On the night Daenerys gave birth to Rhaego, chaos erupted across Drogo's khals. Fires burned bright, torches scattered like stars across the vast plain, and the shouts and neighs of horses filled the air. But the riot was not instigated by Cohollo.
Instead, the old Bloodrider, moved by Daenerys' words, led five hundred elite cavalrymen from Drogo's khales. They slipped quietly past the camp's defenses and rode north under the cover of darkness. Their departure took advantage of the chaos, but they were not the cause.
During the riot, the camp resembled a sea of fire and confusion. Horses galloped frantically, riders shouted, and the air was thick with smoke and dust. Ser Jorah forbade anyone from entering or leaving the straw palace and led his men in the defense, cutting down seventeen horsemen who dared approach.
It was not until the morning, when the smoke cleared, that Aggo fully realized the magnitude of what had happened: Ponoko had departed with twenty thousand howling Dothraki warriors. The clash had begun between the defenders of Drogo's khals and Ponoko's force.
Though Ponoko had appeared passive in the days leading up to this, he had been quietly negotiating with the leaders of lesser khals. While the other khals stared in awe at Drogo's straw-roofed palace, he had already drawn a conclusion: whenever Drogo died, the strongest khal would claim supremacy.
Drogo's khals had been the largest on the Great Grass Sea, with over forty thousand warriors, and including young knights, more than fifty thousand combatants. Khal Ponoko had taken twenty thousand with him, leaving the remaining twenty thousand to be divided among the other khals. In a single night, Ponoko—no, Khal Ponoko—rose to become one of the most powerful khals of the Dothraki Sea.
The fallout from Ponoko's departure was only the beginning. Over the next two days, ten more khals arrived, carving up the remaining troops, taking slaves, livestock, and property. By the fourth day, Daenerys stood atop a hill and surveyed the remnants of her once-mighty khals. What had been a brown blanket spread across the red earth was now reduced to a mere fraction. Only her khals remained intact, a small but resilient speck on the vast crimson plain.
The Dothraki had no choice but to leave immediately, for the desert could not sustain them. Without water or fodder, their horses would die, and the nomads themselves would starve. Everything had unfolded exactly as Daenerys had anticipated—except for one thing.
She had underestimated the Dothraki's reverence for the Dosh Khaleen's prophecies. The widowed Khaleesi, the wise woman of Vaes Dothrak, had foretold much, and the warriors took her words seriously.
"Damn, damn, damn," Daenerys muttered under her breath, watching the sunset blaze crimson across the horizon.
At dusk on the fourth day, a cloud of dust appeared on the horizon. A thousand elite riders galloped across the plain, a long line of sand and shadow. It was Jarkoko.
Outside the wooden thorn fence of the thatched palace, Ser Jorah stood with over a hundred Dothraki knights, swords drawn, ready to defend the Khaleesi.
"Ya-ya-ya!" Jarkoko's warhorse reared high, the incoming sandstorm making Jorah squint through his visor.
"If you have already left, why have you returned?" Jorah called, his voice muffled beneath the helmet.
Jarko said nothing. Instead, he tossed a black, blood-soaked object toward Daenerys. Gululu, the small horse beside her, rolled at her feet, and she saw the gruesome truth: an old, scarred human face. Eyes wide and mouth open in a silent scream, it seemed to accuse fate itself—but the Dothraki did not accuse. Even in death, they cried out in battle, raising their voices against the world.
Even before death, Cohollo had shouted for the kill.
"Bang, bang, bang!" Horses and riders circled, expressionless, dropping heads before the tent. Soon, the macabre pile grew into a small mountain. Four nights earlier, Cohollo had taken five hundred elite cavalrymen. Now, beneath the blood-red sunset, Khal Jako returned with five hundred mangled heads.
"Where is my son?" Daenerys asked, her voice hoarse, her gaze fixed on the grim display.
Khal Jako beckoned to a knight behind him, who handed him a four-meter-long wooden pole. He raised it high, displaying a horrifying symbol of victory.
"Ah!" cried Irri, Doreah, and the other handmaids. On the pole perched a tiny human head, the size of a cantaloupe, with Dothraki bronze skin, raven-black hair like Drogo's, and almond-shaped eyes with faintly lavender irises.
"Why?" Daenerys asked, pale and trembling. "Didn't Cohollo tell you my oath? I only demanded the boy's safety. The old Dosh Khaleen can attest to my word. He posed no threat to you."
Khal Jako grinned, his smile fierce and cruel. "It is tradition among horsemen to slay the sons of the previous khal. Everyone knows it."
"Everyone knows it," his men echoed in unison.
Daenerys' eyes narrowed. "Your oath, the pact with the Dosh Khaleen—Cohollo told you of it. But that is not our tradition. Great horsemen do not violate it."
"Everyone knows it," Jako laughed, his men repeating the phrase like a chorus.
Daenerys considered them for a moment. "You're nearly a day's ride behind Cohollo—over three hundred kilometers. How did you catch him? Has Bono acted?"
Jako laughed triumphantly, waving the long pole like a banner of victory. "From start to finish, Cohollo's band could not escape Bono's cunning pursuit. I was even luckier, finding the remnants of his force. Five hundred of them charged left and right, slaughtering nearly three thousand of our men. In the end, only thirteen survived. I personally decapitated a Bloodrider and a young khal."
He tugged his braid from the back of his head to his chest and pointed to the bells. "I may be old, but I added two more bells. A khal deserves long bells, each representing a victory."
Among the Dothraki, the braid is sacred. From childhood, they wear their hair in a single plait, adding bells for each victory. When defeated, a braid is cut, a mark of shame displayed for the world. At banquets, warriors are seated according to braid length—the longer, the higher the honor.
Khal Drogo had never been defeated. His jet-black braids, thick and long, reached below his hips, each threaded with tinkling bells. When space ran out, even his beard was braided, decorated with a string of bells. Khal Jako now considered Cohollo and the boy he had protected two victories in his tally.
"You will regret today's actions," Daenerys said, furious, her gaze killing. "Jako, I hope you live at least five more years."
"What will you do now?" she demanded, voice icy. "Kill me? Or your former khal?"
"She didn't cry?" Jako muttered to Mago, turning with a grin. "What a cold, wolf-like woman. We all lose."
Four days earlier, during the chaos, Mago had abducted Dany's goat-handmaiden, Eloye. He had raped her repeatedly, then handed her over to Jako's new khals. Finally, he beheaded her and dumped her body near Daenerys' tent. Dany's desire for vengeance burned.
Over two weeks prior, during Drogo's attack on the Goatman market, Eloye had been captured. Daenerys had rescued her, stopping the Dothraki and taking her as her servant—a bold move that defied even the horsemen's tradition. It had been Drogo's prestige that allowed her to assert such authority.
Mago, now Jako's bloodrider, had conceived the idea of hanging the infant's head on a pole, even betting with Jako whether Daenerys would faint. She had not; her purple eyes met theirs, deadly and unyielding. They had lost everything.
"Woman, I swore an oath before the Mother of Mountains never to harm my khal. Everyone knows that," Jako barked to Daenerys' khals.
"Everyone knows," Mago repeated.
"Everyone knows," Jako's men chorused.
"After losing her khal, no Dothraki will ever touch Khaleesi again. She will be sent to Vaes Dothrak to join the Dosh Khaleen. Everyone knows."
"Everyone knows," Mago shouted.
From Dany's khasthor, Aggo stepped forward. "Once the khal is buried, we will escort Khaleesi to Vaes Dothrak."
"Hmph," Jako said coldly. "My khals will await you on the north bank of the Raza. Don't think of escaping." The Red Waste stretched south over a thousand kilometers of desert. North lay the scattered communities of the Lamb Men and beyond them, the vast Dothraki Sea.
He cracked his whip in the air. "Hand over the khal's property—it no longer belongs to you."
"They've already taken the slaves, warriors, and livestock," Ser Jorah replied, frowning.
"Then I want this palace," Jako said, pointing to the thatched building behind Daenerys. "Only a khal may live in a khal's palace. The Dosh Khaleen need no dwelling here."
Jorah glanced at Daenerys, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, while his left adjusted the visor of his flat iron helmet.
Daenerys shook her head and turned to Quirrell. "Tell the women to dismantle the tent. Quickly."
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