The captured Faceless Man was none other than Lord, one of the five assassins.
He had infiltrated Gohor long before the Bonecrusher unicorn turtles began patrolling the city.
Now he was being held in a small square outside the Vhagar Wall.
His hands were bound tightly behind his back.
Heavy iron shackles weighed down his ankles.
Forced to his knees, he found himself surrounded by six or seven Royal Guardsmen, each pressing a Valyrian steel spear against his back.
The orders were simple.
If he made the slightest suspicious movement when Viserys arrived... He would be killed instantly.
"The king has never known defeat. He is proud. He won't miss the chance to humiliate you.
And that...
...Will be your best opportunity to die together with him."
The Kindly Man's analysis echoed in Lord's mind.
Viserys had almost always granted audiences to prisoners who made such requests.
The Faceless Men had concluded that this was one of the few opportunities to get close enough to strike.
Lord was their finest close-quarters killer.
The task naturally fell to him.
If he failed...
Viserys would never make the same mistake again. The next attempt would require a different approach.
A piercing roar suddenly echoed overhead.
The soldiers, trained to ignore such sounds, remained perfectly still.
Lord instinctively looked up.
A moment later, Balerion descended before him. The dragon was only the size of a pony.
At first, Lord examined the creature with genuine curiosity. Until now, he had only ever read about dragons.
Then he realized something unsettling.
The dragon...
Was staring back at him.
Golden slit pupils regarded him with unmistakable intelligence. Not the savage gaze of a beast.
The cold, calculating look of a human being.
His throat tightened.
His heart pounded wildly.
'A skinchanger?' The thought flashed through his mind.
The next instant, Balerion spread his wings. Black flames laced with streaks of gold gathered within the dragon's jaws.
The guards recognized the signs immediately and retreated.
This...
This isn't supposed to happen...
Confusion and terror filled Lord's final moments.
The black dragonfire swallowed him whole.
Within seconds...
He was dead.
Following standard procedure, the Royal Guards thrust their Valyrian steel spears into the charred body several more times before dragging it away.
Hidden throughout the surrounding streets, the remaining Faceless Men witnessed everything.
In that instant, they understood.
They had been deceived... The Kindly Man's judgment had been completely wrong.
....
Elsewhere, Viserys had already begun extracting Lord's memories.
He had no interest whatsoever in the assassin's childhood or personal history.
He skimmed through those memories as though watching them at eighteen times normal speed.
Like dragging a slider across a page, he skipped directly to the period beginning with their departure from the House of Black and White and ending with the formulation of their assassination plan in Gohor.
Compared to the Kindly Man's elaborate scheme of coordinated assassinations, something else shocked Viserys far more.
His description of slavery in Valyria.
History recorded that the Valyrians had inherited slavery from the Ghiscari of Slaver's Bay.
But it was painfully obvious that they had surpassed their teachers.
The Ghiscari ruled through the fear of death.
Among the Valyrians...
Death itself had become a blessing.
Using Lord's memories, Viserys quickly uncovered the hiding places of the remaining Faceless Men.
Arrest orders were issued immediately.
If the Faceless Men had truly been born as a rebellion against slavery... Then perhaps an alliance between them was still possible.
If they could simply assassinate Robert, Tywin, and the other coalition leaders...
The bloody war about to engulf the world might yet be avoided.
Of course... It was only a possibility.
Even if the Faceless Men agreed to cooperate, Viserys would continue preparing for war as though nothing had changed.
At this point, House Targaryen could trust only two things.
Its dragons.
And its army.
....
Thanks to its thriving harbor, House Manderly had become one of the wealthiest families in the North.
Now White Harbor served as the gathering point for the greater part of the northern host.
White tents stretched across the harbor like freshly fallen snow.
From a distance, it looked as though winter had already arrived.
To transport the northern army across the Narrow Sea, Lord Manderly had long since ordered the harbor closed.
Every ship had been requisitioned.
Thirty-two thousand men.
That was the final figure Eddard Stark had received.
He knew the number was likely inflated. Even so, the true military strength of the North certainly exceeded thirty thousand.
House Targaryen's mastery of public opinion had already spread Viserys's intentions throughout all of Westeros.
Every house that had joined Robert's rebellion—except for the five great houses—would receive a full pardon.
Their lands and titles would remain untouched.
For many lesser lords, answering the king's summons meant crossing the length of Westeros.
Then crossing the Narrow Sea.
Then fighting on an unfamiliar continent.
This was not a royal excursion funded by the Crown... It was a feudal obligation.
The cost was enormous.
That was exactly what Viserys wanted.
His goal was never merely to divide the Five Kingdoms.
He wanted to drive a wedge between the five great houses and their own bannermen.
Eddard understood that perfectly.
There was simply nothing he could do about it.
Had Thoros not demonstrated undeniable miracles...
Viserys would have been an opponent Eddard could scarcely imagine defeating.
He was more dangerous than ten Rhaegars combined.
The great hall of White Harbor was decorated everywhere with carvings of shells, eels, and crabs set into the stone floor.
Eddard stood studying a map of Gohor.
For this campaign, he had brought his eldest son with him.
Robb Stark.
The boy's auburn hair and green eyes stood out among the gathered lords.
To Eddard's satisfaction, Robb seemed to possess genuine talent for warfare.
As father and son discussed possible approaches to the invasion of Gohor, a tall, handsome knight with golden hair approached.
"My lord," Jaime Lannister said, "which house's army arrived at White Harbor first?"
"I need to report it to His Grace so their reward can be granted."
The reward, of course, was the one Robert had promised earlier.
One hundred thousand gold dragons for the first army to reach the mustering point.
Jaime served as Eddard's second-in-command.
Officially.
In reality, he was also there to watch him.
The armies of the Seven Kingdoms had been divided into three separate invasion forces.
Naturally, Eddard commanded the northern host.
But House Stark was one of the families Viserys had publicly declared would receive leniency.
Robert had no choice but to be cautious.
"Karstark," Eddard answered simply.
House Karstark was a cadet branch of House Stark.
Its very existence had originally been intended to weaken and monitor House Bolton.
Eddard was certain Roose Bolton had committed no more than sixty percent of the troops he could actually field.
Viserys knew full well the thousand-year rivalry between Houses Stark and Bolton.
Trying to recruit the Boltons against Winterfell was exactly the sort of move Eddard expected from him.
Just then, a blond squire came running into the hall, breathless with panic.
"Ser!"
"Our gold has been stolen!"
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