Chapter 413: Farce, Comedy, and Tragedy - Game of Thrones: Knight’s Honor - NovelsTime

Game of Thrones: Knight’s Honor

Chapter 413: Farce, Comedy, and Tragedy

Author: BlurryDream
updatedAt: 2025-07-13

CHAPTER 413: CHAPTER 413: FARCE, COMEDY, AND TRAGEDY

Ghost grass has always held a special place in the hearts of the Dothraki. They see it as a harbinger of doom. In their legends, ghost grass will one day cover the Dothraki Sea and eventually the entire world, and when that day comes, it will mark the end of everything.

At night, ghost grass emits a faint glow, which the Dothraki believe to be the light of human souls absorbed by the grass. They dread the idea of their souls being taken by ghost grass after death, so before it covers the world, they must launch a grand raid to please the flaming horses that race across the sky. If they succeed, their souls will be accepted by the fire horses and turned into stars, forever galloping across the heavens.

Over a year ago, after Daenerys and Nymeria captured Slaver’s Bay together, they began their march north, launching an invasion into the Dothraki Sea. Since Daenerys’ forces included a large number of Dothraki khalasars, conquering the entire Dothraki Sea wasn’t too difficult. Their battle tactics were simple: the three dragons would clear the way with dragonfire, followed closely by her Roaring Warriors and the Unsullied.

After defeating the four strongest khalasars in the Dothraki Sea, the remaining Dothraki lost all will to fight and ultimately chose to submit to Daenerys under the witness of the Dosh Khaleen at Vaes Dothrak.

Though the Dothraki submitted, their numbers were hardly diminished. Even after Daenerys recruited a large portion of the Roaring Warriors under her command, vast numbers of Dothraki warriors remained scattered across the sea of grass.

When ghost grass began spreading across the Dothraki Sea, prophecies of doom quickly circulated among the khalasars, along with widespread agitation. Some ko even bribed the Dosh Khaleen to deliver false prophecies, which ultimately ignited the Dothraki rebellion.

Seven days after Margaery’s warning, official news finally reached King’s Landing—but by then, Daenerys had already left, taking her three dragons along with Neltharion and Deltos.

Half a month later, new reports arrived from Slaver’s Bay, bringing news of the Dothraki’s defeat.

Although their betrayal had been sudden, their downfall was just as swift.

The Dothraki had barely finished gathering in Vaes Dothrak when ten giant dragons rained down dragonfire, engulfing the city in flames. Along with the dragons came the winged dragon cavalry of the Tarran Empire, bringing wildfire with them.

In less than half a day, Vaes Dothrak—where more than thirty khalasars had assembled—was reduced to a scorched wasteland. Even the idols and statues they had plundered from across the world over countless years were melted down, like candles in a furnace.

The hunting parties composed of Roaring Warriors under the command of the Empress Dragon Queen swept across the endless grasslands, hunting down any survivors. Apart from a few khalasars who fled north into the snow-covered mountains, the rest of the Dothraki were captured and shipped in batches to Slaver’s Bay, then sent to the imperial frontier settlements on Sothoryos as forced laborers.

If the Dothraki rebellion was a farce, then the rebellion in the Vale was pure comedy.

The nobles of the Vale had always been at odds with the new Tarran Dynasty and the Tarran Empire. Aside from a handful of loyalists like Bronze Yohn Royce, most Vale lords considered themselves of such high birth that they merely paid lip service to Lynd’s commands.

Adding to the disorder, young Robert Arryn was far too inexperienced to command true loyalty, leaving the Vale’s nobility fragmented and acting independently, like a pile of loose sand.

During the White Walker War, when Lynd imposed the White Walker tax, the Vale lords grudgingly paid under pressure, harboring resentment all the while. Later, when Lynd warned that the Wall might fall and urged preparations to migrate to Essos, the Vale nobility paid no heed. They believed that even if the Wall fell, the sheer cliffs and rugged peaks of the Moon Mountains would protect them.

In the end, the White Walkers were indeed defeated. Aside from the Vale, the other kingdoms had wasted considerable time and resources preparing for disaster. This only confirmed the Vale lords’ belief that their indifference had been wise, making them even more dismissive of Lynd’s future commands.

Thus, when Lynd announced that the Long Night was approaching, that eternal winter would descend, and that everyone must migrate to the legendary continent of Sothoryos, the Vale nobility—except for Bronze Yohn Royce—paid no attention at all, and failed to register for migration in time.

However, over the course of a year, even the most foolish could sense the changing climate. As the Wardens of the North, the West, the Reach, Dorne, the Stormlands, and the Riverlands successively migrated, many noble lords followed suit. Even familiar figures like Bronze Yohn Royce and a few other Vale lords gave up their lands and migrated to the continent of Sothoryos with Robert Arryn. Only then did the rest of the Vale’s nobility begin to panic and rush to register with King’s Landing.

But by the time they registered, they had already been pushed to the end of the migration list. They would have to wait until people from other regions completed their relocation before it would be the Vale’s turn. Realistically, they might have to wait another year or two. Worse still, the later they migrated, the smaller and more remote the lands they could be granted would become.

Some of them, growing desperate, came up with a crazy idea—to sail to Sothoryos on their own.

However, they soon discovered that every ship at sea, whether warship or merchant vessel, had already been requisitioned by the Tarran Empire. Besides the cargo ships needed to maintain supply routes and the patrol fleets securing the seas, all other vessels were dedicated to the migration effort. There wasn’t a single spare ship left.

Moreover, all port cities had been placed under imperial control. As one of Westeros’s five great port cities, Gulltown was naturally among them. Thus, even if the Vale lords wanted to organize their own migration, they had neither ships nor docks to use.

Not long ago, an earthquake struck the Vale, causing the Eyrie to collapse and opening a rift through the Moon Mountains. The frigid northern winds, once blocked by the towering peaks, now flooded through the breach, sweeping into the Vale and triggering a month-long blizzard. Casualties mounted not only among common folk but among the nobility as well.

Realizing that if they stayed in such harsh conditions, they would all be dead within a year or two, the Vale’s noble lords decided to band together and launch a surprise attack on Gulltown.

What they hadn’t anticipated was that there was a traitor among them—someone who saw betrayal as a way to secure early migration. Even more absurd, it turned out everyone involved in the plot was secretly a traitor, including the very one who had first proposed the plan to seize Gulltown. His original intention had been to use the scheme to frame the other Vale nobles and win favor with Lynd.

So when they gathered together to set their plan in motion, they were easily captured by the Godsworn Legion and were immediately informed of their fate. They were indeed allowed to migrate early—but not as noble lords. Instead, they were stripped of their titles and exiled as criminals, not to the lands of Sothoryos, but to The Axe, a harsh prison island specially designated by Lynd.

Meanwhile, the devastating cold had rendered the Vale uninhabitable. Yet because the common folk of the Vale were not yet eligible for migration, Lynd temporarily relocated them to The Reach for shelter until their turn came to move on.

Migration across Westeros was proceeding in an orderly manner. Migration on the continent of Essos was also underway, though circumstances there were different. Not everyone on Essos belonged to the Tarran Empire. Although Nymeria and Daenerys controlled vast territories, many of the peoples living there—such as the Similians, the Zokorians, and the Jips—continued to maintain their traditional ways of life and independent tribal identities.

Nymeria and Daenerys largely let them be. As long as they did not cause trouble, they were free to roam within imperial territory without interference.

However, as the extreme cold continued pushing southward from the Shivering Sea, and as ghost grass spread across the Dothraki Sea, these ethnic groups began to sense the looming threat. One after another, they started migrating southward, placing tremendous pressure on the cities along the southern coastline.

Nymeria’s response was simple and direct: she dispatched envoys to the tribal leaders with a single message—surrender or be destroyed.

The outcome was predictable. Except for a handful of particularly stubborn chiefs who killed the imperial envoys, most chose to surrender and accept Nymeria’s reorganization. As for those defiant tribes, they ultimately vanished from the face of the world.

However, while the Cymmeri, Zoqora, and Gipps were all human minorities and relatively easy to deal with, the real trouble came from the non-human races: the Hairy Men from the inland Silver Coast, the Woods Walkers from the forests near the Shivering Sea north of the Dothraki Sea, and the Centaurs from the eastern Dothraki Sea.

The Hairy Men resembled a branch of the giants—far taller than ordinary humans, yet smaller than the Stone Giants. They were somewhat similar to the Furry Giants beyond the Wall, though more intelligent and significantly more civilized.

The Woods Walkers were somewhat akin to the Children of the Forest, though much taller and lacking the magical abilities of the Children. However, each one was a master archer and strikingly handsome, giving Lynd the impression they were closer to the ancient race that had not turned into White Walkers.

As for the Centaurs, they were true centaurs—not warriors on horseback, but actual half-man, half-horse beings. Legends of centaurs had long circulated across Westeros and Essos, but most people dismissed them, believing they were merely misinterpretations of mounted warriors.

That skepticism vanished when an army of five hundred Centaur warriors appeared near the city of Vaes Dilf in the heart of the Dothraki Sea. Everyone was stunned and immediately reported the sighting to Daenerys, who was then stationed in Qarth.

Because of the language barrier, Lynd ordered the Children of the Forest to act as intermediaries with the non-human races. The outcome was mixed. On the positive side, the non-human races weren’t seeking conflict—they wanted to submit and migrate south with the empire, clearly sensing the encroaching extreme cold.

The bad news was that there weren’t just a few of them. Hidden among the inland Silver Sea, the northern forests, and the Bone Mountains, their combined numbers reached between two and three hundred thousand.

Had they been ordinary Smallfolk, the Tarran Empire could have absorbed them without much difficulty. But two to three hundred thousand non-human races—many of whom consumed several times more than a normal human—would place a massive strain on the empire’s food reserves.

"If we accept all these non-human races, how long can our current food supplies last?" Lynd asked Samwell Tarly, his chief steward.

"Four months," Sam answered, glancing down at the ledger in his hands.

Lynd was silent for a moment, then asked, "If I recall correctly, six months ago, the third batch of frontier towns began planting broadleaf cassava?"

Sam quickly flipped through his ledger and confirmed, "Yes, and there have already been two harvests. The yields met expectations. Currently, half of the cultivated lands in the New World are planted with broadleaf cassava."

Lynd paused in thought, then instructed, "Draft a reception order. Daenerys is to accept the non-human races, but scatter them across different frontier towns. The empire will provide two months of rations. After that, they must farm for themselves—seventy percent of the harvest belongs to them, the remaining thirty percent will be collected as tax."

Sam hesitated briefly before saying, "But their condition for surrender was that they stay together."

Lynd shook his head. "My order is final. If they don’t agree, they can stay behind on Essos. If they resist, eliminate them."

"Understood, Your Grace," Sam said, asking no more questions. He swiftly drafted several identical orders, had Lynd seal them, and sent them by messenger falcons to Qarth and New King’s Landing.

After handling these matters, Sam quietly stayed at Lynd’s side, assisting with other affairs.

...

Upon receiving Lynd’s directive, Daenerys arranged to meet with representatives of the various non-human races and presented Lynd’s terms.

At first, the Hairy Men and the Centaurs refused, while the Woods Walkers—and some of the smaller non-human groups under their protection—hesitated only briefly before agreeing.

But as the weather continued to deteriorate, the Hairy Men and Centaurs began to falter. Some tried to use force, believing that by demonstrating their strength through war, they could force Lynd to compromise.

The result was inevitable. Under the combined assault of dragonfire and the Roaring Warriors, every attacking force was swiftly crushed. In the end, the Hairy Men, the Centaurs, and the other non-human races aligned with them all relented and agreed to Lynd’s terms, accepting the empire’s reorganization and distribution.

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