The wedding was held on schedule.
Outside Pentos, on a coastal hillside, a high platform had been raised overlooking the sea.
Drogo sat with his back to the water, Daenerys beside him.
Viserys and Magister Illyrio occupied lower seats to his left; further down still, Dothraki blanketed the hillside as far as the eye could see.
Drogo sat above the sea of people, beneath an open sky.
His “clansmen,” men and women alike, went bare-chested under painted leather vests, with horsehair leggings and bronze-studded belts.
Their bronze skin gleamed in the sun.
In the mass of bodies below, the dancing began.
Women twisted their hips.
Men circled them, spinning faster and faster, pressing in closer and closer.
It didn’t take long before men were fighting over dance partners — first shoving, then fists, then blades.
Arakhs, curved like sickles, cut gleaming arcs through the sunlight.
Blood hit the ground.
The crowd cheered and stepped back, clearing space for the fighters to keep going.
When the loser fell, entrails spilled from the gap in his ribs, steaming in the open air.
The victor raised his blade and roared, then cut off the dead man’s braid.
Then he grabbed the nearest woman, not even the one he’d been fighting over, looped an arm around her waist, and launched into a wild dance.
Drogo had never seen anything like this.
Broad daylight.
This many witnesses.
And they just…
did this.
He turned his face away.
He couldn’t stomach it.
His gaze moved left.
Daenerys sat bolt upright, taut as a bowstring, one hand clenched tight around the hem of her robe.
She didn’t know where to look.
A glance to the left showed two bodies tangled together; she snapped her eyes away.
A glance to the right gave her more of the same.
Drogo spoke, voice low.
“A Dothraki wedding isn’t considered lively unless at least three people die.”
Dany was too shaken to respond, and she understood no Dothraki, so she just looked at him and smiled.
Not a real smile.
The kind you drag out when you have no idea what else to do.
Drogo looked at her and kept going, gesturing to help — first holding up one finger, then two.
“Twelve.
Twelve people will die today.” He was trying to show Dany that he could see what was coming.
She still didn’t understand.
She looked at his fingers, looked at his face, and kept right on smiling, watching him steadily.
Fine.
Feeling foolish, he gave up.
He turned back toward the field and let himself sink into the noise of it.
Women were dancing in his honor, hips swinging hard, chests rolling, skirts spinning high enough to flash the tops of their thighs.
Uninhibited, no question.
He still found it uncomfortable to watch.
Expressionless, he unhooked a bronze medallion from his belt and tossed it into the crowd.
Women shrieked and dove for it, tearing at each other.
Some were trampled underfoot.
Others grabbed hair and refused to let go.
The bloodshed on the field was thickening.
The clash of curved blades, screams, and cheers all folded together.
Another body dropped, blood darkening the earth.
Drogo watched, face blank.
Inwardly, he cursed.
Deaths at a wedding.
Bad omen.
That belief was carved into him from his old life, deep enough that nothing here was going to scrub it loose.
But these “clansmen” saw it differently.
More blood meant more celebration.
More death meant the wedding was a success.
The losers lay in the dirt convulsing, screaming.
Entrails spread across the ground.
It took a long time for them to finish dying.
Fine goosebumps rose along Drogo’s arms.
In that moment, he knew it with certainty: these people were strange and savage, beasts wearing human skin.
He made up his mind to change them.
Slowly.
Steadily.
Every last one of these bullshit customs, stripped away one by one.
When the sun reached its peak, people began coming forward with gifts.
All kinds: pelts, curved blades, silver ornaments, wine in wooden casks.
A thin man approached clutching something in both hands — only when he got close did it become clear they were snakes.
Drogo glanced at Qotho.
“Keep the snakes.
Get rid of the man.” Any Khal worth the title could handle a few snakes.
Qotho took the snakes and kicked the thin man on his way.
The man ran off grinning awkwardly, no idea what he’d done wrong.
The dancing continued.
The bodies had been dragged away, and the blood on the ground had baked brown in the sun.
Out of the corner of his eye, Drogo caught Viserys turning to glance at him, then leaning sideways to murmur something to Illyrio.
The drums and the women’s shouts were loud enough to swallow most of it, but he could pick out enough to know they weren’t speaking Dothraki.
Not the tongue of Pentos, either.
The cadence, though.
Something about it nagged at him.
Not entirely unfamiliar.
He already knew what Viserys wanted.
An army.
A march on Westeros.
The Iron Throne.
Viserys had made this speech a hundred times to Illyrio, a hundred times to Dany, and soon enough he’d make it to Drogo too.
But he had no interest in humoring the Sister-Pimping King.
A man stepped out from the crowd.
Mid-forties.
Long face, short beard.
Several books tucked under one arm, a longsword at his hip.
He walked forward without hurry.
Drogo recognized him immediately.
Jorah Mormont.
An exiled knight who had attached himself to Daenerys in hopes of earning a royal pardon, all while secretly reporting her every movement to Varys.
But this man would later fall in love with Daenerys.
He would do a great many things for her.
In the end, he would die protecting her.
No matter how you looked at it, Jorah was better than Jon Snow.
And as long as Drogo himself drew breath, no one was going to touch a single hair on Dany’s head.
“Ser Jorah.” He spoke first.
Jorah bowed and answered in Dothraki, measured and respectful.
“Khal Drogo.”
Drogo gave a single nod.
With permission granted, Jorah stepped forward and addressed Dany.
“I have a small gift for the newlywed Khaleesi.” (Khaleesi: the wife of a Khal.)
As he spoke, he held the books out to her.
“Histories and poetry of the Seven Kingdoms.”
Dany took them.
The books weren’t expensive, but to her they were something else entirely.
“Thank you, Ser.”
Listening from beside her, Drogo felt something lurch in his chest.
Wait.
Wasn’t that just…
English?
It clicked all at once.
The Common Tongue of Westeros and Essos, it was English.
Then Illyrio raised a finger and signaled two slaves to carry a chest forward.
When the lid came up, there they were: 3 dragon eggs, their surfaces dense with scales.
One red-black.
One white.
One green.
One look at the colors and Drogo already knew all three dragons’ names.
Dany bent forward and lifted the green egg in both hands, turning it over slowly, studying every inch.
“These are dragon eggs,” Illyrio said.
“From distant Asshai.
Said to be among the last left behind by the final dragons.
I have treasured them for many years, and today I give them to the newlyweds.”
While Illyrio spoke, Viserys had turned and was staring at the eggs.
Drogo looked at the petrified eggs and felt a knot form in his gut.
How exactly was he supposed to hatch these?
He asked, almost offhand, “Magister Illyrio, where did you obtain these eggs?
And how does one hatch them?”
“Khal, these dragon eggs can no longer be hatched.
But as ornaments, they remain beautiful.”
Daenerys understood none of what the two men had said.
She bent down quietly and set the dragon egg back in the chest.
➤ Next: Dragon Knight
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