The setting sun turned the Dothraki grass sea blood-red, as if the whole world had been soaked in fresh blood.
Lazal and five hundred Dothraki light cavalry lay hidden in the waist-high dead grass along the banks of the Sayhru River.
His braid and beard were heavy with trophies — enemy rings, bells, and fragments of bone.
He rode bare-chested, his wheat-colored skin gleaming with health, the war tattoos across his chest shaped like a snarling beast’s head.
His eyes stayed locked on a column of enemy scouts moving toward them — roughly two hundred men.
They were getting closer with every step.
“Brothers,” Lazal growled, “kill them all.” The riders spread out in silence, forming a wide, fan-shaped trap.
The enemy vanguard still hadn’t noticed anything.
They rode loosely across the grass in small groups, their arakhs still hanging from their saddles.
“Now!” Lazal’s low shout was answered by the blast of a horn.
Five hundred riders exploded out of the grass with bone-chilling war cries and slammed into the enemy column.
Arrows hissed through the air.
The front rank of enemy riders dropped without even screaming, blood spraying across the yellow grass.
Lazal led the charge, his Atak blade a blur of motion.
One enemy raised his arakh to block.
Lazal sneered and swung.
The Damascus steel sheared straight through the enemy’s arakh and the hand holding it.
The severed limb and broken blade spun into the sky.
In the next heartbeat his blade opened another rider’s throat in a bright fountain of blood.
He rode past the falling body and cut a third man almost in half at the waist.
Guts spilled across the ground.
The smell of blood drove his warhorse wild.
The animal screamed and stamped, eager for more.
The enemy patrol broke apart in panic.
Riders tried to flee in every direction but found themselves surrounded.
One turned his horse too late — Lazal drove his blade straight through the man’s back and into his heart.
The body slid limply from the saddle.
Lazal flicked his blade and impaled the severed head of another rider on the tip, holding it high so every man could see.
The Dothraki roared in triumph and rode circles around the corpses like wolves celebrating a kill.
The fight was over in minutes.
Bodies lay scattered across the grass, the dead grass stained bright red.
The head-takers moved among the fallen with their great axes, harvesting heads and piling captured weapons and armor for later display.
Then Lazal’s eyes narrowed.
In the distance, beyond the hills, a much larger force was approaching fast from the direction of the Sayhru River.
Black horse-head banners snapped in the wind.
Fogo’s main army.
As the column drew closer, Lazal’s gaze sharpened.
The man leading them was not Khal Fogo.
It was Fogo’s son, Ogo.
And riding beside him was Jhaqo — the traitor who had abandoned Rahallo’s khalasar.
They had joined forces.
The approaching force numbered at least thirty thousand.
They were riding straight toward Dagger Lake.
If Jhaqo’s ten thousand had truly joined Fogo’s thirty thousand, that meant Rahallo’s two thousand riders were about to face ten thousand men instead of the expected smaller force.
Lazal’s stomach dropped.
“Fuck.
I have to get this to Rahallo.
Now.” He ordered the hawk sent at once, but an arrow from the distant enemy column brought the bird down before it could climb.
The hawk spiraled to the earth with a final cry.
Rahallo had already pushed deep into enemy territory with his two thousand.
There was no other way to reach him.
“Brothers, fall back!
Move!” The riders gathered quickly.
Even the head-takers abandoned their trophies and swung into their saddles.
The whole force turned and rode hard for safety.
Lazal handed command to his second and wheeled his own horse in the opposite direction.
He would find Rahallo himself.
He would deliver the warning no matter what it cost.
He was Rahallo’s bloodrider.
My blood is your blood.
My life is your life.
… At the same time, Rahallo led the khalasar’s two thousand finest warriors on a brutal forced march.
One man, three horses.
They moved like a brown flood across the grass sea.
Every warrior carried at least one Atak blade at his hip.
The sheaths clashed against saddles with every stride.
Hooves thundered.
The column sounded like wind and thunder rolling together.
Rahallo rode a tall black stallion, seventeen hands at the shoulder, long-legged and beautiful.
Illyrio had sent the pureblood horse from Pentos.
It had cost two hundred and thirty gold dragons — the price of two hundred grass-sea mounts, or twenty knights’ yearly wages, or two centuries of a Westerosi farmer’s labor.
The long ride had left the horses lathered and blowing, foam crusting at their mouths.
Rahallo no longer spared the animals.
He slept in the saddle when he could, drank fermented mare’s milk when hunger hit, and rotated the lead horses so the others could rest.
Two thousand warriors and six thousand horses thundered through the Qohor forest.
Only then did the pace slow.
Rahallo sent a thousand scouts fanning out in every direction like a vast net, searching for any sign of Fogo’s khalasar.
These men were the best trackers on the grass sea.
They could read the wind, the smallest shift in scent, the faintest track on the ground.
A day later a scout party returned, exhausted but triumphant.
Southeast of the Qohor forest, near the tree line, they had found Fogo’s khalasar.
Rahallo’s eyes lit with fierce satisfaction.
He turned the entire force southeast at once.
Two thousand men and six thousand horses moved along the forest’s edge at speed.
The closer they drew, the more careful they became.
Horse hooves were wrapped in three layers of cotton cloth.
Every piece of gear was lashed tight to the saddles so nothing would rattle or clink.
These were veteran warriors who had killed more times than they could count.
But making two thousand proud, unruly Dothraki ride in total silence was nearly impossible.
The Dothraki loved freedom and battle-roars.
Their language had no word for “discipline.” Rahallo personally beheaded four men who made too much noise before the rest finally understood and fell quiet.
At dusk the main force reached the southeastern edge of the forest.
Rahallo raised a hand.
The column halted.
He ordered them into the shadows beneath the trees.
Warriors dismounted, checked their horses’ wrapped hooves and secured gear, then led their mounts into the shade to rest.
Rahallo moved from squad to squad, inspecting the flame-storm bottles each man carried and quietly reminding them how to use them.
The warriors listened while they sharpened their blades, conserving strength, waiting for the deepest darkness before dawn.