At dawn, preparations began with ruthless efficiency.
Outside the walls, soil had been piled nearly six meters high. At the signal to retreat, the captives rolled and crawled away from the battlefield.
Across the Quen River lay life and death, red and white merging into a nightmare-like illusion. Mortals all share a single fate; life is fleeting, and illusions shatter.
Möngke spurred his warhorse forward, raising his whip, facing three thousand lined-up slave warriors, and shouted:
"Slaves! What I want from you is not mere bravery or skill in battle. Live, seize freedom, and bring me three enemy heads to wipe away your debts! Warriors, the gods of this world are with you!"
The horn sounded. The stationary slaves roared, stepping forward as one, surging toward Qohor City like a relentless tide, unafraid of the reefs and sandbars ahead.
Archers on the walls loosed arrows, raining upon the dense lines of slaves.
Without armor, countless screams erupted. The front ranks fell like wheat swept by a storm, chaotic and broken.
Worse, the slave warriors, intimidated by the hail of arrows, lost their fierce spirit and courage, frozen in hesitation.
The brave pressed forward, the uncertain halted, and the timid retreated.
At that moment, behind the slave ranks, a squad of Dothraki cavalry raised their arak curved blades, screaming as they charged the faltering troops.
It was the first cavalry charge since the battle began. The flash of blades and spray of blood warned the hesitant.
The horn sounded again, igniting the blood-red eyes and renewed fighting spirit of the slaves, who surged toward Qohor once more.
Roars, screams, and flying blood filled the battlefield. Everywhere lay corpses.
Pale-faced steward Övör, weak with fatigue, muttered:
"Khal, things do not look good."
Möngke frowned instinctively, his gaze icy as he suppressed his irritation:
"When we filled the soil, the enemy lacked such organization. If the Qohor garrison did not show mercy to the captive slaves, or were hiding their strength, this can only mean their commander has just arrived. The slaves are unlucky."
"Khal…"
Övör's words were cut off as Möngke waved him aside, signaling Dothraki cavalry to escort the weakened elder. He said:
"Steward, your need now is rest. Worry not; this is a minor loss. The gods are still with us. Victory is assured."
Any army that can lose a third of its troops without collapsing is elite.
The slave warriors were different. They could not be called an army. They had no unified training, no common language, and knew nothing of each other. Each lived only for themselves.
This made them ruthless yet fragile.
A Ghiscari slave struggled to rise, blood seeping from his back wound.
He stared at the throngs of slaves trampling each other, climbing the walls to die. For a moment, he froze, realizing these people were unreliable.
Behind the walls, the Unsullied fought in a sophisticated, loosely organized infantry formation. This allowed flexible, rapid coordination with short swords, shields, and spears, while remaining resilient against flank attacks.
Outside, slaves climbing the walls were cut down, thrown back, yet more surged forward, stumbling and being trampled in a bloody cycle.
On the earthen mound, layers of bodies formed a grisly slope to the wall, blood trickling down like a river. Human hell.
Seeing the dwindling slave numbers outside, Möngke remained calm, clearly assessing the situation as he roared to over a thousand assembled Dothraki warriors:
"Dothraki! I could return home victorious, but I am no coward. The Qohor people humiliated your ancestors, flaunted their braids on spears, even planting Qohor trees on Dothraki plains! They sent arrogant envoys offering me gold—ignore them! Capture Qohor, and every Dothraki shall receive gold. Every sacrifice is glorious, with proper funeral rites, honored in the Holy Mountains, witnessed by the sky. Devotion supreme!"
"Great Khal!"
"Möngke Khal! Möngke Khal!"
The wind carried the fervor, sweeping across the Dothraki camp. Eyes glowed with fiery anticipation.
Möngke raised a specially crafted long-handled curved blade, his massive frame burning with bloodlust:
"I will forge a golden crown from Qohor's wealth! I will impale Qohor heads upon spears, forming a forest denser than the Qohor woods!"
Khal Möngke at the front, a thousand warriors behind, with over seventy thousand Dothraki shouting in unison, surged forward like a mountain torrent, unstoppable, crashing against the walls.
The exhausted defenders froze, intimidated by the roaring tide, regaining composure only when commanders bellowed orders.
Arrows flew, but most were blocked by leather shields. Only a few Dothraki were struck.
On the earthen mound, corpses nearly reached the walls. An Unsullied threw a spear but was met by a massive figure swinging a blade. Reacting quickly, he raised his round shield while a comrade thrust a short sword in coordination.
"Crack!"
The shield shattered. The giant curved blade struck the Unsullied helm, blood spraying like a fountain, sending a wave of gore. Another Unsullied's short sword struck flesh but could not penetrate.
Möngke, facing the flanking Unsullied, advanced without hesitation. Strong arms swung the long-handled blade, waist twisting, sweeping across.
Limbs were severed, blood sprayed, breaking the Unsullied formation. Dothraki surged forward.
Möngke was like a sharpened arrow, ramming through, a scorching blade slicing cold butter. The Unsullied, disciplined and steady, faltered under his relentless assault.
Lightning-fast strikes cleaved an Unsullied in two.
Yet the Unsullied showed their fearless trait: they regrouped, holding formation, counterattacking, refusing to retreat.
Now, either they were wiped out, or their commanding officer had to be found.
Unfortunately, cautious commander Serlo Kote, upon the Dothraki scaling the walls, had ordered the Unsullied to hold at all costs, then promptly retreated to the inner city.