Daenerys understood that she was now everyone's leader. She had to display confidence and strength—she could not be afraid, and she could not show weakness.
Just like a chief physician who must never reveal doubt or worry to a patient before entering the operating room.
"Is it that the horses are unwilling to drink from the water pit?" Daenerys asked again.
"Yes. They won't even go near it." Avanti's face was filled with fear as he spoke in a trembling voice. "That's poisoned water. Any water livestock won't drink has been cursed by demons. Everyone knows that."
"Everyone knows that."
A voice came from behind Daenerys—it was Aggo.
Daenerys's bloodriders had already dispersed. Aggo came out bare-chested, wearing only silk trousers.
Though the horselords were ignorant, their instincts for survival were still worthy of respect.
"I'll tell you a little trick to solve this problem."
Daenerys quickly became busy, ordering people to carry out her large red copper basin from the tent.
It was even bigger than a modern household bathtub—a massive thing nearly two meters tall, used by Drogo for bathing, weighing well over a hundred jin.
Next, they dug a trench beside the water pit and set the copper tub into it. The tub was too tall; placing it directly on the ground would make pouring water inside inconvenient.
Then they covered the surface of the tub with a sheepskin blanket, cutting a bowl-sized hole in the center—the sheepskin would prevent the water inside from evaporating under the intense heat.
After that, they built a two-meter-tall triangular wooden frame above the tub, divided into four layers, with a cotton cloth bag hanging from each level.
From top to bottom, the first bag was filled with a thick layer of coarse sand and gravel; the second contained fine sand; the third was stuffed halfway with cotton wadding; and the fourth was packed full of charcoal.
Finally, since the weather was unbearably hot, Daenerys had a tent erected over the triangular frame.
"Now go fetch water from that dead water pit and pour it into the top bag. Slowly. Don't spill any."
Before long, the water began to seep through layer by layer.
Drip… drip… clatter…
At first it was only single drops, but as the materials in the bags became saturated, clear water began to flow from beneath the final bag, almost forming a silvery thread as it poured into the tub.
Aggo lay beneath the frame, staring in amazement. "The water's become so clean—cleaner than what we draw from the Lamb-Men River!"
"Thi—this…" Even the well-traveled Ser Jorah was struck speechless. He had never seen such a crude yet ingenious method of drawing clean water.
Could the princess truly be an unparalleled genius?
He knew full well that this stroke of extreme wisdom had been inspired by nothing more than a single remark from a handmaiden.
The Red Waste was not a true desert. Shallow muddy pits of foul water existed everywhere—what it lacked was clean water.
If this filtration technique could truly remove the "demon's curse," then perhaps they really could bring most of the khalasar across the wasteland.
At the thought of this, Jorah grew even more excited. "Princess, we should melt down the tub and make it into large water containers.
"The wasteland is scattered with many shallow pits and muddy wetlands, but no single pit can fill such a large tub. The distance between pits is too great—leaving them behind would be a waste, but collecting water from each would take too much time and manpower.
"Instead, select dozens of elite riders. Three men per group, each man with two horses. Each group carries one large water container and several empty water skins, spreading out like scouts. They can explore the terrain while collecting water sources across the wasteland."
Daenerys studied the burly, bald, black-bear-like middle-aged man before her with surprise. It was the first time she realized he possessed such a keen mind.
"Alright," she said, nodding in approval.
"Khaleesi! The water's stopped flowing—what's going on?" Rakaro shouted in panic. He had been pouring water into the upper bags the whole time.
Daenerys stepped forward, leaned close to the wooden frame, and lifted a corner of one of the bags.
"Ugh, it stinks!"
Caught off guard, she was nearly overwhelmed by the stench and staggered back several steps.
The sand that had once been bright red was now coated in a layer of foul, blackish sludge. The filtration system had completely collapsed.
"The sand and charcoal must be replaced regularly," Daenerys said. "The cotton is limited—once it's used up, you can replace it with weeds."
Thinking of that tough demon grass that even horses couldn't chew, she added, "First roll the grass into a bundle and pound it until it turns fibrous. Or stuff it into a horse's mouth, let it chew for a while, then pull it back out."
"Can it be pulled out, Avanti?" she asked, looking at the old man.
"Yes, it can. If the grass isn't chewed into pieces, the horse won't swallow it," Avanti replied after hesitating for a moment, his face twisted bitterly. "It's just that gentle mares are obedient, but some stallions are fierce—they'd dare bite even a lion."
"Deal with it yourselves."
Even after carbon filtration, Daenerys still had the water boiled before distributing it. This time, taking into account the minerals lost through sweat, she added salt and dried figs to the water.
A hint of sweetness, a hint of salt—cool and refreshing. Doreah loved it.
By the second evening, Daenerys's khalasar had traveled only eighty kilometers, stopping around midnight.
Partly because they had come upon a slightly larger dirty water pool, but more importantly, Daenerys wanted to conserve the horses' stamina.
Everyone in her group had at least one horse. Traveling at ten kilometers per hour, this level of exertion was not too taxing for either horses or people.
The key issue was supplies. Even the strongest horse could not sustain high-intensity marching with insufficient food and water.
This time, Daenerys also adjusted the arrangement of the camp.
During the latter half of the night, while filtering water, she directed a group of strong warriors to pile stones and mud into a wall—a curved, low wall. It wasn't sturdy at all, but after the sun rose the next day, it blocked seventy percent of the direct sunlight.
Before departing on the third day, Daenerys made another change—this time to the hairstyles of the horselords.
Among the Dothraki, a man only cut his braid when defeated. The longer the braid, the greater the respect he commanded. Thus, even Avanti, the elderly horse handler, braided his sparse, balding hair.
Though they had no saying like "one's body and hair are gifts from one's parents," the horselords never cut their hair.
But in such heat, with no way to bathe, it was easy to fall ill from bacterial infection. And that greasy, filthy feeling—perhaps the horselords were used to it, but Daenerys couldn't stand the smell at all.
If it weren't for her resistance to heat, she herself would have been tempted to cut off her silver-gold hair.
So she proposed that Aggo shave his head. As for the bald Jorah—there was no need. He barely had any hair to manage anyway.
"If I cut off my braid, everyone will look down on me," Aggo protested, shaking his head like a rattle drum.
"Then I'll have everyone shave their heads," Daenerys said.
"Everyone knows what braids mean to the Dothraki," Jhogo objected firmly. "Once we leave the wasteland, how will others see us? As defeated cowards? Slaves from Slaver's Bay?"
"I've heard that even Dothraki slaves would rather be killed by their masters than have their hair shaved—unless they were raised as slaves from infancy," Jorah added, trying to persuade her."Long braids and the bells on them are an even clearer Dothraki symbol than the arakh."
Daenerys struggled for a moment, then clenched her teeth. "Then we'll just leave the hair around the braid."
It was ugly—no question about it—but it was far more hygienic and much cooler.
The dagger moved with difficulty between Jorah's fingers, scraping along the scalp like shoveling filth in a latrine without a pit. The blade skimmed the skin, peeling away a thick layer of black grime.
It was a grotesque mixture of hair oil, sweat, dandruff, dust, flea eggs—fermented together over months.
With the hair on his crown and temples shaved away, Aggo looked like a turtle shedding its shell. That layer had truly hardened into a crust.
"How does it feel?" Rakaro asked curiously.
"Feel?" Aggo wore an expression of bliss, like someone finally relieved after being constipated for half a month. He murmured, "It's like taking off a sheepskin mattress I've been lying on all summer. I feel lighter all over."
"It's not an illusion," Daenerys exaggeratedly teased. "You've got to be at least three jin lighter up there."
"The braid really was preserved without any loss," Qotho shouted excitedly, pointing at the patch of hair still left at the back of Aggo's head. "Look! The braid's length isn't affected at all. This hairstyle is amazing! It's a gift from the Horse God, bestowed by Khaleesi—we should spread it across the entire Dothraki Sea!"
"Khaleesi, can we shave our hair like that too?" asked the handmaiden Irri enviously.
Daenerys nearly choked on her own saliva.
"You'd better just cut your hair short."
In the end, everyone in her khalasar—men and women alike—cut away more than half their hair. The men, including the boys, adopted the new hairstyle. The women had planned to follow suit as well, until they saw the ear-length short hair Daenerys cut for Doreah.
Daenerys herself did not cut her hair. She didn't need to.
First, she was heat-resistant. Second, cleaning her hair was simple—she only needed to step into a bonfire and roast herself.
Dandruff, grease, lice, bacteria—none of it could withstand the searing heat of a thousand degrees.
Each time she bathed in flame, her three young dragons would flap their wings and follow her, like children trailing their mother into a women's bathhouse.
And every time the handmaidens saw Daenerys playing in the fire with her three dragons, they gazed upon her with reverence, as if facing a god.
It was also through these fiery baths with her dragon babies that Daenerys learned how to feed them.
...
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(End Chapter)