"How can she be this strong? She's just one person, and such a delicate, petite woman!"
Bono also lost the calm confidence of someone who always had everything under control. He cried out in disbelief.
Well… Daenerys was not petite at all. She was nearly one meter seventy-five, and although she wasn't a musclebound giant, she had a well-proportioned, solidly trained body that had nothing to do with being skinny or having a wasp waist.
"Bono, come up," Daenerys called out directly this time.
"Bono, get up there! Bono, on the stage!" Rakharo shouted immediately.
"Bono, on the stage!" Aggo and the others joined in.
"Bono! Bono!" The remaining khals quickly followed.
"Khal Bono! Khal Bono!"
The Kasskars within Bono's khalasar led the roaring warriors in cheering for their khal.
Bono's face darkened to the point it looked like water could drip from it.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward and climbed the first step of the fighting platform.
"Crack… crack…" As he lightly twisted his neck and loosened his joints, a series of crisp pops sounded.
A strange pressure radiated from his lithe, lone-wolf-like body, causing the chanting of "Khal Bono" to abruptly stop.
"You know, that time at the entrance to the Red Waste—when you told Qohoro to take Rhaego to the Dothraki capital—that really surprised us."
Bono ascended the platform one step at a time, sneering as he taunted Daenerys above.
"No khaleesi has ever secretly sent her khalakka away on the night before her khal's death. You set a precedent.
Your plan was almost perfect. No matter how much we feared that little bastard of yours, as long as he stayed in the capital, no horseman could harm him. Unfortunately…"
Bono had already reached the top of the platform. Seeing the faintly mocking smile on Daenerys' face, he could not understand it. Still, he laughed triumphantly, wild and arrogant.
"It was me. I was the one who kept people watching Drogo's movements. I was the one who discovered Qohoro leaving the camp at night. And I was the one who personally led men to stop him.
It was also me who slaughtered the five hundred elite riders protecting your son.
And finally it was me who called Jhaqo to finish the last of the job, because I did not want your son's blood staining my hands," Bono cackled.
"Bono, you're begging for death!" Rakharo's eyes burned red with fury. He looked ready to charge in and hack Bono apart.
Aggo, Quaro, and the several hundred roaring warriors Daenerys had brought were all trembling with anger, faces flushed, eyes blazing.
Only Jhogo remained expressionless.
"Not bad. You even understand psychological warfare."
Daenerys nodded slightly. Her lips opened just a little, and her voice rode the wind straight into Bono's ears. As the Goddess of Wind, such things did not even count as magic. It was as natural to her as a fish swimming in water. It did not violate her vow of using no sorcery.
"Idiot. You muscle-brained horsemen wouldn't understand the filth and cunning of us Westerosi.
Do you still remember whose tent Jhaqo's wife, Lilith, gave birth in?" Daenerys said.
Bono, one of the few "clever men" among the Dothraki, immediately went pale at her words and gasped, "Impossible, you—"
"Shhh." A thin red line opened on his strong neck.
"Idiot. And you dare to play tricks with us Westerosi." Daenerys stood to his side, her voice faint and mocking.
In the instant Bono pondered the "baby-swapping possibility," Daenerys moved like the wind beneath her feet—fast as lightning. She appeared beside him, twisted the greatsword in her hand, and a moonlit streak of steel swept across his throat.
The strongest khal of the Great Grass Sea—after posturing for so long, even using psychological tactics—did not manage a single move before his head fell.
"Westerosi… good… treach—" Struggling to force out his final words, Bono's vision blurred. At the very end, he saw the Queen of Dragons' crystal-clear toes; he saw his own legs and backside. He watched his torso collapse forward ahead of him.
His severed head blinked twice, full of resentment and regret, then sank into the deepest darkness.
"Huh?" The surrounding Dothraki let out a strange, confused cry, followed immediately by thunderous boos.
——After all that neck-twisting, wrist-cracking, and rambling words meant to impress, his grand buildup ended with a one-second performance.
The Dothraki, who had expected a legendary battle, were bitterly disappointed.
"That fool Bono—how could he daydream during a fight to the death!" Khal Moro cursed.
"Maybe that woman said something to him," Khal Jommo frowned.
"Whatever she said, didn't Bono start the talking himself? He disgraced every khal!" Khal Zheko shook his head with a wry smile.
"Moro, Jommo, Zheko. The three of you, come up together."
On the platform, Daenerys first dispatched Bono's three bloodriders one after another. Then with one sword stroke each—or two if necessary—she sliced Bono's adult sons cleanly in half. After shaking the fresh blood off her blade, she began calling out names again.
For the first time in history, she was challenging three khals at once.
Not their sons.
And this time, no Dothraki shouted objections. They stood like identical statues carved from a single mold, widening their almond-shaped eyes, letting their shock and anticipation show fully.
"Arrogant!"
"Courting death!"
"Even Drogo never dared say such words to me!"
The three named khals each felt they had suffered the greatest humiliation of their lives and erupted in fury.
Even if two khals met on the battlefield—one flanked by his bloodriders, the other alone—they would still fight one-on-one, khal against khal. Or the khal might order his bloodrider to fight in his place while he stood by to oversee the battle.
This was the honor that belonged to a khal.
"Daenerys, are you insulting these three khals?" Even the one-eyed crone could no longer bear it and shouted harshly.
"No," Daenerys replied with a bright smile and shook her head.
"You have a real chance of succeeding. Do not underestimate your opponents," the crone warned.
"No, you misunderstand."
Daenerys seemed as relaxed as if she were holding a stalk of torchgrass. She held two greatswords, each utterly disproportionate to her body, one in each hand. She swept the sword tips across the faces of the gathered khals below and said, "I'm not targeting those three khals. I'm insulting all twenty-four of you present.
"You're like frail little hens, clucking under the stage without the courage to stand on the platform and fight me in a duel worthy of a khal."
A roar burst through the crowd.
The scene exploded once again. The Dothraki clamored and boiled with excitement. But this time, unlike before when the jeers had been one-sided against Daenerys's arrogance, many Dothraki who did not belong to her khalasar shouted their approval.
There were even loud, uneven but rising cries of "Khal of Khals!" and "Rider of the World's Stallion!"
On the other side, the twenty-four khals below the platform were without exception furious. They nearly drew their blades in unison and surged toward the stage—only to be stopped at the final step by the eunuchs of the dosh khaleen.
Daenerys smiled in triumph. Dothraki were simple. With just a bit of provocation, they crawled right out from behind their "meat shields."
Though she had won battle after battle and her record now surpassed the Sword of the Morning, a person's stamina was still limited.
The Warrior's Son had taught her brilliant swordsmanship. The divine power of the Song of Strength gave her the strength of a human at its limits. The wind god's essence made her light-footed, swift as the wind. But her stamina was not divine.
She was a demigod, far stronger than ordinary humans, but her strength still had limits. If a demigod truly had infinite energy, why didn't Aunt Mel go unload cargo down at the docks?
A normal person would pant heavily after swinging a sword with full force ten times. Daenerys had cut more than thirty people in half before she felt the slightest fatigue.
And this was what a demigod was in this world.
After eliminating just Moso and Bono, she had already killed thirty-five people.
Two khals, six bloodriders, and a large group of their sons. Ambitious kos from each khalasar…
If the adult sons of a khal did not stand up to avenge their father, how could they win the loyalty of the warriors in their khalasar?
A khalasar must always have a khal. If they could not inherit their father's place, would the new khal spare them?
A khal's wife was usually safe. When the khal died, she was simply sent to Vaes Dothrak to become one of the dosh khaleen. But a khal's sons—except the very young—rarely survived. They either became king (the new khal) or became corpses.
Being a khal's son was truly the most dangerous profession in the world.
Once Bono and Moso's adult sons were dead, the kos of their khalasars stepped forward.
A kos was a khal beneath the khal, leading a kos-troop and representing a kos-tribe. They had the right to challenge Daenerys.
Like the former Bono and Jhaqo, they were ambitious and hoped to inherit the previous khal's khalasar and become the new khal.
And defeating and killing the victor who had slain the khal—Daenerys—was the fastest and most effective path.
The more she fought, the more people she killed. The more certain they were that she was growing tired. The kos and common Dothraki warriors stepping out to challenge her would only increase—hundreds, even thousands—until she was finally defeated and died.
This was one of the reasons the "Rider of the World's Stallion" was so hard to appear.
So she provoked them, forcing the remaining twenty-four khals up onto the platform. If they came up standing, they would not leave unless they were carried down lying flat.
And as long as a khal was already challenging her, the kos and common Dothraki behind them had to wait in line—and would eventually be frightened to the core.
Because what followed completely shattered the Dothraki worldview.
The twenty-four khals were selected by the khaleesi as if they were concubines—three at a time.
Her twin swords danced like the wind, red and white light blazing, as if they became two dragons in the sunlight, one scarlet, one pale.
Swift as Yi shooting down the suns, agile as a celestial riding a dragon through the skies.
The three khals fought fiercely as well. Each clash of blade and sword rang with the sharp cries of dragons and tigers, echoing in all directions and resounding at the foot of Mother Mountain.
Unfortunately, Daenerys's swordsmanship combined both speed and power, and her technique had reached a level beyond mastery.
Every move was as elusive as an antelope's horns, every strike as free as a heavenly steed.
Each time a group of three stepped onto the stage, even Aggo and the others would worry for Daenerys, for she always began at a disadvantage, her twin blades barely able to block the three blades attacking from different angles.
Yet each time, after blocking five or six strikes, she would use a brilliant maneuver to kill one khal, breaking the encirclement. Though it became two against one, it always looked as if her twin swords were encircling the two men.
When all twenty-four khals finally lay in pools of blood, Daenerys stood at noon beneath Mother Mountain, swords in hand, looking in all directions. The Dothraki gathered before her were silent—some despairing, some resentful, some terrified, some reverent—but none dared utter a sound.
"Now I am the King of Khals. Does anyone oppose me?" She burst into wild laughter.
"Khal of Khals!" The one-eyed crone was the first to cry out.
"Khal of Khals!" the dosh khaleen shouted together.
"King of Khals!" Daenerys's khalasar cheered in excitement.
"Khal of Khals! King of Khals!" The endless cries surged like waves across the boundless sea of Dothraki.
(ps: Kalaqqa is an honorific in the Dothraki language for the khal's heir.)
(End of chapter)
Want to read the chapters in Advance? Join my Patreon
https://patreon.com/Glimmer09