A Dance With Dragons

will light that beacon. The flames will be your signal to pour out of our gates and attack. Every man of you will have a part to play, so every man must be in readiness at all times, day or night. We will destroy our foes or be destroyed ourselves.” He raised a hand to signal to his waiting squires. “I have had some maps prepared to show the dispositions of our foes, their camps and siege lines and trebuchets. If we can break the slavers, their sellswords will abandon them. I know you will have concerns and questions. Voice them here. By the time we leave this table, all of us must be of a single mind, with a single purpose.”
    “Best send down for some food and drink, then,” suggested Symon Stripeback. “This will take a while.”
    It took the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon. The captains and commanders argued over the maps like fishwives over a bucket of crabs. Weak points and strong points, how to best employ their small company of archers, whether the elephants should be used to break the Yunkish lines or held in reserve, who should have the honor of leading the first advance, whether their horse cavalry was best deployed on the flanks or in the vanguard.
    Ser Barristan let each man speak his mind. Tal Toraq thought that they should march on Yunkai once they had broken through the lines; the Yellow City would be almost undefended, so the Yunkai’i would have no choice but to lift the siege and follow. The Spotted Cat proposed to challenge the enemy to send forth a champion to face him in single combat. Strong Belwas liked that notion but insisted he should fight, not the Cat. Camarron of the Count put forth a scheme to seize the ships tied up along the riverfront and use the Skahazadhan to bring three hundred pit fighters around the Yunkish rear. Every man there agreed that the Unsul-lied were their best troops, but none agreed on how they should be deployed. The Widower wanted to use the eunuchs as an iron fist to smash through the heart of the Yunkish defenses. Marselen felt they would be better placed at either end of the main battle line, where they could beat back any attempt by the foe to turn their flanks. Symon Stripeback wanted them split into three and divided amongst the three companies of freed-men. His Free Brothers were brave and eager for the fight, he claimed, but without the Unsullied to stiffen them he feared his unblooded troops might not have the discipline to face battle-seasoned sell swords by themselves. Grey Worm said only that the Unsullied would obey, whatever might be asked of them.
    And when all that had been discussed, debated, and decided, Symon Stripeback raised one final point. “As a slave in Yunkai I helped my master bargain with the free companies and saw to the payment of their wages.
    I know sellswords, and I know that the Yunkai’i cannot pay them near enough to face dragonflame. So I ask you … if the peace should fail and this battle should be joined, will the dragons come? Will they join the fight?”
    They will come, Ser Barristan might have said. The noise will bring them, the shouts and screams, the scent of blood. That will draw them to the battlefield, just as the roar from Daznak’s Pit drew Drogon to the scarlet sands. But when they come, will they know one side from the other? Somehow he did not think so. So he said only, “The dragons will do what the dragons will do. If they do come, it may be that just the shadow of their wings will be enough to dishearten the slavers and send them fleeing.” Then he thanked them and dismissed them all.
    Grey Worm lingered after the others had left. “These ones will be ready when the beacon fire is lit. But the Hand must surely know that when we attack, the Yunkai’i will kill the hostages.”
    “I will do all I can to prevent that, my friend. I have a … notion. But pray excuse me. It is past time the Dornishmen heard that their prince is dead.”
    Grey Worm inclined his head. “This one obeys.”
    Ser Barristan took two of his new-made knights with him down into the dungeons. Grief and guilt had been known to drive good men into madness, and Archibald Yronwood and Gerris Drinkwater had both played roles in their friend’s demise. But when they reached the cell, he told Tum and the Red Lamb to wait outside whilst he went in to tell the Dornish that the prince’s agony was over.
    Ser Archibald, the big bald one, had nothing to say. He sat on the edge of his pallet, staring down at his