//------------------------------// // Council, Interrupted // Story: Those Who Ride // by Mitch H //------------------------------// The world rippled like water as Sunset followed the khaleesi as they rejoined the main body of the horde. The shock of her reacquaintance with magic had faded, and Sunset was beginning to distinguish reality and the reality-underlying-reality from each other, the hard packed roadbed from the unplumbed ocean of magic. The roadbed itself was full of carts, and carriages, and the many wheeled conveniences that groaned under the weight of the khalasar’s physical possessions, their supplies, and their stuff. The horde was a creature that carried her world upon her back, and in the Forests of Qohor, that world was trapped within a narrow ribbon of highway, strung out over miles and miles. The riders themselves spread out into the firm-footing of the floors under the high canopies there, in the heart of the forests, and they boiled about as much as their individual mahrazh-naquikhasar let them, as restrained as custom and forage demanded. That was the second constraint of the khalasar under the canopy of the forests - the lack of grass, the lack of fodder. Sunset didn’t have to worry about that, because she wasn’t a dumb beast, nor was she accustomed to graze her dinner off of the grass of the commons like a penniless hick. But the free-ranging Dothraki on their favored mounts, accustomed to roaming at will hither and yon, could easily ride their beasts right off of their stomachs, here where the grass never saw the full light of day, and the brush was that tough and resilient breed which could survive the depredations of the seldom-seen great elk. The Dothraki had to feed their horses from the cartloads of fodder and grain they’d carried east out of Norvos, if they cared to keep them hearty and wild. And so, the conservatism of nomads in open-fielded but heavily wooded country. They could ride wherever they pleased, if they cared to starve for the privilege. Even so, as the khaleesi and her affronted khas returned into the bosom of their horde, the riders of the khalasar boiled and buzzed about, like a well-kicked bees’-nest just starting to register the insult. Sunset watched the news spread like a contagion. Behind them, the Qohorik 'escort' had been surrounded on the roadbed, and brought to bay. No violence had been done - yet. But the company of Unsullied were not being allowed to continue their march in front of the khalasar, and they had turtled up in a hedgehog of outward-pointing spears, their sergeant and their Qohorik commander safely inside the spearmen’s square. All around them, riders from three different naquikhasars stood to their mounts, bows out and strung, axes and arakhs close to hand. The wheeled portion of the horde were wheeling off of the road into the firmer-footed verge in a sort of impromptu herringbone formation, coming off the pavement and to a stand-still as the ceaseless daytime advance stilled, the zafra and their charges concentrating in an almost-camp in a very badly-sited place. If things went poorly, it would be a very dry camp indeed. The nearest stream lay ten minutes west of where the Unsullied hedgehog bristled in the road. Khaleesi Daenerys and Sunset and the khas met the khal’s personal khalzafra and his camp chattel about three minutes ride back along the side of the accumulating cart-park, and the khaleesi looked around, awkwardly. Khal Drogo wasn’t here, nor were any of his bloodriders. Who would command the khalzafra to set up the great-tent? Daenerys’ hand was forced when Ser Jorah and her brother appeared out of the forest, looking around themselves in confusion. While her charmless brother barked Valyrian questions at the khaleesi, she began ordering the khalzafra in rapid-fire but still-rather-broken Dothraki to do what needed to be done to hold the inevitable meetings under a proper set of tents, with proper supplies available. Sunset did her part, and brushed forward to distract the khaleesi’s brother while her mistress did what had to be done. She strode up to the two Andals, and cleared her throat. “My lord king!” Sunset greeted the overgrown boy in her Pentoshi-flavored Valyrian. “It is well that a great warrior like yourself is here, to give counsel to your brother-by-marriage. Your sister has been accosted by dark magics in the deep forest, and there is-” “Jorah!” snapped the peevish ‘king’. “Why is this beast addressing me? You know it, get it out of my face, and leave me in peace so that I may deal with my fool of a sister, who will not give me my proper attention!” Spittle flew in Sunset’s general direction as Viserys visibly attempted to work himself up into a tantrum. He was strangely dull today, despite his pale complexion, violet eyes, and hair so close in color to her brilliant mistress’s. Sandy-dark Jorah was brighter than his sputtering lord. Thankfully, at this moment, there was a commotion to the northwards, and the khal’s bloodriders appeared in a cloud of lesser riders, lajaki, all of them hallooing and yelling. From his retainers, the great khal himself emerged like the giant among men that he was. “Moon of my life!” he bellowed. “Reflection of my light! What is this I have heard? Are you hurt?” “My sun and my stars, no, I am not, as you can see. Only insulted, by thing disappeared as soon as light chased them from fielding. But the zafra are putting up tent - we should not here open talk?” Sunset did her best to not cringe at the khaleesi’s still-weak grasp of Dothraki grammar. No one in earshot twitched an eye at her shaky syntax, though. They made allowances for their young not-queen. The khalzafra bustled about the now-erected tents, bringing in furnishings and supplies from the rear of the construction, as the khal and his entourage dismounted at the front, and gathered to confer. A great deal of cross-talk ensued, and Sunset’s head spun trying to keep track of who was saying what. The bloodriders and the greater lajaki competed to have uninformed opinions about things they had not seen, and could only have heard about by lightning-fast camp-rumor. And no one seemed inclined to listen to Rakharo, who had been closest of the lajaki, and commander of the assaulted khaleesi’s escort. No one even asked Sunset what had happened. By this point, she thought it just as well. Emotions were high, and she didn’t like the look in Qotho’s eye. She’d heard the bloodrider say terribly blood-thirsty things about ‘witches’ in the past, and at the moment, he was barely resisting the urge to draw his arakh in the presence of his khal. None of the leaders of the Dothraki were as brilliant in Sunset’s new sight as the khaleesi herself, and even she, trapped in the midst of these angry, quarreling men looking for an excuse to break something, was fading and turning a bit dull under the avalanche of words. Nobody, not even the khal, was letting her speak. Sunset turned her eyes upon the great khal, and looked for his glow, the display of his inherent royalty. It was… complex. The man himself was as dark and dull as Viserys the supposed-king, for all of his animal vitality and hidden cleverness. Whatever the brilliance meant, it wasn’t nobility, or power, or kingliness. Khal Drogo’s copper bells were the only spots of brightness about his person, and the little tinkling grace-notes woven into his long braids glowed with some sort of magic, now that Sunset eyes could see them. Is the zafra who makes those bells some sort of hedge-witch? Now that Sunset looked, every Dothraki with bells had a slight glow to them, like twinkling fireflies lurking in their tresses. Or lit slow-matches, woven into a cannoneer’s beard and mane - she was reminded of what she had once seen during one of Celestia’s periodic inspection-tours of the standing army, as they had been observing the ponies of an artillery park as they demonstrated their ordnance for the visiting monarch. A particularly flamboyant battery-sergeant had chosen to keep his slow-matches thus woven through his magnificent and barbaric beard and untrimmed mane. The khaleesi had gotten the zafra to set up the tents, but none of the riders were going inside, and the khal was holding court while perched upon a camp stool in front of the tent entrance. Was it just that they needed a tent to gather in front of? Sunset didn’t know, and she was getting antsy. The Dothraki didn’t seem inclined to ask the relevant questions of the actual witnesses. They mostly seemed to be waiting to give their speeches, prepared-sounding for all that they had to have been composed on the fly. Nobody had expected a crisis here, in the middle of the afternoon on a sort-of-sunny day in the wooded Qohorik middle of nowhere. The khal was listening to arguments in favor of storming Qohor, of sacking the farmland around Qohor, of sitting still and waiting for developments, of packing everything up and forcing the march eastwards until they found the open grasslands to the east. None of them sounded like great ideas to Sunset, but she favored what they were doing right now - sitting around and arguing - least. The Forests of Qohor might as well be a desert for all they could subsist here, she thought. But perhaps she was exaggerating the logistical challenges? Her lessons under the princess had not been… heavy on logistics and organization. Celestia had discouraged her from tagging along on her inspection-tours, but Sunset had been curious… In the midst of what seemed like the dozenth speech by a proud-chested greater-lajaki, another commotion emerged out of the woods. Still standing about in front of the tent, the gathered lajaki and bloodriders turned as one, as mounted rangers broke into view, dragging bound prisoners behind them, stumbling behind their horses. The missing Cohollo led the scouting party, and at his horse’s heels was one of the two prisoners. Their hands were bound, and they were both gagged. The elder of the two looked unfocussed, glassy-eyed, and perhaps concussed. The younger just looked mad and scared. "Great Khal! These two men were found north and east of the highway, fleeing! I have riders following their back-trail, but look at them - are they not witches?" The two battered men certainly looked exotic to Sunset, but all apes were at least a little exotic in her equine eyes. The gleaming mystical light they emitted, on the other hoof, was another story. The both of them gleamed in Sunset’s eyes like an oil slick, shiny and darkly iridescent, if you could picture in your mind’s eye a rainbow like all colors of the darkness, shot through with veins of fire and light. Sunset blinked, and they were merely filthy apes once more. Another argument broke out, with riders arguing for an immediate interrogation, and others insisting that the witches were far too dangerous to be allowed to speak in the presence of - and here the cautious Qotho eyed the insulted-looking khal, and edited whatever he’d been about to say, and ended with 'the khaleesi'. In the midst of this argument, some dismounted Dothraki approached the open-air council with the leader of the khalasar’s Qohorik escort, accompanied by his sergeant. They led the thin man with the big goiter and the over-long nose to the khal, and he bowed in that typical stonehouseman way that both reminded Sunset of the court manners of her homeland, and repulsed her as  something somehow obsequious and not- When had she started thinking like a Dothraki? The weight of this self-realization had made Sunset neglect the vitally important matters which were unfolding in front of her, and by the time she had collected herself, matters had moved on. And the Qohorik lieutenant or captain or whatever he was was yelling something half Dothraki and half whatever the hay they spoke in Qohor. It sounded sort of like Pentoshi or Norvosi Valyrian if you replaced every third word with Dothraki or some other unfamiliar bit of grammar. Which is to say, all Sunset made out of the nervy Qohorik’s objection was something that sounded like the Valyrian for ‘Sons of the mumble Buck’. An obscenity? Sunset couldn’t be sure, and to be honest, her suppositions about all of this was rather post-facto, because the objections of the Qohorik were essentially simultaneous with a series of rapid-fire events which made linguistic speculation a moot point until much later. Specifically, one of the Dothraki guarding the two prisoners ungagged the younger prisoner so that he could be interrogated. The first thing the younger prisoner did was begin warbling something strange and hypnotic, but it was what the second, elder prisoner did at this prompting was that truly put the hydra among the diamond dogs. The still-bound and gagged prisoner threw himself forward against the unsheathed arakh held by one of his guards, and he efficiently and swiftly sliced his own throat open, dying almost instantly, and spraying both of his guards with his life’s blood. It happened faster than anyone could react. The living prisoner was engulfed by the cloud of black that boiled off of the dying prisoner, and Sunset later swore that she had seen the man’s arterial blood turning to that black as it sprayed. But, it must be said, that may have been only imaginative reconstruction in play. The chanting of the Qohorik warlock was drowned out by the astonished shouts and screams of the startled Dothraki. No one moved fast enough to catch the still-bound warlock before he was hidden in his own darkness. Sunset had moved three hoof-steps closer to the khaleesi and in between her and the unfolding disaster in the second or two that it took for the situation to truly spiral out of control. By the time she had turned to face the warlocks and set her hooves, a scythe of ice had formed within the roil of blackness, and was already lancing out to stab one of the erstwhile guards stumbling away from the chaos that had erupted beside them. Sunset was still reaching for the burning source of magic when the growing darkness sprouted yet more bone-like ice-spurs. As she drew upon the magic, and pulled at the plug which had formed in the hole she had torn in that wall, the ice-bone spurs began to spin around the circumference of the growing cloud of smoke-black wrongness, and another lajaki was knocked off his feet. The unarmed Unsullied was springing forward, and reached forward to grab at one of the ice spurs as they ripped past him. He got purchase on it, and was ripped off his own feet, flying in front of Sunset. That second of delay was Sunset’s salvation, and she was able to summon just enough fire in that precious second to to blast the second spur that flew in the khaleesi’s direction, deflecting it overhead and to the right. The third spur caught Sunset in her upper left withers, and it burned like the heart of winter, pulling all of her feeling from the impact site. It wasn’t Celestia’s mentoring that saved Sunset at this moment, but rather the meditational training of a disfavored functionary in Celestia’s court. The princess had been eternally dubious of the various cults and minor religions which had escaped the baleful eye of her Bureau of Counterdogmatism, but the Harmonists were generally an exception, if a carefully-regulated and heavily surveilled exception. Dreaming Turtle had been a sort of envoy from the largest sect of Harmonists not then under the ban of the BoC, and Celestia had required that Sunset trained twice a week under his rattan-stick-enforced idea of meditation harmonization. The sense-memory of those ceaseless sharp blows in the midst of meditation was such that a mere glancing near-death-blow wasn’t nearly enough to break her adrenaline-fueled concentration. Sunset was better than that. She focused her fire like a laser, and the remaining spurs melted like ice in a furnace, and she stopped the attack - against herself, her mistress, and whoever else was behind them - dead. Having bought time at the price of others’ lives and a stinging, terrifyingly numb wound, Sunset looked up, her eyes burning like amethysts on fire. The archers had swung into action, and a stutter of arrows was ripping into the swirling darkness, so many that the archers were in peril of shooting each other - and bystanders - with the storm of flying projectiles. Worse, the arrows were going right through the cloud as if it had no substance, was nothing but the cloud of smoke that it might have appeared to be, if not for the animated, sentient motion which the swirl was increasingly settling into. It was forming a new crop of ice-bone spears and tendrils when Sunset drew more from her reservoir of fire, and forced that blaze of burning blue light into a brute-force bludgeon, directly against the terrible blackness. The cloud blew away from that fire like smoke in the face of a fierce gust-front wind, and the blue-eyed figure at the center of the monstrous cloud was revealed. The archers, given a target, riddled the warlock with one, two, five - and then so many arrows that he was more fletching than flesh. And then the glow of those briefly revealed ice-blue eyes winked out, deep inside the arrow-riddled mass, and the warlock fell over. The ice and the smoke and the terrible pressure of death-magic all disappeared with the will that had been directing it. And the last prisoner was dead, in the shattered chaos which had been an unremarkable stretch of forest floor in front of the khal’s half-wrecked great tent. Sunset looked around herself, her shoulder aching just above where the spur had struck her, and saw every eye upon her, and her burning horn. "Gr-great Khal," Sunset stuttered shockily, "I was going to explain when- when- I- I-" And the khal’s surviving lajaki roared their accolades as they stomped upon the forest floor.