Capture of Meereen

Meereen already knew what had happened to Astapor and Yunkai, so it shut its gates to Daenerys Targaryen and her people. No one came out to speak with her: the city hid behind its walls and scorched the land around it, burning the fields and poisoning the wells her army needed to cross.

The coastal road from Yunkai to Meereen was lined with slave children, gutted and staked, each with one arm stretched toward the city. It was a message aimed at Daenerys, not a defense.

With twenty thousand soldiers and sixty thousand refugees from Astapor and Yunkai following her, Daenerys knew she had no food to sustain a long siege. A champion of Meereen, Oznak zo Pahl, rode out to challenge her to single combat, and fell to Belwas the Strong, the eunuch who guarded her. After that death, Daenerys had her own fleet broken apart to build rams, catapults, ladders and mantlets.

The fighting lasted almost the whole day and well into the night. Daenerys's men advanced on the gates behind a great wooden turtle while her archers set the tops of the walls alight.

As night fell, a party drew the defenders' attention by setting fire to the harbor, and they rushed there believing it was the real attack. Under cover of that confusion, Ser Jorah Mormont, Barristan Selmy and Belwas the Strong slipped into the city through the sewers with a small band of men.

They reached the nearest slave pit and freed those inside. Within an hour, half the men fighting for Meereen had turned on their masters, and soon after the eastern gate gave way. The defenders did not hold out much longer.

This time Daenerys did not move on after her victory. She settled in Meereen's Great Pyramid and stayed to rule the city, something she had done in neither Astapor nor Yunkai.

Word reached her that Astapor had fallen into chaos under a butcher turned tyrant. Not wanting Meereen to end the same way, she decided to remain there until her dragons were grown.