This time, the journey was different. Their purpose was clear, and they were not burdened by the old and the weak. Daenerys took the lead, her silver filly galloping happily across the red sand, kicking up a long, thin plume of dust. Jorah and her bloodriders followed three lengths behind, with the twenty Dothraki warriors forming a disciplined rear guard.
The rumbling of their hooves vibrated through the ground. A reddish-brown sand lizard poked its head from a clump of devil-grass, sensing their approach.
Screee!
A sharp cry echoed from above. The lizard, the size of a wildcat, tensed to dart back into cover, but a string of dark red flame descended from the sky. The grass beside it erupted in a sulfurous cloud of black smoke. The lizard shrieked and bolted from the fire, but the sky darkened above it. Sharp talons pierced its soft belly, and it was lifted helplessly into the air. A moment later, a second burst of flame washed over it, and its struggles ceased.
High above, the three young dragons tore at their prize. Dany looked up at them, a satisfied smile on her lips.
The Dothraki's sense of direction was uncanny. In the middle of the night, almost without a single detour, they found it.
"By the Seven Gods…" Jorah breathed. "Is this truly the skeleton of a single creature?"
Even having been warned, Dany could only stare in utter awe. The skeleton was the size of a small warship. The bones that protruded from the sand were a bleached, off-white, but where they had dug before, the color deepened to a dark, stony grey. Last time, Rakharo had only uncovered the skull, which was itself as large as a cottage. Now, seeing the hint of the spine curving away into a hill of red sand, she understood the true scale of the beast.
"To dig it all out…" she murmured, climbing atop the two-story-high skull, "the work would be immense."
"Your Grace," Jorah said, frowning up at the colossal fossil, "what is your plan for it? To transport it all back to the city is… impossible."
"I know," she sighed. "But I had hoped. Dragonbone is a treasure beyond measure. You have seen the power of Drogo's bow."
"Only the master smiths of Qohor know the secrets of forging dragonbone, Your Grace," he reminded her gently.
"Then what do you suggest? We leave it here?"
Jorah rubbed his chin. "We take what we can easily carry. Smaller pieces from the wings, perhaps. The rest, we bury properly, and mark the location. We can return for it when we have the means."
"The skull is too large," Dany agreed, looking down at the immense jawbone she was standing on. "We will dig along the wings and back." She gave the order, and the Dothraki set to work, their shovels sinking into the soft sand along the dragon's spine.
The sky was a deep indigo when the shout came.
"Khaleesi! There is something here! It is not dragonbone! I have found a man's corpse!" The warrior's voice was high and trembling with a primal fear. "No… not a man… a devil! This is the body of a devil!"
The other Dothraki scrambled over to look, and their own cries of horror echoed in the pit.
Dany, who had been watching her own dragons hunt, quickly trotted over. "There are no devils!" she shouted down at them. "A devil would not dare approach a dragon, even one dead for a thousand years! It must be a man…" Her voice died in her throat as the crowd parted, and she saw what they had found.
It was a corpse, curled in the fetal position, and it was terrifying. It was not a clean skeleton. A thin, leathery skin, like purple-black scales, clung tightly to the bones. The skin was rough, like old tree bark, covered in thumbnail-sized patterns. The limbs curled against its chest were not arms, but claws, tipped with ten dagger-like talons that seemed to be reaching for the sky. The body was as small as a child's, but the claws were grotesquely long, utterly out of proportion.
And its eyes… its eyes were still in their sockets. They were dark purple, surrounded by a black, pitch-like mucus, and they seemed to stare up at them with a malevolent intelligence. Its mouth, split nearly from ear to ear, was frozen in a silent, demonic curse.
"Seven Hells," Dany swore, her own modern curses mixing with the language of this new world. "Ser Jorah, you have seen many things. Do you know what race this could be?"
"It should be human," Jorah said, his voice strained. He had been digging nearby. He walked over to the Dothraki who had first found the body and took a long, pale bone from his trembling hands. "Your Grace, look." He held the bone up, then gestured with it toward the corpse's left leg. "It is missing a leg. This is the bone. Following your theory from before… a dragon escaped the Doom of Valyria. Is it not possible its rider escaped with it? The dragon was mortally wounded and crashed. The rider's leg was broken in the fall."
"Look at the length of that bone," Aggo retorted, his fear momentarily replaced by logic. "It does not match the body. If that corpse is human, he is a dwarf."
The leg bone was over forty centimeters long, belonging to a tall man. The crouched corpse was no more than one-hundred-twenty centimeters.
"The old tales say the ruins of Valyria are still shrouded in a curse," Jorah said, his face grim. "There is a road, the Demon Road, that no man will travel. Perhaps the Doom was more than volcanoes." He looked at Dany. "We all know Valyria was a civilization of dragonlords and blood-magic. What if it was a curse that destroyed them? Fire alone cannot kill all the dragons in the world."
"But you just said the Dragonlords were masters of such magic," Dany countered. "How could they fall to a curse of their own making?"
"Perhaps this one was cursed," Aggo interjected, his courage returning as the initial shock wore off. "And he was flying to Qarth to beg the wizards for help."
Jorah scoffed. "The warlocks of Qarth are charlatans, famous for their parlor tricks."
"Then to Asshai," Aggo suggested, pointing east. "To the shadowbinders."
"Enough," Dany said, cutting off the debate. "Whether he was a wizard or a refugee, it does not matter to us." She pointed at the demonic corpse. "Do not touch it with your bare hands. Find wood and weeds. We will burn it here. The Valyrians believed in cremation. It is the only honor I can show this… senior dragonlord."
The Dothraki, relieved to have a command, scrambled out of the pit and began to gather fuel. By mid-morning, Dany's three dragons converged over the pit and breathed fire, setting the makeshift pyre ablaze. For the rest of the day, her people rested in the shade of the great skeleton. Dany herself found a place in the dragon's massive, open mouth, the thick bone of its jaw cool and comfortable against her back. It felt, strangely, like a home.
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