Three days later, in the Borderlands.
The region where Volantis bordered the Three Daughters was flat and open, with the faint outlines of mountain ranges visible in the distance.
Dry wind swept up the dust from the ground, carrying the wilderness's distinctive grit.
Liu Qian's army made camp here.
For this campaign against Volantis, he had brought the ten thousand cavalry stationed at Conqueror's Holdfast, Rowan's ten-thousand-strong Yidi Cavalry Legion, and all the Dragon Spirit Guardians.
Conqueror's Holdfast was left in the hands of the Slave Soldiers and the Unsullied.
Liu Qian had captured large numbers of horses during the war against the Dothraki, so he had equipped all his troops with warhorses.
The twenty thousand elite cavalry were strictly disciplined, their ranks imposing.
Their armor gleamed, and their spears stood like a forest.
His own ten thousand veterans went without saying, but what amazed Liu Qian was that the ten thousand Yidi soldiers Rowan had trained also presented a magnificent sight.
As a former lord's guard from Kakosa, Rowan had more experience commanding troops than Liu Qian's other generals.
Still.
The most striking troops in the army were the fifteen hundred mounted Dragon Spirit Guardians.
They guarded the center, each exuding a presence far beyond that of an ordinary elite soldier.
Liu Qian rode on Blooddance's back.
The red dragon had grown larger still, now measuring nearly seventy feet in length.
When Blooddance spread his wings, the shadow he cast could cover a small formation of a hundred men.
His dark red scales gleamed like metal in the sunlight, his molten-gold dragon eyes surveyed the ground ahead, and his occasional snorts carried sulfur-scented sparks.
Jelena followed close behind on her silver dragon, Silverfall.
Silverfall was slightly smaller than Blooddance, but still looked to be fifty or sixty feet long.