Apologies for the delays. Firstly I had a vacation, and I had no plans to write during that time, then I had work, and then war broke out in the Middle East and my city has been consumed with riots.
Anyway, here's another Jorah POV.
Jorah sat atop his horse, a long hollow lance grasped in his right hand, with a pennon fluttering from it in the light breeze. Surrounding him were hundreds of Horsemen, brought from the depth of the East to bring a reckoning on their enemies. Banners flapped in the wind above them: the Trident, a Thorny Rose, the Sun Cross, and many others he had never seen. Whatever heraldries existed here were similar to those in the Westerosi Nobility, with some symbols that he thought he knew from back home catching his eye.
"Shora, are you ready for Battle, for the day of Slaughter and War?" It was a moment before he realized he was being adressed. The Essosi often found it difficult to pronounce the "J" of "Jorah". When making an emphasis on something, they would double their speech about it, in give it more of a poetic feel, which these people loved.
The voice adressing him belonged to Togar, one of the sons of one of the chieftains. He was not so young by Westerosi standards, where boys on the cusp of manhood fought, but in this army he was young, at the age of seventeen. Most of the warriors here were over twenty years old, even the unseasoned ones.
Jorah nodded in response to the question. He had been granted a place of honor in the Battle line, fighting among the Cavalry, where they would meet the Dothraki horde head-to-head. The Dothraki horsemen did outnumber the Khyzalni horsemen, but the armor of the Easterners neant that they held a distinct advantage regardless. The Dothraki usually used cutting arrows and slashing weapons, which were less efficient against armored foes.
The Dothraki Horde slowly crested the low hills opposite them, and made themselves known by ululating and roaring. In contrast, the Khyzalni officers began to chant in song, an account of a battle between the Khyzalni and a people called the Nathrin.
Though he could not hear all the words, after every stanza, the Khyzalni warriors would sing out the refrain.
Sing to him! Sing to him! Sing to him!
The Shepherd is a master of war,
He will smash their skulls on paving stones,
Their blood in a torrent shall roar.
With sword and bow and lance today,
He is praised both near and far,
The Shepherd gathers in his flock,
And he avenges every scar.
Their Warriors are like fattened goats,
Walking swiftly to the abbatoir,
May he who falls in battle today,
Be remembered forevermore.
Slowly, the Khyzalni began their own advance, still singing the Paean. Forth into the plain advanced the Warriors of the Southern Steppe, pouring like a waterfall into a pool. The Dothraki rode to around double a bow's range before they halted once more, howling and shrieking in an attempt to inspire terror.
This was not Khal Jhaqo, nor Khal Pono, but some lesser Khal, Khal Tigho, who had a Horde of around eight thousand men and boys fit for battle, though only half were belled warriors. Eager for battle and without much experince in command, having recently taken the place of his father, Khal Tigho challened the newcomers outside their encampment, but the Khyzalni refused to give battle all that day, but deploying before dawn the following morning, from where they now observed the Dothraki advance. Now, it was the Dothraki who needed to respond, and Tigho did, not by probing his enemy or moving to more favirable ground, but by scoffing at the combined force of Infantry and Cavalry, which, though numbering fourteen thousands, only four thousand of which were Cavalry.
It did not matter to King Isiv. He drew up his forces in an almost standard array, his heavy infantry holding the center, his lighter troops, the wings, and his mounted troops flanking the lighter infantry, holding a more shallow, but wider formation, so at to match the width of their enemy's line. He led the Battle from the left side, the crown prince, Ro'ezaki, led from the right, and together he planned to blunt the charge of the Dothraki at every turn. Fifteen hundred Armored Lancers and eighteen hundred Mounted Archers, as well as seven hundred Armored Lancer-Archers were divided along the wings to evenly halt the Dothraki Charge on the flanks.
The first to move within range were the Dothraki. Khal Tigho seemingly ordered his Khallassar to form a broad front and charge, and that is exactly what took place. Eight thousand Dothraki Screamers came howling for blood to the lines of the Warriors of the Southern Steppe, whose archers loosed their first volley at the moment that the enemy came within range. The mounted warriors of the Khyzalni were ordered to wait until the enemy was within one hundred yards to countercharge.
Nearer and nearer they came, racing each other as they each tried to strike first, but Jorah knew that they would be broken here. They were not fighting men who would lay down and die under the hooves of the Dothraki horses. They would fight to the death, and then beyond.
As the enemy neared one hundred yards away, or thereabout, the horns blew and Jorah gave his spurs to his horse. Forward the beast rushed, thrilled in the joy of batte once again. On either side of him the Essosi Horsemen spurred their mounts onward as well, lances raised and heads lowered. The wind caught the pennons that hung from some of the lances and flapped then about, and the serpent-standard howled as it caught the breeze.
As he got close enough to make out the nearest Dothraki's eyes, Jorah dropped his lance, and the iron head struck clean through the man's painted vest and came out the other side of his chest. Jorah dropped the lance and reached for his sword, swiftly drawing it as he passed the Dothraki line. Wheeling about, he raised his shield as a Dothraki horseman changed at him, catching the man's Arakh in the wood of his shield, and then twisting his shield, wrenching the sword from the man's grip. With a quick thrust, the man - no, actually. he was a boy, no older than fourteen, now that Jorah could see more clearly - fell dead, slipping from the saddle to the grass, leaving bloody stains behind him. Giving the spurs to his horse ahain, Jorah rejoined the fray.
Within minutes the cavalry fight was over. Khal Tigho had been captured by Prince Ro'ezaki, who had disarmed and then grappled him to the ground, as his warriors and bloodriders fell all around him. Thousands of horses were captured, as well as hundreds of Dothraki young men and the women and children of the horde. The Dothraki women in particular seemed to take this rather well, perhaps a little too well for the liking of King Isiv or his chieftains, who ordered that the women who acted provocative were to be given stripes. There would be no miscegenation or rapes in this Holy Army; any man caught engaging in such activities was to be hanged, or so Jorah had been told.
Jorah, who had been seen slaying two foes, received a rather valuable share of loot - armbands and other jewelry from the dead, as well as a set of six hair bells and a Dothraki Braid. His first victim had been a seasoned rider. Jorah was also given another horse and the services of an indentured servant, which was what the Khyzalni called enemy's slaves they captured and redistributed. "Payment for freedom" was the term they used, and slaves who were indentured in this way were to be freed after the services of one full year plus however many days lasted until the New Year's Eve. On New Year's Day, there would be great celebrations and mass emancipations and manumissions of Indentured Servants, who were thus free to go to wherever they pleased. Many would live among the Khyzalni hordes, fearing recapture and reenslavement in the hands of enemies, but the majority, or around six in ten, would try to make their way to the free cities to find work.
The servant that now followed Jorah was a young Lyseni female, who appeared to have the blood of Valyria in her veins, though she was clearly not so purely bred as was his queen. How his heart longed for the queen he had been forced to abandon once more. Where would she be? Where would he find her?