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Three hundred Black Knights stood in perfect formation, waiting for Eleonora Darennis's signal.
Banners bearing the red claw and black dragon snapped in the morning wind. Cool mist rose off the Rhoyne and brushed across their faces.
Dawn tore open the night, spilling gold across the endless grass sea. A hundred kinds of wildflowers opened to the sun, painting the plain in every color.
The darkness was still bleeding westward. A new day had arrived.
It was a beautiful sight—exactly the kind bards should sing about.
Eleonora Darennis swept her gaze across it all. She had seen this same beauty too many times. Familiarity had long since turned to boredom.
This fucking wait was taking forever. The Dothraki were supposed to strike like lightning. Instead they crawled forward like river turtles, nothing like the fierce horse-lords of legend.
She swallowed her impatience and ran back through the last few months of the war in her mind, trying to make sense of it. The campaign Viserys had led them into had started badly. She wasn't even sure the Volantenes could turn it around.
The first to fall to Drogo's wrath had been Selhorys.
The Volantene fortress city had destroyed itself with arrogance.
Its maesters thought they were military geniuses. Fooled by a small Dothraki vanguard, they abandoned their strong walls and marched out onto open ground.
Once the garrison left its defenses, the slaughter was quick. The survivors were chased all the way back into the undefended city.
Every coin and every scrap of supplies in Selhorys fell into Drogo's hands. With that windfall he turned south without a second glance at Valysar or Volon Therys.
The commanders of those two towns had been smarter. They kept their gates shut, trusted their heavy walls and large garrisons, and refused to come out.
After all, in Drogo's eyes their loot was nothing compared to Volantis itself.
The wealth and glory of the First Daughter—that was what the khal truly wanted.
In the end Drogo's khalasar pitched camp outside Volantis's walls. He didn't even bother repeating his insulting ultimatum.
The challenge had been issued. It had been accepted.
Between Khal Drogo and the Triarchs of Volantis there was nothing left to discuss. Only blood.
After the first failed assault the nomads ran into a new problem.
A khalasar could never stay in one place for long. Without constant movement it would fall apart from hunger and infighting.
Even the rich lands around Volantis and the huge stores taken from Selhorys could not feed three hundred thousand mouths.
Yet Drogo could not simply lift the siege and ride away.
In Dothraki custom, leaving an enemy city without loot or tribute was total defeat—pure shame.
He could ignore lesser targets like Valysar and ride on, but once he had challenged Volantis itself he could not turn back without looking weak.
A khal who meant to rule the entire Lamb Men grasslands—after crushing the Lhazareen, Meereen, rival khalasars, Tolos, and now a Volantene fortress city—could not show weakness.
Besides, he was already the Stallion Who Mounts the World. Retreat was unthinkable.
So Drogo sent loyal kos out with bands of riders to raid, kill, and burn, gathering the vital grain his main force needed.
One of those kos had fixed its eyes on Volon Therys—the town the main horde had bypassed earlier.
Its maesters had been certain they were safe. A wide stretch of the Rhoyne lay between them and the enemy, plus the only bridge to the ruins of Old Rhoyne, the massive Dawn Gate, and hundreds of slave soldiers.
They never imagined their own "impregnable" defenses would become their death warrant.
In the dead of night the slave guards opened the Dawn Gate for the Dothraki.
Maybe they hoped to escape in the chaos. Maybe they dreamed of sharing in the plunder.
They were wrong.
The horse-lords' blades did not spare traitors. The moment they were inside the city the riders butchered every last one of them.
But the traitors' deaths did not save the people of Volon Therys.
Men and women, old and young, maesters and beggars—every soul was beaten, robbed, and slaughtered. Screams filled the night for hours.
The next morning the shares of loot were herded south in miserable columns and presented to Khal Drogo.
The screaming riders did not stop. They galloped north along the western bank of the Rhoyne, leaving behind nothing but a gutted, corpse-strewn ruin.
Only then did the rulers of Valysar finally panic.
Their ancestors had spent centuries strengthening the eastern defenses. It had worked—Drogo had gone around them. But that left the western side almost empty.
The citizens realized in horror that most of their defenders were armed slaves. If the Dragon Claw Company had not arrived in time, the maesters would already be headless.
Viserys learned the latest situation from those same terrified mouths.
What he did not tell them was the truth behind the order: Triarch Varyon Dortalos himself had commanded the Dragon Claw to ride to Valysar's rescue.
Every other company was gathering by sea around Volantis. Only the Claw had been sent to clean up this mess and deal with the roaming Dothraki raiders.
Luckily the maesters of Valysar were sensible enough to promise an extra bonus from the city's own coffers—paid directly to every man in the Dragon Claw, outside the original contract.
Sellswords cared about real coin in their hands. The promise of quick silver made them fight harder and tighter.
"Signal confirmed?" Eleonora asked without turning her head. No room for mistakes here.
"One blast for retreat. Two blasts once they're in the trap," her young lieutenant answered crisply.
"Correct." Eleonora gave a short nod and lifted her eyes to the banner overhead—the black field and red dragon of Viserys Targaryen, snapping hard in the dawn wind.
Meeting Dothraki head-on in open country was suicide. Selhorys and the fresh ruin of the other fortress proved that.
She and Viserys had already laid the plan: lure this particular khal's raiding band into a trap. They had local guides who knew the ground, and they understood the horse-lords' arrogance perfectly.
To these nomads, an enemy banner flying high was like a fat lamb to a starving wolf. They would chase it to the ends of the grass.
Maybe the kos already knew exactly who Viserys was. They had taken plenty of prisoners at Volon Therys—someone was bound to have told them Volantis had hired the Dragon Claw. The red dragon banner would only make him bolder, eager to crush the arrogant exile.
Even if the kos had never heard the name, they had spent weeks burning towns along the Rhoyne. They knew how much Volantenes loved dragon sigils. One look at this banner and they would see a personal insult that had to be erased.
Either way, the kos would treat the Dragon Claw as an obstacle in their path.
And right now the Black Knights looked small in number—exactly the kind of soft target the Dothraki loved to smash.
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