Chapter Text
The convoy of ships was making good time on the high seas. They had departed from Astapor that morning and now it was close to the midnight hour with their ships sailing along the east of the Doom, far from the cursed mists.
They had made good time by sailing down the western coast of the Isle of Cedars, rather than taking the longer route past the island's eastern coastline.
It was an old sailor’s myth, that any who sailed from Slaver’s Bay to the Gulf of Grief should pass the Isle of Cedar on its eastern coast lest they tempt the Doom to bring calamity down upon them.
The evening was quiet and the winds were fair, but Captain Azmar was not in good spirits, not with the morale of his crew.
They were stiff, quiet and those whose faces Azmar caught in the light of the lanterns around the ship he noticed to be in glower spirits.
On their last voyage, they carried cargo from Astapor to Qarth, the crew was merry in the evenings, singing sea shanties with the crews on the other ships but not on this voyage.
All the ships in their convoy were in a miserable and timid state.
It was no mystery why but that did not mean Azmar was happy about it.
The Captain stood at the quarterdeck near the helm and looked over the railing.
Among the quiet and sullen sailors, Azmar spotted his first mate, Rikin, who was making his rounds on the deck, checking on the quiet and sombre crewmen as they tended to their duties.
“Rikin!” the captain called out, summoning the first mate to the quarterdeck.
Rikin left the side of the sailor he was checking on and climbed the steps, joining Azmar’s side.
“Is all well, Captain?” Rikin asked.
Azmar snorted in his reply
“Hardly. Look at them. As timid as nursemaids. How many voyages have we sailed? I’ve lost count. Yet now I look around and my hardy band of sailors seem as though they were in a graveyard rather than a ship's deck. What’s become of them?” the Captain grunted as he looked at the shy and pathetic sailors whom he knew to be normally such a jovial and motley string of mariners.
Rikin looked to the Captain and sighed, a nervous look painted upon his face either sharing in the crew's anxieties or worried about speaking to the captain about the matter or maybe even a little of both.
“It is a… a matter the crew does not feel comfortable speaking of, Captain,” Rikin explained, trying in vain to keep the matter from going any further, lest Azmar be roused to anger, but Azmar already knew what the answer was and wished to hear it said aloud.
“And as first mate is it not your duty to know the thoughts of the crew? Speak plainly then, man,” he commanded, compelling Rikin to words.
Rikin shut his eyes and huffed before speaking.
“Many of the crew are… uneasy, sailing so close to the Doom,” Rikin admitted.
Azmar leaned over the railing as he allowed his frustration to fester in his mind before erecting himself and looking at his first mate.
“Look out the starboard, Rikin. What do you see out there beyond our convoy?” Azmar asked.
Rikin’s eyes lingered upon Azmar for a moment, seeming to wonder if his request was a trick or not. Eventually, Rikin swivelled his head and looked outwards over the sea past the other ships that sailed with them.
“Nothing. Just the darkness,” Rikin finally replied as he looked out to the night.
“Exactly. Not even the mists of the Valyria are in our sights. We are leagues from the Doom and yet you and the crew soil your breaches for even sailing the Gulf of Grief?” Azmar reprimanded, bringing a shamed look upon Rikin.
“Since I was a cabin boy, the rule always was to keep the mists of Valyria no closer than your horizon and the curse will not trouble you. We’ve sailed between the Free Cities and Slaver’s Bay many times and the curse of Valyria has never bothered us,” Azmar asserted.
Rikin shook his head.
“But that was before—”
“Before? Before what?” Azmar asked, losing patience.
Rikin seemed to almost choke on his words in hesitation before speaking.
“Before the Lost Empress and her Doomed Fleet,” the First Mate finally said.
Azmar threw his head back in exhaustion and disbelief that even Rikin who had often been the voice of reason to Azmar’s bluster was caught up in the fresh fairytales of sea curses.
Azmar was no fool, he knew better than to tread too closely to the Doom, but he did not abide by the fresh superstitions that had clouded the minds of sailors in recent years.
Some years ago, the dragon king Viserys of Westeros passed and was naturally succeeded by his son even though the king had promised his throne of swords to his daughter for some lunacy.
When the Princess Rhaenyra was denied the crown, she gathered up all those loyal to her and all her dragons and fled Westeros, sailing east towards the Doom, claiming prophetic dreams guided her. The Mad Empress gathered some hundred thousand fools and led them all to their deaths, as many other failed explorers and conquerors had done.
Since then, the number of ships that perished on the sea lanes that bordered the Doom had grown. The number of trade ship convoys that went missing on the route that circled Valyria grew so great that for a time, the Masters of Slaver’s Bay and Volantis began using the old roads near the painted mountains, but the raids from the Dothraki and crossing past the city of abominations made the sea route more preferable even if it had become more perilous.
Everyone knew that the sea storms and probably pirates claimed the ships that went missing, but superstitions among sailors led to new wives' tales attributing the lost ships to the perished Targaryen fleet.
Some said that the Doom was a conscious curse like a demon or an evil god and that when the Doom swallowed Rhaenyra Targaryen and her fleet it awoke the curse like a sleeping dragon and now the Doom stretched out beyond Valyria to gobble up ships that neared its borders.
Others said that the ghosts of Rhaenyra and her ships and dragons roamed the smoking sea and sought misery and torment upon other ships that neared them.
Drivel, all of it. That was what Azmar had to say about such things.
Sea storms often swirled near the Doom and ships had gone missing on those trade routes since the Doom of Valyria over two hundred years ago, nothing had changed, just a string of unlucky vessels over the past few years fanned into a ghost story by fools and mummers.
Those damnable stories had turned the crews of the five cargo ships into wet fish, too scared to sail the routes they had ventured so many times before over their lives.
Even some of the other captains wished to take the long route to Volantis but were outvoted three to two.
With a bonus promised by the Volantene flesh merchants, if their cargo could be delivered swiftly, the promise of coin outweighed the sway of ghost stories.
Around the same time, the new myth about the Fool Empress began to rouse the slave trade and the Free Cities began to grow in demand. Partly due to the number of slave ships that went missing on the seas and the slave caravans looted by the Dothraki on the old roads near the painted mountains, but more importantly because of the developments in the west.
Before the Sea Snake, Corlys Velaryon, perished in the Doom alongside his Mad Empress, he won a second war in the Stepstones, securing it for Princess Rhaenyra but gave up the islands when he followed her east.
After that, the Triarchy tried to reclaim the islands but was challenged by King Aegon’s two brothers, Aemond One-eye and Daeron the Daring, who pincered the Triarchy with their fleets and dragons and reclaimed the islands.
The War of Brothers and Daughters it was now called by the singers, referring to the two Targaryen brothers and the Triarchy cities called the Three Daughters, a stupid name for a war.
Regardless of the silly name, that was the war that finally broke the Triarchy as they pointed fingers at one another and turned to infighting. The three cities of Myr, Tyrosh and Lys then quickly devolved back into old habits, fighting over the disputed lands and fighting over which one got to fight for the Stepstones again.
That was why the slave trade had gone up in recent years, unpaid labour in times of war and fresh Unsullied slave soldiers. Azmar and the other captains would offload their cargo of slaves all huddled together below decks in chains and the Volantene would then resell them to buyers from the Free Cities.
Azmar quietly laughed to himself as he thought of the former triarchy cities still warring amongst themselves when an opportunity to finally claim the Stepstones had floated over their heads a year past.
Everyone knew about the Winter Fever that had struck the Seven Kingdoms, an illness that ran rampant through the lands of the Targaryens and their Andal vassals only a few short years after the Mad Empress’s tragedy.
The disease had run its course and dissipated now, but not before thousands had been killed over the previous year.
Had the Triarchy held together just a little longer, the Triarchy could have claimed the Stesptones while half the Seven Kingdoms were weak and sickly.
Some said that the sickness was a curse upon Aegon for usurping his sister’s throne while others said that the Mad Empress Rhaenyra had found some form of evil spirit or devil in the Doom of Valyria and made a pact to curse Westeros in exchange for bearing the devil an evil child and that Rhaenyra’s followers still lived in the lands of Valyria as demons twisted and perverted by the Doom.
All of it was drivel. The sickness was a sickness, not everything was magic or a curse from the gods and Azmar had been around and seen enough of the world to know such things.
“Well, whatever imaginary dangers the crew has been rendered paralysed by, make sure they understand that I still command this ship and unless they want to join the cargo below deck with fetters around their ankles, then they best follow orders, is that clear?” Azmar asked authority.
“Yes, Captain,” Rikin replied, speaking with his back straight and his chest out.
Rikin was then dismissed and returned to his duties on the ship.
Azmar stayed on deck for another hour yet, positioned beside the helmsman at the wheel as he looked over the crew, still quiet and sullen but at least more focused on their duties instead of dawdling like frightened children, now that Rikin had set them straight.
With the night calm and the winds being favourable, Azmar decided to go down below for some rest.
As Captain Azmar descended down the steps to the deck beneath, he headed for the Captain’s Cabin.
As he walked through the small tight wooden corridor of the ship, he caught the sound of jingling metal in his ear, muffled by the floorboards beneath his feet and in time with the rocking of the ship over the tides.
The sound of thousands of shackles on the wrists and ankles of Captain Azmar’s cargo, en route to Volantis to be divided up into labourers, Unsullied soldiers and sex slaves and carted off from there to the other Free Cities or sold to the highest bidder.
Thousands more just like them were all clustered together on the other four ships of their fleet, tightly packed in a stinky sweaty hold as they whimpered and prayed to their gods for help.
Azmar thought nothing of it. Life was a gamble and to be born vulnerable and easily taken was to be dealt a bad hand and those slaves had no one to blame but their mama’s who released them into such a world that would be so cruel to them.
Azmar on the other hand was dealt a good hand and had used it well and chosen good odds to gamble against. Even this journey he was on was a gamble.
He could happen upon a storm, he could be caught by pirates, his superstitious crew could mutiny against him or their so-called ghosts could come after them or even something as simple as a leak and they could end up at the bottom of the ocean.
But all were necessary risks to get ahead in life and when he slid into port in Volantis and offloaded the stinking sweaty lumps of living meat for the flesh markets to make a profit out of, Azmar and his crew would be handsomely paid for their journey.
At last, Azmar arrived at his quarters and entered his cabin.
He uncorked a good bottle of wine and drank it straight, finding it easier to unwind and drift to sleep with the sway of the tides when he had a few good gulps of red in him.
Azmar then pulled his boots off, hung his coat over the spine of a chair at the desk in his cabin and crawled into his bed.
The Captain then closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift with the tides' sway against the ship's hull.
Azmar nodded off, but how long it lasted he could not be sure. Perhaps a minute or perhaps an hour but one thing he was sure of was that he awoke when it was still in the middle of the night, being shaken awake by a crewman.
“Captain. Captain,” he repeated as he shook Azmar’s shoulder.
“What is it,” Azmar snapped as he shoved the crewman’s arm away and got up from his bed.
“Rikin requests your presence on deck. There is a storm ahead of us and lights have been spotted off the starboard, we suspect from ships, sir,” the crewman explained.
Starboard? Captain Azmar thought.
When travelling from Slaver’s Bay to Volantis and circling the Doom, starboard was the face of the ship that overlooked the Doom, but the lights of a ship couldn't come from that direction for nothing ever emerged from the mists beyond Valyria.
Azmar had half a mind to slap the crewman around and scold him for wasting his time but the words of a storm being sighted in their path greatly concerned Azmar as he put his boots on and collected his coat.
The captain and the crewmen then left the cabin and made long strides through the narrow corridor of the ship until they reached the stairs out to the top deck.
As Azmar climbed the steps out of the hold, his footing slipped and he nearly fell over, the effects of the red wine finally catching up with him.
The falter only made him angrier, knowing that the crewman was behind him and saw his failing.
He grunted and gritted his teeth as he climbed out of the hold and made his way to the quarterdeck where Rikin was standing.
“Where is it?” Azmar asked, joining Rikin’s side.
“ It , captain?” Rikin repeated, seeming to require clarification on what it Azmar was looking for.
“The Storm, you fool!” Azmar snapped.
Rikin was frantic and hesitant as he tried to answer but his unconfident stuttering was inane. As the first mate saw the impatience grow in the Captain’s eyes he simply resolved to point to the storm.
Dark clouds in the distance cut off the stars and moonlight, flashes of light followed by the delayed rumble of far-off thunder.
Azmar grimaced as he looked at the storm. The refreshed superstitions about the Doom that swayed sailors to give a wider birth to the route around Valyria were also what enticed the slave mongers to pay more for their deliveries if ships were willing to take the shorter route through the old shipping lanes and deliver their cargo on time.
Feeling the wind on his face blowing from the west, the storm ahead seemed like it might add an egregious amount of time to their voyage as they would not be able to sail around it from the port side without the storm overtaking them.
The only options that Azmar had were to sail through the storm or to sail around it by steering the ship starboard as the wind carried the storm eastward.
“Rikin, have the helmsman bring us towards starboard and signal the other ships to do the same,” Azmar commanded.
“Sir!” Rikin said with shock.
“Come now, Rikin. The mists of Valyria are still a little ways off, we can afford to get closer,” Azmar asserted.
“But Captain. We saw lights off the starboard bow. There are ships out there,” Rikin protested.
“Enough of this nonsense. No ships could be coming from the west. The Doom is west and nothing else is there. The next man aboard this ship to pester me with superstitions such as these will be cast overboard and into the Sea! Is the Captain heard?” Azmar snapped aloud.
Yes, Captain, the crew responded together.
Rikin then blew the horn, signalling the other ships to adjust their heading and the helmsman turned the ship’s wheel a few notches to correct their course.
Azmar then leaned his hands over the railing and watched as the five ships sailed onwards, deciding not to return to his bed until he was sure that his lackwit crew could be trusted to continue on towards Volantis without fearing ghosts.
With the storm still a fair distance ahead of them, the First Mate called to the Captain’s attention with worry in his voice.
“Captain look there!” Rikin yelped.
Azmar looked out past Rikin who was pointing out over the dark sea beyond their starboard bow, but the Captain could see nothing but darkness.
“What is it, man? More of your mystery lights. They’re probably just our own lantern lights reflecting off the glint of the sea,” Azmar declared dismissively.
“I swear I saw something move out there,” Rikin declared.
“This again? I swear Rikin you are testing my—”
At that moment a sound carried on the wind interrupted Azmar’s scolding.
A strange sound that was raspy, deep and echoey like a rockslide in a gorge but at the same time it also sounded like… like an animal’s roar.
A strong gust of wind, or a muffled echo of thunder from the storm, Azmar thought, desperate to think of a logical explanation for the noise they had heard.
“What was that?” the helmsman asked.
Azmar looked out over the darkness, hesitating to answer his sailor.
“N-Nothing,” Azmar said dismissively, yet unconfident in his assertion.
Just then, the sound rang out again, the strange eerie howl of some kind of creature in the skies above.
Azmar and the rest of the crew began to gawk into the heavens above trying to discern the origin of the sound they had heard.
As his eyes looked out into the night sky he caught a shape in the dark that moved over the stars and the moon, a black-winged creature like a bat flapping and growing bigger, getting closer.
An orange light like a candle flame then started to grow in the shadow and Azmar’s eyes widened with horror as his heart sunk to the deepest pits of his stomach. There was no denying what his eyes were beholding and before Azmar could even react he heard one of his crewmen cry out “DRAGON!”
The orange candle flame in the dark sky then grew to a roaring inferno as a dragon swooped over the ship and set their sails aflame with its burning breath.
It was Rikin who tackled Azmar to the ground as they took cover from the dragon’s burning breath as it swooped over them and disappeared into the dark again.
As the two staggered to their feet trying to see where the dragon had gone, their ears drew their attention right around to look upon another ship in their convoy as another dragon set its sails ablaze.
Two dragons , Azmar thought in horror.
The second dragon did the same as its companion, burning the sails and disappearing into the dark as the first dragon reemerged and burned the sails of another ship in the convoy and the pair continued the routine until all five ships had their sails ablaze.
Then the ships fell victim to a second wave of alternating attacks as the two winged serpents lunged at the masts of the ships and knocked them over like uprooted trees, sending them falling into sea with the sound of the endless crackling of splintering wood.
Their convoy of five slave ships was now demasted and left dead in the water while the crews could do nothing but take cover and shudder in fear as the dragons ravaged their sails.
Impossible , Azmar declared to himself, Impossible, as though his insistence on rejecting the reality would make it no longer the case, but such was folly.
“Captain! Look!” Rikin shouted, pointing once again to the starboard of the ship.
Not more dragons, Azmar begged in his own mind before hobbling to his feet.
Sailing towards them out of the dark, illuminated by the small fires left on the decks of the ships was a fleet of strange warships bearing red sails marked with valyrian patterns and glyphs on the borders and a black triskelion bearing three dragon heads in its centre.
While Azmar did not recognise the banner flown upon the sails of the ship, he recognised the design of the vessels themselves.
Triremes, great double-masted warships similarly designed to galleys that were constructed during the time of the Freehold.
What nightmare had Azmar awoken into? What were these ghosts of the Freehold that had come out of the Doom to snatch their ships?
Azmar was terrified and confused as his crewmen pestered him for orders while he could do nothing but stand completely petrified as he saw the warships begin boarding the slave ships with soldiers bearing square shields and spears like the legionnaires of the Freehold’s Dragon Legion boarding the vessels under Azmar’s command.
The dragons swooped down into the fray and snatched Azmar’s mariners from the deck and dropped them into the sea as these valyrian ghosts came onto their ships and did battle with them.
Azmar was still petrified and confused as another warship pulled alongside them and the grapple hooks began to pull the two ships together.
“Fight!” Azmar said at last as he saw these ghosts of valyria prepare to board.
“Fight for your lives!” Azmar shouted as he drew his sabre from its sheath.
Azmar looked around for Rikin wishing for him to rally the men to repel the attackers, but the first mate was nowhere to be seen.
As the legionnaires started laying gangplanks down to board Azmar’s flagship, he saw a strange figure leading the attackers.
A giant with a hooked nose, a purple-dyed beard braided with colourful ribbons, a segmented breastplate over what looked to be a colourful woman’s silk dress, more jewellery on his fingers, forearms and hanging around his neck than Azmar had ever seen on one person and two broad axes in either hand.
The giant roared like a madman as he ran across the gangplank and started hacking his way through Azmar’s men with his legionnaires following.
Whoever this strange giant demon was, Azmar would slay him before he was pulled to whatever hell these spirits came from. Azmar raised his sword and readied to descend down the steps of the quarterdeck to join the fight, but at that moment he heard a crewman shout out for him and when Azmar turned, he saw the talons of a swooping dragon coming right at him.
The impact sent him flying from the quarterdeck and Azmar fell into the sea.
He could not move, his body felt numb as he sunk into the dark of the water, his mind began to fade as the darkness took him and Azmar was consumed by the cold and lifeless sea.