Haggo spun his arakh in a flashy arc and charged straight at Admiral Panbeier.
One clash and the Dothraki's curved blade knocked the admiral's longsword clean out of his hands. As the horses passed each other, Haggo swung backhand and took Panbeier's head off in one clean stroke. Blood sprayed half a foot into the air.
The fancy-armored headless corpse slid slowly off the still-galloping warhorse.
Even with wildfire walls ahead and pursuers closing in behind, that single beheading lit a fire under Haggo's hundred-man band. Morale surged. They raised their arakhs and bows like they could take on the world.
The thousand sailors who'd followed Panbeier suddenly had no leader. Panic rippled through the ranks. Front ranks froze, rear ranks shoved forward, the whole formation turning into a confused mess.
One dead general, three thousand fucked soldiers.
"Kill every last one of these iron men!"
"We're only a hundred strong, but one Dothraki is worth ten of them! A hundred of us can slaughter ten thousand! That's the Dothraki way! Kill them all!"
Haggo spurred forward, arakh high, his riders thundering in a tight line straight into the shaken sailors.
The sailors were seconds from breaking when the brown-skinned deputy's eight hundred infantry arrived at the perfect moment.
Archers stepped up and loosed a volley that dropped seven or eight riders, stalling the charge cold.
"Form ranks!"
The sailors finally had someone to rally behind. The deputy's men let the sailors pass through, then planted a wall of spears like a giant porcupine, ready for the meat grinder.
Haggo saw the infantry hold firm. Horses shied and fell to spear thrusts. Riders died without even getting close.
"Loose arrows!"
Haggo had no choice but to split his riders and harass from the flanks. But the infantry answered with massed bows and crossbows. Every volley cut down more Dothraki than they lost.
Haggo was a lion, but he couldn't break that spear hedge. He circled, probed, killed almost nothing while his already tiny band bled down to barely half strength.
"Kill them!"
The thousand sailors finally got their shit together and closed in from both sides. Haggo's last few dozen riders were boxed in fast.
"Attack!"
The deputy wiped sweat from his brow and gave the order. Arrows and bolts rained down, spears thrust forward in a single wave. The trapped Dothraki fought like cornered animals but fell like butter under a hot knife. Almost all were slaughtered.
Even mighty Haggo got pulled from his horse by a forest of spears. He killed no one before the deputy took his head. The bloody trophy got passed around for everyone to see.
Haggo's two-thousand-strong night raid ended in total disaster: leader dead, five hundred plus lost, the remaining fifteen hundred fleeing in panic back to camp.
At the same time, the all-player hundred-man raid team reached the outer edge of the Dothraki main camp.
Security was laughably lax. Proud horselords never expected anyone outside the Dothraki Sea to actually attack at night instead of running. To them the "iron men" behind stone walls were beneath contempt. They figured two thousand riders would take the city tonight and tomorrow they'd be sitting pretty on the spoils.
"Boss, I scouted ahead. You won't believe this shit. One row of tents has soldiers sleeping, the next row is packed with cows, sheep, pigs, and dogs. It's a goddamn zoo out there!"
The scout player slid in beside Little Fire Farmer, muttering.
"This is a problem. We wanted to hit their grain stores and burn them out like the old war books say. But these bastards don't have grain stores. They've got livestock scattered everywhere. How the fuck do we burn that?"
Little Fire Farmer scratched his head. He wasn't exactly a master strategist.
Three heads are better than one, though. One player suddenly slapped his forehead.
"We're overthinking this, boss. We've got Thunder Bombs and Wildfire. Blow some shit up in the middle of their camp, spook the horses and cattle—they'll stampede everywhere. Instant chaos."
"Makes sense!"
"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing!"
"Then it's settled. Tonight we're pulling a Gan Ning at the Jin Sail or Zhang Liao at Xiaoyao Ford smashing Sun Quan's hundred thousand!"
Little Fire Farmer looked around at his crew, voice low and excited.
The players' eyes lit up. What man doesn't dream of legendary shit like this? Record it, post it on the forums, brag for weeks.
"What's the actual plan?" another player asked.
"Plan?" Little Fire Farmer snorted, stood up, and raised his crossbow high. "Kill every fucking one of them!"
At his signal the hundred players rose from behind the hill. Front ranks carried Thunder Bombs and Wildfire jars. Rear ranks held fire lances and crossbows. They charged as one.
The Dothraki camp had no palisade, just scattered riders wandering around half-asleep.
The moment the players burst out, the patrols couldn't even shout warnings before Thunder Bombs started exploding. Limbs flew. Gore everywhere.
"Blow it all to hell!"
"Explosions are fucking art!"
Panicked Dothraki warriors rushed out of tents gripping arakhs only to eat a Thunder Bomb to the face—tent and all launched into the sky.
Some tried to loose arrows but got blasted point-blank by fire lances. Survivors thought enemy gods were raging. Their will to fight shattered.
"Spread out, brothers! Together we're a bonfire—scattered we're stars across the sky!"
Little Fire Farmer dropped a rider with his crossbow and yelled at the dozen still with him.
"Spread out!"
"Chuck Thunder Bombs at the biggest clumps!"
"Kill these iron men!"
Khal Drogo's warriors weren't all useless drunks. Within moments several hundred riders had formed up and were charging straight toward the growing noise.