GOT: The Great — Chapter 225 - The Alliance at the Stepstones

Drogo sat opposite the Archon of Tyrosh. He lifted his goblet, took a sip, and set it back down. The base clinked against the wooden table, soft and light.

His mind was somewhere else entirely.

I am a Dothraki khal. From the Dothraki Sea to Slaver's Bay, I have always been the one doing the taking.

I have conquered cities across the world. Traded a single dragon for eight thousand Unsullied at Astapor. Nailed the Great Masters to their crosses in Meereen.

No one has ever dared reach into my pouch and pull out a single copper. No one.

And now this fat man, half his hair green, half blue — sits buried in a pile of dyed tapestries, perched on top of one shipping lane, and thinks he can fleece me like some mark off the road.

He collected tolls. Failed to protect my fleet. And now he wants me to cover his losses.

Wants me to pay him.

Drogo's fingers tightened around the goblet.

He wanted to burn the fat man alive.

Drogon was lying in the clearing just outside the harbor. All he had to do was walk to the window and whistle. the Black Dragon would lift off the ground, and one long breath of dragonfire would pour straight into this palace hung with purple tapestries.

The Archon wouldn't even have time to scream. He'd melt together with his three rings and run down into the floor tiles as a puddle of iron.

Or skip the dragon entirely. The knife on the table — the one for cutting lamb chops — would do fine. Blade was a little dull, but more than enough to punch through a merchant's throat.

Drogo didn't move. He sat in his chair, raised the goblet, and took another sip.

The Dornish were still on the Stepstones. His supply line was still cut.

Turning the whole board upside down over one fat man. Not worth it. Those three words ran circles in his head, like a rope knotted around his right hand.

The thing I hate most in this world is holding back.

And now I'm holding back for a merchant with dyed motley hair.

I'll remember this face. When King's Landing falls. When I'm sitting on the Iron Throne. I'll come back in person to collect this debt.

I'm going to boil this fat man alive.

Drogo loosened his fingers and set the goblet down on the table. Half the wine still left, a dark red film clinging to the inside of the cup.

"Deal," he said.

He stood, didn't spare the Archon a second glance, turned, and walked out of the palace.

He crossed through the streets of Tyrosh. People saw him coming and pressed to either side.

Drogon lay in the clearing just outside the harbor, wings folded against his sides, chin resting on a rock.

Drogo spent the night on the open ground between the three dragons.

The longer he lay there, the angrier he got. The Archon of Tyrosh had him figured for desperate, and the man couldn't even be bothered to offer a room. Fine. Once the Seven Kingdoms were ash, Tyrosh would be the first place he came back to.

At dawn, 2 warships weighed anchor from Tyrosh's harbor.

The holes the Dornish rams had punched through their hulls were patched, the new planks lighter than the old ones. From a distance they looked like clothing sewn up with mismatched fabric.

The burned-out sections of the gunwales had been torn out and replaced, and the fresh wood glowed pale yellow in the morning light.

The sails went up. Black canvas, flaming skulls painted across the cloth.

Drogo rode Drogon above the ships.

Rhaegal and Viserion flew on either flank, wings spread wide, their wingtips almost brushing the surface of the sea.

Tyrosh shrank behind them. The harbor dense with masts, the docks full of people with hair dyed every color imaginable, all of it pulled down to a single gray-white point, then disappeared over the horizon.

Ahead lay the Stepstones. South of Tyrosh, islands began rising from the water.

This was the throat between the Sea of Dorne and the Disputed Lands. Pirates had made their nest here for thousands of years.

A ship appeared on the water ahead.

Alone. Flying a flag of a spear piercing the sun.

A Dornish patrol ship.

The captain saw the dragons, froze for a moment, then spun the wheel.

The hull heeled over, the sails caught the wind, and the ship ran hard toward the Stepstones.

It was fast. Dornish ships were faster than anything out of Slaver's Bay. But not faster than dragons.

Drogo didn't chase it.

His job was to escort the 2 ships through the Stepstones, not run down a patrol vessel.

That ship would carry the news home. The Dornish on the Stepstones would hear that the dragons had come. Good. Let them hear it. The clearer they understood, the better. The dragons are here.

The 2 ships pushed south.

They threaded through the waterways of the Stepstones. The water was pale blue, shallow enough that the reef beneath was visible through the surface.

Sea wind funneled down the channels, carrying salt and brine. The island rocks were gray-brown, battered by waves for thousands of years, riddled with holes.

Waves surged into the holes and sprayed back out with a low, hollow sound.

Past the narrowest stretch, the sea opened up.

Ahead lay the Disputed Lands. A green coastline pulled itself out of the sea mist.

The 2 ships continued east. Drogo watched them go until the wake behind their sterns thinned to nothing and dissolved into the horizon.

He turned Drogon's head and flew back.

When he returned to Tyrosh, the docks had filled with dozens more warships.

From Myr and Pentos.

The Dornish blockade of the Stepstones had not only cut Drogo's supply line.

Myrish merchant ships trying to reach Slaver's Bay for slaves had been stopped by the Dornish. Pentoshi spice ships bound for Qarth had been stopped too.

Both Free Cities had been swallowing that fury for a long time.

When word reached them that Tyrosh was joining forces with Drogo to hit the Stepstones, they had sent warships immediately.

The docks were packed.

Tyroshi merchants unloaded cargo on one side. Myrish sailors patched hulls on another. A Pentoshi captain stood at the edge of the dock with a sea chart in his hand, shouting at a Tyroshi port official, his ship's mast had been burned by the Dornish in the Stepstones, and Tyrosh owed him for it, because the Dornish fleet had come out of these very waters right under Tyrosh's watch.

The port official spread his hands. Not his problem.

Drogo crossed the docks and walked toward the Archon's palace.

The Archon was already waiting inside. The envoys from Myr and Pentos were with him.

The Myrish envoy was thin, wearing a gray robe with ink stains on the cuffs.

The Pentoshi envoy was bald, a string of gold chain hanging around his neck.

They sat on opposite sides of the Archon's long table. Sea charts lay spread across it, Dornish fleet positions marked in ink alongside the waterways of the Stepstones.

The Myrish envoy spoke first.

"Myr had 3 merchant ships seized by the Dornish in the Stepstones. They demanded 1,000 gold dragons per ship. We refused. They burned the ships."

"The sailors made it back. The cargo is gone. Our merchants won't sail west anymore. Keep this up and the silk trade is finished."

The Pentoshi envoy picked up from there. "Pentos has it worse. Our spice ships were intercepted twice in the Disputed Lands. Spices taken, ships burned, sailors left on the reefs to die."

"We don't have much of a navy. But we sent 8 warships this time. We're here to settle accounts with the Dornish."

Drogo looked at the two of them. He had what he needed.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Silk or spices, doesn't matter. Their ships sail out of this harbor alongside Tyrosh's ships, and together they deal with the Dornish.

➤ Next: The Horse King Who Fears the Sea