GOT: The Great Khal — Chapter 150 - Building Fortresses, Garrisoning the Land

The breach in Vyrwel's walls, torn open by dragonflame, still hadn't been patched. Drogo stood on the hillside outside the city and looked north.

Wind came in from the south, carrying grit from the Dornish desert. It stung his face like sandpaper.

Cohollo came riding back from the north at a gallop, his horse striking sparks off the gravel. He swung down from the saddle, and the copper bells at the end of his braid clattered and settled.

"Khal," he said in Dothraki, "Griffin's Roost and Crow's Nest have been fully dismantled. Mistwood, Rain House, and Stonehelm are still being torn down. Not enough prisoners — it's going slow."

Drogo said nothing. He kept his eyes on the north and ran the numbers in his head.

After taking Vyrwel, the entire Stormlands, except for that small patch of the Dornish Marches, now flew the black-dragon-on-red banner.

From Griffin's Roost at the northernmost tip of Cape Wrath all the way down to Vyrwel in the south. Hundreds of miles of coastline. Six major castles. A dozen minor holdfasts and watchtowers.

He'd taken all of it in a single month. Satisfying. But the problems had followed right behind.

His forces were stretched too thin.

Thirty thousand men to start: ten thousand Dothraki cavalry, twenty thousand Free Army. Every city taken meant men left behind to hold it.

Griffin's Roost, a thousand men to tear it down. Crow's Nest, fifteen hundred. Stonehelm, three thousand. Mistwood, five hundred. Rain House, two thousand.

Now Vyrwel needed a garrison too.

Men to oversee the dismantling. Men to mop up scattered remnants. His forces were spreading thinner with every mile.

The Dothraki cavalry had barely been touched, but nearly half the Free Army was already scattered across the territory.

And the resistance never stopped.

The lords had been beaten, but their remnants had melted into the rainwood and the mountains. They came out sporadically, ambushing supply trains, cutting down isolated soldiers. Every new territory occupied demanded more troops to hold it. At this rate, by the time he reached the Reach, he'd have nothing left.

"Khal," Cohollo said. "The Stormlanders in the south — they won't sign up with us."

He meant the conscription.

Days earlier, Drogo had ordered a levy across the southern Stormlands. Laborers to haul grain, repair weapons, maintain order. The Free Army needed replacements. The logistics needed hands. But after several days, barely anyone had come forward.

"How many showed up?" Drogo asked.

"Thirty-seven. Every one of them came for the coin."

Thirty-seven. He needed 3,700.

Drogo was quiet for a moment.

The Stormlanders had their pride. For centuries, these coastal lords and their vassals had called themselves descendants of the Storm Kings. The Storm Kings were long dead, but that didn't matter. They still refused to serve a foreign conqueror.

It wasn't about money. It was bone-deep stubbornness.

He felt a flicker of regret about tearing down those castles.

If they still stood, he could have garrisoned soldiers inside them, used the strongholds to keep watch over the surrounding countryside. A castle wasn't just a lord's residence, it was the nerve center of a region.

But the castles were gone. Dismantled one by one, the stones thrown into the sea. No getting them back.

He turned it over in his mind, and decided it wasn't such a loss after all.

Castles were built for lords. Towers, great halls, grand bedchambers, audience chambers, none of it was worth much for quartering troops or fighting wars. A castle could hold a few hundred soldiers at most. The rest would have to camp outside the walls anyway.

"Pass the order," he said to Cohollo. "Any castle not yet fully dismantled — stop. The ones already torn down, retrieve the stone."

Cohollo paused. "Retrieve it? How do you retrieve stone that's been thrown into the sea?"

"Then dredge it up," Drogo said. "What can't be dredged, quarry fresh stone from the mountains. There's plenty of limestone up there. Put the prisoners to work."

He turned and walked back into Vyrwel. The iron gate, scorched by dragonflame, still hadn't been replaced. It hung crookedly on its hinges.

He entered the hall and sent for the Free Army's commanders.

A sheet of paper lay on the table. He picked up a charcoal stick and drew a square, then added a few horizontal and vertical lines inside it, a walled compound with internal divisions.

The commanders gathered around, staring at the drawing, exchanging glances. An older veteran spoke up. "Khal, is this a new kind of castle?"

"It's not a castle." Drogo tossed the charcoal onto the table. It landed with a sharp CRACK. "It's a barracks."

He pointed at the diagram and walked them through it. "Four outer walls. Each wall thick enough to walk men along the top. Arrow towers at all four corners."

He drew a small square at the center of each wall. "Four walls, four gates. A watchtower above each gate."

His finger moved to the interior.

"Left half: grain and fodder storage. Wooden warehouses. Grain and fodder kept separate, with a mud-brick wall between them. If a fire starts, one side burns and the other survives."

His finger kept moving. "Right half is the drill ground. Assembly before dawn every morning. Roll call. Training."

He pointed to the long open spaces running along either side of the interior. "Build rows of wooden barracks here. No stone, stone is slow. Wood is fast. One row, a hundred rooms. Ten soldiers to a room. A fort like this holds at least three thousand men. Pack them in, five thousand."

The commanders looked at one another. The bewilderment on their faces was giving way to something else, calculation.

Drogo rolled up the paper and handed it to the older commander.

"You stay. Take twenty thousand Free Army soldiers. Once it's built, your men move in, garrison, patrol, hunt down the remnants. The southern Stormlands are yours to handle. Any village that won't fall in line, deal with it. Any lord's spawn that rears his head, cut it off."

The veteran took the parchment. He opened his mouth, started to say something, then closed it and nodded once, heavily. "As you command."

Drogo walked out of the hall.

Cohollo followed close behind, voice low. "All twenty thousand stay? Then what do we bring to Summerhall?"

"Cavalry is enough," Drogo said. "Over ten thousand Dothraki riders. Once we cross the mountains, there'll be more fighting in the Reach. Infantry moves too slow. We're not taking them."

Cohollo said nothing more.

Drogo mounted Drogon. The dragon's wings beat down hard, kicking up a spray of sand and loose stone. Rhaegal and Viserion fell in behind, and the three of them climbed northeast into the sky.

Below, ten thousand Dothraki riders were already running at full gallop.

The Boneway wound through the folds of the Red Mountains.

From dragonback, Drogo looked down at the pass, narrow as a rope, threading through gray-black rock and withered scrub, appearing and vanishing, stretching all the way to the far side of the range.

2, maybe 3 riders abreast. Slow going.

The Dothraki had already begun filing in. Two by two, they funneled into the pass, the column pulling into a long thin line through the valley. The vanguard had already disappeared into the mountain shadows. The rear guard still waited on the hillside outside Vyrwel.

Drogo patted Drogon's neck. The dragon let out a low rumble and pushed northeast, faster.

Summerhall lay at the end of the Boneway. Jaeqo was there, surrounded, and he'd been holding on for a while now. Drogo didn't know what the situation looked like on the other side of those mountains.

But he knew he had to get there fast.

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