Rahallo pointed toward the Narrow Sea.
“And I will lead you across the black salt water on wooden horses, riding west until we reach the very edge of the world!” He raised a fist, his voice rich with promise.
“In the lands of the Andals, in their stone houses across the sea, there are rooms piled high with gold and jewels.
Their wealth is greater than every khalasar on the grass sea put together.
There are countless slaves waiting to herd for us.
Their women will be our prizes.
I will carry their gods back to Vaes Dothrak and lay them at the feet of the Mother of Mountains.
We will ride our warhorses wearing iron, tear down their stone houses, and kill every man who dares raise a weapon against us.
I will lead you to do what no khal has ever done.
I will make the name of Rahallo echo across the entire world!” The warriors erupted.
Eyes burned with sudden fire.
Their cheers shook the tent like thunder.
Rahallo knew that as a new khal he still had to prove his strength and vision.
He would take them to Westeros so they could see real war for themselves—the kind of fighting that would show them exactly why armor mattered.
They would never learn that lesson from skirmishes between khalasars.
He was no trader.
The only way to grow his forces and gather the gold he needed was through war.
The Nine Free Cities were still far beyond his reach.
Building at Ghoyan Drohe would cost thousands of gold dragons, and the grass sea offered nothing but horses and sheep.
Westeros was the only target left that made sense.
“When do we go?” Lazal asked at once, suddenly alert at the promise of battle.
“Soon.
I’m speaking with Illyrio.
He will arrange the ships and the sailors we need.” Rahallo finished rousing them and gave quick orders for preparations.
Then he left the tent and walked toward the one he shared with Daenerys.
Inside, Daenerys reclined against the feather cushions.
She dismissed her handmaidens with a quiet word.
“Ser Jorah stays.
Everyone else, go.” When only the two of them remained, Jorah reached into his tunic and drew out a folded sheet of sheepskin.
He handed it to her with a grave face.
“Khaleesi, this is a letter from Magister Illyrio to Viserys.” His voice was low.
“Robert Baratheon has put a bounty on your heads.
Any man who kills you or your brother will receive lands and a lordship.” Daenerys had seen enough of the world by now.
With Rahallo’s strength at her back she felt little fear.
She glanced over the letter without much interest.
“Looks like the Usurper owes my sun and stars a lordship,” she said calmly.
“After all, only he can kill Viserys.” Jorah had expected the news to frighten her.
Instead she simply stared at the ground for a long moment, thinking.
“Ser Jorah,” she said at last, “please light the brazier.” Jorah wiped sweat from his brow.
“Khaleesi, it is already very warm.” “I caught a slight chill,” Daenerys insisted.
She had been growing fonder of heat with every passing day.
The hotter it became, the more comfortable she felt.
She did not yet understand why, and until she did she had no intention of worrying Rahallo with it.
The brazier caught and crackled.
The air inside the tent thickened quickly, turning the space into a sweltering box.
Daenerys looked at Jorah.
“Viserys once said that with ten thousand Dothraki screamers he could sweep the Seven Kingdoms clean.” Jorah gave a short, scornful laugh.
“Give him ten thousand brooms and he still could not clean a stable.” Daenerys had grown used to Jorah’s bluntness.
She pressed on.
“What if it were not Viserys?
What if it were a stronger man—my sun and stars, for example?
Could he conquer the Seven Kingdoms?” She had never seen the Seven Kingdoms herself, but after everything her brother had told her she felt she owed it to herself to understand what they were facing.
Jorah was quiet for a moment.
“Khaleesi, if you had asked me a few days ago I would have said without hesitation that a thousand well-trained Westerosi knights could send a hundred times their number of Dothraki running.” “And now?” she asked.
“Now I am not so sure.” Jorah shook his head.
“Dothraki horsemanship is unmatched.
They fear nothing.
Their bows outrange anything the knights of the Seven Kingdoms carry.
Westerosi archers fight on foot.
Dothraki shoot from the saddle whether they are charging or falling back, swift as wind and thunder.
They are dangerous.
And their numbers are enormous.” “Are there so many Dothraki?” “When Prince Rhaegar fought at the Trident he commanded forty thousand men.
Only one in ten were knights.
The rest were foot and sellswords.
After your khal defeated Fogo he commanded twenty-five thousand cavalry—six times the number of Rhaegar’s knights.
The pity is…” “The pity is what?” “The pity is that Dothraki do not wear armor.” At that moment the tent flap lifted.
Rahallo stepped inside.
Sunlight struck the polished silver across his chest and flashed back in a bright, hard gleam.
“It is hot in here,” he said, wiping his brow.
Jorah stared, rubbing his eyes as if he could not trust them.
The khal who had always gone bare-chested beneath a painted leather vest now wore a new, gleaming half-plate cuirass.
The plates were smooth and well-fitted, simple yet strong, clearly made for fighting rather than show.
It was a far cry from the heavy, ornate armor of Westerosi knights, but it looked like it belonged on a man who meant to win battles.
Jorah muttered under his breath, “A Dothraki wearing armor.
I have seen everything now.” He glanced down at his own battered brigandine.
The metal scales were rusting at the edges, the leather frayed and worn.
Next to Rahallo’s clean steel it looked shabby and poor.
Who was the real knight here?
Daenerys pushed herself up on her elbows.
Her eyes shone.
“My sun and stars,” she breathed.
“You look like a different man.” “I have to set the example,” Rahallo said.
He rapped his knuckles against the cuirass.
The sound was sharp and solid.
“From today on I will not take this off.
Any man who mocks me for it can go meet the Horse God in the night lands.” Jorah studied the fit with a professional eye.
“That style of half-plate is well suited for cavalry,” he admitted.
Daenerys rose and crossed to Rahallo.
She ran her fingers slowly over the cool metal, then looked up at him with open admiration.
In the armor he looked more like the princes she had dreamed of as a girl than any man she had ever seen.
Tonight, she thought, he could keep it on.
Rahallo looked down at her.
“Has Viserys troubled you again?” “Do you truly mean to kill him?” she asked quietly.
A shadow of worry crossed her face.
“Perhaps you will not have to.
Sooner or later someone else will.
Death might even be a mercy for him.” She thought of everything Viserys had done in recent days—his endless complaints, his demands, the venom he spat at her and at Rahallo, as if the world still owed him everything.
Disgust rose in her chest.
Yet beneath the disgust there was still a thread of something older and harder to cut.
Viserys had raised her.
In the worst times he had sold their mother’s crown so they could eat.
Hardship had twisted him into something cruel and brittle.
As long as he lived she would keep brushing against the old nightmares of being controlled and belittled.
But she could not bring herself to wish him dead.
The two feelings pulled at each other until she did not know which was stronger.