Chapter Text
"Dragons."
Whitebeard frowned at the grizzled captain's words. "Are you certain?"
The captain frowned. “There is no mistaking dragons, old man.” Irritation had replaced the wonder in his voice. “Three of them, as real as you or I. Talk is that the girl birthed them herself on the Dothraki Sea, that she traded the life of her horselord husband for the creatures.” His voice dropped. “Some say she used blood magic with the aid of a maegi to conduct a dark ritual, a great pyre that birthed dragons from stone.”
This is sounding less like the truth and more like one of Old Nan’s tales, thought Arya, though she held her tongue. Careless words could be costly in a place like this.
The Shallow Anchor was an inn on the western side of Volantis’s great harbour, nestled amongst the winding streets and slate-roofed buildings of the dock side. Its walls were stone brick; its roof soot-stained oak; its patrons mean-eyed sailors, looking for trouble. It was easy to miss for those unfamiliar with the city, but Groleo’s guidance had led them there without issue; it was an old drinking spot he and a few other captains frequented, including the one they sat across from now.
Lazo Brenys, their companion for this evening, had arrived in Volantis the same day they had aboard his own trading cog, Serissa’s Harp. He had finished his voyage east, and was on his way back after a journey trading on the Jade Sea. Brenys was an old friend of Groleo’s, a fellow captain, and had agreed to trade sailor’s talk for a taste of ale. The talk had lasted for two tankards and would soon be onto a third, judging from the amount left in the captain’s cup. “Lazo is a boastful old sod, but put some ale on his tongue and it’ll flap for hours,” Groleo had told them as they walked. “He’ll talk of the queen, yes, and of half-a-hundred other things, I am thinking.”
They had been chasing dragons since they’d arrived, and when news of a ship returning from Qarth captained by Groleo’s old drinking buddy reached them, it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. Barristan had wanted to keep her on the ship and take Strong Belwas instead, but the big pit fighter begged off, and Arya was allowed to attend in his place, though only after agreeing to keep a low profile whilst they were out.
The squire stroked his long beard slowly, its point now fell below his neck. “Is she still in Qarth?”
“The girl had just arrived when we left to head west. The talk was that she had come to the city seeking an army to reclaim her father’s throne; might be she found it and is on her merry way. I know no more.”
She tried to picture the dragons in her mind, but all she had to work from were pictures she had seen in books, as well as the monstrous large skulls she’d stumbled across back in King’s Landing. But the captain has actually seen them … Arya’s curiosity got the better of her. “What do they look like?”
The captain gave her a curious glance before a smile spread across his rugged features. “Magic,” he said with wonder renewed. “Each a different colour; one black and crimson, one green and bronze, and one cream and gold. Little things, mind you, for they were but a few weeks old when I beheld them, but they were wondrous all the same.”
“Too small for conquest, then?”
“Just so, they were wyrms, not weapons.” The man took a sip of the ale they’d bought him. “Ah, but in a few years …” His eyes sparkled, imagining the glory of three fully grown dragons in flight.
Three dragons, same as Aegon the Conqueror. If there were ever a clearer sign they were sailing toward a just monarch Arya could not name it. She looked at the old squire; he seemed to share her thoughts.
“When did you leave Qarth?” Groleo, captain of Saduleon, asked.
His old friend shrugged. “A few moons’ turns. They will be larger now; though not so large to carry a queen, even one as small as her.”
“You know much of dragons, it seems,” Whitebeard said. “Is this a fancy of yours?”
Lazo laughed. “My wives call it an obsession. They are beautiful, yet deadly, no? A wonder of the world thought lost, and yet now they are found. I can pass from this world content knowing I have heard the song of dragons with my own ears.” He leant forward. “Between us friends, I am more than a little jealous of this dragon queen; three dragons are more than enough for one as small as her, I am thinking. I had half a mind to take one of the wonders back west with me, but I thought again when I saw the men around her. Not many of them, but enough to do for an old sailor like me, yes.”
“What men would these be?” Groleo wondered.
“Four, I was seeing,” he answered. “Three were Dothraki; young, but they looked mean on horseback, and their weapons were fierce. One a whip coiled like a snake, one a bow as tall as the boy,” he said, gesturing to Arya, “and one an arakh that winked at me in the sun. The other was older, bigger, and hairier; with a straight blade at his hip and a scowl across his ugly face. Westerosi, by the looks of him.” Arya saw Arstan’s mouth tighten. She wondered if he knew him. “But I have been long talking. Answers, I have given, now it is your turn, yes.” He studied the trio over the inn’s table. “What is the dragon queen to you?”
Captain and squire shared a glance. “We are admirers, much like yourself,” the old man answered, “bound for Qarth and hoping to get a better picture of the girl on every man’s lips.”
“What was the mood like in the city?” asked Groleo.
The captain leant back. “It was Qarth, old friend, when have you ever known that place to change? I find the Qartheen a tiresome people; do you know what the Dothraki call them? Milk men.” He chuckled. “Theirs is a sour milk, I tell you, left out in the sun for much too long.”
This sailor likes the sound of his own voice, Arya thought. He’s giving us all the answers again.
“They are not taken with the dragon queen?”
“They are taken with her dragons.”
“As we all are,” Whitebeard put in, “but the girl …”
The captain shrugged. “The girl is a sideshow. The last Targaryen with her queer little pets; an afternoon’s entertainment, not a queen.”
A grave look spread across the squire’s face. “They will not support her.”
“No.” The captain drained the contents of his cup to emphasise the point.
“Why not?”
“Those details shall require another drink and some blunt talk in a more familiar tongue,” the captain said, giving the page who hovered by their table a sideways glance.
The old squire picked up on that. “Yes. Captain, if you would be so good.” He looked at her. “Wait for us outside, child.”
“But-”
“Now, Mycah.” Mycah the page dropped his head and moved quickly to the door, hearing Groleo call for another round of ale as he left.
Stupid grown-ups, and stupid High Valyrian! She wished she’d had Maester Luwin teach her more of it while at Winterfell, but there had always been more interesting things to learn back then, and there was no way she could have known how important those lessons would end up being. It was the dominant tongue in Essos, with each of the Free Cities having their own dialect that all came from the language of Old Valyria. At least Barristan speaks it, she thought glumly. Arya herself had a basic grasp half-forgotten in the time she’d been away from her home; it felt as though a totally different girl had been the one sat in the maester’s turret counting to twenty in each different dialect.
The old knight could count to a hundred if he wanted to, I can barely get to ten, now. Ser Barristan had surprised her with that knowledge, and it had come in useful in their trip so far. The further they got from Westeros, the less of the common tongue she heard. In Volantis, only people around the docks had any chance of speaking it; the deeper you went into the city, the less need there was for the tongue of a land thousands of leagues away.
Arya leant against the stone brick wall of the Shallow Anchor and waited, wondering what the three men were discussing. Blunt talk, he’d said. What could that mean? Was the queen in danger again? He’d said she would get no support in the city, maybe she’d made enemies that meant her harm? Arya sorely hoped that wasn’t the case. Hearing that the queen had survived her khal’s death and the perilous journey through the Red Waste was the best news Arya had heard in a long while; it would crush her to learn Daenerys had perished after all. The dragon queen had importance beyond the old knight’s quest to regain his honour; she was Arya’s safe way home. The magister won’t resist her, not with three dragons at her back. She’ll see me safe back to Robb and Mother and if she’s good and true I’ll tell Robb to fight for her.
Thankfully, they would reach her soon enough; Groleo said they were nearly halfway to Qarth, it would not be too much longer. Volantis to New Ghis to Qarth , Arya told herself, and around the ruins of Old Valyria. Her heart still fluttered at the thought. Arya had heard tales of the Doom when she was little, and all of them had come flooding back when Whitebeard had laid out their route. She had almost said no, then, almost pleaded with the old squire to take a different route that would keep them far from that awful place, but she’d managed to hold her tongue. That was the voice of the small stupid girl she had been, not of Mycah the page who’d be serving the dragon queen, nor that of the direwolf her father had told her she had to be.
Volantis had been their third stop on their way to Qarth and the dragon queen, and the final Free City they’d be visiting; at least until they returned with Queen Daenerys and her followers. Arya did not like this city. The heat was the worst of it, the type that sapped all the strength from your bones and made each breath you took a chore. Volantis was a port city, but its sea breeze brought no respite, as Arya had found to her dismay. Mercifully, their stop would be brief, just long enough to take on provisions and fill the ships’ hulls before they arrived at Qarth.
Arya stood, watched, and waited. Look with your eyes. That was the charge of a knight of the Kingsguard, Ser Barristan had been teaching her of that as well. It wasn’t as exciting as swordplay but he had claimed for every hour fighting, a Kingsguard knight spent ten thousand standing guard. Arya was less than certain there would be any enemies lurking outside a dockside inn, but the old knight always said an absence of caution was an absence of care.
She knew standing guard was important, and told herself as much several times, but her eyes were determined to wander. Volantis was so unlike anywhere she’d been before, for the Free Cities that sprouted by the narrow sea had taken much and more from the lands that sat across from them. Old Volantis was not the same. Watered by the Rhoyne and the Summer Sea, Volantis took its influences from its mother city Valyria. Arya supposed this must be what Valyria looked like before the Doom; only Valyria had dragons, and the dragons were in Qarth, now.
What Volantis lacked in dragons it more than made up for in other queer beasts, chief amongst them the great, grey creatures men called elephants. Elephants carried the Volantenes and elephants ruled them as well. That was the name for the dominant faction of triarchs that had ruled the city for hundreds of years, Whitebeard had told her when they first arrived. They favoured peace over war, unlike their rivals in the minority who ruled during the Century of Blood that men named the tigers. Arya was yet to see a tiger, but she had seen dozens of elephants. Not all of them were great and grey, most were pale as snow and much smaller, charged with transporting people of relative import across the city. The largest were saved for the old blood and triarchs, the men and women who ruled the First Daughter of Valyria from behind their great black wall.
Those who walked the streets were the lowest of the low, most of them slaves with tattoos on their cheeks. Their small party had fallen in with the rest when they’d departed Saduleon; they were only here to pass time and gather information, little reason to spend coin on a wagon. Arya did not think she’d ever get used to seeing slavery practised so freely and openly as it was in Volantis and Lys before it. There would be slaves in Qarth, she knew, the dragon queen may even have bought some to help reclaim her throne. Arya hoped she was wrong; she did not relish the idea of serving a slaver. It would turn the lords of Westeros against her, Arya told herself, it is a grievous crime to own another man in the Seven Kingdoms. But the Targaryens were of Old Valyria, where Old Nan said slaves were sacrificed by the thousands each day to fuel their magic fires. Perhaps returning to Essos had awoken old traditions within the queen. The thought disquieted Arya; a queen like that may well slap her in chains and send her back to the magister if she was not careful. Ser Barristan had the right of it; they must play their roles and guard their secrets until they had the measure of Queen Daenerys.
Voices floating through the early evening air pulled Arya from her thoughts. Volantene, she realised, and they don’t sound pleased, though the words weren’t known to her. Quiet as a shadow, she moved away from the inn and towards the noise, her own curiosity overcoming the old knight’s teachings. Just a quick look , she told herself, to make sure nothing is amiss. She tip-toed across the cobblestones with a hand on Needle’s hilt, the voices growing louder as she neared. One grew sharper and harsher as the other shrunk to a pleading whimper. The words were lost to her, but the tone was clear as air. The voices came from an alleyway, Arya pressed herself close to the edge of the wall and peeked her head around the corner.
There were two figures for two voices; the loud stood over the quiet, the scowl on his face made him seem deaf to the pleas. The loud one was dressed in fine blue silk robes trimmed with gold. The fabric looked dishevelled, with a tear on one side and the skin scraped raw beneath. Their hair was slick with sweat, and messy, too, and behind them lay sacks and chests scattered across the alley’s cobbles. One chest had burst open and clothes of half-a-hundred colours spilled out onto the stones.
The other figure shook their head as they pleaded and Arya caught sight of a tattoo on their cheek. A slave, Arya realised, and the loud one must be their owner. Every slave in Volantis had a tattoo on their face to mark their place in bondage; the one in the alleyway had what looked to be a wheel on theirs. Arya was not sure what that meant; each mark referred to a different role, though she had not learnt them all. The slave looked tired. They were drenched in sweat, their hair was plastered to their scalp. Their back was hunched over as they pleaded, Arya could see the slave’s spine jutting out against their tanned skin. Beyond the sweat, the slave looked as dishevelled as their master. They were caked in dirt and had a nasty scratch across their left arm which had drawn a trickle of blood.
Arya hadn’t even noticed the elephant in the alleyway. It had a well decorated cart tied to its pale white back. It was a mode of transport the Volantenes named a hathay, used within the city walls only by those of high birth or station; Arya couldn’t see anyone inside the cart, regardless of their birth. The white dwarf elephant was milling about aimlessly, moving its trunk over the dark stone cobbles looking as bored as an elephant could look. That’s the slaver’s hathay, and those are his goods, Arya deduced, noting the few crates and sacks that remained in the cart. The rest of the haul was scattered across the alleyway. How did they get there?
The slave’s pleading had not ceased while Arya was in her thoughts. He wore no armour to protect himself, only a scrap of cloth that covered his groin and a wheel tattoo upon his cheek. The wheel … Look with your eyes … Arya glanced from the slave’s mark to the cart’s wheel. It was a polished wood, the rim was painted a deep red. The wheel means driver! But the slave wasn’t driving the hathay seated upon the elephant’s back, he was kneeling in the cold alleyway at the feet of his master.
His face was more dazed than it was afraid, Arya found that strange. The deep flush and sheen of sweat on his face reminded Arya of how the noble ladies would look after collapsing in the heat of King’s Landing. They always appeared as though they’d awoken in the dead of night, Arya had found that funny, but Sansa called her cruel after seeing her laughing. The ladies always had servants on hand to guide them towards some shade and fetch a cool drink; the driver had no one, and Volantis was hotter today than King’s Landing had ever been.
A fall from atop an elephant’s back would certainly cause injuries like those the slave had, and its rider suddenly collapsing would’ve no doubt spooked the beast, perhaps causing it to veer suddenly down a side alley and throw the passenger and half his supplies during the chaos. Arya grinned, it had all added up. The damage to the cart, the slaver’s torn robes; it all pointed to the driver’s fall, and heat like there was today was enough to overwhelm any man.
Wait till Ser Barristan hears! The old knight always spoke of a knight’s intuition. “No two battlefields are the same, just as each opponent you face will be different,” Arstan Whitebeard had told Mycah during one of their lessons. “It is for you to know what has happened and what may yet come.” Arya’s mind ran away with pictures of what Barristan might say when she told him of her discovery, only being pulled from her thoughts when she saw the whip coiled in the slaver’s hands. The shouting continued and the whip’s length was unfurled, its end pooling between the cobbles of the alleyway. Arya watched as the slaver raised his hand, his grip on the handle was tight.
Needle was unsheathed without hesitation. Arya raced over the cobbles, her boots ringing out across the alleyway in time with the beat of her heart. The slaver held his swing at the sight of her, confusion crossed his features, until he saw the bare steel glinting in the sunset. “No!” Arya knew precious few words in High Valyrian, but that was one. The slaver spoke back to her in the same tongue, the words were quick and angry; Arya understood none of them. She put herself between the two men, Needle gripped tight in her left hand. “No!” she cried out again, trying her best to sound fierce.
More angry words burst forth from the slaver which Arya could only stare back blankly at. “Leave him alone!” She spoke it in the common tongue since High Valyrian had failed her.
His brow furrowed. “Westerosi?”
“Yes!” Arya repeated the word in High Valyrian. Despite the seriousness of the situation, she was pleased two of the words she’d learnt had come in handy.
The slaver did not share in her pleasure. He gritted stained yellow teeth and cursed. “Sunset whore!” The whip slashed out at where Arya had stood, but met only air. The slaver was no great warrior, and had likely only used the weapon against defenceless slaves. She slid into her water dancer’s stance and out of the way of the strike, the leather snapped against the cobbles, and the man growled out more insults.
Arya struck fast with Needle when she saw him lift the whip again, turning his curses to screams in an instant. Blood splattered across the alleyway, man and whip fell to the floor alike, blood leaked out between his fingers as the slaver writhed on the cobbles.
What a baby. She sheathed Needle and gave the slaver a kick for good measure. “That’s for speaking stupid High Valyrian.” Arya turned to the driver. “Are you okay?”
He understood her no more than his master did. She tried High Valyrian, “Yes?” But it had the same impact. The hathay driver kept his eyes down and remained bowed towards the whimpering lump across from him.
Arya frowned. “Don’t worry about him, he can’t hurt you anymore.” The man’s eyes met hers for a split second before returning to the cobbles. “No more stupid slavery, either. I freed you. You can come with me if you like, we’re going to Qarth, with three ships,” she said, holding up three fingers. “Just over this way, by the harbour.” Arya pointed down the alleyway and toward the seafront. The slave glanced up to where her finger was aimed but made no move to go. He's stubborn as a mule!
She took a step away. “Come on,” she made a gesture to follow. The driver rose warily to a crouch, stared at Arya with dull eyes, before shuffling back towards his owner and muttering apologies in High Valyrian. “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you want to be free?” Arya couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She’d saved the driver from being whipped and was offering him his freedom and he was turning her down!
The groans of the slaver had dwindled to a quiet whimpering as he lay clutching his wounded hand. Arya had only sliced his palm in order to get him to drop his whip but based on his reaction you would have thought she’d taken the man’s hand off. His fine robes were splotchy with blood and damp with piss; it was a sorry sight, and yet the driver still knelt before him like he was some vengeful god, and not a pudgy man who’d pissed his robes.
Shouts from the end of the alleyway froze Arya’s heart in her chest. They were numerous and panicked, speaking Volantene loudly. The whimpering slaver’s ears pricked up at the noise and he cried out in response; Arya saw the hathay driver tense from the words. Quick as a shadow, Arya dashed over to the slave and took hold of his arm. “We need to go. Now.” The driver was stick-thin and weary from the heat, but he was still more than a match for Arya, resisting her attempts to pull him to his feet.
The thud of boots on stone heralded four men in studded leather armour with round, hairless faces upon broad shoulders. Curved swords rattled at their waists as they raced across the cobbles towards Arya and the two men. Fear cuts deeper than swords. She redoubled her efforts. “Come on! They’ll get us if we don’t go now!” She could feel the driver shivering as she pulled at his arm, his sobs were almost lost in all the chaos. Arya pulled with all her might. “WE HAVE TO GO!”
The driver’s dark eyes found hers, they were wet and weary and impossibly tired. Arya felt him grab a hold of her arm, his hand was shaking as it pulled at her tunic. “There we go,” she said, glancing uneasily at the guards as they approached. “That’s it, just …” His grip tightened, thin fingers dug deep into her flesh; it felt like he was trying to snap her arm in two. She cried out in pain. “Stop that! I’m trying to-” The driver stopped pulling, and pushed.
Arya was sent hurtling backwards, the cobbles slammed into her back as she landed. She felt blood fill her mouth where she’d bitten her tongue, and the world spin above her after she’d hit her head. Have to move, she told herself. Have to go. She rolled onto her side with considerable effort and considerable pain; the guardsmen were still shouting and running, one had even drawn his sword.
Calm as still water. Arya steadied her breathing as she pushed back to her feet, using the brick wall of the alley as her crutch. The aching eased with each step as she staggered away from the scene; a glance over her shoulder showed the guards had stopped by their paymaster and had eased the slaver up off the ground, the driver remained bowed beneath his owner. Arya gritted her teeth. He can get whipped as much as he likes now for all I care!
The slaver’s eyes met hers and he raised a blood-soaked finger in her direction, barking out an order to the guards huddled about him. Three of the guards split from the group and began their pursuit, racing past the kneeling driver and towards her. Quick as a snake. Arya pushed off from the wall and began to run. The stinging pain in her back was forgotten as she bolted, boots ringing on the cobbles, breathing in time with each step. Needle rattled at her hip as her good cloak rippled out behind her. She could feel the guards giving chase, could hear their armour shifting with each step, their ragged breaths as they kept in pursuit.
She stole one last glance behind her; the slaver was on his feet, one arm around the remaining guard. The slave was where she’d left him, head against the cobbles, arms raised in pleading mercy. The last thing Arya saw was his owner reaching down for the whip that had lain forgotten on the cold stone.
Arya turned the corner and only the chase remained.
She pictured the path back to the inn in her mind, but as she made to race down the small alleyway another guard stepped into view. She could not go through, could not go back, but she could go over. She leapt onto a gate door to her right and clambered up it, landing in a yard with vines growing over its brick walls. A woman hanging washing looked up at her startled, but Arya pushed by, ducking white sheets and climbing up and over another gate door which led into another alleyway. Shouts and thuds followed her through and a guard emerged behind her a moment later. Arya was already running when she saw him, her pace quickened in turn.
Volantis was a maze of brick and cobble, and soon enough Arya had no clue where she’d come from or where she must go next. One turn took her down a flight of cracked grey stairs and into a courtyard clustered with houses, and through a window she saw a group of children huddled about a wrinkled crone as she told them a tale, while another showed a man and a woman in gentle embrace; a different turn took her through a winding street that reeked of nightsoil, dogs chased boys and boys chased dogs while a girl clutched tight to a stray yellow tomcat with chewed off ears. She left them behind as well, climbing through a stable and up along a rampart where heads dipped in tar overlooked the city. Arya caught a glimpse of the sea from that height, and made for that direction once she was down.
The guards were waiting for her in the plaza. Three of them, red-faced and angry, spread out as they neared. The words they shouted washed over her; all she heard was the beat of her own heart and the sound of Syrio Forel’s voice. Fear cuts deeper than swords, he said as the guards drew forth their blades. Calm as still water, he told her as they took a step closer. Still as stone, as one moved behind Arya to block her retreat.
Look with your eyes, she heard Syrio say. The eyes see true. The guard in front of her was leaning his weight on his backfoot ever so slightly, the same each step. Did he hurt it during the chase? The cause did not matter, but its result was Arya’s way out. She let the guard get closer, her eyes fixed on his leg. She counted the steps that lay between them. One … Two … Three … NOW!
Arya bulled forwards as the guard reached out a hand, knocking into his bad leg and sending the pair of them tumbling. The cobbles were unforgiving, but the guard got the worst of it, landing hard on his back where Arya was able to roll through. She was on her feet and running before he could even look about to watch her go. Her freedom opened to her, and she raced out to meet it. Arya went to skirt about the great marble fountain that lay in the centre of the plaza but something wrenched at her good cloak and sent her tumbling.
The water was shallow, but it still swallowed Arya up. Beneath the din of the fountain she could hear shouting, and when she opened her eyes she saw legs sloshing their way towards her. Drenched, Arya pushed herself onto one knee; water trickled down her cheeks and into her eyes, she rubbed at them to clear her vision. The guard was shouting again, though the crashing of the fountain’s water dulled the noise. Water churned up white as he waded towards her, waving his curved sword angrily. He lunged, and Arya dodged; the fountain floor was slick underfoot and it earnt the moment she was hoping for. She reached to draw Needle, but her belt had moved with the fall and her scabbard was not where it should have been. Her cloak clung heavy and wet to her side and by the time her scabbard was in place the guard was on her again. He swung once, twice, but he was uncertain in the water and tired from the chase, and Arya was able to dance around them.
A thrust forced Arya backwards, and she felt the rim of the fountain against her back. A yellow grin spread across the guard’s face as he readied another strike. He pushed, but slippery as an eel she spun; wet hand slid off wet clothes and the guard toppled head first over the fountain wall. The guard landed on his neck and lay motionless on the plaza floor, with water pooling about him. Arya vaulted the rim and raced off, she saw the guard she’d knocked over on his feet and limping in her direction and shouting at the top of his lungs. Let him shout, she thought, he can’t catch me now.
A smile almost spread across her face but movement out of the corner of her eyes gave her pause. Arya was moving round one side of the fountain, the third guard was moving round the other; her exit lay between them and he would reach it first. She pulled Needle from its scabbard, a cup full of fountain water came with it. Arya held her bravo’s blade tight, droplets slid down its length and over her fingers.
She met him amongst empty chairs and empty tables to fight for her freedom. The third guard was smaller than the other two, but quicker than the both of them combined. His strikers were a blur, and it was all Arya could do to dodge them. He chased her through the chairs, slashed at her over the tables, silent all the while. Every thrust was turned aside and answered with two in turn, and Arya’s own parries were flimsy things that sent a monstrous jolt up her arm every time. Steel rang on steel as Arya duelled against death. It was a minor miracle she had not been hit, but even that faltered after Arya saw a half-second opening and paid for the attempt with a nasty cut that gashed her red from wrist to elbow. She cried out in pain as the shock jolted through her arm, sending Needle skidding from her wet grip to land underneath a table.
Panic forced her forwards as she tried to knock the guard off balance but he had neither a bad leg nor was he standing in three feet of water, Arya may as well have tried to knock over a brick wall. He pushed her backwards with ease and she landed atop one of the tables, its metal surface gave her no respite. The blade’s edge winked at her in the evening sun, the guard’s eyes were blank. Time itself seemed to slow then, and a chorus filled the silence.
Quiet as a shadow. Light as a feather. Calm as still water. Smooth as summer silk. Swift as a deer. Slippery as an eel. Strong as a bear. Fierce as a wolverine. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Still as stone. The man who fears losing has already lost. Never do what they expect. Look with your eyes, look with your eyes, look with your eyes.
She did, and found a shield. It was square and small, though not too small for her; its livery was chequered white and black without device, but it served. The blade pierced the wood but stopped before it reached Arya, and a few panicked wrenches showed the guard’s sword was stuck. Arya countered with a wrench of her own, sending the guard tumbling over a nearby chair and out of her way. She slid off one table and scampered under a second, scooping up Needle and continuing her flight.
Arya stole a glance behind her as she sheathed her blade. The limping guard had roused the wet one and the pair of them were chasing from a distance, though Wet was leaving Limp behind as his mind cleared from his fall. The quick guard had disentangled himself from the chair and was following her too. She sped up in turn, wincing as pain from her cut lanced up her arm. Every hurt is a lesson, she told herself. Arya kept on running.
The road stretched out flat and empty before her, and sloped every so slightly downwards. The evening air rang to a chorus of footfalls, though Arya’s were further ahead than the rest. She dared not look back, so used her ears to judge the chase. Her legs ached from running, and she could feel beads of sweat trickling down her face. Her breaths were heavier and heavier, but she could not stop, had to keep going. If they catch me, they’ll kill me, she told herself. If they catch me, they’ll kill me. If they catch me, they’ll kill me.
Arya gritted her teeth and pushed on. A few more streets, she thought, catching a glimpse of the ocean. Just a few more, and I’m safe.
She never saw the hand that caught her.