The Road to Myr

The gunpowder grass manor had been harvested clean. The grass was dried, roasted, and turned into withered stalks that could be used as herbs or infused into wine. The magistrate needed this wealth, and everyone knew it.

"I will await your news, and the fate of Magister Karasso, like dice, whether he will soar high or plunge into the abyss!" the manor's steward said to Handsome.

"Aren't you coming back to Myr with us, Steward Leif?" Handsome asked in a low voice.

"This manor with the red-painted gates is where I've spent half my life. I was born here, and I will die here. Besides, Myr is as perilous as this manor now. But I still pray the magistrate wins this election; otherwise, I might end up on the streets, with other magistrates favoring their men," Steward Leif replied.

"I almost forgot! You're right, Myr isn't safe either!" Handsome also felt the somber atmosphere. The downfall of a magistrate often meant his entire fortune would be liquidated. Magister Karasso's ports, manors, shops, and even his wife, children, and slaves would not be spared.

For example, during the later stages of the Dance of the Dragons, a Lysene magistrate named Bambaro died at the hands of mercenaries for not paying their wages. After his death, it was discovered that he was in debt. The magistrate's creditors seized his residence, sold his wife and children into slavery, and all his possessions, including Prince Viserys, were given to the great Lysandro Lorch.

"Farewell, my old friend!" Handsome said gravely to the steward, then ordered the mournful horn to be blown. The Wolf Pack would escort the transport convoy, setting off at dawn. Lately, the Wolf Pack had sounded the horn multiple times, with eyes on them outside the manor. But this time, it was truly their departure.

"Take care, old friend! If things go south in Myr, this manor is still a place to take refuge. There are hills, the manor itself, some slaves, and most importantly, it's not far from the coastline," the steward said sincerely. He was a Myrish freeman and understood the politics of Myr.

The mournful horn echoed through the manor. In his room, Gendry looked at himself in the mirror, as bright as a newly forged sword. There's a saying that one looks much more handsome in the mirror than usual, and Gendry was already a handsome and strong boy. He was tall, muscular, with thick black hair and blue eyes, the heritage of the Baratheon family.

Gendry looked at his polished black scale armor, spiked war hammer, flail, arakh, and purpleheart longbow. This was almost his most luxurious gear, and the road to Myr was bound to be fraught with danger.

"Knock knock!" Qyburn knocked and entered, also donning a black chainmail. The old man seemed to struggle with the armor, but the battlefield was perilous.

"Let's go, Your Grace! At our marching speed, we might not miss the Myrish election game!"

"The Myrish election game. Power seems to have a thousand kinds of magic, moving people as it will!" Gendry marveled. Magic was like a decoration and stars; in this age of weaker magic, the most prominent force was still power.

"There's no way around it, unless we're as strong as the Golden Company, with a scale comparable to a regular army. Only then would we not rely on a magistrate, but have the Free Cities courting us!" Qyburn envied the Golden Company's size.

"There's also the worst-case scenario, Magister Karasso's complete failure!" Gendry thought. If Karasso and his family failed, what about the Wolf Pack? They were bound to face setbacks.

"It would be best for us to stay in the manor. If things go bad in Myr, we could take this batch of gunpowder grass and retreat to Crown Town or hire a ship to become pirates on the Stepstones! It's a pity the Northerners' heads are made of stone."

"You're thinking of the worst-case scenario. The Wolf Pack is not bandit knights!"

"I heard from the smugglers in Pentos that Viserys and Daenerys are having a harder and harder time!" Qyburn whispered to Gendry again.

"At first, the magistrates, archons, and great merchants who ruled the Free Cities were happy to host the true dragon blood, but as time went on and King Robert's rule became more stable, the doors that opened to them became fewer and fewer. For years, they sold all their jewels, and now the money they got from selling their mother's crown is also running out. The people of Pentos say they are beggar siblings, the Beggar King and the Beggar Princess."

"Viserys wants too much. He wants to sell his sister for a good price, but even the greediest archon wouldn't dare accept it!" Gendry said.

Viserys wanted the throne and wanted to hire an army to go to the Sunset Continent to reclaim his kingdom, which was beyond the capabilities of the Free Cities.

Without enough profit, these cheese and butter merchants would never dare to launch a military adventure. As long as the alliance of fish, wolf, lion, eagle, and stag remained, the situation on the surface was still as stable as a rock.

"The Beggar King is almost driven mad by waiting. He wants the throne so badly! Waiting for the true dragon to return, but year after year without a chance! He is also a stumbling block to our cause. You only need the princess!" Qyburn said.

"Poor man! I heard the Beggar King also showed signs of madness, I don't know if it's genetic or driven by desperation." Gendry sighed.

The exiled king's days of waiting for restoration were superhuman, having endured for more than a decade. If the Beggar King had held on for a few more years until the Iron Throne was in chaos, seeing Westeros in turmoil would have been a great joy, and there might have been a glimmer of hope for the restoration of the kingdom.

Unfortunately, Viserys had long been scorched by daily waiting and anger, and could no longer endure it.

"The beautiful dragon princess is still a dream, but now we have to face the infighting between the cheese merchants and the gunpowder merchants!"

...

The banner of the Wolf Pack fluttered in the wind. Their speed was not fast because they were escorting a convoy of slaves transporting gunpowder grass!

This time, the Wolf Pack took a different route. The group set off from the gunpowder grass manor and then drove straight to the coastline, where an arranged ship would take them to Myr.

However, this section of the journey was not safe and stable. The road from the manor to the coastline was the most dangerous and rugged, far from the broad highways of the Disputed Lands. But what the Wolf Pack needed most was time, and they could not afford to wait even a moment.

Gendry saw the corpses nailed to the crosses on both sides of the road. There were many bodies, their flesh already picked clean by crows! The hollow eye sockets of the skulls glinted with a kind of luster that was hard to describe. The wind rustled the tattered clothes on the bodies, and some of the corpses still had handcuffs on.

"These are the people who were nailed!" Handsome said. "Some are runaway slaves, and some are smugglers who came to the coastline! If they are discovered, this is their fate!"

"The head took thirty men to Myr!" Dick the Maker said, bringing twenty men to the gunpowder grass manor as well. "We have about sixty people here now, and the remaining sixty, with their families and servants, are guarding the Wolf's Den."

"I don't have sixty men anymore. Mace and three other brothers are gone. To be precise, it's more than fifty brothers!" Handsome corrected their statement.

"To me, it's all the same!" Dick the Maker laughed. "A pack of wolves with more than fifty people is still formidable and invincible! And we have such a young whippersnapper. I heard he killed a Meereenese and avenged Mace!"

Gendry felt a bit embarrassed but also proud.

"I always feel like someone has been watching us! It seems they've finally waited until now!" Handsome suddenly said, alerting everyone to be on guard.