Astapor

Astapor, the Red City of Slaver's Bay, was an ancient Ghiscari slave city whose wealth and power rested on the training and sale of Unsullied eunuch soldiers. Daenerys Targaryen conquered it, freed its slaves, and destroyed the Good Masters who ruled it, but the liberation proved catastrophic. After she marched east to Meereen, the city descended into chaos, becoming a byword for ruin, cannibalism, and the pale mare plague.

Conquest and Liberation

Daenerys Targaryen took Astapor by guile, using her dragon Drogon to burn the slaver Kraznys mo Nakloz and seizing control of the Unsullied army she had just purchased. She freed every slave in the city and left a council of a healer, a scholar, and a priest to govern. The Good Masters were destroyed, but the city's entire economy had been built on slavery; without it, Astapor had nothing to trade but copper and memories. The freedmen had no means to sustain themselves, and the city's walls, though thick, were old and crumbling.

The Butcher Kings and Civil War

Within days of Daenerys's departure, a butcher named Cleon seized power, styling himself Cleon the Great and restoring slavery—only now the former slaves became masters and the former masters became slaves. He sent envoys to Daenerys begging for alliance against Yunkai, but she refused. Cleon was slain by his own soldiers when he commanded them to march out and attack the Yunkai'i. His corpse was disinterred, clad in copper armor, and strapped to a starving horse to lead a sortie, but the ruse failed; the dead king's army was cut down by a legion from New Ghis. A succession of rulers followed: Cleon the Second lasted eight days before his throat was opened; then a barber called King Cutthroat and Cleon's concubine, Queen Whore, fought for control while their followers battled in the streets. The city descended into cannibalism, with men and women drawing lots to gorge on the flesh of the one who drew the black stone.

Siege, Famine, and the Pale Mare

The Yunkai'i and their sellswords surrounded Astapor, devouring its crops and slaughtering its herds. Inside, the population starved, eating cats, rats, leather, and each other. A bloody flux—the pale mare—swept through the city, killing three of every four men. A mob of dying men finally slew the guards on the main gate, and the legions of New Ghis poured in, followed by the Yunkai'i and their sellswords. The Temple of the Graces, full of the sick who had come to pray, was sealed and set ablaze. Fires spread across the city, joining into a conflagration that consumed every corner. The Yunkai'i held the gates, allowing no escape.

Destruction and Aftermath

Astapor was reduced to ash and bone. The few survivors who fled north to Meereen brought the pale mare with them, spreading the plague to the besieged city. Daenerys, who had refused to march south to save Astapor, was haunted by the knowledge that she could not have saved it without losing Meereen. The Red City's fall left nothing to prevent Yunkai from turning north, and the smoke of its burning could be seen darkening the sky to the southwest. The old rhyme—"Brick and blood built Astapor, and brick and blood its people"—was fulfilled: Ash and bone is Astapor, and ash and bone its people.