The blood plague was an extremely contagious epidemic.
Infected individuals suffered from high fever, intestinal bleeding, and diarrhea.
Its transmission method and symptoms were somewhat similar to the flu, which didn't sound particularly serious.
However, in an age where medical knowledge had not advanced beyond leeches and bloodletting, the blood plague surpassed even greyscale as the most notorious disease in history.
Both the blood plague and greyscale were incurable. Greyscale had an almost one hundred percent fatality rate, while the blood plague claimed only a quarter of its victims.
Yet the blood plague was far more contagious. It could spread silently through the air and was prone to recurring outbreaks.
For instance, the slums of Flea Bottom in King's Landing often suffered from it.
It was a tragic reality.
The blood plague had existed since the dawn of human history. Long before the First Men crossed the Arm of Dorne into Westeros, the plague already roamed the world.
And after ten thousand years, humanity still had not found an effective cure. The only options were prevention or sheer endurance.
Unlike greyscale, the blood plague was not rare. It often appeared in densely populated areas with poor sanitation.
For example, in urban slums.
Or within large marching armies.
Volon Therys, once similar to Volantis, had been a Valyrian colony in Slaver's Bay.
After the Doom, without the absolute dominance of dragonlords to protect it, the city fell into decline under the constant threat of the horsemen from the northern grasslands.
Now, Volon Therys was little more than a ruined city—its sewer system and waste removal nonexistent—yet it housed over a hundred thousand mounted warriors. Its hygiene conditions were unimaginable.
An epidemic was rarely identified at the appearance of its first victim.
The milder its early symptoms, the slower it was detected.
If it had been as terrifying as Ebola, it might have been identified within a day.
Diseases like greyscale or stone plague were easier to recognize due to their distinct skin symptoms.
But the blood plague resembled a cold or a bout of diarrhea. Infected people often didn't realize they were ill and could endure for a long time.
By the time the disease was confirmed, it had already spread beyond control.
Think of real-world pandemics—despite the swift and decisive measures of the Celestial Empire, entire cities still had to be quarantined.
In this chaotic, low-tech "fantasy medieval" world, one could only imagine how poor the response would be.
When Daenerys received word of the outbreak, she immediately ordered several skinchangers to investigate Volon Therys in detail under the pretext of "assessing the plague's threat to our allied forces."
Among them, Khal Jhaqo's khalasar was the primary focus.
Unfortunately, Daenerys lost two of her "old friends" right away.
Jhaqo and his wife Lilith were dying from the blood plague, and even Jhaqo's khalasar had scattered.
When Drogo had died, his khalasar collapsed.
Now, history was repeating itself.
And like Daenerys, Jhaqo made the same choice. Realizing he could not survive the plague, he immediately ordered his bloodriders and trusted khalasar to take his son, Rego, and daughter, Grace, and flee.
A khal's screamers were the most loyal of warriors while their khal lived. But once he was near death, only his bloodriders and closest khalasar could truly be trusted.
A khalasar was composed of many khals, each commanding their own small khalasar. The leader of these khals was the khal himself.
As the saying goes, "What goes around comes around." The heavens spare no one.
Unlike greyscale, the blood plague's mortality rate topped out at about twenty-five percent. With proper management, the real number could be even lower.
That meant Jhaqo's khalasar, which had once boasted fifteen thousand screamers, might still see twelve thousand survive.
The khal lay dying, his heir was still a child, yet twelve thousand screamers remained. What would happen next was obvious.
Years ago, Jhaqo had seized part of Drogo's khalasar as a kos and risen to become khal himself, then led his new khalasar to hunt down Drogo's son.
Now, his own kos divided his fifteen thousand screamers among themselves, becoming new khals. Five newly risen khals each led their own khalasar, pursuing Jhaqo's young son, Rego.
Old Maester Aemon compiled all recent reports about the Dothraki and, after analyzing them, told Daenerys:
"Rego is not yet four years old, yet he has already tamed his own warhorse.
You, more than anyone, know what that means. Among the Dothraki, only those who possess a warhorse earn respect.
Six months ago, Khal Jhaqo and Khal Moro met by the Saathor River to form an alliance and raid the town of Saathor near Volantis.
At the feast, Jhaqo's son Rego wrestled Moro's youngest son, Modo, for their fathers' entertainment.
Seven-year-old Modo was swiftly defeated by three-year-old Rego.
Modo was beaten black and blue.
In the contests of riding, archery, and curved blades that followed, Rego won every round.
That day, Rego thoroughly outshone Modo and earned his third bell—the first two had been awarded for taming a wild horse and hunting a plains wolf.
Khal Moro had exclaimed then, 'Could this child be riding the horse of the world?'
Because of that, when Jhaqo died, his kos would never forgive Rego!"
"Oh no, that poor boy!" Daenerys cried out in alarm.
Aemon blinked. He's not even your son—why are you so worked up?
But remembering the Dragon Queen's tragic loss of both husband and child, the old man's heart softened.
He sighed, both sympathetic and sorrowful.
"Ah, Daenerys, you're still young, you still have—"
But Daenerys had no time for comfort. She immediately ordered the skinchangers to locate Jhaqo's bloodriders, while she mounted Drogon and flew toward Meereen at full speed.
Two and a half hours later, Drogon landed atop the Great Pyramid of Meereen.
She sought out the masked woman, Morona, and asked for news. The woman, troubled, replied, "It's too soon. Within hundreds of kilometers, even with two ravens and two falcons released, it's impossible to complete the search in just two days."
Because of the Battle of Meereen—and because the Dragon Queen had repeatedly ridden her dragon to drive the Dothraki khals from the northern plains to the west—
At this moment, across the thousand-mile expanse of the Dothraki Sea, Borash saw herds of horsemen everywhere.
For this reason, the skinchanger's animal companion could not simply search casually. Every detail had to be carefully distinguished.
But two days were long enough for "Jango" to die twice already.
The last time, in the Red Waste, Drogo's bloodrider Cohollo had guarded "Rhaego" as they fled toward Vaes Dothrak—only to be surrounded and killed within a single day.
And Cohollo had led five hundred of Drogo's fiercest screamers!
"Is there any way to find them quickly?" Daenerys asked, frowning.
In truth, it wasn't entirely her fault for being unprepared at the last moment.
After the second dragon war, Daenerys had ordered Morona to send her raven companion into the Dothraki Sea to search for Khal Jhaqo's khalasar.
But after more than a month of searching, Jhaqo's vast khalasar remained completely untraceable.
There were two main reasons for this. First, Morona was a wildling. She neither understood Dothraki customs nor spoke their language, and she could hardly tell one Dothraki face from another. Dothraki khalasars bore no sigils or banners. Unless one approached and asked directly, there was no way to know who their khal was.
Even though Drogon had helped Morona by painting portraits of Jhaqo and Lylis—for a wildling like Morona, it made little difference. Just as all foreigners looked the same to the people of Yi Ti, all Dothraki, with their bronze skin, long braids, and almond-shaped eyes, seemed identical to her.
She often even mixed up Rakharo and Qhono, simply because Aggo managed the militia and wore the leather armor of the Queen's Guard; Jhogo led a khalasar and wore traditional Dothraki vests; while Qhono preferred steel armor. Rakharo, who stayed by the Dragon Queen's side for ceremony, was forced to wear armor or chainmail just like Qhono.
To glean any useful information from the Dothraki's speech, Morona—already old enough to be a grandmother—had to work hard to learn their language.
In truth, language and literacy had always been the greatest obstacles for skinchanger spies.
Although Morona possessed the strongest warging abilities, the Dragon Queen had only assigned her to patrol Meereen, while sending "the Goat," Gisela, whose powers were the weakest, to Astapor's rookery as an informant.
Why?Simply because "White Mask" Morona and "the Boar" Borroq did not speak Valyrian.
Morona spoke only the Old Tongue, and Borroq only the Common Tongue of Westeros.
Ironically, "the Goat" Gisela had once traded with Braavosi merchants beyond the Wall using her pack goats to carry goods. Through that, she learned arithmetic, writing, and the Braavosi dialect—a local variant of Valyrian, much like a regional accent.
To improve the usefulness of her skinchanger spies, Daenerys had even ordered the scholars to establish a "literacy training class."
But that was beside the point.
Apart from language barriers and her inability to distinguish faces, another reason Morona's search had progressed so slowly was that Jhaqo had been deliberately avoiding the Dragon Queen.
Others might not know, but Jhaqo himself certainly understood how deep their blood feud ran.
He was the one who had personally cut off the Dragon Queen's son's head, strung it on a spear, and waved it before her in open mockery.
Of course Jhaqo had joined the Battle of Meereen, hoping to use the strength of the allied forces to destroy the Dragon Queen—but before that battle, he had to avoid her.
"Your Grace, why do you seek Jhaqo's bloodriders?" Morona asked curiously. "Jhaqo is dead. Even if his bloodriders survived the pursuit this time, they would kill themselves. When a khal dies, his bloodriders never live on."
"I swore I would slay Mago with my own hands to avenge my handmaiden, Eroeh," Daenerys said.
"Mago? Which one is that again?" Morona asked in confusion.
The Dothraki loved naming themselves with "-go" endings—Aggo, Haggo, Jhogo, Jango, Rhaego, Drogo, Mago—the wildling spearwife's head ached just trying to keep track of them all.
"Sigh… it's complicated. Ask Ser Mormont or one of my bloodriders," Daenerys said impatiently. She had no desire to waste more time explaining, waved her hand dismissively, and turned to leave.
By now, she no longer expected Morona to offer any real help or advice.
But the wildling woman was still mulling over the Queen's earlier question.
"Actually, prophecy would be the fastest way," Morona said.
Daenerys stopped mid-step, turned, and asked in surprise, "You can prophesy?"
"I can," Morona replied, "but this isn't the land of the Old Gods. It won't work here. Slaver's Bay worships the Seven. Your Grace might pray to them instead."
"Keep searching," Daenerys said coldly, climbing onto Drogon's back.
But as she rose into the sky beneath the noonday sun, a long-forgotten memory flashed across her mind like lightning.
The crumbling House of the Undying, long eroded by time, once again opened its doors to her.
It was in Qarth, within the immortal temple beyond the frozen river of time.
She had encountered many doors there, and behind each one, she had witnessed visions of the past, the present, and the future.
She saw the Mad King ordering King's Landing to be burned, saw Robb's mournful eyes at the Red Wedding, saw four vile men violently assaulting a woman named Westeros… and once—
She had lifted a strange flap of old, tattered cowhide—not a door, but a crude tent curtain. (Chapter 54)
Beyond it lay a vast, endless plain—the Dothraki Sea.
A silver ribbon of a river wound through it, and along its bank rode a tall horse carrying two children.
"By the Seven, that's Rhaego and… Lilith's daughter, Grace!" Daenerys suddenly understood.
(End of chapter)
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