LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 69: Chapter 56: Yellow.
It seemed that whatever concessions Calinnia had extracted from the House of the West had left her in a giddy mood, as she'd even let Joffrey enter the sanctum proper, the House itself within the confines of Asshai. "My Sansa, you were magnificent!" she said in uncharacteristic, good natured glee.
"Thank you, my Matriarch," said Sansa. She now sported a green mask of her own, a sad necessity of their damned traditions.
"And you too boy," she added almost as an afterthought, "Well done gutting those bitches Tahsia and Meheesa. Now Wylla is down two veteran Callers and broke tradition by interfering in a Calling… the blood price we exacted upon them after the ceremony is…" she trailed off, sighing in pleasure. "Sansa dear, you haven't even started your service to me and you're already delivering…"
Shame those twenty years of service will never happen, thought Joffrey. The Houses usually kept vases with the blood of their Callers as deterrents to treason, but Joffrey doubted they would even get the chance to get such a tactic before they were all dead. There were already credible reports filtering from the far north that the Five Forts had been overrun… despite his letter warning them about all he'd seen there years ago.
It seemed his absence from that whole series of events, from his participation in the expedition to his last stand at the Dawn Fort, had accelerated the White Walker's progress by at least a year or two; Legions of 'hungering dead' were said to be devastating the northern reaches of the Empire, while news from the west were even more fragmented; distorted retellings carried by chains of merchants that spoke of great monsters and plagues hollowing out the heartlands of the Sunset Lands.
When confronted with the information, Calinnia had shrugged, much as he suspected the other Matriarchs must have done when informed of the 'curse of undeath' spreading in those faraway lands: Asshai had endured worst in the past, and stood all the prouder for it.
Joffrey eyed Calinnia as she sat down on the luxurious carpet, leaning back on the cushions. Callers could only take off their masks when alone with other full members of their House, and so even now the old Matriarch was hiding her own… though that didn't prevent her from opening a small hole in her mask, just the right size so she could take a sip of what Joffrey hoped was wine but knew it probably wasn't.
He tapped his fingers absentmindedly, thinking about their options. Sansa had told him she knew everything she needed to carry out further studies on her own, so further instruction here was no longer necessary… though staying certainly wouldn't hurt either. The mysteries of magic were deep and complex, and he'd seen everything from reanimation to outright weather manipulation back in the Five Forts… or at least the halting of such manipulation by the Walkers, thanks to the efforts of the Jade Scribes.
He was interrupted from his musings as a Caller with a similar mask as Sansa entered the room, bowing thrice. "Forgive me Matriarch-"
"Fiqua, I assume you have a pressing reason for interrupting?" said Calinnia, still somehow relaxed after the heavy blow to the House of the West's prestige and assets. The concessions extracted from them had been heavy, according to Sansa.
"Matriarch! I came as fast as he could but he-"
"What is the meaning of this?!" she said as she stood up, the shadows around the room trembling as she straightened into a variant of Khai Joffrey had trouble recognizing. He stood up as well, hand near his sheathed Brightroar as Sansa stood up smoothly with her knees slightly bent, ready.
Fiqua stood aside and kneeled in deep respect, and Joffrey watched the intruder in confusion as he strode into the room like he owned the place.
"Hallowed Matriarch, I apologize for the inconvenience," said the Winged Man in Ancient Yitish, bowing lightly as his long wings touched the floor. He was clad in light cloth armor made of hideously expensive and resistant Asshai Silk, the middle of the armor painted a deep yellow of a color with the hanging rectangular medallion by his chest.
Curiously enough, instead of turning him into blood pudding, Calinnia seemed to be looking at the Winged Man in something akin to stunned disbelief. He looked at Sansa, but she seemed as lost as Joffrey himself.
"The Yellow Sorcerer, Lord of Carcosa, and sixty-ninth Emperor of Yi-Ti, calls on the Houses of Asshai for aid," said the Flying Man.
"… Is the Emperor calling on the Compact of the Morn?" asked Calinnia, her voice almost shaky.
"He is, Hallowed Matriarch," said the Winged Man, his long teeth peaking from his wide mouth.
Calinnia nodded deeply, twice, "Then the House of the South shall answer," she said.
"Thank you, Hallowed Matriarch," said the Winged Man before turning on his heels and walking away from where he came.
-: PD :-
"Sure, Carcosa, why not?" said Joffrey as he gazed at the night sky and the Red Comet above. Sansa rolled her eyes as the ship swayed lightly beneath her, the black galley making a poor river boat as it sailed up the Ghost River.
Joffrey was counting with his fingers as he rambled, "Bonetown, Stygai, K'Dath, Carcosa… maybe we could ask the Yellow Emperor for a yacht and take a cruise around the Hidden Sea, visit the City of the Winged Men. It's about the only place of nightmare I'm missing," he said.
"I take it you're less than enthused with this," said Sansa, following the same conversation again.
"We might find something interesting there. Which doesn't take away the fact that I've filled my quota of bullshit in this life."
Sansa chuckled, shaking her head once more. "What happened to your sense of awe Joff?"
"My sense of awe is so distorted I'm starting to find leaves breathtaking. Dear, I think I might be going crazy again."
"You've always found leaves fascinating… Can you aim for broody instead? You're cuter like that," said Sansa, hiding an impish smile.
"Wife, I swear," he said as he stopped leaning on the ship's railing and caught her from behind instead, "If I see reality melting like putty in my hands one more time this life…" he said quickly before slowing down, smile growing, "I'll kidnap you from Winterfell and lock ourselves in some nice, comfy hut in the middle of the Summer Islands," he promised.
"Hm, I like the sound of that," she said as she stretched back, luxuriating in the embrace.
"Six years and change of nice weather and tropical fruits, how's that sound?" he said.
"Really good."
"Major Yham used to tell me they did all sorts of holy rituals back in his homeland," he whispered in her ear as she turned red, "Very religious people they are, those deviant Summer Islanders," he said before biting her ear lightly.
"Sure," said Sansa as she elbowed him back, "We can have a feast with that 'Goddess of Tits and Wines' Tyrion always talks about," she said as she turned and smirked at the sight of Joffrey massaging his sternum.
"We could have a nice time," he said as he raised an eyebrow.
"A nice time with me or with a few lusty locals?"
"… Can't it be both?"
"Oh, if that's the way you want it," she said as she gave him her backside again.
"… Come on Sansa, I was just joking!" he said as he reached her side and she turned her head away, looking at the veritable sea of Ghost Grass that marked both sides of the river basin.
"I'm so very', very' sorry with the offence given, m'lady," he said in Westerosi, rubbing it in with a vaguely peasant accent.
"I should have your tongue cut, to say such things about a lady…" she said, still looking at the Ghost Grass.
"I'll take tha' Black if ya' come with me m'lady," he rasped with a nasal tone, now thoroughly into the territory of stereotypes and Tyroshi plays.
"The insolence! The impudence! I shall call my loyal knight and see you cut down where you stand, you vile wretch!" She said loudly.
"Then I raaather dieeeee than-see-my-heart plucked out! For it-is-hmmm-" Joffrey struggled to continue the song as Sansa jammed her hand against his mouth.
"Joffrey, no."
"Bhumt Smamsa!"
"Joff, listening to a Tyroshi Opera is a fate worse than death, and smothering one's husband is a justified course of action to avoid such fate," she said.
He grumbled as she withdrew her hand, crossing his arms. "Then you wouldn't like to hear my adaptation of our adventures?"
"… Oh Joff, tell me you didn't."
"I'm calling it 'A Speck of Purple'," he confessed his sin, "I'm still trying to work out the songs, but besides that Act One is almost ready."
"There's no way I'm going to avoid this, is there?"
"None. In fact, you're going to help me out with Act Two."
"In your dreams Joff."
He chuckled, "We'll see… unless you have some other pressing task to attend to while we rot aboard this tub?"
Sansa snorted, looking behind her at the upper deck where the doors to the ship's sanctum lay. "Don't let Calinnia hear you say that, she's pretty proud of the Yikeyin."
"That just shows how little she knows about ships. This thing does the one thing it was designed for, and that is sitting at harbor and reminding all the merchants that the House of the South is always home. Actually sailing this thing…" he trailed off, looking below at the beautifully staggered yet horribly inefficient banks of oars. The whole ship was a floating palace, adorned with gold and silver trimmings as well as black sails of Asshai Silk. The latter of which, admittedly, Joffrey would have killed for the Royal Fleet.
Sansa hummed in reluctant agreement. Perhaps if she aided him the result would be less monstrous? "What about the other ones?" she asked in the meanwhile.
"The House of the East is the only one above the rest; they have a proper warship… probably because they actually use it from time to time. They've got something going with the Faith of R'hllor… or most likely a splinter sect or some such. They'd actually need to use ships on a regular basis, for communication purposes if nothing else," he said as he leaned on the railing and watched ahead. "At least they had the sense to put them first."
Sansa did too, and spotted the red painted hull of the Sunchaser, the big war galley of the House of the East. Following close behind was the Promise, of the House of the North. Behind their own ship and last in line was the Juk, the House of the West's double decked galley.
Tellingly enough, it was the only ship manned by all four houses, and not only its original benefactors.
"This 'Compact of the Morn'… how many times has it ever been activated?" Joffrey asked her after he'd grown bored watching the ships again.
"Only twice, according to Calinnia," said Sansa, "Both of them by the Four Houses of Asshai. The last one was six centuries ago when the 'Poisoned Men' of Ulthos invaded from across the seas and even the Houses got scared."
"So this is the first time the Lord of Carcosa has activated Asshai as a co-belligerent?" he said.
"Yes, though technically it's the Four Houses and not the city proper."
"… Ten red notes says it's the Cycle calling on his doorstep," he said as he waved a handful of bills from the Golden Bank of Yi-Ti.
"That's a sucker's bet," said Sansa as she shook her head.
"It'll be dangerous getting close to the Walkers… you sure it'll be worth it?"
"We can only hope Joff. The more we know about how they operate, the better," she said.
"I know that, still don't like it. Getting near the critters is about as close to courting true death as we can get," he said, looking at the Mountains of the Morn in the distance. In less than a week they should be arriving at the end of the river, where they'd swap the galleys for carriages and take the hidden passages across the mountains, right up to the Hidden Lake and Carcosa itself… and hopefully not into a faceful of wights, though Joffrey was pessimistic.
The messenger from Carcosa had been sparse with the details, but Joffrey wouldn't be surprised if the Walkers were as far south as the Cities of the Bloodless Men by now. They did know that the Cycle had been making tremendous inroads to the west of the great mountains, however. The imbecilic pretenders to the imperial throne of Yi-Ti were just now stopping their internecine civil war, agreeing to meet up in Yin to asses 'The True Needs of the Empire and the Divine Will of the Gods' now that the literal dead were ravaging the northeastern third of the nation. Notably, General Pol-Qo, self-proclaimed 'Orange Emperor', Hammer of the Jogos Nhai, and arguably the most credible contender to the throne as far as pure military strength was concerned, would not be going to the summit. He had reportedly left his interim capital of Trader Town and set out to the northwest, following the Steel Road to the northern Bone Mountains and western Essos, marching away from the Empire as fast as he could.
The fact that several Congregations of Jogos Nhai were following his lead, apparently of their own free will, told Joffrey all he needed to know about who -or perhaps more accurately what- was on their tails. The zorze-riding Jogos Nhai were said to be the Horsechiefs slightly less fierce but much more technologically advanced cousins, and if they were half as capable of holding a grudge as a Horsechief then the mere fact that they were following someone widely acclaimed as 'The Hammer of the Jogos Nhai' said all Joffrey needed to know about the numbers of the likely horde of wights trailing after them.
Fucking Walkers, he thought, once again scanning the horizon. Sansa thought him paranoid, watching for wights so far south, but that just showed how she'd never actually lived through the actual Long Night.
"Is that…" Joffrey muttered, placing a hand over his forehead and peering at the horizon. Please prove me wrong, please prove me wrong… he thought.
"I know that sound…" he said as strained to hear a low thrumming buzz.
Sansa was straining to hear it when Brightroar leapt into Joffrey's hand, and he turned to her with an expression he felt all too familiar. "Tell Calinnia we're under attack from the air!" he said before running for the main deck.
"We're under attack! Ready those bows!" he roared in Yi-Tish, and surprisingly enough the blackguards seemed to heed his words. He didn't know if it was because the Matriarch had taken him and Sansa into her confidence, or because they'd just been trained to obey that tone of voice, but they moved.
One of them starting banging an oval-like, shrilly bell not so different to what the Aeromancers used to call their members to the dining table. It let out a pattern of two's and three's as the other blackguards took recurve bows from the warchests secured along the main deck, putting on their quivers as others readied katanas.
"Form two lines! Archers at the front, swords behind!" He shouted as he pointed with Brightroar, the blackguards already notching as he turned to the helmsman. "Rudder dead ahead, slow down those oars!"
He could already see the Flying Wights tilting to his left, huge swarms of them falling like stones from the sky, their blue eyes betraying their masters as they wielded broken swords or just their clawed hands. The Sunchaser loosed its mounted artillery of mangonels; incendiary charges exploding in midair and burning the Flying Wights, making others lose their trajectories and crash against the ground or the water. The rest braved the volley of crossbow bolts and crashed against the ship, reducing the range to melee.
The flight of wights had already divided before that though, four different sections spreading out to encompass all four ships.
"They'll land behind the archers and try to gut them! Swords ready! Swords ready!!!" he roared as he raised Brightroar. The archers didn't wait for his command though, loosing as one and nailing scores of the wights with incredible accuracy. The wounds were far from fatal though, and only one in three wights hit actually tumbled down from the skies.
There were two more fast volleys before they landed on their midst, and then Joffrey was busy with Brightroar and his spare mace, cutting wights in half and smashing their skulls like the old days.
Flying Wights were structurally weaker than wights made out of the other races of men, and they served as fast but brittle shock infantry to the Cycle. The Yikeyin was resisting the assault effectively though, blackguards forming circles and reacting with discipline. More and more Shadowbinders were joining the fray too, long lances of darkness arcing from their outstretched hands and striking wights from the skies.
The tide was relentless though, and the deck started to get crowded when another flock of wights struck from the other side of the ship. The blackguards trying to form up by the other side were smashed apart, their katanas flying away as they tumbled through the deck, the claws of the Flying Wights close behind and finishing them off.
Joffrey retreated upwards through an open aired staircase, batting a wight overboard with his hammer before he spotted Sansa defending the double doors that lead into the ship's inner sanctum. Another Shadowbinder lay dead by her feat, slashed to ribbons as the gaggle of Flying Wights struggled to kill her too. Their steadily arriving reinforcements were already crowding the wooden balcony.
He ran as fast as he could through the stairs that connected both sections, shouldering aside another wight as he tried to reach her. Sansa was stepping back, trying to work some sort of ritual with one hand while she used the other to fend off her attackers, her long smoky blade of darkness cutting down wights in half like pure steel.
It was not enough though, and one of the wights struck her with a light saber. She recoiled as she reached her, a whirlwind of death as he cut them apart and smashed their rib cages with furious blows.
"Joff!" said Sansa, jamming her black blade through one of the thing's skulls in the confusion.
"I'll guard you! Do your thing!" he shouted. It turned into a roar as he hefted Brightroar in a brutal cut that severed two wights at once. The blade somehow stuck in the second wight, and he used his hammer as leverage to pry open the wight like a packed basket. He kept changing his grip and reach constantly, keeping the snarling wights on their toes as Sansa inhaled deeply. She extended a hand to her left, a torrent of smoke emerging from it and choking half a dozen wights. Joffrey covered her right side as she grunted in pain, slashing apart the two lightly armored foes trying to flank her.
Sansa twisted her hand as she bellowed through gritted teeth, the chain of smoke around the wights throats crunching sickeningly as it coiled around their spines, their necks snapping apart as one of her eyes turned white.
Lady had grown massive over the years, rivaling a small horse in size. She emerged from the melee carrying a wight by the neck, her raised fur making her seem twice as big as she slammed the wight against the deck and broke it in two. She swiftly let it go as she reached her mistress, bowling wights aside as she jumped from the lower deck right towards the balcony, smashing the gold and silver enameled railing apart. Between the three of them they managed to defend the double doors, and soon a prodigious amount of black smoke was emerging from the other side.
"I think she's ready!" shouted Sansa.
"What?" said Joffrey before Calinnia glided through the doors, dozens of shadowy tendril emerging from her back as she swept the deck with one of her arms.
"Die," she whispered, the tendrils bolting like spears and piercing the wights to the deck by the dozens. They screamed as Calinnia raised her arms to the skies and the wind picked up impossibly fast, bursts of airspeed that made the dead tumble out of the ship, catching those who'd extended their wings off guard.
There were too many though, more and more of the cursed wretches flying in from the skies and landing on the ships while others crawled out of the water, climbing the decks with their talons. Joffrey soon realized the wights were seeking to exhaust the Shadowbinders through sheer attrition, because as soon as they ran out of blood the storm of darkness keeping them at bay would abate and they would all be overwhelmed.
The Shadowbinders themselves had formed into small groups of two or three, and their ways of dispatching the wights were as many as were their numbers. Some seemed more like Sansa, conjuring tendrils of darkness that whipped around or through wights, while others joined hands and did strange things to the winds and the shadows around the ship, deep gashes of darkness that swallowed up wights with nary a sound.
Joffrey was constantly scanning his surroundings as he rented the dead apart with hammer and sword, and that was the reason he saw them first. "More Flying Wights! Coming from the north east at high altitude!" he shouted, but he immediately noticed there was something radically different about that group of flyers.
They flew like war galleys would sail just before battle, organized in several formations which filled the skies with triangles or boxes. There were dozens of flights of around fifty or a hundred each, keeping station with other flights at both lower and higher altitudes, most of them flying in arrowhead formations. Joffrey could see the lead figures of the first eight groups slowly tilting their wings to their right, losing altitude quickly as they plummeted to the earth. They carried flags of different colors and variable number of black marks, and others of the same groups followed the lead figures sequentially, a carefully choreographed dance that unfolded as they reached some invisible point in the sky.
Their shrill battlecry sent shivers up Joffrey's spine, so eerily familiar to the shrieking of the Flying Wights but not. It had been made right, high pitched and ululating; it was the battlecry of the Winged Men. They fell from the sky with long sabers like a storm upon the gaggle of disorganized Flying Wights mobbing around the ships, cutting their wings apart with precise but brutal strikes that sent their victims tumbling downwards in a rain of true death.
The Winged Men did not reach the ships though, they angled their wings before reaching the deck, gliding back up as they started reclaiming altitude. Another group of saber wielders repeated the maneuver, clearing the skies before dispersing back to where they came as a heavy cavalry unit would do after a successful charge.
Joffrey tripped a wight on top of another, piercing both their rib cages with Brightroar before parrying a katana with his mace, Westerosi steel blunting aside the blow and swiftly putting an end to his attacker's skull. Sansa was painting a line of blood with her hand, standing back as the wights crossed it and promptly started to shiver wildly on the deck, giving Lady the opportunity to stomp them with impunity.
Another battlecry -this one still high pitched but flat instead of ululating- made Joffrey stare at the sky once more .The Winged Men in the box formations were falling directly over the ships, wings folded at their backs as they aimed long two handed lances. They slowed down to half their speed just seconds before the impact, opening up their wings and raining upon the deck in a staccato of steel on bone and wood. They jammed their lances straight into chests and skulls, landing on top of the wights in concentrated groups before shoving their backs to one another, leaving space for the formations behind them to carry out the very same maneuver. Once they had all landed they twirled their lances as if they were long spears and advanced into the melee over the wrecked corpses of their former brethren, discipline grinding the enemy's superior numbers to dust.
They looked somewhat bulkier than their saber wielding compatriots, wearing iron lamellar instead of cloth armor. They looked stronger too, piercing wights and smashing them against the ground so the soldier behind them could finish them off. They relieved the beleaguered blackguards quickly enough, and soon one of them was climbing the stairs to the balcony.
A soldier through and through, thought Joffrey as he nodded at the man. His lamellar armor had an upright yellow rectangle painted right in the middle, chipped away by the ravages of war. On its center was a single black line, representing one in classical Yi-Tish. "Honored Matriarch," he said as he half bowed, half nodded, "I am Suul; Greatborn, Wing Commander of the First Lancers, and by the divine grace of the Yellow Emperor, Mahil of Carcosa."
Calinnia returned the half bow respectfully, not a hint of her usual disdain, "The House of the South thanks you, Mahil Suul. Our struggle here would have been a long one without the aid of the Yellow Emperor's Wings," she said. Joffrey noted she said long and not doomed.
Proud till the end, he thought, amused.
"And you two must be Joffrey Baratheon and Sansa Stark," he said as he turned towards them abruptly, banging his lance on the floor. "My liege has been looking forward to meeting you both," he said with a pleased smile, showing long fangs.
-: PD :-