Game Of Thrones: Khal Pollo (GOT)

That night was dark and quiet inside Khal Pollo's tent, a sharp contrast to the celebratory din outside. The fire in the bronze brazier at the room's center danced, its flickering light illuminating the scene after the conquest. Upon a pile of furs and silks, Mirri Maz Duur lay, her trembling body finally still in deep exhaustion. Her breathing was regular, but even in her restless sleep, the furrow between her brows told a tale of shattered defiance.

Pollo paid her no mind. The residual warmth of the woman beside him felt distant, an echo of a transaction completed. His entire attention was focused on the object in his hand. The bronze compass was heavy and cold, but beneath its metallic surface, he could feel a faint pulse, as if the object had a heart of its own.

This was his gift. The reward for his first conquest.

He raised it closer to the firelight. It was a beautifully crafted object, without scratch or blemish. There were no directional markers, no north or south, just a slender bronze needle hovering over a dark, polished surface. The needle was not still. It pointed steadily southwest, its tip glowing with a soft light that seemed to emanate from within.

The thrill of a gambler who had just found a hidden ace coursed through him. This was a feeling. Then came the logic. His super mind worked, processing, analyzing. This was not wild, uncontrolled magic. This was a system. A tool. The needle did not point in a geographical direction. It pointed toward opportunity. Toward the next khalasar, toward weakness, toward power waiting to be taken. The mad cat god, in its chaos, had given him an oracle.

He rose, his body moving with fluid silence. He donned his leather breeches and walked to the tent entrance, pushing aside the heavy hide flap. The cool night air met him, carrying the scent of woodsmoke, roasted meat, and fermented mare's milk. Beneath a myriad of stars, his new, larger khalasar feasted. The sounds of coarse laughter, off-key singing, and the occasional shouts of drunken brawls filled the air. They were Dothraki. They celebrated victory in the way they knew. But Pollo saw more than that. He saw potential. He saw raw clay waiting to be molded.

He returned inside, his gaze falling upon Mirri Maz Duur. He walked to her and touched her shoulder gently.

Mirri's eyes snapped open instantly, alert like a cornered animal. There was a glint of hatred in them, but beneath it, there was something new. A deep, calculating fear. She had felt Pollo's power, an unnatural strength, and now she saw him differently.

"Wake up," Pollo said, his voice calm. He pulled a blanket from her body and tossed it toward Mirri. "Put this on."

Mirri covered herself, her movements stiff. She sat up, the blanket wrapped tightly around her, her dark eyes never leaving Pollo.

Pollo unrolled a rough hide map on the low table. It was inaccurate, more a sketch drawn from the memories of his warriors, but it was enough. He tapped an area southwest of their current position.

"This land," he said. "What is there? What khalasar rides there?"

Mirri frowned, surprised by the question. How could he know there was anything specific in that seemingly random direction? She had lived in Lhazar her entire life, hearing stories from merchants and travelers. Her knowledge of the Grass Sea was vast.

She hesitated, then answered, her voice hoarse. "That is Khal Onqo's hunting ground. He commands ten thousand Dothraki. They say he is cruel, even for a Dothraki, and likes to skin his enemies alive.

"Good," Pollo said, more to himself than to Mirri. He already had his next target. He glanced at the compass in his hand, then back at Mirri. "Tell me about him. His habits. The strength of his forces. His Ko. Everything."

That night, as his army was drunk with victory, Khal Pollo, the new conqueror, sat with his most valuable captive and began to plan his next war. Mirri Maz Duur, the healer, unwittingly became his first source of intelligence. As she spoke, the hatred in her eyes slowly mingled with a terrifying awe. This man did not think like a Dothraki. He thought like a god of war.

Two weeks later, Pollo's khalasar found Khal Onqo's encampment.

It was exactly as the compass had shown and Qorro's scouts had confirmed. The encampment lay in a fertile valley, by the banks of a winding river. Onqo and his men seemed complacent, their horses grazing peacefully, their campfires burning brightly beneath the twilight sky. They had just returned from raiding several villages, and their guard was down.

Pollo gave them no chance to recover.

He had spent the last two weeks not just marching, but also drilling his army in tactics unfamiliar to them. He had divided his forces into three strengths: a left flank led by Qorro, composed of the lightest horse archers; a right flank led by Vekho, consisting of heavy cavalry; and a center which he led himself, with Garo, made up of veterans and newly proven warriors.

"Qorro," Pollo commanded the night before the battle, as they observed the enemy camp from a distance. "You will move under the cover of darkness. Circle them from the north. At sunrise, I want your rain of arrows to fall on their horse pens. Do not target the warriors. Target the horses."

Qorro's eyes widened. It was an insult to a Dothraki, to attack horses, not riders. But he saw the cold logic in his Khal's eyes and nodded.

"Vekho," Pollo continued. "You will strike from the south. When the first arrows fall, when they are in panic and confusion, you will hit their camp's flank. Crush them."

"And us, Khal?" Garo asked.

"We," Pollo said with a thin smile. "We will wait at the front door. And we will kill everyone who tries to run."

As the first dawn broke, painting the horizon in hues of pink and orange, hell descended upon Onqo's khalasar. Thousands of arrows hissed from the pre-dawn darkness, not at the warriors' tents, but at their precious lines of horses. The screams of pain and panic from countless horses tore through the morning silence. A riderless horse was chaos. Thousands of panicked horses were a catastrophe.

The confused, half-asleep warriors of Onqo stumbled out of their tents, only to see their livelihoods, their symbols of status, turn into a panicked, bleeding sea of flesh.

It was then that Vekho and his heavy cavalry charged.

They crashed into the camp like a tidal wave, their arakhs cutting down warriors who were still trying to comprehend what was happening. There was no formation, no organized resistance. Only a slaughter.

In the midst of the chaos, Khal Onqo managed to rally a few hundred of his personal guards. He roared in fury, his eyes searching for the attackers. He saw Pollo's banner waiting at the valley's exit, blocking their only escape route.

"CHARGE!" Onqo screamed, leading a desperate assault.

Pollo and his forces simply waited. They formed a quiet wall of steel and flesh. As Onqo and the remnants of his warriors approached, Pollo gestured to Garo.

"They are yours."

Pollo's center force advanced with a coordinated roar, swallowing Onqo's disorganized charge. Pollo himself did not move. He simply watched, his keen eyes assessing the battle. He saw Vekho, the giant, fighting like a demon, his arakh a whirlwind of death. Vekho spotted Khal Onqo and charged him directly.

Their duel was brutal but brief. Onqo was a strong fighter, but Vekho was the embodiment of raw power directed by purpose. With one mighty blow that shattered Onqo's leather shield, Vekho ended the rival Khal's life.

The death of their Khal broke the spirit of the remaining warriors. The battle turned into a mass surrender.

By midday, the valley was silent. Khal Onqo's khalasar was no more. His army had been absorbed, his women claimed, and his living horses added to the herd. In a single morning, Pollo's forces had swelled to over thirty thousand warriors.

This victory began a campaign of conquest that would become legend. The bronze compass became the heart of Pollo's war machine. It was never wrong.

The compass led them south, to the fertile grasslands controlled by Khal Jommo. Instead of a direct battle, Pollo used his army's superior speed. Under the cover of night, Qorro's riders slipped in and herded away thousands of Jommo's best horses. When Jommo's khalasar woke the next morning, they found themselves infantry. To a Dothraki, that was a fate worse than death. Pollo crushed them without losing a single man.

Then the compass pointed northeast, to the encampment of Khal Motho, a stubborn old traditionalist. Pollo knew Motho would never expect a night attack, a tactic considered taboo and cowardly by the Dothraki. Pollo used their own traditions as a weapon against him. His forces stormed Motho's camp at the moon's zenith, turning his enemy's honor into a fatal weakness. Motho's khalasar was slaughtered in their sleep.

News of his victories spread like wildfire across the dry grass.

In a bustling market in Qarth, where the scent of spices and incense mingled with the smell of sweat and greed, a slave trader whispered to his wealthy client. "They call him Khal Varezho, the Ghost Khal. His khalasar moves without leaving a trace and appears from nowhere. One week, Khal Onqo was still ruling. The next week, his name was just an echo on the wind."

In the sacred city of Vaes Dothrak, inside a dark grass woven temple, the wizened dosh khaleen stared into the smoke of the sacred fire. They were the widows of the greatest Khals, and they had seen the rise and fall of many warlords. But this was different. An old crone coughed, her milky eyes wide. "In the night sky," she whispered, her voice rustling like dry leaves. "I see him. A shadow stallion, larger than the rest. It does not ride with the khalasar of stars. It... it devours them, one by one."

In Pentos, within his opulent palace, Magister Illyrio Mopatis frowned as he read reports from his spies. The reports were confusing and contradictory, but they all told the same story. All the small khalasars in the east, to whom he typically paid tribute to keep his trade routes safe, had vanished. They were not defeated in usual tribal warfare. They had been swallowed, absorbed by a terrifying new force that moved with unnatural speed and purpose. His intricate plans for Viserys Targaryen and Khal Drogo relied on a political landscape he understood. This new force, this Khal Pollo, was a variable he had not accounted for. And it made him deeply nervous.

After several months of relentless conquest, Pollo's khalasar had reached an astonishing size. Forty thousand warriors now rode under his banner, a number that rivaled the legendary strength of Khal Drogo. But his army was different. They were more disciplined, healthier, and better armed thanks to endless spoils of war. The original warriors from his initial khalasar now formed a hard core of fanatically loyal veterans. The newly absorbed warriors, having witnessed Pollo's power and genius, had assimilated into his superior war machine. They no longer served out of fear, but out of belief. They believed they followed the embodiment of the Great Stallion.

They camped in the heart of the Grass Sea, a formidable force that had silenced an entire region under a banner of fear and awe. No other khal dared challenge him. For now, Pollo was the unrivaled king of the grass sea.

Inside his now much larger tent, adorned with silks and tapestries from countless conquests, Pollo once again stared at the bronze compass. The object had guided him, granted him a kingdom. Now, having absorbed so much surrounding power, the compass's behavior changed.

The needle no longer pointed to the nearest khalasar. It spun wildly for a few moments, as if searching for a worthy enough target. Then, with a definite motion, it stopped.

It pointed straight west, toward the Free Cities. And for the first time, the needle began to glow with a faint but steady bronze light.

Pollo understood. The system was guiding him toward a greater prize, a more significant target.

He felt a tremor of anticipation. That passion. That feeling.

Just then, the tent flap was pulled aside. Garo, his most trusted Bloodrider, entered and knelt on one knee. His scarred veteran face was serious.

"Khal Pollo," Garo said, his voice low and heavy. "Riders from the west. Qorro's scouts intercepted them. They bring news."

Pollo slowly raised his head from the compass, his keen eyes fixed on Garo. He said nothing, simply waited.

"News," Garo continued, and even he, a man who had seen everything, seemed a little awestruck. "Of a dragon princess... and a wedding in Pentos."