All?” The slave girl sounded wary. “Your
Grace, did this one’s worthless ears mishear you?”
Cool green light filtered down through the diamond-shaped panes
of colored glass set in the sloping triangular walls, and a breeze
was blowing gently through the terrace doors, carrying the scents
of fruit and flowers from the garden beyond. “Your ears heard
true,” said Dany. “I want to buy them all. Tell the
Good Masters, if you will.”
She had chosen a Qartheen gown today. The deep violet silk
brought out the purple of her eyes. The cut of it bared her left
breast. While the Good Masters of Astapor conferred among
themselves in low voices, Dany sipped tart persimmon wine from a
tall silver flute. She could not quite make out all that they were
saying, but she could hear the greed.
Each of the eight brokers was attended by two or three body
slaves . . . though one Grazdan, the eldest,
had six. So as not to seem a beggar, Dany had brought her own
attendants; Irri and Jhiqui in their sandsilk trousers and painted
vests, old Whitebeard and mighty Belwas, her bloodriders. Ser Jorah
stood behind her sweltering in his green surcoat with the black
bear of Mormont embroidered upon it. The smell of his sweat was an
earthy answer to the sweet perfumes that drenched the Astapori.
“All,” growled Kraznys mo Nakloz, who smelled of
peaches today. The slave girl repeated the word in the Common
Tongue of Westeros. “Of thousands, there are eight. Is this
what she means by all? There are also six centuries, who shall be
part of a ninth thousand when complete. Would she have them
too?”
“I would,” said Dany when the question was put to
her. “The eight thousands, the six
centuries . . . and the ones still in training
as well. The ones who have not earned the spikes.”
Kraznys turned back to his fellows. Once again they conferred
among themselves. The translator had told Dany their names, but it
was hard to keep them straight. Four of the men seemed to be named
Grazdan, presumably after Grazdan the Great who had founded Old
Ghis in the dawn of days. They all looked alike; thick fleshy men
with amber skin, broad noses, dark eyes. Their wiry hair was black,
or a dark red, or that queer mixture of red and black that was
peculiar to Ghiscari. All wrapped themselves in tokars, a garment
permitted only to freeborn men of Astapor.
It was the fringe on the tokar that proclaimed a man’s
status, Dany had been told by Captain Groleo. In this cool green
room atop the pyramid, two of the slavers wore tokars fringed in
silver, five had gold fringes, and one, the oldest Grazdan,
displayed a fringe of fat white pearls that clacked together softly
when he shifted in his seat or moved an arm.
“We cannot sell half-trained boys,” one of the
silver-fringe Grazdans was saying to the others.
“We can, if her gold is good,” said a fatter man
whose fringe was gold.
“They are not Unsullied. They have not killed their
sucklings. If they fail in the field, they will shame us. And even
if we cut five thousand raw boys tomorrow, it would be ten years
before they are fit for sale. What would we tell the next buyer who
comes seeking Unsullied?”
“We will tell him that he must wait,” said the fat
man. “Gold in my purse is better than gold in my
future.”
Dany let them argue, sipping the tart persimmon wine and trying
to keep her face blank and ignorant. I will have them all, no
matter the price, she told herself. The city had a hundred slave
traders, but the eight before her were the greatest. When selling
bed slaves, fieldhands, scribes, craftsmen, and tutors, these men
were rivals, but their ancestors had allied one with the other for
the purpose of making and selling the Unsullied. Brick and blood
built Astapor, and brick and blood her people.
It was Kraznys who finally announced their decision. “Tell
her that the eight thousands she shall have, if her gold proves
sufficient. And the six centuries, if she wishes. Tell her to come
back in a year, and we will sell her another two
thousand.”
“In a year I shall be in Westeros,” said Dany when
she had heard the translation. “My need is now. The Unsullied
are well trained, but even so, many will fall in battle. I shall
need the boys as replacements to take up the swords they
drop.” She put her wine aside and leaned toward the slave
girl. “Tell the Good Masters that I will want even the little
ones who still have their puppies. Tell them that I will pay as
much for the boy they cut yesterday as for an Unsullied in a spiked
helm.”
The girl told them. The answer was still no.
Dany frowned in annoyance. “Very well. Tell them I will
pay double, so long as I get them all.”
“Double?” The fat one in the gold fringe all but
drooled.
“This little whore is a fool, truly,” said Khaznys
mo Nakloz. “Ask her for triple, I say. She is desperate
enough to pay. Ask for ten times the price of every slave,
yes.”
The tall Grazdan with the spiked beard spoke in the Common
Tongue, though not so well as the slave girl. “Your
Grace,” he growled, “Westeros is being wealthy, yes,
but you are not being queen now. Perhaps will never being queen.
Even Unsullied may be losing battles to savage steel knights of
Seven Kingdoms. I am reminding, the Good Masters of Astapor are not
selling flesh for promisings. Are you having gold and trading goods
sufficient to be paying for all these eunuchs you are
wanting?”
“You know the answer to that better than I, Good
Master,” Dany replied. “Your men have gone through my
ships and tallied every bead of amber and jar of saffron. How much
do I have?”
“Sufficient to be buying one of thousands,” the Good
Master said, with a contemptuous smile. “Yet you are paying
double, you are saying. Five centuries, then, is all you
buy.”
“Your pretty crown might buy another century,” said
the fat one in Valyrian. “Your crown of the three
dragons.”
Dany waited for his words to be translated. “My crown is
not for sale.” When Viserys sold their mother’s crown,
the last joy had gone from him, leaving only rage. “Nor will
I enslave my people, nor sell their goods and horses. But my ships
you can have. The great cog Balerion and the galleys Vhagar and
Meraxes.” She had warned Groleo and the other captains it
might come to this, though they had protested the necessity of it
furiously. “Three good ships should be worth more than a few
paltry eunuchs.”
The fat Grazdan turned to the others. They conferred in low
voices once again. “Two of the thousands,” the one with
the spiked beard said when he turned back. “It is too much,
but the Good Masters are being generous and your need is being
great.”
Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must
have them all. Dany knew what she must do now, though the taste of
it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it
from her month. She had considered long and hard and found no other
way. It is my only choice. “Give me all,” she said,
“and you may have a dragon.”
There was the sound of indrawn breath from Jhiqui beside her.
Kraznys smiled at his fellows. “Did I not tell you? Anything,
she would give us.”
Whitebeard stared in shocked disbelief. His hand trembled where
it grasped the staff. “No.” He went to one knee before
her. “Your Grace, I beg you, win your throne with dragons,
not slaves. You must not do this thing—”
“You must not presume to instruct me. Ser Jorah, remove
Whitebeard from my presence.”
Mormont seized the old man roughly by an elbow, yanked him back
to his feet, and marched him out onto the terrace.
“Tell the Good Masters I regret this interruption,”
said Dany to the slave girl. “Tell them I await their
answer.”
She knew the answer, though; she could see it in the glitter of
their eyes and the smiles they tried so hard to hide. Astapor had
thousands of eunuchs, and even more slave boys waiting to be cut,
but there were only three living dragons in all the great wide
world. And the Ghiscari lust for dragons. How could they not? Five
times had Old Ghis contended with Valyria when the world was young,
and five times gone down to bleak defeat. For the Freehold had
dragons, and the Empire had none.
The oldest Grazdan stirred in his seat, and his pearls
clacked together softly. “A dragon of our choice,” he
said in a thin, hard voice. “The black one is largest and
healthiest.”
“His name is Drogon.” She nodded.
“All your goods, save your crown and your queenly raiment,
which we will allow you to keep. The three ships. And
Drogon.”
“Done,” she said, in the Common Tongue.
“Done,” the old Grazdan answered in his thick
Valyrian.
The others echoed that old man of the pearl fringe.
“Done,” the slave girl translated, “and done, and
done, eight times done.”
“The Unsullied will learn your savage tongue quick
enough,” added Kraznys mo Nakloz, when all the arrangements
had been made, “but until such time you will need a slave to
speak to them. Take this one as our gift to you, a token of a
bargain well struck.”
“I shall,” said Dany.
The slave girl rendered his words to her, and hers to him. If
she had feelings about being given for a token, she took care not
to let them show.
Arstan Whitebeard held his tongue as well, when Dany swept by
him on the terrace. He followed her down the steps in silence, but
she could hear his hardwood staff tap tapping on the red bricks as
they went. She did not blame him for his fury. It was a wretched
thing she did. The Mother of Dragons has sold her strongest child.
Even the thought made her ill.
Yet down in the Plaza of Pride, standing on the hot red bricks
between the slavers’ pyramid and the barracks of the eunuchs,
Dany turned on the old man. “Whitebeard,” she said,
“I want your counsel, and you should never fear to speak your
mind with me . . . when we are alone. But never
question me in front of strangers. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” he said unhappily.
“I am not a child,” she told him. “I am a
queen.”
“Yet even queens can err. The Astapori have cheated you,
Your Grace. A dragon is worth more than any army. Aegon proved that
three hundred years ago, upon the Field of Fire.”
“I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of
my own.” Dany turned away from him, to the slave girl
standing meekly beside her litter. “Do you have a name, or
must you draw a new one every day from some barrel?”
“That is only for Unsullied,” the girl said. Then
she realized the question had been asked in High Valyrian. Her eyes
went wide. “Oh.”
“Your name is Oh?”
“No. Your Grace, forgive this one her outburst. Your
slave’s name is Missandei,
but . . . ”
“Missandei is no longer a slave. I free you, from this
instant. Come ride with me in the litter, I wish to talk.”
Rakharo helped them in, and Dany drew the curtains shut against the
dust and heat. “If you stay with me you will serve as one of
my handmaids,” she said as they set off. “I shall keep
you by my side to speak for me as you spoke for Kraznys. But you
may leave my service whenever you choose, if you have father or
mother you would sooner return to.”
“This one will stay,” the girl said. “This
one . . . I . . . there is
no place for me to go. This . . . I will serve
you, gladly.”
“I can give you freedom, but not safety,” Dany
warned. “I have a world to cross and wars to fight. You may
go hungry. You may grow sick. You may be killed.”
“Valar morghulis,” said Missandei, in High
Valyrian.
“All men must die,” Dany agreed, “but not for
a long while, we may pray.” She leaned back on the pillows
and took the girl’s hand. “Are these Unsullied truly
fearless?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“You serve me now. Is it true they feel no
pain?”
“The wine of courage kills such feelings. By the time they
slay their sucklings, they have been drinking it for
years.”
“And they are obedient?”
“Obedience is all they know. If you told them not to
breathe, they would find that easier than not to obey.”
Dany nodded. “And when I am done with them?”
“Your Grace?”
“When I have won my war and claimed the throne that was my
father’s, my knights will sheathe their swords and return to
their keeps, to their wives and children and
mothers . . . to their lives. But these eunuchs
have no lives. What am I to do with eight thousand eunuchs when
there are no more battles to be fought?”
“The Unsullied make flne guards and excellent watchmen,
Your Grace,” said Missandei. “And it is never hard to
find a buyer for such fine well-blooded troops.”
“Men are not bought and sold in Westeros, they tell
me.”
“With all respect, Your Grace, Unsullied are not
men.”
“If I did resell them, how would I know they could not be
used against me?” Dany asked pointedly. “Would they do
that? Fight against me, even do me harm?”
“If their master commanded. They do not question, Your
Grace. All the questions have been culled from them. They
obey.” She looked troubled. “When you
are . . . when you are done with
them . . . your Grace might command them to
fall upon their swords.”
“And even that, they would do?”
“Yes.” Missandei’s voice had grown soft.
“Your Grace.”
Dany squeezed her hand. “You would sooner I did not ask it
of them, though. Why is that? Why do you care?”
“This one does
not . . . I . . . Your
Grace . . . ”
“Tell me.”
The girl lowered her eyes. “Three of them were my brothers
once, Your Grace.” Then I hope your brothers are as brave and clever as you. Dany
leaned back into her pillow, and let the litter bear her onward,
back to Balerion one last time to set her world in order. And back
to Drogon. Her mouth set grimly.
It was a long, dark, windy night that followed. Dany fed her
dragons as she always did, but found she had no appetite herself.
She cried awhile, alone in her cabin, then dried her tears long
enough for yet another argument with Groleo. “Magister
Illyrio is not here,” she finally had to tell him, “and
if he was, he could not sway me either. I need the Unsullied more
than I need these ships, and I will hear no more about
it.”
The anger burned the grief and fear from her, for a few hours at
the least. Afterward she called her bloodriders to her cabin, with
Ser Jorah. They were the only ones she truly trusted.
She meant to sleep afterward, to be well rested for the morrow,
but an hour of restless tossing in the stuffy confines of the cabin
soon convinced her that was hopeless. Outside her door she found
Aggo fitting a new string to his bow by the light of a swinging oil
lamp. Rakharo sat crosslegged on the deck beside him, sharpening
his arakh with a whetstone. Dany told them both to keep on with
what they were doing, and went up on deck for a taste of the cool
night air. The crew left her alone as they went about their
business, but Ser Jorah soon joined her by the rail. He is never
far, Dany thought. He knows my moods too well.
“Khaleesi. You ought to be asleep. Tomorrow will be hot
and hard, I promise you. You’ll need your
strength.”
“Do you remember Eroeh?” she asked him.
“The Lhazareen girl?”
“They were raping her, but I stopped them and took her
under my protection. Only when my sun-and-stars was dead Mago took
her back, used her again, and killed her. Aggo said it was her
fate.”
“I remember,” Ser Jorah said.
“I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my
brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have
protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He
shouldn’t have done that. He wasn’t just my brother, he
was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to
protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”
“Some kings make themselves. Robert did.”
“He was no true king,” Dany said scornfully.
“He did no justice.
Justice . . . that’s what kings are
for.”
Ser Jorah had no answer. He only smiled, and touched her hair,
so lightly. It was enough.
That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the
Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw
the Usurper’s rebel host across the river they were armored
all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away
like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of
her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is
how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only
now awakened.
She woke suddenly in the darkness of her cabin, still flush with
triumph. Balerion seemed to wake with her, and she heard the faint
creak of wood, water lapping against the hull, a footfall on the
deck above her head. And something else.
Someone was in the cabin with her.
“Irri? Jhiqui? Where are you?” Her handmaids did not
respond. It was too black to see, but she could hear them
breathing. “Jorah, is that you?”
“They sleep,” a woman said. “They all
sleep.” The voice was very close. “Even dragons must
sleep.” She is standing over me. “Who’s there?” Dany
peered into the darkness. She thought she could see a shadow, the
faintest outline of a shape. “What do you want of
me?”
“Remember. To go north, you must journey south. To reach
the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to
touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.”
“Quaithe?” Dany sprung from the bed and threw open
the door. Pale yellow lantern light flooded the cabin, and Irri and
Jhiqui sat up sleepily. “Khaleesi?” murmured Jhiqui,
rubbing her eyes. Viserion woke and opened his jaws, and a puff of
flame brightened even the darkest corners. There was no sign of a
woman in a red lacquer mask. “Khaleesi, are you
unwell?” asked Jhiqui.
“A dream.” Dany shook her head. “I dreamed a
dream, no more. Go back to sleep. All of us, go back to
sleep.” Yet try as she might, sleep would not come again. If I look back I am lost, Dany told herself the next morning as
she entered Astapor through the harbor gates. She dared not remind
herself how small and insignificant her following truly was, or she
would lose all courage. Today she rode her silver, clad in
horsehair pants and painted leather vest, a bronze medallion belt
about her waist and two more crossed between her breasts. Irri and
Jhiqui had braided her hair and hung it with a tiny silver bell
whose chime sang of the Undying of Qarth, burned in their Palace of
Dust.
The red brick streets of Astapor were almost crowded this
morning. Slaves and servants lined the ways, while the slavers and
their women donned their tokars to look down from their stepped
pyramids. They are not so different from Qartheen after all, she
thought. They want a glimpse of dragons to tell their children of,
and their children’s children. It made her wonder how many of
them would ever have children.
Aggo went before her with his great Dothraki bow. Strong Belwas
walked to the right of her mare, the girl Missandei to her left.
Ser Jorah Mormont was behind in mail and surcoat, glowering at
anyone who came too near. Rakharo and Jhogo protected the litter.
Dany had commanded that the top be removed, so her three dragons
might be chained to the platform. Irri and Jhiqui rode with them,
to try and keep them calm. Yet Viserion’s tail lashed back
and forth, and smoke rose angry from his nostrils. Rhaegal could
sense something wrong as well. Thrice he tried to take wing, only
to be pulled down by the heavy chain in Jhiqui’s hand. Drogon
coiled into a ball, wings and tail tucked tight. Only his eyes
remained to tell that he was not asleep.
The rest of her people followed: Groleo and the other captains
and their crews, and the eighty-three Dothraki who remained to her
of the hundred thousand who had once ridden in Drogo’s
khalasar. She put the oldest and weakest on the inside of the
column, with the nursing women and those with child, and the little
girls, and the boys too young to braid their hair. The rest—her
warriors, such as they were—rode outside and moved their dismal
herd along, the hundred-odd gaunt horses that had survived both red
waste and black salt sea. I ought to have a banner sewn, she thought as she led her
tattered band up along Astapor’s meandering river. She closed
her eyes to imagine how it would look: all flowing black silk, and
on it the red three-headed dragon of Targaryen, breathing golden
flames. A banner such as Rhaegar might have borne. The
river’s banks were strangely tranquil. The Worm, the Astapori
called the stream. It was wide and slow and crooked, dotted with
tiny wooded islands. She glimpsed children playing on one of them,
darting amongst elegant marble statues. On another island two
lovers kissed in the shade of tall green trees, with no more shame
than Dothraki at a wedding. Without clothing, she could not tell if
they were slave or free.
The Plaza of Pride with its great bronze harpy was too small to
hold all the Unsullied she had bought. Instead they had been
assembled in the Plaza of Punishment, fronting on Astapor’s
main gate, so they might be marched directly from the city once
Daenerys had taken them in hand. There were no bronze statues here;
only a wooden platform where rebellious slaves were racked, and
flayed, and hanged. “The Good Masters place them so they will
be the first thing a new slave sees upon entering the city,”
Missandei told her as they came to the plaza.
At first glimpse, Dany thought their skin was striped like the
zorses of the Jogos Nhai. Then she rode her silver nearer and saw
the raw red flesh beneath the crawling black stripes. Flies. Flies
and maggots. The rebellious slaves had been peeled like a man might
peel an apple, in a long curling strip. One man had an arm black
with flies from fingers to elbow, and red and white beneath. Dany
reined in beneath him. “What did this one do?”
“He raised a hand against his owner.”
Her stomach roiling, Dany wheeled her silver about and trotted
toward the center of the plaza, and the army she had bought so
dear. Rank on rank on rank they stood, her stone halfmen with their
hearts of brick; eight thousand and six hundred in the spiked
bronze caps of fully trained Unsullied, and five thousand odd
behind them, bareheaded, yet armed with spears and shortswords. The
ones farthest to the back were only boys, she saw, but they stood
as straight and still as all the rest.
Kraznys mo Nakloz and his fellows were all there to greet her.
Other well-born Astapori stood in knots behind them, sipping wine
from silver flutes as slaves circulated among them with trays of
olives and cherries and figs. The elder Grazdan sat in a sedan
chair supported by four huge copper-skinned slaves. Half a dozen
mounted lancers rode along the edges of the plaza, keeping back the
crowds who had come to watch. The sun flashed blinding bright off
the polished copper disks sewn to their cloaks, but she could not
help but notice how nervous their horses seemed. They fear the
dragons. And well they might.
Kraznys had a slave help her from her saddle. His own hands were
full; one clutched his tokar, while the other held an omate whip.
“Here they are.” He looked at Missandei. “Tell
her they are hers . . . if she can
pay.”
“She can,” the girl said.
Ser Jorah barked a command, and the trade goods were brought
forward. Six bales of tiger skins, three hundred bolts of fine
silk. Jars of saffron, jars of myrrh, jars of pepper and curry and
cardamom, an onyx mask, twelve jade monkeys, casks of ink in red
and black and green, a box of rare black amethysts, a box of
pearls, a cask of pitted olives stuffed with maggots, a dozen casks
of pickled cave fish, a great brass gong and a hammer to beat it
with, seventeen ivory eyes, and a huge chest full of books written
in tongues that Dany could not read. And more, and more, and more.
Her people stacked it all before the slavers.
While the payment was being made, Kraznys mo Nakloz favored her
with a few final words on the handling of her troops. “They
are green as yet,” he said through Missandei. “Tell the
whore of Westeros she would be wise to blood them early. There are
many small cities between here and there, cities ripe for sacking.
Whatever plunder she takes will be hers alone. Unsullied have no
lust for gold or gems. And should she take captives, a few guards
will suffice to march them back to Astapor. We’ll buy the
healthy ones, and for a good price. And who knows? In ten years,
some of the boys she sends us may be Unsullied in their turn. Thus
all shall prosper.”
Finally there were no more trade goods to add to the pile. Her
Dothraki mounted their horses once more, and Dany said, “This
was all we could carry. The rest awaits you on the ships, a great
quantity of amber and wine and black rice. And you have the ships
themselves. So all that remains
is . . . ”
“ . . . the dragon,” finished
the Grazdan with the spiked beard, who spoke the Common Tongue so
thickly.
“And here he waits.” Ser Jorah and Belwas walked
beside her to the litter, where Drogon and his brothers lay basking
in the sun. Jhiqui unfastened one end of the chain, and handed it
down to her. When she gave a yank, the black dragon raised his
head, hissing, and unfolded wings of night and scarlet. Kraznys mo
Nakloz smiled broadly as their shadow fell across him.
Dany handed the slaver the end of Drogon’s chain. In
return he presented her with the whip. The handle was black
dragonbone, elaborately carved and inlaid with gold. Nine long thin
leather lashes trailed from it, each one tipped by a gilded claw.
The gold pommel was a woman’s head, with pointed ivory teeth.
“The harpy’s fingers,” Kraznys named the
scourge.
Dany turned the whip in her hand. Such a light thing, to bear
such weight. “Is it done, then? Do they belong to
me?”
“It is done,” he agreed, giving the chain a sharp
pull to bring Drogon down from the litter.
Dany mounted her silver. She could feel her heart thumping in
her chest. She felt desperately afraid. Was this what my brother
would have done? She wondered if Prince Rhaegar had been this
anxious when he saw the Usurper’s host formed up across the
Trident with all their banners floating on the wind.
She stood in her stirrups and raised the harpy’s fingers
above her head for all the Unsullied to see. “IT IS
DONE!” she cried at the top of her lungs. “YOU ARE
MINE!” She gave the mare her heels and galloped along the
first rank, holding the fingers high. “YOU ARE THE
DRAGON’S NOW! YOU’RE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR! IT IS DONE!
IT IS DONE!”
She glimpsed old Grazdan turn his grey head sharply. He hears me
speak Valyrian. The other slavers were not listening. They crowded
around Kraznys and the dragon, shouting advice. Though the Astapori
yanked and tugged, Drogon would not budge off the litter. Smoke
rose grey from his open jaws, and his long neck curled and
straightened as he snapped at the slaver’s face. It is time to cross the Trident, Dany thought, as she wheeled
and rode her silver back. Her bloodriders moved in close around
her. “You are in difficulty,” she observed.
“He will not come,” Kraznys said.
“There is a reason. A dragon is no slave.” And Dany
swept the lash down as hard as she could across the slaver’s
face. Kraznys screamed and staggered back, the blood running red
down his cheeks into his perfumed beard. The harpy’s fingers
had torn his features half to pieces with one slash, but she did not
pause to contemplate the ruin. “Drogon,” she sang out
loudly, sweetly, all her fear forgotten.
“Dracarys.”
The black dragon spread his wings and roared.
A lance of swirling dark flame took Kraznys full in the face.
His eyes melted and ran down his cheeks, and the oil in his hair
and beard burst so fiercely into fire that for an instant the
slaver wore a burning crown twice as tall as his head. The sudden
stench of charred meat overwhelmed even his perfume, and his wail
seemed to drown all other sound.
Then the Plaza of Punishment blew apart into blood and chaos.
The Good Masters were shrieking, stumbling, shoving one another
aside and tripping over the fringes of their tokars in their haste.
Drogon flew almost lazily at Kraznys, black wings beating. As he
gave the slaver another taste of fire, Irri and Jhiqui unchained
Viserion and Rhaegal, and suddenly there were three dragons in the
air. When Dany turned to look, a third of Astapor’s proud
demon-horned warriors were fighting to stay atop their terrified
mounts, and another third were fleeing in a bright blaze of shiny
copper. One man kept his saddle long enough to draw a sword, but
Jhogo’s whip coiled about his neck and cut off his shout.
Another lost a hand to Rakharo’s arakh and rode off reeling
and spurting blood. Aggo sat calmly notching arrows to his
bowstring and sending them at tokars. Silver, gold, or plain, he
cared nothing for the fringe. Strong Belwas had his arakh out as
well, and he spun it as he charged.
“Spears!” Dany heard one Astapori shout. It was
Grazdan, old Grazdan in his tokar heavy with pearls. “Unsullied! Defend us, stop them, defend your masters! Spears!
Swords!”
When Rakharo put an arrow through his mouth, the slaves holding
his sedan chair broke and ran, dumping him unceremoniously on the
ground. The old man crawled to the first rank of eunuchs, his blood
pooling on the bricks. The Unsullied did not so much as look down
to watch him die. Rank on rank on rank, they stood.
And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer.
“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her
silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every
stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every
man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under
twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She
raised the harpy’s fingers in the
air . . . and then she flung the scourge aside.
“Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys!
Dracarys!”
“Dracarys!” they shouted back, the sweetest word
she’d ever heard. “Dracarys! Dracarys!” And all
around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the
dusty air was filled with spears and fire.
All?” The slave girl sounded wary. “Your
Grace, did this one’s worthless ears mishear you?”
Cool green light filtered down through the diamond-shaped panes
of colored glass set in the sloping triangular walls, and a breeze
was blowing gently through the terrace doors, carrying the scents
of fruit and flowers from the garden beyond. “Your ears heard
true,” said Dany. “I want to buy them all. Tell the
Good Masters, if you will.”
She had chosen a Qartheen gown today. The deep violet silk
brought out the purple of her eyes. The cut of it bared her left
breast. While the Good Masters of Astapor conferred among
themselves in low voices, Dany sipped tart persimmon wine from a
tall silver flute. She could not quite make out all that they were
saying, but she could hear the greed.
Each of the eight brokers was attended by two or three body
slaves . . . though one Grazdan, the eldest,
had six. So as not to seem a beggar, Dany had brought her own
attendants; Irri and Jhiqui in their sandsilk trousers and painted
vests, old Whitebeard and mighty Belwas, her bloodriders. Ser Jorah
stood behind her sweltering in his green surcoat with the black
bear of Mormont embroidered upon it. The smell of his sweat was an
earthy answer to the sweet perfumes that drenched the Astapori.
“All,” growled Kraznys mo Nakloz, who smelled of
peaches today. The slave girl repeated the word in the Common
Tongue of Westeros. “Of thousands, there are eight. Is this
what she means by all? There are also six centuries, who shall be
part of a ninth thousand when complete. Would she have them
too?”
“I would,” said Dany when the question was put to
her. “The eight thousands, the six
centuries . . . and the ones still in training
as well. The ones who have not earned the spikes.”
Kraznys turned back to his fellows. Once again they conferred
among themselves. The translator had told Dany their names, but it
was hard to keep them straight. Four of the men seemed to be named
Grazdan, presumably after Grazdan the Great who had founded Old
Ghis in the dawn of days. They all looked alike; thick fleshy men
with amber skin, broad noses, dark eyes. Their wiry hair was black,
or a dark red, or that queer mixture of red and black that was
peculiar to Ghiscari. All wrapped themselves in tokars, a garment
permitted only to freeborn men of Astapor.
It was the fringe on the tokar that proclaimed a man’s
status, Dany had been told by Captain Groleo. In this cool green
room atop the pyramid, two of the slavers wore tokars fringed in
silver, five had gold fringes, and one, the oldest Grazdan,
displayed a fringe of fat white pearls that clacked together softly
when he shifted in his seat or moved an arm.
“We cannot sell half-trained boys,” one of the
silver-fringe Grazdans was saying to the others.
“We can, if her gold is good,” said a fatter man
whose fringe was gold.
“They are not Unsullied. They have not killed their
sucklings. If they fail in the field, they will shame us. And even
if we cut five thousand raw boys tomorrow, it would be ten years
before they are fit for sale. What would we tell the next buyer who
comes seeking Unsullied?”
“We will tell him that he must wait,” said the fat
man. “Gold in my purse is better than gold in my
future.”
Dany let them argue, sipping the tart persimmon wine and trying
to keep her face blank and ignorant. I will have them all, no
matter the price, she told herself. The city had a hundred slave
traders, but the eight before her were the greatest. When selling
bed slaves, fieldhands, scribes, craftsmen, and tutors, these men
were rivals, but their ancestors had allied one with the other for
the purpose of making and selling the Unsullied. Brick and blood
built Astapor, and brick and blood her people.
It was Kraznys who finally announced their decision. “Tell
her that the eight thousands she shall have, if her gold proves
sufficient. And the six centuries, if she wishes. Tell her to come
back in a year, and we will sell her another two
thousand.”
“In a year I shall be in Westeros,” said Dany when
she had heard the translation. “My need is now. The Unsullied
are well trained, but even so, many will fall in battle. I shall
need the boys as replacements to take up the swords they
drop.” She put her wine aside and leaned toward the slave
girl. “Tell the Good Masters that I will want even the little
ones who still have their puppies. Tell them that I will pay as
much for the boy they cut yesterday as for an Unsullied in a spiked
helm.”
The girl told them. The answer was still no.
Dany frowned in annoyance. “Very well. Tell them I will
pay double, so long as I get them all.”
“Double?” The fat one in the gold fringe all but
drooled.
“This little whore is a fool, truly,” said Khaznys
mo Nakloz. “Ask her for triple, I say. She is desperate
enough to pay. Ask for ten times the price of every slave,
yes.”
The tall Grazdan with the spiked beard spoke in the Common
Tongue, though not so well as the slave girl. “Your
Grace,” he growled, “Westeros is being wealthy, yes,
but you are not being queen now. Perhaps will never being queen.
Even Unsullied may be losing battles to savage steel knights of
Seven Kingdoms. I am reminding, the Good Masters of Astapor are not
selling flesh for promisings. Are you having gold and trading goods
sufficient to be paying for all these eunuchs you are
wanting?”
“You know the answer to that better than I, Good
Master,” Dany replied. “Your men have gone through my
ships and tallied every bead of amber and jar of saffron. How much
do I have?”
“Sufficient to be buying one of thousands,” the Good
Master said, with a contemptuous smile. “Yet you are paying
double, you are saying. Five centuries, then, is all you
buy.”
“Your pretty crown might buy another century,” said
the fat one in Valyrian. “Your crown of the three
dragons.”
Dany waited for his words to be translated. “My crown is
not for sale.” When Viserys sold their mother’s crown,
the last joy had gone from him, leaving only rage. “Nor will
I enslave my people, nor sell their goods and horses. But my ships
you can have. The great cog Balerion and the galleys Vhagar and
Meraxes.” She had warned Groleo and the other captains it
might come to this, though they had protested the necessity of it
furiously. “Three good ships should be worth more than a few
paltry eunuchs.”
The fat Grazdan turned to the others. They conferred in low
voices once again. “Two of the thousands,” the one with
the spiked beard said when he turned back. “It is too much,
but the Good Masters are being generous and your need is being
great.”
Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must
have them all. Dany knew what she must do now, though the taste of
it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it
from her month. She had considered long and hard and found no other
way. It is my only choice. “Give me all,” she said,
“and you may have a dragon.”
There was the sound of indrawn breath from Jhiqui beside her.
Kraznys smiled at his fellows. “Did I not tell you? Anything,
she would give us.”
Whitebeard stared in shocked disbelief. His hand trembled where
it grasped the staff. “No.” He went to one knee before
her. “Your Grace, I beg you, win your throne with dragons,
not slaves. You must not do this thing—”
“You must not presume to instruct me. Ser Jorah, remove
Whitebeard from my presence.”
Mormont seized the old man roughly by an elbow, yanked him back
to his feet, and marched him out onto the terrace.
“Tell the Good Masters I regret this interruption,”
said Dany to the slave girl. “Tell them I await their
answer.”
She knew the answer, though; she could see it in the glitter of
their eyes and the smiles they tried so hard to hide. Astapor had
thousands of eunuchs, and even more slave boys waiting to be cut,
but there were only three living dragons in all the great wide
world. And the Ghiscari lust for dragons. How could they not? Five
times had Old Ghis contended with Valyria when the world was young,
and five times gone down to bleak defeat. For the Freehold had
dragons, and the Empire had none.
The oldest Grazdan stirred in his seat, and his pearls
clacked together softly. “A dragon of our choice,” he
said in a thin, hard voice. “The black one is largest and
healthiest.”
“His name is Drogon.” She nodded.
“All your goods, save your crown and your queenly raiment,
which we will allow you to keep. The three ships. And
Drogon.”
“Done,” she said, in the Common Tongue.
“Done,” the old Grazdan answered in his thick
Valyrian.
The others echoed that old man of the pearl fringe.
“Done,” the slave girl translated, “and done, and
done, eight times done.”
“The Unsullied will learn your savage tongue quick
enough,” added Kraznys mo Nakloz, when all the arrangements
had been made, “but until such time you will need a slave to
speak to them. Take this one as our gift to you, a token of a
bargain well struck.”
“I shall,” said Dany.
The slave girl rendered his words to her, and hers to him. If
she had feelings about being given for a token, she took care not
to let them show.
Arstan Whitebeard held his tongue as well, when Dany swept by
him on the terrace. He followed her down the steps in silence, but
she could hear his hardwood staff tap tapping on the red bricks as
they went. She did not blame him for his fury. It was a wretched
thing she did. The Mother of Dragons has sold her strongest child.
Even the thought made her ill.
Yet down in the Plaza of Pride, standing on the hot red bricks
between the slavers’ pyramid and the barracks of the eunuchs,
Dany turned on the old man. “Whitebeard,” she said,
“I want your counsel, and you should never fear to speak your
mind with me . . . when we are alone. But never
question me in front of strangers. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” he said unhappily.
“I am not a child,” she told him. “I am a
queen.”
“Yet even queens can err. The Astapori have cheated you,
Your Grace. A dragon is worth more than any army. Aegon proved that
three hundred years ago, upon the Field of Fire.”
“I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of
my own.” Dany turned away from him, to the slave girl
standing meekly beside her litter. “Do you have a name, or
must you draw a new one every day from some barrel?”
“That is only for Unsullied,” the girl said. Then
she realized the question had been asked in High Valyrian. Her eyes
went wide. “Oh.”
“Your name is Oh?”
“No. Your Grace, forgive this one her outburst. Your
slave’s name is Missandei,
but . . . ”
“Missandei is no longer a slave. I free you, from this
instant. Come ride with me in the litter, I wish to talk.”
Rakharo helped them in, and Dany drew the curtains shut against the
dust and heat. “If you stay with me you will serve as one of
my handmaids,” she said as they set off. “I shall keep
you by my side to speak for me as you spoke for Kraznys. But you
may leave my service whenever you choose, if you have father or
mother you would sooner return to.”
“This one will stay,” the girl said. “This
one . . . I . . . there is
no place for me to go. This . . . I will serve
you, gladly.”
“I can give you freedom, but not safety,” Dany
warned. “I have a world to cross and wars to fight. You may
go hungry. You may grow sick. You may be killed.”
“Valar morghulis,” said Missandei, in High
Valyrian.
“All men must die,” Dany agreed, “but not for
a long while, we may pray.” She leaned back on the pillows
and took the girl’s hand. “Are these Unsullied truly
fearless?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“You serve me now. Is it true they feel no
pain?”
“The wine of courage kills such feelings. By the time they
slay their sucklings, they have been drinking it for
years.”
“And they are obedient?”
“Obedience is all they know. If you told them not to
breathe, they would find that easier than not to obey.”
Dany nodded. “And when I am done with them?”
“Your Grace?”
“When I have won my war and claimed the throne that was my
father’s, my knights will sheathe their swords and return to
their keeps, to their wives and children and
mothers . . . to their lives. But these eunuchs
have no lives. What am I to do with eight thousand eunuchs when
there are no more battles to be fought?”
“The Unsullied make flne guards and excellent watchmen,
Your Grace,” said Missandei. “And it is never hard to
find a buyer for such fine well-blooded troops.”
“Men are not bought and sold in Westeros, they tell
me.”
“With all respect, Your Grace, Unsullied are not
men.”
“If I did resell them, how would I know they could not be
used against me?” Dany asked pointedly. “Would they do
that? Fight against me, even do me harm?”
“If their master commanded. They do not question, Your
Grace. All the questions have been culled from them. They
obey.” She looked troubled. “When you
are . . . when you are done with
them . . . your Grace might command them to
fall upon their swords.”
“And even that, they would do?”
“Yes.” Missandei’s voice had grown soft.
“Your Grace.”
Dany squeezed her hand. “You would sooner I did not ask it
of them, though. Why is that? Why do you care?”
“This one does
not . . . I . . . Your
Grace . . . ”
“Tell me.”
The girl lowered her eyes. “Three of them were my brothers
once, Your Grace.” Then I hope your brothers are as brave and clever as you. Dany
leaned back into her pillow, and let the litter bear her onward,
back to Balerion one last time to set her world in order. And back
to Drogon. Her mouth set grimly.
It was a long, dark, windy night that followed. Dany fed her
dragons as she always did, but found she had no appetite herself.
She cried awhile, alone in her cabin, then dried her tears long
enough for yet another argument with Groleo. “Magister
Illyrio is not here,” she finally had to tell him, “and
if he was, he could not sway me either. I need the Unsullied more
than I need these ships, and I will hear no more about
it.”
The anger burned the grief and fear from her, for a few hours at
the least. Afterward she called her bloodriders to her cabin, with
Ser Jorah. They were the only ones she truly trusted.
She meant to sleep afterward, to be well rested for the morrow,
but an hour of restless tossing in the stuffy confines of the cabin
soon convinced her that was hopeless. Outside her door she found
Aggo fitting a new string to his bow by the light of a swinging oil
lamp. Rakharo sat crosslegged on the deck beside him, sharpening
his arakh with a whetstone. Dany told them both to keep on with
what they were doing, and went up on deck for a taste of the cool
night air. The crew left her alone as they went about their
business, but Ser Jorah soon joined her by the rail. He is never
far, Dany thought. He knows my moods too well.
“Khaleesi. You ought to be asleep. Tomorrow will be hot
and hard, I promise you. You’ll need your
strength.”
“Do you remember Eroeh?” she asked him.
“The Lhazareen girl?”
“They were raping her, but I stopped them and took her
under my protection. Only when my sun-and-stars was dead Mago took
her back, used her again, and killed her. Aggo said it was her
fate.”
“I remember,” Ser Jorah said.
“I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my
brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have
protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He
shouldn’t have done that. He wasn’t just my brother, he
was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to
protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”
“Some kings make themselves. Robert did.”
“He was no true king,” Dany said scornfully.
“He did no justice.
Justice . . . that’s what kings are
for.”
Ser Jorah had no answer. He only smiled, and touched her hair,
so lightly. It was enough.
That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the
Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw
the Usurper’s rebel host across the river they were armored
all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away
like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of
her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is
how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only
now awakened.
She woke suddenly in the darkness of her cabin, still flush with
triumph. Balerion seemed to wake with her, and she heard the faint
creak of wood, water lapping against the hull, a footfall on the
deck above her head. And something else.
Someone was in the cabin with her.
“Irri? Jhiqui? Where are you?” Her handmaids did not
respond. It was too black to see, but she could hear them
breathing. “Jorah, is that you?”
“They sleep,” a woman said. “They all
sleep.” The voice was very close. “Even dragons must
sleep.” She is standing over me. “Who’s there?” Dany
peered into the darkness. She thought she could see a shadow, the
faintest outline of a shape. “What do you want of
me?”
“Remember. To go north, you must journey south. To reach
the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to
touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.”
“Quaithe?” Dany sprung from the bed and threw open
the door. Pale yellow lantern light flooded the cabin, and Irri and
Jhiqui sat up sleepily. “Khaleesi?” murmured Jhiqui,
rubbing her eyes. Viserion woke and opened his jaws, and a puff of
flame brightened even the darkest corners. There was no sign of a
woman in a red lacquer mask. “Khaleesi, are you
unwell?” asked Jhiqui.
“A dream.” Dany shook her head. “I dreamed a
dream, no more. Go back to sleep. All of us, go back to
sleep.” Yet try as she might, sleep would not come again. If I look back I am lost, Dany told herself the next morning as
she entered Astapor through the harbor gates. She dared not remind
herself how small and insignificant her following truly was, or she
would lose all courage. Today she rode her silver, clad in
horsehair pants and painted leather vest, a bronze medallion belt
about her waist and two more crossed between her breasts. Irri and
Jhiqui had braided her hair and hung it with a tiny silver bell
whose chime sang of the Undying of Qarth, burned in their Palace of
Dust.
The red brick streets of Astapor were almost crowded this
morning. Slaves and servants lined the ways, while the slavers and
their women donned their tokars to look down from their stepped
pyramids. They are not so different from Qartheen after all, she
thought. They want a glimpse of dragons to tell their children of,
and their children’s children. It made her wonder how many of
them would ever have children.
Aggo went before her with his great Dothraki bow. Strong Belwas
walked to the right of her mare, the girl Missandei to her left.
Ser Jorah Mormont was behind in mail and surcoat, glowering at
anyone who came too near. Rakharo and Jhogo protected the litter.
Dany had commanded that the top be removed, so her three dragons
might be chained to the platform. Irri and Jhiqui rode with them,
to try and keep them calm. Yet Viserion’s tail lashed back
and forth, and smoke rose angry from his nostrils. Rhaegal could
sense something wrong as well. Thrice he tried to take wing, only
to be pulled down by the heavy chain in Jhiqui’s hand. Drogon
coiled into a ball, wings and tail tucked tight. Only his eyes
remained to tell that he was not asleep.
The rest of her people followed: Groleo and the other captains
and their crews, and the eighty-three Dothraki who remained to her
of the hundred thousand who had once ridden in Drogo’s
khalasar. She put the oldest and weakest on the inside of the
column, with the nursing women and those with child, and the little
girls, and the boys too young to braid their hair. The rest—her
warriors, such as they were—rode outside and moved their dismal
herd along, the hundred-odd gaunt horses that had survived both red
waste and black salt sea. I ought to have a banner sewn, she thought as she led her
tattered band up along Astapor’s meandering river. She closed
her eyes to imagine how it would look: all flowing black silk, and
on it the red three-headed dragon of Targaryen, breathing golden
flames. A banner such as Rhaegar might have borne. The
river’s banks were strangely tranquil. The Worm, the Astapori
called the stream. It was wide and slow and crooked, dotted with
tiny wooded islands. She glimpsed children playing on one of them,
darting amongst elegant marble statues. On another island two
lovers kissed in the shade of tall green trees, with no more shame
than Dothraki at a wedding. Without clothing, she could not tell if
they were slave or free.
The Plaza of Pride with its great bronze harpy was too small to
hold all the Unsullied she had bought. Instead they had been
assembled in the Plaza of Punishment, fronting on Astapor’s
main gate, so they might be marched directly from the city once
Daenerys had taken them in hand. There were no bronze statues here;
only a wooden platform where rebellious slaves were racked, and
flayed, and hanged. “The Good Masters place them so they will
be the first thing a new slave sees upon entering the city,”
Missandei told her as they came to the plaza.
At first glimpse, Dany thought their skin was striped like the
zorses of the Jogos Nhai. Then she rode her silver nearer and saw
the raw red flesh beneath the crawling black stripes. Flies. Flies
and maggots. The rebellious slaves had been peeled like a man might
peel an apple, in a long curling strip. One man had an arm black
with flies from fingers to elbow, and red and white beneath. Dany
reined in beneath him. “What did this one do?”
“He raised a hand against his owner.”
Her stomach roiling, Dany wheeled her silver about and trotted
toward the center of the plaza, and the army she had bought so
dear. Rank on rank on rank they stood, her stone halfmen with their
hearts of brick; eight thousand and six hundred in the spiked
bronze caps of fully trained Unsullied, and five thousand odd
behind them, bareheaded, yet armed with spears and shortswords. The
ones farthest to the back were only boys, she saw, but they stood
as straight and still as all the rest.
Kraznys mo Nakloz and his fellows were all there to greet her.
Other well-born Astapori stood in knots behind them, sipping wine
from silver flutes as slaves circulated among them with trays of
olives and cherries and figs. The elder Grazdan sat in a sedan
chair supported by four huge copper-skinned slaves. Half a dozen
mounted lancers rode along the edges of the plaza, keeping back the
crowds who had come to watch. The sun flashed blinding bright off
the polished copper disks sewn to their cloaks, but she could not
help but notice how nervous their horses seemed. They fear the
dragons. And well they might.
Kraznys had a slave help her from her saddle. His own hands were
full; one clutched his tokar, while the other held an omate whip.
“Here they are.” He looked at Missandei. “Tell
her they are hers . . . if she can
pay.”
“She can,” the girl said.
Ser Jorah barked a command, and the trade goods were brought
forward. Six bales of tiger skins, three hundred bolts of fine
silk. Jars of saffron, jars of myrrh, jars of pepper and curry and
cardamom, an onyx mask, twelve jade monkeys, casks of ink in red
and black and green, a box of rare black amethysts, a box of
pearls, a cask of pitted olives stuffed with maggots, a dozen casks
of pickled cave fish, a great brass gong and a hammer to beat it
with, seventeen ivory eyes, and a huge chest full of books written
in tongues that Dany could not read. And more, and more, and more.
Her people stacked it all before the slavers.
While the payment was being made, Kraznys mo Nakloz favored her
with a few final words on the handling of her troops. “They
are green as yet,” he said through Missandei. “Tell the
whore of Westeros she would be wise to blood them early. There are
many small cities between here and there, cities ripe for sacking.
Whatever plunder she takes will be hers alone. Unsullied have no
lust for gold or gems. And should she take captives, a few guards
will suffice to march them back to Astapor. We’ll buy the
healthy ones, and for a good price. And who knows? In ten years,
some of the boys she sends us may be Unsullied in their turn. Thus
all shall prosper.”
Finally there were no more trade goods to add to the pile. Her
Dothraki mounted their horses once more, and Dany said, “This
was all we could carry. The rest awaits you on the ships, a great
quantity of amber and wine and black rice. And you have the ships
themselves. So all that remains
is . . . ”
“ . . . the dragon,” finished
the Grazdan with the spiked beard, who spoke the Common Tongue so
thickly.
“And here he waits.” Ser Jorah and Belwas walked
beside her to the litter, where Drogon and his brothers lay basking
in the sun. Jhiqui unfastened one end of the chain, and handed it
down to her. When she gave a yank, the black dragon raised his
head, hissing, and unfolded wings of night and scarlet. Kraznys mo
Nakloz smiled broadly as their shadow fell across him.
Dany handed the slaver the end of Drogon’s chain. In
return he presented her with the whip. The handle was black
dragonbone, elaborately carved and inlaid with gold. Nine long thin
leather lashes trailed from it, each one tipped by a gilded claw.
The gold pommel was a woman’s head, with pointed ivory teeth.
“The harpy’s fingers,” Kraznys named the
scourge.
Dany turned the whip in her hand. Such a light thing, to bear
such weight. “Is it done, then? Do they belong to
me?”
“It is done,” he agreed, giving the chain a sharp
pull to bring Drogon down from the litter.
Dany mounted her silver. She could feel her heart thumping in
her chest. She felt desperately afraid. Was this what my brother
would have done? She wondered if Prince Rhaegar had been this
anxious when he saw the Usurper’s host formed up across the
Trident with all their banners floating on the wind.
She stood in her stirrups and raised the harpy’s fingers
above her head for all the Unsullied to see. “IT IS
DONE!” she cried at the top of her lungs. “YOU ARE
MINE!” She gave the mare her heels and galloped along the
first rank, holding the fingers high. “YOU ARE THE
DRAGON’S NOW! YOU’RE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR! IT IS DONE!
IT IS DONE!”
She glimpsed old Grazdan turn his grey head sharply. He hears me
speak Valyrian. The other slavers were not listening. They crowded
around Kraznys and the dragon, shouting advice. Though the Astapori
yanked and tugged, Drogon would not budge off the litter. Smoke
rose grey from his open jaws, and his long neck curled and
straightened as he snapped at the slaver’s face. It is time to cross the Trident, Dany thought, as she wheeled
and rode her silver back. Her bloodriders moved in close around
her. “You are in difficulty,” she observed.
“He will not come,” Kraznys said.
“There is a reason. A dragon is no slave.” And Dany
swept the lash down as hard as she could across the slaver’s
face. Kraznys screamed and staggered back, the blood running red
down his cheeks into his perfumed beard. The harpy’s fingers
had torn his features half to pieces with one slash, but she did not
pause to contemplate the ruin. “Drogon,” she sang out
loudly, sweetly, all her fear forgotten.
“Dracarys.”
The black dragon spread his wings and roared.
A lance of swirling dark flame took Kraznys full in the face.
His eyes melted and ran down his cheeks, and the oil in his hair
and beard burst so fiercely into fire that for an instant the
slaver wore a burning crown twice as tall as his head. The sudden
stench of charred meat overwhelmed even his perfume, and his wail
seemed to drown all other sound.
Then the Plaza of Punishment blew apart into blood and chaos.
The Good Masters were shrieking, stumbling, shoving one another
aside and tripping over the fringes of their tokars in their haste.
Drogon flew almost lazily at Kraznys, black wings beating. As he
gave the slaver another taste of fire, Irri and Jhiqui unchained
Viserion and Rhaegal, and suddenly there were three dragons in the
air. When Dany turned to look, a third of Astapor’s proud
demon-horned warriors were fighting to stay atop their terrified
mounts, and another third were fleeing in a bright blaze of shiny
copper. One man kept his saddle long enough to draw a sword, but
Jhogo’s whip coiled about his neck and cut off his shout.
Another lost a hand to Rakharo’s arakh and rode off reeling
and spurting blood. Aggo sat calmly notching arrows to his
bowstring and sending them at tokars. Silver, gold, or plain, he
cared nothing for the fringe. Strong Belwas had his arakh out as
well, and he spun it as he charged.
“Spears!” Dany heard one Astapori shout. It was
Grazdan, old Grazdan in his tokar heavy with pearls. “Unsullied! Defend us, stop them, defend your masters! Spears!
Swords!”
When Rakharo put an arrow through his mouth, the slaves holding
his sedan chair broke and ran, dumping him unceremoniously on the
ground. The old man crawled to the first rank of eunuchs, his blood
pooling on the bricks. The Unsullied did not so much as look down
to watch him die. Rank on rank on rank, they stood.
And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer.
“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her
silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every
stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every
man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under
twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She
raised the harpy’s fingers in the
air . . . and then she flung the scourge aside.
“Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys!
Dracarys!”
“Dracarys!” they shouted back, the sweetest word
she’d ever heard. “Dracarys! Dracarys!” And all
around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the
dusty air was filled with spears and fire.