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Chapter 27: Seeds of a Kingdom
🕑 Added 2025-09-08 07:38:40 +0000 UTCAt dawn the next day, after Daenerys had walked the length and breadth of White Cloud City, she began to bitterly regret having slaughtered all the sheep. The resources here were richer than she could have ever dreamed, enough to sustain them for a lifetime.
Nearly every street and courtyard had at least one stone-lined well, and the water within was cool, clear, and seemingly endless. Between the cracks in the stone, clumps of the same tough devil-grass that had sustained their horses in the waste grew in abundance. It was enough. It was more than enough.
After taking a full survey of her new domain, she began the great work. The old women were put in charge of clearing the overgrown orchards and gathering fruit. The stronger women, led by Ser Jorah, were tasked with clearing the debris from the abandoned palace, a structure large enough to house all of them. The old men were set to their familiar tasks of feeding the horses and repairing saddles and stirrups.
Dany herself led her bloodriders and the other warriors in tearing down the crumbling, smaller houses in the poorer districts. The salvaged stone was used to repair the palace, and the cleared land was turned over for farming. They brought wood and weeds from outside the walls, spread them over the freshly tilled earth, and set it ablaze, letting the fire burn for a day and a night. Then they plowed the ash back into the soil and sowed their precious grains of wheat.
In a world where a single summer could last for ten years, there was no spring sowing or autumn harvest. One planted when the ground was clear and it was not winter. In the city’s overgrown gardens, they found beets, onions, garlic, and mint, all of which were replanted alongside the turnips from their own dwindling supplies.
The children were not left idle. They were sent scrambling through the winding alleyways, tasked with scavenging for ancient bronze pots and rusted iron. The khalasar had a few old blacksmiths, former slaves abandoned by the new Khals as too old to swing a hammer. Dany assigned four of her weakest warriors to be their new apprentices.
"We are warriors of the Dothraki!" one of them protested, his face red with humiliation. "We were born to kill, not to do the work of slaves!"
Dany was tempted to tell him that with his skill, he was more likely to be killed than to kill, but she held her tongue. Instead, she put on a grave expression. "Who told you a blacksmith cannot be a great killer?" she asked. "You all know who I am. The last princess of a great dynasty. My brother, Rhaegar, was a warrior whose strength was second only to Khal Drogo. And he was killed by the Usurper, Robert Baratheon."
The four Dothraki stared at her, their expressions blank.
"This Robert Baratheon," Dany said, her gaze turning distant and melancholy, "the man who was as strong as the great Khal Drogo… was a blacksmith."
Beside her, Ser Jorah choked on his own saliva.
"I am telling you," she concluded, her voice ringing with conviction, "that even as a blacksmith, you can become a great warrior."
"But… the Khal of the Sunset Lands was truly a blacksmith?" one of the men asked, his voice full of doubt.
Dany turned to Jorah, her face serious. "Ser, in the name of the Old Gods and the Seven, tell them what weapon the Usurper used."
"A warhammer," Jorah said, his voice dry as dust.
"Did you hear?" Dany’s eyes flashed. "A hammer! Now think! The arakh cannot cut Ser Jorah's armor. But the armor of my brother, which was even stronger, was smashed to pieces by a hammer. What does this mean?" She spread her hands. "It means blacksmiths have a very bright future!" She then asked, "Now, do you wish to learn from the masters?"
"I do, Khaleesi!" her own bloodrider, Jhogo, exclaimed excitedly. "I wish to be a blacksmith too!"
Dany just looked at him and sighed.
Not long after, the children found a stash of scrolls in a crumbling stone house. Dany rushed over, her heart pounding with excitement, only to be met with disappointment. Time had turned them to dust; they disintegrated at the slightest touch. But in that same room, she found one great treasure: a map of the region.
The parchment was decayed and the writing blurred, but it was enough. White Cloud City was at its center. To the east and west were mountains, and beyond them, the sea. To the south was also the sea, perhaps six hundred kilometers away. And, most tantalizingly, within a hundred kilometers to the southwest, the map showed two other cities, once connected to hers by the same river that had long since dried up.
Two more farmlands, she thought, and for the second time, she bitterly regretted killing all the sheep.
The scouts she sent the next day confirmed it. The other two cities were identical to her own—white walls, white towers, and utterly deserted. But her guard Jhogo, who had led the scouting party, returned with a look of fear on his face. "Khaleesi, the nearest city is a cursed place," he reported. "There are rusty iron spears mounted on the walls, and on the tips of the spears are skeletons. The wind blows through them, and it sounds like they are laughing. It is a demon’s grin. I dared not enter."
Dany had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. To placate her, Jhogo presented a gift he had found near the second city: a dark iron bracelet, set with a thumb-sized, uncut fire opal.
"It is just an opal," she said dismissively. "It is not worth much."
"How can you say that?" Jorah interjected, taking the bracelet from Jhogo. "This is a fine stone, fiery and bright. In the Free Cities, it would be worth at least five gold dragons. If it were properly set by a master smith, the price could be doubled." As he spoke, a shadow passed over his face, and his voice grew thick with a memory both sweet and painful.
"You are a great lord, Ser," Dany said, her voice gentle but her question pointed. "Why are you so familiar with the value of women’s jewelry?"
Jorah looked at the curious faces of the Dothraki around them, and fell silent.
Dany let the matter drop. She turned to her bloodriders. "Rakharo, Aggo, you will each choose a team. Take warriors, herdsmen, and women to gather food. Three horses for each person, with enough food and water. You will ride to the third city and use it as a base to scout the lands to the south. Look for ruins, for animals, for any sign of human life. Your safety is what is most important."
She then turned to her other Jhogo. "Blood of my blood, you will lead a team to repair the city gate. We have no wood for a new door, so you will block the entrance with stone, leaving a passage only wide enough for a single cart."
As her captains left to carry out her orders, Ser Jorah remained. "Your Grace," he asked, his voice low, the question hanging heavy in the air. "What are your plans for the future? Do you intend to live here for the rest of your life?"
