DEAD NIGHTS
ESSOS - MEEREEN
NIGHT OF THE DEAD
Before dusk, three days after the mysterious sell-swords arrived in Meereen, something was spotted shifting on the outskirts of the sand by the watchers along the wall. Pyres of burning plague victims obstructed the view. One sentry leaned over the edge, peering through a cracked looking glass.
'Alai! Alai!' he shouted, waving frantically at the movement in the sand.
Another took to the ladder, scrambling into the bird's tower with a lantern strung over his arm. He moved the ancient seeing device mounted to the the stone tower, swinging its brass face around to face the east. Tense moments died. Smoke thickened around the watchers. They called his name until he returned to the top of the ladder, pale as a wet nurse's milk.
The youngest boys were sent out with torches to light the great lamps along the top of the wall. They illuminated against the dying sky like a bed of stars rising too early. As the city looked east the light gave way, concealing the approaching dead.
"Come away from the window," Ser Jorah insisted. He was in full battle dress, as was Grey Worm who kept by the door of the queen's quarters, hushing orders at his second.
The queen ignored her guard. She refused to run from something she was yet to lay eyes on. There was no sense in fearing the unknown. Ser Willem Darry had taught her to take a good look at your enemy. Study them. When fear melted into curiosity the battle was half won. Varys had the same mindset, joining her at the window.
"Whomever it is, they carry no torches," Varys observed. "Armies can be seen for miles. It is part of the game."
"Perhaps our new friends from the desert brought a gift," Tyrion offered, not bothering with the window. He'd seen enough approaching dooms. "Does anyone have experience fighting an army of the dead? No – no takers? What we need are wildlings. I hear they do this sort of thing often."
Ser Jorah bristled at that. "Unless the dead have grown wings, they will not get by the city walls. The first army to breech Meereen in a thousand years was -"
"Yours," Tyrion interrupted Jorah, though is reply was directed at the queen. "Yes, so I was reading. The only trouble with an army of dead, if indeed we are to accept this fact, is that they don't die... We will be cut off from the rest of the world, your grace. Whoever doesn't succumb to Greyscale will starve."
Daenerys eyed her newest adviser. He may be frequently drunk, commonly debauched but he had instinct enough for her. Humour in the face of demise did his counsel credit. "Advise me..."
Tyrion lofted his eyebrow, swaying on his chair. "Very well."
ESSOS – THE WHITE RANGES
Grizzly was not the world's most obliging creature. In the time they'd been acquainted, he'd kicked Daario more than once, spat on him, bit his hand and rolled onto the ground for no apparent reason other than his own amusement at the painful crunch of Daario's knee. Despite these character defects, Daario found himself growing ever so faintly fond of him.
"Come on, this way," Daario clicked at the donkey, who lifted his head hopefully and diverted toward his 'master'.
The Dothraki let Daario walk. His hands were bound in front with strong cord. Four days of play had loosened that significantly though he made every effort to moan about its biting grip. The Dothraki were thoroughly sick of him, pushing him away. They unwisely let him drifted further toward the back of the caravan with the lazy guards. He'd stolen several things from them, including a modest dagger.
Ahead, the White Ranges started to thin. He'd seen a few watch towers perched in their peaks and realised that they must be light houses and the sea, therefore, on their opposing flanks. His captors were terrified of the Red Waste which meant they were probably about to take a mountain pass and head on into Old Ghis.
He was correct. The sand became gravel and then steeply inclined along a precarious track. Cool streams ran down the faces of the mountains fed by evening mists which tore obscene forms into the rock. Many Dothraki stopped to pray at the pools of water caught in these morbid scenes, throwing it over their faces. His physically immense captor strode into the depths of one pool, lifting his huge arms up toward the bleeding sky. A hundred beads made from the bones of his ancestors rattled, rustling like the tail of a desert snake. Daario watched, enamoured by the sight. Living with the Dothraki was a glimpse at history. Nothing had changed for these people in ten thousand years. He wondered if their gods still listened to their whispered prayers...
Daario attention was caught by a twisted figure of sandstone. It reached in three ragged arms toward the sky. A solitary hole watched the approaching night. He walked Grizzly toward it so that he could lay his bound hands upon the stone and whisper a prayer of his own – not to the gods for naturally they cared nothing for the lives of men. He prayed to the ghosts lurking in the stone, daring them to come and play.
The ocean lay on the other side of the White Ranges. It appeared all at once, stretching north, south and west as far as they could see. Daario wondered how it had been possible to ever lose something as vast and beautiful as this. The Gulf of Grief shone for them. It lapped gently at the sandstone shores, dotted with fragments of the Ghiscari civilisation. The most formidable were the ruins of Old Ghis, black and vengeful where they embraced the harbour.
Pirates and slavers shared the water, tracking the dangerous currents where the bones of ships made reefs beneath the waves. The Dothraki had plans to trade him to one of them. Daario would rather steal a ship of his own, if he could manage it.
He was taken from thought by Grizzly pulling wildly to the left, near throwing him off. There was no one near him – no cause aside from...
Oh.
Daario saw what Grizzly must have heard. Perched and near-perfectly hidden against the white rock was Viserion. The dragon stood out against the grasslands of the Dothraki Sea but here, with nothing but torn sandstone mountains, he may as well have been a natural sculpture. 'Don't even think it!' he hissed under his breath, when he saw its golden eyes settle on Grizzly.
ESSOS - MEEREEN
"Steady..." Jorah rested his hand against Grey Worm's chest, holding the eager Unsullied commander back from the edge of Meereen's wall.
Smoke robbed the night of a moon. Directly beneath Jorah and his men was a writhing mass. It was the sound of them, more than anything. They thrashed mutely against Meereen's walls with fists, bashing dead limbs until they broke. A body would fall. Another climb over it. Soon they were higher like a black tide, inching up a pier.
At first there had been less than a dozen but those numbers swelled with the night. More arrived every moment and the Unsullied guard stopped counting at three thousand. Now it was impossible to know. The stories of dead cities in the sand were beginning to make a great deal of sense.
"Bring them out," Jorah nodded at Grey Worm.
Unsullied winched vats of smouldering oil to the wall. On Grey Worm's command, the ropes were cut and the urns allowed to tip. Their contents spilled over the wall, raining onto the mob below. Jorah's men watched, nodding at each other. Jorah lifted his hand. Every eye at the wall was on him. He let the creatures below have a moment then he lowered his hand to the stone. Flaming arrows followed, bowing over the edge. They hit the oil-soaked bodies, instantly catching alight.
Jorah pulled back as flames rushed up the wall. Their heat blinded him. It roared and consumed in spirals of flame as though emerging from Valyria itself. "Gods..." he hissed, as his armour heated alarmingly against his skin. Slowly it died, falling back beneath the edge of the wall. He and Grey Worm followed it, returning to their posts.
Beneath, the world was alive with flame. The dead army at their gates shuffled. Limbs, aflame, returned to their task. Many fell, becoming ash. More moved in on them, taking their place.
"It's not possible," whispered Grey Worm. He and Jorah were transfixed by what the sudden light revealed. As far as they could see into the night, dead men walked. The dunes were black. Ten thousand? Twenty? Who could tell? "They will over run the walls."
Jorah nodded. "I think you are right."
"They are not dead," Varys assured the rattled men. Ser Jorah Mormont and Grey Worm would not settle, pacing endlessly around the stone room. They were men of war and they could feel the enemy quite literally at the gates. "I have been speaking to our new friends from Bayasabhad. One of them fought a 'dead walker', as you so aptly name them, except that they are not."
"You did not see what we saw..."
"Our eyes oft deceive us," Varys replied to Mormont. "I have no doubt that what you saw is the answer to thousands of years of speculation. Whispers occasionally reach me that I can't explain – stories that, upon first hearing, seem impossible."
"Possible or impossible, the dead are at our gates."
"Ser Jorah is correct," Grey Worm spoke steadily. His hand gripped his spear too hard tonight, his knuckles white so that his heart stayed steady. "These men make no sound. Feel no pain. Move as ants swarming on dead beast."
Varys was quiet. He sat near Tyrion, who was sharpening a small battleaxe. There was no armour to fit him yet so he strapped his body in the thickest leather hide that he could find. The spider did not bother. Leather and steel were no match for plague. "They have Greenfever."
"Are we to be besieged by every plague in this world?" Daenerys shook her head. "This city must be cursed." Or perhaps she had brought the curse?
"The great lands of the south; Sothoryos, Ulthos, Moraq and even the Shadowlands are all awash with magic and pestilence. There are good reasons why the horselords wander the desert plains, never seeking a home and your ancestors took up on an island that they could control. These cities are temporary, bursting into such grand life before blackening in death like a rose on a vine."
"Dead, cursed or sick, they will overrun this city before the night is done," Jorah paced toward his queen, imploring her with his gaze alone. She must listen to haste. "To linger here will be our death. We have ships, your grace. The port is not lost to us."
There were no better ideas to be had, so they cleared the streets and readied the ships. They took only gold, jewels, maps and people. It was probably true that no one had readied a fleet as fast but then, with death rapping on the walls, the men were motivated. The poor of Meereen watched from dark windows as ship after ship broke free of their ropes and floated out into the bay. Their sales were unlatched and they caught the filthy, smoke-stained air, turning to the south.
Daenerys was lingering on the dock. The water was black and marred by ash. Ser Jorah was not far, barking orders at the men packing her ship. Missandei, Tyrion and Varys were on board – the spider perched against one of the rails looking back to the city with a concerning interest. Daenerys followed his gaze and saw what held his eye.
The lights on part of the city wall had gone out.
