"Whoo, whoo, whoo." A fierce gust of wind rose out of nowhere.
More than a hundred torches at the bottom of the pit suddenly flared up, their flames shooting seven feet high, nearly singeing the braids of the horsemen leaning over the edge to look down.
After a round of shocked cries, the flames shrank downward again and twisted into a lasso-shaped ring, circling the enraged, cursing bloodriders.
Yet the fiery ring moved with the horsemen. It radiated heat but never actually burned them.
Beside the Khaleesi, the brazier surged with red flames that formed a clearly patterned wall of fire, shielding her and the three bloodriders at the center.
"Witch!" The horsemen's almond-shaped eyes trembled with terror, their voices cracking as they screamed.
The tip of Bono's nose was only an inch from the fire ring, and his thick nose hairs seemed to curl and scorch from the heat.
A bead of cold sweat slid down his forehead. He did not dare move. He growled hoarsely, "Daenerys, this is the City of the Horselords, beneath the Mother of Mountains, the sacred land of the horse people! What are you trying to do?"
Even the dosh khaleen turned to her with sharp, accusing eyes, as if ready to scold her loudly.
Daenerys did not wish to argue with the crones. Before they could erupt, she snapped her fingers with a crisp pop. Every bright red fire ring dissolved into curling wisps of green smoke, drifting away into the night sky.
She waved her hand with a smile. "Calm down. My bloodrider simply spoke the truth, and the truth is often difficult to accept.
"Everyone was letting their anger rise. I worried you'd act on impulse and get hurt by me, so I put up some fire rings to cool everyone's temper."
The explanation sounded like twisted logic.
But the fire rings had already proven that if they acted recklessly, the ones getting hurt would only be themselves.
That frightening fire magic plunged their boiling rage into an icy abyss, clearing their minds in an instant.
The Khaleesi's blunt truth did not sound truthful at all, yet the truth is always hard to accept.Well… that was something she said too, and it was also true.
A group of khals were nearly suffocating with frustration.
The one-eyed old crone glared with her black eye, stomping her staff against the ground as she screeched, "This is the sacred land of the horse people!"
Daenerys cut her off. "Yes, this is a place of worship. Of course the use of extraordinary power is acceptable."
The old crone choked, her weathered face flushing with anger.
Indeed, a place of worship should be where one prays to the gods, which naturally involves supernatural power. The Khaleesi's fire magic did not violate any rules. In fact, it was the high priestess herself who seemed unable to perform any sorcery.Awkwardly enough, among everyone present, Daenerys was actually the most qualified to stand at the altar.
"All khals must remember: beneath the Mother of Mountains, you are brothers of the same bloodline. The crones are preparing the altar, so there shall be no more quarreling." She could only gloss over it this way.
Old Khal Moso muttered, "We don't want to quarrel, but Daenerys falsified the number of her bells.
"True horsemen never fake their bells.
"She brought the deceitful customs of the Sunset Lands—Westeros—to the holy city. She's unfit to initiate a 'Khal of Khals' challenge."
Tonight's ritual had only one purpose: to seek the gods' guidance on whether a "Khal of Khals" would be born.
In other words, should Daenerys's proposed "Challenge for the Khal of Khals" be held?
In theory, any khal could request such a challenge—if he wasn't afraid of dying.
But there was one prerequisite: Daenerys had to possess the qualifications of a khal.
Originally, this qualification had already been acknowledged by the dosh khaleen and all the khals.
Now, because of the issue with her bells, her qualification was being questioned.
As Old Moso said, horsemen are straightforward. They treat the number of bells and the length of their braid as symbols of honor, and they never falsify them.
"In just three or four years, how did you gain so many bells?" the one-eyed crone asked with a frown.
In her heart, she was complaining: I was already prepared to let you initiate the challenge. Why did you have to pull this nonsense now?
Aggo said, "Dosh khaleen, you don't know how hard the Khaleesi has worked."
"Ahem, I didn't work that hard. It was just luck, pure coincidence," Daenerys coughed lightly, brushing it off with a laugh.
The word "hard work" had been overused by certain youths to the point of becoming a joke. She didn't want anyone sticking her with a label like "who knows how hard she worked behind the scenes."
"Your little pup just said each smoky Valyrian steel bell represents a god. But you have seven or eight smoky bells on your head. Are you claiming to have defeated seven or eight gods?"
Bono felt he had caught a massive flaw and grinned proudly.
"Such ignorance."
Rakharo cast him a disdainful glance, then counted on his fingers. "The Undying Ones, the Rat Cook, the Crab King, the Knifefish King, Balerion—the Red Dragon of Dragonstone—then the Bat Demon, the Spider Demon, and the Three-Eyed Raven. They were either defeated by the Khaleesi or killed outright.
"That alone is ten Valyrian steel bells.
"So imagine how high the quality of the bells covering the Khaleesi's head must be."
Well, the bells had been prepared by Jhiqui and Irri, and since Rakharo had a relationship with both girls, he knew more about the origins of each bell than Daenerys did.
But although he was telling the truth, almost none of the horsemen—or even the dosh khaleen—believed a word of it.
"This horseman is insane!" one of the khals shouted, pointing at Rakharo.
"What is he even talking about? Bat demons? Spider demons? Three-Eyed Raven? I've never heard of any of them."
"He's definitely lying. I've traveled to every city-state across Essos and seen the temples of countless gods, but I've never even heard the names of most of the deities he mentioned," Old Moso said with absolute certainty.
The horselords murmured among themselves, all claiming they didn't believe it, although this time they refrained from loud mockery.
However, a few khals had just returned from the upper Lhazareen River. They exchanged glances with their bloodriders, their expressions turning grave. When they looked toward Dany again, their eyes were filled with doubt and unease.
Fortunately, the one-eyed crone also knew about the strange events at the Lhazareen River. Her voice trembled as she asked, "Did you truly kill the Crab King?"
"How could that be false? The crab shell big enough to cover this pit is still lying on the Astapor docks, and too many people have seen it," Rakharo said.
"Ah, the rumors are true. She really did kill the Crab King!" a khal cried out in shock.
The crone gave Dany a long, deep look. She no longer pressed the matter of the bells and directly ordered people to begin laying out the sacrificial items.
The other horselords, including Pono, also furrowed their brows in thought, silently acknowledging the worth of Dany's bells.
Compared with a divine being, all their bells were as worthless as horse dung.
Before long, the eunuch assigned to attend the crone carried in a massive bronze brazier large enough to hold a whole fat pig.
Next, the eunuchs tossed bundles of pale-purple dried grass into the brazier and set them alight. Smoke curled upward, drifting straight toward the full moon.
In an instant, a strong herbal fragrance filled the entire pit. Dany frowned. This smell…
Before she could determine the effect of the smoke, a pot-bellied eunuch lifted a half-man-tall aurochs horn and blew a deep, resonant note.
The dosh khaleen each held a bronze bell, shaking them to produce strange, birdlike chimes.
They chanted ancient blessings as they danced around the great brazier—a wild, solemn ritual dance. Beneath their open, painted leather vests, their pickle-shaped breasts swung back and forth, glistening with oily sweat.
As Dany watched, breathing in the grassy scent, her mind wavered for an instant. Then suddenly she understood: there was no magic or surge of spiritual power. This smoke was a hallucinogen!
Damn it, she had underestimated the dosh khaleen. They had their own ways of guarding the ritual path!
Maybe the altar was designed as a pit precisely to make it easier to flood with mind-numbing smoke.
As the thick smoke gradually faded, the crones—likely accustomed to it from daily exposure—were the first to awaken from their trance of "inviting the spirits." Their chanting softened, then stopped altogether. They ended the dance and stepped aside in silence.
Only the one-eyed crone remained before the bronze brazier—its flames dying, dust drifting upward. She closed her black eye and traveled the river of time, peering into the future, or rather, into the thoughts of the horselords present.
Even Aggo and the other two were taken aback. Their almond-shaped eyes widened as they held their breath for the crone's prophecy.
In the massive gathering of thousands upon thousands, Dany could hear birdsong from the Holy Mountain hundreds of meters away and the gentle lapping of Womb Lake against the shore.
She glanced around. Even Pono and the old fox, Moso, had clenched their fists, their faces tense.
Was the dosh khaleen's ritual technique truly this strong, or were the horselords simply too easy to fool?
Just as her thoughts spiraled wildly, the crone suddenly opened her single eye and stared at her in shock.
The crone's lips trembled, her gaze filled with terror, as though she greatly feared Dany.
"I—I saw her face. It was you!" The crone shrank back, her twig-like right hand pointing at Dany.
Dany was startled as well. This didn't look like acting.
Unless… this old master of theater was such a method performer that she had fully immersed herself in the role, convincing even herself?
"It's her!" Several of the oldest crones stepped forward and pointed at Dany.
Uh… backup performers?
Still, the atmosphere had been built up perfectly. Dany gripped the armrests tightly, leaning forward with a solemn expression as she tried her best to appear like someone mounted upon the stallion who mounts the world.
"Her horse runs swift as the wind, and her khalasar spreads across the land behind her. She will lead the horselords to victory over the darkness and bring the world an eternal… wait—what am I saying?"
The one-eyed crone shouted in her sharp voice, then suddenly froze. She muttered in confusion, "No, something's wrong. Why is her prophecy different from all the other stallions who mount the world?"
Her voice was so faint that only Dany—blessed by the wind—could hear her words carried on the breeze. Everyone else thought she was chanting a spell.
Dany almost lost her solemn façade, but now she was even more puzzled. The old hag truly didn't seem to be pretending…
After thinking for a moment with a furrowed brow, the crone stopped mentioning the content of the prophecy altogether and simply declared, "The khaleesi rides a horse. She will become the Stallion Who Mounts the World!"
"She is the Stallion Who Mounts the World!" all the dosh khaleen cried together, pointing at Dany.
The khals' faces changed drastically. The horselords around the pit looked at one another, then echoed the shout: "The Stallion Who Mounts the World! Khaleesi, the Stallion Who Mounts the World!"
The voices surged like waves, spreading outward. In moments, the foot of Mother Mountain was filled with shouts of "Stallion Who Mounts the World!"
"Not again!"
Two kilometers away, in a tavern in the eastern market district, the zebra-man owner—who had lived in Vaes Dothrak for nearly five years—grumbled irritably, "The horselords are obsessed with this Stallion Who Mounts the World nonsense. They do this almost every year."
"Maybe this time is different. I heard it's the Dragon Queen," a drinker nearby said.
"Hmph. I saw her a few years ago. Back then the horselords were cheering for her unborn son, calling him the Stallion Who Mounts the World. And now?" the zebra-man owner said dismissively.
"Rumble!" At that moment, fast horses suddenly galloped past outside. Countless riders raced along the street, shouting, "At dawn tomorrow, on the shores of Womb Lake, the First Lady Khal challenges the Khal of Khals! The sacred lake will be open to all of Vaes Dothrak!"
(End of chapter)
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