GOT: The Great Khal — Chapter 133 - The Lord of Light Actually Delivers

Drogo drained the clay bowl, wiped his mouth, and handed it back to the servant. The warmth of the pork kidney and turtle stew rose from his stomach and swept the last trace of fatigue from his face.

"This time I used Xuece Tamad to feed King's Landing a false report," he said. "Let Tywin believe I was going after the Claw Peninsula. He never expected I'd take the Stormlands first."

Wordfall shook his head. "Khal, you've seized Storm's End — not the entire Stormlands. The other castles are either still in Stannis Baratheon's hands or they answer directly to King's Landing. You had the prisoners shipped to Slaver's Bay to be sold as slaves. When those lords find out, they'll fight you to the last man."

"We only shipped the old nobility off as slaves. Most of the common people can still live in peace under my rule." Daenerys glanced at Drogo. "They know that being taken prisoner by Khal Drogo means becoming a slave, so they'd better think carefully about whether they want to keep fighting us.

"Either way, they have no intention of submitting. It doesn't hurt to give them a little more to fear. Maybe a few lords who value their lives will surrender on their own."

Drogo waved a hand, unwilling to get tangled up in the slave question. "Never mind all that. I just want to know, will King's Landing keep trusting Xuece Tamad?"

Wordfall thought for a moment. "As long as we feed them a few more useful pieces of intelligence, King's Landing will keep believing him."

Drogo nodded.

The day after he appointed Wordfall as Director of Intelligence, Wordfall had come to find him.

That night, only a few oil lamps still burned in the top-floor hall of the Great Pyramid of Meereen. Wordfall stepped out of the corridor's shadows and stood before Drogo, his back pulled rigid, his hands hanging at his sides, trembling slightly.

His lips moved several times, as though something were lodged in his throat.

"Khal," he finally said, his voice much lower than usual. "There is something I must tell you."

Drogo leaned back in his chair and did not press him.

Wordfall dropped to one knee. His knee struck the stone floor with a dull thud.

"Xuece Tamad and I were sent by Varys. From the very beginning."

The words left him and something shifted. A stone had been lifted off his chest. His whole body went slack, shoulders dropping, fine beads of sweat breaking out across his forehead.

He knelt there, not daring to raise his head.

"The night you appointed me Director of Intelligence, I didn't sleep. I lay there thinking about whether I should still send word to Varys. I thought about it for a long time."

His voice was a little hoarse. "Varys saved my life. Without him, Xuece Tamad and I would have died in an alley in Myr long ago. All these years, wherever he told us to go, we went. Whoever he told us to watch, we watched. We owe him."

Drogo had issued a public notice calling for talented men from every corner of the world, intending to draw capable people into his service. He hadn't expected Varys to exploit the opening.

Not until Wordfall knelt before him and revealed his identity did it hit him: if this man hadn't come forward on his own, he had no idea how much longer he would have been kept in the dark.

Drogo stared at the man prostrate on the ground and was silent for a moment. "You're not afraid I'll kill you?"

Wordfall raised his head. Cold sweat ran down his forehead, but he steadied his voice. "I am. But being secretly promoted by the Khal and then still skulking around like a rat, I fear that life more. Since the Khal gave me the position of Director of Intelligence, I can no longer be Varys's dog."

Drogo rose, walked to stand before him, and pressed the tip of his blade beneath Wordfall's chin. A gentle lift, and the man raised his head.

"I won't kill you. But you owe me a life. From this day forward, every message you send to Varys passes before my eyes first."

Being a little sparrow was nothing more than being a pair of ears hidden in the shadows, eavesdropping for a eunuch, prying into secrets, never able to live in the light. Varys could give him no title, no standing. If he died out there, there wouldn't even be anyone to collect his body.

But Drogo had given him the position of Director of Intelligence. A real title. He could sit and give orders. He could stand straight when he spoke, instead of crouching in a gutter and whispering.

A sparrow can never become an eagle. But if someone is willing to give him an eagle's nest, what does he still need that broken birdcage for?

Drogo's Director of Intelligence, or Varys's little sparrow. He knew which was which.

"Come. Walk with me to see my new domain," Drogo said.

To the north of Storm's End lay a stretch of burned forest. The blackened trunks stood upright, their branches reaching toward the grey sky like scorched fingers.

The 3 dragons rested here.

Drogon lay sprawled across an open clearing, wings folded, head resting on his front claws.

There was a visible dent in his chest plate — the mark left by a ballista bolt.

During the assault, Drogon had been diving back and forth along the castle wall. The new chest plate was twice as thick as the previous set, and it had made all the difference. The iron bolt struck him with a rush of wind. He lurched sideways in flight, beat his wings twice hard to steady himself, then turned his head and breathed a jet of dragonfire straight through the tower.

Rhaegal crouched beside a charred oak, tilting his head to examine a nest of ash at the base of the roots. Viserion was more restless, raking the scorched earth with his claws, digging out a small pit, then pressing his snout into it and blowing out a gust of hot air.

A former Storm's End servant trailed behind Drogo, head low, nervously skirting around a dragon's tail. "This was originally a grove of weirwood trees," he said quietly. "Before he left for King's Landing, Lord Stannis — no, Stannis, burned this grove as a sacrifice to the Lord of Light."

"He used dark magic to kill Lord Renly, and then killed the acting castellan Cortayne Penrose." He raised his head, shot a quick glance at Drogo's back, then lowered it again. "My lord, in my view, the Lord of Light is no good god. He is a dark god."

Drogo didn't turn around. He stood before Drogon and reached out to touch the dent in the dragon's chest plate, his fingertip tracing a slow circle along the edge of the depression.

"The Seven and the Old Gods are both completely useless," he said. "But the Lord of Light actually delivers."

Daenerys said, "There is also the Great Stallion. He has given you no small number of prophecies."

"The Lord of Light can resurrect people," Drogo said.

Daenerys turned to look at him. "Like Ygritte?"

Drogo shook his head. "Ygritte was a wight. Blue eyes, couldn't speak, no different from a mad dog. Resurrection means coming back to life as yourself. The original you."

"How do you know this?"

"When I was in Volantis, I heard about it. A red priest tried to persuade me to stop believing in the Great Stallion and convert to the Lord of Light instead." He offered the excuse without missing a beat.

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