Night pressed heavy over the camp.
The fires burned low, their flickering light throwing long shadows across the tents.
The noise of the day had faded until only the wind remained, sighing across the grass.
The tent flap ripped open.
A gust of warm air heavy with sweat and horse stink rushed inside.
Rahallo looked toward the entrance.
Three figures stepped through.
The one in front was Cohollo, one of Khal Drogo’s bloodriders.
His broad body blocked the moonlight.
A cruel smile twisted his mouth, and his voice dripped open contempt.
“You can’t run, son of the sheep people!” The two bloodriders behind him laughed, low and ugly.
Rahallo sat on a pile of furs.
In front of him lay several sheets of parchment covered in careful drawings—designs for a Damascus steel arakh and the step-by-step process to make it.
He glanced at the three men, his gaze calm and bottomless as a deep lake.
“Death is breathing down your neck and you’re still doodling?” Cohollo sneered at the papers.
“Without Khal Drolo’s protection you’re just a stray dog!” These muscle-brained idiots had no idea what those “doodles” actually meant.
Rahallo rose slowly and faced Cohollo eye to eye.
“You’re nothing but Drogo’s bootlicker.
When Khal Drolo still lived you didn’t even have the spine to meet his gaze.” Cohollo’s face went dark with rage.
His arakh flashed up, the curved blade stopping a finger’s width from Rahallo’s throat.
“Boy, you’re asking to die.” Rahallo reached up and pushed the edge aside with two fingers.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“In seven days I will challenge Drogo myself.
It isn’t your place to touch me now.
If he finds out you tried to steal his opponent, you know exactly how he’ll punish you.” “Sheep man.
Hope you live long enough to see that day.” Cohollo spat the words through clenched teeth, then turned and stalked out.
The other two bloodriders followed.
Once they were gone, soft rustling sounded outside the tent again.
Mirri Maz Duur slipped inside.
“You could have killed them.
Shown Drogo what you’re really worth.” “They still have their uses,” Rahallo said, settling back onto the furs.
“This isn’t the time to cut their throats.
When the moment is right I’ll use their heads to prove to the entire grass sea that Rahallo is the khal who will bring them true glory.” … A red sun climbed out of the east the next morning and poured light across the endless Dothraki Sea.
Rahallo rode out of camp on a warhorse, a massive bundle lashed behind his saddle.
He headed deep into the grassland, alone.
His goal was iron ore.
The Dothraki Sea had never been developed.
Somewhere in his memories there was a stretch of dark red earth that almost certainly held iron.
The Dothraki cared nothing for minerals.
What iron they had came from raiding.
Their smelting was crude and could never produce the kind of weapon he needed.
His strength was three times what the original body had possessed, but that did not make him three times stronger than Drogo.
To be safe he needed that iron.
He had to forge a weapon that could change everything.
He followed narrow trails between low hills and dry river valleys, eyes scanning the yellow grass and exposed rock.
Suddenly a bright metallic glint caught the sunlight.
Rahallo swung down from the saddle and walked to the shining stone.
He crouched, brushed away the dirt with his hand.
The broken face of the rock showed a dark red metallic luster that caught the light.
Excitement surged through him.
He picked up another piece nearby and squeezed hard.
The weathered outer layer cracked and fell away, revealing hard metal beneath.
The fresh break showed a distinctive honeycomb structure.
From everything he remembered about geology in his last life, this was high-grade hematite.
The grassland was geologically stable.
Long ago this had probably been shallow sea or lake bottom where iron had concentrated.
He looked around.
Scattered chunks of hematite lay everywhere among the hills and along the river cuts.
Dothraki hated ground like this.
Too many rocks meant too many chances to break a horse’s leg.
No one would dare dig here under Dothraki eyes unless they wanted to die.
That was why this deposit had survived untouched until now.
It was all his.
He stopped at a stretch of riverbank and piled the ore he had gathered.
A familiar voice spoke behind him.
“What are you doing with those stones?
You think rocks will help you beat Drogo?” Rahallo turned.
Mirri again.
He still had no idea how she kept finding him.
She was like a ghost—always there, always watching, appearing and disappearing without a sound.
He wanted to tell her exactly what he thought of her so-called healing potion.
The original body had died.
The soul inside had been replaced by someone from another world.
How had she not noticed?
Was her blood magic really that useless?
A cold shiver ran down his spine.
He decided not to waste breath on her and went back to work.
From the leather pouch at his belt he took the pieces of graphite he had found while collecting ore, along with some dry clay.
He ground the graphite fine, mixed it with the clay, and kneaded the mass into sticky mud.
Then he packed the mud into a simple mold and tamped it solid, shaping a crude crucible.
Next he dug a furnace pit in the riverbank, built up the hearth with river mud and clay, and left a vent on one side.
He lit charcoal and began firing the crucible.
“You’re ridiculous, Rahallo.” Mirri was still laughing at him, but something strange flickered in her eyes.
“Maybe even the gods are amused by a joke like you.
No one is stupid enough to try smelting iron out here on the grass sea…” Her words were cut off by the sharp, rhythmic sound of hammering.
While the crucible cooled, Rahallo moved to the side.
He set a piece of hematite on a flat stone, took up hammer and chisel, and began breaking the ore.
Sparks flew.
Stone fragments scattered.
With strength and endurance far beyond normal he crushed the ore into small pieces the old-fashioned way so it would melt more easily.
“Without a real smith you’ll never produce decent iron,” Mirri said.
She had studied at the Citadel in Oldtown.
She had already guessed what he was trying to do.
“I am the real smith.” Rahallo drew the dagger from his belt and leveled the point at her.
His voice was cold.
“One more word out of you, slave, and I’ll cut your throat.” Mirri stepped back, startled.
Then the corner of her mouth curled into a strange little smile and she showed her black teeth.
After more work the ore was finally broken small enough.
He dumped it all into the crucible, added limestone flux at roughly ten parts ore to one part stone, and laid a layer of charcoal in the bottom.
The crucible looked rough, but it was the best a man working from theory could manage on the open grassland.
He used dry grass and twigs to start the fire in the furnace pit, then fed in more charcoal and worked the bellows.
The flames grew.
The bellows were crude—hide and wood, borrowed from the khalasar’s smith—but they moved enough air.
He set the crucible into the furnace.
The fire climbed higher.
Charcoal popped and crackled.
Waves of heat rolled over him.
The temperature kept rising.
The flames shifted from dark red to a fierce orange-yellow.
Sweat poured off Rahallo as if he had just stepped out of a river, but he never looked away from the fire.
His eyes stayed locked on the blaze, steady and unblinking.