Chapter 72 (Patreon)
Content
After taking full and absolute control over Astapor, with my first order of business being that slavery was illegal and that all slaves were free to choose their own path, I left the city, leaving a small army of five thousand men to protect it as I rode with the rest of my army off to Myr, where I would meet with Daenerys and my babies.
Coming to Astapor had opened my eyes to many interesting problems in my plan.
Logistically speaking every time I conquered a city I had to leave behind some type of army to defend it.
Which in the end, would leave me short of men, the only way to avoid that was to completely destroy any opposition.
And considering that so far I had personally conquered three cities, four if I counted Tyrosh that was conquered by one of my generals during my time in Astapor, things were looking bad for me in the future.
In each city I had been leaving around five thousand soldiers to defend my new lands from sieges and raids from nearby cities that decided it was their time to shine, leaving my usable army in the seventy five thousands, at the moment, instead of the almost one hundred thousand I had in total.
While seventy five thousand men were indeed a big army, at the pace I was dwindling my own numbers for logistical reasons I would end up with almost none.
Myr - 5000 Men
Lys - 5000 Men
Tyrosh - 5000 Men
Astapor - 5000 Men
In total I had twenty thousand men out of my hands, but now that I had noticed this problem, those numbers could and would be improved.
For example the islands didn’t need that many men to protect them, the Krakens were all the defences they needed, so I could lower the numbers on those to one thousand men each island and it would be more than enough.
Now, the earth bound cities needed the soldiers I had on them, mostly to avoid putting me in a situation where I had to conquer a city twice, so as now the only way to shorten the amount of men I had off my hands was by taking some from the islands.
“Is there anything this one can do for you?” Missandei offered.
“Not for now,” I chuckled, “By the way, you can refer to yourself with I… you know instead of…this one,”
“This…. I was taught I wasn’t a person but an object, Th— it’s hard,” Missandei smiled at me, as she tried to speak normally struggling a lot to do it.
“Then that is my mission for you,” I smiled ruffling her hair, “From now on, I want you to focus on erasing that idea off your head,”
“Thi—— I understand, I will do my best,” Missandei smiled.
I turned to her with a smirk on my face, “I don’t want you to try, trying means failure is possible, I want you to do it, to succeed,”
Missandei looked at me for a brief moment, still probably questioning why was I doing all of this, before she nodded, “I will do it,”
“Atta girl,” I chuckled.
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[Daenerys POV - ONE MONTH PRIOR]
The public execution for Viserys started, my brother begged me to forgive him.
But I had lost all the empathy I had for him a long time ago, and he killed the ashes when he threatened my children.
By fire we forged our path, and by fire he would die.
“Dany please! I beg you! Don’t do this! I’m your brother! Your king! Please I’m sorry!” Viserys cried, snot falling down his nose.
“You are no brother of mine, you are no King of mine, you are nothing,” I said with a cold tone, and in cue both Qrow and Rhaegal flew out of their rooms, scaring Viserys.
“Dany… please!” Viserys cried out once again, for everyone to see.
“Dracarys!” Soon after those words left my mouth, both Qrow and Rhaegal set my brother to flames, his screams of pain lasted about three seconds, before he was turned to ashes, showing the world he was no dragon, for flames can’t hurt a dragon.
“Be this a reminder, that I will do anything to protect my family,” I said as I walked out of the execution area with Qrow and Rhaegal, leaving behind turmoil of emotions in the crowd, some cheered for me, mostly the Ironborn, some feared me, and others respected me.
“People will forever remember this,” Dacey said with a concerned tone.
“Good, let it be a reminder that there isn’t someone I wouldn’t kill to protect my husband and children,”
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[Daenerys POV - NOW]
Ronard has conquered Astapor, and along the way had increased our numbers with fourteen thousand unsullied warriors.
In his absence Tyrosh had fallen under the might of our navy, and our sweet little bundles of joy had grown so much.
Geralt was so big now, and was crawling like a little monkey everywhere, never getting tired always looking to play, unlike Alyssa, who was her twin total opposite, calm and well behaved sleeping almost all the time, but even with her calm attitude I would find Geralt corrupting his sister to do crazy baby stuff, like I would find Alyssa forcing Geralt to take a nap.
Everyday I would get a new surprise, a new reason to smile with them, but also a reason to be sad.
I was sad Ronard was missing all of this, I knew and understood why, but it was still sad.
“Don’t be sad my Queen,” Dacey said reading my face like a book, “The King is coming in a month to Myr, you’ll see him there and so will the little cubs,”
“I just wish we could be together at all times,” I smiled.
“Once this war ends, I’m sure that wish will come true,” Dacey smiled.
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[Illyrio Mopatis POV]
Myr had fallen, and so did Astapor, and I was sure by this point that monster knew I had a hand in his assasination attempt.
If I didn’t do something I would die, he had an army few could hope to match, three dragons that one day would grow to be beasts of unparalleled power and the money to fund all that.
But I had something he didn’t. Experience, decades of experience.
I knew I wasn’t enough to kill him, but with the help of Braavos, he was as good as dead.
“This plan you have…. is too expensive, if it fails… we can’t do it again,” The representative of the Iron Bank commented, and he was right my plan to kill Ronard and his army was expensive, and it would put me on a crippling debt with the Iron Bank, but as long as Ronard existed, the young griff would never get the crown.
“Don’t worry, I only need one shot, and all that brat built will fall like a house of cards,” I smiled.
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[Peter Baelish POV]
Things weren’t going quite as planned, a small player became the most prominent player overnight, I had lost my position as the master of coin.
The despicable Ned Stark had survived, closing any possible relationships for me with the Starks, after all, I did sell him out.
But with time I would turn this to my favor, if the bear ended up winning, I was sure with that with the right preparation I could manipulate the young bear to my favor, I just had to find what made the young bear tick.
“Lord Baelish,” Varys said, entering my establishment.
“Varys, to what do I owe this pleasure?” I inquired sarcastically.
“Save the lies for the court, now how about we talk about John Arrys,” Varys smiled taking a seat.
Varys knew how the old disgusting man had died, but he also knew who had requested such a thing, he couldn’t use that against me, so what was the little spider trying to do
“By all means, let’s,” I smiled.
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[Margaery Tyrell POV]
I was to marry in a few days, in a few days I would be Queen! The only bad part was that my King didn’t find women appealing at all, but that hardly mattered.
I didn’t care where or in whom he put his manhood inside, as long as his seed was delivered to me.
If I gave him a heir, my position as the Queen would be forever sealed, after that I couldn’t care less if he slept with Loras for the rest of his life.
“Soon I’ll be a Queen,” I smiled, begging the gods to help me get with a child fast.