Chapter 10: The Fall of Yunkai – The Wise Masters' Reckoning
The march from Astapor to Yunkai took nine days—nine days of dust, heat, and growing fury. Daenerys drove her army hard, allowing only brief halts for water and prayer. The pilgrims who had swelled their ranks now numbered nearly sixty thousand: freed slaves from Astapor marching barefoot but heads high, Unsullied defectors drilling in perfect silence, Dothraki riders who had sworn new braids of red silk, and common folk from every corner of the bay who had heard the cry and answered it.
Daenerys rode at the fore, eyes fixed northward, the shard of crucifixion wood pressed against her skin like a burning brand. She spoke little, but when she did, her words were steel.
"They have my brother's body," she told her council one night by the fire. "They think to mock us with it. They will learn mockery has a price."
Belio the Steadfast nodded grimly. "The scouts report the Wise Masters have paraded it on their highest balcony. Slaves saw it move—saw the eyes open. The city is already cracking from within."
Daenerys's smile was thin and cold. "Good. Let it crack."
Yunkai rose from the horizon on the tenth morning—a city of golden pyramids and lush pleasure gardens, its walls lower than Astapor's but guarded by thicker layers of fear. The Wise Masters had prepared: gates barred, elephants armored, sellswords hired from the Disputed Lands, alchemical fires ready on the ramparts. Grazdan zo Galare stood on the central pyramid's terrace, Viserys's body still propped against a pillar behind him—now wrapped in fine silk to hide the advancing decay, but the message clear: the Messiah is dead, look upon him and despair.
He had not counted on the slaves inside his own walls.
The Siege Begins
Daenerys encircled the city without delay. No grand speeches this time—just action. Catapults hurled flaming bales into the gardens, turning pleasure groves into infernos. Zealots dug trenches under cover of night. Pilgrims chanted hymns that carried over the walls like wind through reeds.
Inside Yunkai, the slaves heard the chants and answered in whispers. A kitchen girl slipped messages through the kitchens. A bed-slave hid a bible page under her master's pillow. A pit fighter named Goghor—the same who had once refused to fight—gathered others in the under-tunnels. "They have the Messiah's body," he told them. "We will take it back."
On the third day, Daenerys sent envoys under white flags—not to negotiate surrender, but to deliver a single demand.
"Return the body of Viserys Targaryen," Belio called up to the walls, "and we will show mercy to those who kneel. Refuse, and the Dragon God's fire will consume you all."
Grazdan laughed from the battlements. "Come and take it, silver bitch!"
Daenerys's only reply was a single torch flung into the night sky—a signal.
The Internal Rising
That night, the slaves rose.
It began small: a guard found his throat cut in a corridor. A gate chain was quietly severed. Then Goghor led his group—two hundred strong now—through the undercity tunnels. They emerged in the pleasure pyramid's cellars, killing silently, freeing chained dancers and boys who joined them with whatever they could grab: kitchen knives, broken bottles, bare hands.
By midnight, fires bloomed inside the walls—not from catapults, but from within. Slaves set their masters' silks ablaze. Servants poured oil on staircases. The chant began in the lower levels and spread upward:
"God wills it."
The Wise Masters panicked. Grazdan ordered his guards to the streets, but many of those guards—former Unsullied or conscripted slaves—turned their spears the other way. One squad, seeing the red banners approaching from outside, simply laid down arms and knelt.
The Breach
At dawn, Daenerys struck.
The main gates—weakened by internal sabotage—buckled under a combined push: zealots with rams, Dothraki on horseback, Unsullied in disciplined formation. The sellswords fought hard at first, but when they saw the tide—sixty thousand voices roaring "God wills it!"—many fled or defected.
Daenerys rode through the breach herself, sword drawn, silver hair streaming like a banner. She did not stop for street fighting; she aimed straight for the central pyramid.
The streets became chaos. Slaves poured from houses, joining the crusaders. Masters who had once whipped them now ran, only to be pulled down by the very hands they had scarred. Pyramids burned as offerings—flames licking gold and marble, turning pleasure gardens to ash.
The Reckoning on the Balcony
Daenerys climbed the central pyramid's steps alone at first, then with Belio and a handful of disciples at her back. Guards tried to bar her way; they died quickly. At the top terrace, Grazdan waited—flanked by his last loyalists, Viserys's body still propped behind him like a trophy.
"You came," Grazdan sneered, voice trembling despite himself. "For a corpse."
Daenerys stepped forward. Her eyes locked on her brother's face—pale, sunken, yet somehow still peaceful.
"You stole him," she said quietly. "You displayed him to break us. Instead, you woke the city."
Grazdan raised his jeweled dagger. "He is dead. Your god failed."
Daenerys moved faster than thought. Her sword flashed; the dagger clattered away. She grabbed Grazdan by the throat, forcing him to his knees.
"My brother suffered ten days for strangers," she hissed. "You will not die so easily."
She turned to the disciples. "Take the body. Gently."
They lifted Viserys with infinite care—Belio cradling the head, Thorne supporting the shoulders. As they carried him past, Daenerys looked down at Grazdan.
"The Wise Masters end today," she said. "Your pyramids will be temples. Your gardens will feed the free. And your name will be forgotten."
She nodded to Goghor, who had fought his way up the pyramid with his followers. "He is yours to judge."
Grazdan's screams echoed long after Daenerys had turned away.
The Fall Complete
By noon, Yunkai belonged to the Dragon God Church.
The Wise Masters who survived were chained in the plaza—not crucified, but forced to watch as their former slaves anointed one another with ash and red cloth. Viserys's body was laid on a bier of silk and carried through the streets to cheers that shook the walls. Pilgrims wept. Children touched the red cloak in awe. The chant rose again, endless:
"God wills it."
Daenerys walked beside the bier, hand resting on her brother's cold one. Tears fell freely now—not hidden, not ashamed.
"We have you back," she whispered. "We're bringing you home."
In Meereen she would prepare a proper tomb—a pyramid cleansed and rededicated. But first, there was Meereen itself to take. And after that… the Narrow Sea. The Iron Throne. The Usurper's line.
The Wise Masters had stolen a body to prove the Messiah dead.
Instead, they had given the crusade its greatest martyr's relic.
And with every step toward Meereen, the army grew stronger, the faith deeper, the fire hotter.
The fall of Yunkai was not just a victory.
It was a resurrection.
(Word count: 1499)