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Game of Thrones: The Ruler- Chapter 75: To Qarth
🕑 Added 2025-09-04 19:01:13 +0000 UTCTwo horses galloped across a vast, barren, and uninhabited land. Both the riders were covering themselves with a cloak to shield themselves from the occasional bouts of sand filled wind that struck them. A sword was strapped to each of their waists. Any inn or settlement where they could rest was at least a few hours away.
It had been seven days since Jon and Melisandre had departed from the city of Meereen for the city of Qarth.
It had taken great effort for Jon to convince Grey Worm, Ammund, and the others to allow him to go with only Melisandre to such a dangerous place. Only after invoking his authority as the monarch of the empire had they relented. Apart from his core group, no one was aware of his absence from the city.
The purpose of Jon and Melisandre’s journey to Qarth was to investigate the warlocks and determine whether their powers had returned. Jon had not been really into this idea of dealing with the warlocks first but Melisandre had insisted that they should be dealt with first. Melisandre had not actually said them to possess any real danger but surely, they had ability to create nuisance. And she had been insistent about the fact that they better be dealt with before the dragons were revealed to the world.
A few in his court had even suggested marching the army to Qarth and capturing the city outright.
But for several reasons, that plan was unviable.
First, Jon had made no preparations or arrangements regarding Qarth. Without even a single spy in the city, the only option would have been to lay siege. And with Qarth’s formidable city walls of stone, such an invasion would be nearly impossible.
Even if Jon could have overcome that obstacle with some brilliant strategy, moving his army toward Qarth was still unwise. The city lay in the opposite direction of the Free Cities, and marching his forces there would only take them farther from their true objective.
Such a move would have derailed all of Jon’s plans. The distance from Meereen to Qarth was great, even with only two riders, it would take Jon and Melisandre more than two weeks to arrive. For an army, the journey would take far longer. Then there would be the battle, followed by the long march back toward the Free Cities. It was not a realistic course of action. A lot of time would have been wasted and Jon’s plan about the free cities and then the Westeros would have been thrown in jeopardy.
Thus, the decision had been made. Jon and Melisandre, who had some knowledge of warlocks would go alone. And even if something went wrong, with their combined abilities, escaping unharmed would not be an issue. Grey Worm had been stubborn about tagging along but Jon had not relented.
They had departed from Meereen a couple of days after Jon’s first meeting with Samwell Tarly. Samwell, for the time being, had been appointed to the Department of Internal Affairs under Ecson, where he would learn the craft directly from him.
In addition, Samwell had been granted a considerable degree of autonomy, freedom he was expected to use to deepen his knowledge of administration and assist Lord Aeos in governing his people more effectively. He was free to purchase books, spend wealth on resources he required, and pursue whatever means would help him grow in his new role.
The Tarly boy had been quite excited about his new role and had vowed to make drastic and rapid improvements to his knowledge and political acumen.
“Say, Melisandre,” Jon asked, “if I defeat a Khal, will his Khalasar accept me as their new Khal, even if I am not a Dothraki?”
The Dothraki were another matter that had been troubling Jon for some time, and he truly had no clear idea what to do with them. It was not the prospect of defeating them in battle that worried him.
He had more than enough force to slaughter any Dothraki tribe, and if he used his dragons, he could burn them to ashes within moments. What concerned him was their way of life.
It was inevitable that sooner or later, he would incorporate the whole of Essos into his empire, and that would surely include the Dothraki Sea or at least a large portion of it. But even if the Dothraki accepted him as their Khal, their culture gave him pause.
Looting, pillaging, violence, and unprecedented destruction were what defined them. It was their way of life. They lacked any sense of civility. They were not accustomed to living in cities.
Jon was not troubled by their tribal nature itself, but rather by their ceaseless violence and destruction. He was certain that even if the tribes followed him or if he subdued them by sheer force, they would not so easily change.
And the more cities Jon conquered, the more trade routes he secured and placed under protection, the more conflict he would have with the Dothraki. As their lands shrank, their fury would have fewer places to be unleashed.
He could surely not go on to slaughter the entire Dothraki population. He needed ways to evolve them. The changes did not need to be overnight. They could continue with their Nomadic life but the violence would have to be curbed. Even within their own Khalasar, killing one other was very common. These were practices which must should be controlled.
“It is not that simple, my lord,” Melisandre replied. “It is true that the Khalasar of a defeated Khal merges into the Khalasar of the victor. But you are no Khal.”
“The Dothraki worship strength, and there may indeed be a few tribes willing to follow you. With your ability to control animals, their horses, you could even be seen as their God, the Great Stallion, to them. But you cannot expect the same from every tribe. It will be very hard for them to accept a non Dothraki, a man who does not share their way of life, does not live as they do, as their leader.”
“On the contrary,” she continued. “You will be trying to change few of their customs. It would definitely not so easy.”
“But,” she added after few brief moments of silence. “If there is someone who could accomplish this almost impossible task, it is you.”
“I doubt that anyone would even thought of, that they could rule over the entire Essos,” she concluded while Jon nodded his head still lost in thought.
Comments
blaiz
Thanks for the chapter and for your hard work
