The sun was low, casting long, jagged shadows through the dense woods west of the Rosby-Duskendale road. A bird, a common wood pigeon, flew steadily over the canopy of oaks and pines, past rocky outcrops and hidden gullies. It finally dipped into a narrow, well-concealed valley.
Below, nestled against a steep hillside and sheltered by overhanging rock, was a crude settlement. A dozen or more makeshift shelters had been built from woven branches, salvaged canvas, and mud. They were rough but orderly, enough to house two dozen men. The pigeon circled once before dropping down to land near the outermost hut.
Inside, an unkept man with the rough hands of a smallfolk was tending a pot of thin stew over a low fire. He looked up at the familiar flutter of wings. "Ah, there you are," he murmured. He stood, fetched a small pouch of seed from a niche in the wall, and scattered a few on the ground outside his door. The pigeon hopped forward, pecking eagerly. The man carefully untied the tiny roll of parchment from its leg. He let the bird feed and turned, hurrying toward the center of the camp.
"Brother!" he called, his voice tense. "The letter has come!"
Near the largest shelter, which was partially built into the hillside, a group of men sat on stumps around a cold fire pit. The man at the center, the one the runner addressed, stood. He was broad-shouldered, with skin darkened by a southern sun, a black beard, and a terrible, pale scar that ran from his hairline down across his brow and cheek. He took the parchment without a word.
One of the other men, who shared the same complexion, nodded to the messenger. "Keep watch at the east approach. Tell us if you see anything."
The fair-skinned man ducked his head and retreated quickly to his post.
The scarred leader unrolled the note, his dark eyes scanning the cramped writing. The men around him waited in silence, their postures rigid. They were all of a type, hard-faced, with the wary eyes and controlled movements of soldiers, not common thieves.
"It was right to recruit the locals," one of the men muttered in a low, guttural dialect of Essos. He looked at the leader. "What does it say, Captain?"
The captain finished reading. His expression was grimly thoughtful. "Another search party," he said, his voice a low rumble. "They will come for the woods tomorrow."
One of the younger men barked a short, humorless laugh. "Then we play the game again. We know these hills better than any lord's guard. We can be ghosts for another month."
The captain shook his head slowly. "This time, it is not just the lord's guards." He looked up, meeting the eyes of each of his men. "Men from House Targaryen have come to Rosby."
A palpable tension tightened the air. One man instinctively touched the hilt of the dagger at his belt. "Dragons?" he asked, his voice unsteady for the first time.
"No," the captain said, his tone allowing no panic. "No dragons. A score of knights. And three Targaryen princes."
The men exchanged heavy glances. The local bandits they had bullied or bribed into joining them were one thing. The Iron Throne was another.
"Do we hide, Captain?" another asked, his voice cautious. "Or do we fight? Even with the locals we recruited, we outnumber twenty. But…" He gestured vaguely toward the rest of the camp, where the sounds of the Westerosi bandits could be heard. "These dogs have no discipline. Against armored knights? They will break and run, and they will lead the knights right to us."
Nods of agreement passed among the Essosi. They had used the local bandits for extra eyes, hands, and to swell their apparent numbers, but they held no illusions about their quality.
The captain was silent for a long moment, staring at the dying light filtering through the trees. "We cannot run forever," he said finally. He looked at his men, his true comrades. The rest were tools.
"Do not forget, brothers," he said, switching back to their native dialect, his voice calm but intense. "We are not bandits."
The men's faces hardened. They were deserters. They had served in the militant guard of a powerful magister in one of the Free Cities. The endless, petty skirmishes, the whims of a decadent master who saw them as disposable, had finally broken their loyalty.
They had commandeered a swift boat, posed as fleeing refugees from the very wars they'd fought in, and crossed the Narrow Sea to disappear. Westeros was to be a fresh start. But starting over required gold, and gold on the run came from the road.
"If we had more time," one of the men said, frustration etching his voice, "we could have trained them, made a real company."
The man who had first spoken, a lean, sharp-eyed fellow, studied his captain's face. He saw not despair, but calculation. "What is your mind, Captain?" he asked quietly.
The captain's gaze swept over their crude camp, then back to his core brothers. "The Targaryens are not here for a few stolen purses. They are here for a victory. For heads to present. If they leave empty-handed, they will be back with more men. With hounds. And next time, perhaps with dragons."
He paused, letting the grim truth settle. "We give them a victory. But not ours."
The men leaned in, listening.
"The Westerosi fools we gathered," the captain said, his voice a low murmur. "They stay. They become the quarry. When the search party comes at dawn, they will find a camp. They will find bandits. They will fight, and they will win. They will take their heads back to Rosby and think the matter closed."
"And us?" the sharp-eyed man asked.
"We are gone before first light," the captain said. "We take the gold we have, the good steel, and we go north and east, toward Maidenpool. We find a coastal fisherman, pay him to take us up the coast, away from here. We scatter. We become guards for a petty lord in the Riverlands, or take ship from a smaller port. We live."
It was a retreat. A surrender of the little they had built here to buy a chance to keep running.
A somber silence fell over the circle.
"It is the right move," the sharp-eyed man finally said, his voice thick. "A wise one."
Another man rubbed a hand over his face. "After all this, just to run again."
"We run to live," the captain corrected him, his own voice heavy with a tired resolve. "There is no shame in that."
One by one, the others nodded, the fierce hope of moments before replaced by a grim, determined acceptance.
They would not be heroes. They would not be rich. They would be alive, and for men who had deserted one hell to flee another, that was the only prize left within reach.
The great hall of Castle Rosby was loud with the sounds of a modest feast. Lord Rosby, a genial, portly man, raised his cup. "The Crown has my deepest thanks for sending its princes to deliver justice!" he declared, his tone turning serious before melting back into a jovial smile.
Viserys, playing the gracious guest, raised his own cup. "The Crown is always for the well-being of its subjects, my lord."
Across the table, Daemon ate with a focused intensity, only glancing up occasionally to shoot a look of pure disdain at the performance. Aegon maintained a polite, neutral expression.
"Is the food to your liking, my prince?" Lady Rosby asked him, her voice dripping with solicitous concern.
"It is quite satisfactory, my lady," Aegon replied with a small, courteous nod.
Seemingly emboldened, the lady produced a handkerchief and dabbed at dry eyes. "It has been so dreadful," she lamented, her voice quivering with a practiced tremble. "The fear these villains have spread... we simple folk live in terror."
Viserys and Aegon shared a brief, wry glance. Even Lord Rosby shifted in his seat, his smile becoming strained at his wife's transparent theatrics.
Viserys smoothly intervened. "Please, set your heart at ease, my lady. We will see these criminals answer for their deeds."
Satisfied, Lady Rosby tucked her handkerchief away, the performance concluded.
Daemon swallowed a mouthful of roast and fixed Lord Rosby with a direct look. "And the tracks? Has your master of the hunt found anything?"
Lord Rosby's smile grew awkward. "Ah, we've no formal master of hunt, my prince. But I've sent my best woodsmen. They are to find signs of the camp without alerting the brutes."
Daemon gave a slow, reluctant nod, his dissatisfaction clear.
Seeing the conversation stall, Aegon spoke up, his tone practical. "With your leave, my lord, we should conclude. Dawn comes early, and we have a long day ahead."
Lord Rosby, relieved for the excuse, quickly agreed. The feast was brought to a swift and orderly end.
The next morning, in the pale grey light before sunrise, the princes and their men assembled in the castle yard. A local hunter, lean and grim-faced, waited to guide them. Without ceremony, they rode out from the safety of Rosby's walls, turning their horses toward the stretch of the Rosby-Duskendale road where the attacks had been concentrated.
The hunting party reached the desolate stretch of road where the latest attack had been reported. They left the horses and a handful of guards to watch them. The rest: Viserys, Daemon, Aegon, Ser Jeremy, the local woodsman, and the squad of knights, dismounted and entered the tree line on foot, following the woodsman's lead.
The terrain was immediately difficult: thick undergrowth, hidden gullies, and uneven ground. Progress was slow.
"This will take all day if we move as one lump," Daemon said, his frustration clear. He scanned the dense woods. "We should split up, cover more ground."
After a brief, tense discussion, Viserys and Aegon agreed. They formed three groups, each with five knights and one of the princes. They would sweep forward in a loose line: one group angling to the left, one heading straight west, and one to the right. They would stay within shouting distance and send a runner if anything was found.
Ser Jeremy positioned himself firmly beside Viserys at Daemon and Aegon's strong suggestion. The group with Viserys moved off on the leftward diagonal. Viserys's face was set in a mask of serious concentration, though he tried to make occasional, strained conversation to ease the tension. Seeing his prince's overly formal demeanor, Jeremy finally understood the other brothers' insistence. He kept close, his own hand resting on his sword hilt as the knights around them moved with cautious steps, eyes searching the shadows.
Aegon's group took the center. He led them down a steep, rocky slope into a shallow valley, the ground littered with mossy stones and fallen branches. Two hours passed with nothing but the sounds of the forest, birds, the rustle of small animals, the wind in the leaves. His expression grew more focused, analytical, scanning not just for movement but for signs of passage: a broken twig, a scuffed patch of earth, the scent of old smoke.
Suddenly, as if hearing something, he looked toward the right, toward Daemon's direction.
Daemon's group had taken the right flank. His patience, never deep, was wearing thin. He scolded the knights for moving too slowly, for being too loud. The sun was high now, beating down through the leaves.
"My prince," a young guard ventured, wiping sweat from his brow. "Should we rest a moment? Take some water?"
Daemon rounded on him. "Rest? Are you at a tourney? We are hunting men, not picking flowers." But he saw the fatigue on the others' faces. "Fine. Eat your jerky. Be quick."
As the men hastily pulled rations from their belts, Daemon paced a few steps away, his eyes continuously raking the dense thicket ahead. He saw nothing but green and shadow.
Then he heard it, the distinctive, sharp hiss-thwack of an arrow cutting the air. Pure instinct made him twist and drop into a crouch. The arrow thudded into the trunk of an oak right where his chest had been.
For a heartbeat, there was stunned silence. Then chaos.
"Bandits!" Daemon roared. A fierce grin cut across his face as his sword cleared its scabbard. He had seen a shadow dart behind a thicket... the archer.
"With me! Alert the others!"
The knights scrambled, tossing aside food, drawing steel. Daemon was already sprinting forward, a blur of black and silver, crashing through the undergrowth in pursuit. One of the guards turned and began to run in the opposite direction, back toward the center, to alert Aegon and the others.
***
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