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Chapter 205: The Lion Knight
🕑 Added 2025-03-14 12:39:07 +0000 UTCThe sound of hooves pounding through the heavy rain meant the Dothraki were close—perhaps already inside the ruined village.
Yet something was off. The hoofbeats were frantic, not slowing even after entering the village. They weren’t moving like hunters tracking prey. They were fleeing.
"Someone's chasing them," Fenya immediately realized.
Then, another thought struck her. The wagons loaded with goods were still by the roadside. Anyone passing through the village’s Valyrian road would see them—and the horses. Their hiding place would be exposed. It was too late to disguise their presence or move the cargo elsewhere.
Everyone inside the house understood this as well. Weapons were drawn, each person ready for a desperate fight once they were discovered.
Fenya shook off stray thoughts and focused on the crisis at hand. She unsheathed the curved blade at her waist, took a deep breath to steady herself, and moved to stand beside her men, eyes fixed on the scene outside.
The hoofbeats grew louder. The Dothraki were closing in.
A flash of lightning split the sky, momentarily bathing the world in blinding light. In that instant, Fenya saw them—a massive group of Dothraki riders, galloping as if some monstrous force was on their heels.
The lead riders shot past the house, oblivious to the figures hiding within. But their eyes locked onto the wagons by the roadside.
Under normal circumstances, they might have stopped, ransacked the village, and looted the cargo. But tonight, they only wanted to escape.
They never got the chance.
Just as they passed the house, arrows whistled through the rain, striking with deadly precision. Heads snapped back as shafts punctured skulls, their bodies tumbling lifelessly from their mounts.
And it wasn’t just the lead riders. Those behind them suffered the same fate—one after another, they fell, every single one struck down by an arrow to the head.
In less than two minutes, the once-mighty Dothraki force had been reduced to just a handful of survivors.
Seeing no way out, the last few riders went berserk, wheeling their horses around for a final, desperate charge. But their unseen enemy did not grant them the chance. More arrows sliced through the downpour, finding their mark—this time in their eyes. The Dothraki toppled from their saddles, their lifeless bodies hitting the ground.
Over a hundred elite Dothraki warriors, slaughtered like defenseless livestock.
Fenya and the others held their breath, staring in horror at the carnage outside. A chilling realization settled over them—whoever had just wiped out these Dothraki so effortlessly could just as easily kill them.
Despair crept into the room.
Then, through the patter of rain and the distant thunder, came a new sound—the crisp, rhythmic clatter of hooves against wet stone. It came from the direction the Dothraki had been fleeing.
More riders.
From the chaotic noise, it was clear—a large force was entering the village. Hundreds, perhaps.
These were the ones who had been hunting the Dothraki.
Everyone inside the house held their breath.
Moments later, a lone figure appeared at the end of the street.
A knight.
He rode slowly, clad in ornate golden armor that gleamed even in the storm’s dim light. In his hand, he carried a strange lance, its tip shaped like a sword. A packhorse followed behind him, a finely crafted longbow hanging from its saddle.
But there were no other riders behind him.
Only warhorses—hundreds of them—trailing in his wake.
Fenya’s mind pieced it together instantly. These were the horses of the fallen Dothraki.
Which meant…
Everyone watching came to the same, almost unthinkable conclusion.
The lone knight had slaughtered them all.
It seemed impossible. Absurd. And yet, the evidence was right before their eyes. Not just a hundred Dothraki, but perhaps a thousand had fallen to this one man.
The knight reached the house.
Lightning flared once more, illuminating the street.
And in that flash of light, they saw his face.
It was not the face of a man.
It was the face of a lion.
“The Lion of Night!” Fenya gasped.
Although the Lion of Night was a deity of Yi Ti, it had many followers in the Free Cities, particularly among the wealthy and powerful, as it was regarded as the god of wealth.
Fenya was not a devout follower, but she still worshiped the Lion of Night, praying for its protection. She even wore a pendant of its likeness around her neck.
The sight of the lion-headed knight instantly reminded her of the god—not just because of his lion-like visage, but because of the sheer power he had just displayed, cutting down the Dothraki cavalry with terrifying ease. For a moment, he seemed almost divine.
But as soon as the words left her lips, she realized her mistake.
It wasn’t a lion’s face. It was a helmet, one that completely concealed the knight’s features.
Hearing Fenya’s exclamation, the lion-helmed knight turned his head toward the house. Though they could only see the golden mask, everyone inside felt the weight of his gaze sweeping over them.
“Could I trouble you to help gather and sort these spoils? I can pay you,” he said in flawless High Valyrian. His tone was calm, not commanding, but more like a request.
Fenya sensed no hostility. After a brief hesitation, she sheathed her scimitar, signaled to her men, and stepped outside.
“You want everything they have?” she asked as she approached him.
“No, just the valuables and the horses,” the lion knight replied.
Fenya didn’t ask further. She and her men rounded up the scattered warhorses, herding them into the group. Then, they stripped the fallen Dothraki of their wealth, piling it all before the lion knight. Lastly, they removed the arrows embedded in the corpses, gathering them neatly.
The knight dismounted and stored the arrows in a box strapped to his packhorse. Then, he sorted through the gathered loot, picking out certain items. Fenya, watching from the side, noticed that he selected things with an exotic, almost eerie quality—among them, what appeared to be a shrunken human skull, preserved through some arcane method.
Once he had taken what he wanted and secured it in his packhorse’s saddlebag, the lion knight turned to Fenya and her people.
“The rest is yours,” he said.
Everyone froze.
Their gazes fell on the heap of coins.
The Dothraki had no interest in copper; they discarded it carelessly. The wealth they carried was almost entirely in gold and silver.
Most of these coins had been melted down into jewelry and ornaments. When a Dothraki wished to purchase something, they would simply rip off a piece of gold from their adornments and toss it to the merchant in exchange.
That was why, despite their hatred for the Dothraki, merchants from the Free Cities still sought to trade with them—doing business with the horse lords could make a man rich overnight.
Now, this pile of wealth lay at their feet, and it contained no copper—only gold and silver, with the former being predominant.
The realization that the lion knight was simply handing over such a fortune left them stunned. Their breathing grew heavy.
Yet no one rushed forward to claim the spoils.
Instead, they all turned to Fenya.
“Garrett, see to it that the money is divided. Evenly,” Fenya instructed the caravan’s guard captain.
“Yes, mistress,” he replied, then directed his men to carry the coins into the house. They rekindled the recently extinguished fire and began methodically distributing the wealth.
Their discipline did not go unnoticed.
The lion knight had expected them to fight over the gold. He had seen such greed-driven bloodshed many times before. But here, no one even reached for the coins until Fenya gave the order.
The knight’s interest in the caravan grew.
Abandoning his plans to continue his journey, he turned to Fenya. “The rain is heavy tonight. May I rest here until morning?”
Fenya nodded quickly. “Of course. This isn’t my house—I’m just taking shelter from the rain.”
With the possibility of more Dothraki lurking about, the presence of a mysterious, powerful knight—one who did not seem hostile—made her feel safer.
The lion knight led his steed to a crumbling wall that offered some shelter from the downpour, hung his lance on the saddle, and then stepped inside the caravan’s refuge.
The rekindled bonfire cast a warm glow over the small room. As the Lion Knight stepped inside, the occupants regarded him with silent respect before their attention inevitably drifted back to the pile of gold and silver.
Only a handful of believers of the Lion of Night continued watching him, whispering prayers under their breath. To them, the knight was no ordinary warrior—he was a manifestation of their god. After all, who else but the Lion of Night, the master of wealth, could so easily discard a fortune as though it were worthless?
Meanwhile, Fenya was discreetly observing the knight, and she quickly noticed something strange. The downpour outside was relentless—her own clothes were soaked through after only a short time in the rain. Yet this man, who had pursued the Dothraki all the way here, showed no signs of being wet at all. It was unnatural.
“Are you a caravan from Myr?” the Lion Knight asked. He had chosen not to sit by the fire, instead settling near the door in a spot untouched by the rain. He did not remove his helmet as he spoke.
“Yes, my lord,” Fenya nodded. “We are the Ruby Chamber of Commerce of Myr. I am Fenya Doge, the head of the chamber, and these are my people.”
“I can see that your subordinates are loyal to you,” the Lion Knight said in a low voice. “They respect you.”
Fenya glanced at her men, still busy dividing the money, and nodded. “I’m fortunate to have such faithful people by my side,” she replied. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she ventured, “May I ask, my lord, are you from Yi Ti?”
“No,” the knight replied with a shake of his head. “You may call me Ornstein—Lion Knight Ornstein.”
...
The Lion Knight was none other than Lynd, who had recently departed from Bellow Town and entered the Disputed Lands, following the ruined Valyrian roads deep into contested territory.
Perhaps due to the brilliance of his golden armor, he had drawn unwanted attention along the way. More than ten times, groups had attempted to rob him—sometimes Dothraki, sometimes mercenary bands. But none had succeeded. By now, the number of men who had perished at his hands was easily in the thousands.
The Dothraki riders he had been chasing tonight had originally been a band of routed soldiers. Lynd had no reason to hunt them down—until they made the fatal mistake of turning back.
At first, they had ridden past him, fleeing in disarray. But then their leader, a Ko, must have spotted his resplendent lion-headed helm and realized it was worth a fortune. Seeing that Lynd was alone, the Ko had led his men to double back, attempting to rob him.
They had no idea what kind of man they had challenged.
The moment they closed in, Lynd's spear shot forward. The Ko was lifted clean off his horse, his body suspended midair for a heartbeat before the blade sliced him in two. Panic set in among the remaining Dothraki. As Lynd cut down a dozen more, the rest lost their nerve and bolted—only to be pursued and slain, one by one.
Though Lynd had inherited the warrior skills of Ornstein, the famed Dragonslayer, and specialized in spear combat, archery was not his primary weapon.
However, as the former commander of the Silver Knights, Ornstein had been proficient in archery as well. While his skill with the bow did not match that of Hawkeye Goug—one of the Four Knights, famed for felling ancient dragons with a single shot—he was still far beyond the abilities of ordinary marksmen.
After gaining Ornstein’s memories, Lynd had trained extensively in both spear and bow. When he set out for Essos, he had brought an entire chest of arrows.
And as he had quickly learned, in these vast, open battlefields, a bow was far more effective than a spear.
The number of men who had fallen to his arrows was many times greater than those slain by his lance. Yet while long-range kills were efficient, they came with a downside—retrieving the arrows after battle was tedious.
It was rare to have others assist in collecting them, as they had done tonight.
