The thick fog of early morning, like sticky milk, wrapped tightly around the camp of the Meereen coalition forces.
The sound of quarreling pierced through the false tranquility.
"I'll say it again! The command must be given to me! The Zack family's guards are the most elite!"
A great lord, his body swollen with fat, jabbed a trembling finger almost into the nose of the man opposite him.
"Bullshit! Your guards can't even lift a woman's skirt! If it weren't for my men blocking that pack of wild dogs last night, your tent would have been torn down long ago!"
The thinner nobleman showed no sign of weakness, his hand already gripping the hilt of his sword.
Behind them, their respective guards stood tense, hands on weapons, eyes sharp. The air itself seemed ready to ignite.
This so-called "coalition army," composed of over a dozen noble families from Meereen, had been consumed by infighting for an entire day—bickering over who would take command—though they were still half a day's march from the Kaiser Pass.
In name, they came to support Yamaguchi. In truth, each lord pursued his own ambition, unwilling to risk his troops for another's gain.
The camp was chaos incarnate.
Gorgeous silk tents stood pressed together like a pile of colorful refuse.
Over ten thousand conscripted slave soldiers chewed numbly on hard black bread, their dull eyes staring into nothing, unmoved by their masters' shouting. They had long grown used to such scenes.
There were no patrols. No sentries.
The entire camp was a giant, undefended target.
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A thin black line appeared on the horizon.
The fog seemed to recoil, pushed back by an invisible hand.
The black line grew thicker, swelling in moments until it spread like a living tide.
It was silent. A dark wave rolling forward.
At its head rode Dhaka. Behind him, three thousand vanguard riders of the Dragon's Minions moved as one—like a butcher's blade drawn from its sheath.
They did not shout. They did not roar.
Only the dull, rhythmic pounding of hooves echoed across the damp grass.
At first, the sound was lost in the wind and the disarray of the camp. Then, like a heartbeat growing closer, it became impossible to ignore.
A slave soldier, relieving himself near a tent, looked up in confusion.
"E–enemy… enemy attack!"
His distorted scream tore through the dawn. He didn't even have time to pull up his pants before panic erupted like fire in dry grass.
The camp exploded into chaos.
Screams, frantic shouts, trampling feet—panic devoured the orderless mass.
The nobles, once proud and bickering, now stood pale and helpless.
Through the noise, Dhaka rode forward. His copper-brown face was expressionless, his gaze fixed on the heart of the enemy camp—the largest, most extravagant cluster of tents.
In his mind, his khal's command echoed clearly:
> "Break through the center. Kill the general."
"The Kaa is watching us."
Dhaka's voice cut through the wind like steel.
"Let him see how the garbage is cleared."
He spurred his horse. It reared and thundered ahead.
The centurions behind him followed without hesitation, their formation tight, their blades gleaming like black lightning.
They ignored the terrified slaves scattering to either side.
They had only one goal—
The enemy's heart.
"Stop them! Stop them now!"
The nobles' earlier bravado vanished. Faces pale, they barked futile orders as their personal guards—clad in bright bronze and armed with spears—rushed to form a shaky defense line between the tents.
They were indeed elite by Meereen standards.
But against the full charge of the Dothraki iron horde, this "elite" was made of paper.
Boom!
The black torrent smashed into the spear line.
Shafts splintered.
Bronze armor was torn apart by the curved arakhs, as easily as wet cloth.
Flesh and blood filled the air. Screams were drowned by the pounding of hooves.
The line broke instantly.
"My horse! Where's my horse!?"
The fattest lord—the patriarch of the Zack family—shrieked as he struggled to mount his steed.
His body, bloated and trembling, failed him again and again. He couldn't find the stirrups.
Despair filled his eyes.
Then he saw them—two almond-shaped eyes, cold and unfeeling, fixed upon him.
Dhaka's eyes.
A silver arc flashed through the air.
Whoosh.
A head flew skyward, spinning.
The eyes, wide with disbelief, still gleamed with the last trace of life before crashing to the ground.
Dhaka raised his arm and caught the severed head by the hair.
He lifted it high.
Amid the chaos, all sound seemed to vanish.
Every pair of eyes—noble, slave, soldier—was drawn to that grisly trophy.
The noble guards froze.
The slave soldiers stopped running.
The loudest, richest lord of Meereen was dead.
No banner had fallen, yet this sight struck harder than any defeat in battle.
In a heartbeat, command dissolved.
"Run!"
Someone shouted, and the fragile dam broke.
The slave soldiers threw down their weapons and scattered like ants, fleeing in every direction.
Why should we die for them?
They had been dragged here, whipped and chained to serve their masters' pride. Now they were free—if only by terror.
The noble guards fought desperately, surrounded and overwhelmed by the black tide.
One by one, they were cut down.
The battle, which had seemed balanced by numbers, turned utterly one-sided in less than half an hour.
The Dragon's Minions showed no mercy and no chaos.
They fought in tight squads of ten, weaving between the fleeing masses, killing with terrifying precision.
No unnecessary shouting.
No looting.
Only the cold rhythm of slaughter.
Their coordination was unnatural—too disciplined for Dothraki.
The ground was slick with blood and trampled bodies when the sun finally tore through the fog, spilling gold across the grasslands.
The massacre was over.
"Stop the pursuit!" Dhaka's order rang across the battlefield.
At once, the riders halted, reined in their horses, and turned back in formation.
Any scholar familiar with Dothraki customs would have been stunned by such obedience.
In the center of the ruined camp, a vast clearing had been made.
Ten thousand surviving slave soldiers and a dozen noble lords knelt trembling on the blood-soaked earth, stripped of their armor and pride.
The stench of blood and sweat hung heavy in the air.
Dhaka sat atop his horse, looking down with expressionless eyes.
Blood dripped slowly from his arakh, staining the grass beneath in dark blossoms.
He did not even glance at the captives.
Instead, he looked to the horizon.
There, a darker shape moved across the land—an army greater and more terrible than his own, rolling forward like a living storm.
The Kaa's army had arrived.
What would become of these slaves and trembling nobles?
Would they be sold, scattered to the ends of the world?
Or… become the first stones laid in the foundation of a new empire?
Dhaka didn't know.
He was waiting—
Waiting for his Kaa to deliver the next command.
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