Chapter 13 – the 20th day of May, 299 years after Aegon's Conquest

The day was bright and clear. Endless blue sky stretched on to the sunset sea, where the world all but ended. There were no hills, no clouds. The horizon was a line unbroken, except for the smoke of the burning villages left in the khalasar's wake.

Khal Motho was past fifty. He was the oldest of the khals that then roamed the sea, and he well knew it. When last they had left Vaes Dothrak, half a year earlier, they had been fifteen, but the numbers were ever changing. Khal Drogo had since killed khal Ogo when their khalasars clashed near Lhazar, before meeting his own untimely demise from a festered wound shortly afterward. If the riders and caravans spoke it true, his khalasar had splintered into at least four others. Now there were seventeen, more than there had been at any time since he was a young boy.

They had followed the Upper Rhoyne for another week before turning west. Pentos itself was a few more days riding ahead. The khalasars had not truly threatened the cities of the fat magisters since the days of khal Temmo, defeated at Qohor four centuries earlier by the abominable eunuchs they called the unsullied, but their outlying towns and villages were often fair game. Khal Motho himself had burned his way through the Golden Fields six years earlier, before the magisters had mustered sufficient swords to compel his retreat back across the Rhoyne.

They had burned three villages already, but the pickings had been slim. Most had already fled before the khalasar, the remainder those too old or sickly to run. They would make poor slaves. They had seized more livestock, but a few hundred pigs and sheep were not the reason his khalasar was making such a bold gamble this far west.

They had been resting near Dagger Lake when the riders from Volantis had reached them. The tales they told were extraordinary. There were stories of wizards in the sunset lands beyond the sea. Of demons that took flight. Of fires that shone with unnatural brightness. The Dothraki were baffled by all this, but they understood the chests of gold and silver well enough.

Combined, the gifts of the magisters had been staggering in their worth. The khalasar had gained more tribute in a month then they had in twenty years of raiding and pillaging. Most likely, he was already the richest khal on the sea. Volantis had gifted him a Valyrian steel arakh. Myr a wagon full of the finest lace, enough to clothe his wives and concubines and all those of his loyal kos as well. Lys had provided a hundred supple bedslaves. He had taken four for himself. For the khal, the nights had become just as exhausting as the days.

There are demons in Pentos the magisters pleaded. Remove them, and this is but a taste of the rewards we will give. Burn the city if you must.

Age had bred some degree of caution into the khal, but not his sons. Rhono, Crazho and Neggo were all past twenty, and impatiently waiting to take their father's place. The gifts were monumental. Had he still refused, he knew, his sons would have been fighting for the honor of slitting his throat while he slept. No, there had been little choice. Besides, someone needed to avenge the shameful failure of Khal Temmo. He could not hope the Great Stallion would gift him another chance in the years he had left.

So they had struck camp, and all fifteen thousand riders had started heading north by west. Their ride had only hastened as they approached the city. Riders reported that Khal Moro had crossed the Rhoyne as well and was but a few days behind them. If he was to be the one to sack Pentos, he would have to ride fast and hard.

Riders came back from the next village, reporting banners flying there. The khal and his sons rode forward. He recognized the pointed towers and blue-gold emblem of Pentos. There were no more than fifty riders, each holding the reins of several horses. Light cavalry, wearing boiled leathers and mail rather than plate. So light, even the Dothraki would struggle to run them down before they could reach the safety of the city's walls. He even recognized the man who led them, Belorno Phassin, a cavalry commander of an age with the khal.

Belorno sat astride his mount, beside a pair of flag bearers. Before the village were three large wains. Even from a distance the khal could see the glint of gold. There were fine ornaments, rings and bracelets and cups, piles of fine rugs, casks of wine, and other trinkets. Ordinarily, it would have been a generous tribute. His sons looked at it with greedy eyes, but the khal barely gave it a glance as he rode up to the Pentoshi.

"It is a hot day, mighty khal" the Pentoshi said, greeting him in broken Dothraki.

"A hot day, indeed" Motho agreed.

"You have burned the villages" Belorno went on. "This angers the prince. Tribute was given not two years past. Why do you return, and with such anger?"

"We are told there are demons in Pentos" Motho replied. "Others have begged our favor, to cleanse them from the city."

"There are no demons, mighty khal. We have traders, visitors, friends, as we always do. We can feast you and your kos in the palace, if you wish, before you ride back east."

Motho frowned, his mustache drooping, as he looked over the Pentoshi riders. He saw no signs of wizards or demons yet, but the Volentenes had seemed rather insistent. His sons were looking at him, faces eager.

"We ride for the city" the khal declared. "Then we shall judge for ourselves who walks there."

"If you burn the villages, then you do not approach as a friend, mighty khal" Belorno warned. "The gates will be shut to you. The prince will not welcome you."

"We do not fear the fat magisters, in their perfumed silks" the khal said dismissively. "We are not cowards, who betray when a foe's back is turned. I burn the villages so you know that we come."

"We would rather not fight, mighty khal, but we have powerful friends now" Belorno said. "If you burn the villages, we will have to fight you. I leave you this tribute now" he said, gesturing at the wains. "When you strike camp in the morning, I would urge you to head back east. If you ride west, it will be dangerous for you and your khalasar."

"We will ride where we please" Motho said, with a snort "and we are not the only khalasar that rides this way."

He gave a wave of his hand, his bells tinkling. The Pentoshi took this for the dismissal it was. Belorno kicked his spurs and galloped back west, his riders following. Motho watched them go.

They burned the village, while Motho oversaw the distribution of the tribute, to his sons, his kos, his bloodriders and others with his favor. They made camp another league on. Thousands of hide and grass tents went up. Hundreds of campfires were lit. Outriders disappeared into the surrounding fields, to warn of any approach. The khal discussed plans for the attack on the city. Contrary to popular opinion, the Dothraki were more than just a mindless horde obsessed with horseflesh and battle. Among the thousands of slaves that rode with the khalasar, some two hundred served as engineers and experts in siegecraft. There were battering rams, ladders, scorpions and even disassembled stonethrowers in their wains. Their leader was an elderly Norvoshi, older than Motho, who had been captured in a raid ten years earlier. They had let his wife and children go in return for his services. For a slave, he was well cared for, and the khal had even lent him use of a Lysene concubine, to keep him well motivated. They talked of the height of the Pentoshi walls, the layout of the city's gates, and what might be required to bring them down. The engineer cautioned the mighty khal. It was possible the city could resist siege for months.

It was late when the khal returned to his tent. He was almost too drunk on wine to perform, but he took his pick of the bedslaves, and eventually was able to honor her with his seed. He let himself fall asleep amidst a tangle of limbs. dreaming of the glory that awaited him, to sack a great city here, at the end of the world, and cleanse it of evil. To avenge the shame of Khal Temmo and the three thousand abominations.

The next morning the khalasar struck camp, and they continued their ride west. It was maybe three more days to the city. The fields remained flat, but the villages and estates grew thicker. They crossed a stream, one of many that would eventually combine into a proper river, the Penzene, which lazily snaked its way across the plains and exited by the city into the Bay of Pentos.

It was past noon when they saw the shape. The khal's eyesight had grown poorer than he would care to admit, so it fell to his sons to point out the apparition. It took the form of a great black bird. The size was impossible to judge, but at one point it flew in front of the sun, and a great shadow swept over the khalasar. Horses whinnied at the unfamiliar sound, like that of distant thunder. Some riders hesitated. There was little the Dothraki truly feared, but storms were an exception. When someone had surely angered the Great Stallion, the fall of his hoofs on the world would bring devastation. Out on the flat grass plains of the Dothraki sea, there was no protection from his wrath. Thunder and lightning would take a few in the khalasar every year. There was muttering from some of the younger riders, but the khal and his kos rode on, unperturbed. Even Neggo stopped a moment, asking of dragons, but his brothers laughed and rode on. The dragons were all dead, they said. It was known.

They made camp that night in an abandoned estate. Whatever magister owned it had presumably fled, his servants included. Groves of oranges, lemons and grapes stretched off into the distance, and the Dothraki used them to season their evening horseflesh. They burned the manse, stripping it of whatever valuables remained. His kos were practically struggling beneath the weight of their plunder already, but still they rode on.

It was late morning when the scouts returned, warning of enemies. A village at the next bend in the river. It looked abandoned, but on a patch of slightly high ground nearby an army had formed up. They saw the banners of Pentos, but soon recognized others. The black disk on red of the Iron Shields, the coiled serpents of the Wyverns, the bloody claws of the Tiger Legion. As the khal himself approached he saw flashes of purple. It seemed even the Titan of Braavos was represented, alongside the mercenary companies. There were other banners he did not recognize however, a complex arrangement of stars and red and white stripes, and another with yellow stars on red, or strange white symbols on blue.

The scouts estimated the host at eight thousand strong, but his khalasar numbered twice as many, all mounted. The great body of riders stretched back miles. They would not be formed up, ready to attack, until tomorrow. The khal withdrew a short way, ordering them to make camp by the river. It was midafternoon, and the first tents were just being set up when they saw the apparition again.

Riders called out a warning. The khal turned to watch as the great black bird thundered overhead. Women and children cowered from the noise. Some of the riders were laughing however, or jeering at the sound, waving their arakhs. A few loosed arrows, but they seemed to fall well short.

That evening the khal called a meeting. His sons, his kos, his bloodriders, and some of the more useful slaves. The siegemaster was there, along with a number of scribes. It was typical for each khalasar to have at least a few slaves who spokes the tongues of each free city, and perhaps Ghiscari, Ibbenese, Sarnori or the tongues of the sunset lands as well. The khal gathered them all. The oldest was a white-haired man from Volantis, given as a gift to the khal twenty years earlier, who spoke a dozen tongues and had travelled all the way from Qarth to Oldtown in his youth. He asked them to explain the apparition.

"No man can fly, mighty khal, and the dragons are surely all dead" the Volentene advised. "This shape that we see, it is mere illusion. There are mages in the free cities that can cast glamours or summon flames and spin them into shapes. They mean to scare you with such tricks, mighty khal."

The others quickly agreed. No man could fly, and the dragons were all dead. It is known.

The khal gave a hearty laugh, and his sons and kos joined him. The Pentoshi thought themselves clever, no doubt, but the Dothraki were not ones to be fooled so easily. Tomorrow, they would ride down and destroy their army, then find and cut off the heads of these mages who thought they could trick them. The greatest concern, all the kos agreed, was whether they could reach the city and breach the walls before khal Moro could arrive to steal their plunder. The khal retired to his tent again, choosing a different bedslave, a silver-haired girl a third his age, freshly flowered, and for the khal's use alone.

Despite his exertions, the khal was up at dawn. With the prospect of battle, a nervous anticipation had overtaken the khalasar. Outriders had maintained a watch overnight, in case the Pentoshi moved to ambush them, but they had not moved from their hill. The khalasar quickly formed up. Some few hundred riders remained to guard the camp, led by the eldest of his kos, while the rest rode the two leagues back to the Pentoshi hill. The ground thundered with the trotting of thousands of hooves. Arakhs glinted in the sun. Bells tinkered. It was midmorning before they approached.

The Pentoshi had anchored their position on the river, forming a crescent perhaps a mile and a half across. The khal gave orders to several of his kos, and they swung their riders wide to the south. They had enough screamers to attack from every available side. The Pentoshi had long spears, and the swellswords looked well armored. Possibly they would withstand three or four charges, but the Dothraki would shy away each time, peppering the defenders with arrows. Eventually, the soldiers must wither under that steel-tipped rain, or break ranks and attempt pursuit. Either way, they would be destroyed. It was foolish of them, truly. They should have stayed behind their high walls. There they could have lasted months. Instead, the khal would destroy them in a day. He raised high the Valyrian steel arakh and cantered forward. Behind him, the riders formed a wedge, his sons and bloodriders on his immediate flanks.

Perhaps a mile separated the two armies when again he heard it. The black bird came from the north, rumbling overhead again. By now the Dothraki had lost all fear of it, and instead chose to ignore it. One could hardly hear it over the pounding of hooves and the screams of fifteen thousand riders anyway. As they charged forward however, the sound changed. The bird swept over the ground between the two armies. To the more eagle-eyed, objects, black and shiny, like huge opals or onyx, began dropping out of its belly. It took only scant seconds for them to drop to the plains below.

The pounding of tens of thousands of hooves was nothing to the way the ground shook next.

The khal felt a blast of wind, a deafening gale of dust and smoke that stung his eyes as well as his ears. For a man it was bad, for a horse it was intolerable. He suddenly found himself wrestling the reins, fighting to regain control of his great stallion. It had led him into a dozen battles, without fear, without hesitation, but now was almost mad with panic. He was not alone. Around him, thousands of riders were suddenly facing the same. He saw some thrown from their mounts. Even one of his bloodriders, Najo, a man with forty years in the saddle, was tossed into the dust as his horse reared. He did not even have time to regain his footing. Other horses were trampling him in moments, their riders not able to steer clear as they struggled to regain control of their mounts.

Around him, the charge faltered, but it did not stop. The horses were panicked, but from the riders there was more anger than confusion. What illusion is this? A thousand men thought. An illusion of the wind? Ahead of them, the great bird had left huge clouds of dust in its wake, like a huge line drawn in the sand. The day was clear, and only a gentle breeze was available to blow them away. The khal glanced back, for a moment mourning Najo, one of his oldest companions, but then turned away. The stallion eventually stopped its complaints. The khal increased speed, though there was still most of a mile to go. A sort of mad bloodlust had overtaken him. I will find these wizards he thought madly and tie them between two horses until they are broken in two.

######

"Yeah, these guys just aren't getting the message are they?"

General Donahue was looking through binoculars as the barbarian horde swept over the field. Beside him, Colonel Johnson of the division artillery was shaking his head. The Dothraki were already crossing the line of craters left by the B52. A few more riders stumbled. Some fell and were lost from view entirely, but thousands of others were still coming. On his other side, the Pentoshi general looked nervous. They were only a hundred yards back from the line of spears, the warriors formed up behind a hurriedly built ditch and stake wall.

There was a line of half a dozen Humvees parked behind them however. Some two hundred men of the 82nd Airborne had arrived in Pentos the previous week, along with a handful of observers from China and the UN, after the security council had approved the deployment by a unanimous vote. A few inserted journalists were busily narrating events for the viewers back home. There were no tanks with the force, or even a Stryker armored fighting vehicle. They were too large to be hoisted across the Narrow Sea by chinook, and they hadn't yet built the infrastructure to fly or ship them in another way. The M777 howitzers, however, were quite manageable.

"A shame" the general replied, eyes still glued to the binoculars. "Commence firing."

The colonel relayed the order. A moment later they heard the blasts as the twelve guns on the slope behind them opened up. The first barrage fell short, still a few hundred yards in front of the charging riders, but they paid the huge spouts of dust and dirt no more heed than they had the last half a dozen warnings.

This was the final one they were offered however.

The next barrage came down a little over ten seconds later. It was hard to hear over the blasts, and the riders had already been screaming, but there were distinctly different shrieks of pain and panic. The kill radius of a 155mm shell was over fifty meters, and stray bits of shrapnel could be lethal over four or five times that distance. The general watched impassively as hundreds of the horselords started to fall. In some places the charge continued, where a lucky few had ridden through a gap in the barrage, but they quickly faltered as they bore witness on the carnage all around them. They weren't quite sure where the 'khal' was in the great mass of riders. The Dothraki wore few symbols of rank aside from the bells in their hair.

The 'battle' was over swiftly. On the southern flank, a few Dothraki even came close enough to exchange arrows with the Iron Shields but it was a halfhearted effort. Within minutes the horde was retreating in complete confusion. The artillery fire slackened, from five rounds a minute per gun to merely one or two, but it never stopped completely. They gradually increased the range as the khalasar retreated, a steady drumbeat of shellfire that hounded the Dothraki all the way to their camp. It was evening when the guns finally fell silent, their barrels hot to the touch. Teams of Pentoshi and swellswords ventured out onto the crater-strewn battlefield. Some offered water, food and medicine to the wounded Dothraki.

Offers merely received the gift of mercy.