both Eddard and the girl turned their heads.
The mother of mountains, the holiest for the horse lords was lit alight like a candle. The forests and greenery in its mountainsides burned and he could see the dragon fly, a prick of black of black against the equally black sky, lit up only by the glow of the fire beneath.
Then, he saw… the shadows move.
He stared. Was… Was he going mad? It seemed as if the shadows across the city danced. No… they did dance.
He was certain he saw the shadows on the walls beneath take shapes. Shapes he recognized.
As the screams of the dead, and dying echoed across the city, he saw the shadows dance to the melody of death slaughter. And he recognized them. He had seen many of them before. Many times. On the godsway.
He was going mad.
Oh, Gods. Oh, mother above.
He began to hear a tune. A melody. The screams became warped, inhuman.
Laughter. He began to hear laughter.
There, in the burning ruins of Vaes Dothrak. Someone laughed, as they all died.
---
Once were a man who were lord of the black
he commanded and saw from up high
from the top of the wall
he came down to the call
of the one with the star blue eyes
her touch was like ice but together they lay
and her skin was as pale as the moon
magic and cruel, the night his to rule
and his soul was the price that was paid
I was born under skies filled with ice and snow,
Where the children sing and the wind does blow
many a man gave a life for mine
and the kings of the south will tremble
Once just a man I was born to lead
but the black couldn't satisfy my needs
North of the wall she cried out to me
and the kings of the south will tremble
Thirteen long years of terrible deeds
the night king gave to the walkers needs
now men must march and stand with the south
silence his name from their childrens mouths
I was born under skies filled with ice and snow
I was stolen under skies filled with ice and snow
Where the children sing and the wind does blow
When the children scream and the dead men go
many a man gave a life for mine
many a man died before their time
and the kings of the south will tremble
and the men of the south will stand tall
And the king, of the night fort would fall.
-
The Night King. An ancient Northern song.