[center][h1]ARRON[/h1][/center] [hr] “Arron of Wyl,” came a jubilantly hoarse voice. The greeting was accompanied by a firm clap on the shoulder which all but took Arron’s eyes from the sea and turned him about to face Nycarro Qosaerys, famed Braavosi sellsword, Captain-General of the Brave Companions, and Arron’s commanding officer. “It seems you have once again found your way to the prow of my ship,” Qosaerys observed, sweeping at Arron’s shoulders and straightening his shirt, as though in an effort to make him presentable for some event. “Or is it the bow?” Qosaerys asked and, seemingly satisfied with the state of Arron’s dress, set his hands to his hips, where they hung with thumbs hooked in the loop of a loose fitting belt. “I understand the words to have the same meaning, Captain-General,” Arron answered. He stood a head taller than Qosaerys, and stood straight, like his father taught him, but somehow Arron felt smaller in the mercenary captain’s presence. The worn and weathered leather of Qosaerys’s boots and tricorn hat, the tarnished gold of the rings upon his fingers and the chain about his neck, the hard lines on his face, all these and more besides should have provided the image of a man much diminished over the years, but between an unfailingly confident smile and a swaggering gait, Captain-General Qosaerys loomed large in Arron’s view, even as Arron looked down on him now. “Capital,” Qosaerys returned with a wave, still looming large. “Prow or bow then, whichever you prefer, I find you here once again. Have you spotted land, Arron of Wyl? Finally set sights on home? Do you now see your mother and sisters at a distance, waving from the docks of this town? How did you name it again? Willy Port, was it?” “That would be the Port of Wyl, Captain, and no, land remains out of sight.” “Yes, as expected, no?” Qosaerys asked with a laugh. “I believe we were all in accord that it would be some days still until we came into view of the Port of Wyl.” The mercenary pulled a flask from his belt and uncorked it, taking a lazy swallow as he turned his gaze to the horizon where, as Arron had admitted, there was nothing but sea to be seen. “Damnably empty is the ocean, eh?” “Aye, Captain.” “Just Captain-General is fine, thank you, Arron of Wyl.” Qosaerys plugged up the flask and returned it to its holster. It was a potent spirit, Arron knew, but the mercenary didn’t show a hint of a grimace as the liquor went down. “Now, Racallio has taken a shit on the deck and in this sun, I tell you, I am not pleased with the creature. The oarsmen are distracted and I fear their strength flags in the face of the goat’s most pungent odor. But I find you here in neglect of your duties, do I not?” “Aye, Captain-General. I will fetch a mop.” “Seven Hells,” Qosaerys said, stopping Arron as he made to set off with a hand pressed to the Dornishman’s chest. “There really is no jesting with you eh, Arron? My friend, you are one of my Brave Companions. Cleaning shit off the deck of this ship is below your station.” Qosaerys paused, considering a thought for a moment before continuing. “And if you were planning to use a mop, I say you are likely not the man for the task. You are apt to make it worse, if anything. In my experience, you really need to hold a stiff upper lip and put your hands to work.” Gods but Arron did not understand this man. “Understood, ser. How may I be of service?” “You could start by taking a drink, and then following close,” Qosaerys said, offering Arron the flask from his belt as he turned and started back down the deck of the galley. “Gods but I do not understand you, Arron of Wyl. A sober man. Who would choose to live as such, eh?” “I drink when it pleases me, Captain-General.” Arron, following Qosaerys in step, took the flask, mayhaps reluctantly, and then a swig. It was a spiced rum of some kind, and it burned going down. Arron did his best to keep his face from twisting up at the taste, but he did not think he did well at that. “That certainly looked like it pleased you,” Qosaerys said with a knowing grin, confirming Arron’s suspicions. “It did, ser." Arron choked his response out more than he liked and handed the flask back. “Capital, it pleased me as well.” Qosaerys took another pull from the bottle. “To my quarters then.” Captain-General Nycarro Qosaerys’s quarters were not much to speak of. The ship, which Qosaerys had named [i]Fair Bitch[/i], was a galley just large enough to cross the shallow waters of the narrow sea. Her half hundred oarsmen made her swift, and her half hundred sellswords made her dangerous. Together, they also made her cramped, and the tight living conditions were reflected here, where there was but a rough driftwood table set up against the cabin’s starboard wall for dining, strategizing and relaxing alike, together with a trio of matching chairs, and a narrow cot set into the cabin’s portside wall. And there was the goat, Racallio himself, laying next to the cot in what seemed a relaxing pose, a lazy eye half open. The animal was not quite black, but it was a near enough thing to make no difference, and at least a few of the oarsmen had strong notions on this. Arron did not understand well the tongue of Qohor and so did not know the particulars of their complaints, but it seemed a straightforward item – a black goat is a black omen, said the Qohoriks aboard the [i]Fair Bitch[/i], and they would not linger in the animal’s presence long if they could help it. They refused meet its eye, even. The black goat flipped an ear as it tracked Arron’s steps with that lazy eye. Arron was not a superstitious man, and it seemed harmless enough. No harm had befallen ship or crew on the [i]Fair Bitch[/i]’s journey as could be attributed to the beast. That is, aside from the runny shits it tended to leave on the [i]Bitch[/i]’s deck. And Qosaerys had asked his Qohorik oars, what would they have him do with the animal? Cut its throat and toss the carcass to the sea? At that, their eyes had gone wide. To take such action would be to only further court disaster, they answered. A pack of bloody fools, in Arron’s view, what did he know? Qosaerys, paying Racallio the Goat no mind, eased into one of the chairs. As the mercenary captain flattened a scroll he had left on the table, Arron followed and sat across from him. He examined the paper as Qosaerys pored over it. It was a map of Westeros, or part of it, as far as Arron could tell at this angle. “So, this is Dorne,” Qosaerys said, indicating broadly at a page which covered far more than Dorne, “and this is Wyl, eh?” Again, he pointed vaguely at the continent’s southern expanse. “That appears right, ser.” Arron was not one for geography, but he figured it was best to agree, and the Captain-General seemed to have the right of it in a broad sense. “And you have friends there? Lordly friends, mayhaps? Or wealthy at least?” “A few.” It was true enough. Arron of Wyl had not set foot in Wyl itself all his life, but he had a landed cousin with whom he was close, and he had fair few relations settled in the Port of Wyl who he thought might open their doors to him should he ask. “Petty lords all, of course, none with more than a speck of a fief to name, but I do know them.” “Excellent, excellent,” Qosaerys said. “You see, Arron of Wyl, I have been giving our journey some thought, and I daresay arriving with a company of Myrish sellswords may not give the impression we are hoping to convey.” Qosaerys had spent precious few words on informing his crew of the plan, and nearly none on Arron specifically. They had sailed from Pentos shortly after he made his mark on the slip of paper Black Drazenka had placed in front him. A letter of engagement, she’d called it. Once he’d made the mark, she told him he’d signed and that his sword was now sworn to the company. In exchange for gold, of course, and she had given him a coin purse heavy with Westerosi, Lyseni and Pentoshi coinage right then and there. He had gone through it quick enough with a few of the other lads who had signed on at the same time. Drink and women. He was happy to have half of it left when they set off on the sea. Had he indulged in the whores he imagined he’d have even less, but Arron wasn’t one for whores. It was far better to receive a gift freely given than to pay for the pleasure, he thought. It saved him the trouble of the cock-rot too, at that, which he understood certain of his fellow brave companions had been unfortunate enough to encounter as a result of their bawdy efforts. “What I am looking for,” Qosaerys continued, drawing Arron’s thoughts back from sex and cock-rot, “is a stout line of Dornish spears. I had a few, you know, with the Maiden’s Men. Near a hundred of them. I can’t tell you the kind of confidence a line of Dornish spears gives an employer, and I believe we are well-positioned to take on a crew of them while we have the chance.” “Of course, Dornish spearmen are the best in the world,” Arron said, straightening in his seat and returning to the conversation, even with a bit of pride creeping into his voice as he spoke of home. “Eh,” Qosaerys said with a wave, “spearmen are much the same wherever you go, but Dornish spearmen do have the reputation, it must be said. Can you help me? I don’t want this batch of recruits to be some rabble we scrape off the streets – the way we found you, if you recall. Though I do not mean to cast aspersions on the quality of your character and service, as I rather like you, Arron of Wyl.” “Thank you, ser, I would be happy to help. But I’ve never recruited for a sellsword company before. I haven’t even been part of one for more than a few fortnites.” “Of course, of course,” Qosaerys demurred, “but think of how I must have judged your character to conclude you are the man to succeed at a task for which your experiences have ill-equipped you. Surely you see that to be a resounding endorsement of your talent, eh?” Arron did not feel talented. Hells, he oft only followed Qosaerys’s twisting, honeyed words half-way through a sentence before getting lost in them. “I would be happy to make introductions,” he ventured, “and to speak on your behalf to my relations, but what would I tell them?” “Fret not, my lad, your Captain-General would not send his soldiers into battle unarmed,” said the Captain-General who had indeed sent soldiers into battle unarmed on more than one occasion, Arron had heard. “I have the letter of engagement by which I hired those hundred spears from the House of Martell,” he continued, producing a rolled parchment from inside his jacket. “I will draft a new copy, with some light changes to the terms and conditions of the engagement, with the intention of hiring some number of the spears your dear relations may raise by virtue of their landed status.” “And I will take that to my cousins?” “Just so,” Qosaerys confirmed. “You may have noticed we have scant room for more sellswords on the [i]Bitch[/i], but Drazenka follows close behind with room to spare on her ship. I dare say we can take on a half hundred spears.” “I am sure we can raise that many and more,” Arron said, thinking. “Can we truly?” Arron nodded. “My people – the Wyls of the Boneway – they are reavers and raiders all. My ancestors have a long and bloody history with the Stormlanders. As of late, though, we are at peace. These past fifteen years Dorne has been under the yoke of the Iron Throne. Many of my cousins chafe at that. House Wyl has always its spears to hand, but now with no one to fight,” he shrugged, “I daresay more than a few would be happy to put their arms to good use in your employ. Spears and Dornish knights alike, mayhaps. It may be we find more recruits to answer the call than you expect.” “Ah, peace, the bane of men of action,” Qosaerys observed with that vulture’s grin, “and I daresay a woman or two of action among them as well. Never know what to do when peace breaks out, eh? Well, I am happy to be the beneficiary of the Iron Throne’s good politics.” Qosaerys leaned back in his chair, scratching at his scabby neck and evaluating the results under his fingernail. “I say,” he continued, “if you bring me a host of Dornish knights and spears, I would have half a mind to put you at their head. A captain of my Companions.” Arron blinked. “Captain-General, I have never led men before as such, and as I said I have only been with your company but for a short while.” “You protest too much, Arron of Wyl,” Qosaerys said, vulture grin flashing again. “I congratulate you on your meteoric ascent, and fear not, leading men is not so hard. Do as I do between the fighting, and during the fighting, well, you’ll find there’s not much any one man can do then. Things tend to run their course once the battle lines come together.” “Right, then,” Arron said, unsure how to proceed with this conversation. Qosaerys slid the flask across the table to him. He took it. “To your good health?” “And then on to Summerhall,” Qosaerys confirmed, “where we might make ourselves useful to the noble lords of Westeros.” Arron nodded and took a long pull at the spiced rum. As he did so, his eye flicked to the side. The black goat Racallio was looking at him now, and their eyes locked. The Captain-General’s animal companion gave a soft bleat, as if to acknowledge him. [i]Arron Sand, Captain of the Brave Companions, flying a black goat banner on the far flung battlefields of the Disputed Lands[/i], Arron thought. What would his mother think of that?