Just like everyone else, Daenerys cursed the Faceless Men over Voggrelf's death, then turned back to her own work: taking the City of Serpents.
Azor Ahai had saved the world, yet he was never crowned its king and lived his entire life without ever wearing a crown.
However, his descendants founded an ancient kingdom in the far east, known as the Heir-Colon Successor State.
Long ago, this kingdom was destroyed by the Zorse-riders, and only three fortified cities remained. Among them was Bayasabahad, famed as the "City of Serpents," located where the Dothraki Sea, the southern foothills of the Bones, and the Jade Sea converged.
The eastern coalition army of the Allied Forces used the City of Serpents as their beachhead, marching through the Dothraki grasslands and entering the basin of the Rhazash River.
Strategically, the City of Serpents played the same role for the eastern army that New Ghis did for the western front.
When the allied armies first gathered there, the Dragon Queen sent envoys to warn the city's "High Father." She told him that they were free to join the United Coalition and participate in the economic blockade on Slaver's Bay, but if they allowed the eastern army to use their city as a landing point and logistical base, it would be equivalent to declaring war on the Dragon Queen.
And of course, the fifty-thousand-strong eastern force—composed of Jade Sea mercenaries and slaver-hunters—landed at the City of Serpents. They bought slaves there, hired caravans, and transported military supplies through the city.
After delivering the formal warning "do not say I failed to forewarn you," Daenerys' messenger was seized by the High Father and castrated in a fit of rage.
Daenerys was both furious and regretful. She was outraged that a tiny, insignificant nation dared to insult the envoy of a great power, and she regretted not sending the dwarf instead, who at that time had not yet fled.
The City of Serpents sat "right next door" to Slaver's Bay—two thousand kilometers away—and Daenerys was confident she would repay that insult sooner or later.
Originally, she had planned to punish them only after the great battle of Meereen. In her intended plan, the horselords were supposed to betray the western wing of the Allied Forces from behind Slaver's Bay, not scatter across the plains to wipe out the eastern army.
Since the eastern army had come from the Jade Sea, the riders chased them—and chased them—until they ended up right beneath the walls of the City of Serpents.
And so Daenerys thought, why not take down this imitation Amazon warrior kingdom while she was at it?
The city was peculiar. It was known for its warrior-women who set rubies into their cheeks, while ninety-nine percent of its men were castrated before adulthood. Only the strongest and smartest one percent were allowed to grow to maturity and serve as breeding stock.
The High Father was the king of these breeding men.
When two ten-thousand-strong khalasars approached the Jade Sea, the High Father sent envoys with gifts, trying to persuade them to leave. He failed, and the ruby-cheeked warrior-women marched out of the city to meet the threat.
Twenty thousand horselords against five thousand warrior-women.
The City of Serpents was built on the shores of the Jade Sea, east of the Bones.
To the west lay steep mountain cliffs, and to the east the open sea. Only a narrow, rugged mountain path connected it northward to the great grass ocean of the Dothraki Sea.
It was a battle not unlike Thermopylae, where three hundred Spartans held off two hundred thousand Persians.
The horselords fired from horseback, then charged, retreating only after leaving a thousand corpses on the ground. The ruby warrior-women used shields, spears, and short swords. Their formations were tight, and they took full advantage of the terrain. They suffered only about a hundred casualties.
As in centuries past, the Dothraki could not get close to the City of Serpents and eventually retreated in defeat.
Given how close the city was to the Dothraki Sea—and not far from Vaes Dothrak—how could there not have been khals who attempted to conquer it? Every one of them had failed shamefully. This time was no different.
And then the Dragon Queen arrived.
To thunderous cheers of "Khal of Khals" and "Rider of the World's Stallion," Daenerys descended from the heavens atop her black dragon.
The sight was overwhelming. Even from her vantage on the dragon's back, Daenerys felt a deep despair for the ruby-cheeked warrior-women staring blankly upward.
The allied forces had provided only a few dozen scorpion bolts. They tinked harmlessly against Drogon's belly plates like rain striking a rooftop. A few bolts pierced his wings, leaving seven or eight cup-sized holes that dripped scorching dragonblood.
But that was all.
The winding mountain path turned into a furnace of flame. Tall, powerful warrior-women writhed and screamed beneath the red blaze of dragonfire.
Their flesh melted like wax under a torch; their bones ignited like kindling.
Of the five thousand ruby warrior-women, seventy percent burned to death. Another twenty percent leaped from the cliffs into the sea. The remainder retreated into the city.
Crunch.
Horse hooves crushed charred, twisted bodies curled into tight knots, making brittle cracking sounds.
The horselords ignored the stench of burning flesh that filled their nostrils and rode along the steaming, heat-scorched stone path.
When they reached the City of Serpents, they saw the High Father standing atop the wall, surrounded by eunuchs. He raised his voice to the dragon circling overhead and shouted, "Mercy, mercy! Great Khal of Khals, I am willing to offer wealth and beautiful men to atone for my past sins!"
The High Father stood nearly one meter ninety, tall and handsome, with chiseled features, glossy shoulder-length black hair, and an olive-toned, muscular physique.
A fine specimen of breeding stock.
The dragon landed among the Dothraki. Daenerys summoned a centurion fluent in High Valyrian, drew her horse closer to the gate, and shouted, "The Khal of Khals commands you to open the city gates. All warrior-women are to march out and kneel in surrender. All residents must lay down their weapons. The treasures of the City of Serpents will be taken by us."
This was a demand for the other side's unconditional surrender.
The Great Father hesitated, then made a request: the horselords must not enter the city, and whatever they needed would be provided.
To be honest, the Great Father's concern was understandable. Everyone in the world knew what the horselords were like. Countless city-states had sent gifts to a Khal, yet not a single one was willing to let a Khalasar enter their gates.
The horselords were savage, brutal, and bloodthirsty. They represented destruction, disorder, and ruin.
Back when Dany led the small khalasar across the Red Waste and arrived at the gates of Qarth, she had fewer than a hundred warriors. Even then, the city's representatives were uneasy and did not want to let the horselords inside.
It was only because Xaro and the great warlock Pyat Pree vouched for her, and because her khalasar was truly too small, that the Qartheen opened the gates.
But this time was different. Dany was not here to visit the City of Serpents or receive gifts.
"Attack the city!" Seated on her dragon's back, she waved her hand, and the horselords charged toward the walls with wild cries.
They had no battering rams and no siege ladders. Divided into units of a hundred, they rode to within fifty paces, pulled their reins to turn sharply, and loosed arrows while standing in their saddles.
The arrows followed high, arcing trajectories, flying past a hundred paces and two hundred paces, landing on the city walls and even on the streets behind them.
Sheets of arrows formed a relentless rain that forced the defenders on the walls to duck and cower.
This kind of siege tactic worked especially well against small towns with low walls. Otherwise, how would the hundreds of statues along the Avenue of the Gods have come to be?
But against a world-famous great city, it had little effect.
This time, the only real advantage was that Dany had wiped out the main force of the Ruby Warriors outside the walls. The defenders on the battlements were old, weak, sick, or injured, and not many in number.
More importantly, the tactic provided cover for the dragon.
The ballista crews on the walls either fell screaming under the arrow rain or crouched trembling behind their shields. Drogon lightly shook his wings, drifted over the wall, and unleashed dragonfire.
"Khal of Khals, rider of the world's finest steed!" Amid the frenzied cries of nineteen thousand horselords, the city gate shattered in a roar of fire.
"Kill!" A centurion raised his curved blade and led the charge.
That night, the Dragon Queen sat on the Great Father's throne in his palace, drinking the Great Father's wine alongside the brave horselord warriors.
"Haha! Since we've finally taken the Serpent City that blocked the horselords for a thousand years, how many bells will I earn this time? I'm the first one to ride into the royal palace," a gray-bearded centurion said with laughter.
"What's so great about being first? All it proves is that you run fast. I helped the Khal of Khals cut off the Great Father's head!" another centurion said, red war paint smeared across his face.
They talked among themselves, then noticed that the Khal of Khals was merely resting his forehead on his hand, slumped on the Great Father's wide throne, drinking with no sign of joy.
A centurion asked curiously, "Khal of Khals, shouldn't you be adding a whole string of bells this time? You burned thousands of Ruby Warriors and broke through this mighty city. Your glory is enough for the horselords to remember for ten thousand years."
Dany glanced at him and said calmly, "For today's battle alone, even a single golden bell would be barely deserved. How could there be a whole string?"
The horselords trembled with fear.
Only now did they understand how precious the Khal's bells truly were.
Two days later, a terrifying rumor spread across the cities of the Jade Sea: a famous city with thousands of years of history, Baya Sabhad, had been destroyed by the Khal of Khals because of one insult from a messenger.
All the men were slaughtered, the Ruby Warriors were wiped out, and only eunuchs, slaves, and children survived.
From now on, only two city-states would remain of the descendants of Haer Kolon.
Men being wiped out sounded terrifying, but in truth, the horselords had killed only a few hundred able-bodied men. The city had more than a hundred thousand eunuchs.
These eunuchs were not slaves. Every one of them was the brother or uncle of a Ruby Warrior.
Dany swiftly freed the slaves, distributed land and homes, established the Mother of Dragons Guard, set up a household registration system, and appointed officials and an acting governor.
When she left, the city contained only the elderly, eunuchs, newly freedmen, a large number of conscripted laborers from the allied army, and a horselord thousand-man unit to maintain order. The centurions and commanders of this unit were all "tamed horselords" from Slaver's Bay.
The tamed horselords led the wild ones, strictly following the laws Dany had established in Slaver's Bay.
All adult women, young girls, and boys were taken away to the south bank of the Lhazar River to build "Khaleesi City."
The women would marry horselords or shepherds. The boys would no longer be castrated, and the girls would remove the rubies from their faces and dress and learn entirely according to the customs of Slaver's Bay.
They were required to abandon the dark gods they once worshipped and convert to the radiant Seven.
Those who refused would be executed.
Dany annihilated their nation, executed their royal family, destroyed their temples, relocated their people, altered their customs, and seized their heroic statue.
The Khal also followed horselord custom and assigned a thousand-man unit to transport the tall statue from the city's central square back to Vaes Dothrak, placing it beside the Avenue of the Gods.
It was a statue of Azor Ahai raising Lightbringer, head held high, roaring in fury.
From now on, the city would be renamed "Roarstorm," and Baya Sabhad would disappear entirely.
When she returned to Meereen and reported the battle's outcome to her ministers, all were pleased with her victory. Only old Aemon, clutching a map, was excited for another reason.
"Roarstorm's location is excellent, easy to defend and hard to attack, backed by mountains and facing the sea. Its resources are abundant, and it sits on the Jade Sea's golden trade route. We can't let the horselords ruin it.
In the future, we could establish a city-state there and appoint a Targaryen as king."
He said this excitedly when only he and Dany were in the queen's study.
"Mm, handle it as you see fit," Dany replied absently while reading information in her magic mirror.
(ps: In the cities of the Jade Sea and the countries of the Far East, worship of dark gods is the mainstream. The descendants of Azor Ahai are no exception.
In truth, in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, aside from the Seven, every other deity looks like an evil god. The Red God, who constantly demands the burning of heretics, ranks second only to the Seven in justice and goodness. This world is truly absurd.)
(End of chapter)
Want to read the chapters in Advance? Join my Patreon
https://patreon.com/Glimmer09