Chapter XXII
The Skahazadhan
The great river Skahazadhan is broad and meandering, slow and full of silt. It wanders, tranquil and serene, through the dusty, arid hills of Lhazar. Far swifter was the river of men and horses which flowed in their rapid onset along its valley.
To the beat of the kettle drums, the men of Umbar marched, or rode their tall horses. Even afoot they towered over the Ghiscari that filled the bulk of the host, and over the strange tribesmen of distant lands whose tongues were as the singing of birds and the hooting of beasts. It was they who drove the pace, and by harsh words and the cracking of whips the lesser men were driven till their feet blistered and bled. With great swiftness, the host passed down the valley of the Skahazadhan towards distant sandstone mountains.
"Ghiscari," Daenerys heard one of the Black Numenoreans say, riding beside her cart one day. The man was much as other Umbarians: Golden-haired, fair-faced, blue-eyed. He spat upon the ground in disgust.
"They call themselves the iron legions, these thralls," remarked one of his companions. They were all tall, well-mounted upon strong horses, cloaked in purple and girt with swords.
"They are fit to stand and die, but a little stroll like this and they are unmanned. They complain like children," said another.
"A Ghiscari told me his folk once ruled vast dominions. I hardly believe it," said the first.
Daenerys Targaryen was beginning to know well the accents of Umbar. She had never seen the city, nor heard rumour of it, she knew nothing of its people or its laws or its Great King, but she knew already that these were a mighty people, self-assured of their power such as she had never seen even amongst the Dothraki.
The first days had been the worst. She had walked as if trapped in a nightmare since the death of her moon and stars, her Drogo. She saw his face when she awoke, and heard his voice in her dreams. When she closed her eyes, she could still see him lying in the dust, his braid cut and his body hacked and hewn. Many nights, she had wept. Doreah and Irri had been left to her by Belzagar's command, and though she would not speak to them for days they would sit with her in the nights, and listen to her weeping, and rub her back and speak gentle words. That still would not stave off the awful dreams that scourged her nights and haunted her days.
Belzagar, the Captain of Umbar, was the image of princely courtesy. Not a hand was laid upon Daenerys or her handmaidens, not a cruel word or unkind look was ever aimed at them. They rode in the best and smoothest-driving wagons in the army, they were well-clothed in Umbar's finery, and every night they ate from Belzagar's table in Belzagar's own pavilion. His words were always gentle, and he carved Daenerys's meat with his own knife, laying it upon her plate with warmth in his eyes.
Many times she thought of taking her own life. Her hand would linger upon the knife laid upon her plate for cutting her meat. The edge was enough. Then Rhaego would give a kick into her ribs or stomach, she felt his life inside her, and she would set the knife down. When she was returned to her own tent, the firelight would gleam and flicker upon her dragon eggs.
The days passed, becoming weeks. The pain subdued from a sharp anguish to a constant throbbing ache. The mountains grew closer, looming up in the west in front of them, towering brown and grey.
She watched the men of Umbar constantly, observing and learning. She grew to note their tongue, full of strange syllables and harsh tones. A word stood out, with which the Black Numenoreans seemed to use to call themselves: Adunaim.
The Adunaim camped apart from the Ghiscari and the other levies of their host. They were a small part, a little over two thousand in a host of twenty thousand, yet Daenerys understood that this was the true, hard backbone of Belzagar's army. The Ghiscari were a trained militia, who marched in step and shouldered their shields upon the order, but they were amateurs in the end. The tribesmen were a wild and strange bunch, armed and armoured in countless ways and combinations. Some were short and bow-legged, faces flat and creased by wind and sun, dressed all in silk and furs and leather, and they shot their bows from horseback in the manner of the Dothraki. Others were swaggering bronze-skinned men with tall shields and heavy javelins, who wore shirts of scales and carried long knives at their sides. Others still wore long heavy beards of black curls, even in the heat of Lhazar, and their spears were scarcely as tall as a man with a heavy shaft as wide as a man's wrist and wicked broad points of steel, their swords were short and broad, and their shields were round and painted in bright swirls. The host of Belzagar was less than half the size of the khalasar, but far more nations and peoples and tongues were represented here.
The Adunaim were the true professionals though. Daenerys knew little of war and soldiers, but even her untrained eye could note it. They rode the swiftest and in the best order, their men quarreled and fought with each other the least, a captain's orders were obeyed quicker and with less question than in any other people of the army. When they pitched camp, the tents and pavilions of the Adunaim went up first, their meals were cooking the fastest, and the men busied themselves with useful tasks. The archers set to oiling their steelbows and mail hauberks, or making new bow strings, or patching their own clothes. The knights brushed their own horses down, and sharpened their own lances.
They rose first in the mornings, were formed for the march earliest, and set off earlier and at a quicker step. Every Adunaim, archer and man-at-arms alike, was mounted. The knights even had multiple horses. It was they who set the pace, dragging the Ghiscari and all the others behind them on dragging feet. It was their voices that snarled when others would lull and lag behind. The Black Numenoreans stared down with lofty contempt at their servant army.
Every night, Belzagar would hold court with his officers and chieftains. Daenerys watched him carefully. To those captains who had done well in the battle, he would shower with words of praise and gold rings for their fingers and arms. Some were his own, others Daenerys knew were stolen from the Dothraki who had stolen them themselves. Those with whom Belzagar was not pleased, however, would receive naught but silence, and the silence was noted. Men would whisper in the dark corners of the pavilion even as their comrades were praised and given rich gifts. Sometimes a man would receive a ring from the Captain of Umbar one night, only to be slain in a duel the next day. Daenerys never saw it amongst the Adunaim, but the chieftains of the vassals bickered and squabbled without end.
Day by day, mile by mile and league by league, the hosts leaped across the plains and hills of Lhazar, driving hard and fast for the mountains. Though foraging parties rode off each day, not a single village or town was burnt, not a single home looted or despoiled. Haste, Daenerys guessed, was Belzagar's object, and he pursued it unswervingly.
One day, as Daenerys rode in her cart, surrounded on all sides by purple-cloaked knights of Umbar as she ever was, Belzagar came and rode next to her. His retinue came up in a roll of heavy hooves, and his banners flapped in the breeze above their heads. The Captain of Umbar bowed in the saddle with perfect courtesy, and smiled a warm smile of straight, white teeth.
"Hail, and good day to you, my fair Princess," he said.
"Captain Belzagar," Dany replied, finding herself smiling in return even as her stomach turned over in revulsion.
"The barbarians call those mountains the Khyzai, or perhaps the pass is the Khyzai? Ah, such strange tongues these people have," Belzagar said, pointing at the mountains that now stood huge and close before them. The Skahazadhan flowed into the mountains, carving out a deep, steep-sided valley as it disappeared into the distance.
"And what is on the other side of the mountains?" Daenerys asked. She wanted to know where she was being taken.
"The city of Meereen, my Princess. A trifling town, truly, but it has the blessing of sitting upon the sea,"
She frowned. "The sea? That is where you are taking us?"
Belzagar said with a laugh, "All roads shall lead to Umbar in time, even the whale-road. To see the sea again is a joy to every man of Umbar, for the Numenoreans are people of the sea,"
"The sea is fair indeed, it has been long since I have seen it," said Dany. Belzagar gazed at her, and his glance was piercing and knowing, and she felt laid bare before it, but suddenly he seemed to see her and his mouth hung slack and awe came upon his face.
"Fair the sea is, but fairer still are the eyes with which you gaze upon it, my Princess," the Captain said, bowing his head. "So fair a line as yours, it is little wonder lesser men were over-awed by the House of Targaryen for so long. It is said that your forefathers ruled over great wyrms with but the force of their will. Mighty men were they indeed if that is true,"
Despite herself, Dany smiled and felt a pride in her bloodline. "Mighty men they were indeed. Aegon the Conqueror unified the Seven Kingdoms riding upon Balerion, a dragon so great they say his teeth were as swords and his claws spears, and the shock of his tail a thunderbolt,"
Captain Belzagar nodded. "The world was full of wonders, not so long ago,"
The Captain of Umbar spoke again, voice a languid drawl "I have seen your brother in Umbar, my Princess, in the court of the Great King,"
"You have seen Viserys?" Daenerys exclaimed, feeling as if suddenly struck by lightning. Viserys had disappeared months ago in Vaes Dothrak. She had thought he had abandoned her, and when there was no word she hardened her heart to her lost brother.
"Prince Viserys, yes," Belzagar said, smiling again. "The Great King has taken him to his side and made him as a prince of his own house, and he is honoured amongst the Numenoreans,"
"And to what do we owe your King's charity?" replied Dany. All her life she and Viserys had traveled the Free Cities, from the houses of one magister or merchant-prince to another. All her life, she had watched powerful men laugh and mock her brother, the Beggar-King. If she had learned anything, it was that great lords rarely feel any charity, and never offer aid without expecting payment of some kind.
She wondered what promises had drawn Viserys into Umbar's nets, and what purpose Ar-Azulakhor sought them out for.
"None in Umbar have a more generous spirit, a deeper reservoir of kindness, a more profound sympathy, than our Great King," said the Captain. "Our heralds found your brother a captive of barbarians, and spirited him away knowing that it would not be the Great King's will that a King of Westeros roll in the muck of a Dothraki camp,"
"You know nothing of them," Daenerys said, voice quiet but steely. Belzagar laughed, a musical, rolling laugh that was taken up as if in chorus by the other men-at-arms of Umbar all around them.
"I know how they die, my Princess,"
The Khyzai mountains soon loomed up on either side of them, and still they followed the Skahazadhan as it cut its way through sandstone for many, many days. The canyons and walls of the mountains rang with the sounds of marching feet, and rattling arms, and the clatter of horse hooves on stone, and the roll of wains. The air grew thinner and colder, and the Skahazadhan became swifter and narrower, hemmed in either side by sheer rock.
At night, Daenerys would lay in her pavilion and listen to the distant howling of wild and lonely things in the high places. She found herself laying with her dragon eggs clutched in her hands. When she held the eggs, Rhaego would kick and stretch, and though it pained her body, her heart was gladdened to feel him so fierce within her stomach. Dany held the eggs close and remembered the khalasar, and the young warriors of her khas, and Jorah and Thorongil, and Drogo. She yearned for his hand, strong but gentle, upon her face, and for his voice. She held the eggs tighter, and her tears glinted upon their scales.
The days blended together, one into another, and still their journey went on. The mountains grew higher and craggy, and the Skahazadhan became a deep, swift-flowing, treacherous onset as it passed running over stone. Men, and some horses too, were killed some days as they bent over to take water and slipped and were lost. Though the pass became narrow and treacherous in some places with fallen rocks and sharp-edged stone, still Belzagar drove the pace on mercilessly.
Doreah came to Dany's tent one evening. The girl was Lysene, fair-haired and soft-skinned, and she looked suited for the long kirtle and gown of rich blue she had been clad in. Her clothes were make of Umbar, light and tightly woven and set with stones, but it was a gift from the mistress of one of the vassal-chieftains who traveled with the host. Despite the finery, Doreah looked thin and weak, and her face had a pallor. The journey had been hard upon her.
"Khaleesi," Doreah said, bowing low. "I'm sorry to trouble you,"
"No, it's fine Doreah, what is it?" replied Dany.
"It's just… Khaleesi, do you know where they are taking us?" Dany's tent was well-furnished, and Doreah sat upon a low stool across from her Khaleesi.
"This Umbar," the handmaiden went on. "I grew up in Lys and I know the names of every Free City, and of the Slaver-cities too. From men in the pleasure houses have even heard of Qarth and other far places, but I have never heard of Umbar, Khaleesi,"
"Nor I, until that… That herald came to Drogo," Daenerys said, shuddering. She still remembered how pale Thorongil's face had been when the Mouth of Umbar had strode into the tent of Drogo.
"So where is it then? And who are these people?" Suddenly Doreah remembered her station, and she dropped her eyes. "Forgive me Khaleesi, I am becoming too bold,"
Dany's hand grazed the Lysene girl's shoulder. "Do not apologize, dear Doreah. I know you are frightened, I feel that fear too,"
"Irri is scared as well," said Doreah. "She told me that to overcome Khal Drogo in battle upon the open field, these men must be terrible and utterly without fear,"
"They are Numenoreans, so Captain Belzagar said," replied Dany. "But these are not men of Gondor, or they are nothing like anything I have heard of the men of Gondor. There is no city of Umbar in Gondor, and Gondor is ruled by the Iron Throne, not by a Great King,"
The handmaiden grimaced. "But what do Numenoreans want with you, Khaleesi? Why did they attack us?"
"I don't know," Dany said. "Viserys is in Umbar too, according to Belzagar. He claims it is out of the generosity of their King's heart, but I have traveled in many courts and seen many magnates, and somehow I doubt this King's kindness,"
Outside, they heard a clash of metal against metal. In the distance, two soldiers were swaggering swords and bucklers together, and men were laughing and cheering them on.
Daenerys spoke at last, "In Pentos, Illyrio wanted to place my brother on the Iron Throne again. He claimed to be a loyalist, though he was no Westerosi. I always feared that he sought to place a crown on my brother's head merely to rule through him. This so-called Great King, I fear his ambitions are the same,"
"To rule Westeros through your brother?" Doreah asked.
"Yes, to put a puppet on the Iron Throne. What I don't understand though is that these Numenoreans, they seem to have great power and force of arms. If rule of Westeros is their ambition, why do they need Viserys? Or me?"
Doreah's eyes flicked past Dany's shoulder. The light of the brazier flickered and gleamed upon the scales of the dragon-eggs, black and green and pale white.
"Do you… Do you think it has something to do with the eggs?" the handmaiden asked slowly.
"My eggs? What would the King of Umbar want with them?" Dany, turning and glancing at them. Illyrio had told her at her wedding that the ages had turned them to stone, despite their beauty and the strange warmth she sometimes felt from within them.
"I can't say Khaleesi, but I just know they mean you ill," replied Doreah, glancing out the tent flap where the noise of swords and bucklers was growing louder and swifter. "Something in their eyes chills my blood,"
They passed through the Khzai, marching swift as a wind through the high and narrow places. They kept to the north bank of the Skahazadhan, now a cold torrent which roared and rushed. The provisions in the baggage train were growing thin, and Daenerys began to see Belzagar's single-minded intent upon bringing his host across the mountains and to the shores of the sea. His courtesies remained, elaborate and princely as ever, but he nary spoke of anything but the sea, and the city of Umbar. Returning to Umbar pressed upon his mind above all other things.
Five days after Doreah shared her fears with Dany, they broke through the mountains and descended out of them into a wide and bare land. The land was red and arid, the hills dotted with gnarled trees and shrubs. The sky above was a clear and vivid blue, cloudless, and the sun beat down oppressively. The host left the mountains behind them and drove west and a little south, stirring up huge clouds of red dust by their hooves and tramping feet.
As they came down out of the hills, Daenerys began to notice something terribly wrong about this bare, dry land. In the distance she saw villages, yet no people. Herds of goats bleated without their goatherds. Yet no one was to be seen, large or small, near or far. Soon, however, she wished she didn't know where the people had gone. For at every tree at every crossroad they passed, people were hung. Men, women, children, babes barely out of their mother's arms, hung from the neck by ropes from every branch and knot. They swayed in the breeze, their faces cold and dreadful to look upon. At every tree, the Adunaim chattered in their own tongue and laughed as if remembering past joys. Dany kept her eyes forward and tried not to look at the faces, but unable to tear her mind away from them. They passed hundreds of such trees of the dead.
Amidst the smells of men and animals that follow every army, suddenly Daenerys caught a whiff of something else. Elusive, barely noticeable, but a definite change in the air. A tang of salt and water that she had not felt since Pentos. She could smell the sea.
The faces of the Numenoreans grew eager, and they pressed the pace on with greater speed. Their horses grew agitated, snorting and neighing as if they sensed their riders' excitement. Then in a roll of hooves, Belzagar and his whole retinue broke from the column and galloped away in a cloud of dust, disappearing over a low ridge before them. He was followed by more Adunaim, in ones and twos and small groups. The Ghiscari led the other vassals up the road that crossed the ridge, eyes down, following as obedient dogs follow their master. From her cart, Daenerys heard many Numenorean voices raise to the skies, chanting a single word.
"Azra! Azra! Azra!"
As her cart crested the ridge, Dany saw the sea beneath her, gleaming and fair, and she heard the music of the waves hissing against the distant shore. Then she saw the ships. The masts of the ships were as the Forest of Qohor, and they stretched as far she could see. There were ships of every size and description, beyond count. They seemed numberless as the stars of the sky or the sands of the desert. She saw light galleys, slim and deadly, bronze-prowed. She saw heavy galleasses and dromunds of great length and draught and many oars. There were tall cogs and hulks and carracks, heavy-timbered and bluff-bowed, towering above the lesser ships. Yet every ship, no matter what size or type, carried black sails.
Dany's gaze traveled inland from the vast fleet, and she saw there the city of Meereen stretched beneath her, proudest and strongest of the Slaver-cities. The city was besieged. Fires burned within her walls, and she was ringed with foes on all sides. Meereen was surrounded with a ring of armed camps, and trenches jutting at strange, sharp angles formed a continuous circle around her. The pyramids of Meereen stood amidst clouds of dark, billowing smoke, shrouding their ancient peaks. Her many-coloured walls were darkened by smoke-stains. The gates were smashed open and lay ajar.
For the first time in her life, Daenerys heard the most unmistakable and terrible sound in all the warring of men: The chorus of screams, the endless sounds of terror, pain and suffering that rises with a sacked city. Meereen was falling.
All this, Dany saw in a single instant. Without a word being said, she knew it was the work of Umbar. The skies themselves were darkened by the burning of the city, and the smoke clouding round the pyramids was lit from beneath with an eerie red glow of fierce fires.
The host of Belzagar streamed down the hills in serried companies, row on row, banners flying, with the Adunaim leading. Surrounded by the knights, Daenerys's cart was brought with them in the van. The Numenoreans were still crying out in many fair voices.
"Azra! Azra!"
The cart-driver was a man of Umbar, with a thick blond beard and long, thick limbs. He had driven the horses of Dany's wain for miles and miles and spoken nary a word to her or her handmaidens riding on the benches behind him. Now he glanced over his shoulder at his cargo.
"The Sea," he said gruffly. "They are calling the name of the Sea in our tongue,"
Belzagar led them to the largest of the siege camps, a vast town of canvas tents and pavilions of many colours and shapes. It was surrounded by a deep ditch, and a high palisade of sharpened stakes, and above its wooden gate fluttered the banner of Umbar: Half crimson red, half deep blue, with a golden star in the middle. The gate was flung open for them, and they passed inside. The tents stretched in long, straight, orderly rows on either side of the main road.
Above the gates of the camp, two stakes were set, with boards nailed to them to form a cross. Daenerys saw two men strung up upon these crosses, nails through their hands and feet, harsh thongs of leather round their wrists and ankles. The men were dressed in robes of fine silk, stained by dried blood, and upon their brows they wore crowns of heavy gold. Huge gashes had been torn in their bodies, and their rips were splayed open, flies buzzing in their exposed innards. Their faces were contorted horribly, as if they still screamed even in death. The sight was enough to chill Dany's blood, and even as she tore her eyes away she could still see it in her mind.
All around them, the besiegers watched the newcomers march into their camp. There was Numenoreans there, fair-haired and sharp-eyed, and amongst them more Ghiscari legionnaires, leaning upon shields and pikes. Dany saw many strange emblems and heraldry on the banners that flew everywhere, the standards of distant tribes and nations: A black raven on the wing, a she-wolf suckling twin children, a legged serpent roaring at a red sun, a golden sun bursting on a field of purple. There was another device too, that stared at Dany wherever she looked: A pure black field, bearing upon a single, lidless, red eye.
There were men and weapons of every shape and every kind in the camp, and they muttered in languages unlike any she had heard before. The camp was silent but for the marching of Belzagar's host filing in, and the rumble of their wains.
The soldiers' faces were hard and drawn, and their eyes had a hollow stare in them. They were smoke-stained, and splattered with mud and what looked like dried blood. Their knuckles were white upon pike-shafts and sword hilts. Men looked at Dany and her handmaidens and licked their lips, their hard eyes staring right through her. The whole camp seemed to have stopped its business to watch the newcomers.
Captain Belzagar reined his horse in at the central square of the camp, a huge space of hard-trampled dirt. The army continued to file past him, but Dany's cart was drawn up behind the Captain's bodyguards. She heard Belzagar speaking to a Numenorean in burnished armour and purple cloak on foot, who was obviously a man of some station. They exchanged words in their harsh, guttural tongue, and then Daenerys saw Belzagar's face suddenly twist in anger.
A dust cloud was moving swiftly on the plain between the camp and the burning siege. Drawing closer, it became a small band of horsemen at a hard gallop. Above their heads flew the golden star of Umbar. As the gates were opened for the riders, a cry went up within the camp, and soon the air was roaring with voices.
Where once the soldiers were silent and morose, now they cheered, cheered, cheered wildly. Helmets were tossed into the air, pikes and halberds were shaken, swords and ax-handles were beaten against shields, feet stamped the ground, and Daenerys felt in her stomach the roar of thirty thousand men shouting aloud a single name.
"IMRAZOR! IMRAZOR! IMRAZOR!"
Daenerys watched the horsemen ride towards her. At their forefront went a man, a prince taller and broader of shoulder than the others, and he was mounted on a black stallion taller and more powerfully built than any Dany had ever seen, yet the beast went as calmly as the meekest mare for its rider. The prince wore mail of black rings beneath the brightly burnished plates of his harness, and his helm was high-crested and adorned with feathers, but his features were concealed beneath a mask. The mask was of silver and steel, and its face sneered with an expression of contempt and cold command. His cloak was long and purple, streaming down his horse's haunches.
"IMRAZOR! IMRAZOR! IMRAZOR!"
On every side, the soldiers chanted, roaring the name endlessly, and they shook their banners in the air. They cast the harpy standards of Meereen to the ground before him, and he trod them into the dust.
"IMRAZOR! IMRAZOR! IMRAZOR!"
The riders halted in the square, and Dany saw that these too were men of Umbar, but unlike the proud princelings that rode with Belzagar, these men bore scars of battle upon their harnesses, and their faces too had the hollow, distant, piercing stare of their soldiers. They too were stained with smoke and blood. They were fresh from the city.
"IMRAZOR! IMRAZOR! IMRAZOR!"
The great captain held in his hand a mace, golden and red in colour, and he raised it above his head. The voices of the soldiers cheered longest and loudest as he did, but when the mace was lowered silence fell, sudden and complete.
Belzagar's face had been composed to his usual noble serenity, and he swung down out of his saddle smoothly. His own men and the soldiers of the camp watched his every move, thousands of faces and eyes following him. Before the great man, Belzagar bowed his head and then went down on one knee and laid his sword and mace on the ground before him.
"Hail, my Lord Imrazor son of Ibal!" Belzagar shouted in a voice loud enough for all to hear.
The man stayed in the saddle, and he reached up and removed his mask and helm. Imrazor son of Ibal's face was pale and stern, clean-shaven but marked here and there with old scars, and his gold-bronze hair was cropped short. His eyes were a pale blue, and as they gazed at Belzagar Dany thought they looked strangely sad.
"Hail Belzagar son of Aglahad," Imrazor said in a soft voice. He too dismounted, and beckoned Belzagar to stand. The great captain took his servant by the shoulder and they walked together towards Daenerys.
Every moment since Drogo had fallen and the khalasar had shattered, Dany had felt fear. She had walked as if in a nightmare. She feared for herself, for her son, for her brother, even for her handmaidens. Now as Imrazor and Belzagar approached her, she felt the fear fall away, replaced only a calmness. She could feel the eyes of the soldiers upon her, she could smell the burning city and hear its screams in the distance, but all she felt was a calm emptiness inside. She stood up to meet the captains of Umbar on her feet.
"Belzagar, it appears your little errand was a success," said Imrazor, crossing his hands behind his back and looking up at Dany.
"Yes my lord, we met the barbarians in the field and put them to flight, breaking the power of the proud Drogo such that the very name of Umbar shall be the terror of the Dothraki Sea!" Belzagar said, voice a proud boast.
Imrazor's lips curved in half a faint smile, "A deed worthy of your fathers,"
Dany did not miss the flash of anger in Belzagar's eyes, but she ignored it and her voice broke in between them: "I am Daenerys of House Targaryen, daughter of Aerys"
Imrazor bowed his head. "It is an honour, my Princess. I am Imrazor son of Ibal, High Captain of the King's Ships,"
With his own hand, Imrazor helped Dany and her handmaidens down from the cart.
"I am told, my Princess, that you were a captive of the horse tribes," said Imrazor as he set her down. He was the tallest man Dany had ever seen. He went on, "I am told you carved yourself out a place at their king's side,"
Despite herself, Dany couldn't help but smile at memories of better times, a fairer place, where she was a queen and not a captive. "Yes, I was the Khaleesi of Drogo, greatest of the Dothraki khals,"
"A high and valiant chieftain, if what men say is true," said Imrazor.
"The tales do not tell half the truth," replied Dany. She found herself remembering Drogo's gentle words, his touch, and then she saw in her mind him falling into the dirt with shorn braid once again, and her throat tightened. It was hard to breathe. She forced the feeling down and composed her face into the mask of Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of the Eight Kingdoms.
Imrazor's eyes were melancholy, but still they had a knowing and piercing look of a Numenorean in them.
"I am certain your journey has wearied you my Princess. Rest and put your mind at ease this night, you are my own guest in my camp," the High Captain said, bowing his head once more.
Meereen burned long and fierce, and it lit up the night sky with a red, angry glow. Through the drifting smoke, the great harpy atop the tallest pyramid was occasionally glimpsed, flashing bright from the flames below. The sounds that carried from the city to the camp of Imrazor were awful to the ears, and though she tried her hardest Dany could not ignore them.
Imrazor's pavilion was largest of all the tents of the siege camp, yet its inside was sparse and simply furnished. Just as Belzagar had done, Imrazor feasted his lieutenants that night, and Daenerys sat upon his right hand. The silent Captain of the Ships filled her goblet himself, and carved her meat for her, and ensured she and her handmaidens had the choicest portions of each dish set before them. Then Imrazor began to call forth his men:
"Horatius!" Imrazor called out, filling the tent with his powerful voice. Cheers and applause went up from the seated officers, and men banged their fists on tables. A man arose, bronze of skin with a bowl of black hair upon his head. A long dagger was thrust through his belt, and in black thread the image of twin children suckled by a wolf was borne upon his doublet. This Horatius bowed before the Captain of Umbar. Imrazor rose from his seat and clapped a hand upon Horatius's shoulder, clasping his hand forearm to forearm.
"I am told you led the escalade that first raised our banners upon the towers of Meereen this day," said Imrazor. Horatius smiled and muttered something in a tongue unknown to Dany.
"Nothing so befits the warrior as humility, but my friend valour such as yours is worthy of men's songs," As he spoke, Imrazor pressed a heavy arm-ring of silver chased with gold into Horatius's hand. The lieutenant bowed before his Captain and returned to his seat.
Imrazor spoke again: "Georg! Come forth Georg!"
The man who stood up to the cheers of his comrades was one of the strangest dressed Dany had ever seen. His doublet was tight across his chest, the arms puffed and covered with slash marks here and there, and all of it a dizzying, eye-sore myriad of particolour: Red, black, yellow. His hose were tight below the knee, yet became huge baggy pantaloons above. His blond beard was braided and forked, and his moustaches waxed into sharp upturned points. The soldier bowed low from the waist.
"The gates of Meereen might never have been opened to us had it not been for you and your men, the Great King surely is in your debt," Imrazor said, clasping his forearm with one hand and with the other giving him a heavy ring of red-gold with a fiery ruby set in its band.
Long into the deepening night, Imrazor honoured his captains and lieutenants, and to each officer had had a ring, or a crown, or a length of silver chain, and to each he had words of praise. There was no whispering in the corners of Imrazor's tent, here all men cheered each other's successes, and all men drank each other's honour in their cups. The only music of the feast were the distant cries of the Meereenese.
"Belzagar! Aglahad's son!" Imrazor said at last, beckoning for Belzagar to come and sit at his left hand. Belzagar, dressed in finery fit for a king, bowed low to Imrazor, who wore only a tunic of plain white over woolen trousers. Daenerys did not miss the flash of discontent behind Belzagar's mask of deference.
Belzagar said, "I am at your service, great Imrazor, Captain of Ships and Hosts,"
"Speak plainly Belzagar, this is not the Great King's court," said Imrazor. He gave to Belzagar a slim circlet of white gold, with a white stone set upon its brow. "This shall not be the first award your service shall merit, I deem,"
The lesser captain narrowed his eyes. "The praise of the Great King shall be all the award a servant needs,"
"I hope that day shall come soon, but alas your prowess is needed here yet," said Imrazor. From within his tunic he brought forth a piece of parchment, folded neatly, with a broken wax seal upon it.
"My orders were to bring the Princess to her brother's side in Umbar," Belzagar replied.
Imrazor's voice was regretful. "An errand-galley came from Umbar whilst our siege lay here. I have been recalled to the City,"
Daenerys saw Belzagar tighten his fist upon the table, but his face remained unchanged. "The Princess shall have the pleasure of traveling upon your ship then,"
"Yes, though I confess an old soldier makes for poor company!" Imrazor laughed, turning towards Daenerys.
"And what is to be my duties?" asked Belzagar.
"Meereen has fallen. She and all our new provinces must be governed, the unruly wills of her people must be brought to heel, a task which falls to you," said the High Captain.
"I am honoured above my station," said Belzagar. His words were affable, but his nostrils flared.
"You are honoured in accordance with your skill, my friend," said Imrazor warmly, clapping Belzagar on the back. "Truth told, I am loath to leave this task undone, or for another to finish, but the Great King has called and I answer,"
Belzagar had the eyes of a hunting hawk as he stared at the High Captain. "Send my regards to the Court, and tell the Great King that in this and in all things I remain his most loyal servant. With Melkor's aid, I pray my strength proves equal to lordship,"
The dawn rose over a Meereen that still smoked and stank of death. From the forecastle of Imrazor's ship Huan, a huge carrack that towered like a castle upon the waves, Daenerys looked back at the shore as it slipped away. Heedless of death and the wars of men, seabirds were crying their mournful songs. The Numenoreans, agile in the rigging as fish in the water, were smoothly and swiftly lowering the vast black sails of Huan. The ship had three masts that stood tall as the tallest trees, and their sails were like a patch of midnight against the light blue sky of the morning. Far, far above the heads of Dany and the crew, the golden star of Umbar looked down, and next to it upon a field of black was the lidless red eye. She felt its gaze follow her, though it was nothing but dyed cloth.
The anchors splashed and broke the surface whilst the mariners tacked their sails to catch the breeze. Passing through and brooding above the lesser galleys and cogs, the Huan turned her head and came away, slowly gathering speed as she went. The Numenorean sailors sang in their strange tongue as they worked aboard their ship, and their voices were fair and light-hearted. Meereen sent a pillar of smoke and ashes high up into the sky, as if the whole city was a funeral pyre.
Daenerys glanced back up the deck. Imrazor was standing at the aftcastle, purple cloak billowing about him. He was watching her, or perhaps looking past her to Meereen and the camps of his armies, and his eyes were pensive.
She looked back to the shore, farther and farther away with each passing moment. She had found a life amongst the Dothraki, a home of a sort. All her life, she had been a prisoner. A prisoner of her brother, of men like Illyrio, of fear. The Dothraki had let her feel freedom, power even. She knew what her place was at Drogo's side, and knew that when he was gone she would have a place of dignity and honour in Vaes Dothrak amongst the dosh khaleen. One day had robbed her of it all. That life seemed to be retreating behind her just as the shore did. The chains were closing in, tighter and harder.
Her hand brushed against the bulge of her stomach, and she felt a fierce kick from within.
Rhaego, she thought. The Stallion That Mounts The World. One day, the Great King of Umbar will kneel to you. One day you will avenge your father. One day Umbar will burn.
Daenerys grasped the gunnel as a large wave made the deck pitch and roll. It had been many years since she had been aboard a ship, and never a ship as large as this.
Somewhere over the measureless miles of the sea, Umbar was waiting. The Great King was waiting. Her brother was waiting.