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Chapter 32: A Conqueror's Dream
🕑 Added 2025-09-08 08:50:52 +0000 UTCAfter five days of relative peace, the scouting parties returned. Aggo, though tired and caked in red dust, was ecstatic.
"Khaleesi," he reported, "I rode west for half a day. There are mountains in the distance, with sparse woods at their feet. The land is full of antelope and elk." He looked disappointed. "I hunted a deer for you, but the heat of this plain… it was crawling with maggots before I was halfway back."
A half-day’s ride, Dany calculated. For a scout on a fresh horse, that’s a hundred kilometers. A difficult distance, but manageable. The dragons' food problem is solved. "Did you see any signs of people?" she asked.
"Before the sun was at its highest point, I found collapsed stone houses," he said, thinking hard. "Low and small. The sands have already buried half of them."
A village, then, once part of this city's network. "Your Grace," Jorah interjected, "if I am not mistaken, the lands beyond those mountains are Slaver's Bay."
"We have discussed this, Ser," Dany said, her gaze serious and unyielding. "We will not leave this place until our life here can no longer be sustained."
She turned to her other bloodrider. "And you, Rakharo? What did you find to the south?"
Rakharo's lips were chapped, his skin burned a dark red. "Nothing, Khaleesi. No people, no large beasts. The devil-grass itself thins out and vanishes the farther south one rides."
"Then we know where our future lies," she said, giving him a comforting smile. "In the west."
"The south is not entirely worthless, Khaleesi," he said, a proud grin spreading across his face. He untied a long, charcoal-black object from his saddle. "Guess what this is."
"Is it more charcoal for the filters?" she asked, surprised. She took the long staff from him. "Oh, it is heavy. No… it is impossibly light." The words tumbled out, a contradiction. It looked like stone but had the luster of black iron, yet it weighed far less. A name flashed in her mind, the memory of the great weapon she had pulled from Drogo's pyre. "This is dragonbone." Her voice was a horrified whisper. "Did you find a dragon's corpse?"
"You guessed it!" Rakharo beamed, puffed up with pride. "A dragon's corpse! Just the skeleton, bigger than any stone house, most of it buried by the sands. But I saw it!"
"Impossible," Jorah scoffed, as if personally insulted. "Nothing was larger than Balerion the Black Dread. I have seen his skull in the dungeons of King's Landing. A horse could be ridden into its mouth!"
"Hah!" Rakharo laughed triumphantly. "I rode my horse through the mouth of this one!"
"By the Seven…" Dany breathed, her mind reeling. "It must be a dragon from the age of Old Valyria. But why would the Valyrians have left such a treasure behind?"
A sudden, brilliant thought took hold of her. "It was the sixth dragon," she said, her eyes shining. "The one that escaped the Doom." She explained the old tale: her ancestors, warned by a prophetic dream, had fled Valyria with their five dragons before the cataclysm. "What if another escaped?" she mused. "Mortally wounded, it struggled to fly this far, and died here, alone in the wasteland?"
Jorah nodded slowly, awed by the possibility. "A dragon will grow as long as it has food and space. Balerion died of old age; that is the only reason he was the largest. It is possible…"
Three days later, she led an expedition of thirty warriors, Jorah at her side. On the way, they passed the second white city, the one her scouts had called the Devil’s City. Two-meter-long iron spears were driven into the ground outside its walls, each impaled with a pale, grinning skull. The wind whistled through them, a dry, clicking sound like chattering teeth. Even Dany felt a shiver run down her spine.
They arrived at the third city, a smaller copy of her own, and made camp. While her people rested, Dany explored the ruins of the City Lord’s manse. The scrolls were again mostly dust, but she found one that was partially preserved. It was another map.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as she unrolled it. It showed a straight line, a great road, connecting three cities: Meereen in Slaver’s Bay, her own White Cloud City, and far to the southeast, the great port of Qarth.
It was a Silk Road. A direct, land-based trade route that cut across the wasteland, a safer and shorter path than the treacherous sea. This, she realized, was the secret of the white cities. They were oasis-like caravan stops on an ancient, forgotten highway.
A dizzying array of possibilities opened before her. If this city could not sustain them forever, she could follow this road. There would be other ruins, other wells. She could build a new city in the mountains near Meereen, a hidden sanctuary. She was not trapped. This wasteland was not a tomb; it was a cradle. A safe haven, hidden from the Game of Thrones, from the White Walkers, from all the prophecies and politics of Westeros. A place where she could grow strong, in secret.
A heady, intoxicating vision of the future filled her mind. When her dragons were grown, she would ride north. She would sweep across the Dothraki Sea, not as a widow seeking refuge, but as a conqueror. She would be the first, the only, the undisputed female Khal to unite all the khalasars. And then, with three great dragons and a hundred thousand screaming warriors at her back, the world would tremble at her feet. Qin Shi Huang, Genghis Khan, Alexander… their achievements would be but a prelude to her own.
A slow, self-satisfied smirk spread across her face.
"Khaleesi? What is it, Khaleesi?"
Aggo’s voice pulled her from her dream of conquest. She blinked, the grand vision fading. "What do you want?" she asked, her tone sharper than she intended.
He looked at her, his almond eyes wide with simple practicality, completely unaware of the empires she had just been building in her mind. "It is getting dark," he said. "It is time to ride."
