House of the Dragon: oh Geez!

Chapter 114 114

Before long... the raid on Vaes Dothrak began.

And not long after, it was done.

There really was no need to be long-winded in narrating all that has happened.

Since long story short... the poor guys stood no chance against an array of dragons, magicalized attackers, and superior strategy.

Desperate as the Dothraki were with nothing much too lose... they genuinely didn't last that long.

Any semblance of resistance they had was too much of a long shot.

And for quite the moment, the lengthy expedition in the Great Grass Sea seemed to be finally over... at long last.

But before the shouts of celebration could last long enough... something quite unexpected happened.

A huge burst could be noted from the nearby Mother of Mountains... and a large entity actually emerged from the broken ground... letting out a long and guttural neigh.

"Neeiggghh!" Said the very horse-like, enormous, and obviously angry beast... which then trekked and charged fast with its very long legs...

And at that point, Ronan had no choice but to stop his respectable streak of using the word "long" in his inner monologue.

Cause it seems the horselords still had a final card in their sleeves... and it just might be their actual and literal horse god!

-----------

-----------

-----------

Anger.

That was the first thing it felt.

Pure, unfiltered anger!

Its eyes opened beneath layers of stone and earth, and immediately it wished to kill something.

Specifically, these damn women.

These widowed maidens and crones.

The dosh khaleen.

Its servants. Its worshippers. Its property.

The widowed wives that it specifically ordered to be recalled after their husband's deaths, so that they serve itself.

It preferred the women it fucked to be this way, after all.

In any case, they were its playthings... so, how dare they awaken it?

How dare they disturb its sleep?

The awakening was supposed to happen when it wanted to... not when they wanted it...

Not when frightened mortals decided they had exhausted all other options.

Granted, the Great Stallion listened to their explaining prayers nonetheless.

Not because it cared.

Because it wanted names.

It wanted to know who would suffer first.

The trembling old women prostrated themselves before its resting place. They spoke of destruction. Of dragons. Of bronze-clad warriors. Of khalasars wiped from existence.

They spoke of a conqueror.

A man named Ronan Royce.

A man they now feared more than death itself.

So, it listened.

And with every word, its mood worsened.

Not because of the danger.

Because of the insult.

For thousands of years, it had cultivated all this.

Its herd.

Its people.

Its kingdom.

And now, some meddling human was breaking it.

Worse still... some of these mares and mates apparently believed this Ronan Royce to be the Stallion Who Mounts the World.

The creature nearly tore apart half the cavern upon hearing that.

The Stallion Who Mounts the World?

That was its title.

Its prophecy.

Its lie.

A story it had invented centuries ago.

The prophecy had never been meant for some human.

It had been meant for itself.

For one day, the khalasars would grow numerous enough.

Strong enough.

Large enough.

Then it would emerge.

Then it would ride further and further east.

Back toward the lands it had fled long ago.

Back toward shadowed lands.

Then again, the thought of its homeland.. reignited ancient fear.

Fear it despised remembering.

For it had not always been a god.

It had been prey.

A lesser thing born amidst the horrors of the Shadow Lands.

There, monstrous creatures devoured one another without end.

The strong fed upon the weak.

The weak fed upon whatever remained.

And it had been weak.

Not powerless.

Not insignificant.

But weak enough to be eaten.

So it fled.

Across mountains.

Across deserts.

Across forgotten places.

Until eventually it found a cavern beneath a great mountain.

A secluded refuge.

A hiding place.

A place where stronger things would not think to search.

And there it remained.

Sleeping.

Growing.

Waiting.

Accordingly, the first humans who discovered its lair should have died.

Most did.

A few survived only because it had recently fed and lacked interest in chasing them.

But the survivors returned.

Not with weapons.

With gifts. With fear. With worship.

It had been confused at first.

Then amused.

Then pleased.

Years became decades.

Decades became centuries.

The worship grew. The stories grew. The offerings grew. The herd grew.

The little horse-riding humans spread across the grasslands carrying its image and its teachings.

Not that it had taught much.

Mostly it encouraged raiding.

Conquering.

Breeding.

Expanding.

The larger the herd became, the larger its future army became.

Everything had been progressing beautifully.

Until now.

Until some bronze-clad pests had come along and started exterminating generations of work.

The Great Stallion's anger boiled over.

Part of the mountain shook.

Stone cracked.

The worshipping whores screamed.

It no longer cared whether awakening early exposed it.

It no longer cared about patience.

It no longer cared about plans.

It wanted blood.

It wanted to trample armies.

It wanted to remind the world why gods such as itself were feared.

Most of all... it wanted to find this Ronan Royce.

This thief.

This usurper.

This mortal fool who had messed up the great thing it had going.

And when it found him, it would break the man before his followers.

Break his dragons.

Break his armies.

Break his reputation.

Then every surviving Dothraki would watch.

They would watch the true Stallion Who Mounts the World crush the pretender beneath his hooves.

The thought filled it with savage satisfaction.

And so it burst from beneath the Mother of Mountains!

The earth shattered.

The sky trembled.

The Great Stallion emerged once more.

For the first time in thousands of years.

And it charged toward battle!

A battle it believed to be one-sided in its favor.

It was so confident that it scoffed at the flock of little dragons that were converging in its path.

Prepared to showcase its Great Stallion might!

But...

Something was wrong...

For it suddenly felt a sting and one of its front legs actually lost strength! Completely failing.

And before it could register the pain... it had to stumble bad.

Which was the unfortunate result of the speed it was going and the sudden lack of support...

Pain and embarrassment aside, it wanted to stand again with what it had left.

Alas, it felt slices again... and again... on one leg, on the other, and on the last one...

All were rather important limbs that lost the proper movement it had.

Which meant that out of nowhere, it had become completely incapacitated! In the mercy of the hidden attacker.

And the demon that turned itself into a god... was overcome with fear... from the slicing culprit it couldn't notice at all... and from this looming sensation of death...