| Sandoq the Shadow | |
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.jpg) Sandoq the Shadow, by Ertaç Altinöz for The Rise of the Dragon | |
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Sandoq the Shadow was a former pit fighter, in service to Lady Larra of Lys and House Rogare during the reign of King Aegon III Targaryen.
Appearance and Character
[edit]Sandoq stood nearly seven feet tall, with black skin and hair. His face was horribly disfigured; it bore numerous thin white scars, and his lips and tongue had been removed. He typically hid his disfigurement under a black silk veil. Sandoq the Shadow was also illiterate, which combined with his disfigurement meant it was impossible for him to communicate complex messages.[1]
While at first impression the mute giant could seem a menacing brute, Sandoq was actually a skilled musician: he delicately played sweet sad songs on a stringed instrument of goldenheart and ebony.[1]
Sandoq wielded a great curved sword of Valyrian steel with a dragonbone hilt, as well as a tall black shield of nightwood, boiled hide, and iron.[1]
History
[edit]Sandoq's history before his service to House Rogare is uncertain, but it is said that he had been a veteran pit fighter in Meereen, with a hundred wins to his name. When Prince Viserys Targaryen returned to King's Landing from Lys in 134 AC, Sandoq accompanied Viserys's wife, Lady Larra Rogare, as her personal guard. Larra liked to hear the music played by Sandoq on his stringed instrument, although it always made her cry.[1]
In 135 AC, during the plot against the Rogare family amidst the Lysene Spring, Larra and her kin were accused of being part of a conspiracy to overthrow King Aegon III Targaryen, and Larra's arrest was ordered. Ser Amaury Peake of the Kingsguard and a dozen men-at-arms went to Maegor's Holdfast to arrest her, but Prince Viserys and King Aegon refused to give Larra up. Viserys planted an axe upon the drawbridge and warned Peake and his men not to cross it, before retreating back into the holdfast. When Amaury's men passed the axe, Sandoq emerged from Maegor's and slew all the guards with his Valyrian steel sword and Ser Amaury himself with the axe, tossing them on to the iron spikes of the dry moat below the drawbridge. After Sandoq was done, he retreated within the holdfast, and the king commanded the portcullis be lowered and the drawbridge raised. Thus began an eighteen-day standoff before the plot unraveled.[1]
Sandoq, alongside several Kingsguard, accompanied King Aegon upon his sixteenth nameday when he entered the small council chambers. Sandoq's presence unnerved the Hand of the King and the regents as the king dismissed them from their service.[1]
Quotes
[edit]I could sometimes make the lady laugh, though she did not understand more than a few words of our tongue, but the Shadow's playing always made her weep, and strange to say she liked that better.[1]
It was a different sort of music that Sandoq the Shadow played at the gates of Maegor's Holdfast, as Ser Amaury's guardsmen rushed at him with sword and spear.[1]
—words of Gyldayn
It did not look so much like a swordfight as like a farmer reaping grain. With every stroke more stalks would topple, but these stalks were living men who screamed and cursed as they fell.[1]