GOT: The Great Khal — Chapter 129 - I Have Heard the Cry of a Dragon

(A full map of the South is included at the end of the chapter.)

The Second Sons, the Stormcrows, and the Brave Companions, three mercenary companies, five thousand men combined, were ordered to support Jorah Mormont's assault on the Crackclaw Peninsula.

Jorah commanded fifteen thousand Dothraki cavalry, thirty thousand Freedmen, and two thousand Unsullied. A formidable force by any measure.

The three companies went in first. Under cover of night they landed along the coast and hit hard. They swept through the fishing villages and inland farmsteads, torching everything in their path. Thick smoke shot skyward, trailing sparks.

Villagers scattered in blind panic. The coastal defense line buckled and broke in the close-quarters fighting.

These were battle-hardened men. They struck without hesitation, and they swept the coastal outposts clean.

Then they pushed inland, linking up with Jorah's main force to encircle Duskendale.

The garrison never had a chance to organize. Fire arrows were already raining down before they could form ranks, and the battering rams hit the gates with a sound like thunder. Street fighting raged until dawn. By morning, Duskendale had changed hands.

Jorah left five hundred Unsullied to hold the city. The main force didn't stop, they turned south immediately, marching hard along the coastline until they stood before the walls of Rosby.

The Freedmen and the mercenary companies carried the siege.

At the main gate, the Freedmen advanced behind a shield wall, suppressing the arrow storm while crossbowmen and archers fired in rotating volleys, keeping the defenders pinned so they couldn't lift their heads.

The three mercenary companies spread wide on the flanks, scaling ladders going up light and fast, probing for any gap they could find.

Ladders hooked onto the battlements. The ram hammered the gates. The defenders fought back hard — boiling oil and rolling stones poured down without stop, but the mercenaries kept coming, and the Freedmen didn't know how to die.

Meanwhile, Tywin Lannister marched north from King's Landing with forty thousand men, intending to break the siege. Jorah had anticipated it. Fifteen thousand Dothraki cavalry were already waiting.

Those riders knew the hills and open fields between Rosby and Duskendale like the backs of their hands. They hit Tywin's marching column from every angle.

They tore at the flanks. They savaged the rear. They punched through the formation and were gone before the dust settled, moving like a gale that had no fixed direction.

Every time the Lannister heavy infantry tried to form up and fight back, the Dothraki scattered, whooping, wheeling away, and regrouped miles down the road to hit a different section of the column.

Tywin sent his own cavalry out to drive them off. Each time, the Dothraki cut them down. The march ground to a halt again and again.

Casualties climbed past ten thousand. He still couldn't shake them. The beacon fires above Rosby burned day and night, visible from the road, and his army was going nowhere.

Rosby fell without anyone to stop it. By the time the banners on the walls changed colors, Tywin's army was still stuck on the road, being bled a little more with every passing hour.

With no hope of reaching Rosby in time, Tywin abandoned the advance. He pulled his forces back and dug in to defend.

Jorah didn't pause. He turned his army straight at Rosby, and within moments his vanguard was already at the gates.

Dark clouds pressed low over the city walls. Banners snapped across the open fields. Then the gates boomed open, and Tywin Lannister rode out alone.

He wore crimson plate. His scarlet cloak billowed in the wind like a flag soaked in blood.

The gates closed behind him. The vast battlefield fell quiet. He sat alone before the walls, cold eyes fixed on Jorah's army.

Jorah spotted him from horseback. He rode out across the stretch of ground between the two armies, rubble and withered grass, dust stirring in the sea wind.

Tens of thousands of men watched in silence as the two figures slowly closed the distance. The air felt like it had stopped moving.

Tywin pulled up twenty paces away.

"You were once my man." His tone carried a flat, unmistakable displeasure. "Why serve that Targaryen girl? Is she worth all this?" He studied Jorah. "I recall that during Robert's Rebellion, House Mormont stood against the Targaryens. All you had to do was kill the girl and you could have gone home."

Jorah sat his brown destrier without expression. He let the silence sit for a moment.

"Do you have faith?" he asked.

Tywin's brow moved slightly. "I have faith in many things. The Seven Gods, intangible as they are. Gold, which is very tangible. And strength — the kind that makes men kneel."

"I mean something that transcends all of that," Jorah said. "Destiny. Do you believe in a fate that was written before you were born?"

"No."

Jorah nodded, as if he'd expected exactly that answer. His gaze drifted past Tywin to the horizon, where there was nothing but gray, low-hanging cloud.

"I didn't either," he said. "Until I watched a girl carry three dragon eggs into a blazing pyre."

Tywin's eyes narrowed.

"When the flames died, I expected to find her charred bones." Jorah brought his gaze back. "Instead, there she was. Daenerys. And Khal Drogo beside her. Both of them unharmed, with hatchling dragons in their arms."

"The Unburnt, Mother of Dragons. Born of fire, Father of Dragons." Jorah paused. "Have you ever heard a newborn dragon cry?"

"No."

"I have." He said it simply. "That was the moment I decided."

Tywin was quiet for a beat. "That doesn't make her a great queen. And the people of the Seven Kingdoms fear the Dothraki. They fear that barbaric Horse Lord."

"Fair enough," Jorah said. "But Khal Drogo's mind is something else. I've watched him reform an army from the ground up. I've watched him build a system of governors across conquered territory. I've watched him develop trade where there was nothing. He is more learned than most men I've known."

The corner of Tywin's mouth pulled down. "The Targaryen madness is well documented. Say the Horse Lord helps her conquer the world. What comes after? A thousand years of peace?"

Jorah looked at him steadily. "Let us conquer the world first. Then we'll discuss what comes after."

"Us." Tywin put weight on the word. A flicker of contempt entered his eyes. "You've given yourself over to her completely." He let that land, then continued. "If your Queen and her Horse Lord knew you once worked for me — do you think the Horse Lord would take your head?"

He paused.

"Perhaps I should tell him you were my informant."

Jorah's face didn't change. No flash of fear, no flinch. His expression stayed exactly where it was.

"He already knows," Jorah said. "Drogo spared my life. He let me keep command of his armies. That is why I have to defeat you today. It's the only way I know how to repay him."

They held each other's gaze for a few seconds.

Tywin said nothing. He turned his horse and rode back through the gates.

The iron doors closed behind him. Jorah watched them shut, held still for a moment, then raised his hand and swept it forward.

The roar that went up beneath the walls of Rosby shook the ground. Arrows darkened the sky.

Jorah's men scaled the walls 3 times. 3 times they were hacked back down. Tywin commanded from the battlements himself, and the stones and boiling oil never stopped coming.

The fighting ground on until dusk. When Jorah finally sounded the retreat, thousands of bodies lay before the walls.

The assault had stalled.

➤ Next: Assault on Storm's End