Dressed to Kill, Chapter 3 (ASOIAF FI)

Aharen woke to silence. He did not remember the last time that had happened - in his memory, mornings blurred together into a horrid mixture of rough screams, the cries of women, and the sounds of metal clashing against metal - and seldom of the sort where it did so atop an anvil. Ever since the Dothraki exacted tribute from the town of Kosrak and they were unable to fully cover the demand with goods, he lacked the privilege of peace. At least his wife and son were safe, the latter already a skilled enough smith to support both himself and her. He was a good lad.

He rose cautiously, hope ground away by the years of being a slave-smith to the savage riders. They rarely needed a reason for punishment - usually an excuse sufficed for a beating. As one of the few who could make and maintain their weapons properly, he was rarely struck, but that did not mean never and his hips still ached when a storm was on the horizon. Instead of the familiar thin bedroll inside the shared tent, he found himself in a hut, one that resembled those built by the Lhazareen who dared settle beyond the edges of a town and formed their own villages.

Light seeped in through a window of thin-scraped sheepskin, but he could glimpse nothing of the outside no matter how hard he tried to peer through - he abandoned the effort, taking a moment longer to examine the room. Walls of adobe bricks, a thatched roof, and internal dividers of long, dried grass. Furnished with a bed and a shelf to keep one’s belongings above the tamped-flat dirt, it was almost homely. Nothing that would explain it - how he got from being a slave to the Dothraki to here. He approached the drawn curtain of wool that led into the next room, freezing.

That was not human. 

Seated at a table with two chairs was a figure. It would have seemed human at a distance, but this close it was visibly not, far too gaunt-limbed and disproportionate, limbs ending in thin fingers that seemed ready to pick apart whatever was in reach even if they were completely still at the moment. Its skin was black as a starless night sky, a starburst of radiant green in the middle of its chest glowing the color wildfire was given in the tales and rumors, cracks or perhaps veins of the same shade flowing from there outwards, crawling across its body towards the head, hands, and feet, yet reaching none. On its head, a single eye on the left side of its face glowed like a full moon, the same verdant shine found elsewhere on its body, above the second patch of color: a mouth, unnaturally thin and wide, stretching into a rictus grin.

“Hello. I am Ladon.” The being introduced itself as he breathed, yet despite the shock his heart was not hammering, and no sweat started to bead across his bow. “You can consider me a spirit of sorts. I’d like to make an offer.”

Aharen slowly, shakily raised his hand. “A spirit of what?” The godswives and wise men that led the Lhazareen and guided the Great Shepherd’s flock warned of spirits, that nothing good came of their presence, not without ruinous cost.

“Life. The strength in one’s limbs, the beat of one’s heart, the buzz of one’s brain. Those are what I have a say in, much as your hammer has a say in the shape of metal.” It replied in a deep voice much too large for its emaciated frame, for all it remained soft and polite. “The offer concerns your life, however. You can wake up come the morning and carry on with it in the wake of my… displeasure with this band of Dothraki, taking some of the horses, carriages and supplies they will no longer need alongside all your fellows who chose this.”

The spirit’s head tilted, shifting on its neck too smoothly. A tap of its finger on the table, and noise filtered from outside. Children playing, merchants hawking their wares, smiths working the forges. The sound of a morning in Kosrak. “Or you can choose to rest. To let me lull you into a pleasant dream from which you will never wake up, your life smothered with all due gentleness.”

He might have chosen to rest - but he had a wife. He had a child, and the sounds of a false outside, the sounds so familiar from his memories of home were a harsh, immediate reminder of what he stood to lose if he decided on that. Even if the spirit spoke truth and the Dothraki would not oppose - or would be in no state to oppose - his escape, there was no guarantee he would make it back to his home. To his family. And yet that tantalizing temptation was not enough to wholly override his caution. “And what would the price of this boon be, spirit?” He all but demanded, but his voice sounded more desperate than authoritative even to his own ears.

“If you surrender to the soil, the only price will be the strength of your life, drained from your body as roots drink water. If you choose to go on…” The creature let out a dark chuckle, fluttering like heavy wool coats in the wind. “Then you should know, the horses you will take are my eyes and ears. Where you lead them, you will lead me.”

His gut reaction would be a refusal outright, but the spirit’s words were still fresh in his mind - this offer was not solely extended to him. It was also given to the other Lhazareen taken captives, not just from Kosrak but all over Lhazar. Even if he chose to rest, to abandon this chance to perhaps see his family again, it would still spread. But if he woke up, he could share this information. Perhaps try to curtail the spirit’s effort to grow its influence. It would be deception, maybe undeserved with the magnanimous surface of the offer, and the tales were full of men who thought they could outsmart a spirit and suffered for it. So he discarded subterfuge. 

“Spirit. If I am to accept either of the choices you have given me, I will have your oath. Swear upon the Great Shepherd’s Crook that you do not plot against me and my people, the Lhazareen, and mean them no harm.” He was powerless to force matters, not cunning enough to deceive the being. All he could do was ask.

The spirit held its silence for five heartbeats, its rictus grin softening into something far more human. “You know you dance on the palm of my hand, that I could extinguish your life with an idle twitch of my will… and yet, for the sake of your people, you would risk it all. On the hope that I don’t take offense, on the hope that I keep to my word, on the hope that your god will hear and answer.”

Space twisted on itself, crumpling and crumbling until there was only the spirit and Aharen standing in the dark. Stars filled the void, none as bright as the blazing green heart the being held an inhuman hand against. “I, the self-proclaimed Ladon, solemnly swear before the Great Shepherd’s Crook: I do not scheme against the peoples of Lhazareen nor hold them ill will.”

“Thank you, spirit.” There was nothing more to say, light starting to seep in at the edges of his vision before his eyes snapped open and he woke with a gasp, back in the familiar tent - but the sounds of the camp were subdued. He pushed himself to his feet, body feeling far lighter than ever before as he rose. 

Stepping forward, he poked his head out the tent to find the camp being packed away - tents disassembled, supplies gathered onto carriages, former slaves moving to gather supplies, one of them spotting him soon enough. “Aharen! Come, join us. We’re free now!”

He blinked, stepping out into the morning breeze and glancing around. “The Dothraki…?”

“Gone. Claimed by Ladon.” There must have been something on his face, Ahern thought, as the one he was talking with added, “The spirit. All of us met him. All of us were given the choice - waking free or resting forever, given a tranquil death.” He shook his head. “Some chose the latter - mostly the ‘pleasure-slaves’ that have been with the riders long enough to give up. There’s still at least forty of us alive, though. And the spirit left the bodies to us for burial rites.”

Aharen nodded in response, glancing around, noting mounds on the ground, dense grass overflowing them, almost a corpse-wrap around suspiciously human-shaped lumps. Clearly a result of the spirit’s efforts. He let out a breath, and resolved to not waste his chance - he would return to Kosrak. He had a second chance now.

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Two hundred and fifty Dothraki rode due North, their pace accelerated by an overarching unity only operating under one mind could provide, the bodies of both themselves and their steeds pushed beyond their natural limits by the astral energies coursing through them. They carried what supplies they could on their horses - the wagons were left behind for the freed slaves. As was the body of Avaneh - the smith had left a mark with that stand.

Enough so that all the Lhazareen that requested an eternal rest had their bodies left untouched for burial rites. The smith himself had his body enhanced by the same manner that Ladon’s bodies now bore, but his mind and independence was preserved. The other newly-freed Lhazareen merely had wounds both old and new healed. They would do well enough - they had supplies, more than enough horsepower even if they spread out into groups, and the advantage that the horses were his in truth. A conduit that would permit interference should they be found by the Dothraki again.

However, Ladon had another plan for the brunt of his presence than escorting them: security, growth, and experimentation. His efforts over the night had resulted in discoveries - clearly bodies could be permanently refined by mixing drained vigor and psychic energy; plants had a presence in the Aether down to and including grass and were subject to some form of accelerated growth-and-improvement that flesh and blood bodies now bore. And with the charity given to the Lhazareen meant a place to establish, build up, and gather supplies would be needed.

He even had an idea for a decent enough site to begin said plans, taken from the memories of some of the Dothraki - the hillier terrain north of Lhazar had many defensible spots, and was often used by Khals to travel South. In fact, it was the same the now-deceased Ko Boro used, following a small, obscure river as it wound through the hills and into the Dothraki Sea.

A sea of grass that, if he had any say on it, would be dyed in his colors sooner or later. Like a pen slowly dragging across paper, his influence seeped out into the endless prairie. The feeble minds of the grass were like eating popcorn, done by the fistful and with so little substance one felt no difference even after emptying a whole bucket. That didn’t matter, not compared to its strategic utility.

It turned was swathes of the grass into a hidden minefield, where any camps set were vulnerable to being subsumed; and in that ever-widening area there was a lingering awareness because even if the sparse foliage lacked eyes or ears, it still noticed the lack of light and the sensation of being trampled under hoof or foot. With that near-effortless scouting came awareness of what could be considered another kosar just past the horizon - five hundred horses moving in a group that suggested Dothraki cavalry, a slower throng of wagons and marching slaves trailing behind it. An opportunity, and also something of a risk - the horses were not actively grazing, and so the most expedient option of hijacking one of the horses to get eyes on them was blocked, for the time being. A more conventional approach would be needed.

The only sign of a shift was in Ladon’s grin played out across Ko Boro’s face, a few scouts breaking off every which way as the kosar reoriented itself. Some were going to take the other group’s measure, some staying on their original course to spread his influence and act as insurance.

It did not take long for the first flashpoints to flare up, outriders and scouts in groups of three to five sighting one another and approaching - the first encounter being a match even in numbers between four Dothraki and four of Ladon’s puppets. The former seemed relaxed as their foes approached, not seeing the threat in ‘fellow’ Dothraki for they knew challenges for leadership and battles between kosars and khalasars were either duels of commanders or battles between the main forces - a skirmish between scouts would just reduce the numbers the victor could claim, and so they were confident in their safety.

The horses were the first to be subsumed, by now Ladon was practiced enough with them that their step barely even stuttered as they closed in. After that came the telepathic probes, seeping in from their treacherous mounts to do the parasite’s due diligence. There was a chance, however small, that one of them would have enough regret and disgust at man’s inhumanity to man to be spared.

He wasn’t holding his breath.

He would have suffocated if he did - to the Dothraki, kindness and decency seemed to be antithetical. There were none who could be considered ‘good’ people in Ko Boro’s forces, and even among the scouts of the other kosar the closest they came was a distaste for the more sadistic of fellow tribesmen when they beat and scarred slaves: not on a moral level, but on a practical one. ‘Like beating an arakh against stone, expecting it to be sharper by the end,’ one thought, and that summarized what even the apparent gentlest of the Dothraki were capable of. 

There was no need to hold back, in that case, and a string of victories followed. Tests of physique, skill, and weaponry were held on a small scale to see how Ladon’s puppets measured up against a living foe. They were conclusively in his favor - even putting aside the ability to read minds making the prediction of incoming blows far simpler, or the ability to simply command the horses of the enemy scouts to halt in place… the puppets were faster. Stronger. More precise, more willing to take a risk with a numb sort of awareness that a killing blow was unlikely to actually kill. Blades bit into Dothraki riders with enough force to carve through bone, the more skilled managing to exchange a string of blocked or parried blows before they were pushed off-balance or simply made a mistake, misjudging their enemy’s prowess. That said, bows seemed to be the least impacted by this improvement: they could fire faster and more accurately, but not any farther or stronger. That was up to draw weight, and not the body of the archer.

And with the slain scouts came not only minds that were devoured one by one in the moments before death, but also the familiar vitality, the draining bonds forged through the horses they rode, yanked clumps of lifeforce pulled into the network and spreading out, healing the handful of scratches that his puppets received before the rest was directed into ‘Boro.’ Strengthening, reinforcing, making sure the man was well beyond human ability. He’d be the main representative if it came down to a duel, and violence was a perfectly valid method of infiltration and securing authority before subsuming another small army of Dothraki.

There was, however, an unforeseen result of so much vigor being pumped so fast into a single body: it swelled. Bones seemed to stretch as he put on some height, muscles filled out, the skin seemed to harden even as old scars faded away, buried by the new growth. The process was quick and unrefined, barely lasting minutes and inefficient when accounting for the sheer vitality that poured into him, but by the end he could be scarcely recognized as ‘Boro.’ It perhaps could be mistaken for an elder sibling that got a better diet, more exercise, and was simply luckier when it came to the genetic lottery; but nobody who knew the Ko before the transformation would be able to recognize him.

A perfect figure to lead the assault on the now-blinded kosar.