Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, and all rights for characters, plots and settings belong to G.R.R. Martin and FromSoftware. I have no ownership.
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In folk tales, even in distant Westeros, Qohor is often described as the City of Warlocks, for it is widely believed that they practice their craft there to this day. There are whispers of divination, blood magic, and necromancy, though such tales are difficult to prove.
One thing is certain: the dark god of Qohor, the deity known as the Black Goat, demands bloody sacrifices daily. Calves, bulls, and horses are most often brought to his altars, but on holy days, condemned men fall under the knives of hooded priests.
It is also said that in times of crisis and danger, the city's noblest families sacrifice their own children to appease the god and persuade him to defend the city.
The craftsmen of Qohor are renowned in many lands. Qohori tapestries, woven primarily by the women and children of the city, are as good as those produced in Myr, and are cheaper. Beautifully crafted (though rather disturbing) wooden figurines can also be found in Qohori markets, and the forges there are unrivaled.
Qohori swords, knives, and armor surpass even the finest castle-forged steel from Westeros. The city's smiths have also perfected the art of imbuing metal with deep colors, allowing them to forge weapons and armor of lasting beauty.
This is the only place in the world where the ancient art of forging Valyrian steel has been preserved, but the Qohori closely guard its secrets.
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There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
There is no fear; there is power.
I am the Heart of the Force.
I am the revealing fire of Light.
I am the mystery of Darkness
In balance with Chaos and Harmony,
Immortal in the Force
Je'daii Order Code
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Essos, Qohor
Year 299 AC (After Aegon Conquest)
Raevan
The Great Forest of Qohor did not welcome men; it merely tolerated them until the roots grew hungry. For three centuries, its towering black pines and ancient, gnarled oaks had stood as an impenetrable shield around the City of Sorcerers.
Men spoke of things that walked among the trees: woodswalkers, ancient spirits, and beasts that had forgotten the sun. But the forest had never met a force like the one that now marched ruthlessly to the city hiding on its outskirts, carving a path from the ruins of Ghoyan Drohe and the drowned stones of Ny Sar.
Thirty thousand boots trod the muddy banks of the River Qhoyne, their rhythmic thudding sounding like the heartbeat of an approaching titan. It was a host unlike any Essos had seen since the Doom of Valyria. Fueled by Battle Meditation, with high morale and enthusiasm, even despite many days of marching.
Above them fluttered the massive black banners bearing the triple-headed red dragon of House Targaryen, but they were flanked by a new sigil, which, in the minds of many soldiers, was more important than the first one. Red and blue dragons coiling around a straight purple sword.
At the head of this vanguard rode Prince Raevan Targaryen.
He did not wear the ornate silver or gold plate. Raevan wore black robes made of reinforced, heavy weave over lightweight, interlocking plates of dark steel, forged to his exact specifications after the fall of Pentos.
A deep hood shadowed his face, but beneath the cowl, his eyes burned with an unnatural light, like two bright purple lanterns.
"The scouts report the vanguard of Qohor has retreated within the stone gates, Your Highness," muttered Ser Jaremy Rykker, riding half a horse-length behind the prince. The royal knight looked in high spirits.
He kept his hand tightly on the pommel of his sword, his eyes constantly scanning the dense treeline.
Raevan, seeing this, replied, "I told you, Jaremy, that you don't have to be so tense and vigilant. I'll know about any attempted ambush before the enemy can plan it."
"I think that's impossible, my prince," the knight replied, somewhat skeptically, to which Raevan laughed lightly.
"Easy, that's just hyperbole, an exaggeration. I mean, I can sense enemy forces dozens of miles from our positions," he replied, turning his head and looking at the neat ranks following him.
He could already see the beginnings of his future armies. Most of them still lacked training, but at this moment they had what was most important: discipline, even if it was enforced by his presence, for no one wanted to cross him.
"The city is sealed. The city guard, the Unsullied, and every sellsword company from here to the Rhoyne are manned on the battlements. They heard what happened in Pentos and Myr, my prince. They know what happens to those who stand in your way."
"They know nothing," Raevan said. His voice was a calm, resonant baritone that carried over the rhythmic thud of thirty thousand marching feet without him ever raising his volume. "They believe this is a war of kings, of gold, and of tribute. They think in terms of borders and armies."
Raevan looked toward the horizon, where the massive stone walls of Qohor loomed like a bright mark against the dark ocean of trees. The Force was screaming here, a discordant, sickening knot of energy that made his jaw tighten.
For thousands of years, the smiths of Qohor had bled slaves over Valyrian steel and their sorcerous arts, unknowingly feeding a darker consciousness in their pursuit.
He could smell corruption, rot, and a whole range of negative emotions in Force, which immediately reminded him of the terrifying entity he had encountered in the House of Black and White.
A presence that seemed the polar opposite of Force. Even the darkest of Dark Side arts could match the evilness this entity exuded.
"Form the lines," Raevan commanded, lifting a gloved hand. "The siege will not last a fortnight. It will not last the day. Let them see what happens when that resistance is pointless..."
By mid-afternoon, his army stood before the gates of Qohor. The city was a sprawling, grim metropolis of stone, heavy timber, and black-slate roofs, dominated by the colossal Temple of the Black Goat.
Atop the thick, crenellated walls stood three thousand Unsullied, their bronze spears forming a flawless forest of sharp points, flanked by thousands of Qohorik nobles in dark silk armor, bloodmages clutching obsidian daggers, and mercenary crossbowmen and archers from the free companies.
From the central gate tower, a great horn blew, a low, droning, animalistic wail that sounded like the bellowing of a dying beast. It was a sound designed to strike terror into the hearts of men, a vibration that rattled the teeth.
Raevan dismounted his black stallion, tossing the reins to a stunned squire. He walked alone into the vast, muddy land between the Targaryen vanguard and the towering main gate of Qohor. The defenders on the walls watched him, a solitary figure walking toward walls that had resisted the Dothraki for centuries.
A collective shout arose from the battlements, and a massive volley of crossbow bolts and arrows rained down, a deadly, whistling cloud of steel and iron aimed directly at him, but he only smirked.
Raevan didn't flinch. He didn't raise a shield, nor did he reach for a weapon.
Instead, he stopped fifty meters from the moat, taking a deep, measured breath, centering himself at the precise nexus of the Force.
He drew upon the Light, the serene, immovable tranquility of the Jedi that he had cultivated, and simultaneously tapped into the furious, burning crucible of his own grief and cold wrath of the Dark Side.
The two opposing forces, which harmonized within him like two notes of a perfect chord.
He raised both hands, palms outward, his fingers splayed.
The air froze. The falling crossbow bolts suddenly stopped dead in mid-air, hovering above him as if caught in invisible, dense amber. The kinetic energy vanished from them in an instant.
A collective, horrified gasp rose from men on the walls, matched by a stunned, breathless silence from Unsullied on the walls of Qohor.
With a casual, almost lazy flick of his wrists, Raevan sent the bolts rocketing backward. They tore through the air with twice their original speed, ignited by friction, shredding the crossbowmen on the battlements in a horrific spray of blood, bone, and splintered wood.
Before the defenders could recover from the shock, Raevan closed his eyes and reached toward the massive, iron-reinforced oak gates of Qohor. The gates were three feet thick and braced by three massive stone beams inside the archway, built to withstand a dragon's strike.
The Force swelled around him, a visible, shimmering gale of telekinetic energy that kicked up a hurricane of dust, mud, and dead leaves. The ground beneath his feet trembled, the vibrations spreading outward. Deep within the city, horses panicked, dogs began to howl, and ancient stone masonry began to crack. Raevan clenched his fists and threw his arm forward with an explosive exhale.
BOOM.
The sound was like a thunderclap inside a closed, iron room. The massive gates of Qohor did not simply burst open; they shattered entirely under the immense kinetic pressure. The thick oak exploded inward in splinters, and not only the wood but also the entire stone structure of the gate was smashed to pieces and dust, and the buildings behind the gate were not spared this fate either.
"The gate is open," Raevan said, his voice echoing clearly in the minds of every captain and lord in his army through a subtle touch of the Force. "Advance and take the city. Spare those who lay down their arms. Destroy those who do not. Spare the children, and as I have said many times before, I do not tolerate rape."
With a roar that shook the very foundations of the forest, the Targaryen army surged forward, their swords drawn, their banners flying into the smoking breach.
The battle inside the lower city was a slaughter, but not the kind the Qohorik nobles had envisioned when they bought their sellswords. The soldiers and heavily armored Westerosi knights poured through the shattered gatehouse like a silver tide.
Every step they took, every blow they struck, was amplified by the rapture of Battle Meditation. In that moment, they knew no fear and felt as if they could move mountains. And the enemy saw it.
The Unsullied fought with their legendary, unyielding discipline, forming phalanxes in the narrow streets, but they had no chance, because at the head of his men walked Raevan himself, who easily shattered the ranks of the Unsullied and flooded their minds with terror that their brainwashed minds were unable to fight.
A dozen Unsullied, recognizing the leader, lunged at him simultaneously, their spears aiming for his throat, chest, and thighs with synchronized, lethal speed. Raevan simply spun, his dark robes swirling around him.
He sidestepped the first three thrusts with supernatural, fluid agility, then caught the shaft of the fourth spear with his bare hand, his grip like iron. With a sudden surge of dark side energy, he channeled a torrent of brilliant violet Force Lightning through the metal spearhead.
The electrical discharge arc-flashed violently down the line of shields. It didn't just shock the men; it exploded through them. The intense heat melted their bronze helmets into their skin, arc-welded their shields together into a grotesque mass of metal, and left a dozen smoking, charred husks collapsing onto the cobblestones. The smell of roasted flesh and ozone filled the narrow street.
To his left, a Qohorik bloodmage atop a high stone balcony began chanting a dark curse in a forgotten tongue, his hands dripping with the fresh blood of a slaughtered infant he had just sacrificed to give his spells strength. Raevan didn't even turn his head to look at him. He simply reached out with a lazy, crushing gesture of his left hand, pinching his fingers together.
The bloodmage's chanting choked into a wet, bubbly gasp as his trachea and throat collapsed internally under an invisible force. With a sharp, violent twist of Raevan's wrist, the entire stone balcony was ripped cleanly from the villa's facade with a screech of tearing masonry and hurled down into a charging squad of Qohorik men.
"It's the sorcerer prince!" a sellsword captain from the Bright Banners screamed, throwing down his notched sword and fleeing into the dark alleyways. "Save your lives! Our god has abandoned us!"
But as Raevan approached the grand plaza before the Temple of the Black Goat, the air began to change drastically. The ambient temperature dropped precipitously, turning the sweat on the soldiers' faces to ice.
The heavy black smoke from the burning buildings stopped rising into the sky; instead, it pooled along the ground like a heavy, ghostly grey fog, swirling around the boots of the living.
The metallic smell of copper and burning flesh was suddenly overwhelmed by a rancid stench, the smell of stagnant bogs, rotting wet wool, and the absolute dead cold of a winter that had never seen the sun.
In the center of the grand plaza, hundreds of high priests, dressed in heavy robes of midnight-black silk and wearing stylized goat masks made of blackened silver, were gathered around a massive, obsidian altar.
They weren't fighting the invading soldiers who poured into the edges of the square. Instead, they were systematically slitting their own throats and the throats of thousands of bound slaves that lined the temple steps but also many richly dressed boys and girls.
The blood didn't pool on the stone; it was being drawn toward the center of the altar by an unnatural vacuum, defying gravity, spiraling upward into a vortex of pure darkness.
"Revan!" a voice boomed within the prince's mind, rattling his skull. It was not the voice of any mortal priest. It was a cold, ancient whisper that smelled of the rot and the dead stars of the deep cosmos.
"YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG, LITTLE PRINCE? YOU THINK YOUR LITTLE PARLOR TRICKS MAKE YOU A GOD?... YOU ARE BUT A SPARK IN A DYING WORLD. WE ARE THE ETERNAL NIGHT THAT WAITS AT THE END OF ALL THINGS… HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN OUR LAST MEETING?"
Raevan stopped at the edge of the plaza, his robes snapping in a sudden, violent wind. Behind him, the Westerosi soldiers halted, their instincts screaming at them to run, and only Battle Meditation allowed them to overcome this terror.
"Fall back," Raevan commanded his army, his voice dropping into a register of absolute, unquestionable authority that overrode their fear. "All of you. Leave the plaza. Retreat to walls. Now."
"But Your Highness," Will, one of his own guards, began, his teeth chattering as he gripped his sword.
"Go, William!" Raevan snapped, his eyes flashing with boiling Force within him that matched the dark vortex ahead. "This is no longer a battle between men. You will only feed what is coming."
The high priests of Qohor gave one final, synchronized, terrifying scream as the last of them plunged a curved sacrificial dagger into their own heart.
The mountain of thousands of corpses on the temple steps withered instantly, their flesh drying up into grey leather, their bones turning to white ash in a matter of seconds as every ounce of their life essence, their pain, and their terror were consumed by the growing vortex of darkness above the altar.
The sky above Qohor turned entirely black, a deep, velvet void that blotted out the afternoon sun and cast the city into a starless night. The vortex of blood on the altar collapsed inward into a single, infinitesimally small point of negative space, resembling a black hole, and then it tore open with the sound of a tearing canvas.
The entity that stepped out of the rift did not belong to the world of the living. It did not even belong to the dark side of the Force, which was, fundamentally, a part of the natural order of life, passion, and conflict.
This was something entirely alien to the world Raevan knew, like a being in Braavos. This was the Great Other. It was the absolute manifestation of entropy, the freezing void that existed before the stars were born and would remain long after they burned out, wrapped in the horrific, primitive mythos of the city it had been summoned to save. But it comes to consume.
It took the shape of a colossal, humanoid goat, a nightmare given flesh and form.
It stood over twenty meters tall, its towering, monstrous silhouette casting a shadow that swallowed the entire grand plaza.
Its fur was not hair at all, but a writhing, living mass of absolute darkness, swallowing the light around it so completely that its silhouette seemed like a hole cut out of reality itself.
Its head was a terrifying, skeletal caprine skull of polished black bone, sporting six massive, sweeping horns that twisted toward the heavens. Where its eyes should have been, there were only two burning, bottomless voids of pale, icy blue fire.
The creature stepped onto the plaza, and the stone beneath its cloven hooves shattered, instantly frosting over with a thick, jagged layer of black ice that spread like a disease across the square.
In its right hand, it held a weapon worthy of its horror. It was a colossal, single-bitted battle axe, easily fifteen meters long, forged from an unknown, matte-black material like crystal that seemed to drink the very concept of warmth from the universe.
As the entity lifted the axe, a wave of an absolute, bone-chilling aura rolled across Qohor. Soldiers three streets away collapsed to their knees, vomiting from the sheer psychic weight of the terror that invaded their minds. Their steel armor began to freeze to their skin, the metal cracking under the sudden, impossible drop in temperature.
The beast lowered its skeletal head, looking down at the tiny, insignificant figure of the him standing at the edge of the plaza. It let out a sound, a horrific, guttural braying that sounded like the crushing of glaciers.
It raised the massive black axe high above its head, and Raevan stood entirely alone against the towering monolith of cosmic death.
He did not possess a lightsaber. The rare kyber crystals required to forge such a weapon did not exist in this primitive, resource-starved world, and he had not yet had the time or the materials to synth-forge one in a specialized furnace. But he did not need a blade of plasma. The Force was his weapon, his shield, and his ally, and it was more than enough.
Slowly, deliberately, Raevan pushed back his deep hood with a steady hand, exposing his pale face to the freezing, howling wind. His violet eyes had completely vanished, replaced by terrifying, purple furnaces that illuminated the dark plaza.
He planted his boots firmly on the frosted, cracking cobblestones, tearing himself away from the physical limitations of his mortal form. He reached out with both hands, his fingers curling into claws as if he were physically grasping the very fabric of reality and tearing it open.
Around him, the air began to warp and shimmer. The black ice on the ground shattered into a million tiny crystals as the kinetic energy around him began to vibrate at an impossible, molecular frequency.
The twenty-meter black goat lowered its pale, icy blue, fiery eyes toward him, recognizing a threat to its existence. Its massive, matte-black axe began its final descent, cutting through the air with a horrific, whistling sound, aimed directly at the Raevan head to erase him from existence.
Raevan did not run. He did not dodge. He gritted his teeth, his eyes locking onto the descending weapon of the cosmic horror, and thrust both hands upward into the freezing sky to meet the descending doom, channeling the full power of the Force to halt the avatar of a god.