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"Yes," Dany admitted
"I -me-not and bound it in a lambskin"
"It burned, he said He tore it off The herbwo"
"It burned, yes There is great healing ic in fire, even your hairless men know that"
"Make hied "This time I will make certain he wears it"
"The time for that is past, my lady," Mirri said "All I can do now is ease the dark road before hione by h Dany’s breast What had she ever done to ods so cruel? She had finally found a safe place, had finally tasted love and hope She was finally going home And now to lose it all"No," she pleaded "Save him, and I will free you, I swear it You ic, some"
Mirri Maz Duur sat back on her heels and studied Daenerys through eyes as black as night "There is a spell" Her voice was quiet, scarcely more than a whisper "But it is hard, lady, and dark Some would say that death is cleaner I learned the way in Asshai, and paid dear for the lesson My teacher was a bloode from the Shadow Lands"
Dany went cold all over "Then you truly are a i"
"Ai can save your rider now, Silver Lady"
"Is there no other way?"
"No other"
Khal Drogo gave a shuddering gasp
"Do it," Dany blurted She on "Save hiodsarned her
"You’ll have gold, horses, whatever you like"
"It is not a ic, lady Only death may pay for life"
"Death?" Dany wrapped her arms around herself protectively, rocked back and forth on her heels "My death?" She told herself she would die for hion, she would not be afraid Her brother Rhaegar had died for the woman he loved
"No," Mirri Maz Duur promised "Not your death, Khaleesi"
Dany trei nodded solemnly "As you speak, so it shall be done Call your servants"
Khal Drogo writhed feebly as Rakharo and Quaro lowered him into the bath "No," he th see his horse," Mirri Maz Duur coreat red stallion into the tent When the ani his eyes It took three men to subdue him
"What do you mean to do?" Dany asked her
"We need the blood," Mirri answered "That is the way"
Jhogo edged back, his hand on his arakh He was a youth of sixteen years, whip-thin, fearless, quick to laugh, with the faint shadow of his first mustachio on his upper lip He fell to his knees before her "Khaleesi, " he pleaded, "you i"
"Kill her and you kill your khal," Dany said
"This is bloodic," he said "It is forbidden"
"I am khaleesi, and I say it is not forbidden In Vaes Dothrak, Khal Drogo slew a stallion and I ate his heart, to give our son strength and courage This is the same The same"
The stallion kicked and reared as Rakharo, Quaro, and Aggo pulled him close to the tub where the khal floated like one already dead, pus and blood seeping from his wound to stain the bathwaters Mirri Maz Duur chanted words in a tongue that Dany did not know, and a knife appeared in her hand Dany never sahere it came from It looked old; hammered red bronze, leaf-shaped, its blade covered with ancient glyphs The i drew it across the stallion’s throat, under the noble head, and the horse screamed and shuddered as the blood poured out of him in a red rush He would have collapsed, but the o into the rider," Mirri sang as horse blood swirled into the waters of Drogo’s bath "Strength of the beast, go into the led with the stallion’s weight, afraid to touch the dead flesh, yet afraid to let go as well Only a horse, Dany thought If she could buy Drogo’s life with the death of a horse, she would pay a thousand times over
When they let the stallion fall, the bath was a dark red, and nothing showed of Drogo but his face Mirri Maz Duur had no use for the carcass "Burn it," Dany told them It hat they did, she knew When a man died, his mount was killed and placed beneath hiht lands The ed the carcass froone everywhere Even the sandsilk walls were spotted with red, and the rugs underfoot were black and wet
Braziers were lit Mirri Maz Duur tossed a red powder onto the coals It gave the sh s, and Dany was filled with fear But she had gone too far to turn back now She sent her handmaids away "Go with them, Silver Lady," Mirri Maz Duur told her
"I will stay," Dany said "The ave life to the child inside in to sing, no oneake powers old and dark The dead will dance here this night No living man must look on them"
Dany bowed her head, helpless "No one will enter" She bent over the tub, over Drogo in his bath of blood, and kissed hi him back to me," she whispered to Mirri Maz Duur before she fled
Outside, the sun was low on the horizon, the sky a bruised red The khalasar hadmats were scattered as far as the eye could see A hot wind blew Jhogo and Aggo were digging a firepit to burn the dead stallion A crowd had gathered to stare at Dany with hard black eyes, their faces likeforehead He pushed his way through the Dothraki to Dany’s side When he saw the scarlet footprints her boots had left on the ground, the color seemed to drain from his face "What have you done, you little fool?" he asked hoarsely
"I had to save him"
"We could have fled," he said "I would have seen you safe to Asshai, Princess There was no need"
"Am I truly your princess?" she asked hiods save us both"
"Then help rimaced "Would that I kne"
Mirri Maz Duur’s voice rose to a high, ululating wail that sent a shiver down Dany’s back Soan to ht of braziers within Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she gli, and not alone
Dany saw naked fear on the faces of the Dothraki "This must not be," Qotho thundered
She had not seen the bloodrider return Haggo and Cohollo ith hiht the hairless men, the eunuchs who healed with knife and needle and fire
"This will be," Dany replied
"Maegi, " Haggo growled And old Cohollo--Cohollo who had bound his life to Drogo’s on the day of his birth, Cohollo who had always been kind to her--Cohollo spat full in her face
"You will die, i," Qotho promised, "but the other must die first" He drew his arakh and made for the tent
"No," she shouted, "you ht him by the shoulder, but Qotho shoved her aside Dany fell to her knees, crossing her arms over her belly to protect the child within "Stop him," she commanded her khas, "kill him"
Rakharo and Quaro stood beside the tent flap Quaro took a step forward, reaching for the handle of his whip, but Qotho spun graceful as a dancer, the curved arakh rising It caught Quaro low under the arh leather and skin, throughrider reeled backward, gasping
Qotho wrenched the blade free "Horselord," Ser Jorah Morsword slid fro The arakh moved so fast that Quaro’s blood flew frosword caught it a foot fro for an instant as Qotho howled in fury The knight was clad in chainreaves of lobstered steel and a heavy gorget around his throat, but he had not thought to don his hel around his head in a shining blur, flickering out like lightning as the knight came on in a rush Ser Jorah parried as best he could, but the slashes came so fast that it seemed to Dany that Qotho had four arakhs and as many arms She heard the crunch of sword on auntlet Suddenly it was Mor to the attack The left side of the knight’s face ran red with blood, and a cut to the hip opened a gash in hisQotho screa him a craven, a milk man, a eunuch in an iron suit "You die now!" he proht Inside Dany’s womb, her son kicked wildly The curved blade slipped past the straight one and bit deep into the knight’s hip where the runted, stumbled Dany felt a sharp pain in her belly, a wetness on her thighs Qotho shrieked triumph, but his arakh had found bone, and for half a heartbeat it caught
It was enough Ser Jorah brought his longsword doith all the strength left hih flesh and led loose, flopping on a thin cord of skin and sinew The knight’s next cut was at the Dothraki’s ear, so savage that Qotho’s face see, Mirri Maz Duur wailing inside the tent like nothing hu for water as he died Dany cried out for help, but no one heard Rakharo was fighting Haggo, arakh dancing with arakh until Jhogo’s whip cracked, loud as thunder, the lash coiling around Haggo’s throat A yank, and the bloodrider stu forward, howling, swinging his arakh doith both hands through the top of Haggo’s head The point caught between his eyes, red and quivering Someone threw a stone, and when Dany looked, her shoulder was torn and bloody "No," she wept, "no, please, stop it, it’s too high, the price is too high" More stones ca She tried to craard the tent, but Cohollo caught her Fingers in her hair, he pulled her head back and she felt the cold touch of his knife at her throat "My baby," she screaods heard, for as quick as that, Cohollo was dead Aggo’s arrow took his and heart
When at last Daenerys found the strength to raise her head, she saw the crowd dispersing, the Dothraki stealing silently back to their tents and sleepingoff The sun had set Fires burned throughout the khalasar, great orange blazes that crackled with fury and spit eony seized her and squeezed her like a giant’s fist The breath went out of her; it was all she could do to gasp The sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s voice was like a funeral dirge Inside the tent, the shadohirled
An ar her off her feet His face was sticky with blood, and Dany saw that half his ear was gone She convulsed in his ar for her handmaids to help hirasped her, and Dany bit back a scream It felt as if her son had a knife in each hand, as if he were hacking at her to cut his way out "Doreah, curse you," Ser Jorah roared "Co women"
"They will not come They say she is accursed"
"They’ll come or I’ll have their heads"
Doreah wept "They are gone, i," soi"
No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, youwail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin What rong with them, couldn’t they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and soreat wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames
"The La bed," Irri said "She said so, I heard her"
"Yes," Doreah agreed, "I heard her too"
No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips She was being carried Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless Please, no The sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s voice grew louder, until it filled the world The shapes! she screamed The dancers!
Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent