Merwyn and Ser Harys went fast as the combination of armour and fatigue would allow. Doran skipped ahead of them, eyes to the ground and the trail of blue dye Noro Fleetfoot had left them in the snow.

"Noro knows not to kill the man, Doran?" Merwyn asked. "We'll need him to root out the others."

"Be at ease, Ser Merwyn, Noro's versed enough. I never saw a man outrun that Tyroshi. Could be that our job's already done."

Could be that Cersei will cede the crown to her imp brother, too. Merwyn had an inkling that this mummer's farce was far from its end. "What did he look like?"

"No sooner did he spot us, did he flee," Doran explained. "He came into Chatayah's and turned tail before he'd gotten over the threshold. I didn't see his face, only the pommel at his hip. I'd wager we'll know, soon enough."

The blue dye wound them back past the Dragonpit and down the eastern side of Rhaenys' Hill, into the festering rat-run that was Flea Bottom. Merwyn had been determined to avoid the place if it were possible. A boil on the face of the capital. If only there were some way of lancing it.

Nevertheless, Merwyn trailed the hem of his white cloak through unknown filth; the smell of pigsties, winesinks and worse following as they marched on. The wynds were barely sizeable enough for the three of them to walk abreast, the overhanging eaves on both sides almost touching. Here and there, peasant children swarmed; clutches of rag-wrapped bones with grimy faces and broken souls. They gawped at Merwyn as though he might be the Father himself. Merwyn returned a look that warned any and all against chancing his good mercy.

Only when they were in the belly of Flea Bottom, the Red Keep a formidable sentry on Aegon's High Hill above, did the waning trail of blue dye come to its end. It broke before a hovel; one permeated with the odour of organic rot.

Merwyn drew Thorn from his sheath, pushed on the door and stepped into the gloom beyond. "Noro," he called, but there came no answer.

With the stench of poverty in his nose, and a prickling apprehension that tuned his nerve taut as a bow-string, he glanced about the place. An old wooden table withered in the corner, four pewter tankards decorating its top. Beds of straw occupied space against the far wall; all of them looked slept on. Standard peasant fare, Merwyn thought. Then he noticed the hatch set in the middle of the floor. He had mistaken it for a brown rug in the dim light thrown forth from a sulking candle, but, upon closer inspection, he discerned the iron ring-pull fixed upon oaken planks. He heaved on it, and a trap-door groaned open.

"Gods be good," Ser Harys muttered.

Stone steps, worn smooth by the bootheels of a great many years, led down into the earth; the stairs levelling after a time. Two bracketed torches burned passionately on the walls at the bottom, illuminating a passageway that cleaved onward and out of sight.

"A tunnel?" Merwyn said, turning to regard Doran.

The Bastard observed the steps. "I've heard rumours of these before. Didn't think they actually existed, mind," Doran replied.

"They?"

"One of the Targaryen kings, Maegor the Cruel, I believe, built passageways throughout Aegon's High Hill. It's said more than a few of them could take a man down into other parts of the city, so that he might surface discreetly. Rhaegar Targaryen supposedly used them to come to Flea Bottom disguised as a lutist. The Mad King, Aerys, sealed any that entered the Red Keep, when his paranoia engulfed him. I guess he didn't bother to seal them from both sides. Either that, or he didn't find them all."

"You're rather learned for a sellsword," Merwyn said, not bothering to hide his surprise.

"As I said, Ser Merwyn, I keep my ear to the ground."

Merwyn turned back to the stairway. "So, the Sons of Balerion have been using these tunnels to get around. Small wonder they've been appearing as if from thin air. We'll alert the City Watch. We can flush them out like hares from a den."

"I'm not sure that's the wisest course," Doran replied. "For all we know, they could be scattering as we stand here mixing words. Send Ser Harys for the gold cloaks; you and I should see if we can't end this with haste. Besides, Noro is down there alone."

The prospect of facing an unknown enemy in a confined space hardly appealed to Merwyn, but he accepted that Doran had the right of it. Besides, I am a knight of the Queensguard. Why should I fear rats in a warren? "Ser Harys," Merwyn said, "alert the gold cloaks."

He heard Ser Harys leave the hovel. Trading one last look with Doran, he began a steady descent. Thorn shimmered in the new light from the torches. "Slay anything that doesn't answer to Noro," he instructed.

Doran permitted a chuckle. "That I shall."

#

Merwyn saw the first dragon when the stairs ended. It was a coal black thing, painted onto the wall; the dominant influence in a depiction of a great battle. Huge wings outstretched, the creature spat dark flame upon rivers of men, their likenesses writhing and contorting as they roasted in their armour.

"Balerion the Black Dread," Doran explained, something close to admiration in his tone. "So big, whole towns fell under the shadow of his wings, when he passed overhead."

Merwyn moved his gaze to the floor. Wet footprints preceded him, running off in the only direction they could go. He followed them; the tunnel growing so large that, after a time, Merwyn's helm no longer scraped the ceiling, and he had room to swing Thorn without the walls interfering. The bracketed torches chased he and Doran along, the shadows they cast eager to play tricks on the eye.

Soon enough, the cut-offs came. Merwyn ignored the first one, for it was absurdly narrow and he doubted he, armour and all, would fit. The second and third were similar, no torches adorning the walls to light the way. Upon the fourth, however, the wet prints veered to the right into total blackness, leaving Merwyn no choice but to follow. He pulled a torch from a bracket and waged war on the dark.

"We should go slow," Merwyn said, "Gods only know what's to be found here." He held Thorn in his right hand and the torch high in his left, the rays birthing a ring that would prove to be the killing ground should anyone other than Noro spill from the unknown.

With only the footprints for guidance, Merwyn soon found himself making enemies in the dark. The throng of King's Landing was entirely absent; his only companion the sound of his armour and Doran's light breathing. He tried to distract himself with thoughts of Queen Cersei; with how the corners of her mouth would twitch with refrained pleasure when he informed her that the Sons of Balerion were a problem no more. The years of the dragon ended when Robert Baratheon stove in Rhaegar's chest at the Trident. Now is the time of the lion.

A speck of light appeared in the chasm of black, so small that Merwyn half considered his eyes to be deceiving him. "A flame? Do you see that, Doran?"

There came no answer. Merwyn twisted his head and raised the torch. Doran had gone.

"Doran?" He called out into the passageway, though there came no response. The Bastard of Dorne is craven, after all.

Merwyn continued, confirming as he drew closer that there was a flame. He felt his pace quicken; eyes perceiving forms in the chamber where the passageway ended. The cut-offs started again, either side of him; little more than crevices in the smooth rock.

"Noro," Merwyn cried. The chamber was substantial; he could see that now. He was content to forego any preconceptions over sneaking up on his quarry, however. He was the Blood Rose, a knight of the Queensguard to Cersei Lannister, First of Her Name, and he would challenge any man to test his mettle against Thorn, for they would surely perish trying.

Yet, when he no longer had need for the torch in his hand; when he reached the point where the light from the chamber sallied out into the passageway, he halted in surprise. Four men, each topped with a shock of brilliant blond hair, sat, gagged and bound with hempen rope, backs to the far wall. They looked to have been beaten ferociously, blood and sallow bruising their unifying features. Only one of the men was conscious. He lifted his head, with great struggle, and tried to moan loudly through the cloth in his mouth.

Merwyn began to advance. Then he stopped. Something had scraped in the darkness behind him, he was sure of it. He made to turn and a sudden piercing agony tore up his left leg. His feet betrayed him, and he thundered down onto one knee, a cry of pain forcing its way from his lips.

The scraping sound came again, this time to his right. Merwyn adjusted his grip on Thorn, and, reversing the blade, plunged it behind him. A scream rang out in the passageway and Merwyn staggered forward, releasing Thorn and turning as he did so. He lifted the torch high and assessed himself. There was a blade, buried up to the hilt, jutting from his leg, a steady flow of crimson red pouring over the handle and down into his boot. Merwyn cursed. He hobbled forward, the ring of light beating back the darkness; illuminating first Thorn, then the man impaled by it.

Noro Fleetfoot was gasping his last in a pool of his own making. As Merwyn approached, the Tyroshi's eyes flittered madly, a defiant smirk on his lips and his knuckle-white hand clutched tightly around another dagger. His cobalt blue beards were now dyed red.

Merwyn regarded him, trying and failing to make sense of things. Did he think I was one of them? No, surely not. He stabbed me in the back; he should have seen the cloak ...

"Noro, I would have the truth from you," Merwyn began. It was too late, though. Noro's focus fell placid and his grip on the dagger eased.

Merwyn winced at the pain in his leg and pulled staunchly on Thorn. The blade sheared free of Noro's chest, a good deal of red wetness following it out.

His leg roared to a new pitch of pain as he put wholesome weight on it; only the muffled crying of the man in the chamber stopped him from dropping to examine his wound. Merwyn limped back into the light, the fulgurating licks from the torches giving the impression that the chamber was somehow alive. It was dead-ended, Merwyn noted, pale stone on all sides.

Now, what are four men doing bound beneath King's Landing? Enemies of the Sons of Balerion? The Sons of Balerion themselves? Did Noro subdue these men? Was his plan to betray Doran and take the promised coin for himself?

Merwyn had an idea that he might find answers by removing the cloth from about the conscious man's face. With great difficulty, he bent to his task.

Then the footsteps came. Dull, at first, but fast. Fast, from the darkness of the passageway. Merwyn awkwardly swung himself about and held Thorn before him. "In the name of Queen Cersei, who passes there?"

The footsteps grew louder; boots coming quickly from the black. Then Doran appeared, Ser Harys the Daring in his wake, and Merwyn whispered a silent prayer.

Ser Harys paused to examine Noro, but Doran came right into the chamber. "You're a hard man to kill, Ser Merwyn," he said. "And a pity it is."

Merwyn's eyes went to Doran's hip, and the dragon head pommel that sat there.