Chapter 7: The Siege of Astapor – The First Trial (End of the Slavers)
The road from Meereen to Astapor was a river of red banners and dust. Pilgrims marched beside hardened converts, children carried water skins, old women sang hymns from The Flames of Eternity. Daenerys rode at the head on a white mare, the shard of Viserys's crucifixion wood hanging against her chest like a second heart. Behind her, the twins' palanquin swayed gently, guarded by a ring of Unsullied who had sworn themselves to the Dragon God.
Astapor awaited them—its red-brick pyramids rising like bloodied teeth against the sky. The Good Masters had rebuilt their walls higher since the last time a dragon queen had come. They had doubled the Unsullied garrisons, hired Braavosi sellswords, filled the moats with spiked chains. Kraznys mo Nakloz stood on the highest balcony of the largest pyramid, gold-toothed smile fixed, watching the approaching horde. "Let the rabble come," he told his captains. "We will water the Plaza of Punishment with their blood."
But the city already trembled from within.
The Approach and the First Cracks
Daenerys halted her army a mile from the walls at dawn. No trumpets, no siege engines yet—just silence. She raised one hand. A single rider—Belio the Steadfast—rode forward under a white flag, carrying not a lance but a bound copy of the bible wrapped in red silk.
From the walls, archers nocked arrows. Kraznys laughed, the sound carrying thin and sharp. "Send your book, beggar! We have no need of fairy tales!"
Belio dismounted, knelt in the dust, and opened the tome to a marked page. In a voice trained by months of preaching, he read aloud:
"The Dragon God was once chained, like you. He broke free in flame. So can you."
The words drifted up to the battlements. A few Unsullied shifted—barely a twitch, but enough. Kraznys snarled and ordered arrows loosed. Belio did not flinch. One shaft grazed his shoulder; he kept reading. Another struck the ground beside him. Still he read.
Inside the city, in the slave barracks beneath the pyramids, the words found ears. A young eunuch named Grey Worm—already half-converted from earlier whispers—clenched his spear. "He speaks of us," he murmured to the man beside him. "Not of masters. Of us."
That night, small acts of defiance began. A guard left a gate unbarred for an hour. A kitchen slave slipped extra bread to the undercity. A single Unsullied whispered the opening lines of the hymn to his squad. The masters felt it like the first tremor before an earthquake.
The Siege Begins
On the third day, Daenerys ordered the encirclement. No grand assault yet—just a ring of steel and faith. Catapults—hastily built from scavenged timber—hurled stones wrapped in oil-soaked cloth that burst into flame on impact. The pyramids caught first; red brick turned black under smoke.
Kraznys responded with boiling oil and scorpions. The first wave of zealots died screaming as arrows and pitch rained down. But they did not break. They sang as they fell. "The shepherd suffered… the flock will rise…"
Inside Astapor, the cracks widened. Slaves refused orders. A squad of Unsullied turned their spears on their trainers when ordered to execute suspected converts. Grey Worm led them—quiet, precise, unstoppable. They opened the smallest postern gate near the river.
Daenerys saw the signal torch flare in the darkness. She raised her sword. "Now," she said.
The Breach and the Reckoning
Crusaders poured through the gap like water through a broken dam. Street by street, alley by alley, they fought. Former slaves recognized faces they had once served; old scores were settled with blades and bare hands. The sellswords hired by the masters fought well—until they saw the tide. One by one they threw down weapons and knelt, begging baptism in ash rather than death.
The Plaza of Punishment became the heart of the battle. Kraznys had ordered every remaining slave chained there as human shields. Daenerys arrived at its edge on horseback, silver hair streaked with soot. She looked up at the pyramid balconies where the Good Masters watched.
"You nailed my brother to wood," she called, voice carrying over the din. "You thought to break him. You only forged him stronger."
Kraznys stepped forward, gold teeth flashing. "Your brother was a beggar! A fool! He died like one!"
Daenerys smiled—cold, terrible. "And yet he lives in every heart that beats for freedom. You will not."
She gave the order.
Zealots surged forward. The chained slaves—seeing their queen, seeing the red banners—began to tear at their own bonds. Chains snapped. Men and women rose with nothing but fury and faith. The Unsullied defectors formed a wedge, cutting through the remaining loyalists.
Kraznys fled upward, into the highest pyramid chamber. He barricaded himself behind gold-inlaid doors, surrounded by his last bodyguards. But the doors were breached. Grey Worm led the final group inside.
Kraznys stood in the center of his opulent room, sword shaking in his hand. "I am a Good Master," he spat. "You cannot—"
Grey Worm's spear took him through the throat before he finished. The bodyguards dropped their weapons. No one wanted to die for a corpse.
The End of the Slavers
By midday the city was theirs. Pyramids burned as offerings. The Plaza of Punishment—once a place of torture—was cleansed with water and ash. Slaves were freed by the thousands; many knelt immediately, asking to be anointed as children of the Dragon God.
Daenerys walked the plaza alone at dusk. The twins were brought to her, sleepy-eyed and safe. She knelt before the spot where Viserys had once hung—though the cross itself had been torn down by zealous hands—and placed the shard of wood on the ground.
"Thank you, brother," she whispered. "The first chain is broken."
Behind her, the chant rose again, soft at first, then swelling:
"God wills it."
In the Spiritual Space, Alex watched the flames consume the last symbols of the old order. Astapor had fallen—not just to swords, but to something far more dangerous: belief. The slavers were ended here, their power reduced to ash and memory. The First Crusade had claimed its first true victory.
And the road to Yunkai, to Meereen, to Westeros, lay open.
(Word count: 1498)