Five leisurely days passed, and the riders Daenerys had dispatched to the Third White City finally returned.
Aggo looked exhausted, yet unusually excited. "Khaleesi, I rode west for half a day and saw a range of mountains stretching endlessly in the distance. Since you told us not to stray too far from the plains, I only circled the outskirts.
"There were sparse forests and boundless mountains. Antelope and elk roamed there. I shot a deer with my bow and meant to bring it back for you, but the heat was too intense. After half a day on the Red Waste, it started crawling with maggots."
"Half a day's ride…" Daenerys frowned in thought. "Scouts don't need to spare their mounts—one rider, three horses. In half a day, that's about a hundred kilometers. That distance… is a bit awkward. Not too far, not too close. But at least the dragons' food problem is mostly solved."
She could ride west to the mountains with her dragons to hunt.
"Did you see any signs of human presence?" she asked.
Aggo wasn't good at estimating time. After thinking for a moment, he answered vaguely, "We set out before the sun rose. When the air grew hot but the sun hadn't yet reached its peak, we came across collapsed stone houses. They were low, not many of them, and now they're half-buried in sand."
Daenerys nodded. Probably villages that once belonged to the White Cities—without walls for protection, sand and time were close to erasing all traces of them.
Jorah interjected, "Princess, if I'm not mistaken, crossing the western mountains would lead us into Slaver's Bay."
"Ser, we've discussed this before," Daenerys said sternly, looking at him. "Until life here becomes unsustainable, I will not leave this place."
"Yes," Jorah replied.
"And you?" she turned to Rakharo.
"No signs of people, and no large animals. The farther south we went, even devil grass grew sparse." Rakharo's lips were cracked, his skin dark and flushed—clearly, he'd had a miserable few days.
"At least now we know how harsh the southern environment is. We can focus more on developing the western mountains," Daenerys said, comforting him.
"Khaleesi, the south isn't completely worthless either. Look at this."
He unfastened a long, charcoal-like object hanging from his saddle and said excitedly, "Khaleesi, guess what this is?"
"Isn't it charcoal for filtering muddy water?" Daenerys took the stick in surprise. "Oh—this is heavy. No—light."
She blurted out two contradictory words in succession.
From afar, it looked like a gray-black piece of charcoal. In her hand, it was far heavier than charcoal; yet upon closer inspection, it had a metallic sheen and the texture of black iron—while still being much lighter than an iron rod.
Suddenly, the name of a weapon flashed through Daenerys's mind—the dragonbone bow she had retrieved from Drogo's funeral pyre.
"This is dragonbone!? Unprocessed, raw dragonbone? How is that possible? Did you find a dragon's corpse?" she exclaimed in shock.
"Oh, you guessed it," Rakharo said, genuinely surprised. Seeing the astonishment on Daenerys's face, he grew even more smug. "It was a dragon corpse. Only a skeleton remained—bigger than a stone house—mostly buried by sand. But it was too massive for the sand to fully cover. I think it was even larger than Balerion the Black Dread."
"Impossible!" Before Daenerys could respond, Jorah Mormont reacted as if personally insulted, shaking his head repeatedly. "You've never seen Balerion. Aside from the ancient tales, I've seen its skull in King's Landing. Its jaws were large enough to swallow a horse whole."
"Hahaha! I rode my horse straight through that dragon skull's mouth myself," Rakharo laughed triumphantly.
"Oh my—Seven above…" Daenerys's mouth fell open. "Then it must have been a colossal dragon that fell on the Red Waste during the days of Old Valyria. Among the Targaryen dragons, the Black Dread was the largest."
"Setting aside what dragons meant to the Valyrians," Jorah said, puzzled, "a dragon's corpse was always priceless. Why didn't the Valyrians recover it?"
"I have a theory!" A sharp light flashed in Daenerys's eyes. She said softly, "It was the sixth great dragon that escaped the Doom of Valyria."
House Targaryen had once been one of the dragonlords of the Valyrian Freehold. Before the volcanic eruption that destroyed Valyria in the Lands of the Long Summer, a maiden of House Targaryen—Daenys the Dreamer—received a prophecy in her dragon dreams: Valyria would be destroyed.
The head of the house at the time—Daenys's father—believed her vision. Ignoring the mockery of the Valyrian nobility, he sold all of the family's castles, estates, and shops in Valyria, and led the entire clan away from the Lands of the Long Summer with five dragons aboard ships.
In the Doom, Valyria and its dragons were consumed by molten magma erupting from the earth's core.
Even dragons could not withstand the heat and poisonous fumes.
Thus, only House Targaryen remained in the world with dragons—the last dragonlords.
Now, hearing Rakharo's description of the corpse's size, Daenerys immediately wondered: could a great dragon have survived the Doom?
Gravely wounded, it struggled onward and finally fell upon the Red Waste, dying in agony not long after—leaving behind a colossal skeleton for later generations to behold.
After hearing her speculation, Ser Jorah nodded in agreement and sighed. "As long as food is plentiful, dragons keep growing. Balerion reached the limit of his growth and died of old age. That's why few dragons could surpass him in size—unless…"
"And there's another point," Daenerys continued. "The Red Waste borders Slaver's Bay. West of Slaver's Bay lies the Lands of the Long Summer. Old Valyria stood at the mouth of Slaver's Bay. The distance is very short."
The dragon's fall site was far from the Third White City—nearly three hundred kilometers away. Another two hundred kilometers south lay the sea.
Daenerys ordered the two bloodriders to rest for three days, then left her handmaidens and the khalasar behind in Vaes Khadokh. She personally led Jorah and thirty Dothraki warriors—again, one rider with three horses—setting out around four or five in the morning and reaching the Third White City by eight, before the sun could drive away the last trace of coolness.
Along the way, when they passed the second "Demon City," Daenerys deliberately stopped to take a look.
A ring of two-meter-long iron spears was planted outside the white walls, like guards protecting the city. Pale skulls were impaled on the spearpoints. As the breeze passed through, the skulls clacked and rattled, as if smacking their lips.
No wonder her bloodriders had been frightened—Daenerys herself felt a chill crawl up her spine.
Thanks to the dry, waterless air of the Red Waste, centuries had passed and the iron spears had only grown a layer of reddish-brown rust, rather than crumbling into powder.
"It's rather eerie," Daenerys said, turning to Aggo. "Do the horselords have customs like this?"
"No," the bloodrider replied uncertainly.
"Khaleesi, every khal has different habits and methods," Aggo added. "This doesn't go against our traditions."
The old man had come along as well—responsible for tending the horses these past few days.
"Perhaps the city's inhabitants resisted too fiercely, causing heavy losses to that khal's khalasar," Jorah said softly.
Before leaving, he suggested, "Even if the horselords won't settle here, we should send people to clear the place. We might find valuables—like that opal bracelet."
At that, Qotho shook his head vigorously and shouted, "Things of demons—we must not take them!"
"Then last time—"
"I found that iron bracelet in another White City. I never even entered this one," Qotho hurriedly explained.
"Our purpose this time is to survey the dragonbone. Let's set other matters aside," Daenerys decided.
From outside, the Third White City looked like a slightly smaller replica of Vaes Khadokh. But once inside, Daenerys immediately sensed the differences.
First, the buildings were less dense and not as tall. Second, there was no "luxurious" palace.
Originally, seven or eight Dothraki remained in the Third White City. When Daenerys arrived, they already had food prepared.
After all, the three dragons had flown ahead and circled above the city. Seeing the dragons, the Dothraki knew their Khaleesi was coming.
During the midday rest, Daenerys even went to see the so-called "library" Qotho mentioned—actually the city lord's administrative hall.
Like the parchment found in Vaes Khadokh, the books were unreadable. Only a few scrolls could still be examined.
From one of the maps, Daenerys roughly deduced the purpose of these White Cities.
A Silk Road of another world!
Qarth—the jewel connecting the Jade Sea and the Summer Sea—held a position similar to Earth's Suez Canal.
Meereen—the largest and most prosperous city in Slaver's Bay, and the greatest slave market in the world.
At this moment, on the map, Meereen, Vaes Khadokh, and Qarth formed a perfectly straight line.
Compared to the long sea route, crossing the Red Waste reduced the journey by seventy percent. And land was safer than the unpredictable sea. For a time, the White Cities had flourished—like the great cities along the Silk Road of the Heavenly Dynasty.
"So that means there's an ancient road between Meereen and Vaes Khadokh?" Daenerys traced the map lightly with her finger, her thoughts racing.
If Vaes Khadokh eventually couldn't sustain three dragons, she could follow this "Silk Road" northwest and build a city in the mountains near Meereen.
She was certain that following the roads on the map would lead to a fourth and fifth White City. They might not be as grand, but at the very least, she would find small villages that once served as rest stops for travelers centuries ago.
In that case, she could truly carry out her plan to farm indefinitely.
Entering the Red Waste was not a dead end at all—but a heaven-sent "hidden paradise." No one paid attention to her. No one knew she had dragons.
Prophecies, White Walkers, Jon Snow, the game of thrones on the continent of Westeros—let them all go feed the Others!
When the dragons were fully grown, she would ride them north and sweep across the Dothraki Sea, crowned the one and only Great Khal who unified the eight horizons.
Then, with three dragons and tens of thousands of roaring warriors, the world would be hers to roam. The entire world would tremble beneath her strapped riding sandals!
Qin Shi Huang, Genghis Khan, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon—she would be all of them, and greater than any of them.
"Hehehe…" Lost in her beautiful vision, Daenerys couldn't help but grin foolishly.
"Khaleesi! Khaleesi—what's wrong?" Aggo's loud shout snapped her out of her dream.
"What do you want?" she barked back irritably.
Aggo didn't mind her tone at all. He simply widened his almond-shaped black eyes and yelled, "It's almost dark!"
"Dark then—oh. Time to go." Daenerys finally understood.
This expedition, like their previous crossing of the Waste, would travel by night and rest by day.
...
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Here are a few fan-fic titles that I've recently uploaded on my Patreon:
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(End Chapter)