Ana stepped close, placing a heavy, gauntleted hand on my shoulder. "Daemon, it is not necessary to indulge him. You owe these men nothing," she murmured under the din of the crowd.
I set the empty wooden bowl aside and met her eyes. "I know. But if I am to ride with you on the morrow, a brutal display of superiority is the only language these men will understand," I said, a wicked grin spreading across my face.
She studied my expression for a long second, searching for any hesitation, and found none. She let out a resigned sigh. "Very well. Follow me." She turned, parting the sea of cheering sellswords to lead us to the sparring ring.
The sparring ring was little more than a wide circle of trampled earth, illuminated by the erratic, snapping light of a dozen torches. The mercenaries formed a tight ring around us, their faces painted in jagged shadows, their breath pluming in the chill night air.
I unbuckled the scabbard of Dark Sister and held it out to Ana. She took the ancestral blade with solemnity, the heavy Valyrian steel settling into her grip.
"Find me a lesser blade," I commanded the crowd. A burly sellsword tossed me a standard arming sword. I caught it by the hilt. It was sluggish, heavy in the tip, and lacked the razor edge of Valyrian steel. It was perfect for an execution of pride.
The young sellsword stepped into the ring, rolling his shoulders. He gripped his broadsword with both hands, his knuckles white, his stance wide and aggressive. He was running on pure, unrefined fury.
"First blood?" the boy sneered, trying to mask the slight tremor in his voice.
I let the tip of my borrowed sword rest in the dirt. "No. Until you cannot stand."
With a roar, he charged. He swung the broadsword in a massive, sweeping arc meant to cleave me in two. It was a peasant's strike—all strength, no discipline. I didn't even bother to block. I merely pivoted on my heel, letting the heavy iron whistle past my chest. As his momentum carried him forward, I flicked my wrist, drawing the edge of my blade across his exposed left bicep.
The cloth parted, and a bright line of crimson welled up instantly.
He hissed, stumbling, before spinning around to deliver a clumsy overhead chop. I raised my sword, catching his blade near the crossguard, and twisted my wrist, forcing his weapon off course. With my free hand, I delivered a sharp, open-palmed strike to his jaw, snapping his head back, and followed it with a shallow horizontal cut across his ribs as he staggered away.
"Is this the seasoned skill you boasted of?" I taunted, the words slipping smoothly over the clash of steel. "You swing like a drunken blacksmith."
Anger clouded whatever meagre judgment he possessed. He rushed me again, abandoning all defense. The next few minutes were an exercise in anatomy. I dismantled him piece by piece. When he thrust, I sidestepped and laid a shallow gash across his thigh. When he swung wildly, I ducked and opened a cut on his cheek.
I refused to give him the mercy of a quick end. I danced around his desperate, heavy swings, incorporating the fluid, balanced footwork I had stolen from the Empire's Paladins in King's Landing. Every time he left an opening—which was constantly—I left a bleeding line in his flesh.
The boy was panting like a dying dog. Sweat stung his eyes, mixing with the blood pouring from a gash on his forehead. His leather armor was ruined, shredded by two dozen superficial cuts. His swings grew slower, the broadsword too heavy for his trembling arms. He slipped in his own blood, catching himself just before hitting the dirt, but the effort drained the last dregs of his strength.
He dropped to his knees, his breath rattling in his chest. He drove the point of his sword into the mud, using both hands on the pommel just to keep his torso upright.
I stepped into his guard, the mud sucking at my boots, and placed the cold edge of my borrowed steel directly against the nape of his neck.
"Say it," I commanded softly.
He trembled, his head hanging low, fading in and out of consciousness as the blood loss took its toll. "I... I admit defeat," he stammered, his voice a pathetic, wet rasp. "I beg you... spare me."
I let out a low, dark chuckle, stepping back and tossing the borrowed sword onto the dirt. "You are spared, O seasoned sellsword."
The moment the words left my mouth, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed face-first into the muck of the sparring yard.
For a heartbeat, there was total silence. Then, the camp erupted. The mercenaries beat their gauntlets against their chest plates, roaring their approval. The greed in their eyes had been replaced by a primal, intoxicating reverence. Several of the veterans shoved their way to the front of the ring, shouting challenges, asking to test their own steel against mine.
"On the morrow," I declared, waving them off as I turned to retrieve Dark Sister from Ana. "My blade has had enough of beggar's blood for one night."
I had barely taken two steps when the night shattered.
It began as a low, vibrating hum that rattled the loose steel in the armor racks, before escalating into a deafening, ear-splitting shriek. The sound was a physical weight, tearing through the camp and silencing the cheers instantly.
A massive shadow blotted out the moon. The wind from the wings hit the camp like a physical blow, flattening the firepits and sending embers swirling into the dark sky like a storm of fireflies.
"DRAGON!" someone screamed, the word thick with absolute terror.
The mercenaries broke. The seasoned killers who had just cheered for blood now scattered like roaches fleeing a torch, dropping their weapons and trampling each other to reach the tree line. I turned calmly, my eyes immediately finding Ana. Marc had already moved, his massive frame positioned squarely between the falling shadow and his commander, his broadsword drawn as he yelled at her to fall back.
With a heavy, earth-shuddering crash, Caraxes landed.
His talons ripped through the canvas of a large command tent, crushing the timber supports beneath his immense weight. His long, serpentine neck coiled and snapped, his crimson scales reflecting the dying embers of the scattered fires. He let out a low, territorial hiss, hot smoke billowing from his maw.
"Get away, you fool!" one of the fleeing sellswords yelled back at me, terror making his voice crack.
I ignored them. I walked slowly toward the ruined tent, feeling the familiar, suffocating heat radiating from the beast's furnace of a chest.
Caraxes snapped his massive head toward me, his golden, slitted eyes narrowing. Then, the tension bled out of his coiled muscles. He lowered his great, horned snout to the mud, letting out a high-pitched, vibrating trill that vibrated in my teeth.
I reached out, resting my bare hand against the scalding, rough scales of his jaw.
"Lykiri, Caraxes," I murmured in High Valyrian, feeling the immense, destructive power thrumming just beneath my palm. "Lykiri. Nyke rȳtsa." (Calm, Caraxes. Calm. I am here.)
I turned my head slightly, looking back over my shoulder at the paralyzed, terrified remnants of the Falling Stars, letting them fully comprehend exactly who had just joined their ranks. Strangely the terror was not reflected in the eyes of their Commander, all I saw when I looked at her standing but a few paces away from me was fascination. For a moment it seemed like her eyes came alight a trick of the moonlight perhaps. Nevertheless I felt drawn to them.