Fall of Yunkai
The night air was heavy, hotter than it should've been. Sweat dripped under my collar, making the iron rub raw against my skin. My spear felt slick in my hands, but it wasn't the heat that unsettled me. It was quiet. Yunkai never slept silent. There were always voices, distant moans or the cries of the bed-slaves drifting from the masters' halls. But tonight, the streets behind us lay muted, and the men beside me shuffled their feet like goats waiting for the butcher.
We'd been told to stand at the western gate. Nothing unusual, the overseers said. The Dothraki were camped far off, no threat to us tonight. I wanted to believe them. I prayed to the gods that it was true.
Then the ground shook.
It started low, like thunder miles away, but it grew and grew until my teeth rattled in my skull. I gripped my spear tighter, squinting into the black horizon. My neighbor, a boy no older than me, muttered, "It's horses. It has to be horses." His voice cracked when he said it.
But that wasn't horses. That was something else.
The first sound of wings hit us before I even saw it. A rush of air, heavy and furious, like the sky itself was breaking apart. Then came the roar. Gods save me, I've heard lions in cages, I've heard the wail of men whipped bloody, but I've never heard anything like that roar. It was alive and burning, a scream that shook the marrow in my bones.
And then fire.
It hit the gate in one breath. Black stone swallowed in orange, wood turning to cinders in a heartbeat. Men cried out and dropped their weapons, some turned to run. I stood frozen, staring at the beast that had descended from the night. Wings wide as sails, scales glinting in the firelight, its eyes glowing hotter than the flames it spat. I thought it was a god's punishment, some demon from the pits.
The gate collapsed.
Smoke rolled over us, choking, thick. I coughed, eyes stinging, and through the haze I saw them. Riders pouring in. Not thousands, just a wave of them, five thousand at most. Hair bound in braids, arakhs shining. They screamed war cries that made the ground shake all over again.
I thought they'd kill us all. I thought my throat would open under the first swing of steel. My legs shook so hard I nearly dropped my spear.
But they didn't kill me.
The first rider to reach me knocked the spear clean from my hands. His flat side of arakh hit me hard, then another man shoved me down, binding my wrists with rope. I was alive. Breathless, terrified, but alive. Around me, the others were being dragged down the same way. The slave guards who tried to fight were beaten into the dirt, not slaughtered. Their weapons were kicked away, their collars still tight around their necks.
It wasn't mercy. I knew that. Mercy didn't exist in this world. It was something colder. Planned. The riders didn't spill blood because they didn't have to. We weren't warriors; we were cattle. And cattle weren't worth the trouble of slaughtering.
I lay on the ground, cheek pressed against the dust, staring at the ruined gate. Through the haze of fire, I saw her. A figure in white and silver, hair like moonlight, sitting tall on her horse as the dragon circled above. She wasn't screaming orders, wasn't waving a sword. She just watched, calm, as if she already knew how this night would end.
Fear wrapped tight around my chest.
'Maybe death will be a better salvation…'
…
The gate was ash. The walls of Yunkai, proud and painted with the banners of its masters, stood powerless as the Dothraki tide pressed in. Five thousand riders did their work with precision. No chaos, no frenzy, just ruthless control. Slave guards, city watch, any man who raised steel against them was dragged down and bound. Some died resisting, but most found themselves on their knees, stripped of weapons, forced to face the truth that the city was no longer theirs to guard.
Drogon soared above the chaos, roaring again and again, a shadow of fire that made the slaves below quake and the masters hide in their palaces. Every scream of the dragon was a hammer on the crumbling spirit of Yunkai.
Daenerys rode forward when the gates were secured. Her horse's hooves trod over stone still hot from the flames, and her eyes turned to the wall. The Dothraki made a path for her, clearing the rubbles. They were holding the bound guards down like prisoners of war. Even if most of them were former slaves and were soon to be released, to avoid bloodshed it was the best precaution. Daenerys looked up at the impressive wall of Yunkai. It was already claimed by her riders.
Moments later she climbed to the top of the wall. Drogon circled above her, wings blotting out the moonlight. She stood tall, hair gleaming white against the dark sky, and raised her hands.
Her voice, amplified by power, rang out throughout the entire City. It carried through every street, every square, every cramped slave barracks where men and women huddled in fear.
"Slaves of Yunkai," Daenerys began, her voice sharp as steel and hot as flame.
"You are not slaves anymore. Tonight, the chains break. Tonight, your masters fall. The choice is yours. kneel with them, or rise with me."
The sound rolled through the city like thunder. Slaves lifted their heads in disbelief, hearing her words echo against the walls. At first there was disbelief. Most of them were oppressed by the masters so long that for them, freedom is just a fantasy. But there were many who still had some hope. And they rose up immediately. The masters shouted for order, for obedience, but no one listened. Soon after seeing their fellow slaves getting out of their change by the Dothraki warriors, the others joined. At that moment, Daenerys pointed to the dragon above her, and the beast roared flame into the night sky, a living symbol of her promise.
That was all it took.
The first cries came from the slave barracks near the walls. Chains clattered to the ground as collars were ripped off. Then the kitchens, then the markets, then the halls of the masters themselves. Bed-slaves, house-slaves, pitiful guards with spears still trembling in their hands stood against their masters for the first time in the history of Yunkai.
Inside the city, chaos spread, but not the chaos of war. It was the chaos of freedom. Doors were broken open, overseers dragged down, collars shattered under hammers. The Dothraki poured in only after the tide had already shifted. Their riders stormed the streets, not to kill, but to ensure the masters had nowhere to run.
The so-called "wise masters" of Yunkai found their wisdom worth nothing. They hid in their palaces, but there was no army left to defend them, no loyal slaves to die at their feet. Their walls, their guards, their gold, all of it crumbled before fire and freedom.
Daenerys stood at the heart of it. She was keeping an eye on the entire City through empathy and telepathy so that nothing goes wrong.
Yunkai had fallen by dawn. And with the new sun, it rose again as a city of freedom under the Eastern Empire.
…