The Game of Cyvasse

Through a Sun bitter Spear

Dragons

"Those Lions have thick skin", said Black Balaq, watching the red tide of armored men that swarmed the small hill once again.

"That they do", Aegon replied softly, hiding his frustration with the ground condition. The ground had dried out faster than he had hoped, but nature was an enemy that few men could conquer. The weather today reminded him of the old crone's words from Lys, "the skies are like a ship, they swing from side to side, hot days bring rains and fierce storms bring scorching sun." He felt the truth of that today, as the powerful rain that had washed away the blood of yesterday's battle was gone, replaced by the blazing sun. The fight would soon reach the large hill, he knew, for his men on the lower one were tired and on their last legs. Half of his force was already spent.

"Any news of uncle's host?"

Jon Connington, clad in the griffin armor of House Connington, shook his head. "They say they are coming, but words are wind, and my eyes see only one sun on the horizon." Jon was disappointed, and he was not alone. Many had expected the Dornishmen to arrive already. Aegon was the most patient one, but his patience was running out with the sands of time.

"They will be here, I only hope before the Lannisters break both of our legs," he said, with a faint touch of discontent in his voice. Aegon could defeat the Lannisters by himself, and he will if he had to, but the price would be too high. His war would not end with this battle, and his return to the throne would be hollow, if he lost most of his army today. For every wounded man, two more were needed to carry them, as such victory ment army lost. Stannis Baratheon was somewhere, smiling at the outcome, for a man never loses when his enemies are at war with each other.

"Yes, in the sunset lands I expected to find glory, gold and fair-skinned women to take for a wife, I lack one of such... And now a lion will devour me," said Balaq in his heavy Summer Isles accent, touching the chain of golden skulls around his neck, where his lordly ransom was hidden.

"Essos is for gold and luxury, Westeros for land and titles," Laswell Peake replied absently, with a thin black band around his arm, for he mourned his brother Torman, whose half-burned body, with crushed chest, was found in the sept courtyard. Torman was the first captain to die, and Aegon hoped the last.

Aegon felt a thorn in his brow as he faced the dilemma of dividing the land and granting the titles. Harry craved Harrenhal and his ancestral lands in the Reach, the Lothsons clamored that Harrenhal was theirs by blood, and there was also the Whent family that Aegon did not want to cast aside so lightly and disinherit. The tradition of false names in the sellsword companies had bred false claims. The Golden Company had five hundred knights and each one wanted to rise from a blade to a lord and get a larger share of the spoils, even the Essosi members, who had as much bond to Westeros as the rising sun.

The road from the small hill to the big one was choked with the groans of the wounded who were hauled on squeaking carts to the camp, towards the healer tents. The column was like a wounded animal that crawled on the green grass, leaving behind a trail of blood that turned from scarlet to black, then to foul stench. Aegon had witnessed and smelled death so often, but his nose never grew numb to the harsh odor of mortality.

One cart veered off the road and halted in front of them and Aegon saw his hopes shattered in the mangled body of Ser Tristan Rivers. A huge blue bruise had swollen on the right side of his face and blood dripped from his hidden eye socket, where perhaps there was only an empty void now. Below, a gaping wound on his arm spelled a certain amputation, but the look on the knight's face spelled an imminent end.

"The Red cunt's got me", Ser Tristan chuckled, as if he was not dying, "I hoped, by the end, I would piss on Tywin Lannister's grave, or better yet Hoster Tully's, for fish cunt burned down my brother's village".