Daenerys had come to him willingly that night, drawn to this man who treated her like she was his whole world, fierce as a lion and sharper than anyone she’d ever known.
Drogo satisfied her.
Then he lay there, staring at the dark, unable to sleep.
Thoughts kept surfacing, one after another.
He’d been tracking the timeline.
Robert Baratheon should be bedridden by now, gored by that boar.
Eddard Stark would pressure Varys into canceling the assassination order.
Jorah Mormont’s royal pardon was already on its way.
He stared at the black nothing above him and held the image in his mind, Jorah receiving the letter at the market, turning, stopping the assassin before the poison reached Daenerys.
He wondered what Jorah would have done if the pardon hadn’t come.
Would he have just watched her die?
Drogo rolled over.
“I can just start the war myself.
Hit the Lhazareen.”
Those sheep-people barely had knives worth stealing.
No reason needed, the Dothraki raided them as naturally as breathing.
“When Daenerys steps in to protect the female captives and takes the spoils, that warrior Mago will step forward to challenge me.”
“And I’ll let him cut me.
That part’s already in the plan.”
The more he thought, the less he slept.
He was up before full dawn, and had someone drag the 9 captains of thousands to him.
In Westeros, lords went to war after sitting at long tables with sheepskin maps spread out before them, silver goblets in hand, deliberating at leisure.
Drogo had none of that.
He stood on open ground, weeds underfoot, wind cutting through, horses snorting somewhere behind him.
His bloodriders kept close.
The nine captains arrived.
Daenerys stood beside him, wrapped in her robe, still half-asleep.
He stood in the dew, on the open grass, and announced his decision to a group of bare-chested men.
“I am going to seize this world.”
The captains exchanged glances.
Low murmurs passed between them.
Daenerys had been drooping under her blanket a moment ago.
Now she was wide awake.
“Cross the Narrow Sea,” Drogo continued.
“Take the Iron Throne.”
The objections came before the words had even settled.
“A khal of the grasslands rides horses.
He does not sit in iron chairs.”
Daenerys stepped forward, one hand resting on her belly.
“The dosh khaleen foretold that my son is the Stallion Who Mounts the World.
The stallion shall ride to the ends of the earth.”
Vilger answered her.
“Khaleesi.
The end of the world is the black salt sea.”
Another captain, Kolo, followed him up.
“Horses cannot cross poison water.”
Drogo knew them.
The Dothraki feared nothing on land, no predator, no enemy.
But the ocean?
The ocean unmade them.
Water horses couldn’t drink was unclean.
The sea was poison water.
The sea was taboo.
“The Free Cities have thousands of ships,” Drogo said.
“Ships that ride the wind and cross the ocean.”
Qotho’s opinion matched the nine captains, no hesitation.
“Those ships.
They won’t give them to us.”
“Once we take the nine Free Cities — Pentos, Lys, the rest,” Drogo looked around at them, “their property becomes our property.
Their ships become our ships.”
Vilger shook his head.
“No one will cross the sea, Khal Drogo.”
Several captains nodded behind him.
Someone murmured agreement.
Drogo let it go.
He didn’t push.
He changed the subject, which khalasar to hit, where to raid, when to move.
That woke them up.
They all started talking at once, throwing out ideas, arguing over the details.
Daenerys stood to one side.
The light in her eyes went quiet.
She had no interest in raiding khalasars or attacking Free Cities.
She wanted to go home.
She wanted to cross that sea.
But these men feared it so deeply.
What was there to say?
Drogo wasn’t bothered.
He’d already worked out the sequence: take Essos first, build the logistics base, then push into Westeros, then deal with the Night King.
All of that came later.
Today was a test.
He wanted to know where his people stood on crossing the sea.
If they were stubborn, he’d follow the original plan, wait for the assassination attempt to fail, then use it to declare war.
If they were soft enough, he’d handle the assassin at the market himself and move the timeline forward.
As things stood, the old road it was.
He listened to the captains argue about targets and mentally counted the days.
Even if the dragons hatched tomorrow, they’d need years to grow.
He’d have to wait for the War of the Five Kings to ignite, wait for Westeros to tear itself apart.
Cross the sea then.
After he dismissed them, Daenerys turned to him.
“You’re the khal.
You could just command them to board the ships.”
Drogo was fond of her.
But fond didn’t mean he’d let things slide.
Some things had to be corrected.
He reached up and touched her face.
“You spent your whole life following Viserys.
Some of that has gotten into you.”
Daenerys blinked, caught off guard.
“Nothing is so simple as just giving an order.” He lowered his hand.
“Did you never consider that they might not obey?”
“They would know the consequences of disobeying.”
“The Dothraki are wolves.
Not sheep.”
He paused.
“I was told your father was killed by his own Kingsguard.”
She looked at him, uncertain where he was heading, and gave a slow, confused nod.
“I’ve led this khalasar across the world.
In the distant East, I heard stories.”
“There was a great general — brutal to his men, never showed them loyalty.
They cut his head off while he slept.”
“There was a king who nearly got strangled by a palace maid.”
“Another king, killed by his cook.”
Daenerys went still, little by little.
“The Dothraki are loyal.
But that loyalty is something I earn.
They are not sheep who simply lie down and accept whatever comes.”
He looked at her.
The look asked a question without asking it.
“Why do you think a khal needs bloodriders at all?”
It was a lesson.
His tone stayed gentle the whole time.
Not anger, not blame, just the truth, laid flat.
He turned, walked two steps, and swung up onto his horse.
From the saddle, he looked back at her.
Daenerys hadn’t moved.
The wind came off the grass and lifted her hair, still loose from sleep.
His words were still turning in her head.
He was teaching her.
Not flattering her.
Not telling her what she wanted to hear.
Teaching her.
She looked up at him, mounted against the morning sky, his profile caught in the pale early light.
She thought of the first time she had ever seen him.
He had smiled at her from across the crowd and she had been so frightened she’d pressed herself behind Illyrio.
She’d thought he was a beast.
Something that devoured people.
Now this same beast stood in the morning light and taught her, in the gentlest voice she’d ever heard from him, how power actually worked.
“Moon of my life.” Drogo spoke down to her.
“The council is settled.
We ride against Khal Bago’s khalasar.”
Daenerys came back to herself.
“My sun-and-stars,” she said.
“I will await your return.”
Bago’s khalasar wasn’t large.
There was no need to commit forty thousand warriors to it.
Drogo left ten thousand behind, spreading them in a wide ring around the entrance to Vaes Dothrak.
Not to defend the city.
To seal the road into it, so Bago couldn’t run inside and hide behind its walls.
He rode out with the nine captains and nine thousand cavalry.
A sweeping, deliberate column heading east.
This battle would serve more than one purpose.
He wanted to see which of these captains — the thousands-commanders and the hundreds-commanders alike, actually had something behind their blades.
Real ability, or just showmanship.
The ones who couldn’t perform would be cut loose.
By the time they rode home, he’d know exactly who was worth keeping and who needed to go.
➤ Next: Lightning Raid — Clash
WEEKLY POWER GOALS: 30→1ch | 50→2ch | 80→5 ch | 100→8 ch | 150→12 ch
Happy reading, everyone!