Chapter 338: Slaver's Bay (Part II)
The Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons, the Unburnt, Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen... had she truly just abandoned such a massive undertaking and slipped away alone at the midpoint of her endeavor?
The day the Queen flew east, Petyr Baelish arrived at the apex of the Great Pyramid to find cracked flagstones where the black dragon had taken off and an empty sanctuary. He was so close to losing his composure that he nearly broke into a stream of curses.
It was true that the black dragon was the only one of the three large enough to carry a person over long distances. Because it had miraculously returned out of longing for its mother, there was no guarantee when it might appear again. Thus, Daenerys had seized the opportunity without consulting her council—leaping onto the dragon's back and vanishing into the sky.
Her motive was entirely noble: she wanted to master dragon-riding as quickly as possible to deploy her dragons in war and bring fire and blood to her enemies. But—the Yunkai'i army had not yet retreated, and the Volantene fleet, sent to protect the slave trade, was still en route to Slaver's Bay. To drop everything at such a critical moment, surrounded by powerful foes and hidden dangers... was this foolish woman truly not afraid that by the time she mastered her craft and returned, she would have no followers left?
No matter how much he raged internally at her lack of foresight, Petyr eventually returned to logic and took the most prudent course of action for the Queen: he claimed she was unwell and unable to hold court, strictly suppressing the news that she had flown away from Meereen.
Regrettably, fire cannot be wrapped in paper. News of Daenerys's disappearance spread rapidly, and the official blackout only birthed multiple versions of outlandish rumors. To dispel them, the Hand of the Queen was eventually forced to appear in public and explain her whereabouts.
Naturally, things quickly took a turn for the worse.
The core requirement for the strategy of 'not killing but exiling the top nobility and elevating the secondary nobility to control Meereen' was simple: one needed sufficient power to prevent the old nobility from striking back and to keep the newly elevated secondary nobility in check, lest the former restore the old order or the latter burn the bridge once they crossed it.
This balance was maintained by the martial might of the Unsullied, the adoration of the freed slaves, and the legendary prestige brought by the three dragons.
As a latecomer, Littlefinger had no direct command or influence over the Unsullied; having played the bad cop in daily administration, he was disliked by the freedmen; and as for the three dragons... someone with no Targaryen blood shouldn't even dream of it.
Originally, his growing rapport with Daenerys had led him to feel that 'this Targaryen girl is worth serving' and 'that everything is looking up'. But with her abrupt departure, Petyr was thrust back into a state of isolation. He had to fight alone.
The freedmen could not see their Liberator, petitioners could not present their grievances to the Queen, and the green and white dragons locked in the pit beneath the pyramid could not see their mother...
These were minor issues.
One month, two months... as the days of the Queen's absence stretched on, rumors of her demise grew deafening.
First to stir were the new nobles within the city. While it was well and good that Daenerys had exiled the old masters to put them in power, living under the rule of an absolute Queen was unpleasant; self-governance would be far superior.
Then came the opportunists. The Prince of Dorne, who had arrived in Meereen not long ago, presumed upon the thin blood of the dragon in his veins. Egged on by a band of mercenaries, he attempted to steal a dragon while Daenerys was away. Unfortunately, the two imprisoned dragons did not recognize their distant cousin; instead, a single breath of fire cooked him through, and they unceremoniously escaped the pit.
As for the Yunkai army outside the walls, they heard the news and quickly pivoted to a different plan. The Queen's absence made Meereen's defenses more fragile than ever, and they sought to seize the advantage. The peace already achieved was fine, but the slave trade was currently facing a shortage of supply. Compared to Yunkai being the sole power, wouldn't controlling the entire Slaver's Bay to conduct even larger business yield far more impressive returns?
Inside and out, every faction's mind began to churn, and the situation slid toward an abyss. In this moment of life-or-death crisis for Free Meereen, Petyr Baelish made one of the boldest decisions of his life: strike first. He moved to stabilize the internal situation and repel the external threat simultaneously. Before the Volantene fleet reached the bay, he would intimidate the restless new nobles and crush the Yunkai'i army to buy time for the Queen—provided she was still alive.
He went personally to the Unsullied barracks, appealing to their sense of duty and explaining the dire stakes. Eventually, he convinced the Unsullied commander, Grey Worm, to bypass protocol and launch an attack without the Queen's orders. At dawn on a chosen day, the Unsullied and the mercenary companies loyal to Daenerys marched out to give battle. Simultaneously, the internal Freedmen's Legion launched a coup within the city, placing the increasingly powerful new nobles under house arrest, to be released only after the battle outside was settled.
For the first time in his life, the former Master of Coin from King's Landing—a man with zero practical military experience—was commanding a war. After consulting professionals and running simulations, the core council agreed: if they acted, the chance of victory was less than half; if they sat still, death was certain.
It was a gamble born of having no other choice, yet curiously, victory came easier than imagined.
Before besieging Meereen, the Yunkai'i army had easily retaken Astapor, which had fallen into chaos after Daenerys took the Unsullied and killed the masters. The battle had ended quickly, but the winners suffered an unexpected blow: a plague had broken out in the chaos of Astapor. It infected the Yunkai'i army upon their arrival and followed them all the way to the gates of Meereen.
During the months of siege, the Yunkai'i forces—loyal to different masters and lacking a unified command—camped in a long, winding snake formation. Hundreds of scattered camps patched together into a city of silk and canvas, surrounding Meereen in a crescent moon. Packed so tightly, the plague spread via slaves, mercenaries, and camp followers. While the army looked vast on the surface, morale had crumbled, discipline was non-existent, and combat effectiveness had hit freezing point.
Even more miraculously, Petyr received an unexpected assist from the sea: a small portion of the Iron Fleet, led by Victarion Greyjoy, had traveled thousands of miles to find the Queen. They arrived in Slaver's Bay on the very day Meereen planned to strike. The Iron Captain used a dozen merchant ships captured along the way from Westeros as a first wave, with his best Ironborn warriors hidden in the holds. Daenerys had no navy, so the Yunkai'i fleet was utterly unprepared for a sudden strike from the sea. The merchant ships drew close, and the boarding actions began. Following them were over forty warships of the Iron Fleet; many Yunkai'i vessels were rammed and sunk, and the rest were captured. The blood-crazed Ironborn then made landfall, charging into the Yunkai'i camps from the docks!
At this moment, the fatal flaw of the Yunkai'i camp layout—stretching from the city walls to the harbor—was exposed. The Ironborn hit the docks and stormed the camp without a buffer. The Yunkai'i had no time to form lines, and panic spread from man to man, traveling faster than the plague. Within moments, the entire camp was in chaos.
Seeing this, Petyr seized the moment. As the commander of Meereen's forces, he ordered the Unsullied, who had already formed up secretly beneath the walls, to launch a general offensive.
To the west, the Ironborn were slaughtering their way inland; to the north, the most disciplined soldiers in the world—the Unsullied—charged in formation; within the camp, several fickle mercenary companies saw the tide turning and defected. Overhead, the green and white dragons released by the "foolish Prince of Dorne" were drawn by the Ironborn's horns and the light of the fires, circling and bathing the camps in flame.
Under such a multi-pronged assault, even the finest army would struggle to hold, let alone a ragtag collection of levies and sellswords from across the world. Petyr Baelish witnessed a spectacle he never would have seen in Westeros: a Yunkai'i army several times the size of his own collapsed like a mountain. Tens of thousands of soldiers threw down their weapons before even engaging. Except for a small portion in the far southeast who escaped in the confusion, the army was nearly annihilated. The Unsullied suffered barely a thousand casualties.
The battle outside the walls ended even before the coup inside.
Petyr sighed, shaking the memories of the battle from his mind. Though he hadn't personally taken the field, as the Hand and supreme commander, that victory was a magnificent achievement worth boasting about. But now, in the shimmering blue harbor, a new enemy had appeared, row upon row, covering the surface of the sea.
Compared to Yunkai, the Volantene fleet was not only larger in scale but its ships were more massive and sturdy. The Iron Fleet's vessels were too small even to attempt boarding actions against them. The army they carried, though smaller in number, was far better trained. Having secured control of the waters, they camped at a safe distance. Hundreds of warships had forced the Meereenese vessels loyal to the Queen and the tiny Iron Fleet to hide within the river. With command of the sea, the enemy began rounding up survivors and building deep trenches and high walls, waiting for their follow-up forces to arrive.
The Volantene army was less than half the size of the previous Yunkai'i host, but their specialized training and unified command made them a threat to Meereen no less dangerous than their predecessors.
The elite Unsullied were a finite resource. Since the enemy seemed to have no immediate intention to storm the city, Petyr did not repeat his gamble of a sortie. Instead, he held the walls, sending small teams from the rear to trade with the Lhazareen for grain, waiting quietly for the Queen's return.
Today marked the one hundred and seventh day since the Queen flew east on the black dragon. Where was his only hope of returning to Westeros? What was she doing... or rather, was she even still alive?
Overhead, the massive projection of a dragon's wings swept across the Queen's terrace again. The Queen had left on the black dragon, but the green and white dragons freed during the botched theft had turned the top of the Great Pyramid into their nest. Whether hunting or playing, they always returned here to rest. After the initial terror, the Queen's servants and the residents of Meereen had realized the beasts had no inclination to attack them and grew accustomed to their presence.
However, it was rare for one to fly so low that its shadow actually swept across the terrace.
Curious, Petyr looked up, shading his eyes against the sun to find the silhouette of the white or green dragon.
Then, his heart gave a sudden, violent throb.
The dragon in his field of vision, having just passed over his head, was neither the cream-white Viserion nor the jade-green Rhaegal. It was a massive, pitch-black beast.
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