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What is dead may never die (Chapter 96)
🕑 Added 2023-11-12 14:29:11 +0000 UTCWar of one night
Supreme Commander of the Armies and Allies of Yunkai POV
This must be the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to me. That bitch Daenerys spat at our offer previously. But we knew she would regret it, or we would make it regret it, and now she probably got a hint of what it means to oppose us. Yet, she still didn’t come herself to grovel beneath me and send that savage Ironborn.
Those half-witted fools I have to call fellow Wise Masters would eagerly accept the gifts. But there is a reason why I was Supreme Commander of the Armies and Allies of Yunkai. I, Yurkhaz zo Yunzak, and not anyone else. I have eight thousand Yunkai slave soldiers, three thousand New Ghis Iron legions, five thousand sellswords, and two thousand men from Volantis under my feet.
Did that savage Ironborn think he could come with not even two thousand men and scare me? He probably knew what was coming for him, so he stood before the gates of my great city and begged to accept his offer. He knows that he and his bitch queen can’t stand against our might. They probably got scared after seeing that I could send assassins to care for them.
“Walk straight to good-for-nothing fools!” The forty slaves carrying my palanquin only understood my whip. I had to waste a significant amount of time finding replacements to carry me after I had to give up my previous slaves because we lost to these savages. I will have that Ironborn to carry my palanquin one day, too. “Move faster, you lazy donkeys. Even pigs move faster than you.”
“Supreme Commander,” The soldiers standing guard by the gates knelt before.
“Say it,” I couldn’t waste my precious time with these fools. “What do they want?”
“This one said is called Theon Greyjoy,” One of the soldiers stood up and looked at me. “He wants to speak with our commander.”
“Who told you to lift your worthless head,” These fools didn’t know their place, so I had to cut his face with my whip so he could remember it. “Is he alone?”
“Yes, supreme commander,” Another replied, not daring to look at me. That is how it is supposed to be. If you let one stand against someone like me, the rest will forget their place soon after.
“Open the gates. I will see that savage myself,” I held the most power in this city, so these savages will want to see me.
The gates creaked as they opened, revealing a lone figure and rows of carts with various glimmering metals behind him. I recognize some of the shining jewels. My daughters would love to have them. And so will my wives, especially when I tell them how the savages brought them to me to beg for forgiveness for their rudeness.
The man before me had enough insolence not to kneel before me, so I bared my whip before him, splitting the ground next to his feet. I heard the rumors about him. King Theon Greyjoy, the Undead. I don’t care what those savages call each other. In here, he is nothing but a groveling fool. He only refuses to accept it yet.
“I gather you are the commander of the Yunkai army,” the man said after glancing at the ground where my whip had made a mark.
“You stand before Yurkhaz zo Yunzak, Supreme Commander of the Armies and Allies of Yunkai,” At least one of these fools knew how to introduce me.
“Him?” The savage pointed his insolent finger at me and asked. “Well, it seems that the Yunkish supreme commander looks about as formidable as a loose stool.”
“You dare speak so brutish before me!” My whip cracked the air next to him, but the next thing I knew, he caught it and pulled it away from my hands.
“Listen here, you old fart,” The savage snapped the handle of the whip and threw it on one of the carts filled with gold. “I didn’t come to show you our gifts because we are afraid of your little slave army. Queen Daenerys doesn’t have time to deal with you. We came here to offer you peace because we want to leave for Westeros. So, you take these gifts and let us go. Or we take them back and use every gold coin in this pile to hire as many sellswords as possible and send them to your doorsteps. Now, I will walk off, and when I turn behind that massive wooden dragon we made, you remember us. You only see me if you still wish to wage war against us. If you are scared of a trap, wait for tonight because before the sun sets, you won’t see one of my ships.”
I had to hold onto my seat with both hands to not fall down the palanquin out of anger at that insolent savage’s words. As I was trying to regain my control, the man already left. I wanted to order the soldiers to go and kill these savages now, but looking at the amount of gold and precious metals on these carts, I swallowed my pride.
“Once the ships are gone, I want all of this to be delivered to my Pyramid,” I ordered the men.
“What should we do with that dragon?”
“Take it, and tomorrow, send someone to dismantle it for wood,” I had to spell it all to these fools.
“You want all of it?” One soldier from those ignorant Iron legions from New Ghis dared to ask.
“Watch your mouth. I am your commander. When I say I want every gold coin, I mean every coin, even copper. The precious stones and metals, too, all of it!”
“Then you shall have everything, supreme commander. Every piece of metal will be delivered to you when the Ironborn ships leave our waters.”
Fools, every one of them. He better pray that I don’t remember his face, for I have him stripped of his rank, and he will be lucky to carry my palanquin. I was Supreme Commander for a reason. I will not let them question me so brazenly. And I will show that savage Ironborn, too. I will have him cut into pieces and fed to the pigs.
…
Theon POV
The night fell quickly. Once my ships left the waters of Yunkai, my gifts started to be moved inside the city. Looking through the eyes of my seagull Gully, I saw as the men salivated at the amount of gold they brought through the main gates. But instead of taking it for themselves, they cursed and pulled the carts deeper into the city.
“We are moving,” One of my Greycloaks, Adrik, commented.
“You think the forty of us will be enough?” Bronn asked.
“Did you hear him? Adrik? Nute? Dennys? Donnel? Gran? Gormond?” I asked once I returned to my body, looking at each of my chosen guards. “Are we enough?”
“For these fuckers?” Donnel Drumm asked as he revealed a whole row of teeth in his smile. “We are plenty enough.”
“Good to hear,” I smiled back at him. “Their supreme commander is an old twig that gust of wind could break. You should have seen how much he salivated seeing the gifts I prepared for him.”
“The question is if he cares about the dragon,” Anguy said.
“He does,” I replied. “He will want to show it off. Tell other Wise Masters how I came to beg him to accept this gift. But for now, he will be busy counting the gold coins delivered to him. So, once we are pulled into the city, we will be left alone for the night, and then we will strike. Remember that once we get out of the statue, we must burn it to signal the others. We have an hour for them to come to the gates, so they must be open by then.”
So far, everything has gone according to plan. The dragon might look quite impressive from the outside, but the inside was almost completely empty, with enough room for forty of us to fit. It took the best of the artisans of Meereen to make it in a few days. The Yunkai soldiers didn’t suspect a thing as they pulled us into the city.
While we were pulled in, I motioned for the men to stay silent and warg into the seagull again. I flew above us and watched as the most valuable things were pulled into one of the biggest Pyramids. I observed the pyramid's defenses as it would be our priority target. Once we take the Wise Masters as our hostages, the slave soldiers will easily surrender, and the sellswords won’t have a reason to fight against us.
I quickly returned to the gates, where soldiers shared the wine they had gotten from my gifts. Nobody even noticed it was among the gifts if they drank the wine fast enough. And it was enough wine for a few hundred men to drink. Nobody gave it attention once the dragon statue was settled inside the walls. They focused more on delivering the treasure to the supreme commander and drinking the wine before anyone caught them.
“There are about a hundred and fifty guards around us,” I informed my men. “Most of them will be drunk and fall asleep. We will kill them silently, then set fire to the statue to signal the men waiting in the birchwoods and distract the rest of the soldiers. Then we move on to the gates. From what I could see, no more than two hundred men guarding it.”
“Two hundred?” Thoros asked, a bit concerned.
“Fifty of them are archers on the wall, fifty are by the gates, and the last hundred are patrolling around the vicinity,” I explained. “With the fire, at least half of them will rush to this place. By the time they discover the bodies and raise an alarm, we will have the gates opened. Then we must guard it until the rest of our men arrive.”
“There thousands of them,” Bronn said. “Even if all our men arrived on time, there will be no more than one and half thousand of us. Will we be enough to take down the city?”
“Most men are spread through the city,” I replied. “Before they arrive at the scene, we will storm the Pyramids. And even then, nobody will know what is happening. Without their commander, the soldiers would be unable to do anything. And how many of them will be awake and prepared for a fight?”
“We rush in and take control of the city before anyone is any wiser,” Donnel Drumm agreed.
“And don’t worry, where do you think my ships are going?” I asked. “They will bring more men from Meereen, and by tomorrow, a thousand men from Astapor will join us to help us to hold the city.”
“This plan is one crazy one,” Anguy said. “If it works, what next? Volantis? Lys? Tyrosh?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I replied. “This plan will only work once. No way anyone will be stupid enough to fall for something like this again. So, we better make it worth our time.”
Even with everything going according to the plan, one misstep could bring us down. If I am not wrong, about fifteen thousand men are inside the city, maybe even close to twenty thousand. My one-and-a-half-thousand men would be quickly crushed in a head-on battle. That is why we needed to move fast and accomplish our goals before the army in Yunkai regained its footing.
It will have to be over in one night. So, when the guards fell asleep and nobody looked out for us, we started to move. Firstly, we removed the wooden planks from underneath the dragon and climbed down the statue. Anguy quickly shot down the remaining soldiers still doing their duty while the rest took our daggers and went from one asleep man to another.
Once we piled the corpses against the dragon statue and pushed it against a few buildings, Thoros set it aflame. The fire should spread far enough to distract the most active soldiers in his part of the city while we moved in on the gates. It wasn’t difficult to cut down everyone who stood before us. Apart from Anguy’s excellent archery, the rest of my Greycloaks were very efficient in killing.
Before anyone could realize anything, we were already on top of the walls, cleaning up the last of the archers. Seeing that we still had plenty of time, and everybody was focused on the raging fire, we dragged the bodies from the sight and dressed up as the guards with red cloth tied on our arms so we could recognize ourselves.
Anyone who came upon us was quickly killed, and their bodies were hidden. Everything went even better than planned. But I knew we would be discovered once the fire was dealt with. So, I was relieved when the rest of my men arrived in time. Once we opened the gates, we broke the mechanism and ensured the gates wouldn’t be closed quickly again.
Leaving a hundred men by the gates to guard it, I split the remaining men into three groups and have each take one of the most enormous pyramids. The fire was beginning to go out by the time we were on our move. But it gave us enough distraction and time to dress ourselves as soldiers of Yunkai and buy us enough time to sneak into the pyramids.
Only groups from fifty to one hundred crossed our paths on our way. And even though once they realized who we were, they tried to stop us, we struck them first. We overwhelmed them with our skills and numbers and quickly reached the pyramids. By this time, the fires were mostly gone, but it was too late to stop us from what happened next.
From the carts of gold and other gifts on the passageway to the Pyramid, I knew we had arrived at the Supreme Commander’s residence. The guards didn’t recognize us but were still instructed not to let anyone through. So, we couldn’t use surprises to our advantage and had to go through them the old-fashioned way.
With our weapons drawn, we stormed the Pyramid. I rushed first, cleaving through the first two guards before my men stabbed the others. They tried to close the doors, but carts were still between them. So, we managed to get through them, cutting down everyone who stood before us. The Pyramid was massive, but I knew the most important people lived at the top.
It was a bloody and messy fight as we climbed the stairs from one floor to another. They were narrow enough to hold us off for a bit, but knowing that our numbers wouldn’t matter much on the stairs. I send part of my men to the dungeons to free the prisoners. Even though we possessed better armor and were a league stronger than the puny slave soldiers, we still suffered severe damage.
By the time we reached the top floor, I had lost eighty men. Bloodied and injured, we secured the top floor. It was filled with all kinds of riches. The walls themselves looked like they were made of gold and silver. And once we barged into the main chambers, we found the old twig of a supreme commander surrounded by women.
As I grabbed the old man and pulled him from the bed, the twig shook and collapsed in my arms. It took me a good second to realize that the old man died. Sweat started to fall from my forehead. Of all things to happen, I never expected this. As the old man fell to the ground lifelessly, I was about to panic. But I quickly regained my composure.
“Theon, weren’t we supposed to take him hostage?” Thoros asked, pointing at the supreme commander.
“Do you think I DON’T KNOW THAT!” I wasn’t as calm as I wanted to be. “It’s fine. Secure the rest of the Pyramid and look for his children. And lock up these women somewhere. Nobody is to know that that old stool is dead.”
Looking out the window into the city, the soldiers started to organize themselves, but the pyramids were in our hands. But I didn’t know what to do next. I could use the Supreme Commander to disperse the armies. Yet, with him dead, the best I could do was to stall for time. Hopefully, I can convince that. The sellswords and the slave soldiers disperse by using the supreme commander as my hostage and only be left to deal with the men from Volantis and New Ghis.
The night ended quickly as the sun started to rise from the horizon. Quickly warging into my seagull, I found that our targeted Pyramids were under our control. Bronn, responsible for the gates, abandoned them before burning them and the towers. It took me a good moment flying above the city to find him hiding with the rest of them.
Sellswords were on the move, but they didn’t look too interested in fighting with the Yunkai armies and just stood sideways. The reinforcements from Astarpor should arrive at midday, so I only had about five hours to think of a plan to secure the city. At this time, I started regretting being so cocky. A few more thousand men would be a great help to me. Why did I have to say I would take care of it with only my forces?
