After washing up, Dany gathered her people beneath the hills. She mounted her little silver mare, cradling a young dragon in her arms, with one clinging to each of her shoulders.
The silver mare stepped across the dried red sand, passing before the crowd. Dany called out loudly,
"From this moment onward, my khalasar will be reorganized into a Khal LS. I will not go to Vaes Dothrak to join the Dosh Khaleen. Are you willing to follow me and walk together toward a future that 'no one knows'?"
"I am willing."
"Willing."
"We are all willing."
A chaotic yet resounding chorus rose from her khalasar.
"Good!" Dany nodded in satisfaction, then called out again to the crowd, "Jhogo, Aggo, Rakharo."
The three of them seemed to have already guessed what was about to happen. There was not the slightest hesitation or resistance on their faces—only excitement and joy they could not hide.
Qotho, who had not been called, looked dejected, his face ashen. At this moment, he especially hated the "everyone knows" tradition of the three bloodriders.
Sure enough, Dany swung down from her horse, walked up to the three young Dothraki warriors, and handed the silver-handled whip hanging from the saddle to Jhogo.
"This silver-handled whip is my bride gift. Here and now, I give it to you and appoint you as a ko. I also require you to swear to become blood of my blood—live and die with me, fight at my side, and protect me from danger."
Jhogo solemnly accepted the whip and hung it at his waist. Then, with a shing, he drew his arakh, dropped to one knee, and raised the curved blade with both hands until it was level with his forehead.
"Blood of my blood," he declared loudly.
Like a vow.
Dany took his arakh, then personally pulled Jhogo to his feet and sheathed the blade for him.
"Blood of my blood," she replied, returning the vow in the Dothraki way.
Next came Aggo and Rakharo. To them, she respectively bestowed a twin-curved dragonbone longbow and a gilded arakh.
All three weapons were Dany's bride gifts, given to her by Drogo's bloodriders at her wedding. Haggo had given her the whip, the arakh came from Qotho, and the longbow—taller than Dany herself—was a gift from Cohollo.
It had only been a year ago, yet now the objects remained while the people were gone.
The three new bloodriders stepped out of the crowd and stood behind Dany. She then turned her gaze to Qotho.
Meeting his dim eyes, in which hope was beginning to rise, she said, "Qotho, I have an important mission to entrust to you."
"Do you see my dragons?" She deliberately raised the white dragon in her hands high. The white dragon clumsily flapped its translucent membrane wings in her palms.
"In the future, they will be enough to rule the entire world. But right now, they are so fragile they cannot even fly. I need a loyal and brave 'Dragon Guard' to protect them. Are you willing?"
"This is my honor, Khaleesi!" Qotho excitedly drew his arakh and swore loudly.
"Ser," Dany said at last, looking at the knight who had changed back into Dothraki clothing, "you have already sworn loyalty to me. One day, you will receive from my hands a peerless greatsword, forged by a true dragon and cast from Valyrian steel."
Jorah did not repeat the oath again. He only nodded solemnly.
"It is now midday, and the heat is unbearable. Everyone return to your tents and rest. We will leave this place at dusk," Dany decided.
"Where are we going?" Aggo asked.
Dany thought for a moment. In the original story, they seemed to have used a comet in the sky as their guide.
But here was the problem—who had ever seen a comet that stayed fixed in one direction?
A comet is a comet precisely because it has no fixed observable coordinates. It appears suddenly and departs at an uncertain time.
Like the Bleeding Star at this very moment—the name the Dothraki had given it.
Last night, it had suddenly appeared in the east, close to the horizon—a blood-red dot the size of a coin, trailing a nearly imperceptible thin tail, so faint you could barely find it unless you looked carefully.
After a single night, it had already risen much higher, its direction and brightness changed.
Even in broad daylight, one could still see a streak of blood-red slightly south of east, at about a thirty-degree angle above the horizon—like a long scratch carved across the blue face of the sky.
Following it would mean wandering in circles across the land.
This was the Red Waste. Wandering in circles here was tantamount to suicide.
In fact, in the original story, Dany's khalasar suffered heavy losses. The elderly and the children nearly all died. They walked on, leaving bodies behind them, carving out an almost literal "journey of elimination" with blood and death—only the strong survived. Even her handmaid Doreah died.
What was strange was that Dany—who had just lost her husband, whose ten-month-old son had been sacrificed to a shadowbinder—did not even observe confinement. She crossed thousands of miles of wasteland and somehow emerged whole and alive.
This… the effect of dragon dreams was truly incredible.
Dany came back from her thoughts, smiled at her followers, and asked, "First, tell me—where can we not go?"
Ser Jorah spoke first. "We cannot go north. Leaving aside the fact that Ogo's Khal LS is waiting for us, even if we avoid them, the first Khal LS we encounter once we enter the Dothraki Sea will devour your battered force completely. The warriors will all be slaughtered, and the rest will be enslaved.
"The lands south of the rivers, the so-called 'Sheep Men,' are no better. Your force is far too weak—even that non-warlike people would be more than you could handle. And the Lhazareen hate the horse lords. They have no reason to treat us kindly.
"Avoid the Lhazareen villages and follow the river southeast, downstream, to the ports—Meereen, Yunkai, Astapor…"
Rakharo immediately issued a warning. "Martin told me that Pono's Khal LS is driving several thousand slaves there. He plans to sell them at the slave markets along Slaver's Bay."
Martin was a newly joined Dothraki warrior—well, not exactly new. He had originally been a bellower in Khal Drogo's Khal LS, but had left with Ogo during the chaos.
Now he had returned to his "rightful owner," subdued by Dany's identity as the "Unburnt" and the "Mother of Dragons."
Yes, the Dothraki were all secretly calling her the "Unburnt" and the "Mother of Dragons."
"Those slaves were all taken from Khal Drogo's Khalasar," Aggo added. "Pono doesn't care about the gold medallions left behind by the khal—slaves are worth more."
"Then there is only one way left—south, through the Red Waste." Seeing their grim expressions, Dany sighed. "Once we reach the sea, whether we go to a Free City to trade, or find a fertile place to farm—"
"Farm?" Jorah asked, completely baffled.
"My dragons are too small," Dany replied vaguely.
As a super late-game "hero," of course she needed to lie low and develop quietly—no reckless moves.
No matter how miserable the early game was, once the three dragons grew up, wouldn't the world be hers to roam at will?
When that time came, forget restoring her kingdom—even becoming a Genghis Khan or an Alexander would just depend on her mood.
Standing behind Dany, Doreah said fearfully, "Khaleesi, that is the Red Waste—the desolate and terrifying land of demons! Not only do all the horse peoples know of it, but I've also heard sailors in Lys speak of its dreadful reputation. Almost no one can cross that land where demons and hellish creatures dwell."
"I am not afraid of demons. And if you follow me, you need not fear any ghosts or monsters either," Dany comforted her. She took Doreah's hand and guided it to the dragon in her arms—it was scorching hot, like a sheet of iron baked under the blazing sun.
Once her handmaid's emotions had settled, Dany turned to her followers and commanded, "Though our Khal LS is small, I have decided to reorganize it."
"What is the most important thing for an army?" she asked, sweeping her gaze across the group.
"Courage—fearless courage in the face of death," Aggo said.
"The strongest khal," Rakharo immediately followed. "Under the strongest khal, our force will be invincible. That's how Khal Drogo conquered the entire grass sea."
"And warhorses and tribes—numbers and strong mounts mean great strength," Jhogo added.
Everything the horse lords could think of, given their knowledge and wisdom, was spoken by the three bloodriders. Qotho frowned deeply, thinking for a long time, yet still could not force out a single word.
"The soldiers' skills, tactics, and coordination between different troop types are more important," Ser Jorah said seriously. "In Westeros, every knight is trained from childhood. A master-at-arms teaches them swordsmanship, horsemanship, spear work, and archery.
"Maesters teach young noble sons arithmetic, literature, astronomy, geography, and the lineages of the great houses. The art of deploying troops and formations is taught by their fathers, elder brothers, or liege lords."
There was no doubt—from this exchange alone, it was clear how far the savage horse lords lagged behind knightly civilization.
"Do you have experience commanding large-scale battles?" she asked curiously.
There was an old saying: a thousand soldiers are easy to find, but a single great general is hard to come by.
Dany's small Khal LS only had a few dozen warriors—she didn't need brilliant command now. But what about the future?
"I have commanded up to two thousand men. That was when I…" His expression changed, and his words stopped short.
"That was when you followed Eddard Stark, Lord of the North, in overthrowing my father's dynasty?" Dany said calmly.
"Forgive me, Princess," Jorah lowered his head and spoke softly.
"There is nothing to forgive. You served your liege—that was no wrong at all," Dany waved it off and returned to the topic. "I believe the most important thing for an army is a complete system."
"What kind of system?" Aggo asked, puzzled.
"First, we establish a sergeant system. The rest can be improved step by step," Dany said, smiling at the puzzled looks of the horse lords. "From today onward, the Dothraki warriors under my command will abandon all previous scattered banners and raise the dragon banner as one. Any male who has reached the age of fourteen will automatically be enlisted as a warrior."
This wasn't Dany being cruel. She herself was only fourteen. Her handmaids and bloodriders were all deliberately chosen by Drogo—boys and girls around her own age.
If she set the enlistment age at eighteen, there would be no one left under her command.
Of course, this was only a temporary measure. Once her strength grew, she would greatly raise the enlistment age.
"Ten men form a squad, with the strongest chosen as leader. Five squads form a company, and from the five squad leaders, one commander is selected based on battle merit. Five companies—" Dany stopped mid-sentence.
Because she saw the four Dothraki youths staring at her in complete bewilderment.
Their expressions looked as if they were listening to heavenly scripture.
"Is there a problem?" she asked.
"Khaleesi, I can understand ten warriors forming a squad, but five squads and five companies—how many warriors is that in total?" Aggo asked, counting on his fingers in confusion.
...
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"Game of Thrones: Dragon Prince"
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"Game of Thrones The Glory of a Knight"
(End Chapter)