The rising sun lit the Golden Fields.
On the horizon a long column of riders approached slowly.
Warhorses tossed their heads and neighed.
Warriors raised their blades.
Rahallo’s men were coming home victorious.
At the edge of the camp a crowd had already gathered to wait.
Daenerys stood at the front, violet eyes bright with expectation.
When Rahallo’s figure came into view the cheering erupted like a breaking wave.
People surged forward to touch his horse and kiss his boots.
Old men sang deep, powerful songs.
Women threw woven grass rings into the air.
Rahallo sat tall in the saddle and lifted his blade in answer.
Then he swung down from his horse.
He looked tired, but the excitement in his eyes was stronger.
“Count the loot!” From morning until dusk the slaves drove the captured horses, cattle, and sheep into the camp.
The warrior in charge of the tally shouted the numbers.
“One hundred and three thousand horses captured — twenty-five thousand warhorses and seventy-eight thousand draft horses.” The warriors roared with joy.
To them a good warhorse was both partner and proof of wealth and power.
After this victory every fighter would return home rich.
Rahallo raised a hand for silence.
“Warriors who earned distinction may choose first — one warhorse and two draft horses.
If you don’t want the horses you can exchange them for gold.
Young men who stayed behind to guard the camp may each take one foal.
The rest go into the khalasar’s reserves.
Any shortfall will be made up with cattle and sheep.
If you don’t want livestock you can trade for female slaves instead.
Let them bear your children.” The men laughed loudly.
“One more thing,” Rahallo continued.
“We will hold a proper funeral for Khal Fogo and send his khaleesi to Vaes Dothrak.
Neither can wait.” They had also taken mountains of traditional arakhs, bows, and bundled arrows.
The weapons were no match for Damascus steel, but there were so many they could be used for spares, arrowheads, or horseshoes.
Next came the food stores.
Dried meat from cattle, sheep, and horses, along with skins of fermented mare’s milk, rose in great piles like small hills.
The tally warrior reported, “These supplies will feed the entire khalasar for three months.
We also took more than five thousand cattle and over one hundred thousand sheep.” When the coming drought struck, other khalasars would watch their people starve while Rahallo’s remained fat and strong.
That would be the perfect moment to unite the grass sea.
Then came the treasure.
Jogo had found Fogo’s treasury inside the main camp — chests and great skin bags filled with gold, silver, and gems.
When the warriors carried them forward the gold gleamed so brightly that men swallowed hard.
The final count was even higher than Rahallo had expected: roughly one hundred and thirty thousand gold dragons.
His twenty percent share came to about twenty-six thousand gold dragons, plus another two thousand in silver and gems.
He had miscalculated the numbers earlier.
This was the kind of mistake he was happy to make every day.
War was expensive.
Even adding the thirty thousand gold dragons left from Drogo, he still only had around sixty-eight thousand.
It was not enough.
First, he needed the Unsullied.
They were fearless and obeyed only orders — perfect for flintlock and cannon units.
Each one cost a hundred gold dragons.
With everything he owned he could still buy fewer than seven hundred.
His khalasar had twenty-five thousand light cavalry.
That was enough to ride the grass sea, but not enough to hold cities or lay sieges.
Dothraki were poor at siege work.
Without the Unsullied he could never take Astapor.
Without Astapor he would never gain the siege experts he needed.
It was a vicious circle.
In the stories he remembered, Daenerys had bought eight thousand Unsullied cheaply because she arrived with barely a hundred people and was dismissed as a harmless girl.
If Rahallo rode within a hundred miles of Astapor the gates would slam shut and the Good Masters would send out one or two thousand gold dragons to make him leave.
They would never let a Dothraki horse-lord inside their city.
So the Unsullied would have to be bought with gold.
He also needed armor for heavy cavalry, fortifications, and everything else that came with building real power.
All of it required real coin.
This land stretched more than two thousand miles from east to west and held more than a dozen khals.
He had only defeated the first.
He would use the wall-charge of heavy cavalry to break the other light-riding khalasars and unite the grass sea.
Winter was coming.
The red comet would soon appear.
Magic was returning.
The Others were on the move.
Time was a luxury he could not afford.
… The next morning a great bonfire blazed in the center of the camp.
The air was thick with celebration.
Dothraki in brightly painted hides raised their blades and cheered until their voices reached the clouds, celebrating the great victory.
Whole sheep turned on spits over the fire, skin golden and glistening.
Fat dripped into the flames with a steady sizzle.
The smell was rich and mouth-watering.
Rahallo could eat roast horse meat when he had to, but his soul still preferred roast lamb and beef stew.
The Dothraki ate whatever came their way, so they had accepted his preference without complaint.
Jhiqui walked over with a knife and cut the best ribs and foreleg from one of the roasting sheep.
She brought the choicest pieces to Rahallo and Daenerys first.
Only after they had been served did slaves begin carving the rest for everyone else.
Daenerys poured strong fermented mare’s milk mixed with honey into a horn cup and lifted it to Rahallo’s lips.
The spicy, rich wine burned down his throat and set his blood racing.
Ser Jorah Mormont sat a short distance away and raised his own cup in quiet respect.
He was middle-aged now, his hairline already retreating.
He had always looked at Rahallo the way a man looks at a boy — all mouth and no experience.
After today he knew he had been wrong.
Defeating a khal as powerful as Fogo with fewer men had earned his respect.
Rahallo noticed the gesture and lifted his cup in return.
At that moment old Moro stepped out of the crowd.
He carried a long-handled broadsword with both hands.
The hilt was worked in silver flame relief and set with an egg-sized piece of obsidian at the pommel.
The blade looked sharp enough to cut the wind.
The camp grew quiet.
Every eye followed Moro as he walked to Rahallo and held the sword out before him.
“My blood is your blood.
This Valyrian steel sword has been my most treasured possession for many years.
I found it among the ruins of the ancient Ghiscari Empire.
It once belonged to a great warrior.
It should belong to a true strong one.
Now I give it to you.” Rahallo set down his eating knife, wiped his hands on his trousers, and stepped forward.
He accepted the sword with solemn hands.
It was a magnificent weapon.
The moment his fingers closed around the hilt the air itself seemed to grow heavier.
Daenerys, who understood Valyrian steel better than anyone on the grass sea, watched with wide eyes.
House Targaryen had once owned legendary blades like Blackfyre and Dark Sister.
This sword was even larger — the blade alone was five feet long, the hilt another foot and a half.
Even Blackfyre would have looked small beside it.
The watered-steel patterns that flowed across the blade were not the work of ordinary forging.
They were the result of Valyrian magic — flame, dragon’s breath, and sorcery woven together.
Most men would struggle to lift it.
In Rahallo’s hands it moved as lightly as if it had been made for him alone.
He suddenly swung the sword in a horizontal cut.
The blade sliced the air with a sharp, screaming whistle, moving with perfect, effortless power.
“Rahallo!
Rahallo!” The warriors’ voices rose in a single thunderous chant.
The gift of the hero’s sword and the sight of their khal wielding it with such ease drove the feast to its highest peak.