Qohor was no longer a city; it was a war zone where suffering, fear, dread, and despair walked hand in hand.
When the first yellow lights of dawn attempted to penetrate the dense mantle of smoke suffocating the city of sorcerers, the panorama of what had transpired the night before became painfully clear. The sight was not pleasant. Caspian stood on the balcony of a palace that had once belonged to a wealthy man, whose remains were undoubtedly already turned to ash.
From there, the view was a dichotomy between order and chaos. The fires controlled by the Red Priests painted the horizon in an oily crimson, while in the streets, movement was minimal, almost non-existent. It was closer to a ghost town than the "Exotic City" it had been called before.
At his side, Tyanna held a scroll of parchment with a strange rigidity. Something in her had changed the night before; she no longer moved with the confidence and ease that had once defined her. Now, she acted as if every movement might create a scenario she didn't want to see.
"The report for the night, my Khal," Tyanna said, her voice cutting through the silence of the city with a much more respectful tone—one that seemed to have accompanied Caspian only since the events of the previous night. "The librarians have finished the tally against the records of previous censuses. According to the Priests of R'hllor and the reports from the witches, the confirmed casualties amount to thirteen thousand four hundred and twenty-two citizens."
Caspian did not move. His yellow eyes remained fixed on a tower of smoke in the distance, giving no hint of what was passing through his mind. "Were they all faithful?"
"All of them," Tyanna affirmed with a note of incredulity in her voice. "There were no mistakes, my Khal. That is what is most... terrifying. Whatever those beings are, they did not hesitate to find hiding places we didn't even know existed."
She paused, looking down at the parchment. "Every person with kinship to the Black Goat was eliminated. We found entire families in the Smiths' Quarter embedded into the walls of their houses. They died of asphyxiation before we found them. Many are frightened; I think perhaps if a less bloody method had been used..."
Caspian turned toward her, his expression grim. The morning light had already filled the sky, with sunbeams covering his face. "Mercy is a luxury permitted to those who do not have a parasite devouring the foundations of their future kingdom, Tyanna. What do the people say? What do those who still breathe say?"
Tyanna let out a dry, humorless laugh. "The priests say the Warrior of Light has brought shadows that even the night did not know to fight against the night itself. They call you the Shadow Controller. In the taverns that still dare to remain open to the public, it is whispered that you didn't come to free them from the Black Goat, but to show them that there is something far worse than the god that once controlled them. The people fear you, my Khal; some are even gouging out their own eyes. They believe that if they cannot see the beings in black, the beings in black cannot harm them."
"Fear is a construction tool," Caspian replied, returning his gaze to the plaza. "Many must choose between love, duty, respect, and fear. Why should I not aspire to obtain all of them? I prefer a city that trembles before my shadow over one that conspires under my light. And if structures like those are necessary, then I will have my enemies turned into more of them."
Tyanna looked toward the Plaza of Offerings. There, in the center, the Endermen had built a monument with the bodies of the high-ranking cult officials. It was not a disorganized pile of corpses. It was a perfectly shaped spiral, a staircase of bodies rising toward the sky. The arms of the dead had been intertwined to form a geometric pattern that defied gravity. There were no flies, no immediate decomposition; only a gelid order that screamed that human life, to Caspian's new friends, was nothing more than building material.
"It is a monstrosity," Tyanna whispered. Even for her, seeing something like that was unsettling in a deeply stressful way.
"It is a message," Caspian corrected. "It is telling the Black Goat—because I know it must be watching—that its pieces have been destroyed. That its board has been dismantled by me."
At that moment, Valka entered the balcony. Her armor was stained with ash, and her eyes reflected a profound concern. She had arrived from Vaes Yeraan a few hours prior.
"My Khal, the people are reaching their limit," she said without preamble. "Not because of the massacre, but because of the atmosphere. The air in the city is beginning to vibrate. The horses refuse to enter the inner ring of the walls, and the men say they hear voices... screams coming from the walls."
Caspian closed his eyes and sighed. In fact, he had started to feel it too, a few hours ago. The ground beneath the palace was not steady. It vibrated as if a heavy piece of construction machinery were nearby.
"It is appearing," Caspian said with an unsettling calm. There was no time for chaos; now that he had killed the tiger, he couldn't be frightened by its hide. "It has been hungry all night. We have killed its priests; we have burned its faithful. It has been left without the hands that fed it. No one prays to it anymore; now it has to come out and hunt for itself."
Valka stepped closer to him. "We can still get the people out. If that thing emerges and these tremors continue, many innocents will die. The faithful are already dead; only innocents remain. We must move them away from the epicenter."
Caspian looked at her, and for a brief second, there was a trace of doubt in his gaze—a spark of recognition that seemed to be fading. "Do it. Have the Unsullied lead everyone toward the road to Vaes Yeraan. I don't want a single innocent soul left"—he paused—"or a useful one, within these walls when that thing finally comes out."
It was six in the morning when the first earthquake shook Qohor. It was not a movement of tectonic plates; it was an upward impact, as if something massive had struck the base of the city from the very depths of hell.
At the city gates, chaos broke out under iron discipline. The Unsullied, with their shields raised and spears at the ready, formed human corridors to guide the mass of terrified people. "Do not look back! Walk toward the exit! Quickly!" the officers shouted in the Common Tongue and High Valyrian. Behind them, the city's buildings began to tilt, their wooden beams creaking like breaking bones as the streets cracked open.
Caspian descended to the Main Plaza, where the Plaza of Offerings dominated the landscape. The ground there was no longer solid; the stone and cobblestones undulated like water. Around him, his main force followed closely. The witches wore enchanted armor, their hands gripping enchanted swords, whips, or bows, while they downed potions one after another.
Kinvara and her priests stood alert around the plaza. They knew this was the place, for it throbbed with an energy that made them nervous. It was at that moment that the ground of the Plaza of Offerings collapsed.
There was no explosion sending stone and earth debris flying in all directions; instead, the ground was sucked into the interior of the earth. A crater five meters wide opened in the center of Qohor, and from it emerged a pressure that made everyone present breathe with greater difficulty.
They all knew what it was; they had been waiting for it for weeks. But it was one thing to call the devil, and quite another to have him standing in front of you. The Black Goat emerged not as an animal, but as a fusion between man and goat. A mass of black, hairy, and slimy flesh moved over its clothes and skin. Its cloven hooves were the size of grapefruits, and its horns were two enormous black protrusions that didn't even reflect the sunlight, but rather seemed to absorb it.
But the most horrendous part was its face. It had a pointed nose, a massive mouth full of saw-like teeth, and milky white eyes that seemed to glow.
"Endermen!" Caspian shouted, regaining control of his voice. In a burst of static, hundreds of elongated figures appeared at the edges of the Plaza, about ten meters from the crater. They did not attack immediately. They simply watched the creature with their violet eyes.
Endaxia descended from the sky onto the roof of a nearby palace, landing with an impact that caused the roof to collapse, but without averting her gaze from the monstrosity at the center of it all. Her beige and copper scales shone with a light that seemed to repel the blackness emanating from the Black Goat. The dragon roared, and her mental voice resonated in Caspian's head.
"It is old, Caspian. And powerful, even if it is weak."
"Wait," Caspian ordered, stepping forward. "Now!"
Kinvara did not hesitate. "Āeksios Ōño, aōhos ōñoso ilōn jehikās!" Her chant left her mouth with a fervor that filled the other sorcerers present with jubilee, and one by one, they raised both hands toward the Black Goat.
A torrent of fire as white as milk erupted from the circle of Red Priests, striking the being standing amidst the crater from which it had emerged. The creature brayed with fury, and from its body sprouted shadows like tentacles that lashed out at the priests.
The witches stepped in, using their shields to contain the miasma of whatever that thing had launched. The fire did not stop; it continued to flash, submerging the Black Goat in a sea of flames.
At that moment, the Black Goat struck the ground with one of its hooves, provoking a wave of black energy that extinguished the flames consuming it. It was revealed once more. Its skin was blackened where the flames had touched it; parts of its flesh appeared liquefied, but even so, it stood firm.
The black miasma it released began to take shape into smaller, deformed versions of the creature—like parasites leaving their host.
"Witches, protect the rear!" Valka ordered, drawing her whip, ready to fight to the death against whatever stood before her.