NOVEL NEXT Chapter 121 Battle
With the arrival of a new month, the three-month anti-slavery operation in Pentos finally came to an end.
And Ian also received his 500 gold dragon's "activity fund surplus" from Illyrio as promised.
However, what surprised Ian was that instead of easing up with the end of the slave-banning operation, Pantos's partisanship tended to become more and more intense.
After a failed meeting between Prince Hazan, Governor Hauket, and Governor Tetrus in the Red Temple, Prince Hazan and Governor Hauket's daughter Delif Hauket announced their wedding date.
Before the Iron Bank doubled the price of House Hauket to win them over to the Braavos Party, House Hauket had been a close ally of House Tetrus, and Delif Hauket had been with them since childhood. Suda Tetrus, the third son of Governor Tetrus, is engaged.
The Hauket family's unilateral breach of contract and Delif's rapid fall into the arms of Prince Hazan completely ignited Suda Tetrus' anger.
Shortly after the wedding date of Prince Hazan was announced, Suda and several companions came to the Big Red Temple on the top of the mountain in Pentos City, and swore to kill Hazan in front of the Fiery Red Heart and a group of priests.
Unfortunately, before Suda had time to act, he was captured by his eldest brother, the eldest son of Governor Tetrus, who rushed to the temple after getting the news.
The matter has come to an end for the time being, but how it will end is still unknown.
This information was shared with Ian by Hazru, the leader of the 'Little Mouse' (Ian temporarily nicknamed him 'Big Mouse'). After getting along with him for this period of time, he has regarded Ian as a friend.
Today he came to Illyrio's mansion to report his work to Illyrio, and after that, he had lunch with Ian and others.
During the dinner, Butler Mills also expressed his views on the matter. He told Ian that Governor Tetrus was not someone who would suffer easily. Governor Tetrus was so humiliated this time and would definitely take greater action. Take revenge on the Braavos party, and even Prince Hazan himself.
Steward Mills's guess was quickly confirmed.
On the second day after Suda Tetrus was captured by his elder brother, with the approval of Governor Tetrus, Suda Tetrus officially sent an invitation to Prince Hazan to hold a martial arts competition.
The rules are that each side sends 7 people, including Sudar Tetrus and Prince Hazan himself, to participate in the battle. The competition is a one-on-one life and death duel. The winner of each single game can be replaced and rested, but must continue to fight later. The competition will continue until all contestants on one side are killed.
After the game, the governor of the losing side is required to publicly apologize to the victor in the Grand Council.
This proposal is very beneficial to Tetrus, because the Tetrus family's ally, the Volantis party's 'slave trader' Governor Cecito Morn, has a large number of slave warriors, including some Several were Meereen's champion gladiators.
Playing according to this rule, Prince Hazan's side has almost no chance of winning.
But I don’t know if it’s a man’s desire to win that’s at work. Prince Hazan seems unwilling to give in in front of his fiancée’s ex-fiancé.
After persuading his father and prospective father-in-law, Governor Hauket, he chose to fight openly, but the condition was that the date of the contest was set for one month later, and he needed time to prepare.
In this way, the city of Pentos began to be shrouded in deeper clouds.
Also shrouded in a dark cloud is Ian.
Because, one month later is the day when the Horse King arrives in Pentos.
Although there is very little description of Pentos in the original book, the arrival of the Horse King is Daenerys's first POV chapter.
If such a grand contest was taking place in Pentos at the same time as the Horse King's banquet, it would be impossible for everyone to say nothing about it.
In other words, in the current timeline, some players have exerted influence on Pantos's party struggle, triggering a butterfly effect, which led to the emergence of this competition.
Of course, this does not mean that the players are the masterminds behind the scenes. Maybe they just play the role of speculators like 'Littlefinger', or have an influence on these big figures in Pentos through other means.
However, this is something to be wary of.
It's a pity that even though Ian has established a good relationship with Pentos' largest intelligence network, he still can't find a clue to catch other players.
So in the following time, he could only ask 'Big Mouse' Hazru to help him investigate whether there were any characters who had appeared in Pantos in the past two months, while he continued to practice the skills of the skinchanger and improve his own strength.
During this period, Ian also asked Illyrio to attend his banquets with him, hoping to find a way to get to know the ambassador of Braavos and the person in charge of the Iron Bank in Pentos, but Illyrio refused.
The reason for Illyrio's refusal was indeed irrefutable, for he said: 'Viserys would not want his first vassal to be one of my men. ’
Obviously Illyrio is right. If Ian followed Illyrio and ran around openly in Pentos before swearing allegiance to Viserys, there would be no way of knowing if the news reached Viserys's ears. How angry that 'sleeping dragon' would be with such low self-esteem.
Ian didn't want to take this risk, so he gave up this plan and began to improve his strength with peace of mind.
Time passed by half a month, and as news spread to Pentos that a Dothraki force of one hundred thousand people had crossed the Rhoyne River and entered the Great Plains via Na Sa, the atmosphere of the city I started to get nervous.
According to ‘Big Rat’ Hazru, it is now being spread in the streets and alleys.
People say that the largest Kara S in history is marching towards Pentos at this moment, and that the powerful Khal Drogo is coming to marry the last princess of the King of the West.
There are different opinions on the exact size of the Kara S. Some people say that there are 40,000 roaring warriors who are tied with bells (Dothraki custom is that only bells can be tied after winning a battle. If you win a battle, one will be added, and if you lose, your hair will be cut off). , and the other tribes, women and slaves totaled a hundred thousand people.
Some people say that one hundred thousand is actually the number of Roaring Warriors, and the total number of Kara S exceeds 500,000, and even 2 million is quite a lot...
In order to welcome this 'friend', the Governor's Council quickly passed a resolution to recruit mercenaries to temporarily double the city guard.
However, after doing so, Pentos' actual strength will exceed the 6,000 men agreed with Braavos.
In order to gain the support of Braavos Ambassador Olanto, the Governor's Council finally reached a compromise, allowing the temporary addition of 2,000 mercenaries to be commanded by three commanders.
They are Prince Hazan of the Braavos party, a close associate of Illyrio who favors the position of Braavos, and Governor Tetrus of the Volantis party himself.
It is worth mentioning that when Ian was scouting Pentos in his eagle form, he discovered that the Black Falcon mercenary group he had deployed in Pentos, which he had never contacted, had also taken a private job to join Pentos' "City Guard".