I brought Dark Sister up. Valyrian steel does not gleam; it drinks the light, rippling like dark smoke. The first sellsword lunged with a rusted spear. I sidestepped the clumsy thrust, bringing my blade up in a tight, vicious arc. Dark Sister sheared through the thick wood of the spear shaft and continued seamlessly through the man's throat. Hot blood sprayed across my tunic, painting the pale fabric crimson.
The second man swung a heavy broadsword in a wide, amateurish sweep. I ducked beneath the whistling iron, driving my shoulder into his chest to knock him off balance, and drove my blade up through the bottom of his jaw. The point punched out the top of his skull. I wrenched it free with a wet crunch, kicking his twitching corpse away.
Across the clearing, the grizzled man who had called me "boy" was losing his footing. Three men battered his shield, driving him to his knees in the mud. One raised a spiked mace to crush his skull.
I crossed the distance in three long strides. I did not bother with finesse. I brought Dark Sister down on the mace-wielder's forearm, severing it completely at the elbow. The man shrieked, staring at his own stump, before I spun and opened his belly from hip to ribcage. His entrails spilled steaming onto the mud.
The grizzled sellsword stared up at me, panting.
"Stand up, Wildman," I commanded, flicking the gore from my blade. "You're ruining my boots."
He stood up using his shield as a crutch, it was then I noticed. He had been heavily slashed from shoulder to waist and still he dove towards the other two sellswords smashing one of them with his shield while severing the head of the other with his sword. He was barbaric just as I had named him a Wildman.
The tide of the skirmish shifted violently. The wild sellswords had relied on numerical superiority, but they lacked the discipline of the Bleeding Stars—and they had never faced a Prince of the Blood wielding Valyrian steel. I moved through their ranks, a shadow among lumbering beasts. Iron shattered against Dark Sister. Leather parted like silk. We carved them down to ten, then five, then three.
Through the chaos, my gaze tracked the silver-haired leader. He was a cataclysm of blades, keeping two attackers at bay, but he was tiring. His chest heaved, and his footwork was growing sluggish in the blood-slick mud.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a massive brute circling behind the leader, raising a heavy battleaxe. He was completely in the leader's blind spot. The leader was engaged, parrying a desperate thrust from the front, totally exposed to the rear.
I was twenty paces away. Too far to close the distance.
I shifted my grip on Dark Sister's hilt, balancing the weight of the Valyrian steel in my palm. I drew my arm back and hurled my sword.
The dark blade hissed through the air. It struck the brute dead in the center of his chest, the Valyrian steel biting so deep the cross guard slammed against his sternum. The force of the throw lifted him off his feet, his axe falling uselessly to the grass as he collapsed backward, choking on his own blood.
The leader, warned by the heavy thud of the falling body, pivoted sharply. A second sneaker—a rat-faced man with a jagged dagger—was lunging right at him. The leader didn't hesitate. He swung his curved blade in a brutal, horizontal arc, taking the rat-faced man's head clean off his shoulders. The decapitated stump fountained blood as the head tumbled into the dirt.
But the sheer violence of the spin caught up with them. The leather cord binding their hair snapped.
A cascade of silver-gold spilled down their back, catching the fading light of the afternoon sun. The crimson streak fell across a face that, stripped of the grime and shadow of combat, was undeniably female. High, aristocratic cheekbones, a sharp jawline, and eyes the colour of the forest.
She stood amidst the butchery, chest heaving, her silver hair plastered to her neck with sweat and blood.
I stood frozen, the breath stalling in my lungs. I had slain men without a second thought, mocked danger, and crossed an ocean on a dragon's back. But looking at this woman, bearing the blood of Old Valyria in a sellsword company across the world, I found myself entirely, utterly dumbfounded.
The woman broke me from my trance, driving the bloodied point of her sword into the earth. "The battle is over. We have won," she proclaimed, her chest heaving as she looked past me toward the grizzled veteran steadily making his way to her side.
"Marc, what is the count?" she asked in flawless High Valyrian.
The veteran—Marc—spat a glob of red into the grass. "We lost eight to their three dozen. Nearly all who stand are bleeding, and we found no game to take back to camp. A foul hunt this turned out to be."
I wrenched Dark Sister free from the chest of the brute I had felled, wiping the Valyrian steel clean on the dead man's tunic. I was beginning to like these sellswords. To have felled three dozen men with a paltry dozen of their own was a serious display of martial talent.
"It matters not. The other hunting parties may have had better luck," she decided. "Make preparations to head back. I shall have a word with our rescuer." She released her blade and walked toward me.
"I thank you, savior, for aiding us against those bandits. Might I have the pleasure of knowing your name?" she asked politely. Her voice had shed the gruff bark of a commander, sounding almost like the highborn ladies of Westeros—but with a sharper, wilder edge.
"The pleasure was all mine, my lady. But is it not custom to offer your own name before demanding another's?" I countered, resting my hands on my hips.
She blinked, a sudden gleam of realization crossing her dirt-streaked features. "Forgive me. The heat of battle addles the mind. I am Ana, Commander of the Falling Stars," she offered.
"Ah, so that is what the sigil means. I had been calling you the Bleeding Stars," I said with a dark chuckle, only to find the woman glaring daggers at me.
She let out a long, reluctant sigh. "Why does everyone misinterpret the symbol?" she grumbled. It was, despite the gore surrounding us, strangely charming.