When the battle was done, Danyxy rode her silver through the fields of the dead. Her handmaids and the men of her khas came after, smiling and jesting among themselves.
Dothrakixy hooves had torn the earth and trampled the rye and lentils into the ground, while arakhs and arrows had sown a terrible new crop and watered it with blood. Dying horses lifted their heads and screamed at her as she rode past. Wounded men moaned and prayed. Jaqqa rhanxy moved among them, the mercy men with their heavy axes, taking a harvest of heads from the dead and dying alike. After them would scurry a flock of small girls, pulling arrows from the corpses to fill their baskets. Last of all the dogs would come sniffing, lean and hungry, the feral pack that was never far behind the khalasar.
The sheep had been dead longest. There seemed to be thousands of them, black with flies, arrow shafts bristling from each carcass. Khalxy Ogo’s riders had done that, Danyxy knew; no man of Drogoxy’s khalasar would be such a fool as to waste his arrows on sheep when there were shepherds yet to kill.
The town was afire, black plumes of smoke roiling and tumbling as they rose into a hard blue sky. Beneath broken walls of dried mud, riders galloped back and forth, swinging their long whips as they herded the survivors from the smoking rubble. The women and children of Ogo’s khalasar walked with a sullen pride, even in defeat and bondage; they were slaves now, but they seemed not to fear it. It was different with the townsfolk. Danyxy pitied them; she remembered what terror felt like. Mothers stumbled along with blank, dead faces, pulling sobbing children by the hand. There were only a few men among them, cripples and cowards and grandfathers.
Ser Jorahxy said the people of this country named themselves the Lhazareenxy, but the Dothrakixy called them haesh rakhi, the Lamb Menxy. Once Danyxy might have taken them for Dothrakixy, for they had the same copper skin and almond-shaped eyes. Now they looked alien to her, squat and flat-faced, their black hair cropped unnaturally short. They were herders of sheep and eaters of vegetables, and Khalxy Drogoxyxy said they belonged south of the river bend. The grass of the Dothrakixy seaxy was not meant for sheep.
Danyxy saw one boy bolt and run for the river. A rider cut him off and turned him, and the others boxed him in, cracking their whips in his face, running him this way and that. One galloped behind him, lashing him across the buttocks until his thighs ran red with blood. Another snared his ankle with a lash and sent him sprawling. Finally, when the boy could only crawl, they grew bored of the sport and put an arrow through his back.
Ser Jorahxy met her outside the shattered gate. He wore a dark green surcoat over his mail. His gauntlets, greaves, and greathelm were dark grey steel. The Dothrakixy had mocked him for a coward when he donned his armor, but the knight had spit insults right back in their teeth, tempers had flared, longsword had clashed with arakh, and the rider whose taunts had been loudest had been left behind to bleed to death.
Ser Jorahxy lifted the visor of his flat-topped greathelm as he rode up. “Your lord husband awaits you within the town.”
“Drogoxy took no harm?”
“A few cuts,” Ser Jorahxy answered, “nothing of consequence. He slew two khals this day. Khalxy Ogo first, and then the son, Fogoxy, who became khal when Ogo fell. His bloodriders cut the bells from their hair, and now Khalxy Drogoxyxy’s every step rings louder than before.”
Ogo and his son had shared the high bench with her lord husband at the naming feast where Viserysxy had been crowned, but that was in Vaes Dothrakxy, beneath the Motherxy of Mountainsxy, where every rider was a brother and all quarrels were put aside. It was different out in the grass. Ogo’s khalasar had been attacking the town when Khalxy Drogoxyxy caught him. She wondered what the Lamb Menxy had thought, when they first saw the dust of their horses from atop those cracked-mud walls. Perhaps a few, the younger and more foolish who still believed that the gods heard the prayers of desperate men, took it for deliverance.
Across the road, a girl no older than Danyxy was sobbing in a high thin voice as a rider shoved her over a pile of corpses, facedown, and thrust himself inside her. Otherxy riders dismounted to take their turns. That was the sort of deliverance the Dothrakixy brought the Lamb Menxy.
I am the blood of the dragon, Daenerys Targaryenxyxy reminded herself as she turned her face away. She pressed her lips together and hardened her heart and rode on toward the gate.
“Most of Ogo’s riders fled,” Ser Jorahxy was saying. “Still, there may be as many as ten thousand captives.”
Slavesxy, Danyxy thought. Khalxy Drogoxyxy would drive them downriver to one of the towns on Slaver’s Bay. She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what it looks like, this is the price of the Iron Thronexy.
“I’ve told the khal he ought to make for Meereenxy,” Ser Jorahxy said. “They’ll pay a better price than he’d get from a slaving caravan. Illyrioxy writes that they had a plague last year, so the brothels are paying double for healthy young girls, and triple for boys under ten. If enough children survive the journey, the gold will buy us all the ships we need, and hire men to sail them.”
Behind them, the girl being raped made a heartrending sound, a long sobbing wail that went on and on and on. Danyxy’s hand clenched hard around the reins, and she turned the silver’s head. “Make them stop,” she commanded Ser Jorahxy.
“Khaleesixy?” The knight sounded perplexed.
“You heard my words,” she said. “Stop them.” She spoke to her khas in the harsh accents of Dothrakixy. “Jhogoxy, Quaroxy, you will aid Ser Jorahxy. I want no rape.”
The warriors exchanged a baffled look.
Jorahxy Mormontxyxy spurred his horse closer. “Princess,” he said, “you have a gentle heart, but you do not understand. This is how it has always been. Those men have shed blood for the khal. Now they claim their reward.”
Across the road, the girl was still crying, her high singsong tongue strange to Danyxy’s ears. The first man was done with her now, and a second had taken his place.
“She is a lamb girl,” Quaroxy said in Dothrakixy. “She is nothing, Khaleesixy. The riders do her honor. The Lamb Menxy lay with sheep, it is known.”
“It is known,” her handmaid Irrixy echoed.
“It is known,” agreed Jhogoxy, astride the tall grey stallion that Drogoxy had given him. “If her wailing offends your ears, Khaleesixy, Jhogoxy will bring you her tongue.” He drew his arakh.
“I will not have her harmed,” Danyxy said. “I claim her. Do as I command you, or Khalxy Drogoxyxy will know the reason why.”
“Ai, Khaleesixy,” Jhogoxy replied, kicking his horse. Quaroxy and the others followed his lead, the bells in their hair chiming.
“Go with them,” she commanded Ser Jorahxy.
“As you command.” The knight gave her a curious look. “You are your brother’s sister, in truth.”
“Viserysxy?” She did not understand.
“No,” he answered. “Rhaegarxy.” He galloped off.
Danyxy heard Jhogoxy shout. The rapers laughed at him. One man shouted back. Jhogoxy’s arakh flashed, and the man’s head went tumbling from his shoulders. Laughter turned to curses as the horsemen reached for weapons, but by then Quaroxy and Aggoxy and Rakharoxy were there. She saw Aggoxy point across the road to where she sat upon her silver. The riders looked at her with cold black eyes. One spat. The others scattered to their mounts, muttering.
All the while the man atop the lamb girl continued to plunge in and out of her, so intent on his pleasure that he seemed unaware of what was going on around him. Ser Jorahxy dismounted and wrenched him off with a mailed hand. The Dothrakixy went sprawling in the mud, bounced up with a knife in hand, and died with Aggoxy’s arrow through his throat. Mormontxy pulled the girl off the pile of corpses and wrapped her in his blood-spattered cloak. He led her across the road to Danyxy. “What do you want done with her?”
The girl was trembling, her eyes wide and vague. Her hair was matted with blood. “Doreahxy, see to her hurts. You do not have a rider’s look, perhaps she will not fear you. The rest, with me.” She urged the silver through the broken wooden gate.
It was worse inside the town. Many of the houses were afire, and the jaqqa rhan had been about their grisly work. Headless corpses filled the narrow, twisty lanes. They passed other women being raped. Each time Danyxy reined up, sent her khas to make an end to it, and claimed the victim as slave. One of them, a thick-bodied, flat-nosed woman of forty years, blessed Danyxy haltingly in the Common Tonguexy, but from the others she got only flat black stares. They were suspicious of her, she realized with sadness; afraid that she had saved them for some worse fate.
“You cannot claim them all, child,” Ser Jorahxy said, the fourth time they stopped, while the warriors of her khas herded her new slaves behind her.
“I am khaleesi, heir to the Seven Kingdomsxy, the blood of the dragon,” Danyxy reminded him. “It is not for you to tell me what I cannot do.” Across the city, a building collapsed in a great gout of fire and smoke, and she heard distant screams and the wailing of frightened children.
They found Khalxy Drogoxyxy seated before a square windowless temple with thick mud walls and a bulbous dome like some immense brown onion. Beside him was a pile of heads taller than he was. One of the short arrows of the Lamb Menxy stuck through the meat of his upper arm, and blood covered the left side of his bare chest like a splash of paint. His three bloodriders were with him.
Jhiquixy helped Danyxy dismount; she had grown clumsy as her belly grew larger and heavier. She knelt before the khal. “My sun-and-stars is wounded.” The arakh cut was wide but shallow; his left nipple was gone, and a flap of bloody flesh and skin dangled from his chest like a wet rag.
“Is scratch, moon of life, from arakh of one bloodrider to Khalxy Ogo,” Khalxy Drogoxyxy said in the Common Tonguexy. “I kill him for it, and Ogo too.” He turned his head, the bells in his braid ringing softly. “Is Ogo you hear, and Fogoxy his khalakka, who was khal when I slew him.”
“No man can stand before the sun of my life,” Danyxy said, “the father of the stallion who mounts the world.”
A mounted warrior rode up and vaulted from his saddle. He spoke to Haggoxy, a stream of angry Dothrakixy too fast for Danyxy to understand. The huge bloodrider gave her a heavy look before he turned to his khal. “This one is Magoxy, who rides in the khas of Ko Jhaqoxy. He says the khaleesi has taken his spoils, a daughter of the lambs who was his to mount.”
Khalxy Drogoxyxy’s face was still and hard, but his black eyes were curious as they went to Danyxy. “Tell me the truth of this, moon of my life,” he commanded in Dothrakixy.
Danyxy told him what she had done, in his own tongue so the khal would understand her better, her words simple and direct.
When she was done, Drogoxy was frowning. “This is the way of war. These women are our slaves now, to do with as we please.”
“It pleases me to hold them safe,” Danyxy said, wondering if she had dared too much. “If your warriors would mount these women, let them take them gently and keep them for wives. Give them places in the khalasar and let them bear you sons.”
Qothoxy was ever the cruelest of the bloodriders. It was he who laughed. “Does the horse breed with the sheep?”
Something in his tone reminded her of Viserysxy. Danyxy turned on him angrily. “The dragon feeds on horse and sheep alike.”
Khalxy Drogoxyxy smiled. “See how fierce she grows!” he said. “It is my son inside her, the stallion who mounts the world, filling her with his fire. Ride slowly, Qothoxy … if the mother does not burn you where you sit, the son will trample you into the mud. And you, Magoxy, hold your tongue and find another lamb to mount. These belong to my khaleesi.” He started to reach out a hand to Daenerys, but as he lifted his arm Drogoxy grimaced in sudden pain and turned his head.
Danyxy could almost feel his agony. The wounds were worse than Ser Jorahxy had led her to believe. “Where are the healers?” she demanded. The khalasar had two sorts: barren women and eunuch slaves. The herbwomen dealt in potions and spells, the eunuchs in knife, needle, and fire. “Why do they not attend the khal?”
“The khal sent the hairless men away, Khaleesixy,” old Coholloxy assured her. Danyxy saw the bloodrider had taken a wound himself; a deep gash in his left shoulder.
“Many riders are hurt,” Khalxy Drogoxyxy said stubbornly. “Let them be healed first. This arrow is no more than the bite of a fly, this little cut only a new scar to boast of to my son.”
Danyxy could see the muscles in his chest where the skin had been cut away. A trickle of blood ran from the arrow that pierced his arm. “It is not for Khalxy Drogoxyxy to wait,” she proclaimed. “Jhogoxy, seek out these eunuchs and bring them here at once.”
“Silverxy Ladyxy,” a woman’s voice said behind her, “I can help the Great Rider with his hurts.”
Danyxy turned her head. The speaker was one of the slaves she had claimed, the heavy, flat-nosed woman who had blessed her.
“The khal needs no help from women who lie with sheep,” barked Qothoxy. “Aggoxy, cut out her tongue.”
Aggoxy grabbed her hair and pressed a knife to her throat.
Danyxy lifted a hand. “No. She is mine. Let her speak.”
Aggoxy looked from her to Qothoxy. He lowered his knife.
“I meant no wrong, fierce riders.” The woman spoke Dothrakixy well. The robes she wore had once been the lightest and finest of woolens, rich with embroidery, but now they were mud-caked and bloody and ripped. She clutched the torn cloth of her bodice to her heavy breasts. “I have some small skill in the healing arts.”
“Who are you?” Danyxy asked her.
“I am named Mirri Maz Duurxy. I am godswife of this temple.”
“Maegixy,” grunted Haggoxy, fingering his arakh. His look was dark. Danyxy remembered the word from a terrifying story that Jhiquixy had told her one night by the cookfire. A maegi was a woman who lay with demons and practiced the blackest of sorceries, a vile thing, evil and soulless, who came to men in the dark of night and sucked life and strength from their bodies.
“I am a healer,” Mirri Maz Duurxy said.
“A healer of sheeps,” sneered Qothoxy. “Bloodxy of my blood, I say kill this maegi and wait for the hairless men.”
Danyxy ignored the bloodrider’s outburst. This old, homely, thick-bodied woman did not look like a maegi to her. “Where did you learn your healing, Mirri Maz Duurxy?”
“My mother was godswife before me, and taught me all the songs and spells most pleasing to the Great Shepherdxyxy, and how to make the sacred smokes and ointments from leaf and root and berry. When I was younger and more fair, I went in caravan to Asshaixy by the Shadow, to learn from their mages. Shipsxy from many lands come to Asshaixy, so I lingered long to study the healing ways of distant peoples. A moonsinger of the Jogos Nhaixy gifted me with her birthing songs, a woman of your own riding people taught me the magics of grass and corn and horse, and a maester from the Sunset Lands opened a body for me and showed me all the secrets that hide beneath the skin.”
Ser Jorahxy Mormontxyxy spoke up. “A maester?”
“Marwynxy, he named himself,” the woman replied in the Common Tonguexy. “From the sea. Beyond the sea. The Sevenxy Lands, he said. Sunset Lands. Where men are iron and dragons rule. He taught me this speech.”
“A maester in Asshaixy,” Ser Jorahxy mused. “Tell me, Godswifexy, what did this Marwynxy wear about his neck?”
“A chain so tight it was like to choke him, Iron Lordxy, with links of many metals.”
The knight looked at Danyxy. “Only a man trained in the Citadelxy of Oldtownxy wears such a chain,” he said, “and such men do know much of healing.”
“Why should you want to help my khal?”
“All men are one flock, or so we are taught,” replied Mirri Maz Duurxy. “The Great Shepherdxyxy sent me to earth to heal his lambs, wherever I might find them.”
Qothoxy gave her a stinging slap. “We are no sheep, maegi.”
“Stop it,” Danyxy said angrily. “She is mine. I will not have her harmed.”
Khalxy Drogoxyxy grunted. “The arrow must come out, Qothoxy.”
“Yes, Great Rider,” Mirri Maz Duurxy answered, touching her bruised face. “And your breast must be washed and sewn, lest the wound fester.”
“Do it, then,” Khalxy Drogoxyxy commanded.
“Great Rider,” the woman said, “my tools and potions are inside the god’s house, where the healing powers are strongest.”
“I will carry you, blood of my blood,” Haggoxy offered.
Khalxy Drogoxyxy waved him away. “I need no man’s help,” he said, in a voice proud and hard. He stood, unaided, towering over them all. A fresh wave of blood ran down his breast, from where Ogo’s arakh had cut off his nipple. Danyxy moved quickly to his side. “I am no man,” she whispered, “so you may lean on me.” Drogoxy put a huge hand on her shoulder. She took some of his weight as they walked toward the great mud temple. The three bloodriders followed. Danyxy commanded Ser Jorahxy and the warriors of her khas to guard the entrance and make certain no one set the building afire while they were still inside.
They passed through a series of anterooms, into the high central chamber under the onion. Faint light shone down through hidden windows above. A few torches burnt smokily from sconces on the walls. Sheepskins were scattered across the mud floor. “There,” Mirri Maz Duurxy said, pointing to the altar, a massive blue-veined stone carved with images of shepherds and their flocks. Khalxy Drogoxyxy lay upon it. The old woman threw a handful of dried leaves onto a brazier, filling the chamber with fragrant smoke. “Best if you wait outside,” she told the rest of them.
“We are blood of his blood,” Coholloxy said. “Here we wait.”
Qothoxy stepped close to Mirri Maz Duurxy. “Know this, wife of the Lamb God. Harm the khal and you suffer the same.” He drew his skinning knife and showed her the blade.
“She will do no harm.” Danyxy felt she could trust this old, plain-faced woman with her flat nose; she had saved her from the hard hands of her rapers, after all.
“If you must stay, then help,” Mirri told the bloodriders. “The Great Rider is too strong for me. Hold him still while I draw the arrow from his flesh.” She let the rags of her gown fall to her waist as she opened a carved chest, and busied herself with bottles and boxes, knives and needles. When she was ready, she broke off the barbed arrowhead and pulled out the shaft, chanting in the singsong tongue of the Lhazareenxy. She heated a flagon of wine to boiling on the brazier, and poured it over his wounds. Khalxy Drogoxyxy cursed her, but he did not move. She bound the arrow wound with a plaster of wet leaves and turned to the gash on his breast, smearing it with a pale green paste before she pulled the flap of skin back in place. The khal ground his teeth together and swallowed a scream. The godswife took out a silver needle and a bobbin of silk thread and began to close the flesh. When she was done she painted the skin with red ointment, covered it with more leaves, and bound the breast in a ragged piece of lambskin. “You must say the prayers I give you and keep the lambskin in place for ten days and ten nights,” she said. “There will be fever, and itching, and a great scar when the healing is done.”
Khalxy Drogoxyxy sat, bells ringing. “I sing of my scars, sheep woman.” He flexed his arm and scowled.
“Drink neither wine nor the milk of the poppy,” she cautioned him. “Pain you will have, but you must keep your body strong to fight the poison spirits.”
“I am khal,” Drogoxy said. “I spit on pain and drink what I like. Coholloxy, bring my vest.” The older man hastened off.
“Before,” Danyxy said to the ugly Lhazareenxy woman, “I heard you speak of birthing songs …”
“I know every secret of the bloody bed, Silverxy Ladyxy, nor have I ever lost a babe,” Mirri Maz Duurxy replied.
“My time is near,” Danyxy said. “I would have you attend me when he comes, if you would.”
Khalxy Drogoxyxy laughed. “Moonxy of my life, you do not ask a slave, you tell her. She will do as you command.” He jumped down from the altar. “Come, my blood. The stallions call, this place is ashes. It is time to ride.”
Haggoxy followed the khal from the temple, but Qothoxy lingered long enough to favor Mirri Maz Duurxy with a stare. “Remember, maegi, as the khal fares, so shall you.”
“As you say, rider,” the woman answered him, gathering up her jars and bottles. “The Great Shepherdxyxy guards the flock.”