Chapter 20: The Pyramids of Ash
The march on Meereen was a spectacle of terrifying grandeur, a rolling tide of conquest that dwarfed even the army that had shattered the Grand Alliance at Myr. At its heart rode Vaelyx Targaryen, an indomitable figure in black Valyrian-style armor, often with Astra, his snow-white queen, a celestial terror, soaring above him. His army was a testament to his rapidly expanding empire: the grim Serpent's Scale veterans, Kaelen's disciplined Myrish Legions, Boros's horde of Dothraki screamers (their savagery now tempered with a modicum of order), Ser Damon Sand's formidable Golden Company, the stoic Norvoshi Axemen with their bearded priests, and at the vanguard, the eight thousand Astapori Unsullied, now a legion reborn as the Aegis Guard, their spiked helmets replaced with new ones bearing the three-headed dragon crest, their loyalty to Vaelyx absolute and chilling.
Meereen, the greatest of the Slaver Cities, awaited them with a mixture of Ghiscari arrogance and gnawing fear. The Great Masters, a council of ancient, decadent families, had refused Vaelyx's demand for submission, their pride rooted in millennia of tradition and the seemingly impregnable defenses of their city. Massive brick walls, thicker and higher than Myr's, encircled Meereen. Legions of bronze-armored slave soldiers, less disciplined than the Unsullied but fiercely loyal to their specific masters out of ingrained terror, manned the battlements. The fighting pits had been emptied, their champions and beasts unleashed to bolster the city's defenders. Crude anti-dragon scorpions, immense ballistae firing oil-soaked projectiles, and even pits filled with flammable refuse were prepared along the walls, a desperate attempt to counter the fiery doom they knew was coming. Lyra's agents within the city reported that the Great Masters were also attempting to perform ancient Ghiscari blood rituals, seeking a miracle to save them from the Dragon Lord.
Vaelyx established his main encampment just beyond the effective range of Meereen's trebuchets, a sprawling city of black tents and martial order. His seven dragons, now truly colossal beasts whose roars were like thunder rolling across the plains, took to the skies daily. They did not attack initially, but performed intricate, terrifying aerial ballets above Meereen, their shadows sweeping across the Great Pyramid of Meeren, a constant reminder of the power arrayed against the city. Vorlag's obsidian form blotted out the sun, Ignis trailed plumes of scarlet smoke, Tempest crackled with contained storms, Argentus shimmered with captured lightning, Aurumel glowed with ethereal gold, Astra radiated a pure, cold sapphire light, and Veridian, often unseen, was a jade whisper on the wind. The psychological impact was immense, fraying the nerves of the defenders and sowing a desperate, silent hope amongst Meereen's vast slave population.
A single Dothraki Ko, bearing Vaelyx's ultimatum – unconditional surrender, the abolition of the Great Masters' rule, and the delivery of half the city's wealth, or face utter annihilation – was sent to the city gates. He was returned headless, his head catapulted back into Vaelyx's camp with a defiant message from the Great Masters.
Vaelyx merely smiled. "Predictable," he murmured. "They have chosen fire."
The siege began with a methodical dismantling of Meereen's outer defenses and a brutal strangulation of its resources. Boros's Dothraki, now a truly terrifying cavalry force, swept through the surrounding countryside, burning estates, slaughtering Meereenese patrols, and driving off any attempts to resupply the city. Within days, Meereen was an isolated island in a sea of hostile territory.
Then, the dragons began their work in earnest. Vorlag and Ignis, Vaelyx's twin bellows of destruction, commenced sustained assaults on designated sections of Meereen's northern and eastern walls. They did not simply breathe fire; they unleashed focused torrents of molten fury, the heat so intense that the massive bricks began to glow, then crack, then run like wax. Defenders on those sections either fled screaming or were incinerated where they stood. The Meereenese anti-dragon scorpions loosed their oil-soaked bolts, but Tempest, with contemptuous ease, created localized wind vortexes that sent the projectiles tumbling harmlessly, while Argentus, with flickers of lightning, detonated the oil pots mid-air, turning their own weapons against them.
While the walls were being systematically weakened, Lyra's network within Meereen, coordinated by Veridian's unseen reconnaissance, prepared to ignite the internal fuse. Veridian, cloaked in illusion and shadow, had slipped into the city multiple times, its empathic senses identifying charismatic slave leaders in the fighting pits, disgruntled overseers in the brickyards, and even sympathetic members of lesser noble families oppressed by the Great Masters. The jade dragon had guided Lyra's agents to hidden weapon caches, mapped the patrol routes of the Great Masters' personal guards, and identified the most volatile slave barracks.
On the third night of the siege, as Vorlag and Ignis created the first major breaches in the northern wall, Lyra gave the signal. Fires erupted simultaneously in multiple slave quarters across Meereen. The fighting pits exploded in revolt, their champions, armed with weapons smuggled in by Lyra's agents, turning on their guards. The great slave markets became battlegrounds. Meereen, which had prided itself on its absolute control over its enslaved populace, was now tearing itself apart from within.
As chaos consumed the lower city, Vaelyx ordered the main assault. The Aegis Guard (the Astapori Unsullied), their discipline absolute, marched towards the breaches created by Vorlag and Ignis, their spearpoints a glittering river of steel in the pre-dawn gloom. The Golden Company and Kaelen's Myrish Legions followed, a wave of disciplined heavy infantry.
Aurumel, the cream-and-gold dragon, swept low over the advancing legions, its shimmering golden aura deflecting the panicked volleys of arrows and slingstones from the defenders still attempting to hold the breaches. Simultaneously, Aurumel wove illusions of greater numbers and phantom dragon attacks on other sections of the wall, drawing Meereenese reserves away from the true points of assault.
The fighting at the breaches was horrific. Meereenese slave soldiers, driven by their masters' whips and the fear of the chaos behind them, fought with desperate courage. But the Aegis Guard, fighting for a new master and a new purpose, were relentless. They advanced in perfect lockstep, their spears a wall of death, their discipline unbreakable even under heavy fire.
The Great Masters of Meereen, watching the battle unfold from the highest terraces of the Great Pyramid, their faces pale with terror and disbelief, attempted to rally their personal guards and remaining loyalist legions. They were the descendants of Old Ghiscar, the inheritors of an ancient empire; they would not be so easily broken.
It was then that Astra descended. The snow-white dragon, with Vaelyx himself now a distant, commanding presence in her mind rather than a physical rider for this symbolic act, appeared above the Great Pyramid like an avenging goddess. She did not roar, she did not breathe fire. She simply fixed her cold, sapphire gaze upon the clustered throng of Great Masters on the pyramid's apex.
A beam of pure, colorless energy, so intense it seemed to warp the very air, lanced from Astra's maw. It struck the apex of the Great Pyramid with devastating precision. There was a silent flash, and the entire upper tier of the pyramid, along with the Great Masters, their guards, and their illusions of grandeur, simply… ceased to be. Vaporized. Erased from existence. Only a smoking, blackened scar on the pyramid's ancient bricks remained.
The psychological impact of this single, silent act of annihilation was absolute. The Meereenese command structure, already reeling from the internal revolt, was instantly decapitated. The sight of their leaders being effortlessly obliterated shattered the last vestiges of organized resistance among the loyalist Meereenese forces.
With the walls breached, the city in flames from the slave revolt, and their leadership annihilated, Meereen fell into utter chaos. Vaelyx's legions poured into the city through the breaches and through gates now being opened from the inside by rebelling slaves guided by Veridian.
The street fighting was brutal and anarchic. Slaves hunted their former masters through the labyrinthine streets. Meereenese loyalists fought desperate, doomed last stands in their manses and temples. Boros's Dothraki, held in reserve until the main breaches were secured, were finally unleashed into the city, their joyous war cries adding to the cacophony as they hunted down fleeing soldiers and looted with abandon – a controlled release of their savagery that Vaelyx permitted for a limited time.
Vaelyx himself, flanked by his elite Serpent's Scale guard and the Qohorik Unsullied, made his way through the burning city towards the Great Pyramid. He used his magic sparingly, only when faced with significant, organized resistance, his Dark Curses and concussive blasts clearing paths with contemptuous ease. His dragons – Vorlag, Ignis, and Tempest now joining Astra and Aurumel in the skies above the city – systematically eliminated any remaining major strongholds, their roars the new anthem of Meereen.
By nightfall, the Great Pyramid was secured. Vaelyx Targaryen stood in the vast, smoke-filled audience chamber of the vanquished Great Masters, the city of Meereen burning and chaotic below, but undeniably his. He ordered a halt to the indiscriminate slaughter, though pockets of resistance and slave vengeance would continue to burn for days. Boros was tasked with restoring a brutal semblance of order, his Dothraki now acting as a terrifying, if temporary, police force.
The "liberated" slaves of Meereen, a vast, traumatized, and now leaderless population, were rounded up. Vaelyx addressed them from the steps of the Great Pyramid, much as he had in Astapor. He offered them a choice: join his armies, serve his new order as laborers and artisans, or face the uncertainties of a "freedom" in a city utterly dependent on his will. Most, seeing the power of his dragons and the discipline of his legions, chose service. Meereen's fighting pit champions and more robust slaves would swell his armies further. Its artisans would toil for his empire. Its wealth would fill his coffers.
The fall of Meereen, the last bastion of Old Ghiscar, echoed across Essos and even reached the ears of a shocked Westeros, though the news there was garbled and overshadowed by their own burgeoning civil war. Lyra brought Vaelyx word that Robert's Rebellion was now in full, bloody swing. The Battle of Ashford had been fought, a Tully army had been defeated by Lannister forces (who were still ostensibly loyal to Aerys but were clearly playing their own game), and Rhaegar Targaryen had finally taken the field, leaving his father to his wildfire obsession in King's Landing. The timeline was accelerating.
Vaelyx listened, his mind already processing. His Essosi power base was now virtually unshakeable. With Myr, Lys, Tyrosh, Astapor, Yunkai, and now Meereen under his direct or vassal control, and the other western Free Cities paying him tribute, he commanded resources and manpower to rival any power in the known world. Volantis remained a defiant thorn, but an isolated one.
He stood on the highest terrace of the Great Pyramid of Meereen, his seven dragons roosting on its massive tiers like a crown of living fire and shadow. The Ghiscari coast was his. Slaver's Bay was now Dragon's Bay. His gaze turned west, across the Narrow Sea. His brother was destroying their House. Soon, very soon, it would be time for Vaelyx Targaryen to return home and teach Westeros the true meaning of Fire and Blood.