Jago rode at the center of the battlefield, his Bloodriders around him, hacking and slashing with wild abandon as he reveled in the thrill of killing. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a force charging in from the south.
"Ha!"
Jago let out a short, furious roar, his face twisting with offended rage. He thought this new army had come to steal his prey—or perhaps to surround him. In his simple mind, anyone on the battlefield who wasn't of his khalasar was the enemy.
He jerked his horse around, raising his great curved blade toward the Dornish forces, and bellowed orders to his most elite Bloodriders.
Thousands of frenzied Dothraki horsemen instantly abandoned the broken remnants of the Reach and Westerlands troops before them. With a wild chorus of howls, they wheeled their mounts and thundered toward the newly arrived Dornish army.
Quentyn was directing his soldiers in a sweep against a pocket of stubborn Westerlands infantry when the ground began to shake violently. He looked up in disbelief. Through a cloud of choking dust that blotted out the sun came a mass of Dothraki horsemen, scimitars raised, roaring as they charged straight at his line.
They were so close now that he could see the madness and bloodlust in their eyes.
"No! Stop! We're allies! We're from Dorne!"
Quentyn's face went pale. He shouted desperately, waving his arms to make them understand. But the charging horsemen were moving too fast to hear—or care.
"Shield wall! Quick! Spearmen! Form up! Hold them!"
Daemon Sand was the first to react, his roar cutting through the chaos as horror flashed across his face.
The disciplined Dornish soldiers moved with practiced precision. At their officers' frantic cries, the outer ranks dropped to one knee, slamming their heavy, oxhide-covered shields into the ground. The edges locked tightly together, forming a low but solid ring of shields.
Behind them, the second and third ranks of spearmen crouched or stood ready, thrusting their three-meter-long, poison-tipped spears through the gaps, angling them toward the oncoming storm of cavalry.
Boom!
The Dothraki charge crashed headlong into the steel hedgehog of Dorne.
The impact was carnage. Men and horses in the front ranks were impaled in an instant, their screams lost beneath the shattering of wood and the snapping of broken spears. Warhorses toppled with dying whinnies, flinging their riders through the air.
But there were too many Dothraki. Their momentum was unstoppable.
Wave after wave slammed into the shield wall. With fearless fury and masterful horsemanship, they hacked at the spears with their scimitars, trying to batter the wall apart with their steeds.
"Hold! Don't break!"
Daemon Sand and Obara Sand darted through the formation, shouting commands, cutting down any Dothraki who managed to slip through the cracks.
Quentyn's grip tightened around his curved blade, his palms slick with cold sweat. He had never faced battle like this.
Realizing the cost of their head-on assaults, the Dothraki quickly changed tactics.
They broke off and began circling the Dornish formation at full gallop, pulling the composite shortbows from their backs.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
A storm of arrows rained down from every direction.
Dornish soldiers huddled behind their shields as the shafts thudded into the oxhide.
But no shield wall was perfect. Arrows found the gaps.
Men cried out as they were hit—through the arm, the thigh, the face—and fell to the ground writhing.
The formation began to falter.
Time dragged on.
Under the blistering sun, drenched in sweat and blood, the Dornishmen's arms trembled from exhaustion. The shield wall wavered, holes appearing between the ranks.
The Dothraki saw the weakness instantly.
With shrill cries of excitement, they gathered their strength once more and hurled themselves at the faltering points of the Dornish line.
Curved blades whirled, warhorses neighed. One circular formation after another was savagely breached and torn apart. The Dothraki cavalry charged into the ranks, scimitars slashing wildly, reaping the lives of Dornish soldiers stripped of their formation's protection.
"Ah! My leg!"
"We can't hold! Run!"
The screams of Dornish soldiers, the eerie laughter of the Dothraki, and the whinnying of warhorses merged into a single cacophony of chaos. The front collapsed with the speed of an avalanche.
Quentyn watched as his elite troops fell like cut grass, his heart bleeding. He had brought more than ten thousand of Dorne's finest soldiers.
"Why?! Viserys! Why did you attack us?!"
Quentyn's eyes blazed crimson as he roared in disbelief toward the black dragon banner at the heart of the battlefield.
"My prince, now is not the time for questions!"
Daemon Sand, his body drenched in blood, cleaved through a charging Dothraki horseman and moved to shield Quentyn. His voice rasped with strain. "Either Viserys has betrayed us, or he can't control these savages. Savages serve no weak masters. We miscalculated!"
"What now?"
Obara Sand closed in beside them, her spear broken and replaced with a curved blade. Fresh wounds marked her body, but her gaze remained fierce.
"Find Viserys!"
Quentyn wiped the blood from his face, a flicker of determination burning in his eyes as he recalled his father's final command: "Bring him back, dead or alive. Otherwise, the blood of our Dornish warriors will have been shed in vain!"
He roared to the officers still gathered near him. "Fall back! Rally under Martell's banner! Form a defensive circle! Find Viserys!"
The surviving Dornish soldiers began struggling to regroup around Quentyn's Sunspear banner, trying to form a larger defensive formation. But the Dothraki were like sharks drawn by blood, refusing to relent. They circled the shrinking formation, unleashing arrows and crashing into them again and again.
The southern end of the battlefield had become a bloody meat grinder, devouring lives with every passing moment.
News of the brutal clash between Dorne and the Dothraki spread swiftly across the chaos. Addam Marbrand, still locked in a desperate fight while trying to break southeast, and Jon Fossoway, regrouping his men along the edge of Ashford , both noticed the upheaval to the south.
When they saw the fresh Dornish reinforcements now fighting the Dothraki, a faint spark of hope ignited in their hearts.
As the four armies clashed across the Ashford meadow, the world seemed to drown in blood and smoke. The sky darkened, the sun sinking low on the horizon, painting the heavens a deep, sorrowful red.
Against that crimson backdrop, a vast army emerged from the twilight, appearing slowly on the southeastern horizon—behind the Dornish lines.
The banner at its forefront rippled clearly beneath the blood-red light of sunset.
A golden stag crowned within a blazing red heart.
Stannis Baratheon!