Battle of Yunkai

After the sack of Astapor, Daenerys marched her army north along the coast toward Yunkai, the second slaver city of the bay. Yunkai raised some 5,000 men to defend itself: 4,000 slave-soldier infantry, flanked by two mercenary companies of about 500 men each, the Stormcrows on one side and the Second Sons on the other.

Daenerys had roughly 10,600 Unsullied and several thousand lightly armed freedmen at her back, force enough to crush the Yunkish army outright. But she did not want to pay for the victory in lives, so before attacking she invited the Wise Masters and the mercenary captains separately: to one side she offered surrender and freedom for the slaves without a fight, to the other, a change of allegiance.

The Wise Masters turned down Daenerys's offer, and she withdrew to think how to take the city at the lowest possible cost. The answer came from within the mercenary ranks themselves: Daario Naharis, one of the Stormcrows' captains, killed his two fellow commanders and put the whole company in Daenerys's service.

Past midnight, the Stormcrows fell on the Second Sons from behind, who barely resisted: they were still drunk on the wine Daenerys had given them during the parley, a gesture of good faith that turned out to be a trap as well. The Second Sons surrendered and joined her side. Three days later, Yunkai surrendered too.

Yunkai submitted to Daenerys's terms and freed all its slaves; in exchange, its former masters kept their wealth and the rule of the city. Many of the freed joined the tide of freedmen already following Daenerys, and with them her reputation as Mother to them all took hold.

With Yunkai surrendered, Daenerys turned toward the last great slaver city of the bay: Meereen.