----This tale has, until now, been told of the Champion and the Chosen. Allow, if you would, a small deviation. The beginning – and ending – of another's tale. A man often mistaken for a mountain. One rarely accused of kindness, with shimmering cobalt eyes and a heart emptied of all natural warmth.
He stood at the fore of a battle, so long ago. A thousand men broke themselves against a dozen of his own. The great warriors of Yrdent, the heroes of his war, cheered his name in glee and reverence. They called upon their Goddess to bless his fledgling house; the House of Fielder. All swore to sing his songs for eternity, and begged to be held in his service until the time came that they might give their very lives in his honour.
He hated them for it when, in the last night, he had loved them to the last man.
Snow-heavy wings carried cold tidings. A black sparrow sent personally by his divine queen. The battle was won. The war to come would be all too easy, and yet its purpose had been lost before his own blade had even been drawn. He held the little letter in his steel hands and read the terrible words.
"Amell," it began in crimson characters, "tidings from your hearth bear grim news." The queen's steward must have dictated. Had Vias herself written the letter, it would have been four words - and half of them profane.
"Tales of cowardly action taken as reprisal for your glorious conquest. They reliably say, though I am yet to personally confirm, that some scorned warrior – doubtlessly defeated in honourable combat – has taken leave of his senses and brought up arms against your kin. They say your son fought the warrior, and his cowardly compatriots, to the last man. They say he fought like a man from legend, a true heir to his father."
The prose boiled his blood. The letter ought to have spoken plainly. Flowers were for beautiful women and gravestones, not dark words in bloody letters.
"Amell, my friend, it is with more pain than I could ever express that I tell you this: the false warrior began a flame in your home. Though the cowards were slaughtered, the flame persisted. There was nothing left. Nobody left."
He didn't bother reading beyond that. A passing glance said something of funeral preparations and royal audiences, but it didn't matter. He burnt the letter and readied himself for war.
-- Legends had been told until that day, of the prowess and genius of General Amell Fielder. No more. They tell only of his betrayal now. They tell of how he burnt a city to the ground while his own men slept within. They tell tale of how he destroyed two armies with a single act and disappeared into the blood-soaked night.
There could be no man in that world more wanted, more hated, than Amell Fielder; the so-called Traitor of Blood. Such a man would be a scourge to his enemies, but something much more hellish for his friends.
----A thousand corpses lined the bustling streets, though no one else seemed to notice. Every howl of wind seemed to carry the blood-curdling screams of his flame-kissed bride. Every young man that passed him seemed to hold the deathly visage of his only son. They all looked so disappointed; wives and sons of a failure.
"What'll it be, handsome?" The old barmaid winked at him as he crouched beneath their doorway. "My, you're a big one, aren't ya'." A drop of sweat swirled across her strangely angular face. The hazel of her eyes seemed to appraise him in his whole.
"Evening, ma'am." Amell bowed his head, more out of necessity than manners. The dinky little tavern was ill-suited even to a man of modest stature, so Amell - and his hulking frame – looked as though he walked through a child's playroom.
"Ma'am, ay?" The barmaid scoffed. "Big an' mannerly. What's your name, sweetheart?"
"Colin, ma'am," he lied. Amell took a seat at her bar, and she poured the only ale the house held.
"Colin... That's a funny name. What's the accent?" She asked as he handed her a single bronze plate.
"Kovayesh, though I've travelled the Bloodlands for quite some time," Amell answered. He took a swig from the tankard. The mug was old and well-worn; it had more of a flavour than just the ale. Mould with a hint of honey, a true delicacy. He nearly coughed up his first swallow but managed it back.
"Bet a biggun' like you did well in the Bloodlands. Could av' had the Blood-queen herself wrapped round your not-so-little finger," the old maid laughed, though her insistent gaze didn't falter from his arms.
"Death would have been a kinder fate," he thought to himself. Her comment brought an accidental darkness to his face, she noticed right away. The thought was buried at the bottom of his ale, and a mummer's smile stretched his lips. "Such would be an honour, though I fear I lack the charisma for such a... conquest."
--"Do all Kovayeshi speak so fancy?"
"I doubt it. Kovayesh is a small nation, but quite powerful and very wealthy. So, we do tend to be better educated than most," he said, much too meekly for a man of his stature.
"So, what brings a well-educated, Kovayeshi, Bloodland reaver, to my dinky little Dwargon tavern?" she chuckled. The older woman, whose name Amell had not deigned to learn, poured two more tankards and joined him in his cups. The company didn't last long, though. The mug was the size of her head, yet she had it down and done before Amell's own could reach his lips. A terrible blush burst across her nose the instant the empty mug hit the table. "It's not as though Duke's crossing is much of a city to travel for. You must have sailed the entire Great Expanse to get here."
"It's... hard to explain," he hesitantly said before downing half of his drink in a single gulp.
"I'm a clever lass, try me," she chuckled.
"Well, I've been travelling the continent for quite some years now, though I've never spent more than a few nights in any one place."
The woman snorted and took on a more fanciful voice as she said, "One might assume you were a man on tha' run," though her true nasal tone couldn't be masked.
"Maybe," he admitted, "but then I had a dream."
--"A dream?"
"Mmm, a dream. A strange dream of black, snow-capped mountains that moved the world at a whim," he recalled. "As I looked up at her, this otherworldly colossus, I felt... Hope. For the first time in an awfully long time, I knew true hope."
"How'd ya' know it was a she?" The maid asked, wrapped fully in his tale.
"She - the black mountain – spoke to me," he said, almost in awe of the memory.
--"What'd she say?"
--"She said, 'Help me, Amell... Please,' and then I woke. All I know is that she spoke in a northern way and sounded scared."
--"Well, who's Amell then?"
"Oh, I..." Only then had he realised his slip-up. "I don't know. I suppose I'll find out."
"Bugger all that!" A croaky voice called from the tiny staircase to his left. A dwargon man, as tall as Amell's knee, came lumbering down the stairs. The final wisps of his orange hair caught in the wind as he stormed along. The oversized eyes his people were best known for seemed to capture the entire room at a glance. It was no wonder the little tavern was so poorly lit; anything more would have been blinding for the little man.
"This is my 'usband, Gertrude," the maid introduced with a sigh.
"A pleasure, I assume you are the proprietor?" Amell smiled, offering a steel-gloved hand to shake.
"What kind a' man needs armour to go out and get a drink?" Gertrude snorted. He didn't shake Amell's hand but shuffled along behind the bar.
--"Enough of all that, Gert."
--"Nah! Some big lumberin' oaf comes into my tavern talkin' up nonsense about dreams an' mountains with tits."
"Nobody mentioned no tits, ye' little goblin." The maid smacked the dwargon man up the back of his head as she poured Amell a new cup.
--"Yeah, he did! He said the mountain was a woman: what kinda' woman don't have tits?"
"Plenty of women don't have tits!" The maid shouted with little regard for propriety.
--"Like who?"
--"Like, that pretty lass, Beth."
"Naw! Small tits are still tits. It matters not the size!" he said as though making some powerful point.
"What about the goddess Marola?" She asked. The question stumped the little man. He had an answer at the tip of his tongue but quickly swallowed it.
--"Alright, maybe not all women av' tits, but it's a fair assumption!"
"Gods bless, we have a refined Kovayeshi gentleman here and all you can think about are tits! I'm so sorry, Colin," she cried, placing a hand on Amell's arm.
He shot her a warm smile and nodded, holding his smile in hopes it would be some comfort and answer enough for the two. He had never been so thoroughly lost for words. At last, he fell into the few words that were always welcome in a tavern.
"How about another round?" Amell smiled.
"Truly, a refined gentleman. Some people could learn a few lessons," the maid pointedly said. It roused a grunt in her little husband, though he gladly took three more bronze plates from Amell.
"So, gentleman," Gert spat, "why Duke's crossing? The mountain tell you that, too?"
--"I... Don't know, honestly. In the dream, this place just felt right."
--"This shithole?"
--"Not... specifically here. Somewhere around here, though."
"Well, I wish you luck, darling. We'll leave you alone now. Disturbed your peace quite enough already, I'll say," the maid smiled.
He stayed in that cramped little tavern for some hours to come, drowning his doubts in ale after ale. He believed coming to Maester Veil was foolish, that the Veytors had too great a presence in the nation and that they would be sure to find him. He recalled the parts of the dream that went unspoken. He thought of the reward for his service. The promise the mountain had made in its young voice. His duty would be fulfilled, and the gods would grant him his heart's desire. Not heaven, but death. Not redemption, but an ending. Twas' all he deserved.
----A new sun was born, though he was reluctant to see it. The sapphire dawn pierced the shabby shades and shone a beam of brilliant light directly into the cold blue of his eyes. A sticky dew clung his face to the table he had slept on. He peeled away and snuck past the dozen drunken fellows that had yet to rise. Sneakery was rarely an option for a man of his build, though the scores of empty tankards that lay scattered around the pretty brunette at his side likely meant no great stealth was needed.
He met the fresh harbour air and took a perfect breath. The morrow's catch left a thick scent, even this far from the mongers. Salt lay upon his tongue, and the warmth of an autumn sun kissed his bare face. It reminded him of home, Kovayesh. He never could get used to living in the Bloodlands. They say the sun was too scared of the royal wrath of Queen Vias to crown over her domain. Darkness held the island almost year-round, though the dawn always seemed glad to greet its sister, the Forgelands.
---"Hear ye! Hear ye!" A young lad cried from atop an old cask as he rang out a little cattle bell. His torn rags and oversized cap clashed against the blatant gold medallion that dangled from his neck. It was seconds before a small crowd had gathered at his feet; minutes before a horde hung on his every word.
"Tales arise from our nation and afar!" The boy announced in a bored and monotonous way. "First, of the Conclave!" he began, "the perfect Matrons have deigned to grace our crossing with the true Moving City!" The crowd unsettled at that. A frantic, though excited energy permeated the workers and children alike. "Of the midday, shall the city arrive!"
Amell hadn't seen the moving city in quite some time. Once, the news would have excited him just as much as it seemed to the children. Now?
His stomach churned at the thought. An army of Veytors would be at the heels of the city. Each of them would be all too glad to take his head. He questioned why the dream would bring him to such transparent danger.
"Next, tales within our own borders!" The boy cried over the quickly loudening crowd. "To the east, a vast battle occurred between the armies of the Veil and the Tevran fiends! The battle was bloody, but with the aid of an Oaranic mercenary company, the Tevrans were felled, and victory came to our boys in red!"
The crowd cheered at that. The boy was lying, Amell knew. The 'battle', as he had called it, should have been nought more than a skirmish. A thousand Maester Veil troops ambushed four hundred Tevrans, yet the Tevrans had taken two men down for each of their own losses. It would have shamed the great general Amell had once been, to call such a slaughter 'victory'.
"Our next tale is of vast import!" The boy said again in his ever-wearied way. "A bandit raid to the north left a village burnt, and villagers without homes. Though, by all reports, it seems no villager has been harmed! You may ask how such a feat could be possible?" The boy droned on with utter disinterest despite his captive audience. "It would seem a hero of legend has been forged in the fires of herown home! She, so-called, Sparrow-Knight! A woman, nineteen summers past by all accounts, single-handedly slaughtered an entire army of bandits. So great was her feat that the bishop of steel herself hath declared the Sparrow-Knight to be ordained by the gods!"
There was a moment of silence at that. Utter confusion, maybe?
Amell had known the bishop of steel in passing. "Sasha, perhaps?" he tried to recall. She seemed a well put-together woman. Not one for wild declarations. He recalled her as a singularly pious madame, so naturally she despised him.
But she was the bishop of the Forgelands, not Maester Veil; it seemed strange to Amell that she would be present at this little village to greet this ordained warrior.
"More than simply ordained, dear listener! The bishop, and all who stood in witness, claim this Sparrow-Knight to be none other than a Champion!" The boy continued, though his droning tone seemed to carry a bite of mockery. It seemed he didn't believe his own words, nor did his audience.
"Bullshit!" A young girl called. She couldn't have been older than eight.
"Tis' sworn on gods' honour!" The boy said, raising a hand in holy salute.
"Champion of what?" A fisher called from the crowd.
"There is no knowing as yet, though rumours persist of much darkness in her divine patron. Witnesses to the announcement claim that this Sparrow-Knight has been confirmed by the holy goden, Hevestiel, as the Champion of... Black."
---The energy of the earlier crowd was gone in an instant. If the Conclave arriving in Duke's Crossing hadn't torn a hole in Amell's belly, this news certainly had. The Goden of dreams, of memory, of sorrow; the harbinger of the end. The prophecy was not known to most people, but Amell was anything but most people. He knew what the Champion of Black would mean. He knew why his dreams had brought him here.
"What does she look like?" Amell called out despite his better judgment. He needed to know, though he hated the risk of drawing attention.
"They say she be a striking beauty. Tan of skin, like all daughters of the north, though they say her eyes are amethyst blades and her tongue is locked behind pearly white prison bars. They say a single word from her would fell even a man so great as you, sir knight, and so – in her mercy – she deigns to never speak at all. They say that the day she was born, a powerful blizzard tore her from her own mother's teat, and now she be a snow maiden – with hair of pure dazzling ice!"
"Fuck," was the only thought he could muster. A snow-capped maiden, the Champion of dreams & Black. It seemed to Amell that the gods had not planned his retirement to be an easy one. He knew immediately that his destiny lay within this nineteen-year-old. "Fuck."
"How'd you know all this about her?" Some old man called from the crowd.
--"A feast was held in her honour. There, tale was told to all those of the lowly court of Baron Marren of House Shael! My informant heard his tales from the brilliant and ever-reliable bard, Evara White-tongue!"
"Who?" the old man scoffed.
--"A... notable bard from the northern dukedoms. I assure you, all to the north heed the songs of the implacable Evara White-tongue!"
"I'm from the north!" a toothless man called. "An' I ain't heard no tell of this White-tongue."
"Sir, you look to be a mere baker. How many bards have you heard of?" the boy snipped. He awaited no response before finishing his address. "Alas, dear listener! Keep an eye – and an ear – out for this so-called Sparrow-Knight! Doubtless, she will be looking to meet with the Conclave once the Moving City arrives. Till the next tenday, I bid you all farewell. Remember to pay your way as you go!" the boy shouted over the quickly dispersing crowd. Frantically, he offered up a bucket, and many within the crowd paid in a bronze plate, or a couple of coppers. Amell followed suit and left for the great port gate.