####
It was hard to tell where the pretender and Oberyn were taking him. All he knew was that he was on a boat first, then crossed a hill, and then got onto a boat again. There was a long line of similar boats, all filled with sellswords, and as he'd expected, he wasn't kept on the same boat as the pretender.
But the fact that they didn't try to kill him yet made everything clear. They simply couldn't afford to kill him. After all, as long as he lived, he was the King, and his surrender would mean the surrender of the Iron Throne. If he were killed, Stannis would be crowned the King, the Tyrells would support the stoic man, and Aegon would have to fight a long battle.
The best way to get the throne was to make Robert give it willingly.
Not in a million years. Robert grunted, feeling the tug of the iron chains around his arms. He had already tried to break them and he now knew that he could. It wasn't a lie when he claimed he could lift an elephant.
He truly was inhumanly strong. That was the very reason he followed Aegon. But again, he didn't know if he could battle ten thousand men and win. There had to be a limit, after all.
Seated in the middle of the small boat, chained up, the only other man was behind him, rowing him. There were boats with Golden Company's men at the front and the back, all with six men each.
"A man believes you can."
"What?" Robert glanced back at the sudden advice from the man rowing the boat. "What are you rambling?"
"A man can end them all."
Robert frowned and looked at the other boats. Then he looked back at the man. "Who are you?"
The man smiled but never looked at Robert's face. "Valar Morghulis."
"Valar dohaeris," Robert instinctively replied. Why, he had no clue. It just felt like the most appropriate response.
The man nodded at Robert's reply. "A man is called Jaqen H'ghar. He serves the Many-Faced God, as do you."
Robert knew right away the man was Lorathi. Only they spoke in that fucked up manner. But still, the meaning behind the words was understandable.
"Why did you give me the coin?" He asked, looking ahead to avoid suspicion.
"A man did not choose this. The coin chose. A blessing from the Many-Faced God, for one who wears a mask as we do," Jaqen said, his voice smooth as still water. "It is given to me to lead you through Essos. This is the way of things."
By now, Robert didn't doubt miracles or gods. His existence itself was the greatest magical feat of all time. "Aye, but I'll have to survive first."
"A man sees you fight, a man sees you win. Not in one night, nor in two. But six? Perhaps."
"Hah! The Many-Faced God is a prophet now?" Robert laughed.
"Many-Faced God is all gods, and all gods are Many-Faced God. He sees, he knows. Is it not so, Wolf who became Stag?"
Brows raised in shock, Robert looked back at the man's face and for a moment met his eyes. Then he shook his head and looked ahead. "Seven Hells!"
That was all he could mutter. His well-guarded secret that no man should ever know.
How in the bloody hell did he know?
"A man should not be surprised. The Many-Faced God sees all, yet he asks for nothing. Not like the demon. A life is given, a life is taken—such is the way."
Robert shook his head annoyedly and refused to talk anymore. In silence, he awaited the eventual arrival at wherever they were taking him.
####
It was a gigantic camp with tents for as far as he could see. There were countless horses and even elephants. This was it, the camp of the Golden Company. And from the words he'd heard, this was somewhere outside the town of Selhorys.
Not long after being brought into the camp, he was uncuffed and thrown inside a metal cage with long bars and a cloth on the top to cover from the sun and occasional rain. They even brought him large servings of food. The treatment made it clear that they didn't plan on killing him yet.
Robert sat down and ate, awaiting the sky to darken. He watched the men go around and tried to map out the area. He could see the distant tent, the largest among all, made of golden cloth, surrounded by pikes with gilded skulls.
He expected Oberyn or Aegon to come and speak with him that night. But even as the camp descended into silence slowly, nobody came to him. There were no guards around his cage, just tents, and occasional night patrol.
He still waited hours past midnight.
Then, he stood up and grabbed the vertical bars of the cage. He tried to push them apart and…
That was easy.
He succeeded without even exerting himself. The metal bars simply bent away to his will. But he was a large man, so he had to bend them a lot to make way.
I can walk out of the camp if I want.
He looked towards the direction he reckoned the exit was. But then he looked back at the golden tent in the distance.
Such an opportunity will never arise again. I can battle and kill without care and test the limits of my magical ability.
Was this the right action? He truly didn't know.
But this was what he had in mind from the beginning. If his ability was truly so magical, and if he could grow to an absurdly inhuman level, he'd have no need to fear the Lannisters or the Ironborn. He wouldn't need to fear the Tyrells backstabbing him. Nor the Dragons that Daenerys had spawned.
It's time to test the limits of this body. It was rare for him to still address Robert, but in that moment, he did. Let's carve a legend out of your name, my old friend.
He stepped out of his cage like a beast on a hunt. He heard all the minute sounds around, the distant footsteps on the ground. No, he didn't want to pounce on the first walking man. He wanted a weapon, preferably a warhammer.
It was impossible for him to blend in the camp, as his height was taller than that of some of the smaller tents. But he walked around nonetheless, poking his head inside some tents to see what weapons the men carried. There were swords, spears, and maces, but no Warhammer.
Eventually, he found a big enough longsword for himself and settled with it. He knew the single sword wasn't going to cut it for the night he had planned.
Let's begin.
He looked left and right and walked into one of the tents.
"Haaaa!" He roared and slashed the sword right at the midriff of a sleeping man.
The man was cleaved in half like a hot knife through butter. Intestines and organs spilled, blood sprayed everywhere, drenching Robert first and then pooling on the floor. There were four other men in the tent who woke up to Robert's cry, but they were too stunned by the gore.
"Ha!" Robert swung his blade sideways, not even using two hands for a longsword. The blade sliced through three men as they sat on the same level, all three heads removed from their bodies and rolled away like balls, yet again spraying blood.
The last man stood up, fright in his face. He screamed at the top of his lungs, just what Robert wanted.
Woosh!
Robert pierced his blade straight into the man's chest, slicing the tent behind him. He kept pushing forward until the tent got torn apart and he once again appeared in the open, his victim still stuck on the blade that had run through his heart, dead.
By then, the scream had woken up all the nearby sellswords. They had all grabbed their weapons and came out, but most of them wore no armor.
"Haaaaaaa! You brought this upon yourselves!"
With a roar, Robert lifted the dead man high with his sword, towards the sky with such ease that most men there went pale. Not all of them were mighty men. While the core of the Golden Company was still made up of descendants of men who fought for the Blackfyres, over the past century a steady trickle of outlaws or men from the losing side of other wars had joined their ranks. It had also been joined by other sellswords simply seeking better opportunities whose ancestors were never from Westeros.
In front of Robert, they were nothing more than pigs to be slaughtered.
Thud!
Robert swung his blade and threw the man stuck on his sword at a couple of men in the distance. The blood was everywhere, especially on Robert's own frame. His hair, his beard, his face, his raggy tunic—all were drenched in crimson.
I don't feel any resistance. Robert noticed it. It had been a while since his last battle. Now, he felt nothing when slicing through bodies. Even bones didn't register as his striking force was too strong. It all felt like breaking tiny twigs.
Too bad for the men around him, they had just woken up and had no armor on themselves.
Let's keep moving.
His imposing frame had instilled hesitation among the men of the Golden Company.
"Come on!" Robert rushed in a random direction and sliced his blade in a horizontal arc. The men put up their swords to block, but Robert's blade cracked through every single sword and with almost perfect precision, beheaded four men in one strike.
Since they were of different heights. Some got chopped from their necks, some had the misfortune of getting sliced from their jaw, and some from their forehead. The heads flew high and eventually dropped near other men.
It was pure panic beyond that point.
"Ugh!" Robert noticed his own longsword had cracked because of his rough handling. This was why he wanted a warhammer.
"You!" He randomly looked at another man holding a longsword and charged like a bull. He stabbed straight through and pierced the first man's chest. But he kept pushing and stabbed the other two men behind him, killing them on the spot, skewered together.
"Thank you." He grabbed the new longsword before the dead could fall to the ground.
From there, the carnage resumed.
It was slow, but some of the more experienced sellswords started to wake up to reality and began ordering others. Instead of standing in place, orders were given to wear full armor and bring long spears.
It backfired when Rober snatched the said spear and began stabbing every living creature around him. Right into their skulls. It didn't matter if they wore helmets. His brute strength pierced the spears through everything.
10 dead.
50 dead.
100 dead.
I feel nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Other than panting breath and his energy slowly waning, Robert felt nothing. Of course, he received wounds all over his body from some arrows and spears that flew his way. But nothing stopped his onslaught.
It truly was a slaughter. Even when he kept moving around the ground got covered in dead bodies and blood. The gray tents turned bloodsoked and Robert… it looked as if he had no skin anymore, all coated in blood.
"Yeaaaaaa!" His teeth gleamed white with the roars.
500 dead.
The trick was in continuing to move around. He never allowed them to surround him from all sides. And at times when some tried to charge at him with a horse, he cleaved through the horse and the rider at the same time.
It was inhuman. Organs and limbs flew in the air as if toys. Not a single soul in the camp recognized Robert as a human anymore.
But that was when the first elephant was unleashed at him. The men of the Golden Company jumped aside and allowed the elephant to attack the demon.
"Ugh!" Robert stood his ground but didn't slash or stab at the elephant. He knew he'd only be crippling the animal, not killing it in one slash. That was a simple rule he'd held on to. To kill fast and painlessly.
Shhh!
The elephant was strong. Its trunk tried to smack him to the ground.
Thud!
Robert fell back. The next thing he knew, the huge elephant tried to stomp him with its front right foot.
"Not so easy!" Robert gritted his teeth and used his arms to block it.
No man. No man was ever recorded or ever fantasized about holding such strength. Only the creatures in Old Nan's stories could accomplish such feats.
A human not only stopped an elephant's stomp but pushed back.
Robert Baratheon, the Westerosi King, pushed back and stood back up on his feet, pushing back the shocked elephant despite his smaller size.
"GO! LEAVE!" He roared at the elephant and punched at the trunk with all his strength. He knew it wouldn't wound the creature but surely pain it enough to feel scared. "And you!"
Robert grabbed a spear from the ground and sent it flying at the mahout. The spear flew so powerfully that it dragged the body of the man with it, off the elephant's back.
By then, the elephant was scared and refused to fight Robert anymore.
Nor did Robert stay in one place.
1000 dead.
I feel nothing but my body can't move anymore.
He felt limitless strength in his body. But his lungs were giving up. His eyes were turning hazy, and although he fought valiantly, he had suffered deep flesh wounds that bled continuously.
His aim was to reach the golden tent but the sellswords were protecting it the most. He'd already seen the terrified faces of Oberyn, Aegon, and Jon in the distance, sitting atop their horses as if ready to escape.
Escape from a lone man that they had brought as a prisoner.
Escape from a lone man who killed a thousand of them.
In one single night, the Golden Company went from 10,000 men to 9,000.
Sadly, that was the extent of what Robert could do in one night.
"Valar morghulis."
Before he blacked out and fell on the bloody ground, Robert heard that familiar greeting. He just chuckled and lost himself to the necessary slumber.
Aye, he knew the dangers. What if they killed him in his unconscious state? That idea worried him, but not too much.
He'd died twice already, why bother with a third?
______________________
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