Chapter 35

The harpy banners of the Red Brick City had long been torn down, replaced by new ones embroidered with a dragon-headed horse, winged and wild, fluttering high in the wind—declaring to the world that Astapor had changed rulers.

Few in Astapor were skilled archers, so nearly all those manning the battlements were members of Drogo’s khalasar. Grim-faced and silent, they stood with bows in hand, waiting only for their khal’s signal to rain down a storm of blood-soaked arrows.

Pono's army of over ten thousand mounted warriors surged forward, each man bouncing on horseback like spawning salmon leaping at the Worm River delta. Their black-and-white armor shimmered, and the sand kicked up by their hooves clouded the air in a spectacle of dust and thunder.