Night fell on the vast Dothraki sea, lit with the stars above and the blazing fires of an army encamped. The cries of horses from the encampment could be heard loud over the snatches of song and speech that came as well.

Teago gazed long into the fire-lit encampment and pondered. Could the queen have gone inside? Certainly. Anything was possible. But would she? Probably not. He may not have been a veteran rider, but he did have his braid and his bell. He had slain a foe and captured another in the battle for Yunkai, in service of his Khaleesi, the Mother of Dragons, and he would fulfill his orders. He would ride all the way east, even into the Red Waste if he had to, before his mission was complete.

The sound of a horse somewhere to his left made him start. On his left meant that something was between him and the road, and possibly trying to drive him toward the encampment. That would not do. Teago gave his heels to his horse and was off, but only for a moment.

A swish split the night air like a breath of wind, and something scraped past his thigh. A heartbeat later, Teago's horse gave a shrill scream that lasted only for a half a second, and then sent him spilling face-first from the saddle, over his horse's neck.

He lost consciousness from the fall, but awoke only a moment later. He was amid the tall grass of the Dothraki sea, and his horse had just been shot from under him. A sharp pain in his left wrist made him wince. He tried to feel his face with it, but only felt pain. He had broken his wrist from the fall.

He rose to one knee and looked about him. His horse lay dead, an arrow thrust through its skull from behind the cheekbone, piercing through to the brain. Not spending another moment, he slipped into the tall grass of the Dothraki Sea, and tried to remain as still as possible. Any movement would give away his position to the hunter that tracked him, and he could not afford such. He knew not where his opponent was nor who he was, but he did know himself to be alone, at a distance, his bow hand broken, and his sword at his own side, yet still out of reach.

The sounds of the tracker's footsteps in the tall grass drew nearer, and then his foe appeared. He was not tall, but he wore a helm with a tall pointed crest, and his body was sheathed in steel and brass. He held a guarded position, his small round shield held out before him, his sword raised with the point forward, the blade facing the black night sky. The light of the moon glinted on the edge of the blade when it caught it, and on the armor of the man who wielded the sword as well as on his shield.

Delaying no longer, Teago whipped out his Arakh and lunged at his opponent, catching him off guard - but only for a moment. The shield swung to meet the blade of the Arakh, the metal rim turning the blow aside, and the man now swung his own sword, putting Teago on the defensive. The man's shield protects him, Teago thought. It will be difficult to crack his defenses if he knows well how to use it.

He did know how to use it. He struck with it as a weapon, his own blade always working around his shield rather than pulling the shield away to expose the blade. He drove Teago back, and dealt him a vicious blow with his shield, exposing Teago's body, which he swiped at with his sword. Teago leaped back, avoiding the blow, the sharp blade slicing the grass of the sea where he stood but a moment before.

Assuming a defensive position again, the man advanced once more, shield before him, his sword raised to the heavens. He sliced away the grass before him and drove Teago farther back, step by step through the tall grass of the Dothraki Sea. Teago attacked again, feinting low and attacking high, but the man turned the blow with his sword, knocking the Arakh low to slash at Teago's unarmored chest. A cold feeling followed by a sharp pain filled his chest as the steel saber sliced through painted leather, skin, and flesh. His grip on his sword loosened, and he felt the blood run from his wound, leaving a torrent of hot blood to run down the inside of his vest. It was hideously unpleasant, yet comfortable all the same; as he fell to his knees, he felt the pain disappear. He laughed as the blade of a saber came flashing toward his throat, and he did not flinch.

END OF PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

THE DISGRACED KNIGHT

He had followed the host for four days now, trailing them through the blazing hot days and icy nights, watching from a distance. It wasn't so hard to remain with the horde in sight; at least half a hundred thousand individuals made up its ranks. How many of these would be warriors he didn't know, but he would guess around maybe a fifth to a quarter of their number would be males capable of bearing arms.

Scouts would leave the horde from the front, of course, but few would be sent to check their rear. Any major movements would be visible from the column, already discovered by the scouts, and any minor action was generally not worth even turning around to look at, posing no threat.

He had spotted them as he rode east, fleeing from the Yukish Siege Lines. He had broken his chains and stolen a horse and a Westerosi mercenary's mail-and-plate, and a green length of cloth that he cut into a makeshift surcoat, and he wore it almost as a disguise. There was no placard for the small cuirass, and halfhelm did not offer as much protection to both his head and indentity as he might have had with a greathelm, but it was some, and that was enough. A scarf over his face covered the tattoo and the dust of the plains gave him plausible deniability, though any that would see his face would immediately know he was an escaped slave.

The disgraced knight rode onward, ever onward, following the great horde that moved ever onward, at a rather quick pace for so large a host. The day continued its slow path, the sun slowly roving towards the center of the vast open sky, when he came across a body.

The camp had been made here, or hereabouts, last night, and the horde had settled down. Some sort of fight took place, and this man was slain. From the looks of his face and his clothing, he was a Dothraki, and he had been slain like a lowly man on foot. A sword cut lay athwart his coppery neck, and one of his hands was twisted at an angle painful to gaze upon. A sword lay in the pool of congealed blood, an unmistakable shape. The blade curved back and then forward again, a sickle-like blade, made to hook and slice in a single motion.

The corpse had to have been fresh. Flies swarmed around it, feasting on the remains, the eyes already gone. A buzzard had been there as well, but had taken off as he approached, but now, hungry and seeing that he did not mean harm, circled overhead to prepare to land, summoning its friends to join the feast.

He continued on. The tall grass had been slashed away, likely with the blade of a sword, in this fight. And then, finally, the body of a horse, with flies crawling all about it, picking at the flesh. This was where the action was, flies swarming about every inch of the horse carcass, gorging themselves on the beast's flesh. A quiver and case hung by the horse's saddle, and a single arrow stuck out from behind the horse's cheekbone, having drilled into its skull and killed it. Along the arrow's shaft was writing, which was strange, and so he decided to investigate it further. He grasped it by the nock and placed his foot on the horse's head, shooing away the flies, before pulling the projectile out.

The arrow looked strange though, somethings felt off about it. It was too long for a Dothraki arrow, and the head was too narrow. The head was square in cross-section, not rhomboid, and came to an obtuse point. This was not an arrow of the Dothraki, made for killing unarmored men with a metal rain, but an arrow made for piercing thinner pieces of plate, precisely targeted at its recipient. The Dothraki, far in the east, rarely encountered armored foes anymore, and never used short bodkin arrows; those were exclusive to Westeros.

Likely the arrow was picked up somewhere, and now it was used to solve an altercation, he thought. Perhaps he was simply thinking too much on this.

The Disgraced Knight drove his horse onward, once again on the trail of the horde. The marks of hundreds of thousands of feet of humans and animals slowly made their way westward, into the Dothraki Sea, where they would live for a time, before coming out and going raiding agaunst the nearby towns right outside the Dothraki Sea. Villages would be burned to the ground, thousands would be taken as slaves, and the cities and towns would hand over great tributes to avoid being sacked.

A scout left the rear of the great horde and rode towards him, so he pulled the scarf over his face once more. He would not risk his slave's tattoo being seen. With his hand by his sword, he rode towards the scout.

It was not unknown for people to follow in the trail of a Khalassar, and the Knight immediately knew he would have to try to play the mercenary. While the Dothraki did not hire mercenaries, the caravans and traders they encountered did, and so he would be a welcome sight - a bit of extra protection would not be missed by the merchants, and the grateful merchants would often give small gifts, such as wine or cheap jewelry to the Dothraki in return.

The scout rode closer, and now he could see clearly - it was no Dothraki. Instead of a long braid and a painted leather shirt, the rider had two short braids, and wore a long silk robe. The sword belted at his side was no Arakh, but a saber, similar to the swords that could be found among the Rhoynar in Dorne, the blade slightly curved, the handle offset with a tilt. He rode towards him, and as the scout approached, he reined in his horse. Then, adressing the Knight in the Dothraki language, the scout called out to him.

"Who forth out of the desert there comes?" he called. His voice had an accent, and the words he used felt archaic, like the kind only found in the few songs that the Dothraki would sing or chant in their rituals.

He arose in his saddle. "A mercenary, in search of employment." These were no Dothraki. Perhaps they would take him in.

"Employment? Then you have indeed come to the right place. There is work enough to be done." The rider came closer. "Please, your face uncover and your name set forth." The language he used was almost poetic, and it flowed from his tongue as though the language had been made for this. The tones were softer, and the harsher consonants made far less of an appearance.

The Disgraced Knight pulled the scarf away from his face. "Jorah," he said. "My name is Jorah."