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Daenerys

The Horse Gate of Vaes Dothrak was , their hoovesa hundred feet above the roadway to form a pointed arch

Dany could not have said why the city needed a gate when it had no wallsand no buildings that she could see Yet there it stood, i the distant purpleshadows across the waving grasses as Khal Drogo led the khalasar under their hooves and down the godsway, his bloodriders beside him

Dany followed on her silver, escorted by Ser Jorah Mormont and her brother Viserys, rass when she had left hily called hio had offered him a place in a cart the next day, and Viserys had accepted In his stubborn ignorance, he had not even known he was beingbirth, the very young and the very old That won hi Her brother had thought it was the khal’s way of apologizing for the wrong Dany had done hied Ser Jorah not to tell hiht had replied that the king could well do with a bit of shameyet he had done as she bid It had taken ht her, before Dany had been able to o relent and allow Viserys to rejoin them at the head of the column

"Where is the city?" she asked as they passed beneath the bronze arch There were no buildings to be seen, no people, only the grass and the road, lined with ancient monuments from all the lands the Dothraki had sacked over the centuries

"Ahead," Ser Jorah answered "Under the ods and stolen heroes loootten deities of dead cities brandished their broken thunderbolts at the sky as Dany rode her silver past their feet Stone kings looked down on her from their thrones, their faces chipped and stained, even their na maidens danced on marble plinths, draped only in flowers, or poured air frorass beside the road; black iron dragons with jewels for eyes, roaring griffins, manticores with their barbed tails poised to strike, and other beasts she could not name Some of the statues were so lovely they took her breath away, others so misshapen and terrible that Dany could scarcely bear to look at them Those, Ser Jorah said, had likely come from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai

"So many," she said as her silver stepped slowly onward, "and from so many lands"

Viserys was less impressed "The trash of dead cities," he sneered He was careful to speak in the Coue, which few Dothraki could understand, yet even so Dany found herself glancing back at the men of her khas, to make certain he had not been overheard He went on blithely "All these savages kno to do is steal the things better hed "They do kno to kill Otherwise I’d have no use for them at all"

"They are es, brother"

"The dragon speaks as he likes," Viserys saidin the Coo and Rakharo, riding behind thees lack the wit to understand the speech of civilized men" A moss-eaten stone azed at it with boredoer arow tired of waiting"

"The princess must be presented to the dosh khaleen"

"The crones, yes," her brother interrupted, "and there’s to be some mummer’s show of a prophecy for the whelp in her belly, you toldhorsees" He sniffed at the wide, floppy sleeve of his tunic, where it was his custom to keep a sachet It could not have helped much The tunic was filthy All the silk and heavy wools that Viserys had worn out of Pentos were stained by hard travel and rotted from sweat

Ser Jorah Mormont said, "The Western Market will have food more to your taste, Your Grace The traders from the Free Cities come there to sell their wares The khal will honor his promise in his own tirion is notan obscene likeness of a woman with six breasts and a ferret’s head, he rode off to inspect it more closely

Dany was relieved, yet no less anxious "I pray that ," she told Ser Jorah when her brother was out of earshot

The knight looked after Viserys doubtfully "Your brother should have bided his time in Pentos There is no place for him in a khalasar Illyrio tried to warn hio as soon as he has his ten thousand My lord husband prorunted "Yes, Khaleesi, butthe Dothraki look on these things differently than we do in the west I have told him as much, as Illyrio told him, but your brother does not listen The horselords are no traders Viserys thinks he sold you, and noants his price Yet Khal Drogo would say he had you as a gift He will give Viserys a gift in return, yesin his own tiift, not of a khal You do not deht toher brother, yet she was "Viserys says he could sweep the Seven Kingdoms with ten thousand Dothraki screamers"

Ser Jorah snorted "Viserys could not sweep a stable with ten thousand brooms"

Dany could not pretend to surprise at the disdain in his tone "Whatwhat if it were not Viserys?" she asked "If it were soer? Could the Dothraki truly conquer the Seven Kingdohtful as their horses trod together down the godsway "When I first went into exile, I looked at the Dothraki and saw half-naked barbarians, as wild as their horses If you had asked ood knights would have no trouble putting to flight a hundred times as many Dothraki"

"But if I asked you now?"

"Now," the knight said, "I aht, utterly fearless, and their bows outrange ours In the Seven Kingdoht on foot, from behind a shieldwall or a barricade of sharpened stakes The Dothraki fire fro, it makes no matter, they are full as deadlyand there are so many of them, my lady Your lord husband alone counts forty thousand mounted warriors in his khalasar"

"Is that truly so ht as many men to the Trident," Ser Jorah adhts The rest were archers, freeriders, and foot soldiers arar fell,do you ie of forty thousand screa for blood? Hoould boiled leather jerkins and mailed shirts protect the," she said, "not well"

He nodded "Mind you, Princess, if the lords of the Seven Kingdooose, it will never coecraft I doubt they could take even the weakest castle in the Seven Kingdoive them battle"

"Is he?" Dany asked "A fool, I mean?"

Ser Jorah considered that for a moment "Robert should have been born Dothraki," he said at last "Your khal would tell you that only a coward hides behind stone walls instead of facing his eneree He is a strong h to meet a Dothraki horde in the open field But the men around him, well, their pipers play a different tune His brother Stannis, Lord Tywin Lannister, Eddard Stark" He spat

"You hate this Lord Stark," Dany said

"He took from me all I loved, for the sake of a few lice-ridden poachers and his precious honor," Ser Jorah said bitterly Froed the subject quickly "There," he announced, pointing "Vaes Dothrak The city of the horselords"

Khal Drogo and his bloodriders led thereat bazaar of the Western Market, down the broad ways beyond Dany followed close on her silver, staring at the strangeness about her Vaes Dothrak was at once the largest city and the sht it e as Pentos, a vastness without walls or lirass and mud and carpeted ildflowers In the Free Cities of the west, towers and es and shops and halls all crowded in on one another, but Vaes Dothrak sprawled languorously, baking in the warant, and es were so queer to her eyes She saw carved stone pavilions, e as castles, rickety wooden towers, stepped pyra halls open to the sky In place of walls, soes "None of them are alike," she said

"Your brother had part of the truth," Ser Jorah ado, toa hole in the earth and cover it with a woven grass roof The buildings you see were ht here from lands they’ve plundered, and they built each after the fashion of their own peoples"

Most of the halls, even the largest, seemed deserted "Where are the people who live here?" Dany asked The bazaar had been full of running children and oing about their business

"Only the crones of the dosh khaleen dwell permanently in the sacred city, them and their slaves and servants," Ser Jorah replied, "yet Vaes Dothrak is large enough to house every man of every khalasar, should all the khals return to the Mother at once The crones have prophesied that one day that will come to pass, and so Vaes Dothrak must be ready to eo finally called a halt near the Eastern Market where the caravans from Yi Ti and Asshai and the Shadow Lands ca overhead Dany sirl and her talk of a palace with two hundred rooms and doors of solid silver The "palace" was a cavernous wooden feasting hall, its rough-hewn ti forty feet, its roof sewn silk, a vast billowing tent that could be raised to keep out the rare rains, or lowered to adrassy horse yards fenced with high hedges, firepits, and hundreds of round earthen houses that bulged frorass

A so’s arrival As each rider swung down fro slave, and any other weapons he carried as well Even Khal Drogo himself was not exempt Ser Jorah had explained that it was forbidden to carry a blade in Vaes Dothrak, or to shed a freekhalasars put aside their feuds and shared ht of the Mother of Mountains In this place, the crones of the dosh khaleen had decreed, all Dothraki were one blood, one khalasar, one herd

Cohollo ca her down off her silver He was the oldest of Drogo’s three bloodriders, a squat bald man with a crooked nose and a mouth full of broken teeth, shattered by akhalakka from sellswords who hoped to sell hio’s the day her lord husband was born