Chapter 105: King Talks
Artos had not left the small council satisfied.
He had left it with too many thoughts, too many irritations, and a growing certainty that the realm was rotting in places where no one cared to look. Still, there was nothing to be gained by brooding in the chamber. So he returned to his lodgings, settled his nieces, and made certain the direwolves were seen to as well.
The tower assigned to the Hand was too small for the number of men Artos had brought with him. A thousand swords could not be settled in a place meant for a fraction of that number, and so the burden of the rest fell to the city below. It was a problem, but not an impossible one.
He called Ethan to him and explained the matter in full.
The man listened as though each word were a lesson carved into stone. He had been trained for war, for Lordly duties, and for the boring and annoying tasks he didn't himself wants to do or avoid it. Artos trusted him to do what needed doing, and more often than not, Ethan did it without complaint.
That was the sort of man the North admired.
Artos stood near the direwolves before sleeping, one hand absently moving over their thick fur.
"I know you do not like being caged," he murmured to Lady and Nymeria. "But bear it for me. Stay in this tower. Do not go wandering alone."
The wolves watched him with those unnerving, knowing eyes of theirs, and he knew they understood every word.
They were easier to manage than Rick, at least. His bastard friend could cause trouble without even meaning to, and often did.
Artos looked up at Raka.
"Keep the tower secure. I do not want a single lapse."
Raka gave a firm nod. "Aye, my lord. Men are posted at every access point. They will die before they let any Stark be harmed."
Artos gave a satisfied nod. He had trained them well, and he knew it.
"Good. There are hidden ways in this tower, and routes no one knows properly. Find them. I want them guarded too."
He hesitated, glancing toward Arya's quarters.
"I will have the wolves and Arya look for hidden ways . They would be effective at that."
Raka's mouth twitched with the beginning of a smile.
He had seen enough of his lord by then to know the difference between the warrior Artos had once been and the lord he was becoming. The old him might not have approved of softness, but Now Raka knew better.
"Aye, my lord. I will report to Lady Arya."
Artos snorted. "Just do not let her go overboard."
"She is like you, my lord," Raka said. "What do you expect?"
Artos exhaled through his nose, half amused and half resigned.
"Even with one eye, I still see your smug face, mountain man."
Raka laughed.
Artos let the matter rest there and went to sleep at last, taking what rest he could claim.
The Next Day
The next morning, Artos dressed with care and took one of his own bottles of mead with him.
He knew Robert would appreciate it.
More than that, he knew a cup of good drink would make the king easier to speak with.
Artos had business to discuss, and not all of it pleasant. The matter at the Kingsroad still hung between them, though neither man had said all they meant to say about it.
Robert Baratheon was in his solar drinking and speaking with Ser Barristan Selmy.
"Yes, it has been a long time," Robert said, looking off for a moment as if the memory had carried him elsewhere. "But I still remember every face."
Robert turned first to Barristan. "You remember your first?"
"Of course, Your Grace," Barristan replied.
"Who was it?"
"A Tyroshi, Your Grace. I never learned the man's name. Lance through the heart."
"Quick one," Robert said with a grin. "Mine was some Tarly boy at the Battle of Summerhall. Came running at me like a fool, thinking a boy with a pretty name could end the rebellion with one brave gesture. I knocked him flat with my hammer."
He laughed, rough and loud.
"Gods, I was strong then."
He drained his cup and shook his head. "They never tell you how many of them shit themselves. Songs leave that part out."
Barristan smiled faintly, though he remained the picture of a man on duty.
Then Artos stepped in.
"Your Grace."
Robert looked up and broke into a grin. "Ah, Arty. Come in. We are sharing our first kills. Join us, and call me Robert. I know you are still annoyed with me because of the Kingsroad, but if you had spent half as much time with the queen as I have, you would understand."
Artos gave him a dry look and took the offered seat.
"Maybe," he said. "Lucky for me, then."
Robert chuckled at that.
"I am glad your wolves are still alive," he said after a moment. "They are... quite a miracle, aren't they? A gift from the old gods, you say. Northerners and their strange blessings."
Artos nodded seeing a genuine words. "Thanks, Your Grace."
"None of that in private," Robert said, waving a hand. "You are not one of my court lickspittles, Arty. Not you. I let your 2000 men into King's Landing because I trust you. Do not go too sour on me now because you still piss for that Something Queen did."
Barristan looked mildly shocked at the number of northern men Artos had brought, but said nothing.
Artos lifted the bottle. "That is why I brought this."
Robert's eyes brightened. "Lancel, pour it."
Artos glanced toward the squire. "Your squire, Robert?"
"Aye. Too many Lannisters everywhere, isn't it? Smug smiles in every bloody corridor. Though now there are Northerners too, thank the gods. I would see something different now."
Artos laughed, though his mind noticing Lancel and kept a note
He turned to Barristan. "You will not have a cup?"
Barristan inclined his head. "No, my lord Hand. I am on duty."
Artos smiled. "Ah. A pity. This one is special. It is from my own batch, made by my own hand. One of the strongest meads in the realm, not something I kept for the Sale in my trade company. That is a wasted opportunity."
Robert barked a laugh.
"Then I relieve you of duty, Barristan. Drink it. It is good mead, and we are all safer for it. No one is going to attack me in my own solar. That is an order."
Barristan hesitated only a moment before sitting.
"Yes, Your Grace."
For a time, the three of them drank and spoke of war.
"Tell us your First kill, In the Rebellion? "
Artos answered as a man who had learned too young that glory and blood were rarely the same thing.
"Nah,My first was a wildling," Artos said. "I was twelve, I think. Bloody fool that I was, I wanted glory. The bastard made me work for it. I nearly died myself."
Robert laughed. "Twelve. That sounds like you. You were a wild one then. You threatened to kill me once during the war, do you remember?"
Artos smiled into his cup. "Aye. Stubborn man that I was."
Even Barristan smiled at that.
Then Robert leaned forward, interested.
"What about the Dothraki war story? You were telling me of it on the Kingsroad. You fought them, did you not?"
"Aye," Artos said. "Just before the Greyjoy Rebellion."
Barristan's expression sharpened. "And that is where you lost your eye, my lord. From a loyal man, you said."
Artos gave a slow nod.
"Aye."
His smile remained, but it darkened as he looked into the cup.
"One of the darkest periods of my life," he said. "Not because I lost the eye. No. I lost more than that. A eye Nothing in comparison. Remember the Battle of Bloody Dance"
Robert sobered at once.
"Aye," he said quietly. "I remember the bloody dance. One of the bloodiest battles of the rebellion."
Barristan nodded. "It was hell. I fought there too. One of the bloodiest battles I have ever seen."
"Aye," Artos said. "And hell it was. But it was not the bloodiest battle for me. Not by far."
He set the cup down.
"Before Greyjoy War, I had fought Dothraki in the Red Waste. I had fought them beforehand once, but there I learned what true madness looks like when horse-lords gather to kill."
Robert and Barristan fell silent, listening.
Artos leaned back, eyes distant now, as though the room around him had faded and the sands of Essos had returned beneath his feet.
"I had more than eighty thousand men," he said. "Not all of them mine. Most were arranged by Pentoshi merchants and magisters, but I was a sellsword commander myself, and the overall commander for the campaign. I thought it would be an interesting contract. Important enough. Expensive enough. But also some important deals attach with it."
Robert said nothing.
Barristan said nothing.
Artos continued.
"At first, the Dothraki struck as they always do. Hit and run. From the edges. From the dust. From places where you cannot see their numbers until they are already on you. Different khalasars. . They came and went "
He looked up then, and his good eye sharpened.
"But I was young, and I was angry at that time Rage fueling me. I answered them too hard. So hard that they began to gather together instead of scattering."
Robert frowned slightly. "Together?"
"Aye. Two or three Khalasars merged .Their khal was the strongest among them. One of the strongest men I have ever known, even now. The biggest khalasar in Dothraki history gathered under him. More than sixty thousand riders."
Barristan's brows rose despite himself.
Artos gave a hard smile.
"We were going to meet in an open field after some skrimmes I and he made. What do you think happened."
Robert looked at him and made his guess at once, for he knew Artos well enough to know the sort of answer he would expect from himself.
"You had twenty thousand more men. You are an excellent battle commander. A warrior. You must have won."
"Aye," Barristan said quietly. "I would not have thought you could lose, even against the Dothraki in open field."
Artos's expression did not change, but the air in the room seemed to grow heavier.
"Aye," he said. "I won."
Then he paused.
"Could I call it a victory? I do not know."
Robert's grin had vanished entirely.
"About a hundred thousand men died that day."
The silence that followed was deep enough to feel.
Artos's voice went lower.
"Even now I still see the ghosts of that war. More than a hundred thousand men in a single day. I had never imagined such slaughter could exist until I saw it."
For a moment none of them spoke.
Then Artos continued, and the past opened around him like a wound.
The Red Waste
The Red Waste had not been a battlefield at first. It had been a death trap.
The wind there did not cool a man. It burned him. The sand slid underfoot like ash, and the horizon shimmered with false distance until even experienced eyes could no longer trust what they saw. Water was worth more than silver there, and life less than that.
Artos had marched in the middle of it with a sellsword host that should never have been forced so deep into the Waste.
The first Dothraki attacks were small.
Too small.
Arrows from nowhere.
Riders on the edge of sight.
Camps found gutted in the morning, men missing throats, horses stolen, packs scattered in the sand.
Artos had answered every strike with steel and fury, but that only made the horse-lords change shape. They began to converge.
Different khalasars, once scattered and proud in their own ways, bent together under a single khal with a name that had already become a curse in Pentoshi mouths.
He was enormous in reputation and in body alike, a great beast of a man who had conquered by strength and fear.
The men with Artos called him a monster.
The merchants called him an apocalypse.
If this khal could be broken, the rest would scatter.
So he gathered his own men.
Eighty thousand became fewer by attrition, thirst, and fear. Still, what remained of the host was enough to stand if it had to.
Sellswords from across the Free Cities. Archers. Spearmen. Heavy cavalry. Men who had been promised pay and were now being given survival instead.
The Dothraki had chosen the open ground.
The field they met upon was wide and cruel, a place with little cover and too much sky. The horse-lords came in waves, a black storm of riders and screaming bloodriders. Their khal led from the center, massive on his mount, his blade flashing under the sun like fire.
Artos met them with disciplined ranks.
He had archers set in layers, crossfire waiting on the flanks, pikes planted to break the charge, cavalry held back until the moment was right. The first wave shattered against his line. The second wave died trying to reach the same place. The third came screaming for blood.
And still they came.
The ground filled with bodies.
The sky filled with arrows.
The noise was like the world tearing itself apart.
Artos rode where the battle was thickest, his horse lathered white, blood slicking the leather of his gloves. He had already killed more men than he could count before he saw the khal himself.
Then came the duel.
The khal came for him like a storm given flesh. His blade was broad and hard and wet with the blood of men who had mistaken courage for victory. Artos met him with steel and speed, but the khal was no simple raider. He was strong, fast, and savage in the way only the greatest of the horse-lords could be.
They traded blows in the dust and chaos of the field.
Then, as the duel still raged, the khal's bloodrider struck.
It was not a fair blow.
It was not meant to be.
It was the kind of strike the Dothraki loved, the kind that turned battle into chaos and honor into a fool's prayer. The blade flashed across Artos's face before he could turn.
Pain exploded through him.
His eye was split open.
For one moment the world became red and white and impossible.
The khal snarled and nearly killed the bloodrider for the insult, furious that one of his own had interfered in a personal duel. It was a disrespect for Khal
But Artos stopped him.
He simply raised a hand and made the khal focus on him
Artos fought with the men. The clashed Artos with sword and Khal with his Arakh . They both exchanged blows after blows. With Artos with his injured and screaming pain in eyes, Artos in rage fought and challenges the Khal.
Artos fought on.
One-eyed, bloodied, and furious.
At last he killed the man barely.
The battle ended only after the Dothraki line cracked, then broke, then fled into the dust in scattered fragments. The cost was dreadful. Men died by the thousands. The field stayed red long after the sun went down.
When it was done, Artos had won the battle.
But he had not escaped it.
He had lost the eye.
He had lost men.
He had lost part of himself in that desert.
And when he rode away from the field, he was no longer the same man who had entered it. He when he saw around 100000 men died has changed knowing thier blood is on his hands. He has done more than what was asked. But at what cost.
Back in the Solar
Artos blinked once and found himself again in Robert's solar.
Robert was staring at him now, sober and silent.
Barristan looked grave.
The memory had done its work.
Artos reached for the cup and took another drink, as though to wash the desert from his mouth.
Then he exhaled slowly.
"That was the war," he said. "And the duel came after it."
Robert nodded once.
Artos's mouth twitched, but there was no humor in it.
"The khal's bloodrider cut my eye before the duel was done. He nearly died for it. The khal was angry enough to kill him on the spot."
Barristan gave a faint nod. He understood, if only because he understood honor as Dothraki and warriors alike understood it — a thing that could be broken, but not ignored. Though he despised them for thier other things.
"Later," Artos said, "that same man became one of mine. Vakho. One of the most trusted men in my household."
Robert gave a short breath through his nose, disbelief.
"You turned a bloodrider into your man?"
Artos's expression turned dark. "Aye. I was treated as the new khal among Dothraki due to my strength and riding skills. Even went to Vaes Dothrak thier most sacred place."
Artos said nothing after that
But the look in his eye said enough.
...
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