After washing and dressing, Daenerys gathered her followers at the foot of the hills. She mounted her small silver horse, cradling a young dragon in her arms, with one on each shoulder.
The silver horse trod through the parched red sand, and she called out loudly, "From this moment on, my Khas will be reorganized into the Khalisar. I will not join the Dosh Khaleen in Vaes Dothrak. Will you follow me into a future no one knows?"
"I will."
"I will."
"We all will."
A chaotic yet resounding cheer rose from her Khas followers.
"Good!" Daenerys nodded in satisfaction and called out again, "Jhoggo, Aggo, Rakharo."
The three men seemed to anticipate what was coming. Their faces showed no hesitation or resistance, only excitement and barely concealed joy.
Quaithe, whose name was not called, looked dejected and crestfallen. In that moment, he bitterly resented the tradition of the three Bloodrider brothers.
As expected, Daenerys dismounted and walked to the three young Horse People. She removed the silver-hilted whip from her saddle and handed it to Jhoggo.
"This silver-hilted whip is my bride-gift. I give it to you now and appoint you as my寇. You must swear to become the blood of my blood, to live and die with me, to fight by my side, and to protect me from harm."
Jhoggo solemnly accepted the horsewhip and tied it to his waist. With a *swish*, he drew his Arakh curved sword, knelt on one knee, and held the blade with both hands, level with his forehead.
"Blood of my blood," he declared loudly.
It was a vow.
Daenerys took his sword, personally helped him rise, and sheathed the blade.
"Blood of my blood," she replied, returning the vow in the Dothraki way.
Next were Aggo and Khalaro, each receiving a double-curved dragonbone longbow and a gilded Arakh curved sword.
These three weapons were Daenerys's bridal gifts. During her wedding, Drogo's Bloodriders had given them to her. Haggo had given her the horsewhip, the curved sword came from Cohollo, and the longbow—taller than Daenerys herself—was from Quoso.
It had been barely a year, yet now the gifts remained while their givers were gone.
The three new Bloodriders stepped away from the crowd and stood behind Daenerys. She turned to look at Quaithe.
Meeting his gaze, which held a glimmer of hope rising from its dimness, she said, "Quaithe, I have a vital mission for you."
"Do you see my dragons?" She deliberately lifted the white dragon in her hand high, and the creature flapped its translucent, membranous wings clumsily in her palm.
"In the future, they will be able to rule the world. But now, they are too fragile to even fly. I need a loyal and valiant 'Great Dragon Guard' to protect them. Will you accept this duty?"
"This is my honor, Khaleesi," Quaithe declared, drawing his arakh with a flourish and swearing a loud oath.
"Knight, you have already sworn your fealty to me," Daenerys said, glancing at the knight who had changed back into his Dothraki attire. "One day, you shall receive a peerless sword from my hand—a blade forged by true dragons and cast in Valyrian steel."
Jorah did not repeat his oath but merely nodded solemnly.
"It is the height of noon, and the heat is unbearable," Daenerys decided. "Everyone should retire to their tents to rest. We will depart at dusk."
"Where are we going?" Aggo asked.
Daenerys paused, recalling that in the original story, they had used the comet in the sky as their guide.
But a problem arose: who had ever seen a comet that remained fixed in one direction?
Comets are called comets precisely because they lack stable coordinates—they appear suddenly and vanish just as unpredictably.
Take the Bleeding Star, for example, as the Dothraki call it.
Last night, it had suddenly appeared in the east, near the horizon—a coin-sized, blood-red dot trailing an almost imperceptible tail. Had you not been looking closely, you might have missed it entirely.
Yet overnight, it had risen significantly, its direction and brightness also changing.
Even in broad daylight, a blood-red streak could be seen in the eastern sky, slightly south of due east, at an angle of 30 degrees above the horizon. It looked like a long, deep scratch across the blue face of the sky.
Following it led them in circles across the land. This was the Red Waste, and circling here was a death sentence.
In the original story, Daenerys's Khalisar suffered devastating losses. The elderly and young were nearly wiped out, and their journey left a trail of corpses, a "trial by elimination" paved with blood and death. Non-warriors were eliminated without mercy, and even her handmaid Doreah died.
Oddly enough, Daenerys, who had just lost her husband and had her ten-month-old son sacrificed to demons by a witch, didn't even observe the postpartum confinement period. She crossed thousands of miles of the Great Desert and emerged completely intact.
*Hmm, the effect of the Dragon Dream is truly remarkable.*
Snapping out of her thoughts, Daenerys smiled at her subordinates and asked, "Let's start by discussing where we *cannot* go."
Ser Jorah spoke first. "We cannot go north. Not only is Ogo's Khalisar waiting for us, but even if we avoided them, the first Khalisar we encountered upon reaching the Dothraki Sea would devour your battered group whole. Your warriors would be slaughtered, and the survivors would be enslaved."
The lands of the Sheep People south of the river are also not viable. Your group is too weak to even withstand that peace-loving nation. The Lhazar, on the other hand, hate the Horse People with a passion and have no reason to treat us kindly.
"Avoid the Sheep People villages. Follow the river southeast to the port cities of Meereen, Yunkai, and Astapor."
Rakharo immediately issued a warning: "Martin told me that Bonno's Khalisar is driving thousands of slaves in that direction. He plans to sell them in the slave markets along the coast of the Slave Bay."
Martin is a newly joined Horse People warrior. Well, not exactly new. He was originally one of Khal Drogo's Roaring Warriors and left with Ogo during the chaos.
Now he's "returned to his rightful owner," subdued by Daenerys's titles of "The Unburnt" and "Mother of Dragons."
Hmm, the Dothraki secretly call her "The Unburnt" and "Mother of Dragons."
"Those slaves were all seized from Khal Drogo's Khalisar," Aggo added. "Bonno doesn't care about the golden medals Khal Drogo left behind—slaves are worth more."
"Then we have no choice but to head south, across the Red Waste," Daenerys said. Seeing their grim expressions, she sighed. "Once we reach the coast, we can either go to the Free Cities or find a fertile place to settle and farm."
"Farming?" Jorah asked, bewildered.
"My dragons are still too small," Daenerys replied vaguely.
As a super late-game "hero," she knew she had to play it safe and focus on developing her strength, not taking reckless risks.
No matter how dire her circumstances early on, once her three dragons grew, she would be able to roam the world at will.
Then, restoring her kingdom would be the least of her worries. She could even become a Genghis Khan or an Alexander the Great if she pleased.
Doreah, standing behind Daenerys, spoke with a face full of terror. "Khaleesi, that's the Red Waste! A desolate and terrifying demon land! Not only do the horse-riding tribes know of it, but I've heard its fearsome reputation from merchants in Lys. Almost no one can cross that place, where devils and hellish creatures dwell."
"I fear no devils, and as long as you follow me, you need fear no monsters either," Daenerys reassured her, pulling her hand over to stroke the dragon in her arms. The creature's scales felt scorching hot, like iron left to bake under the midday sun.
Once the maid was calmed, Daenerys turned to her followers. "Though my Khalisar is small, I've decided to reorganize it."
"What is the most important thing for a fighting force?" she asked, sweeping her gaze across the group.
"Courage," Aggo replied. "The courage to die in battle without fear."
"The strongest Kha," Khalaro immediately added. "Under the leadership of the strongest Kha, our forces will be invincible. That's how Khal Drogo conquered the entire Great Grass Sea."
"And we have warhorses and tribes," Jhoggo added. "More people, stronger horses, greater power."
The Bloodriders had already voiced every strategic insight the Horse People's wisdom could conceive. Quaithe frowned, pondering deeply, his lips parting but no words escaping.
"The soldiers' skills and tactics, and how different units cooperate, are more important," Ser Jorah said earnestly. "In Westeros, every Knight is trained from childhood. Sword masters teach them swordsmanship, horsemanship, lance skills, and archery.
Maesters teach young nobles arithmetic, literature, astronomy, geography, and the genealogies of the great houses. The art of military formations is taught by their fathers, brothers, or lords."
It was clear from this exchange that the "barbaric" Horse People were far behind the civilized Knights.
"Do you have experience commanding large-scale armies?" she asked curiously.
There's an old saying in China: "A thousand soldiers are easily raised, but a single general is hard to find."
Daenerys's Khalisar only had a few dozen warriors, so she didn't need a brilliant commander. But what about the future?
"I've commanded troops of up to two thousand men, that was when..." His expression shifted, and he stopped mid-sentence.
"That was when you helped Lord Eddard Stark of the North overthrow my father's dynasty?" Daenerys said calmly.
"I apologize, Your Highness," Jorah murmured, lowering his head.
"No need to apologize," Daenerys said, waving her hand. "You are serving your liege, and there is nothing wrong with that." She continued, "I believe the most important thing for an army is a well-structured system."
"What kind of system?" Aggo asked, puzzled.
"First, we'll establish the rank of sergeant. The rest will be refined step by step," Daenerys said, smiling at the Horse People's confused expressions. "From today onward, all Dothraki warriors under my command will abandon their previous banners and raise the Dragon Banner. Every male aged fourteen and older will automatically be conscripted into the warrior ranks."
This wasn't cruelty on Daenerys's part. She was only fourteen herself, and her attendants and Bloodriders had been deliberately chosen by Drogo to be young Horse People of similar age.
If she set the minimum age at eighteen, she wouldn't have any soldiers left.
Of course, this was merely a temporary measure. Once her forces grew stronger, she would significantly raise the conscription age.
"Ten warriors will form a squad, led by the strongest among them. Five squads will form a battalion, with the commander chosen from the five squad leaders based on military merit. Five battalions..." Daenerys paused, noticing that her four Horse People followers looked utterly bewildered.
Their expressions were as if they were listening to a foreign language.
"Any questions?" she asked.
"Khaleesi, I can understand ten warriors per squad. But how many warriors are in five squads and five battalions?" Aggo asked, counting on his fingers in confusion.
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