//------------------------------// // The Smoke // Story: Those Who Ride // by Mitch H //------------------------------// Sunset's sleep was troubled by the smell of smoke, of the faintest stench of something other than wood burning. She dreamed of terrible porridge in the mornings at the orphanage, of squabbling foals flinging half-blackened pottage at each other as the matron cried tears of frustration and tried to maintain order. The matron had been a fine mare, but utterly hopeless in the kitchen, and when the bits weren't there, she couldn't afford to pay the cook to come in that early. And the bits often weren't there. Saddened by the memory, Sunset found herself awakening earlier than was her wont, slipping from the pile of handmaidens, careful to not crush any delicate ape toes with her hooves. Her days in Celestia's court had been largely absent this permeating smell of wood smoke, of other smells of burning things. Princess Celestia and her advisors in haughty Canterlot had aggressively pushed the adoption of non-polluting magic-crystal fireplace heaters in the capital and the nearby provinces in the year or two before Sunset came  under in the Princess's mentorship. Even though those expensive, inconvenient ‘conveniences' had proved deeply unpopular among those segments of the population without easy access to handy magic rechargers built into their skulls, Canterlot proper had largely seen the abandonment of wood and coal burning for heat, despite the chill of that mountain city. In the pre-dawn darkness, Sunset thought absently about how the bureaucracy's tax abatements and unsubtle environmental guilt-tripping had done nothing but reinforce the previously-subtle tribal hostility to the unicorn domination of said bureaucracy. In her rare trips to the provinces and outer suburbs, the smoke of coal and woodburners had remained, and her few earth-pony acquaintances had generally changed the subject or scowled when the subject came up. Thus, the burdens of trying to have nice things. The smell of roasting porridge grew stronger, as dawn broke along the eastern horizon. For some reason, it was making Sunset unsettled and anxious, an anxiety which only grew stronger as the orange limb of the world grew brighter, more yellow, more white, shading into blue. A blue stained to the south-east with browns, and traces of black. There were pillars of faint black smoke rising on the south-eastern horizon. Now, this world, like her previous world, was full of people, peasants, lords, people of middle circumstance (if rather distinctly fewer of the latter two than the former) - and many if not most of them heated their little worlds-within-worlds by burning stuff, usually coal or plant matter of some sort. And all that touched the skies with unsightly blackened, grey, or brown stains, and Sunset had grown used to it. But this wasn't in the heart of crowded, filthy-skied Pentos, or some humble pony-suburb from back home, but a rural countryside currently more full of horse-nomads than farmers and terrified locals. And those rising columns of blackened smoke were not the homey traces of hearth-fires and small-scale forge-filth. Sunset tried to dismiss her unease. She turned to her duties, her obligations to the khaleesi and her fellow handmaidens. Those chores devoured her morning, as all her mornings went these days. But her eye was continually drawn away from the tasks at hoof, and more than once, she found herself staring at those increasingly ominous black stains on the skyline. She could now see that the columns of smoke were extending outwards along yesterday's message-routes, in the direction the naquikhasar had been directed to advance. An armed advance, marked by things burning. Many things burning And as the sky was rent by those black-smoke calling cards of destruction, Sunset began to feel the stirrings of something like anticipatory guilt. Yesterday,  if she'd thought at all about what she had been doing, she'd thought breezily about a feckless town, a little city which had been foolish enough to allegedly disrespect a barbarian king on the way to his nuptials. The little city of Gyohan Byka had been so unwise as to cast some sort of small gesture of contempt or resistance in the face of the great Khal Drogo on the khalasar's westward journey towards Pentos and his nuptials. Oh, nothing direct or aggressive, from what little Sunset had overheard. Perhaps a failure to leave out the proper offerings to the horse-nomads as they passed by. Or perhaps they'd closed their gates against some emissary, or a patrol had clashed with a hunting-party. Sunset hadn't even been clear on whether the khalasar had passed along this route on the way westwards. Looking at the fecund and lush conditions of the forage and fodder they had encountered so far on their trip east, she had some vague idea that the khal had deliberately chosen to not cross over in his khalasar's own track on the horde's return. It was, after all, a mark of good stewardship to impose one's depredations lightly and evenly across one's domains. Princess Celestia had taught Sunset - well, not exactly that, and not in those words, but the general sense, the general sentiment along those lines. Stewardship. Gyohan Byka. A town so inconsequential that, Sunset had discovered, it did not appear on any maps in the khaleesi's possession. The illiterate Dothraki themselves didn't use things like maps, butif you talked to the bloodriders and other leaders, you would discover that they kept people around who memorized these sorts of things, a sort of geography of the tongue. But they had people who knew that Gyohan Byka was there, and they remembered certain things. Such as obligations, vassalage, and... slights. They said that Gyohan Byka was in some way tributary to their nominally sovereign lords in distant, disinterested Pentos. Or perhaps Norvos. The so-called Debatable Lands began somewhere in this general vicinity. The claim-lines meandered here and there throughout this stretch of the interior, and the region was littered with places too obscure and too far from the main river-routes and best grazing-lands for any given member of the Free Cities or their nearest neighbors to exert any strong or jealous claim. Not that the bloodriders Sunset had quizzed put matters in that bloodless sort of way. As was the practice, she was beginning to realize, of bloodriders. They talked in terms of blood, and slaughter, and swagger. It was how Dothraki like Haggo and Rakharo showed off, how they demonstrated their qualities, their quality, to each other. She'd noticed that competition among the khal's courtiers, to couch their political acumen in the most brutish and simple-minded faux-barbarian cant. And so the subtle discussion of the exact loyalties, obligations, and alleged sovereignties which held the somewhat isolated country-crossroads Gyohan Byka was couched, to Sunset's humble, but Celestial-court-trained ears, in terms of the stone-house men of feeble Gyohan Byka and the lazy coast-stone-men behind their distant walls' coin from here is bronze and copper, not gold and so forth. Sunset brought the khaleesi her morning meal, and messages from the other handmaidens and zafra. She found the young Targaryen in bed with the khal, and delivered her burden of food and words. Standing just inside the tent was Rakharo, armed and at a sort of attention. Outside the luxurious tent, the khal's bloodriders and assorted armed hangers-on were sitting within ear-range, sharpening their arakhs, checking the fletchings of their arrows, and having a nice, brusque gossip about the prospects of a good, brutal sacking that day, or perhaps the day after that. But in general, the sentiment seemed to be that the day would be nothing but a lark among the naquikhasari. Laying with his arm around his wife, the khal, looking rather lazy and smug - like a well-fed cat too full of cream and diced salmon to bother itself with chasing small, orange mice - gestured widely with his arms, but didn't bother to get up. "Sunset Horse! Light of the morning! It is good that you've brought the moon of my life her breakfast! Rakharo says that it looks like I will need all of my own food to myself. Is that not so?" "My Khal, we cannot be sure. The horizon is well-blooded, that is all I can tell you." "Bah! Go and bring me my news, boy! Be swift. Oh, and take the witch-horse with you. She is swift, and I would know the color of my day before it is any older! Go! Find me a slaughter, or find me the capitulation I am owed. I would know if they will bend their heads, or whether I will have to bring their stone roofs down around their ears." "Look, Sun Horse," Rakharo said to Sunset, tightening the cinch strap on his saddle as he prepared his second-string mount. "You should not speak to the lajakoon today. When the warriors get their blood up, they can be wild, and you are still new." Today's horse was a narrow-crouped and eager-looking mare that had in the past seemed to regard Sunset as competition rather than another talky-beast. Today, the horse was ignoring her, and was quivering a bit in anticipation.  The dumb beast knew what was going to happen… "I spoke to these warriors only yesterday. I delivered their orders! Would they forget me in only a day?" "Well," said the bloodrider, looking down at her orange coat. "You are not easily forgotten, this is true. But I meant that that I need you to be ready to carry a message to the khal, on the instant, you understand? No standing about and gossiping like yesisi, yes?" "Yes, Rakharo," Sunset wasn't willing to argue her case any further. The smoke on the horizon was spreading out, smearing, losing their stark columnar character. Whatever was going on was something she had to see with her own eyes. "When I tell you, take my report, and run as fast as you can to the khal, OK? "Yes, Rakharo." "And don't let anyone or anything stop you until you get to the khal himself." "Yes, Rakharo." The camps were breaking down rather lazily this morning. They passed naquikhasar after naquikhasar on their passage out to the columns of smoke, through half-disassembled camps where Dothraki and zafra stirred indifferently, slowly. These were the uninvolved, the incidentals, the many, many little bands whose aggregate represented the whole terrorizing might of Khal Drogo's vast khalasar. It was a dread mass when it was mobilized, focused, and directed as a whole. But in this morning, it was less than impressive, less than organized, not much more than a rambling rabble to Sunset's eyes. Today, only a scattering of Dothraki bands on the leading edge of the horde were doing - whatever that smoke entailed. Sunset continued to fume at the condescension she'd been subjected to by her companion, as they rode out in the direction of the fires. The raiding bands had moved quickly, and even a quick canter pace failed to devour the distance at a speed which satisfied Sunset and the bloodrider. As if she'd stoop to gossip! Or let anypony stop her once she'd gotten her hooves under her! Sunset looked up from the beaten tracks of the warbands in whose hoofprints they followed. The nearest fires were just over the next rise. This was what she had wanted. This was what she had been angling for. Why did she feel uneasy? A burst of speed brought them over the crest of the rise, and the fires came into view. Fields of half-ripe winter barley were smoldering, dried enough to catch fire, still wet enough to not build up into a destructive flash-fire or a proper fire-storm. Beyond the fitfully smoking stalks of the ruined, unharvestable small-grain fields, lay a little farmhold, a collection of huts and sheds, likewise fitfully on fire. One hut, more so than the others. Sunset rather thought it had been the main dwelling, to judge by the butchered remains of the man who had most likely been its owner, a corpse smoldering halfway inside the burning house. They found this particular naquikhasar in the clearing behind the burning buildings. Sunset did her best to not hear or see exactly what was happening to the farmer's family. At least they weren't dead yet. She kept her distance as she'd been ordered.  She had no interest in getting any closer to that. Rahkaro yelled for this band's mahrazh-naquikhasari, Nhizo, until that older man got up from his oversight of the… chastisement of the farmer's-family, and sauntered over to lackadaisically give his account of his activities. The brutal, blood-splattered Dothraki had nothing valuable to report other than his own outrages. Rahkaro snorted dismissively at the older man's bragging, and led Sunset away from the scene of rape and brutalization. "That fool will never be a bloodrider, Sunset Horse. I'd say he thinks with his pecker, except that would mean that he thinks at all. Half again my age, and two, three riders among his get - and what does he show for it? Banditry! Hasn't gotten anywhere near the gates of the city. Pfa!" Sunset nodded as if she agreed, as if she could see the unprofessionalism of the slovenly, careless Nhizo. This was the way of the Dothraki! Except… Except she couldn't really see the difference between what disapproved-of Nhizo was doing, and the slightly more active rapine of the equally-savage bands they found here and there beyond that first burning homestead.  The naquikhasar led by Gulkarro and Qhono, were found in an arc to the southeast, busy sacking other small homesteads, each destroyed farm marked by the now-obvious pillars of black smoke. Perhaps it was the way they'd bound and led away the bruised, bloodied, and terrified captives, rather than debauching them right on the doorsteps of their burning homes? Sunset didn't understand, but the hollow-eyed despair of one small boy, tied behind his stumbling grand-dame or aunt as they were marched away from their old lives by a pair of Dothraki riders, stayed with her as they passed through the arc of destruction. You did this, Sunset. They came up to Adrahko and his warband, cavorting in the open roadway, the wide and clear main road that led to the gates of a low-walled town. Gyohan Byka itself. They had to have a good view of the burning, wrecked farmsteads leading up to their gates. Sunset’s eye was drawn to a bloodied heap laying in the metalled gravel of the roadway a dozen and a half strides away from where they came to a stop. This particular band of Dothraki were having fun. They waved their arakhs in a wild display, whipping their horses, and chasing each other back and forth in full view of the walls while screaming their heads off. A number of them stood upon horseback, bows out, plinking away at the gates of the city. Their recurved bows had a decent range of fire, Sunset thought, although in school she'd done better with a spell she'd learned from a lieutenant in the Princess's palace guard. She missed her magic, and absently rubbed her horn as she watched the Dothraki at play. A couple of the archers were trying to light their arrows on fire, but seemed to mostly be scorching themselves.  The flaming arrows in flight quickly snuffed themselves by the wind of their own passage, thumping solidly but quite extinguished into the clay cladding of the walls in the distance. Sunset wondered where they’d heard of the idea. She knew a spell to make what they were trying work, but again, the horn... Rahkaro pulled aside the sweating, grinning Adrahko, who had been leading his men in their athletic display. The warriors left their leader behind, and continued to chase each other around like a bunch of high-spirited colts kicking up their heels in sheer animal joy. The two Dothraki bent their heads over their horses, discussing the reception of Adrahko's morning of joyful terrorism. Sunset listened to the conversation, and absorbed Adrahko's estimate of the emotional state among the goat-herders of this benighted nowhere. Her attention wandered as the report turned to a rather uninformative series of empty boasts, and she watched the still-cavorting horse-nomads enjoying themselves behind the boastful if diligent Adrahko. They'd dragged a pair of captured farmers out into the road beyond the corpse, and were playing at capture and release.  A pair of riders was charging with lassoes in hand, and - there one of the battered prisoners went, pulled off his feet and dragged towards the gates in the near distance. I made this happen. They let the other prisoner go, and he swayed into a stumbling, gasping run, dashing for the safety of the walls. One of the riders, smiling, drew his claws, his arakh, and stood in his stirrups, waiting to give the runner a head start. Poised like a cat, waiting to pounce. Sunset stared, riveted, waiting for the moment when the Dothraki rider with his arakh would spur his mount, and charge forward, and the wickedly curved blade would slice through the smoke-tainied air and- Her focus, directed down-road towards the rider, his prey, and the walls walls beyond, meant that she was the first to see, in the corner of her eye, the objects that some unseen men flung over the city walls on either side of the barred gates. It was why, when her vision re-focused in startlement, that she was the one to witness their heavy arc as they fell, kicking, kicking - only to stop, dead, as the ropes tied around them came taunt, and they snapped to a twitching halt. But the games they were playing all came to a halt, and the now-still Dothraki sat in their saddles to witness what came next, and watched with all solemnity as the broken-necked Gyohani corpses hung by their unnaturally-bent necks, dancing, twitching in the distinctive manner of the just-executed.  The bodies swayed pendulum-like, laying like a pair of ghastly holiday-decorations on either side of the barred gate of Gyohan Byka. The gate creaked open, granting entrance to the savages outside the walls. The Dothraki games were concluded with the hanging, and they returned to their business, gathering up their prisoners, and advancing to take possession of the gates between the two hanged men dangling in the smoky haze. "Sunset Horse, it is time," said Rakharo as he leaned over his horse. "Go and tell the khal the news! The stone-house people have surrendered to his mercy! Ride!" And Sunset rode like the smoke-stained wind.