The old crone truly felt regret. After all, Rego had received her personal blessing and prophecy.
Yes, the prophecy of Rego being "the one who rides the stallion that mounts the world" came from this one-eyed old woman.
And then Rego died (in the original story).
She also foretold that Drogo would win every battle, cross the Narrow Sea, and help her son claim the Iron Throne.
Drogo died before he even began his campaign. He left Vaes Dothrak and then perished.
This one-eyed crone was a second-rate forest witch whose prophecies were nothing but guesses.
"There's nothing to regret. I agree to the two vows you asked for," Dany said.
Seeing her so calm and composed, the old woman couldn't help feeling suspicious. "Are you truly confident?"
"If I weren't, would I have traveled thousands of miles just to die?" Dany laughed.
"You cannot use any magic. Not even that kind of witchcraft of yours that terrifies people with just a glance," the old woman reminded her.
"Seems you know quite a bit about me. Since that's the case, you should also know the Targaryen reputation for keeping our word."
The old woman nodded, frowned, and sighed. "In truth, I've been troubled by the prophecy of 'the stallion that mounts the world' all these years.
"Vaes Dothrak is enormous. It can hold all the horse people because it was built for this prophecy from the very beginning.
"One day, all the horse people will gather in Vaes Dothrak. From among the many khals, a Khal of Khals will be born. He will lead the horse people to rule the world. That is the stallion who mounts the world.
"I thought it was your child, Rego. Later I thought it was Jhaqo's son, Jhango. But they… sigh."Now, because of the blood plague, nearly all the horse people have returned to Vaes Dothrak for refuge. The prophecy seems half fulfilled.
"But I don't know whether I should bless you, because my blessings always seem to bring misfortune." The old woman sighed bitterly.
At least she had some self-awareness.
Still, the old witch might not be entirely a fraud. Her prophecies…Could someone with no supernatural ability at all truly foresee anything?
Before leaving the one-eyed crone's tent, Dany asked, "Where is the Valyrian steel statue? The one with the king's head and the dragon's body."
The old woman froze for a moment before responding. "Some merchant tried to steal it at night. He and his servant had their hands cut off by my servants, but the next day someone stole again. Then the third day, the fourth day… I could do nothing else, so I moved it here and buried it under my tent."
"Uh…" Dany looked down at the packed earth floor with a strange expression.
"If you want it, just dig it up. Valyrian steel weapons are certainly more useful than a statue," the old woman said indifferently.
"I thought you would treasure it," Dany said with surprise.
"I asked every blacksmith, and none of them could do anything with it. Otherwise, they wouldn't have given it to you," the old woman said honestly.
After bidding farewell to the crone, Dany led her riders and gave gifts to every member of the dosh khaleen.
Not as many as she gave the one-eyed old woman, but everyone received something, and each was well satisfied.
In one single afternoon, Dany gave out gifts worth at least eight million gold dragons, not including the "Khaleesi's Blessing" and "Khaleesi's Endurance."
Well, with the horse people, directness was best. The more rustic, the more memorable. It helped them understand their khaleesi's power.
Just like "Old Godmother"—simple, easy to understand, and easy to spread.
By dusk, the eunuchs of the dosh khaleen were running through the city, informing all the khals of Vaes Dothrak: the first female khal among the horse people, Daenerys Khaleesi, would challenge for the title of Khal of Khals. Tonight, beneath Mother's Mountain, the dosh khaleen would pray to the gods for guidance.
An extra note: the horse people worship the Horse God, but the Horse God rules only over the Night Lands.
In short, the Horse God is merely one among many gods, just as the Chinese worship Yama, yet Yama is only one deity within a larger pantheon.
However…The gods worshipped by the horse people are not a true pantheon. They lack formal names and domains, simplified almost to the extreme like a minimalist version of the Seven.
And there are no real deities.
Just think of Drogo's death and you'll understand.
The khalasars have no priests with real supernatural power.
Yes, there are plenty who treat illnesses or divine fortunes for the khals, but they're all fakes.
Yet, like the followers of the Seven in Westeros, the horse people are deeply devout. Upon hearing the message from the dosh khaleen, all the khals brought their wives, children, bloodriders, and khalasar warriors, and marched in a vast procession toward Mother's Mountain.
The north wind whispered, rustling the dry, yellow stalks of grass.
A silver full moon hung in the sky, draping the grasslands in frost, dimming the nearby starlight and rendering the night sky unusually still.
Fortunately, thousands upon thousands of torches on the ground shone like brilliant stars, filling the emptiness left by the moonlit sky.
Throughout the vast city of Vaes Dothrak, torches were lit everywhere. They gathered into streams along the market paths, and those streams merged into a great river along the Avenue of the Gods.
The river of torches surged forward, mingling with shouting men and whinnying horses, all rushing toward the foot of Mother's Mountain.
The dosh khaleen had built an altar there specifically for worship and prayer.
But unlike the Chinese who built high steps for heavenly sacrifice, the altar of the horse people had no raised platform. Instead, it was dug into the ground like a pit.
About twenty meters wide and two meters deep, priests held rituals at the bottom while the horse people watched from above.
Their rules were simple: hierarchy and strength. The stronger one was, the more bells one wore. The more bells that rang like wind chimes in a storm, the better the place one claimed.
Dany had more than seventy bells.
She herself had no idea how each bell was counted; everything was tallied by the two centaur handmaids serving her.
Because the khaleesi's bells were too many, and brightly colored besides, they looked rather flashy.
When she took the best seat at the altar's edge, several horsemen immediately raised objections, claiming the bells on her head were fake.
Including Dany, a total of twenty-seven khals were present today. They descended into the earthen pit with their bloodriders and sat on high-backed wicker chairs.
All the other horsemen were positioned above the pit. They stood or squatted from near to far depending on the length of their braids and the number of bells they carried.
Inside the altar, the so-called "center position" was nothing more than a chair placed atop a small mound, only half a meter higher than the others.
And while the other khals had only a single bloodrider holding a torch beside them, her seat faced the altar entrance, so two large cauldrons of blazing whale oil were set on each side. Red light filled the sky, thick smoke billowed, and the scorched stench was overwhelming.
She wasn't afraid of heat, but her fair cheeks were smoked until they turned black and greasy.
Even so, this still provoked jealousy from the khals.
At the moment, the scene was striking: under the full moon, in the wilderness, twenty-seven chairs lined up beneath the earthen wall, each occupied by a crooked, grim-looking bandit chief. Beside each big bandit sat three fierce men holding torches, while Dany sat at the head, flanked by two roaring whale-oil fire pits.
It really looked like one of those classic scenes from old Hong Kong films where a demonic cult gathered in the night.
And her seat seemed to be exactly where the cult leader would sit.
Right now was when a group of white-clad heroes should suddenly leap out of nowhere, shouting "Demon, prepare to die!" and thrust their swords straight at her.
No wonder a group of "little demon brats" were coveting her position—turns out it was the leader's throne.
"She's famous, sure, but she only rose to power two or three years ago. How could she have so many bells?" Khal Moso shouted.
The old khal was over sixty, nearly seventy. Among khals, who were constantly replaced by younger warriors, he was practically an elder.
Yet he had been khal for nearly half a century and still had barely half as many bells as Dany, so he began grumbling sourly.
When you lost a battle, only your braid was cut; the bells remained. So age was a real advantage.
"You're saying the khaleesi's bells are fake? If this weren't beneath the Mother's Mountain, even ten heads wouldn't be enough for me to chop off today," Rakharo roared.
"A khal should maintain the dignity of a khal. We can't be like ordinary horsemen who kill someone at random and award themselves a bell," Pono sneered from Dany's left.
Since they had separated at the Lhazar River, this was the first time Dany had seen this sworn enemy again.
His braid was longer, his bells more numerous, and the air around him carried an even more domineering aura of life and death. Other than that, he had not changed much—still a towering, muscular man in his early thirties, nearly two meters tall.
Dany simply glanced at him and his bloodriders with the look one gave the dead, saying nothing.
When it came to trash talk, she had little brothers to handle it for her.
"After all these years, Pono, you are still so ignorant," Aggo said darkly.
"He's a frog in a well who can only see this tiny grassland," Jhogo said expressionlessly.
"You brats—are you looking to die?!"
Pono's bloodrider reached for his curved blade, found nothing, and then prepared to roll up his sleeves and rush forward bare-handed, only to see the old crone coming down from the opposite side.
Forced to retreat and advance at once, he froze in place, face flushed red, shouting repeatedly, "You brats, just you wait!"
They called them "brats" because back in Khal Drogo's khalasar, the three boys were far younger and much lower in rank than Aggo, Rakharo, and Jhogo—at that time the trio had only been fourteen, barely strong enough to be considered "roaring warriors."
A glint of cold killing intent flashed in Pono's eyes as he gritted his teeth. "Fine. Tell me—how am I a frog in a well?"
Rakharo glanced at Dany, and after receiving her signal, stepped forward three paces and shouted at the top of his lungs, "The khaleesi's bells are forged from different metals. Do you know why?"
"She's a woman and likes pretty things," a scar-faced khal yelled.
The khals and bloodriders in the pit burst into loud laughter, followed by the horsemen above the pit.
Rakharo didn't get angry. He simply waited, and when the laughter died down, he let out a few cold laughs and said:
"Only a dragonrider is worthy of an iron-gray bell. A small battle is worth a bronze or silver bell. Taking a great city such as Meereen, New Ghis, or Tolos earns a golden bell. Slaying a god earns a bell of smoke-dark Valyrian steel."
"Now calculate your own worth. A relic like old Moso barely deserves one iron-gray bell. Pono, you're currently the strongest khal on the grasslands, so you can add one silver bell. As for the rest…"
Rakharo swept his hand in a grand gesture that encompassed everyone, and said with disdain, "I'm not singling anyone out. I'm saying that all of you here are trash compared to the khaleesi.
You only get a bronze bell because you're khals. We can't embarrass the horsemen.
As for your bloodriders—they barely qualify for a string of bells of mixed colors to add to us brothers' collection."
"You brat, how dare you!"
"I'll snap his neck!"
"You all heard how this brat insulted us! Weapons are forbidden at the Mother's Mountain and no blood may be shed, so I'll smash his head into the dung gate!"
How explosive were the tempers of horsemen?
After Rakharo's taunts, all one hundred and four horsemen inside the pit roared and cursed in fury. The horsemen above the pit were in an uproar as well, and the entire scene was moments from exploding.
Even the group of old crones stomping their feet and shouting couldn't calm them.
(End of chapter)
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