The khalasar pressed east for another half a month.
During the day, Drogo had his own work to deal with.
He set about implementing the Thousand-Man System.
After being run ragged for a while, Qotho and Haggo no longer had the energy to resist.
Haggo especially.
He spent every day tracking down cloth.
After finally scraping together 10,000 pieces, Drogo turned around and ordered him to organize people to stitch it all into sack shapes.
Qotho had it worse.
Drogo told him to find a craftsman who could weave a basket large enough for three or four people to stand in.
He worked his way from the front of the column to the back, from sunrise to sunset.
One question for everyone he met: Does anyone in your household know how to weave baskets?
Lysene?
Myrish?
Tyroshi?
Any will do.
Four days straight.
By the end, his voice was raw.
On the morning of the fifth day, someone finally nodded.
An old Dothraki warrior who herded sheep.
He squinted, thought for a good while, then said:
“My household has a Tyroshi — captured a few years back.
He can weave small baskets, for carrying things.”
Qotho commandeered the slave on the spot.
As it turned out, Drogo’s reforms were going remarkably well.
That actually caught him off guard.
He’d prepared several countermeasures to head off resistance from the tribesmen.
He didn’t need any of them.
From every thousand warriors, choose one Thousand-Man Chief, ten Hundred-Man Chiefs, a hundred Ten-Man Chiefs.
The moment those titles were announced, the rank-and-file reacted like a festival had been declared.
Men who had spent their whole lives riding and killing suddenly realized they had a shot at becoming leaders.
Who was going to object?
Who would dare?
If anyone was foolish enough to open their mouth, the men eagerly waiting for those posts would probably hack them to pieces before they got a word out.
The trouble was the selection itself.
That part kept stalling.
Combat skill was the bare minimum.
They weren’t just looking for men who could fight.
They needed men who could manage others, who could follow orders, who could execute the khal’s commands precisely.
That was what mattered.
The Dothraki had no shortage of warriors.
Men who could fight were everywhere.
But finding someone who could both fight and manage others?
That was harder than finding a camel in a horse herd.
Drogo got cornered every day.
As soon as the sun was up, warriors were waiting outside his tent with their horses.
When they met, the first thing they did was show off their braids.
Let Drogo see how long they were, how many bells, how many men they’d killed.
Then came the demonstrations: swordwork, horsemanship, mounted archery.
After the whole routine, dripping sweat, they’d look at him with eager eyes.
“Khal, can I be a Thousand-Man Chief?”
Drogo would nod.
The physical skills were solid.
Riding, archery, nothing to fault.
Then he’d ask: “Your thousand men.
How do they set camp each day?
How are rations divided?
When trouble breaks out, who do they go to first?”
The man would go blank.
Then another question: “Can you count?
A hundred men, three pieces of meat each — how many pieces total?”
The man’s face would crumple, like a wolf that had been asked something it couldn’t fight its way out of.
Drogo would look at that face, wave his hand, and send him away.
After a while, he started noticing something.
Some warriors were going back to their tents to find the slave they’d taken from some city, asking him how to count, how to tally figures.
A few were even having slaves teach them to write, scratching letters in the mud with a stick.
Drogo saw it.
He watched those men scratch clumsily at the ground.
His face stayed flat, but inside he felt something warm.
That was unexpected.
He had only wanted to find a few men who could handle logistics.
He hadn’t counted on pushing a pack of wolves into learning.
That was the whole point, though.
Boil the frog slowly.
Change their habits one degree at a time.
Dany liked riding at the very front of the khalasar.
Behind her, the main column was chaos.
Hooves churned the grass to mud, rivers got stirred brown and foul, dust kicked up thick enough to gag on.
Up front was different.
Green fields stretched out ahead like a carpet, grassblades rolling in waves under the wind, the air carrying nothing but the smell of open country.
After enough days riding together, they no longer needed a translator.
Dany’s Dothraki had come along fast.
She could handle everyday conversation now.
Drogo’s Common Tongue had made even more ground, he’d studied it once, the foundation was still there, though a few years as a corporate drone had blurred most of it.
Now that he was picking it back up, the progress was fast.
Today he came up from the rear of the column, having just locked in a new Thousand-Man Chief.
His horse drew up beside Dany, shoulder to shoulder.
“Your riding has improved quickly,” he said.
“Irri teaches well.”
Dany smiled and reached out to stroke the little silver mare’s neck.
“Mm.
But she’s my real teacher.
She always seems to know my mood, like she can feel what I’m thinking.”
She thought for a moment before finding the right phrase.
“I’ve never loved anything this much.
I want to give her a name, but I know the Dothraki never name their animals.”
Drogo looked at her with quiet fondness.
“You can.
Give her a name.”
Dany beamed.
“That’s wonderful.”
She furrowed her brow, dead serious.
Names came and went: Lightning, no, too ordinary; White Cloud, no, too plain; Snow Mane, no, too clumsy on the tongue.
Each one she talked herself out of before it had a chance.
Drogo watched from the side, the corner of his mouth curling up without him noticing.
The kind of smile that happens when you’re happy without meaning to be.
“Want me to come up with one?”
Dany’s eyes lit up.
“Yes!”
Drogo thought.
Then thought again.
“Call her White Dragon Horse.”
Dany said it twice.
The more she said it, the more she liked it.
She leaned down and stroked the mare’s cheek.
The horse snorted, as if she approved.
“White Dragon Horse, you have a name now!”
The mare pawed the ground twice.
Dany sat up, pressed her heels in, and the horse shot forward.
The grassland swept past behind her.
The silver mane lifted in the wind, streaming like a wisp of cloud.
She rode a wide arc at full gallop, then turned and came back.
Face flushed, hair loose, smile wide open.
She glanced at the horse beneath Drogo, dark reddish-black, tall and massive, with eyes that looked ready to bite something.
“What’s your horse’s name?”
Drogo patted the stallion’s neck.
“Red Hare.”
The words were barely out before a voice tore over the ridge.
Viserys.
Sharp enough to cut through the grassland wind, riding a current of pure fury.
He was screaming at Jorah.
The words were hard to catch, but the tone needed no translation.
His royal tantrum, same as always.
Drogo didn’t turn around.
He kept riding, his horse steady and unhurried, as if he’d heard nothing at all.
Dany’s face changed.
She pulled up and looked toward the ridge.
Viserys was shoving Jorah aside, shoving Cohollo aside, driving his half-ruined horse down the slope.
His voice arrived before he did.
“I have had enough!”
He pulled up hard in front of Drogo.
His horse’s front legs reared, nearly throwing him.
“This godforsaken place — I am not staying another day!”
His face was crimson.
Veins stood out from his neck like cords.
“Whatever business you have in Vaes Dothrak is nothing to do with me!
Give me ten thousand soldiers.
I’m taking back Westeros!”
The Dothraki around him couldn’t follow much of it.
They just watched, the way a wolf pack watches a sheep that won’t stop bleating.
Dany’s face went pale, then ashen.
She gripped the reins, knuckles white.
She’d known it would come to this.
Every time Viserys found her these past days, he said the same thing: if Drogo didn’t honor his promise, he would make him feel the wrath of the sleeping dragon.
She’d told herself he was just venting.
That he wasn’t actually stupid enough to ride up and demand soldiers.
But here he was.
She looked at Drogo.
He had simply reined in and sat there, watching Viserys the way you’d watch a child mid-tantrum.
But Dany knew.
Drogo was not her.
He didn’t lower his head and absorb it.
She didn’t know what he was going to do.
She only knew something was about to happen.
She wanted to tell Viserys to shut his mouth.
To make him turn around and leave.
But her whole life, she had never once defied him.
No matter how ugly the words.
No matter how impossible the demand.
She’d always kept her head down, listened to the end, and done as she was told.
She could only sit there frozen, watching Viserys shriek.
➤ Next: Getting What One Wishes For
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