After bandaging Viserys’s wounds, Dany couldn’t take his cursing anymore.
She mounted the white horse and rode back to Drogo.
When she returned, Drogo was listening to Haggo.
“The big sack is stitched up.
Large enough to hold a hundred sheep, with room to spare.”
Drogo stepped forward, tugged at the fabric, then crouched to check the stitching.
Tight.
Solid.
“Mm.” He nodded.
Qotho’s group arrived next, several men hauling a large basket behind him — waist-high, easily big enough for three or four people to stand inside.
“The basket’s done too,” Qotho said.
Drogo walked over, clapped him on the shoulder, then circled the basket slowly.
The rattan was woven even and tight, the edges finished clean.
He pressed down on the rim.
It didn’t give.
A smile crossed his face.
Whatever had soured his mood earlier was already forgotten.
He turned to look at Dany.
She was still on horseback, expression strained, the rims of her eyes red.
Drogo called forward the six captains of a thousand he’d chosen over the past days.
“I need a large iron stove, twelve hemp ropes, and five craftsmen.”
This was the advantage of the thousand-man system.
The captains of a thousand turned and walked off, each finding their ten captains of a hundred and passing down the khal’s order word for word.
The captains of a hundred found their captains of ten.
The captains of ten started counting their own people, whose household had an iron stove sitting idle?
Who had hemp rope stored away?
Whose slaves had done craftsman work before?
Drogo walked over to Dany.
She was still in the saddle, eyes still red at the rims.
He didn’t ask what was wrong.
He just raised his hand and brushed a small smear of dust from her cheek.
By the time he lowered his hand, people were already coming back.
Two craftsmen carried an iron stove between them, roughly the size of a bathtub, normally used to hold the big pots for boiling horse meat.
Three more craftsmen followed, arms full of hemp rope.
Drogo walked over and took the stove, hefting it in his hands.
Light.
Lighter than he’d expected.
“This one.”
He turned around and started directing.
“Stove goes in the center.”
Several men carried it to the middle of the open ground and set it down.
“Rope.”
He took the bundle, set it on the ground, and crouched down.
He untied it and sorted out twelve strands, laying them side by side one by one.
He picked up the first and weighed it in his hand.
“A few of you — hold the sack open.”
Four craftsmen stepped up, grabbed the corners of the cloth sack, and stretched the mouth wide and round.
Along the rim were twelve evenly spaced rope holes, each fitted with a bronze ring.
Drogo stood, rope in hand, and walked to the sack.
He threaded one end through a hole, looped it back, and tied it off.
He yanked it.
It held.
He walked the rope downward to the iron stove.
Six iron lugs were welded onto the stove body, three on the left, three on the right.
He threaded the rope through the first lug on the left, looped it around, then back through the first lug on the right, letting the rope cross over the stove.
Then he kept feeding it down.
At the bottom: the rattan basket.
The rim was woven solid, a rope hole left on each of the four sides.
Drogo threaded the rope through the hole directly opposite, looped it back, and pulled it tight.
One rope, top to bottom, binding the sack, the stove, and the basket into a single thing.
Daenerys stood nearby and watched.
One moment he was crouching to tie a knot, the next he was standing to measure by eye, the next he’d stepped back a few paces and was squinting down the length of it.
The ropes moved through his hands like they were alive, weaving in and out, drawing the stove and basket together.
She watched.
And slowly, the redness faded from her eyes.
Drogo stood, dusted his hands, and looked at the men around him.
“Everybody follow that?”
They nodded.
“Keep going.”
All twelve ropes, threaded through the same way.
Each one started at the sack’s mouth, ran through a stove lug, and tied off at the basket’s rim.
The stove hung in the middle, cradled by all twelve lines, steady and level.
When the last rope was through, Drogo stopped and walked a slow circle around the whole rig.
The tension wasn’t even.
Some ropes loose, some tight.
He crouched, untied the slack one, and pulled it firm.
Stood up.
Checked the basket’s balance.
“That side’s high.”
A craftsman hurried over and tightened the rope on that side.
Drogo stepped back two paces and squinted.
The stove hung between the basket and the sack, neither too high nor too low, about two arm-lengths from the sack’s mouth, two arm-lengths from the basket.
All twelve ropes ran through the stove body, holding everything together.
He was deep in the work now, clearly enjoying it.
Finally, they packed the stove with dry firewood and oil-soaked cloth strips, filling it to the brim, then poured more oil over the top.
The crowd around them kept growing.
The Dothraki had never seen anything like this.
None of them knew what the khal was building.
But when the khal worked, no one asked questions.
They hung back and watched from a distance.
Drogo lit the firewood.
Flames jumped up.
Thick smoke rolled upward, and didn’t scatter.
Every bit of it funneled straight into the sack.
The sack swelled.
It puffed up slowly, bit by bit, like a stomach filling after a meal, growing larger, growing rounder.
A low gasp from somewhere in the crowd.
The sack kept swelling, lifting off the ground, dragging the iron stove up with it.
The stove shuddered, rose clear of the earth.
The rattan basket swung and rose with it.
Drogo gripped the basket’s rim and tested it.
Steady.
He looked around for Dany.
She was standing a short distance away, her eyes wide.
“Come here.” He waved her over.
She blinked, then ran.
Drogo scooped her up and set her down inside the basket.
It swayed.
She grabbed the rim, face going pale.
“Don’t be scared.” He swung himself in and stood beside her.
“Stand up straight.
Just hold on.”
The basket swayed.
Then it left the ground.
The crowd erupted.
People jumped back, people shoved forward, people stood with their mouths open and nothing coming out.
“It’s flying!” A young warrior stabbed his finger at the basket.
“The khal is flying!”
Qotho stood at the very front, head tipped back, mouth hanging open.
His wineskin slipped from his fingers and hit the ground.
He didn’t notice.
Haggo squinted, tracking the basket as it climbed higher and higher.
His knife slid off his leg and dropped to the ground.
Cohollo said nothing.
He just watched.
The hot-air balloon rose slowly.
The tents shrank.
The horses shrank.
The upturned faces on the ground shrank.
Dany gripped Drogo tight, her eyes wide, staring down at the earth falling away beneath them.
Then, slowly, she let go.
She leaned out over the rim, looking down.
Her silver hair lifted in the wind and streamed out behind her.
She turned back to look at him — face caught somewhere between wonder and fear.
“We’re flying…”
Every head on the ground was turned upward.
Those Dothraki warriors, men who killed and bled others without a second thought, stood with their mouths open and their necks craned, staring up at the thing in the sky that should not have been able to fly.
Women held their children and pointed at the sky so the little ones could see.
In the crowd, someone dropped to their knees, forehead pressing into the grass.
Someone started shouting, what they were saying was impossible to make out.
Others started running, chasing it across the ground.
The hot air kept blasting upward.
The sack strained full and taut.
Wind streamed past their ears.
The whole world went quiet.
Nothing left but the sound of the wind.
➤ Next: Viserys Loses His Temper
WEEKLY POWER GOALS: 30→1ch | 50→2ch | 80→5 ch | 100→8 ch | 150→12 ch
Happy reading, everyone!