Barsena

Valar Morghulis the words pounded in Barsena's head as she and her fellow gladiators as they erupted out of the barrackoon like a great wave which, having pressed for so long against the dams, bursts through the levee in such a deluge to consume all the houses of the fools who have dared to build upon this treacherous land. Valar Morghulis

All men must die. But not all men will be remembered. That was what she had learned as a girl, training to fight boars and lions and tigers and elephants in the great pits of Meereen for the fading cheers of the masters. She would die, either by boar's tusk or tiger's claw, but the memory of her courage would live on in the hearts of all who would say into their bearded dotage that they had seen Barsena Blackhair fight, that they had seen Barsena Blackhair battle bravely to the end, that they had seen Barsena Blackhair breathe her last without a trace of fear or pain. She would die, as all men must, but she would not let them hear her scream before the end.

Valar Morghulis. If this went sour then all these men were likely to die a good deal sooner than any of them would have anticipated. This was a foolish thing, to rush from their pens at the word of Strong Belwas, a man who made Goghor the Giant look erudite, and two old andals and a score of the Dragon Queen's men looking to wade to victory through the blood of the slaves their dragon queen claimed to champion. Most likely this would end with them all up on crosses like...like the children.

Barsena scowled. All of this begged the question, if the fight was so hopeless, then what was she doing here? Why not stay in her pen and wait out the storm? Why rush out into the street with Ithoke and Goghor and all the other starry eyed fools in love with their own reputations?

Because...because just because she had more than two wits to rub together didn't mean that she didn't love her own reputation just as much as they did. What would it say about her, that she was the only one amongst her splendid company not to answer the dragon queen's call. If they won, then she would be ashamed before them for the rest of her life, a life that would probably be very long because who would want to fight against someone who had been too chickenhearted to fight alongside them? And if they died, well...that would dog her all the rest of her somewhat shorter days too. She would hear them whispering in the stands 'There she is, there is Barsena, the only slave who feared us too much to rise like all the rest'.

And the gods alone knew how boring the competition would become once all the prize fighters got put down for their part in rebellion.

"Make for the gate," one of the two old Andal knights declared. "Help the queen's forces as they attack."

Senaera folded her arms across her chest. "Make for the gate? That sounds a lot like you aren't coming with us."

The pit fighters stopped, and the mood hardened amongst them as they stared at the two intruders amongst them. Strong Belwas alone might have withstood the knife-like impact of those words, because for all that he had been away he was still one of them. But these Andals were strangers, and stranger was as oft as not another word for master in the pits.

The change in atmosphere was as the difference between a sword sheathed, and a sword drawn.

"It sounded like that to me as well," Steelskin muttered.

"Which begs the question of where you're going?" Old Herkhaz asked.

"You're not trying to screw us are you, darling?" Orlos said. "Because it's usually polite to ask first."

"We have other slaves to free, other pit fighters," the Andal replied. He was younger of the two, built like a hairy bear. Still, Barsena had killed bears hairier than him before, younger too and in their prime. He did not frighten her, although the way he spoke like a master put her hackles up. "We need to leave you here, and raise more slaves to join the fight."

"Then why don't we go with you, then we can all free the slaves together," Barsena said.

"Because then their plan wouldn't work the way they want it to," Orlos spat. "They want the Masters running around chasing us so that they sneak about undetected."

"Is that true?" Ithoke demanded.

"It is not your place to ask question!" one of the Queen's Men, probably an unsullied by the way he stood, declared angrily. "If not for us then you would still be locked in your cages like beasts!"

"And you want to lead us to the slaughter like beasts," Camarro growled. "And don't you ever, ever tell me to be silent, little man. You aren't my master."

"Enough," Belwas growled. "Strong Belwas hates talking! Talk makes Strong Belwas' head hurt! When Strong Belwas' head hurt, Strong Belwas need to kill someone!"

"We trusted you-" Barsena said.

"Trust?" Strong Belwas yelled. "If you trust, then why are you shouting? Why are you arguing, if you trust Strong Belwas? When Strong Belwas went away you were fighters! You were heroes! The terrors of the pits! Now look at you, shaking like...like things that shake much! You no trust Whitebeard? You not trust Lying Jorah? You are right! They lie. They lie to Strong Belwas and they lie to Queen of Dragons and so Queen sends them here to die! But trust Strong Belwas. Trust Strong Belwas who fought chained to you. Trust Strong Belwas who fought against you. Trust Strong Belwas, whom none of you could beat in fighting pit. Trust Strong Belwas...your friend."

None of the pit fighters dared to meet his eyes. None of them had the audacity. Shame had humbled them, and left them all naked and diminished in the face of him.

The Brindled Butcher huffed. "Tr...trust. Trust...Strong...Belwas."

Anda smiled ever so slightly. "Who was it who said that comradeship was one of the three things we needed to survive?"

"Don't get smart with me, rookie," Ithoke muttered. "Especially not when you've got the gall to be right. Okay, Strong Belwas, we've stuck our necks out this far for you, I'll stick mine out a little further."

"If we die in this fool thing then I expect our names written on the gate of heroes, the same as if we'd died in the pit," Barsena said.

Belwas snorted. "Strong Belwas will write Blackhair's name himself, once city is free."

Senella giggled. "Looks like we're all in on this. Okay, Belwas, we'll take that gate for you. Just don't be too long or you'll miss out on all the glory."

"Fight is not fight until Strong Belwas is fighting too," he declared.

"Keep telling yourself that," Barsena said. She looked around at her companions, this disparate band of quirks and gimmicks united only in being champions of the pit. No. That was not right, they were united in more than that. Or more than it made it sound to think of it so blithely.

They had come to the Meereen's famouse fighting pits by several roads. From Naath, from Sothoryos, from Ibb and Myr and from Tyrosh, from New Ghis and from Slaver's Bay. Barsena herself had come from the great grass sea, sold into slavery by the Dothraki after they burned a village of the Lamb Men. But she was no Lamb Girl now. There were neither Lamb Men nor Ghiscari, Tyroshi or Myrish, Naathi or Ibbenese. They were all brothers (and sisters) in the pit.

And they were all heroes, whether the world wanted to admit it or not.

"Hey, Strong Belwas," Barsena called out to the big eunuch, as he and his companions took their leave of them. "You really grew up after being sold, you know that?"

By the look of him, he didn't really understand what she'd just said. That was fine. Didn't make it any less true.

"Okay," she declared, twirling her spear in one hand. "Let's kill some people."

The streets of Meereen were nearly empty as their company dashed down the thoroughfares and ducked through the alleyways, skirting the bases of the great pyramids as they made their way towards the shining walls of Meereen that loomed a constant presence over their heads. Barsena had heared it boasted by no less than the commander of the city watch, who had paid her master handsomely to lie a night with her, that inside the walls there was room to garrison twenty thousand soldiers, stabling for five thousand horses and three hundred war elephants. There was a part of her that wanted to see war elephants, even though she recognised how badly that was likely to go for her. She had hunted elephants in the pit, but they were such sad beasts, so pitiable that even the bloodthirsty crowds were as like to weep for their demise as cheer her prowess when she slew one. But an elephant bred for battle, caparisoned for war...would that not be a majestic sight indeed.

Three hundred elephants in that wall, and space for twenty thousand men within. And a handful of pit fighters were going to bring it down.

Well, of course we are. In all those twenty thousand there is not one Barsena Blackhair amongst them.

They ran through the streets, and barely encountered another soul. It was not too surpising that the city should be thus deserted, transformed by war into a ghostly shell of its former self for all that it made Barsena feel that Meereen had been sacked already while she wasn't looking. The city was besieged, after all. Every brave and able-bodied man able to bear arms was on the walls, fighting for their right to keep and abuse other men against the forces of the dragon queen. All the slaves had been locked up tight by masters who feared that they might grow too desirous of their freedom to wait to recieve it from the Queen's hands. And the masters themselves, those who had ate and drank and made most merry, now they realised what a volcano they had been sitting upon all these years, they huddled in their pyramids and temples and prayed to the gods of Old Ghis to spare them from the consequences of their follies.

Most of those they saw upon the streets, a handful of lean, emaciated figures in the twilight, were neither slave nor master but poor Meereenese, those who could not afford to lock themselves away until the crisis was past, those who had no master who would feed them, those who must perforce venture the dangers of the streets to feed their famillies. They offered no resistance to the pit fighters, and the fighters did not kill them. What would have been the point? It would have been low in the extreme to cut down poor and unarmed men. That wasn't who they were. They were warriors, not murderers.

And then they reached the gate.

There were no war elephants on display to Barsena's eyes. There were no five thousand cavalry prancing up and down upon the ramparts either, which was a little disappointing but not wholly unexpected. What there was, what was evidently to be seen everywhere she looked, was the chaos of war.

The walls were packed with men, Meereenes in armour of glittering bronze, roaring out defiance as they hurled missiles down upon their assailants down below, loosing arrowa and engines of war under the direction of officers wearing their hair in the ludicrously elaborate styles the Masters' favoured. She could see men falling dead off the high ramparts as more Meereenese jostled to take their place, she could see the siege towers of the Dragon Queen's armies looming over the wall, being struck by dart and flame from the defenders on the bulwarks. She could see the dying light of day reflected on the bronze shields of the defenders, she could hear the war cries of the Unsullied beyond...and she could see the great gate into Meereen, sheathed in gold, standing firm against the assaults which, judging by the thump, thump, thump sound like the banging of an enormous drum, the would-be liberators of Meereen were making on it.

The gate was holding, but even so a great company of soldiers were mustered before it, with spears and shields at the ready just in case. A fat and bloated master upon a horse that was clearly sagging under his weight pranced up and down before this company.

"Remember, you are soldiers of Meereen," he declared, waving one arm around in what was probably supposed to be an inspiring flouring that really only made him look drunk. "Whatever comes through that gate you will stand your ground!"

"He wants to be more worried about what's coming up behind the gate," Herkhaz muttered.

The pit fighters were all gathered just out of sight of any of the defenders on the walls - if any of them had even glanced that way - huddled and crouched in the shadow of a nearby stable, peering out of the shadows at the battle raging in front of them.

"Are we really going to attack that?" Anda asked.

Senella smirked. "Did you think this was going to be easy, new boy? If it was easy to kill the masters somebody would have done it by now."

"We should split up," Orlos said. "Half of us get up on the wall and stop them firing down from those towers there, while the other half take those darlings from behind, if you know what I mean."

Several of the pit fighters looked at him.

"What, you've never heard a eunuch drop an innuendo before?"

"I think we're more surprised that you've become some kind of military genius," Barsena muttered.

Orlos sighed. "As I've told you a hundred times whether you believe me or not, but all the boys wanted to know me once upon a time. And none of the boys knew when to shut up. It's amazing the things that you remember, isn't it?"

Ithoke shrugged. "None of us can claim any knowledge, so I say we do as he says. Besides, we need to move fast."

"Why?" Steelskin asked.

"Because I think that siege tower is about to touch the walls," Ithoke said, pointing at the nearest tower as it wobbled and tottered ever closer to the ramparts, withstanding all the fire and shot they laid upon it. "And once they breach the defences then who will claim the glory."

"No one other than us," Spotted Cat cried. He drew his sword. "Valar Morghulis! Kill the Masters!"

"Valar Morghulis! Kill the Masters!" they yelled, and charged out of their hiding place and into the fray.

They charged with the fury of a pride of lions on the hunt. The struck the rear of the Meereenese spearmen with the force of a great wave whipped up by the tempestuous storm which slams into a ship upon the wine-dark sea and hurls it keel over mast into oblivion and drowns all its gallant company beneath the waves.

Not that their foes were gallant. They carved their way into the rear of the Meereenese spears, hooting and howling as they cut down the Masters' lackeys with wild abandon, cleaving through bronze and slicing off heads with arakh and longsword and axe; and for every man who turned to try and fight them off there were two who threw down their weapons and tried to run. Those who tried to fight died as they fumbled with their cumbersome long spears and their shields that were too large and too heavy to wield effectively; those that ran were caught by the swift-footed pit fighters as though they were young, sick zebras, or else poor girls of the Lamb people running from the approach of the Dothraki horde. Barsena's face was set like stone as cut down the soldiers of Meereen to fight her way through to the gilded gate. She saw slaves and pit fighters flooding in from all directions to take the Meereenese defenders from the rear. She saw Camarro cut off the head of the fat master on his white horse. She saw Orlos and Steelskin break down the door into one of the two towers that flanked the gateway. She saw Senella dash up the steps onto the rampart with her trident held before her, shouting that nobody had better storm the wall before she got there. She saw the Brindled Butcher beat a Meereenese soldier to death with his bare hands. She saw Anda gut a master with his hair arranged like the wings of a bat. She saw the ramp of the siege tower descend as the first of the Dragon Queen's soldiers descended onto the wall. She saw Ithoke and Goghor fight their way to the gate itself and lift up the stout post that the Meereenese had laid across it.

She saw the gate to the city of Meereen, greatest and mightiest of the Slaver Cities, open as a host of Unsullied marched in, and a crowd of cheering freedmen following hard upon. Barsena, her whole body caked in the blood of the enemy, heard them cheer as their victory became assured. She heard all the slaves and pit fighters who had come to join the battle cheer as liberty fell into their grasp. She heard the defiant shouts of the Meereenese turn to cries of terror as those whom they had ground down and abused for so long rose up to show all masters what happens when a dog is kicked once too often, starved just too much, whipped like a beaten cur by him who forgets that all curs have their teeth. And she heard...she heard something else, from out beyond the wall. Something beyond the trumpets and the drums, something beyond the war cries and the howls for mercy, something beyond the gleeful laughter and the cries of pain. She heard...she heard dragons. Dragons, with their voices raised in musical melodic cries of triumph, roaring their victory to the air as night descended. Dragons.

Now I have heard all that there is to be heard in the world, Barsena thought. Oh, to fight such a creature. Oh, to test my mettle against such a foe. A hopeless dream, of course. But then...had not freedom seemed just as hopeless not too long ago. And anyway, dreams ought to be beyond easy reach. Anyone who said otherwise lacked for ambition.

As the Meereenese fled, or died, a kind of calm descended upon the city around the gate. A calm of dead men, a silence broken only by the buzzing of the flies as they already moved to take advantage of the feast for crows that now lay strewn all around the streets and the walls and the gateway. A calm broken only by the sudden blasting of trumpets, and the tramp, tramp of marching feet as the Unsullied formed two columns to welcome the great liberator into her prize.

Blazing silver was her horse, and blazing silver was her hair. She was small, smaller than Barsena or Senella, but it mattered less upon the back of her proud, prancing steed. She wore a gown of blue, and a flowing cloak of silk flowed down back and fluttered behind her as she rode through the blood-bestrewn and gilded gateway. She shone with power and majesty, the glory of her conquest lent her such aura that in that moment it mattered not that darkness was descending because this girl upon her horse stood substitute for the sun.

And around her head the dragons flew, crowing in celebration of their victory.

Daenaerys Stormborn, of the House Targaryen, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, had arrived in Meereen.