The roaring battle cry of the Imperial vanguard slowly died in their throats. The expected meat grinder at the breach was completely empty. There were no barricades, no unsullied shield walls, not even the frantic scrambling of fleeing militia. Just a wide, ash-smeared avenue leading into a suffocating, dead silence.
The only sound was the distant, chaotic clashing of steel echoing from deeper within the city, near the temporary sellsword encampments.
"Advance," I commanded, my voice slicing through the unnerving quiet. "Kill any armed man who does not immediately lay down his weapons."
I spurred my warhorse forward, leading a heavily armoured contingent of the vanguard through the shattered threshold. As we rode deeper into the outer districts, a cold, prickling dread began to creep up the back of my neck.
Something was deeply, fundamentally wrong. A breached city should be a chaotic frenzy of panic and survival. This felt like riding into a graveyard.
"Dominus, look to the battlements," a centurion hissed, pointing his lance upward with a trembling, gauntleted hand.
I glanced up at the towering walls we had just spent hours bombarding. The Qohorik archers and defenders who had been frantically running along the masonry mere moments ago were now standing perfectly rigid. They did not draw their bows. They did not shout warnings. They simply stood at the edge of the parapets like stone gargoyles, their features entirely obscured by thick, unnaturally dark shadows that seemed to writhe and cling to their skin.
Suddenly, a deafening crack of thunder shook the cobblestones beneath our hooves. I looked to the sky. The serene, pale moonlight that had illuminated our charge was gone. In the span of a single breath, the sky had been devoured by a swirling, violent vortex of bruised black clouds. A freezing, unnatural drizzle began to fall, washing the ash from the doors.
As we turned a wide corner onto the main thoroughfare, the true, horrifying madness of the city revealed itself.
The massive sellsword encampment was in absolute chaos. But the mercenaries were not forming up to fight the Roman legions. They were desperately fighting the citizens of Qohor. Bakers, blacksmiths, merchants, and starving beggars were throwing themselves blindly onto the sellswords' spears, ignoring mortal wounds to tear at the mercenaries with bare hands and rusted tools.
A ragged peasant burst from an alleyway to my right, sprinting directly at my barded horse. He carried a heavy wood-axe, but he made no battle cry. His mouth hung open in a slack, silent scream. I met his gaze and the breath caught in my throat.
His eyes were gone. Where the whites and irises should have been, there was only a pitch-black, fathomless void.
He lunged, swinging the axe wildly at my horse's neck, entirely heedless of the heavy cavalry surrounding him. I leaned from my saddle and swung my short sword in a brutal, horizontal arc. The Imperial steel sheared cleanly through his neck. The peasant's head tumbled into the mud, his body collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut. No blood sprayed from the stump; the wound simply seeped a thick, dark ichor.
"Shadow possession," I breathed, a cold knot tightening in my gut. Blood magic of the darkest, most esoteric order.
If someone was unleashing magic of this magnitude across the entire populace, the fool would sacrifice his city to stave us off. I needed to find Agrippa before this situation worsens.
I pulled my mount around to face the sprawling Roman vanguard, my wand flaring briefly to cast my voice over the din of the possessed horde.
"Legionaries! The populace of this city is bound by dark sorcery! They will not feel pain, and they will not rout!" I roared. "Strike down any who attack you with steel! Knock the unarmed unconscious with the flats of your blades and your heavy shields! Your lives are paramount but be merciful to the helpless if it can be afforded!" The sonorous faded.
Grand General Claudius rode hard to reach my side, his short sword already dripping with the dark, unnatural blood of the possessed.
"Claudius, establish a perimeter and hold this thoroughfare! Do as you see fit to secure the district," I commanded, wheeling my warhorse toward the deeper, wealthier rings of the city.
"And you, Dominus?" Claudius yelled over a sudden, booming clap of thunder.
"I must find Agrippa," I shouted back. "Before it is too late."
…
Daemon Targaryen
I awoke with a violent jolt, my skull throbbing as though a blacksmith had taken a hammer directly to my temples. My vision swam, struggling to make sense of the flickering braziers surrounding me. The low, droning hum of a hundred chanting voices filled my ears.
As the blurriness faded, the cold reality of stone and iron set in.
I was stripped to the waist, my torso and arms littered with shallow, seeping cuts. Heavy iron chains bound my wrists and waist to a thick stone pillar atop a raised dais. Beneath my bare feet, jagged, intricate runes had been carved deeply into the stone altar. I jerked my head to the side, fighting the heavy grogginess of the sleeping draught. Ana was chained to a twin pillar a few paces away. She remained fully clothed in her ringmail, unharmed, her head lolling as she slowly began to stir.
We were in a cavernous, subterranean temple. Massive stone columns stretched up into the oppressive darkness, while hundreds of dark-robed zealots knelt in concentric circles around the altar, their voices rising and falling in a rhythmic, Bastard Valyrian chant.
"Awake at last, children of magic," came the silken, raspy voice I had grown to despise.
High Priest Trahar stepped onto the altar's lowest stair, his eyes still consumed by that fathomless, terrifying black abyss.
I tested the iron cuffs, the metal biting into my bloody wrists. "What is this?" I spat, though the copper stench in the stale air already gave me my answer.
"An altar of sacrifice to our God," Trahar smiled, his gaunt face stretched tight with sinister glee. "Once your blood fills the runes, it will amplify the shadow magic of every binder in Qohor. Then, we shall begin the final ritual to summon our great God into this realm, using both of you as the ultimate tribute in His name."
"And what do you hope to achieve with this butchery?" Ana demanded. She had gathered her composure with frightening speed. She shot me a hard, calculating look, checking my state. I offered a rigid nod in return. We were bound, but we were not broken.
"To slaughter the red bastards howling at our walls," Trahar hissed, malice bleeding through his fanaticism. "To show them the true power of the Black Goat. He will reduce this false Roman empire to ash, just as Valyria once fell."
Ana let out a dry, mocking scoff. "Your puny god does not stand a grain's chance of defeating the Imperium."