Chapter 7: The Ghost and the Serpent

Chapter 7: The Ghost and the Serpent

Year: 296 AC

The world had secrets, and now they whispered to me. The skills of Rennifer the Ghost were a revelation, a key that unlocked a dimension of King's Landing I had only ever read about. It was one thing to know from a book that there were hidden tunnels beneath the city; it was another entirely to stand in my chamber, press a sequence of loose stones in the wall as Rennifer's instincts guided me, and watch as a section of the floor slid away to reveal a dark, dusty passage descending into the earth.

I had spent the week since absorbing the master thief in a state of feverish exploration. By night, I became a phantom. I left Malko's establishment, not through the guarded doors, but through its own forgotten veins. The tunnel in my room was just one of many. It connected to a veritable labyrinth of sewer lines, smugglers' bolt-holes, and forgotten crypts that snaked beneath the city like the passages of a termite mound. Rennifer's knowledge was the map, and my enhanced senses were the torch. I could smell the damp, cloying air of the sewers, hear the drip of water a hundred yards away, and see perfectly in the oppressive, absolute darkness.

This underground kingdom was my new domain. It was freedom. It was safety. I could traverse the entire city, from the Red Keep's foundations to the Blackwater docks, without a single soul knowing of my passage. I established small caches in key locations, stashing coin, water, and a few basic tools. I was no longer a prisoner in a gilded cage; I was the ghost who haunted the building's foundations.

This newfound freedom ignited a dangerous impatience within me. I was tired of reacting, of being a weapon pointed by others. The information Malko had brought me about the Rosby shipment festered in my mind. It was a dangling thread, an opportunity to move from pawn to player. It was time to stop gathering intelligence and start creating it.

My plan was audacious, bordering on insane, but the potential rewards were immense. The smugglers, working for the mastermind I now privately thought of as 'the Serpent', were delivering a large cache of weapons to the Rosby manse, a minor house on the city's outskirts. I would not simply watch. I would not simply report it. I would intervene. I would strike a blow against the Serpent's operations, test their response, and, most importantly, I would seize the assets for myself. Weapons were power. And the men guarding those weapons were walking vessels of skills and vitality.

The risks were astronomical. If I was caught, it would lead back to Malko, and from there, the entire fragile edifice of my existence would collapse. The Serpent, whoever they were, would bring their full, terrifying power to bear against me. But Rennifer's skills gave me a supreme, cold confidence. A ghost cannot be caught.

I spent two days in meticulous preparation. Through Malko's terrified informants, I confirmed the delivery was scheduled for the night of the new moon, the darkest night of the month. I learned the route the wagon would take and the number of guards assigned to it. I also used my new underground network to scout the Rosby estate from below. I found an old, collapsed sewer tunnel that terminated directly beneath the estate's crumbling north wall, far from the main gate and any patrols. This would be my point of entry and exit.

On the appointed night, I prepared for the hunt. I dressed in dark, silent leathers, the Shadowcat's essence making me feel at one with the encroaching darkness. I strapped Ser Emerett's longsword to my back, its familiar weight a comforting presence. In pouches at my belt, I carried the tools of the Ghost's trade: lockpicks, a coil of thin, strong silk rope, and several smoke pellets—a concoction of flash powder and bat guano that Rennifer knew how to craft, designed to create maximum confusion.

I slipped into the tunnels beneath Malko's pit and began the long journey, moving with a silent, fluid grace that was a synthesis of all my absorbed skills. When I emerged through the collapsed sewer grate, the cool night air of the Rosby estate greeted me. My senses exploded. I could smell the dew on the grass, the horses in the distant stables, and the scent of anxious sweat from the half-dozen Rosby household guardsmen lurking near the rear gate, waiting for the delivery.

Using the cover of the overgrown gardens, I scaled the manse itself, my powerful limbs and the thief's knowledge of handholds making the climb trivial. I found a perch on the tiled roof, concealing myself behind a large chimney stack. From here, I had a perfect, commanding view of the entire scene. I was the invisible predator, watching the grazing grounds.

An hour after midnight, the wagon arrived. It was a simple, covered cart, pulled by two sturdy horses, but the men accompanying it were anything but simple. There were four of them, separate from the Rosby guards. They were hard-faced men, wearing boiled leather and carrying shortswords and crossbows. They moved with the wary, dangerous energy of professional smugglers, their eyes constantly scanning the shadows. Their leader, a tall man with a jagged scar across his cheek, dismounted and spoke in low tones with the captain of the Rosby guard. Their life-forces were dirty, flickering orange flames, but the leader's was brighter, steadier. He was my target.

The Rosby guards opened the rear gate, and the wagon rumbled into the courtyard. This was the moment of maximum vulnerability. They began to unload the heavy, long crates.

It was time to unleash chaos.

From my rooftop perch, I threw the first smoke pellet. It landed squarely in the center of the courtyard, erupting with a loud crack and a blinding flash of white light. Instantly, a thick, acrid cloud of grey smoke billowed outwards, engulfing the entire scene.

Shouts of surprise and panic filled the air. The men were blinded, disoriented. Their discipline shattered.

Before the smoke had even fully formed, I had dropped from the roof. I landed as softly as a cat in the deep shadows along the courtyard wall, completely unnoticed in the confusion.

I threw two more pellets into the heart of the smoke cloud, creating an impenetrable wall of roiling chaos. The men were now firing crossbow bolts blindly into the smoke, their fear making them a danger only to each other.

I didn't enter the cloud. I skirted its edge, a phantom of vengeance. The Shadowcat's senses allowed me to "see" through the smoke. I could smell their individual scents, hear their panicked breathing, and sense the heat of their bodies. They were blind. I was all-seeing.

My first target was a Rosby guard who had stumbled out of the cloud, coughing and rubbing his eyes. I moved behind him, a whisper of motion. I clamped a hand over his mouth and drove a knife into his kidney. I held him for the precious few seconds it took to absorb his essence—a flicker of life, a bit of basic spear-handling skill, nothing substantial, but every drop counted. I let his husk of a body fall silently into the bushes.

One down.

I circled the chaos, picking them off one by one. I became a force of nature, a deadly rumor in the smoke. The smugglers were more disciplined, trying to form a back-to-back circle within the cloud, but they were fighting an enemy they couldn't see, hear, or comprehend. I would dart in, my longsword a flash of steel, and retreat before they could even register the attack. I used the bravo's speed to strike and the Ghost's stealth to vanish.

I killed another two Rosby guards and one of the smugglers in this way, drinking their strength, feeling my own power swell with each small absorption. The terror inside the smoke cloud reached a fever pitch. They were screaming now, convinced they were under attack by demons.

Finally, only two smugglers remained, along with their leader, the scar-faced man. They had managed to find each other in the swirling smoke.

"To me! Form up!" the leader roared, his voice a gravelly beacon of authority.

I granted his wish. I strode into the smoke cloud, my longsword held at the ready. My silhouette appeared before them, a dark, terrifying shape in the swirling grey.

"What in the seven hells are you?" one of the smugglers gasped, raising his crossbow.

He was too slow. My blade, guided by Ser Emerett's peerless form and driven by Gurn's monstrous strength, cleaved through his weapon and deep into his chest. He fell with a wet gurgle.

The last smuggler broke. He threw down his sword and ran, screaming, out of the smoke and towards the relative safety of the manse. I let him go. A terrified witness was more valuable than another drop of power. He would spread the tale, plant the seeds of my legend. He would tell them that a single, silent demon had slaughtered them all.

Now, it was just me and the leader.

The smoke was beginning to thin. In the hazy moonlight, I could see him clearly. He was a true professional. The fear on his face was overshadowed by a grim, hardened resolve. He held his shortsword and a dagger in a classic brawler's stance.

"You'll pay for this, whoever you are," he snarled.

"The payment is you," I replied, my voice calm.

Our duel was short and brutal. He was good, a veteran of a hundred dirty fights on ships and in back alleys. His style was all aggression and brute force. But he was facing a monster. I parried his wild swing with my buckler, the impact barely registering. I flowed around his dagger thrust with the grace of a dancer and countered with a precise, devastatingly powerful lunge from a Tarly training manual.

My longsword pierced his heart.

His eyes went wide with shock, not just at the wound, but at the sheer impossible skill of it. He had expected a brawler; he had faced a master. As his life faded, the richest absorption yet from this night began.

It was a potent, salty draught of power. He was strong, almost as strong as Gurn. But his skills were what I craved. He was the captain of this crew. I absorbed a wealth of practical, operational knowledge. The primary routes the smuggling ships used in the Stepstones. The secret coves along the coast of the Crownlands used for drop-offs. The names of key contacts in Tyrosh and Myr. And I absorbed his skill with the crossbow, his dirty, effective knife-fighting techniques, and a deep, instinctual knowledge of sailing and navigation. My mind, already a library of violence, had just acquired a new, extensive wing on naval logistics and criminal enterprise.

When it was done, I stood in a courtyard of corpses and smoke. The escaped smuggler's screams were a distant echo. The Rosby manse was in an uproar, lights appearing in windows, bells beginning to ring. My time was up.

I ignored the crates of weapons. Stealing them now was too risky. The disruption, the fear, and the knowledge I had gained were prize enough. I had sent the Serpent a message, written in blood and smoke. I had shown them that their operations were vulnerable, that a new, unknown predator was hunting in their territory.

I slipped back to the north wall, descended into the sewer tunnel, and vanished into the darkness beneath the city, leaving behind a scene of impossible carnage for the City Watch to discover.

I returned to my chamber before dawn, the scent of blood and smoke clinging to me. I was buzzing with power, the new skills settling into my mind, the vitality of five men thrumming in my veins. I was no longer just a weapon for hire. I was a force. An independent operator who had just successfully executed a strike against one of the most powerful shadow organizations in Westeros.

I stood before the small, grimy window in my room, looking out at the first, faint hint of dawn breaking over the city. I thought of the Serpent—Littlefinger, Varys, or some other—waking to the news of what had happened at the Rosby estate. They would be confused, angry, perhaps even frightened. They would have no idea who or what was responsible. A rival? A foreign power? Or something else entirely?

Let them wonder. Let them fear the ghosts in the dark. I was just getting started. I had tasted proactive power, and it was more addictive than any physical absorption. I would not wait for the game to come to me anymore. I would go to it, and I would tear it apart, one piece at a time, until all its secrets, all its strength, belonged to me.