A Feast for Dragons

their
tokar
s and howling for audience. They want
Hizdahr free and me dead, and they want you to slay these dragons. Someone told
them knights were good at that. Men are still pulling corpses from the pyramid
of Hazkar. The Great Masters of Yherizan and Uhlez have abandoned their own
pyramids to the dragons.”
    Ser Barristan had known all that. “And the butcher’s tally?”
he asked, dreading the answer.
    “Nine-and-twenty.”
    “Nine-and-twenty?”
That was far worse than
he could ever have imagined. The Sons of the Harpy had resumed their shadow war
two days ago. Three murders the first night, nine the second. But to go from
nine to nine-and-twenty in a single night …
    “The count will pass thirty before midday. Why do you look
so grey, old man? What did you expect? The Harpy wants Hizdahr free, so he has
sent his sons back into the streets with knives in hand. The dead are all
freedmen and shavepates, as before. One was mine, a Brazen Beast. The sign of
the Harpy was left beside the bodies, chalked on the pavement or scratched into
a wall. There were messages as well. ‘
Dragons must die,
’ they
wrote, and ‘
Harghaz the Hero.’ ‘Death to Daenerys’
was seen as
well, before the rain washed out the words.”
    “The blood tax …”
    “Twenty-nine hundred pieces of gold from each pyramid, aye,”
Skahaz grumbled. “It will be collected … but the loss of a few coins
will never stay the Harpy’s hand. Only blood can do that.”
    “So you say.”
The hostages again. He would kill them
every one if I allowed it
. “I heard you the first hundred times. No.”
    “Queen’s Hand,” Skahaz grumbled with disgust. “An old woman’s
hand, I am thinking, wrinkled and feeble. I pray Daenerys returns to us soon.”
He pulled his brazen wolf’s mask down over his face. “Your council will be
growing restless.”
    “They are the queen’s council, not mine.” Selmy exchanged
his damp cloak for a dry one and buckled on his sword belt, then accompanied
the Shavepate down the steps.
    The pillared hall was empty of petitioners this morning.
Though he had assumed the title of Hand, Ser Barristan would not presume to
hold court in the queen’s absence, nor would he permit Skahaz mo Kandaq to do
such. Hizdahr’s grotesque dragon thrones had been removed at Ser Barristan’s
command, but he had not brought back the simple pillowed bench the queen had
favored. Instead a large round table had been set up in the center of the hall,
with tall chairs all around it where men might sit and talk as peers.
    They rose when Ser Barristan came down the marble steps,
Skahaz Shavepate at his side. Marselen of the Mother’s Men was present, with Symon
Stripeback, commander of the Free Brothers. The Stalwart Shields had chosen a
new commander, a black-skinned Summer Islander called Tal Toraq, their old
captain, Mollono Yos Dob, having been carried off by the pale mare. Grey Worm
was there for the Unsullied, attended by three eunuch serjeants in spiked
bronze caps. The Stormcrows were represented by two seasoned sellswords, an
archer named Jokin and the scarred and sour axeman known simply as the Widower.
The two of them had assumed joint command of the company in the absence of
Daario Naharis. Most of the queen’s
khalasar
had gone with Aggo
and Rakharo to search for her on the Dothraki sea, but the squinty, bowlegged
jaqqa
rhan
Rommo was there to speak for the riders who remained.
    And across the table from Ser Barristan sat four of King
Hizdahr’s erstwhile guardsmen, the pit fighters Goghor the Giant, Belaquo
Bonebreaker, Camarron of the Count, and the Spotted Cat. Selmy had insisted on
their presence, over the objections of Skahaz Shavepate. They had helped
Daenerys Targaryen take this city once, and that should not be forgotten.
Blood-soaked brutes and killers they might be, but in their own way they had
been loyal … to King Hizdahr, yes, but to the queen as well.
    Last to come, Strong Belwas lumbered into the hall.
    The eunuch had looked death in the face, so near he might
have kissed her on the lips. It had marked him. He looked to have lost two
stone of weight, and the dark brown skin that had once stretched tight across a
massive chest and belly, crossed by a hundred faded scars, now hung on him in
loose folds, sagging and wobbling, like a robe cut three sizes too large. His
step had slowed as well, and seemed a bit uncertain.
    Even so, the sight of him gladdened the old knight’s heart.
He had once