The rain has heavy and the sky dark-grey as the dispatch from Vaes Dothrak encircled the sizeable Lhazareen camp. The women, children, and slaves waited and watched from a near by hilltop. Nammo had raised concerns to Ragnarh about having too few riders to prevent the resident Lhzareen from escaping. What they lacked in bumer they made up for in the speed of their horses. The Lhazareen attempted to flee in all directions, but these attempts proved futile as the encirclement grew smaller and smaller, until the whole of the encampment was gathered into a huddle of fear in the camps center.
Nammo dismounted, unarmed, in hopes of easing the rightfully terrified people of Lhazar. "Fear not people of Lhazar!" Nammo yelled in their native sing-song tongue "We come in peace, not as the raiders of old, but the union of new!" He finished, smiling...
Why did you not flee? Ragnarh thought to himself as he watched one of the slaves, a woman, with a suckling babes at each teat. Are either of them even yours? Would you not rather the babes die free, would you not rather die free yourself?
"What bothers you, Blood of Kailo?" Asked a man in Dothraki-flavored Common Tongue. Ragnarh was startled, he'd been so focused on the slave-woman that he hadn't even noticed the man.
There was a moment of silence between the two as the men road together, back to the newly settled village of Lhazareen. "Why do the Dothraki except being enslaved by their own people?" Ragnarh asked suddenly, his query obviously catching the man off guard. "When one Khalasar defeats another in battle, the survivors of the defeated khalasar are subjugated to slavery." He went on, staring at the slave woman in front of him. "Dothraki are some of the mot feared people in the known world, pride must come from knowing this, does slavery not get in the way of this pride?" He finished.
The man looked up to the sky as he pondered the question and information posed to him. "Survival." The man said in response to Ragnarh. "Pride means much and more to even the weakest of Dothraki, yet survival will always take importance." He continued. "In slavery, one's prides is not simply hurt, but destroyed. All that is left is the will and want to live."
The rains lightened, if only a little, as Ragnarh's group returned to the newly-settled people of Lhazar. Something was wrong though. As Ragnarh made it back up the sloped ground, the first thing he noticed was the armed men clad in leather armor. He quickly rode to Nammo's side, one hand on the hilt of his blade all the while.
Nammo sat, mounted while conversing with one of the men. He's different, must be the leader. Ragnarh thought, as he observed the man who wore a light blue silken tokar, adorned with a sash of golden cloth. The man was young. Must be a son of a wealthy slave trader. Ragnarh had no idea what the young man and Nammo were saying to each other in the bastardised Valyrian spoken in Slaver's Bay. But it was obvious what the men had come for.
"You wouldn't happen to speak Ghiscari-latent Valyrian, would you?" Nammo asked, hoping he wouldn't have to translate or explain the current situation.
"I don't need to, it's all-too obvious who these people are, and what this is." Ragnarh answered as he studied the 20-odd men before him.
"Is that so speaker of the Common Tongue?" The man in the tokar spoke. "Then please, enlighten me and mine, for we are quite...confused." He leaned forward, resting his head on his horse's mane.
"You're slavers, from one of the 3 bay-cities I presume. If not from the 'Bay then from Volantis. Although I don't think tokars are common in any of the Free Cities." Ragnarh replied.
"Correct, we are men of Astapor. We...heard that Dothraki were coming to Lhazar. So we came to see if there was any trading to be done, as typical of events like this." He sat back up in his saddle, the mess of red-tipped curls that was his hair had been made a sopping mop by the rain and obscured his vision. He shook the water from his head like a dog from his fur before wrapping the gilded sash around his curls.
The boy's a terrible liar thought Ragnarh as he sat, stoic in his saddle, watching the young man deal with his hair. The Slaver's have either been keeping an eye on us, Lhazar, or both.
"Where was I...oh yes; much to our dismay, it seems that this isn't the normal Dothraki raid into Lhazar. You have not enslaved these people, for some reason both odd and unknown." The tokar-clad man finished.
"Where is the confusion, then?" Asked Nammo. "It sounds like you fully understand the situation. This venture for new slaves bears you no fruit, Astapori."
"And why is this?" One of the armed and armored men interjected, speaking again in Slaver-Valyrian. "You say you've "settled" these people. What does that mean? Since when have Dothraki come to Lhazar without the express purpose of raping, pillaging, and enslaving?' The man locked eyes with Ragnarh. "And when did Dothraki start associating with Westerners? Something is very wrong here." He finished, as his grip on his spear tightened.
"There's been...changes." Ragnarh answered.
The tokar-wearing young man began to laugh. "Changes he says. Oh what the others will think when I bring them this news. Come men, it seems we will gain no trade from this lot."
Part of Ragnarh wanted to take the men by surprise, and slay them before they had the chance to spread word of the...changes.
"Is the bloodlust so evident in the eyes of all you ironborn?" Nammo asked as he wheeled his horse around. "Don't do it, let them spread the news. The world would find out eventually anyway."...