Dany led Jorah and five other warriors across the camp of to the outskirts of Ogokar. A group of women wearing Dothraki-painted vests were weaving straw curtains. Their rough, cracked fingers were deft. They pulled the wheat ears off the seedlings and tossed them into the winnowing basket beside them. They wove the remaining half-green, half-yellow wheat straw into long curtains, as though knitting a sweater.
Most of the Dothraki yurts were built with straw curtains. Even fabric for clothing was scarce. They all wore leather vests and coats. Most of the horse riders did not have enough cloth to make tents.
As Khaleesi approached, the nearby women and children looked wooden. They neither greeted her respectfully nor looked at her with resentment.
"These are all slaves captured from Ogokar," Jorah whispered at her side.
The Dothraki's "ecological environment" was extremely cruel.
About a month ago in Vaes Dothrak, the old Dosh Khaleen predicted that Daenerys would give birth to a "stallion who mounts the world." At that time, Khal Ogo was drinking and having fun with Drogo in a tent like dear brothers.
Nine days ago, on the banks of the Lhazareen River, thousands of miles from Vaes Dothrak, the two met again.
At the time, Khal Ogo was leading his khalasar to besiege a Lhazareen town, and Khal Drogo happened to pass by.
Needless to say, Drogo immediately led his screaming warriors into battle.
However, he did not go to help Khal Ogo attack the city. Instead, he ambushed the rear of Ogo's forces while Ogo was focused on the siege.
After crushing Ogo's tribe, Drogo seized the town of Lazar, which was already on the brink of collapse.
During the battle, Drogo personally killed Khal Ogo and his son and cut off the head of one of Ogo's bloodriders. He fought three against one and paid only a minor price: a patch of skin cut from his pectoral muscle.
Aside from Drogo's strength, his actions revealed the brutal survival rules of the Dothraki.
Drogo and Ogo had shared more than a meal.
However, friendship and peace only existed in Dosh Khaleen .
Under the shadow of the Mother of Mountains, every steppe horseman in Vaes Dothrak was a brother, and all disputes were put aside. Outside that holy land, however, the Dothraki Sea was ruled by the brutal law of "the strong devour the weak."
Not only did Drogo kill Ogo and his son, he also enslaved all the women and children of his khalasar. He led them westward along the Lazar River to sell them to the slave masters in Slaver's Bay.
A burst of shouting and the crack of whips pulled Dany from her thoughts. They had unknowingly reached the outskirts of the khalasar.
Under the yellow evening sky, several Lhazareen manors burned amid rolling black smoke; the roaring fires consumed them. Beneath the crumbling mud walls, warriors in painted vests rode back and forth on horseback, waving their whips and shouting as they drove the survivors from the smoking ruins.
Dany saw many mothers with numb faces and lifeless steps leading their sobbing children toward the Drogokas slave camp. There were only a few men among them, mostly the disabled and elderly.
Nearly all the able-bodied men had perished.
The Dothraki warriors made way for Dany and her group, attracting the attention of others who were resting against the mud walls. Soon, Haggo rode up to them, his face bloodied.
"Khaleesi, are you here to steal someone else's slaves again?"
Haggo taunted her. He grinned like a jackal and raised the hemp rope hanging from his saddle.
"Ah—"
As expected, the stench of blood assaulted her senses. Dany's pupils shrank in horror, and she gasped involuntarily.
It was a string of human heads, young and old. Some bore expressions of terror; others, rage. Dark red blood slowly dripped from their hair, which was tied in a knot, soaking Haggo's thigh.
Some heads had been cleanly severed. Others had ragged necks, as if the executioner had hacked several times before succeeding.
One head still had a white spine attached to its blackened, bloody neck.
Had the blade been dull and Haggo forcibly removed the half-cut head?
Their eyes and mouths were open, and Dany imagined them screaming accusations and curses in her ears.
This was her first time witnessing such a horrifying scene. She was nearly driven mad by the shock.
Just that morning, she had been standing in the sunny courtyard of her medical school, receiving her master's degree in surgery.
Ser Jorah quickly urged his horse forward, catching her before she could fall. He helped her breathe and poured water into her mouth.
Dany was like a rag doll, allowing Jorah and Aggo to tend to her until she finally caught her breath and came to.
She tried to suppress the tears and terror in her eyes and fill her gaze with cold fury. Then she raised her head and forced herself to meet Aggo's gaze; he still held the heads aloft.
Gradually, the cruel grin faded from Aggo's face. He lowered his head in boredom and slung the heads back over his saddle.
But as soon as he did, irritation flashed across his face.
"Khaleesi, what are you staring at?" he snapped.
Dany's violet eyes now held no fear or confusion. They were clear and icy, like a spring fed by glacier melt.
"I'm counting. Seeing if you've chopped off the most heads. Unfortunately, Bonoko has two more than you."
"You—"
Aggo's neck veins bulged. He looked ready to attack but stopped himself. He dismounted swiftly and walked to Bonoko's side. In a low voice, he counted heads, then used his thick fingers to tally them again and again.
Dany's cold mask nearly broke.
The Bloodriders were strong, but A Song of Ice and Fire was a world of low magic and martial skill. Even the best warriors could only take on a dozen men. After killing seven or eight in succession, most began to tire.
Neither Aggo nor the other dozen warriors had taken more than twenty heads. Yet Aggo counted with his carrot-thick fingers for nearly a full minute.
Eventually, he returned to his saddle, brought over his string of heads, and compared it with Bonoko's.
The "top student," Daenerys, had been right. Aggo had missed two.
Bang!
The bloody heads fell to the ground, raising a thin layer of dust like breadcrumbs on fried chicken.
Enraged, Aggo threw away his string of heads, pulled a woman in her thirties from the "Lamp people" slave group, and—despite her screams and struggles and with Khaleesi right there—untied his sheepskin shorts and mounted her.
Her wailing seemed to thrill him. He raised his head and grinned at Daenerys, his smile full of cruelty and provocation.
Everyone knew that Khaleesi had once broken Dothraki tradition by rescuing a woman who was being assaulted.
Daenerys knew this was a contest of wills between her and Haggo. She should walk away and pretend that nothing happened. That would be the safest choice for her and the poor woman.
"Go," she said.
She gently nudged the silver mare with her heel, and the horse trotted off lightly.
Aggo cursed in Dothraki and charged into the battlefield. The dying horses were startled by Daenerys's presence and neighed. The wounded moaned and licked their cracked lips, begging, "Khaleesi, water..."
Before Dany could respond, a Jakkaran trotted over.
"My apologies, Khaleesi. I disturbed you."
He smiled politely, then, in one motion, drew his blade and slit the wounded soldier's throat.
A spray of blood hissed out. The man's scream was short. There was no pain or fear in his expression, only faint regret and confusion.
It was as if his final thought had been: Why wouldn't you let me have a sip of water before I die?"
The Jakkaran were the Dothraki who finished off the wounded. They moved through battlefields, harvesting heads from the dead and dying.
Behind them came a group of little girls with baskets, running cheerfully. They looked at Dany curiously, then moved to the corpses. Their small hands were stained black and red as they pulled arrows from the bodies and tossed them into their baskets.
Whole arrows were saved for reuse. Those with damaged fletching were repaired. Arrowheads from broken shafts were retrieved and remounted by slaves and women back at camp.
Finally, the wild dogs appeared—skinny, hungry, and fierce-eyed. They sniffed the corpse in front of Dany, looked up at her, bared their teeth, and tore into the flesh.
There was always a pack of wild dogs following Khaleesi, forming a unique little ecosystem in the grass sea.
This had happened many times before. The dogs thought the horse rider before them—Dany—was used to it.
"Ugh—"
Dany leaned against her horse's neck and retched, scaring the dogs away from their half-chewed, still-warm meal.
"Khaleesi, it's late. Shall we leave?" Ser Jorah supported her shoulder, looking worried.
"Okay, let's go back."
This cruel world had stripped Daenerys bare.
In the shortest amount of time, she had come to understand exactly where she stood within it.