8300 - The Year of Defiance
(from the Lhazareen Book of Years)
Suru found Lord Mago at the sheep pens admiring his brother Iggo' new ram, a fine animal that he had brought back from Hoshorak. It was said to come from a line that produced many twin lambs, a chance to increase the size of Shiqethi's flocks in a generation.
"Lord Mago, you must come at once!" Suru gasped, he was sweating and panting obviously having run all the way from his post at the hall.
"What is it, Suru?"
"A Dothraki envoy from Khal Pono, he says the Dothraki are coming to raid unless we provide tribute."
Lord Mago turned pale, then without a word he turned from the new ram and began striding back toward his hall, Suru and Iggo Shiqethi trailing in his wake.
The Dothraki had not even dismounted from his horse, though he had thrown one leg over his saddle horn and looked perfectly relaxed as he lazily swung his arakh and watched the crowd gathering in the yard before the great hall.
He perked up as Lord Mago entered, "Ah, Chief of the Lamb Men, there you are. They said you were with your sheep, doubtlessly picking out one to keep you warm tonight."
Lord Mago ignored the insult, "Why are you here, Dothraki?"
"Ah, right to business. The Great Khal Pono of the Dothraki demands you gift him with 300 gold, or he will bring his khalasar into the land of Hesh and take that and more as well as scatter your flocks and enslave your women and children."
There were murmurs of dismay amongst the assembled crowd, 300 gold was an impossible sum.
"Who is Khal Pono? I thought Khal Drogo lead the Dothraki khalasar."
The rider scowled, "Khal Drogo was poisoned by the foreign witch he married. Khal Pono has claimed the khalasar and now demands your tribute"
Lord Mago gestured at his surroundings, "We are poor shepherds, how would we have 300 gold for this Khal."
The rider made a show of looking around, "You Lamb men are truly a sorry lot." After a moment's pause, he continued, "It is said that the Lord of Hesh has a daughter, my Khal has said if you provide this girl, you only need provide 150 gold in tribute. She will be taken as a concubine by Khal Pono, a great honor for your people and a blessing on the girl as she won't have to mate with a sheep."
Lord Mago looked around his courtyard with growing despair, even 150 gold would beggar Hesh and leave his only daughter in the hands of one of those savages. Then he spied the shining head of his youngest son, Rhaego. Taking heart, he turned back to the envoy.
"Tell your Khal we refuse to pay any tribute, we will not bow to savages and will fight him if he comes."
The Dothraki grinned, "Ah, a man among the sheep. I will gladly bring this news to Khal Pono of the promise of war and slaughter." With a whoop he whirled his horse around and swung his arakh over his head and then galloped out of the courtyard, heading north to the Great Grass Sea.
The crowd stood in stunned silence, until his brother Iggo turned to him, " Are you mad?! You'll get us all killed. You should have given him Rimmi and we would have found a way to raise the 150 gold. We can't fight a Dothraki horde."
"We can fight them. We may not beat them, but we can fight them. I won't bow meekly to those savages anymore. We need to learn how to fight back, and if we have to take a beating to learn the lessons of war, so be it."
"You have been twisted by Priest Kamaj and his prophecies for that changeling child." Iggo spat, "Hesh and the Shiqethi have survived by bending with the wind, not fighting against a storm. The Dothraki will wipe us from the earth if we defy them."
Mago shook his head,, "No, the Great Shepherd has set us on a new path, and we must learn the skills we will need to follow it."
" You have doomed us all!" Iggo turned and walked away.
A similar, less heated discussion occurred later in the hall between Lord Mago and his council. Rakharo, as Chief General of Hesh, was in agreement with his brother Iggo, they wouldn't be able to stop the Dothraki from taking what they wanted, they should have paid the tribute, even if it meant sending his niece to the Khal.
"Nevertheless, brother, you will do your duty as Chief General and raise our army."
"We don't have an army, farmers and shepherds are all we have."
"We will work with what we have. Take Tatus, he served as a sellsword for a time, he can start training the men to fight."
Rakhari sighed, "Dothraki are born ready to fight, a few weeks training will hardly make our men ready to face them."
Lady Mothi spoke up. "If the Great Khal Drogo died last fall, then the lesser Khals have been fighting for control. Pono may be top dog now, but there may be a dozen curs still nipping at his heels. By declaring his intention to raid Hesh, he has given his enemies the advantage, they know where he is headed, while he remains uncertain of their intentions."
"My husband was correct not to pay tribute, not because we can win a fight with the Dothraki, but rather because there is a chance this Khal Pono may not live long enough to make good on his threats. And then the next Khal will demand his own tribute from us even though we had already paid Pono."
The Council sat in silence, digesting Lady Mothi's words, then finally Lord Barjik of Atakosh, Mago's chief vassal and the Astolatak of Hesh spoke up, "I can send you some 300 men, but I must stay back ... to protect Atakosh."
Lord Mago inclined his head in acknowledgement, "You have a duty to your people as well as to me. We will add your men to the levies of Hesh and prepare to defend ourselves against Pono and his screamers."
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The call went out across Hesh and Atakosh, and the levies began gathering in Hesh. In time, some 2,900 men and boys had answered Lord Mago's call. Most of the Lhazareen levies carried slings, crooks, staffs, and spears as their main weapons, the same weapons they used to protect their flocks from predators. Some, mostly farmers, carried scythes, flails, and mattocks as their weapons. A few of the levies even had arakhs and bladed whips, collected over time from the Dothraki raiders, though they were unskilled in their use. Hunting bows and looted Dothraki war bows, were carried by the small contingent of archers.
Rakharo and Tatus took charge of the volunteers and tried to bring order to the mass of farmers and shepherds and turn them into an army. Tatus also sent scouts ahead, north into the Great Grass Sea to try and spy the coming khalasar.
The scouts soon sent back reports to Hesh's war council, which consisted of Lord Mago, Tatus and Rakharo. The reports indicated that the Dothraki, 3,000 strong, were moving west through Krazaaj Has.
Tatus seemed pleased with the scout's report, "They have fewer riders than I expected. Khal Drogo had more than 10,000 when he attacked just 18 months ago. I would have expected Pono to have at least half that number."
"We'll be evenly matched!" General Rakharo added.
Tatus looked at him and sighed, " I wouldn't say that, you can't compare one Dothraki screamer to one Lhazareen shepherd."
Tatus continued, "It looks like they heading toward the Essosi Trade road, it gives a straight shot into the heart of Hesh. The Dothraki should turn southeast when they reach trade road and follow it into Hesh."
Tatus pulled up one of the few maps that Lord Mago possessed of Hesh. None were military maps, most more oriented around the locations of winter and summer pasture lands for the Lhazareen flocks.
He traced the Trade route on the map. "Here in the western hills, the trade road runs through this narrow valley. If we can get there first and set up fortifications across the valley, we might have a chance."
" A chance? You think we can beat them?"
"No." Tatus looked at Lord Mago. "We can't beat them. But if we can bleed them enough, maybe they don't want to risk losing more men, or they won't have enough men left over to take Hesh in a siege. And we give our people time to get to shelter."
Lord Mago looked at his General and his Commander," You think this is our best option?"
Tatus sighed again, "It's our only option, aside from marching north into the Dothraki Sea and trying to find Khal Pono's family and take them hostage."
Rakharo protested, "We can't do that, it would leave Hesh defenseless."
The former sellsword laughed, "Not much more defenseless than we already are." As Rakharo's face turned red, Tatus continued," You're right, we can't do it. It would be useless anyway because we have no idea where to find his family out there."
Lord Mago stopped them, "Enough. We will commit to this plan and head for this valley."
***************
Two months later, the fortifications across the valley were nearing completion, the Hesh levies were more suited to hard work than fighting and well knew how dig ditches and build fences. The trenches and sharpened stakes would slow the Dothraki charge and the fences would provide protection from the horse archers. If they could stop the Dothraki long enough, the slingers and archers could have effect against the lightly armored Dothraki riders.
But Tatus was worried, the Dothraki were late. They should have been here long before Hesh had completed its preparations, but his scouts said the khalasar was still encamped in Krazaaj Has. Finally, the anxious commander could wait no more and rode north to join the scouts. Using a ravine cutting through the grassland, they were able to slip in close enough to the encampment to make out the clan totems on the Dothraki tents.
Tatus turned on the hapless scouts, "Where is the Griffon totem, the Pono Clan's symbol?"
"We never saw anything like that."
"You idiots! You've been following the wrong khalasar."
"But if this isn't Khal Pono's khalasar, then where are they?"
Tatus looked stricken and without a word went running back down the ravine to the spot they left their horses.
*****************
Tatus awoke to find Rhogoro squatting beside him.
The blood rider looked up, addressing his riders. " He lives!"
Turning back to Tatus, "You fought well for a Lamb Man. I was not expecting any kind of challenge, so thank you."
He stood and walked to his mount, the bells in his braid ringing softly, "Add him to the coffle, he is strong, he will make a fine slave."
Tatus had barely reached the Hesh army when the Dothraki were upon them lead by one of Khal Pono's bloodriders, Rhogoro. The Hesh army was in chaos, they were trapped between the their own fortifications and 5,000 Dothraki riders who had come from the southeast. Tatus efforts to rally the panicked Hesh had attracted the attention of the Dothraki leader, and he had challenged Tatus personally, leaping from his horse to meet the Hesh commander on foot. Tatus remembered little of the fight, only the fact that he had actually drawn first blood, as the rider had taunted and played with him, misjudging Tatus' skill. After Tatus' cut, the bloodrider had stopped playing, and Tatus had only his aching head and blurred vision to give him some idea of how the fight had ended.
As Tatus was added to a line of other captives, he had a chance to take in the battlefield. A swathe of Lhazareen bodies, ran from the fortifications near the trade road up the south slope of the valley to the tree line along the ridge. Most of the dead had been trampled or cut down as they fled. It appeared that half the Lhazareen army had died here, over 1,000 men.
As Tatus and another hundred men were marched north as slaves with a few Dothraki guards, he saw the main Khalasar head southeast along the trade road toward central Hesh, not even bothering to follow the fleeing Lhazareen army.
*************
Lord Mago, one of the few men with a horse, broke away from the fleeing remnants of his army and rode hard for home to warn them that army had failed and the Dothraki were coming. He left his brother Rakharo to try and gain control of the routed army, which did not look like it would stop running until it reached safety in Lhazosh to the south.
Two days after Lord Mago's arrival in Hesh, as he tried to organize his defenses, another Dothraki envoy appeared at the gate.
Lord Mago went out to the gate to meet the rider.
" What are Khal Pono's demands now?" Mago called down to the rider.
The Dothraki looked confused, " Khal Pono? How should I know what that dog would want?" Straightening in his saddle he proclaimed, "My Khal, Cohollo of Raesh Kweho, has sent me to tell you that he is coming. You have one chance to avoid this. You must give him a great gift or all of Hesh will feel his wrath."
Laughter was not the response the envoy was expecting. Then Lord Mago shouted down defiantly, " Tell Cohollo the Tyrant to get in line, he will get nothing from us."
The Dothraki stood up in his saddle to respond back to the madman on the wall, when a sling stone burst on the ground in front of his mount. Another whistled by his head.
"Go!" came another shout from the wall, " or we will kill you."
The rider cursed, and then turned and rode away.