(POV Spy)
As my horse galloped closer and closer to the battlefield, the scene started to unfold before my eyes. At first, I encountered horses, those who had not died in battle. There were hundreds of them. A lot of them were sitting or simply grazing around. There must have been more, but most had probably already scattered away from the battlefield.
And then came the corpses. Scattered limbs. Impaled bodies. Dried blood dying the ground red. Torn chunks of flesh and bone.
It was a gut wrenching sight to behold. I continued moving forward, and everywhere it was the same. Men from Dothraki or the Golden Company, it was hard to differentiate. Although only a day had passed, the bodies had already begun to rot badly. The vultures circling overhead had clearly had their fill, further disfiguring the corpses. I also spotted worms taking over the exposed pieces of flesh and blood of the dead bodies.
As I moved ahead, I spotted that I was not alone on the battlefield. I could spot a few more men also inspecting the carnage. They were spies, just like me.
I wondered if they too had come from Meereen after hearing the news. I doubted it. I doubted anyone could have travelled faster than I did. Maybe they had been trailing this force from some distance.
Even so, I ignored them and continued forward. Call it a silent agreement between us, since none of us interfered with the other's work, we pretended not to see one another. Everyone was here to collect information.
I pulled the reins of my horse, stopping almost at the centre of the battlefield. Something about the place felt different. It was hard to stay there because of the sight, because of the stench, but I had to inspect it in detail.
There had been no news of any force Lord Aeos had kept behind. Only one battalion, the new term he had coined, twelve thousand five hundred men. And apart from one regiment of twenty five hundred men, I was aware of the location of every other man. Which force could have done this? With that question and many others swirling in my mind, I dismounted my horse.
I took a few steps forward and came across a couple of corpses. Their heads had been severed, and done so with a single, clean strike. A very powerful warrior had done it, and with a very fine sword.
I moved forward a few more steps. Another corpse. A dothraki corpse.
My eyes widened as I looked closer. I bent down to examine it. The man's body was whole, there was not a single injury on him. I used my foot to turn the corpse. No wound on the back either. How was this man killed?
The only answer I could think of was poison. But how? How was it administered? There should at least have been an arrow wound. Controlling my shock, I moved on.
Another Dothraki. His corpse was the complete opposite of the one I had just seen. While the corpse of his brethren had been completely injury and damage free, the body of this Dothraki had been badly mutilated. A large piece of flesh had been torn off from the chest area, exposing his internal organs, heart and lungs, through the bitten-off wound.
I felt as if I would empty my stomach at the bizarre yet gruesome sight before me. I was not really used to such sights. But I continued.
I could not tell how the previous man had been killed, but for this one, it was clear, it was the handiwork of some wild animal. The mark of teeth was easily discernible.
Tightening my heart, I moved further to inspect more corpses. And the more bodies I examined, the greater my shock and horror grew. I looked around at the other spies, and even though they were far away, I could see the same expression of shock and horror mirrored on their faces. And why not?
These men had been killed in all kinds of bizarre manners. First, there were the normal dead, those who had been slain by the strike of a sword. Yet even few of them had their bodies badly mutilated, as if some wild beast had feasted upon them.
Then there were the corpses without any mark on their body. The poisoned ones. They were rare but I would not discount the people who had been killed by the poison. Maybe, the animals had bitten them off after many of them had died.
But that was not all. There were corpses whose bodies had been bitten apart by these creatures and they bore no sword marks, implying that the animals themselves had killed them.
And yet, even this was not the most disturbing thing. There were corpses that seemed to have been impaled by a very large spear, some through the chest, others through the head or shoulder, the weapon piercing through the entire body.
I could not tell what it was. It felt almost impossible, as if some massive creature had done it. But for an animal to impale men like this, how enormous must it have been?
And hidden among all these implausible things was another fact that struck me as hard as everything else. All the corpses I had encountered so far belonged either to the Dothraki or to the mercenaries of the sellswords.
There was not a single body I could identify as one from Lord Aeos's forces. Then how had they dealt with this? He had himself announced it. Was he responsible for calling these beasts? But how? The more I thought about it, the more frightening it became.
Setting my thoughts aside for a while, I completed my survey of the battlefield. I could tell that around ten to twelve thousand men had been killed here. A little less than half from the Golden Company and the rest from the Dothraki. The remaining forces must have retreated.
And now, I had two choices before me. To move on and search for the surviving forces, and to uncover the full sequence of events. It was a tough task, especially since I had not been able to form even a general idea of the direction in which they had gone.
Or to return to Meereen and send what I had discovered immediately. And I had made my choice. I was returning to Meereen. If I went in search of the retreating force, it would be too late. Besides, other spies would soon find them. I was returning to Meereen.
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