The fire-weed fields had been stripped bare. The harvest was dried, roasted, and packed into heavy burlap sacks—a fortune in raw medicine and wine additives. Everyone in the Disputed Lands knew that Magister Calasso desperately needed this wealth to reach Myr if he was to survive the elections.
"We are rolling the dice now," Steward Leff said quietly, standing by the open gates of the estate. He looked up at Pretty Boy, who was already mounted on his destrier. "The Magister will either soar to the heavens or plummet into the abyss."
"Are you not coming with us to Myr, Leff?" Pretty Boy asked, his voice low.
"This red-walled estate is where I have spent half my life. I was born here, and I imagine I will die here," Leff replied, offering a sad, fatalistic smile. "Besides, Myr is just as dangerous right now as the Disputed Lands. But I pray the Magister wins. If he falls, his rivals will see to it that his people suffer the worst fate imaginable."
"I had almost forgotten," Pretty Boy sighed, the grim reality of Essosi politics settling over him.
If a Magister fell from grace, his rivals did not simply take his seat. They liquidated his existence. His ports, his manses, his merchant fleets, and even his wives, children, and slaves would be seized to pay off his fabricated debts.
It had happened before. During the aftermath of the Dance of the Dragons, the Lyseni Magister Bambaro Martins had been murdered by his own sellswords for unpaid wages. In the ensuing chaos, his creditors seized his manse, sold his wife and children into the pillow houses, and surrendered all his assets—including his hostage, Prince Viserys Targaryen—to the obscenely wealthy Lysandro Rogare.
"Take care of yourself, old friend," Pretty Boy said heavily. He raised his hand and signaled the trumpeter.
A long, mournful note echoed across the rust-red hills. The Wolf Pack detachment, acting as the vanguard for the slave-drawn wagons, began its march at dawn.
"And you as well, my friend," Leff called after him. "If the city turns against you, the estate can serve as a fortress. We have the high ground, the walls, and the sea is not far."
Inside the barracks, Gendry stood before a polished bronze mirror, inspecting his gear.
He looked like a warlord forged in iron. He wore his black scale mail, heavy steel greaves, and his massive bull-horned helm. A dagger, the captured Meereenese arakh, and a spiked morningstar hung from his belt. His warhammer was slung across his back alongside the magnificent yew longbow crafted by Fletcher Dick. He was a terrifying amalgamation of Westerosi brute strength and Essosi lethality.
Knock. Knock.
Qyburn slipped into the room, wearing a fitted shirt of black ringmail. The heavy iron seemed to drag the old man's shoulders down, but on the road to Myr, armor was a strict necessity.
"Your Grace. It is time. If we push the horses, we might not miss the grand finale of the Myrish elections," Qyburn said.
"The election game," Gendry muttered, adjusting his sword belt. "Power is a strange magic of its own. It compels men to march to their deaths smiling."
"There is no other way, Your Grace. Unless we possessed the sheer numbers of the Golden Company, we cannot force the Free Cities to bow to us. We must play their games or be crushed by them."
"And if Magister Calasso loses?" Gendry asked. "What happens to the Wolf Pack?"
"We bleed," Qyburn said bluntly. "Ideally, we would have stayed at the estate. If Myr turned hostile, we could have seized the fire-weed, stolen a ship, and sailed for the Stepstones to turn pirate. But these Northmen... their heads are made of stone. They will honor their contract to the bitter end."
"The Wolf Pack are soldiers, not bandits," Gendry replied. "And what of your smuggler contacts? Any news on the Targaryens?"
Qyburn lowered his voice, stepping closer. "The Beggar King and his sister are running out of road. In the beginning, the Magisters and Archons of the Free Cities were happy to host the last dragons. But as Robert Baratheon's rule solidified, the doors began to close. They have sold off their mother's jewels, and now even her crown is gone. They call them the Beggar King and the Beggar Princess in Pentos."
"Viserys wants too much," Gendry analyzed coldly. "He wants to sell his sister for an army large enough to conquer Westeros. No cheesemonger or spice merchant in Essos can afford that price."
It was pure geopolitical reality. Viserys was asking the merchants to fund a military invasion against a unified Westeros. As long as the grand alliance of the Stag, Wolf, Falcon, Trout, and Lion held firm, the Iron Throne was utterly unassailable from the east. No Essosi merchant would risk their fleet on such a suicidal venture.
"The Beggar King is going mad with waiting," Qyburn agreed. "He waits for the dragons to return, but year after year, nothing happens. He is an obstacle to our cause, Your Grace. You only need the Princess."
"A pity. But madness runs deep in that bloodline," Gendry sighed. If Viserys could just hold on for two more years, the War of the Five Kings would shatter Westeros and present him with the perfect opportunity. But fourteen years of exile, poverty, and humiliation had already burned the boy's sanity to ash.
"The beautiful Dragon Princess remains a dream for tomorrow," Qyburn said, gesturing to the door. "Today, we must survive the wrath of the Myrish cheesemongers."
The grey wolf banner snapped in the coastal wind.
Because they were escorting heavily laden slave wagons, the detachment's pace was agonizingly slow. To avoid the massive mercenary armies clashing on the main roads of the Disputed Lands, Pretty Boy had chosen a treacherous, hidden route. They were marching straight for the coastline, where pre-arranged smuggler galleys were waiting to ferry the fire-weed directly into Myr's harbor.
The coastal road was little more than a goat path, winding through jagged cliffs and dense, scrubby coastal forests. It was notorious for ambushes.
As they rode, the stench of rotting meat hit them.
Gendry looked up. Lining the sides of the road were dozens of crude wooden crosses. Nailed to the timber were the decaying corpses of men and women. Crows had already plucked their eyes out and stripped the flesh from their cheeks. Their ragged clothes fluttered in the sea breeze, and heavy iron manacles still hung from their rotting wrists.
"Crucifixions," Pretty Boy noted grimly. "Runaway slaves and the smugglers who tried to ferry them across the Narrow Sea. The Magisters like to leave warnings."
Fletcher Dick rode up beside Gendry, his longbow resting easily across his saddlehorn. "Greybeard took thirty lances to Myr. We had twenty more join us at the estate. That leaves sixty men and the camp followers back at the Wolf's Den."
"We don't have fifty lances here," Pretty Boy corrected, his eyes scanning the dense brush along the cliffs. "Morningstar and three others didn't make it. We are forty-six."
"Same difference to me," Fletcher Dick smiled, spitting a wad of sourleaf into the dirt. "Forty-six wolves are enough to tear the throat out of any bandit crew. Besides, we've got the lad who crushed the Meereenese pit fighter. He's worth ten men on his own."
Gendry shifted uncomfortably in his saddle, though a spark of pride warmed his chest.
Suddenly, Pretty Boy reined his horse to a halt. His scarred face went entirely rigid.
"I've felt eyes on us for the last three miles," the commander hissed, drawing his longsword. The steel sang as it cleared the scabbard. "It seems they've finally found their courage."