NOVEL NEXT Chapter 10: The Wedding
The wedding was a raucous affair, to be sure. In the end, Jon was never going to just… go to Viserys and make his mad uncle give up Daenerys before the wedding could take place. He just wasn’t that kind of man, at the end of the day. In fact, Jon was beginning to feel like he wasn’t a man at all. Not entirely. No, there was something more lurking within him, just beneath the surface. Was it dragon? Perhaps. Was it also dire wolf? Maybe.
Either way, rather than pushing matters with Magister Illyrio Mopatis by invading the man’s manse right then and there to secure his Aunt, Jon had decided to wait. Having his mercenaries lay low for three more days wasn’t exactly a hardship. The Iron Bank had paid them more than enough in advance to be able to enjoy the pleasures of the city. In the end, Jon made sure that the Mercenary Captain had his men well-rested the night before the wedding, and ready for whatever might come.
When he found out that the Dothraki weren’t even trying to keep non-Dothraki out, Jon decided that storming the entire thing would be… uncouth. Instead, he and his men simply… walked in and sat down. He had been assured by the Captain that his company would only partake of the wine and food in so much as was required to blend in. At this point, having trained with many of them throughout the journey to Pentos, Jon could pick most out of the crowd. They were spread through the wedding, just as he’d intended.
Jon himself stayed a respectful distance away, watching Daenerys from afar. She truly was beautiful. Pale skin, white hair, purple eyes… she was a gorgeous woman, to say the least. Just a tad younger than him, but clearly already coming into her maturity, with a woman’s body, if the hints of it he could see under her beautiful dress were any indication.
She was also terrified, disturbed, and altogether disgusted by what was happening around her, Jon could see this clear as day. Oh, the young woman tried to hide it. His Aunt clearly knew that she couldn’t make a scene, if the frequent glances towards his Uncle and her new husband were any indication. She was far too afraid to even say a word, until of course words were directed at her.
As the wedding goes on, gifts are given to Khal Drogo and his new Khaleesi. One by one, supplicants make their way up to the dais to set down chests filled with everything from rare incense, to valuable gems, to even snakes. None of it is all that interesting… in truth, Jon has more of his attention focused on the Dothraki in the center of the wedding instead.
They really are savage… but even savagery can be beautiful, in its own way. As the Dothraki men and women dance with one another, grinding into each other’s bodies, things get more and more aggressive, until one of the men has one of the women on all fours and is outright mounting her. From the looks of things, he’s slipped his cock inside of her by the time another Dothraki man runs up and pushes him off, trying to take his place.
What follows is a fist fight that escalates into an all out brawl that then in turn escalates even further into a duel to the death as the two draw their Arakhs and begin swinging. Jon honestly loses track of which one was which is the ensuing melee, and by the end of it he’s not sure if the first one is the one who wins, or if it was the second. Either way, one of them gets their intestines spilled and their braid chopped off, while the other gets the attentions of not only the initial Dothraki woman, but a second as well, both of them clearly immensely turned on by his victory.
That’s when things finally get interesting. Jon watches, eyes widening slightly in recognition, as Ser Jorah Mormont of Bear Island walks up to the dais where Daenerys and Khal Drogo are sat. While the disgraced Knight should not recognize him, Jon certainly recognizes Ser Jorah. He remembers being told all about the man’s flight from the Seven Kingdoms. He was an abject lesson of what slavery could lead to. Instead of facing execution for his crimes, Ser Jorah had ran… and now he was here, giving Jon’s Aunt books.
It was almost time, wasn’t it? But, even as Jorah pulls back and Jon considers making his move, he finds himself stopped again by a larger chest than most being brought forward. Something… something about the chest catches his eye, even as the Magister stands up and speaks clearly and concisely, and certainly loud enough for Jon to catch his words.
The chest is opened, and something in Jon begins to pound as he stares at what can only be dragon eggs. Daenerys reaches in and picks one up, holding the green egg high enough for Jon to make out its scaled detailing.
“Dragon’s eggs, Daenerys, from the Shadowlands beyond Asshai. The ages have turned them to stone… but they will always be beautiful.”
“Thank you, Magister.”
Jon forces himself back under control as Khal Drogo abruptly stands. The entire wedding goes quiet, everyone watching. Daenerys, realizing what’s happening, carefully puts her dragon egg back in its chest alongside the other two. When she stands, Drogo begins walking forward. It’s then that Jon decides to act, with his Aunt still up in the dais and Drogo in the center of the wedding. Stepping out of the crowd, Jon draws his sword and shouts in carefully practiced Dothraki.
He doesn’t actually speak Dothraki. But to make the challenge something that the Dothraki Horde will actually respect, he has to start off on the right foot. As such, he’d practiced that statement quite a lot on the way here, and been assured by his teachers, Bellegere and the Mercenary Captain, that he had it down rather pat.
Judging by the way Drogo stops dead in his tracks, nostrils flaring and eyes widening in rage, he has indeed gotten his point across… either that, or he insulted the man’s horse. One way or the other…
“And who might you be, to invade the wedding of a Khal?”
Of course, that’s when the Magister steps in. Beside Illyrio, Viserys hasn’t actually risen from his seat. Probably because his Uncle doesn’t know what Jon said or who Jon was, else he’d be a lot more… upset. As it is, Jon just smiles, never taking his eyes off of Drogo, even as he addresses the Magister.
“My name is Jon. But that’s irrelevant. A Queen of the Seven Kingdoms does not deserve to be sold like chattel to a Horse-Lord.”
THAT gets a reaction from Viserys. Daenerys as well, his Aunt’s eyes going wide at his words, even as Viserys jumps to his feet, a mad snarl on his face.
“You DARE-!”
“I accept.”
Khal Drogo’s guttural response in Dothraki is not as loud as Viserys’ screeching, but still cuts through the Targaryen Princeling’s words like a knife. Or perhaps more accurately, like an Arakh. With Khal Drogo having accepted his challenge, one of his Dothraki tosses exactly that to the Khal, and Drogo catches it, holding the Arakh aloft and roaring to get the crowd riled up and roaring back at him in approval.
Jon just smiles, his men not having drawn their own weapons just yet. None of them were expecting him to just be able to walk in and get a one on one fight with the Khal… but it seemed that the earlier bloodshed had Drogo’s appetites piqued, and the Khal was taking the opportunity to shed some blood of his own, even if he didn’t know who Jon was.
The space in the middle of the wedding was already fairly empty by this point, but it doesn’t take much for Dothraki and ‘guests’ alike to form up a circle. Jon and Drogo circle around one another, taking each other’s measure. Jon holds his sword before him with two hands on the hilt, with Drogo postures with grunts and snarls, one-handing his arakh, looking like a prowling animal rather than a knight.
But then, he isn’t a knight… he’s a horse lord. And he’s without his horse. When Drogo finally moves, its fast. Extremely fast. Jon is able to block the Khal’s swing all the same, but there’s quite a lot of strength behind the blow, and Jon is grateful for his two-handed grip. If he’d tried to one-hand it like Drogo is doing, then he probably would have lost his weapon and then his life, right then and there.
As it is, Drogo is stronger than him. Jon could have told anyone that just by looking at the Dothraki man however. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, and well-muscled. The fact that he has more strength just means Jon has to play smarter and dirtier. The next blinding fast swing from the Khal’s arakh is not blocked, it’s parried, deflected to the side as Jon seeks to counter attack with a slash at Drogo’s stomach. He dodges out of the way though, but Jon can still see the slight surprise and begrudging respect show up in the Khal’s eyes from the strike.
The fight from there just grows faster and harsher and more brutal by the moment. But where most men would begin to falter under the relentless assault that Drogo was capable of putting out… Jon was finding himself right at home. Where most would start to tire, as Khal Drogo himself began to, Jon… felt more revitalized by the moment.
He couldn’t explain it, nor could he describe it. It was like this was what he was meant for. Battle. Victory. Conquest. Those three words pound into Jon’s head, but it’s also almost like they slither. Claws sink into his skull, even as Jon continues to fight Drogo with a dogged determination, resolute and relentless in his own way… indomitable, in fact.
It’s never fear that enters the Khal’s eyes. Drogo isn’t the sort of man that can feel fear, Jon’s pretty sure. He’s not a man that’s capable of terror or even horror. Rage, anger, fury… all of those and more, yes. But even if he’s not afraid, Jon does see the wariness on Drogo’s face… and the weariness soon after. That’s the most that he gets from the other man, before he’s knocking Drogo’s arakh aside and sliding his own sword up into the man’s chest, piercing right through his heart then and there.
Having done his research, Jon twists and then pulls his sword out just as quickly as he thrust it in, and as the bare-chested Khal falls to his knees, arakh falling from nerveless fingers, Jon is spinning around him and slicing his sword through braid and neck both, cutting Drogo’s braid from his head and his head from his body, both at the exact same time.
As Khal Drogo’s decapitated corpse falls to the ground in the middle of what was supposed to be his wedding, there’s a beat of silence. But, Jon does not allow himself to relax. After all, he knows what comes next. A Dothraki cry, one filled with more emotion in the form of sorrow and rage then Jon was expecting, sounds out as Khal Drogo’s Blood Riders push out of the crowd and rush at him, their own arakhs in hand.
Jon doesn’t even have to think, truth be told. His body still thrums heatedly from his fight with Drogo. All that strength, all that power that came from the prolonged combat… allows Jon to make absurdly short work of the Blood Riders, his sword knocking aside their arakhs and cutting them down, one by one by one, until all three of them lay dead at his feet, alongside their headless Khal.
Even when THEY are dead, Jon doesn’t allow himself to relax. Neither does the Mercenary Company that the Iron Bank sent here to watch over him. Each and every man is staring at him with wide eyes, but they also have their hands on the pommels of their swords, ready to draw and fight for him at a moment’s notice. Jon is impressed with their discipline, truth be told.
His eyes flicker across the rest of the wedding carefully taking in the reactions of those around him. The Magister looks shocked and vaguely disturbed, as well as deeply confused. Beside him, Viserys is just as shocked, his anger still present but also… muted by his awe at what he’d just watched. Jorah Mormont stands off to the side, looking like he’s ready to draw it as well.
Daenerys… Daenerys is afraid of him, but beneath that fear, as well as the disgust from seeing so much death in such a short amount of time, Jon can also sense relief. Relief that she no longer has to marry Khal Drogo. Relief that they didn’t have time to consummate the wedding before the savage man’s death. His Aunt is young and meek and soft in a way Jon knows he should have expected but truthfully didn’t… and she is relieved.
“… Khal… Khal… Khal…”
That’s when it starts. Everyone who is not Dothraki can only watch in muted surprise as the Dothraki who have been allowed to attend Khal Drogo’s wedding begin to sink to their knees and bow their heads to Jon. As they do so, they title him at the same time, naming him… Khal?
… He should have seen this coming. As Jon stands there, mouth slightly agape, sword bloodied and held in his grip, he wonders what he’s supposed to do now. So does the Mercenary Captain, as it turns out, because the man is soon at his side, asking heatedly what they’re supposed to do next. Jon isn’t entirely sure. He just usurped Khal Drogo, and at the man’s wedding at that. He killed Drogo’s Blood Riders, the only Dothraki who were required to try and avenge the dead man.
But he was pretty sure he couldn’t be Khal… could he? But then, the Horse Lords did respect strength. The only question was… did Jon REALLY want to climb down this rabbit hole? Or did he want to take his Aunt and get the fuck out of here, back to Braavos where he could plan his next step with his allies in the Iron Bank?
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