A Feast for Dragons

swelled to fill the pit. “The bravest woman I have ever
seen.”
    Strong Belwas said, “Fighting girls is not so brave.
Fighting Strong Belwas would be brave.”
    “Today she fights a boar,” said Hizdahr.
    Aye
, thought Dany,
because you could
not find a woman to face her, no matter how plump the purse
. “And not
with a wooden sword, it would seem.”
    The boar was a huge beast, with tusks as long as a man’s
forearm and small eyes that swam with rage. She wondered whether the boar that
had killed Robert Baratheon had looked as fierce.
A terrible creature
and a terrible death
. For a heartbeat she felt almost sorry for the
Usurper.
    “Barsena is very quick,” Reznak said. “She will dance with
the boar, Magnificence, and slice him when he passes near her. He will be awash
in blood before he falls, you shall see.”
    It began just as he said. The boar charged, Barsena spun
aside, her blade flashed silver in the sun. “She needs a spear,” Ser Barristan
said, as Barsena vaulted over the beast’s second charge. “That is no way to
fight a boar.” He sounded like someone’s fussy old grandsire, just as Daario
was always saying.
    Barsena’s blade was running red, but the boar soon stopped.
He
is smarter than a bull
, Dany realized.
He will not charge again
.
Barsena came to the same realization. Shouting, she edged closer to the boar,
tossing her knife from hand to hand. When the beast backed away, she cursed and
slashed at his snout, trying to provoke him … and succeeding. This
time her leap came an instant too late, and a tusk ripped her left leg open
from knee to crotch.
    A moan went up from thirty thousand throats. Clutching at
her torn leg, Barsena dropped her knife and tried to hobble off, but before she
had gone two feet the boar was on her once again. Dany turned her face away.
“Was that brave enough?” she asked Strong Belwas, as a scream rang out across
the sand.
    “Fighting pigs is brave, but it is not brave to scream so
loud. It hurts Strong Belwas in the ears.” The eunuch rubbed his swollen
stomach, crisscrossed with old white scars. “It makes Strong Belwas sick in his
belly too.”
    The boar buried his snout in Barsena’s belly and began
rooting out her entrails. The smell was more than the queen could stand. The
heat, the flies, the shouts from the crowd
 … I cannot breathe
.
She lifted her veil and let it flutter away. She took her
tokar
off as well. The pearls rattled softly against one another as she unwound the
silk.
    “Khaleesi?”
Irri asked. “What are you
doing?”
    “Taking off my floppy ears.” A dozen men with boar spears
came trotting out onto the sand to drive the boar away from the corpse and back
to his pen. The pitmaster was with them, a long barbed whip in his hand. As he
snapped it at the boar, the queen rose. “Ser Barristan, will you see me safely
back to my garden?”
    Hizdahr looked confused. “There is more to come. A folly,
six old women, and three more matches. Belaquo and Goghor!”
    “Belaquo will win,” Irri declared. “It is known.”
    “It is
not
known,” Jhiqui said. “Belaquo
will die.”
    “One will die, or the other will,” said Dany. “And the one
who lives will die some other day. This was a mistake.”
    “Strong Belwas ate too many locusts.” There was a queasy
look on Belwas’s broad brown face. “Strong Belwas needs milk.”
    Hizdahr ignored the eunuch. “Magnificence, the people of
Meereen have come to celebrate our union. You heard them cheering you. Do not
cast away their love.”
    “It was my floppy ears they cheered, not me. Take me from
this abbatoir, husband.” She could hear the boar snorting, the shouts of the
spearmen, the
crack
of the pitmaster’s whip.
    “Sweet lady, no. Stay only a while longer. For the folly,
and one last match. Close your eyes, no one will see. They will be watching
Belaquo and Ghogor. This is no time for—”
    A shadow rippled across his face.
    The tumult and the shouting died. Ten thousand voices
stilled. Every eye turned skyward. A warm wind brushed Dany’s cheeks, and above
the beating of her heart she heard the sound of wings. Two spearmen dashed for
shelter. The pitmaster froze where he stood. The boar went snuffling back to
Barsena. Strong Belwas gave a moan, stumbled from his seat, and fell to his
knees.
    Above them all the dragon turned, dark against the sun. His
scales were black, his eyes and horns and spinal plates blood red. Ever the
largest of her three, in the