A loud chant echoed across the Goose Mountains.
A massive convoy was slowly hauling a statue made of Valyrian steel back toward Gohor.
The statue bore the head of a woman and the body of a dragon. It stood about three meters tall and four meters long, and its weight was immense.
There had originally been a pair of such statues. The other one still stood in Vaes Dothrak.
This statue had once served as a boundary marker between Braavos and Pentos. But Viserys had replaced it with a newly constructed stone marker and taken the Valyrian steel statue for himself.
After witnessing the terrifying power of the longbow army, the Pentoshi and Volantene seemed far more willing to accept a simple stone marker.
Not a single protest had been raised over Viserys removing the Valyrian steel monument.
The statue was cast as a single piece, bearing the signature rippling patterns of Valyrian steel.
Those wave-like lines flowed across its surface like a thin veil, giving it a hazy, almost magical beauty.
To transport it, the "Old Crab" had ordered the construction of a specialized wagon. Its heavy rollers carved deep tracks into the ground as it moved.
Because of its immense value, Viserys had no intention of bringing it directly into Gohor.
Instead, he chose a nearby location to begin smelting it down.
To ensure that every ingot of Valyrian steel would end up in his treasury, he stationed five hundred Dragonriders in the surrounding area to patrol and guard the site.
Anyone who approached could at most see the black smoke rising from the furnaces before being turned away.
At that moment, Golden Company commander Harry Strickland happened to pass through the hills with his retinue.
After learning about Viserys's war against the Dothraki and personally visiting the forest of heads, many among the Golden Company had begun to consider pledging themselves to the Targaryens.
After all, it was the Blackfyres who had a grudge with the Targaryens. What did that have to do with the rest of them?
The Golden Company was filled with exiles, men who might never return to Westeros in their lifetimes. But Viserys's growing power had given them hope.
Leaving the temporary smelting site, Harry and his men followed the Little Lhazar River toward Gohor.
"My lord, Gohor doesn't exactly have a good reputation. Are we really going to serve the Targaryens?" one of his subordinates asked with concern.
After all, in less than a year since the Targaryens arrived, five mercenary companies had already been broken here.
Some had been forced to build walls, then dig canals, then work in mines, laboring endlessly.
Gohor had long since earned the reputation of being a "mercenary graveyard."
"We're here to follow Viserys, not oppose him," Harry replied calmly. "He has no reason to imprison us."
He understood the situation clearly.
Not long ago, he had learned that one of the strongest contenders for leadership within the company, the man known as "Griffin," was actually Jon Connington, former Hand of King Aerys.
If Viserys could accept Connington, then accepting them was not impossible.
With that in mind, they soon arrived at Gohor.
The city was far more prosperous than they had expected.
What surprised them most was the sheer number of carriages. Though Gohor was not particularly large, its carriage traffic rivaled that of Braavos.
Thanks to the vast number of horses captured after the battle with Khal Drogo, transportation within the city had improved dramatically.
There were not only small private carriages.
Viserys had even introduced something akin to public transport—large wagons pulled by more than a dozen horses, running along fixed routes.
Of course, the city was also beginning to develop a familiar trait shared by King's Landing.
The smell.
Fortunately, Viserys had already implemented a basic sanitation system. Every morning, servants from noble estates would enter the city to collect waste.
When Harry and his men reached the walls of Meraxes, they were required to remove their armor. They had expected this and did not resist.
Once inside, the crowds grew even denser.
Not only were the citizens celebrating victory, but countless foreign envoys had also arrived.
Harry saw bearded priests from Norvos, red-robed priests from Myr, and Tyroshi nobles with brightly dyed hair from Tyrosh.
People representing cultures from across the world had gathered here.
He even spotted individuals from eastern cities who wore their clothing in a distinctive manner, exposing one breast.
Eventually, Harry and his group entered a tavern called the Leaping Horse, named after the black stallion painted on its sign.
Inside, the most discussed topic was still the forest of heads standing in the north.
"You mean there are still people who haven't seen it? I went myself.
When I got close, I could already find Dothraki hair scattered on the ground from several miles away.
Even bird nests in the trees had strands of their hair mixed in. And when I finally saw the forest itself, you know what it looked like?"
The storyteller spoke vividly, drawing everyone's attention.
Even Harry and his men, who had already seen it, found themselves listening closely.
"Some of the heads had already begun to show bone, with clumps of hair stuck to them.
You know those beggars with rotting sores all over their scalps? Imagine forty thousand of them all standing there together."
The listeners shuddered. Just imagining it made their skin crawl.
"How did King Viserys manage to kill so many Dothraki in one battle?" someone suddenly asked.
Unlike the lords of Westeros, these people had seen the evidence with their own eyes.
They could not dismiss it as a lie.
What they truly wanted to know was how it had been done—and whether that same power might one day be turned against the rest of the world.
"I heard from a friend whose cousin serves as an officer in the king's army," someone said. "They say Viserys used a special kind of longbow to defeat Khal Drogo."
"Longbows?"
"Yes, longbows. Aside from the Dragonriders he recently formed, all the longbows used in the battle were sealed away in storage afterward."
At this, the crowd began to buzz with excitement.
A weapon capable of such destruction was something everyone desired.
Rumor had it that some people were already offering the price of a full set of fine armor just to obtain a single Targaryen longbow.
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