The morning mist still clung to the Rhoyne plain when the cold wind carried the first sharp tang of blood across the ranks. Dying campfires left black scars on the grass. Ravens wheeled overhead, their hoarse cries slicing the silence.
Viserys Targaryen stood near the front of the formation, silver hair whipping in the breeze, the crimson three-headed dragon on his breastplate catching the weak light like fresh blood. His fingers tightened on the hilt of his longsword as he waited for the Triarchs' final order.
At Varyon Dortalos's command, the Unsullied and Iron Shields moved at once. Hundreds of Dothraki prisoners were dragged forward and forced to their knees at the very head of the army.
Their wrists and ankles were bound with coarse rope and heavy iron fetters. Chains scraped across the dirt with a sound like breaking bones. Months of captivity had broken them—eyes hollow, shoulders slumped, every last spark of defiance beaten out of them. All they wanted now was for it to end.
Varyon meant to grant that wish… and in the cruelest way possible.
One sharp order. The front rank of Unsullied drew their blades in perfect unison.
Forged in the pits of Astapor, these eunuch soldiers felt nothing—no pity, no hesitation. Cold steel flashed. Throats opened. Bright arterial blood sprayed across the grass, soaking the earth black.
Before the first bodies had finished twitching, the next command came. The quickest Unsullied stepped forward with knives, carving the corpses apart—braids, limbs, heads—passing the bloody trophies back along the line like macabre relay batons.
The bloodrider Viserys had captured months earlier suffered worst of all.
They castrated him first, then took his hands. While he still lived they carved mocking runes into his skin. Only when he had screamed himself raw did a massive Unsullied finally step in and slit his throat with something almost like mercy.
The Volantenes had studied their enemy well. Dothraki men died in the saddle, blade in hand. They despised the weak, the crippled, the collared. To be dragged out in chains, forced to kneel, and butchered by slaves was the ultimate desecration.
This was only the opening act of Varyon's revenge.
Three heavy trebuchets were rolled to the front of the line—siege engines never meant for open-field cavalry battles. But Varyon had never planned to hurl stones. The bloody chain of severed parts reached the crews. Winches groaned. The first grisly missiles arced high into the air and smashed down among the Dothraki ranks—heads, torsos, severed limbs, braids still tied with golden bells.
The stench of torn meat and fresh blood rolled across the plain.
A roar of pure animal fury exploded from the nomad lines. Warriors screamed, cursed, beat their chests. Outriders wheeled their horses and galloped back to their khal, howling the horror they had witnessed.
Viserys raised his Myrish lens but still could not pick out Drogo among the charging warriors. Every rider looked like a demon—faces twisted with rage, no trace of hunger or exhaustion.
The khal had kept his horde sharp.
Officers screamed along the Volantene line, voices raw:
"Spears forward! Shields up!"
"Anyone steps back dies where he stands!"
"Cut the horses! Ignore the riders!"
"Hold or die! I'll skin any man who runs!"
Fear was natural. The allied army had beaten scattered kos before, but this was different. This was Khal Drogo's main horde on open ground—the same force that had never lost a battle on the grass sea.
Behind the Dothraki stood their women, children, and everything they owned. There was no retreat. Only death or victory.
Varyon's atrocity had forced them to attack head-on… and turned every rider into a berserker who would fight to the last breath.
Viserys gripped his sword tighter and prayed his own men remembered their orders. If the line broke, the slaughter would be total.
"Left wing—several thousand riders still holding position!" a sharp-eyed Volantene scout sprinted up to the Triarchs. "Drogo's reserves have not committed!"
"He saw through the bait," Weymond Dorya said bluntly. "His control over them is stronger than we expected."
"There was never going to be an easy victory," Varyon replied, face like carved stone, eyes fixed on the enemy line. "Let us hope the garrison on the walls sees the same truth. Menys Taryar had better understand—this is no looting raid. This is blood work."
Viserys and his Black Knights, along with the entire reserve, stood far back from the Unsullied front line. All he could do was silently will those slave-soldiers to hold. To bleed. To buy the infantry and sellswords behind them the chance to turn this into a meat-grinder.
Whatever prayers were offered, the answer would be written in blood on this plain.
Cold wind carried the reek of corpses. Horns sounded again. Steel was about to meet steel. The rivers of blood were ready to flow.