Could Stannis win the Battle of Winterfell? Could Aegon defeat the Lannisters? Could Daenerys survive the Dothraki Sea? So many questions were left unanswered by the end of A Dance with Dragons, and this story seeks to answer them in a continuation of the story: the Winds of Winter.
Before you start reading, know that this story is a fanfiction that seeks to continue and end A Song of Ice and Fire after A Dance with Dragons, the fifth novel in the series. I advise that you have knowledge of the first five books in the A Song of Ice and Fire published series, and I also advise that you forget all that you know about the sequel to A Dance with Dragons.
With those things in mind, feel free to enjoy the show.
PART I: A DANCE'S END
What happens after dragons dance? One is dead, the other so wounded that it will soon die. The victors are the crows who have their feast, the mummers who call themselves dragonslayers, and the Lord who laughs at mortals trying to play god.
PROLOGUE
The old man slept in peace.
The serving maid gently placed a candle beside him, his face bathing in the soft light. It was her night to care for him, as his wife the lady had vanished as he fell into slumber.
"Off with one of his sons," the maid knew the rumours that had long become stale. The old man seemed to know, as word travelled easily amongst these towers, but that was long past his worry. Tart worried for him, as his health withered with other things. His all too many sons, his all too many lands, and this endless war.
Tart dreaded that the old lord would never wake while she was here. The old man never stirred even once as he lay on his bed. If he woke after the sun rose, it would be long past her shift. She feared that she would not be able to tell the old lord what he needed to know.
On a rare night, there had been this foreboding that she could not turn away despite all the quiet words she hissed at it. The last time she felt it was another of Tart's night beside the lord, when she felt a man coming down the hall even while she could not hear him. The man turned out to be one of the old man's sons, the boy who had squired for that wolf king. He had sat by his father for a short moment, holding his father's wrinkled hand in his own. The boy had told her that he was to leave for the south the next day. He wanted some time alone with his father before he was gone, away from his brothers. When she told him that the old lord had never woken before dawn, the boy lowered his eyes, and asked her to tell his father that he was sorry.
Tart had left when the sun rose that day, before the old lord woke, and she never told him.
She looked now at the gathering mists from the tower, willing with all her power the old lord to wake. He must wake before the morning will pass, as her message was much more than a boy's farewell wish.
The last evening, Tart had felt the familiar spirits creep across her skin again, and she knew what lay in store on the morrow. She knew that she must tell the old lord. He must know, if he were to save them all. He must wake.
"Tart," she found herself hissed at by Sala in the doorway. She beckoned Tart to her.
"Sala," Tart strode over to her fellow maid, pleading,"Just a moment longer, until the lord wakes? There is a destiny I must tell him."
"I have had enough of your ramblings, Tart," Sala hissed again,"You've already overstayed your time, and you should be glad I did not take it up with the steward. I'm doing you a favour here."
Sala walked past Tart, shoving her aside with her face still as stone.
"Could you at least tell the old lord when he wakes that the wolves are coming?" Tart asked Sala.
Sala stared at Tart for a long moment, Tart's heart hammering in her chest. At last, Sala opened her lips:"I shall."
As Tart swung the door shut behind her, she found a little solace in the fact that the destiny was known. She prayed that it would be a normal day, with no death nor blood nor songs, but in her heart of hearts she knew that it was not.
There were people in the quarters, almost all that Tart knew served in the Towers. She briefly wondered why they had not left yet for their duties that day. When the sun rose in the past, only a few of her friends had remained. Tart resigned herself to being pressed into their throng, being a serving maid just like any other.
Long shadows lay across every wall of Tart's quarters, and they had lingered there for eternity. Pale light spilled into the square windows, lighting some of the room. The rest were lit by braziers, and the fires had burned out.
Her friends sometimes played games with the shadows, guessing at what they were. Sometimes they guessed that it was a shill of wheat, other times the banners of the Towers. There was one answer that Tart starkly remembered,"Those are our braziers and our beds and us."
They were playing their games when Tart arrived. Yet she could not find a smile to grace her own cheek as she knew what burden she must reveal to them.
"Is that an antler?" she heard Cerene say.
"No, that's an oak branch," Marba answered.
"The claw of a wolf," Tart burst in, and the others stared at her in bewilderment.
"What did we promise each other, Tart?" Branda said,"We're not to speak of the wolves. Ever. We don't want to remember that."
Tart remembered that darker time. Winter had come in the Young Wolf who had named himself the King in the North. Those men had pretended to be their friends, and spoke of vengeance and righteousness. The old lord believed in him, and aided the Young Wolf in his march. So many men left the gates with the northmen, and never returned. So many of them died in the King in the North's war. Lord Frey aided the Young Wolf with all they could, yet it did not satisfy him. He demanded the old lord's daughters, first for himself and then for his bannermen. The old lord gave in, but even that did not sate a wolf's hunger. The wolf's men turned on them at Lady Roslin's wedding, revealing their true desires to kill and plunder. Yet in the end, their evils were defeated by the valiance of the Twins. In the end, the Young Wolf fell.
"They're coming back," Tart said,"I can feel it. Since the evening, I feel their howls make the sky shiver. I feel their paws thundering upon the earth as they draw ever closer. They're coming here today.'
Marba began to laugh,"The wolves are gone, vanquished by our brave knights. They're not coming back. I've had it with all your visions."
"It's not a vision," Tart said,"It's the truth." She turned away leaving them to their games. At least the old lord knew.
It was scarce an hour after when a kitchen boy arrived at their door panting for breath.
"Dead," he said,"Lord Frey is dead."
"Did he know?" Tart felt the emptiness crashing her, stifling a shriek within her throat,"He's dead. Lord Frey is dead."
One of their windows opened to the great bridge, and across the river they could see the other tower, the other bastion of their strength. It was burning. The banners were still flying in the wind, but time and again they would fall, ashen and dead.
"The wolves," she whispered,"They're here." All her friends gathered about her, knowing now that she had spoken the truth.
Tart stared out, watching the banners rise and scatter and fall into ashes. Her friends were fretting in their seats, and Tart sat behind them in the shadows. She told them not to worry, for she had seen farther. She knew that all would return to peace once this terrible day was at its end.
"It's a sinful day," Cerene was saying,"Mayhaps it is best that we hide from what's out there. Sala was right, and we should never think to leave. There are great horrors in this castle that made that fire."
"What do you think it is?" Marba asked,"The ghosts of the northmen who attacked us at Lady Roslin's wedding?"
Branda, always the most sensible of them, said "The ghosts of wolves never die. Ser Danwell told me that each day our warriors set out to slay those monsters, but they've been losing men to the forest. The wolves prowl in the shadows, catching even our brave soldiers unawares. It is a dangerous land out there, that those monsters haunt. And I hear that the wolves are coming here to hunt us again."
"Wolves," Marba said,"they walk as men in daylight, and hunt maids for sport in the night. I heard their howls drawing closer each time the moon rises. And it's soon a full moon. A wolf's moon."
Tart knew the stories. Lord Goldenhand was found dead a moon ago. Hanged. At the same time, Ser Daven's entire host had disappeared outside Pennytree. It was bound to be the work of the wolves, yet those horrors were always distant from her home. Tart knew that the wolves were coming here now.
She felt a chill run through her bones as she remembered what the wolves would do. She prayed that Sala had told the old lord and he called all his swords before he passed on. The fire of their foes would soon be doused by the men of the Twins.
"I'm safe," she closed her eyes,"safe in my bed and my walls and the lord's power."
She closed her eyes, trying to feel within herself anything that might hint at peace again. The only one she found was the peace she foresaw before, at day's end.
All in the quarters knew that it was a horrid day, as none summoned them for their duties. Tart had hidden herself in her blanket, knowing only the shadows beneath. She took a glance outside the window, and saw that only hours had passed since she arrived here. It was only the afternoon.
The others opened the door at the first knock, forgetting to ask who it was in their hurry. Tart rose, moving to warn them against it, but she was too late. She relaxed when she saw the steward at the door.
The steward told them what Tart already knew, that the old Lord Frey was dead. A new lord had ascended to the Twins, another Lord Walder. The steward told them that the new lord was holding a feast, and summoned their services.
"Is the feast to celebrate our victory over the wolves?" Tart asked, remembering the fire in the Eastern Tower.
The steward looked at her, confused, then shook his head,"It is to commemorate young Lord Walder's victory over Ser Edwyn, who had murdered old Lord Walder."
"So the wolves have not come yet," Tart thought,"They will be coming soon."
"Lord Steward," Tart said,"Could you tell the new Lord Walder that the wolves are coming?"
"What is your proof?" the steward asked. Tart could not give an answer.
"Then there is no such danger," the steward said,"Trust in the scouts that patrol for miles along the Green Fork. Meanwhile, do your duties as you are bid."
"There are no wolves," Marba whispered to Tart after the steward left,"Could you just get that through your thick head?"
Branda overheard them, and answered,"Let us just forget that. There is a feast. A feast is a feast, and it is best to forget the sorrows."
Tart comforted herself with the knowledge that all of Lord Frey's kin would gather here. Some were already in the castle or near, Perwyn and Black Walder and their like. The ones afar would be late, those sent afar to vanquish the last of their evil foes, but they would come. Lord Frey was gone, and none would forget the kind old lord. She could tell all of them there, and at least one must believe her.
Tart was not hungry when she arrived at the kitchens, and even though a kitchen boy offered her a first taste of fine delight reserved for the lords, she did not take it. It was wise, for the steward came to her a moment later, telling her that it was meant for the lords in the high table.
The castle did not seem to know that their lord had died. In every hall that they walked, they heard the roar of a booming choir. It was as if they had won a great victory again, such as when the valiant knights of the Twins slew the Young Wolf's monsters.
"They need to again," Tart frowned,"but they must first know." Most in the hall would be heroes from the war, bearing songs of their mighty conquests under the banner of the stout twin towers. They must remember how they had forged those songs.
She gradually heard other voices rise against the cheers. The bright sky outside had vanished as grey clouds gathered all over the castle. She heard rains pouring on the roof, and far away, in the depths of her fear, she thought she heard a wolf howl.
"Memories," Tart assured herself,"A mark on the soul by those beasts will never heal. They are a taste that will linger all my days." The honour of the Twins had been her shield against those ghosts.
The hall was awash in light as she entered, its radiance shining against the gloom outside. It was the mark of joy arising in these new days. Rows upon rows of gallant knights feasted in the hall, each in their elegant cloaks. In every corner of the hall, Tart could hear a cheer. It was all the sights of a feast, of japes and laughter and bawdy words. Her heart was heavy as she strode past them.
She ignored all the hall, knowing the dish in her hands and her duty. "This is for the high table," Tart remembered the steward saying,"for the lords." As was her knowledge.
Black Walder, the new lord, sat at the table's head. It was strange, seeing the old lord's seat given to another. From what Tart could remember, the old lord had been there forever. Yet now he was gone.
"Times pass and so do men," Tart thought. As horrors like the Young Wolf pass to be dead and gone, so would the shield of the Twins. The old lord met the Stranger after all his heartening years. The Father would judge him justly as he passed into what lay beyond.
Black Walder was more solemn, with less smiles in his lips and eyes. He seemed to be the only amongst the table who was silent, offering only curt answers when he was by chance addressed. The Lord of the Crossing was flanked by Lord Lothar to his left and Ser Danwell to his right. Lothar's wife, Lady Leonetta, was absent, but Lady Wynafrei sat by her husband Ser Danwell's side.
Around the table sat the folk of House Frey. The knight Raymund sat about the table, Raymund's wife Lady Beony holding onto her husband's arm and whispering into his ear. Perwyn's new betrothed was not here, the girl Bethany of House Blackwood who had only nine years. There were no children at the high table now, when children were the norm at the old lord's feasts.Tart thought she never saw any children at all in the hall tonight.
Lord Lothar seemed like the true lord at the table. He was jovial, speaking eagerly with the ones around him. His place at the table was always a place of warmth. It seemed that the table was drawn more to him than their true lord.
Tart placed her dish upon the high table, as did all the other serving folk, and the lords and ladies thanked them. As she lay the dish, she saw the moment to tell Lord Lothar who sat in front of her.
"The wolves are coming," she whispered in his ear.
To her surprise, the lord nodded,"You have my thanks, but I already know. If you are wise, you would leave this hall as soon as you are able."
She stepped aside just as Lothar gestured at the heralds. The heralds blew their bugles.
The hall grew silent as a shadow, and Tart took another step back.
Lord Lothar stood, and turned to the watching crowd.
"A great tragedy has befallen us," Lord Lothar began,"Lord Walder has passed from this world. He was a father not just to me and all my brothers, but to all of us, a father that knew and loved us, and who we knew and loved in return. We should all find time in our hearts to drive, to honour the joy with which he graced us."
He paused in a moment of silence,"We had made peace with our father. We had slain the traitors Edwyn and all his ilk, who slew our father for his seat. We had graced his body with the blessings of the Seven who are One, so that in their Heavens he would find eternal joy. And we will make certain that his legacy that he strove for all his life will last, now and forever. We honour the Twins with our new lord. Even in the darkness, we can find a new day."
"We raise this day," Lord Lothar raised his goblet towards the new lord,"We raise this day to remember our father, and to bless the health of the new Lord of the Crossing. To Lord Walder."
The hall rose with goblets in their hands, and echoed his words,"To Lord Walder."
The new lord rose, and gave a nod to their cheers.
"He never told them," Tart clutched at the hems of her dress, tasting blood from biting her lip.
The hours of the night lengthened to a crawl, as the spirits graced her with the foreboding of ice that crept closer and closer. No one would listen. She tried to tell one of the knights, but he took her for a mere serving maid. He embraced her in his lap, gently feeding Tart off the tip of his knife.
Through the hall, there were sweet echoes. Bards were striking up merry tunes, their strings ringing with the beauty of song. Every so often, they would play a sadder tale, and the hall would grow quieter. Tart would hear the rains pattering on the roof of the hall.
The bards were now playing a slow song. It was soft, almost mournful, seeming to fill the room with its grief.
"It was a pretty song," Tart thought. The hall grew quiet again, and they could all hear the rains falling from the sky. Far off, there seemed to be another echo. Echoes of wolves, howling in the night.
A storm of cracks jolted Tart still, waking her to the hall. Suddenly, a stream of blood flew across Tart's face, and she felt the urge to scream. That cry was cut short by the knight beside her, who shoved her to the ground and sprawled on top of her body.
She could still see beneath the folds of his cloak, and she quickly closed her eyes. It was not before she saw the corpses. There was one man cradling two crossbow bolts in his stomach, eyes frozen as he lay under a table. There was another, a guard she knew, whose head was split open by an axe. Tart saw the blade in his skull even as she closed her eyes. She could still see the blood flowing, all around. She could hear the moans and groans and screams.
Tart squeezed her shut even firmer, and her breaths came swifter. She knew nothing but the chill in her bones.
Two thuds sounded above her, and Tart heard a grunt. The air above suddenly turned cold, and she flitted her eyes open. The knight above had rolled off her, looking at the two wounds that blossomed red in his flank. In his hands were the broken bolts.
"Go," he urged,"Under the table." The knight then grabbed his only dagger.
Tart turned away as he wobbled to his feet, rushing where he bid.
She lay under the table, hearing the relentless tide of crashing and screaming and cursing.
Tart closed her eyes, and prayed. "Mother have mercy," she whispered,"Mother have mercy." She did not know how many times she echoed her own words, but there came a moment at last where the gods answered. At last, the hall faded to silence.
It was not long after before the table above was overturned, and light blinded her eyes.
"Up," Tart heard, and a hand wrenched her arm upwards. Her eyes caught the shadows in the hall, and she closed them again. Under her eyes, she would not see this sight of blood, this sight of grim, where even the shadows of the corpses gnawed her inside. She still saw the oozing cavities, empty within the dead. She prayed that it was a dream.
When Tart finally dared to open her eyes, she saw that her dream was true.
It was a group of men who flipped her table and grabbed Tart from beneath. They were led by Ser Perwyn, who was covered in blood. One soldier stayed to escort her while the others passed on.
The others were flipping tables open, hunting who lay beneath. They found many like her, hidden from the slaughter. If it was women they found, they helped them to stand, but if it was men, Perwyn's men would put a sword through their chest. Several men crawled from under the tables, trying to escape, but none ever did. Tart heard the echoes of bodies fall.
The soldier beside her pushed her, and she saw that he was directing her to a place where all the other women stayed. There were at least half a hundred who survived this hall. When Tart joined them, she heard their frightened whispers that mirrored her own thoughts.
Stifling her fear, she tried to look amongst the carnage. She closed her eyes and tried to shut herself from all of it, yet she could still hear the blood. She opened her eyes.
Lord Lothar was standing at the head of the hall, and seemed to have taken charge. The new Lord Walder was nowhere to be seen. Aside from Ser Perwyn and Lord Lothar, no other Frey remained to stand in the hall. Tart found the lords and ladies she had served at the high table, lying unmoving there just as the castle folk lay between the benches. "Dead and gone."
Closing her eyes for what she promised would be the last time, Tart wondered what this would spell for her. It was dreadful, freezing her in an icy chamber, but it might be over soon. Whatever horrors this day brings, it shall all pass into peace in the end.
Beyond the ringing of the hall, she seemed to hear other sounds again. The rains had stopped battering the roof, but she still heard the howls of the wolves. They were closer, and fiercer than ever before. Tart also began to hear voices outside. They were only faint shouts, from far away, but they were there.
"Was it a chant?" she wondered,"What are they saying?" It became clear as the voices closer. The howls of the wolves were as fierce as a horn.
"King in the North."
"King in the North."
"KING IN THE NORTH."
It came as a shock when Tart heard the Frey men in the hall give the same chant.
"King in the North."
"King in the North."
"King in the North."
"Traitors," Tart wanted to say, but swallowed her words when she saw their bloodied swords. She shrank away, hiding herself amongst the women.
"Lord Lothar made a deal with the cruel northmen," Tart thought in dread,"He's opened the gates of the Twins for them, and he will doom us all." For the first time that evening, she broke into tears. She knew that tears would not be out of place anyways, for most of the women about her already had crimson cheeks from their weeping.
"King in the North," it seemed almost a scream in the chant outside.
"King in the North."
"KING IN THE NORTH."
Tart looked to Lord Lothar, and saw him switch his cane to his other hand and back again. He told his men something, and they sheathed their swords. Their hands, though, remained on their hilts. Tart noticed that Ser Perwyn had silently found a place in the shadows, away from sight.
"King in the North," the voices were at the door.
"King in the North."
"KING IN THE NORTH."
Lord Lothar's face dropped just as the door blew open. A monster of a man broke through. It was one of the Young Wolf's monsters. He barreled into the hall, shouting in a voice that blew apart their ears,"For the King in the North."
A host of men followed in his wake, echoing the same words,"For the King in the North."
There were men in worn mail, withered knights with tattered shields, a hundred motley soldiers. They all wore different banners. A burly warrior seemed to lead them, who wore a golden cloak. Each of them had blood in their eyes.
Without a word, the giant monster began to swing his sword. He caught one man by the neck, and his head went flying off with a spurt of blood.
"HAR," the monster hollered,"FOR THE KING IN THE NORTH!"
Each of their cold-eyed guests followed with the singing of their blades, and steel flashed all across the hall. They rushed forward, and that steel found the bloody flesh of their hosts.
Tart was frozen in her place as she watched the hall. Her men were drawing their swords, but many were too late. The tide of their foe swarmed them in howling silence. Tart's ears were ringing, but she still heard the soft song that the bards still played.
"Why are they still playing?" Tart wondered in a trance as she found a bard with his woodharp. Her mind came back to her as she heard the screams.
She turned, seeing a Frey man fall before her. His killer gave her a toothless smile.
The women about Tart scattered, their cries piercing the chaos, and Tart followed. They ran, knowing the monsters were giving chase.
All around, Tart heard the echoes of screams.
"King in the North."
"King in the North."
"KING IN THE NORTH."
Tart only knew to run, to leave this horror behind. She did not know what lay ahead, only that it was better than the shadows of monsters behind. The monsters caught some of them, and Tart heard their shrieks as they were dragged into the jaws of the beasts. She did not dare to look back.
Men were screaming, women were screaming, and wolves were howling in the night. The same words tore forever through the fury.
"King in the North."
"King in the North."
"KING IN THE NORTH."
Tart felt a pull on her dress, and screamed. Her heart stopped for an instant, turning to find a beardless boy baring his teeth.
"No," she shrieked as he grabbed at her,"Get away." She could barely hear her own voice amidst the din.
She did hear the rip of her dress, and pain lanced across her knees as she fell upon the timbers. There soon came another pain, a terrible burning.
Her blurring sight found the door to the hall. More men were emerging from the darkness. Men with a white tree that was dripping blood. A ghostly mother was standing there, kissing the cheek of a pregnant daughter.
Something touched Tart's throat. It was cold, like the kiss of snow.
When Tyrion was still a young boy, he would tell his brother the story of Mors Martell and Yorick Yronwood.
Yorick's father, King Cletus, had defeated Mors Martell's father in the war for the dominion of the fertile lands along the Vaith. As compensation for the war, King Andros Martell had to pay not only in the land he lost, but also his second son as a ward to foster at the castle of Yronwood.
The young prince Mors had only four namedays when his father bartered him away for peace. King Cletus, though, caring and mindful that a child need not pay for the errors of his father, raised young Mors Martell alongside his own children as if he were his own son. Prince Mors grew increasingly attached to each of his foster siblings, particularly to King Cletus's son and heir Prince Yorick, who was of an age with him. They were like trueborn brothers, inseparable and closer than Yorick was with his blood siblings. Some have speculated that they were closer than brothers.
When he was of an age, Mors Martell even went as far as to ask for Princess Arella's hand in marriage. Wishing to cement the peace between the two houses, King Cletus agreed to the union between his daughter and his ward. They were to wed when Mors Martell and Princess Arella both came of age, at which King Cletus would send the newly wed couple back to Firststone. Firststone was the name for Sunspear before the Rhoynar. Legend told that the First Men built their first city in Westeros at that location. When the Children broke the Arm of Dorne, it became a city on the coast of the Narrow Sea. None now remembered its name, for the roots of the Rhoynish have set in deeply.
All had seemed well, as peace seemed to have been achieved. This was the time when disaster struck, as a wave of the Golden Pestilence reached Firststone through a trading galley. King Andros was able to contain the sickness to the city, but half its inhabitants, including King Andros himself, his firstborn son and heir, and his two daughters, fell to the plague.
The succession fell to Mors Martell, who became the new King of the Sandship. King Andro's castellan and temporary regent, Palymros Toland, wrote a letter to King Cletus addressing the lack of available heirs and asking for Mors Martell to return and assume his kingship. The young prince was only fourteen at the time, but King Cletus allowed for his ward to return to his home, as he himself knew the dangers of a kingdom without a king.
It was said that when Mors Martell left the gates of Yronwood, he and Yorick, amidst tears of sadness, swore an oath of brotherhood and perpetual friendship upon the light of the Seven. They were to be true brothers, after all, in four years when Princess Arella turned of age. He remembered hearing of the oath, as a boy who did not understand the futility of words. He had thought that they would never drift apart, much less become the mortal enemies that they did.
"Be it gods or men," it began,"sun or snow, winter or summer, spear or sword. Look upon us and we swear by the Seven, an oath of kinship and brotherhood." It went on, as it beseeched each of the Seven to bless their kinship. Tyrion had almost fallen asleep the first time his brother had told the story.
"And by the Stranger we swear," the oath ended,"that we will remain brothers, bound not by blood but by love, from this day until the end of our days."
It was the last time any Yronwood saw the sole banner of the spear of Martell. In the years to come, a different banner will blow upon the castle battlements. The spear again, but with a sun in companion.
King Cletus was taken by a sickness the following year, and Prince Yorick ascended to the throne as King Yorick, the Fifth of his Name. Two princes that were brothers, now both kings, and soon to be bound by marriage. It had seemed, when Tyrion was young, the recipe of a happy ending. He had thought that the Martell would marry his princess as he was bid and they would live forever in peace.
"I was sorely mistaken. It was a fantasy of a callow boy unlearned in the truth of the world."
Singers and bards sing to this day the love between Mors Martell and Nymeria, of the love that blossomed the day the gallant Prince Mors met the beautiful Queen Nymeria with her thousand ships at the mouth of the Greenblood. The songs, however, had once taken a darker tone, a lament of a broken vow. It was so until Prince Morion, not Morion the Mad but another just as insane, ordered the death of every bard who sang ill of Mors Martell.
He remembered the ending of the story. Nymeria and her thousand ships carried the Rhoynar across the sea to invade Westeros. The Martell king agreed to settle them in his lands, as too few were his people after the plague, but the queen wanted more. She seduced young Mors Martell with her beauty, stroked his ambition to become lord of all the region the maesters had called Dorne, and convinced him to turn against his sworn brother to aid the Rhoynar in their conquest.
Yorick Yronwood had not wished to believe in the tidings at first, even as reports were increasingly received at the Boneway of the aggression of the Sandship to the other petty Dornish kings. It was not until the first Rhoynish strikes against the Yronwood border did he believe the terrible tidings and rallied his banners. Yronwood scouts saw no longer the sole spear on enemy banners, but the united sun and spear of Mors Martell and Nymeria.
The king had wed the warrior-queen in a public declaration of unity and an alliance. He took the Rhoynish style of "Prince" rather than the Andal title of "King".
It was the greatest war Dorne had seen before the Young Dragon. No longer was it a petty border skirmish over a few fields and waterholes, but a bloody war of total conquest. It pitted brothers against former brother, kin against kin. In the old days, it was not uncommon that one brother will fight for the Sandship and the other for the Boneway. No matter who won, they would be cursed as a kinslayer.
The gods were not so forgiving of oaths broken, either.
The coalition of Martell and Rhoynar were exhausted after years of war, and so the war was ground to a stalemate despite their numbers. After losing several battles in the deserts of Dorne to the fierce Rhoynish hosts that once trembled Valyria, King Yorick burned his fields and retreated to the Red Mountains, where he had gathered his stockpiled harvest. Twice the Rhoynish hosts tried to break the Boneway, four times the Prince's Pass, then called the King's Gate, and the men of Yronwood stood unyielding. The Daynes of Starfall, loyal bannermen of the Yronwoods, had flooded the Torrentine.
Winter was not as harsh in Dorne as it was in northern lands, but temperatures still froze rivers and forbade harvest. Winter was coming for the Rhoynar.
King Yorick had written to King Durran Durrandon of the Stormlands, the fourth of his name, and King Mern Gardener of the Reach, the seventh of that name. Unlike Dorne, the Reach and the Stormlands were then united kingdoms. The Yronwood king spoke of betrothing his recently unburdened sister and his other brother in exchange for alliances from his fellow kings. He also spoke of granting lands along the Marches if they would send aid. Both kings had vested interests in their southern frontier, and they agreed.
The war had been in his favor, yet King Yorick lost it with his rashness.
One day, the king heard that Prince Mors Martell led a host of men close to his garrison at the Boneway. Against the sound counsel of his bannermen and advisors, he set out with a large portion of his garrison to kill his former brother. The betrayal ran deeply, as Mors Martell had not only broken his betrothal, but also his oath of brotherhood. The report had been true, but it underestimated the strength of Martell's forces. Even after seeing a much greater company than he had expected, King Yorick stubbornly ordered the assault. So great was the fury of Yronwood's men that after a bloody battle ensued, the Boneway stood victorious, and Mors Martell was slain by King Yorick. He did not know what his ancestor had thought when he struck his sword in his childhood friend's chest.
Victory came at a drastic cost, as many a man-at-arms died that day. Prince Mors Martell's retinue also fought with an unprecedented ferocity to protect their lord, even when it was clear that the battle was lost. It was said that no man broke that day, as every spear fought to their last breath. The best of the Dornish fell in that battle.
It was disaster for King Yorick. His garrison was heavily battered by the enemy, a loss that could have been avoided had he stomached his anger and remained in the Boneway. Meanwhile, Prince Mors became a martyr of the Rhoynish and Martell armies. Instead of dampening their spirits with the tiding of the prince's fall, it only gave them renewed vigor and determination to avenge their dead prince. They fought now to see Prince Mors's killers dead.
Princess Nymeria took charge of the host herself, and led a third and final onslaught on the Boneway. This time, the fortress did not hold, and King Yorick was forced to retreat from his own ancestral castle. Without the natural barrier, Nymeria's men swiftly captured the remaining Yronwood strongholds, taking King Yorick and his household prisoner. Perhaps it was a stroke of mercy as Nymeria pitied the brothers, or perhaps a necessity for the surrender of Allyrion Sand, the keeper of the Prince's Pass, and the petty king Vorion Dayne of Starfall, the Rhoynish queen allowed King Yorick to take the black, and his infant son to continuing holding the Boneway as her vassal.
"And that is how the tale ended?" Jaime would always say,"Prince Mors dead. King Yorick at the Wall, and a Rhoynish queen, a foreign queen, on the throne of Dorne."
"Why did they kill each other?" he had then asked.
"Because their brotherhood was weak," Tyrion had answered,"not like ours. We will be better than them."
Remembering the tale, Tyrion could not help but give a bitter chortle.
"Why do you laugh?" the New Ghiscari boy hissed, his copper nostrils flaring.
"Do not worry, my young master," Tyrion gave him a bitter smile,"It is not about you."
The New Ghiscari boy relaxed, then tightened again,"What is amusing then about the Prince?"
"Other than him awakening a long-dead memory of my gallant brother," Tyrion thought,"Nothing." Nothing except the Prince appearing from the Pyramids on the backs of two dragons, sending the queen a thousand kisses along with the burnt corpses of her foes.
Tyrion should have tried to find the true meaning of his own tale, and that was that the Martells have not grown any less shrewd over the millennia since Mors. Quentyn Martell had waited for the right moment, when Meereen was weakest, to seize the reins of the dragon and the queen's power for his own.
"And struck aside this poor dwarf," Tyrion thought,"who has still not found his whore."
Tyrion did not answer the New Ghiscari boy, turning to the west and watching the distant sands rise. When Brown Ben Plumm declared for the dragon again, the captain had sent Ser Jorah and Tyrion on an errand to the east. They were to make contact with the New Ghiscari whom Ben swore also stood for the dragon. Tyrion had silently thought that Ben sent them because they were expendable should the New Ghiscari prove false, but neither Ser Jorah nor he were in any position to refuse. They could not pick up Penny on the way, and Tyrion had sworn a silent vow to go back for her when he could.
They were greeted by a young noble, who wore a white silk doublet crowned with golden thread. It was light and tight-fitting, a shirt worn by a warrior at leisure. The boy's dark hair grew into a vulture's peak, close-cropped to frame a youthful face. He sported no cloak, but upon his shoulders the gold thread formed the shape of the beaks of falcons.
"Eagle," Tyrion corrected himself,"their eyes are not brown, but shining gold."
The boy had been most informative, and Tyrion knew now why the New Ghiscari had swayed to the dragon. The Noble Masters hated the Yunkish more than the queen for continuing the war after the wedding peace. So when this Dornish prince came to them and offered them a deal on behalf of the dragon queen, they took it.
The hosts in these camps had marched to war, as many tents bore no inhabitants. Or perhaps there was never a host in this camp in the first place. He saw no remnant from the morning cookfires that would surely be still spouting black tendrils. He did not see the frequenting of serving girls and boys, as well as the guards that were left to garrison the camp. He could not see any master leading a reserve line of slaves to join the battle. He did not see any that he saw in the camps of his father when his host marched to battle.
"This is a ghost camp," he thought,"A mummer's host, erected to make the numbers of the New Ghiscari seem larger than they truly were." It was almost truthful, for the trail that they trod bore the prints of many men, and the green grass that had otherwise grown lay filthy and beaten.
Vultures, however, flew above them, breaching the secret that the camp held.
No vultures flew above the centre of the eastern slaver camp, which lay upon a sheer cliff where Tyrion and his host were bound. It lay afar, for they had only entered the outskirts. The camps housing the masters were shielded in their flank by those of their legions and in the west by the rocks.
He could hear the clamour before he saw it. For a moment, Tyrion thought that he was back at Joffrey's wedding, though he was glad that his nephew had not returned.
The masters' camp looked to be in the midst of a feast rather than a war. Amidst the shouts of drunken men who gambled and laughed, he heard the singing flute that would have been commonplace at a harvest ball.
He passed a pavilion hosting dozens of mailed men. Their weapons, however, lay abandoned to their side. They relished in their seats, enjoying their drinks and spectacle. One man who had only one eye and no nose told the others a jape. They all laughed. Slave girls made rounds refilling the cups that were exhausted. They seemed to forget that they might be called in an instant to battle. The war lay forgotten as they reveled in their pavilion with little sight of the distant storm. The spectacle had demanded the attention of their eyes. It seemed that the New Ghiscari had no less need of entertainment as the Yunkish. A fool and an acrobat put on a play, which many were watching as they reclined on the grassy ground. Far aback in the tent, he saw a troupe of dancing maidens, which saw the attention of many men.
"No," he thought as he saw one of the golden-clad sellswords rise and reach under a girl's skirt,"Not maidens."
The other tents were much the same, with only select soldiers gazing afar to the true battle. The sands were calm in the peace before the storm, and men had other desires than watching an empty field. Most of the others were too embattled in the fights of their own amusement to make note of whether their host shall meet victory.
Some in the camp had dug a deep pit and filled it half with sand. A fence had been crafted around it, where hundreds of soldiers loomed. Catching a glimpse through the thin crack that had momentarily appeared between two sellswords, Tyrion gained an understanding of what had drawn their attention. He saw a bloody lion chained to a post, facing a pack of ravenous hounds. Three corpses already lay beneath its claws, but the hounds still pressed forward together. The sun lit the blood that shone on the lion's mane. A distant dragon screeched, and they removed their glares for an instant. Then, they remembered their true foe, and the hounds snarled. The lion roared in response. The men watching were hooting, shouting their encouragement and their lust for blood.
"They shouldn't have been left behind," he thought,"When they have half a nose left, let them love blood again."
A group of young men turned and waved at the boy leading Tyrion. They all wore distinct patterned armour wrought with intricate designs from flowers to beasts. Their mail was arranged in scales that formed a cuirass, under which Tyrion could see boiled leather. Some bore square shields, the sigils of their masters carved unto the wood.
The young noble smiled, and waved back at his friends, answering in a tongue that Tyrion did not know. He spoke High Valyrian to Tyrion, but his home tongue was foreign to him. The New Ghiscari dialect of Valyrian bore the least semblance to High Valyrian amongst its bastards, for they kept to the Ghiscari manner. The nobles spoke in the more flowery speech of the old dragonlords, while the common men conversed in a more vulgar tongue of the local dialect.
They came at last to a great gold pavilion grander than all the others. Thick drapings covered the roof to shield the occupants from the Meereenese sun, its four sides open to the passage of messengers and servants. Four pillars supported the wooden framework that formed the ceiling, their stone white marble. He saw that the masters had also laid the smooth ground with marble that showed their magnificence and opulence. A dozen banners lined the side of the pavilion from which Tyrion was about to enter, and dozens more lay blazing at its flanks. Above them all, on a great wooden pole, rose a shining Harpy carved of gold. Its eyes watched the distant dust rise, and it was poised to fly. He gazed at the gold in a trance, and his eyes were blinded by a white glare that the Harpy wrested from the light of the sun.
A banquet was set within the pavilion. The masters erected one long table in which they sat and feasted. He saw the glimmering robes of the New Ghiscari masters, but also the shimmering mail of sellsword captains that had been also invited to the feast.
An old man with white hair and wrinkled skin sat at the table's head, his head bowed as he exchanged words with the master to his right. His shoulders seemed to sag under the weight of his mail, and his winged helm lay abandoned by his empty plate. The man he spoke to was young and dark-haired, his nose angular and his brows bushy. His face was adorned with a thinly cropped beard, and he looked to be around thirty years of age. When he creased his brows, the black hair came together to form a single dark line. His tone was clearly agitated, for his cheeks pulsed as his thin lips formed phrase after phrase. The old man closed his eyes, shaking his head. The man to the old man's left offered a word, but the commander silenced him with a glare and a curt command.
Tyrion saw that three chairs were empty, their occupants beyond the pavilion's shade. The figures conversed tightly together, pointing at the pinpricks of dust in the distance. They stood near the sheer cliff that plunged into a hundred feet drop. The sun burned behind them, and their shadows were short. Tyrion could scarcely see his own, as it barely cast beyond his own feet.
Though the banquet was rich, most of it lay untouched, the masters choosing instead to anxiously address each other in hushed voices. It seemed that the warm winds kept the food from turning cold despite the indifference of the feasters.
Golden plates bore the cuisine that was alike to that of a Westerosi king's. Tyrion thought that some of the delights would not appear even upon Joffrey's table.
Goblets of wine lay beside each master. Despite ignoring the food, they took sips of their drinks regularly. Slaves were beckoned to refill their masters' cups, and it seemed that their tones grew ever more agitated.
There were still men unheeding of the coming battle, and ate to their heart's delight. Each man had a silver cup from which they spooned salt to spill over their food. They reached for the courses, but their eyes would timely study the horizon as well.
The main course was a grand serving of roast duck, half-eaten by those who had the stomach. It was caught upstream the Skahazadhan, where he read that reeds and marshes adorned the shores of the river. One boiled brown wing still remained, and its scent drifted into the holes where Tyrion's nose used to be. The dish was decorated by slices of cheese and lettuce, though he could also see the dark glitter of spices that came from the east lands. Even when Tyrion was Hand, he had rarely been able to sample such in his meals. Only lords could afford the exquisite eastern commodity, and the War of the Five Kings had made it near impossible to attain. Here, perhaps, it was as common as bread.
He approached closer, and the scent of the duck faded to reveal an air of garlic. Two dishes decorated the flanks of the main dish. One bore rolls of spinach dipped in a thick sauce of which he did not know the name. The other was the cooked remnants of chicken that had been largely snatched by the few that ate, its taste sweetened by the honey that aided the taste of the spice.
Masters wiped their mouths with white handkerchiefs, and carved their fare with silver knives.
Two guards dressed in shining golden scales guarded the entrance of the pavilion. They bore winged designs on their helms, and wore golden cloaks.
"Are these their white cloaks?" Tyrion wondered,"Gold would not be the colour that I would choose."
As Tyrion and his host made to enter the pavilion, the guards crossed their spears to refuse passage. Some of the masters looked curiously to meet his gaze. The boy told a guard a message in New Ghiscari Valyrian, and the guard gave a nod.
The boy strode to the old man at the head of the table, then bent down on both his knees,"Great-uncle. Our guests have arrived. The tall man is Ser Jorah of the House Mormont, once Master of Guards of Daenerys Targaryen. The dwarf I do not know the name of."
"Thank you, Calysus," the old man said to the boy as he rose,"You have done well, and report this duty to High Steward Anschall."
"You are dragon men?" the old man turned to them.
"Yes," Tyrion spoke through gritted teeth,"and we are glad to not be your foes. We bear greetings from the Second Sons, who ask that you join them in battle against the Yunkish slavers. Has the Prince made contact with my lord yet to coordinate your assaults?"
The old man studied him carefully as his father once did, and Tyrion felt a shiver crawl down his spine.
He finally answered,"The Prince has."
"A word of advice," Tyrion said,"There has been a recent war in our Sunset Lands, a war of five kings. The Martells, the house of the Prince, never took a side. They sat out the war, and emerged the victor."
A man in faded blue robes rose in answer to Tyrion's words,"Lord Commander. I say this again. We have this chance, and we may storm the city walls while it is still lightly defended. We may claim Meereen for our own, and all its gold as well. The Yunkish have proved that they could not be trusted to divide our compensation. Lord Rongolus's position in the city already hangs at a thread. Last we heard, Lord Antigonius has been gaining support in the Noble Council after a long siege without fruit. He was one of those who had refused our initial preparation for war, and it was only at Lord Rongolus's urging as Lord Magistrate could we have commenced our campaign. We cannot return to New Ghis empty-handed. We have spent too much on this war, from raising our legions, raising provisions, and raising sellswords. It cannot be used by Antigonius to say that our warmongering brought only bankruptcy to New Ghis, and was all for naught. If we were to return empty-handed, then Lord Rongolus would surely lose the Noble Council vote next year, and our heads would be sitting on pikes soon after. Our families have already vouched for us, and we may lose all if we fail."
"The Prince has given his word," the old man replied,"Do not worry. We will have our gold. He will know better than to risk the wrath of the only men that shield his place. Master Anlanq is with him, so he will not have any traitorous ideas."
"He's a Westerosi," the blue-cloaked man replied,"Their word is not to be trusted. He never spoke the words to us face to face so that the light of the gods of Ghis can reveal his honesty."
"He gave his word through the Graces of the Temple of Meereen," the old man answered,"or have you forgotten? The Prince's words have already withstood the test of the gods."
"Anlanq was the man to go with the messengers," the blue-cloaked man pressed further,"to whom you trusted two thousand of our own. We should never trust that he will stay loyal to our agreement. This prince could have swayed greedy Anlanq with gold, and turned him and all those swords against us. The signs grow more certain by the hour. That white flag the prince promised has not been shown, and none of our scouts sent have returned. Could this prince have joined with the Yunkish, and now seeks to destroy us? We should strike now, striking first so that no greater damage is done to our cause."
He whirled and pointed at Tyrion,"We should start with this dwarf. He is Westerosi just like the prince, sure to be in league with each other. I say we snip off that grotesque head of his, and storm the city in our own name."
"Ser Barristan has not yet marched far from the city," the old man said,''We would be fools to try and storm the walls now. If he seeks to betray us, then he will soon find that he has no men to hold the walls, and the Meereenese have proved to be the bane of conquerors. Even if Lord Anlanq could be swayed, he cannot convince the whole host to abandon their home. We wait until the time is right. The Yunkish will send another messenger, calling for our aid. We will return with the same reply. We are not ready. They cannot risk a march if we do not march as well. We wait. When Ser Barristan meets the Drunken Conqueror, we strike. We wait until one takes the other down, and we take the victor. The Prince will have his whore, Meereen will open its gates for us, and we will have our gold that is our rightful compensation. Lord Antigonius cannot utter a word when we have victory. We shall leave on friendly terms with the Meereenese, seen as the saviors of their city. In the lands of the Bay, we will emerge the true power. Astapor is ash. Yunkai is burning. Meereen is half-ashen shambles that would fall by any wind. Only we shall have the gold and the city to remake the trade in the Bay. New Ghis shall rise, and we shall by the Bay's master once more. Though this farce of this dragon whore was an unpleasant debacle, it shall make us great in the end. Sometimes, only a storm can remake an old world."
He stroked his white beard, and chuckled,"As to our guest, I have something in mind. Your tongue and bravery I give you, Lord Lannister. There are no craven kingslayers."
"So he knows," Tyrion thought,"It saves me the trouble of telling him."
A guard interrupted them,"Lord Commander. A Yunkish envoy has arrived from the high road. He wished that you would grant him an audience."
The old man nodded,"I shall grant it. Please escort Lord Lannister aside."
Tyrion found himself led to the side, and a glamorous warrior entered the pavilion. He wore a high-plumed helm sporting carvings of vipers. A reeking scent of perfume accompanied the warrior as he entered the pavilion. He was of a muscular build, and wore a haughty smirk.
He strode arrogantly before the old man,"Lord Commander. I come at you with an urgent order from the supreme commander. Our scouts have reported that Ser Barristan has marched to engage our host. We demand that your forces be prepared, to aid us in our struggle. You placed your men under our command, and we have allowed you time aplenty. Serve your command as you are bid."
The old man did not wince at his barbs, but rose. He grasped his hand. Tyrion saw some of the masters wrinkle their noses in disgust.
"My friend," the Lord Commander said,"Our forces have been assembled. I was about to send a messenger to report to Lord Morghaz. We shall join your host in battle, and we shall win victory over the dragon queen."
The perfumed warrior nodded,"Then I shall thank you, my lord. We shall greet you on the field of battle."
The Lord Commander nodded also, smiling warmly,"I trust it you have your command to attend to. If there is naught else, I shall bear you farewell."
"Farewell," was the curt response. The Yunkish warrior let go of the Lord Commander, turned, and left the pavilion.
As soon as his shadow departed the vision of the masters, the Lord Commander turned to his men.
There were only two dim sconces in the cell, and Asha felt cold.
She wrapped her sable cloak tight about her chest, the only furs Stannis's men had allowed her. Yet the winds pierced them through and through, and her quilted tunic beneath was too thin. The golden kraken embroidered on the tunic's cloth did little to help warm her skin. She had stopped feeling her legs long ago, the wool of her breeches frozen with icicles dangling beneath them.
It was the North, she knew, the cold bitter North whose winds would penetrate any shield a man would throw up at the cold. And the clansmen said it was only the autumn snows. She hugged the furs closer about her chest. The kraken would not allow herself to die here, in this frozen wasteland, in the shadows of a foreign king. They would sing mocking songs from Ten Towers to the Lonely Light about the Greyjoy who died captive in a greenlander camp. She would not bear it.
Her brother fared no better. Crowsfood had brought Theon back a corpse, and he did not improve since he had come. His face was as white and pale as ice, so much so that Asha had thought him dead the first time he had come before her, muttering a few quiet words before collapsing in the snow. Theon's hair was as grey as an old man's, having at twenty years more grey hairs than her father had at twice his age. "There is no black," Ryn, the northman healer, had observed,"That is good. There is no dead blood, nothing that your brother would lose." "He had lost everything," Asha had answered,"There is nothing left for him to lose." Despite the healer's efforts, her brother looked worse with each passing day. She knew it was the cold, the cold of the cell and the cold of the manacles on his wrists and ankles. Time and time again she would ask the guards to release Theon, at least for an hour, but time and time again she would receive spit in her face and the blistering words of "Krakenspawn."
She remembered her mother's only wish as she wandered crazed in that tower, for Asha to bring her little brother home. Asha was trying, but it seemed more and more that she couldn't.
"What do you remember?" she remembered asking Theon in one of his few lucid moments. Do you remember me?
"I dreamt a dream," Theon had answered,"I dreamt of a castle, a great stone castle that rose above the cliffs and the sea."
"That is Pyke," Asha had said,"Our home."
"I dreamt of ships outside with stags and lions and wolves on their sails. I heard a rumbling, and looked out the window to see rocks flying in the air. I heard screams."
"That was a war when you were a boy," Asha had said, hope welling inside her,"Do you remember?"
"I remember the doors to my chamber opening, and in marched a man with cold, grey, icy eyes. I remember his sword, as tall as I was."
"That was Eddard Stark," Asha had said,"the Lord of Winterfell, who took you in as his ward. Do you remember?"
"Stark," Theon's eyes had wandered,"Yes, Stark."
His voice suddenly rose,"I see them. Stark."
"Where?" Asha had turned herself over, almost tripping over her chains to look.
"There," Theon pointed with one manacled hand at empty air,"I see them. There's Lord Stark. And Lady Stark. And Robb. But Robb's bleeding. He is bleeding from a hundred wounds."
"Where?" Asha had asked again, fearing that ghosts had come out of the cold.
"I did not," Theon was answering a question Asha could not hear,"They were never your brothers." She saw Theon convulse in pain, then roll about the floor, his chains clattering. "I am sorry," he muttered,"I should have died. Instead of them. Too many of them. End it."
Asha could breathe again only when Theon fell back asleep. He had slept through that night whilst Asha had been kept awake by the sounds of war outside. Her heart froze each time there was a lull of silence, thinking of how many Boltons she could take with her chain should they come crashing through the door. It sounded like Stannis's men had won, because come the morning all she heard outside were cheers. Theon had slept through the morning as well.
Their cell shook with a clap of thunder as bright light suddenly shone at them. Asha was blinded, and she looked when she at last regained her sight. The door was open, and a score of Stannis's men marched into the cell. The guards, who had been standing straight all through the night and morning to not allow Asha even a chance to escape, turned and greeted the knight who arrived.
The southron knight who led the score of Stannis's men was an ugly man with a blood red scar running down his cheek. He had a broad face and broader shoulders, and in all his armour and furs he looked like a whale who had somehow found its way on land into the depths of Wolfswood. Everything he wore was coated in snow.
He took off his helm, revealing a loose mane of jet-black hair,"I see that the Turncloak is still here."
"We would never let him escape, Lord Giantslayer," one of the guards answered, whilst the other sniggered.
The man nodded, not caring about the other man sniggering,"I have orders from His Grace to bring in the Turncloak. Oh, and the kraken whore as well."
They released Theon first, hammering away the chain that bound him to the wall. Theon was still asleep, so they drenched in a pool of water. "Fools," the knight thundered,"If he is wet, he will die of the cold before he reaches the stake." One of his men had brought a towel, and he set about drying Theon as he gained his senses. "What?" he asked, his voice betraying a hint of surprise.
"You are going to the stake, Turncloak," the knight snarled,"to thank the Lord for our victory last night. I have two dragons on you, wagering that you would last until the sun crests the eastern trees. I do not want you to die before then. Two dragons are hard to come by in The North."
"And for you," the knight said to Asha as she was freed and brought before you,"I do not know what the king wants with you. Mayhaps as another torch to the Lord. It would be a bright day indeed." Asha resisted the urge to spit in his face. It would be of no avail, and only earn her a beating. Her strength should be saved for later.
She turned her ears outside the open door, and heard the crunch of a thousand boots marching on snow. When her captors pushed her outside the cell into the centre of the crofters' village, she could not believe that this place had looked dead three days before.
The camp was in a state of turmoil, soldiers of all motley moving about, whether southron or northmen, bearing a hundred banners from a pea pod to a winged pig to acorns on a field of snow. Some were piling tents and provisions onto wagons that creaked each time another weight fell on top. Others were pulling wounded on stretchers from the forest, bleeding trails of blood across the snow. Their stench wafted through the air, and those already dead were thrown into a raging pyre in the middle of the town square. A last assortment were shoeing horses and sharpening battered weapons on whetstones. Asha did not know if they were ending a battle or starting one.
"Did you have a victory?" she asked the closest soldier beside her, a man bearing a surcoat of white and purple knights, the same surcoat she saw on that knight they named Lord Giantslayer once he shook his coat free of snow.
"Aye," the man answered,"King Stannis's victory, where we cut down two thousand Freys. Sank half of them into the sea, and the mermen took care of the rest."
"Those wounded men…" Asha began,
"...are mermen, aye," the soldier answered,"We lost barely a hundred of ours, and most of them were fools who tripped into the lake. But most of the mermen suffered wounds that would kill you if you were left in the snow, and King Stannis said they must be tended to."
"It seems the king will win Winterfell," Asha nodded.
"There is another victory we must win," the soldier said.
"What?" Asha asked. Lord Giantslayer looked back with a stern face. He said nothing, but the soldier shut his mouth. The message was clear. Do not say too much.
The rest of the voyage was silent, as they left the borders of the crofters' village and descended into the darkness of the Wolfswood. There were four-feet tall wooden stakes in the ground every five steps telling them the way, and they would not be lost even in a snowstorm. Soon, Asha glimpsed a host of torches lighting the gathering place of a host of men.
They were greeted by a knight in a faded surcoat. His face was pockmarked, and even uglier than Lord Giantslayer's. To his sides were two of his guards, but she could make out their surcoats, a moth upon a grey field.
"Ser Richard," Lord Giantslayer bowed his head,"Here are the turncloak and the kraken whore."
The knight with a pockmarked face nodded, then walked up to Asha,"I am so very sorry for the manacles. I urged His Grace to free you of them, for you are less like to cooperate if we chain you up, but His Grace would not risk you escaping."
"It is all right, Ser," Asha answered,"We all have to listen to our king." For good or for ill.
"He would be pleased to meet you again," Ser Richard smiled, and his face was a little less uglier.
Asha felt like she was on trial when she walked into an empty clearing in the middle of the gathering of torches and men. Then again, she probably was. The canopy was thick, and beyond it she could only see bits of the blue sky. As she looked down, she expected the cold eyes of hundreds who wanted her brother dead and were like to want her as well. Yet they were not looking her way.
She saw Stannis standing with his stony face and cruel cold eyes. A crown of red and gold weighed about his brow, shimmering with fire and light. He was conversing with a greybearded knight beside him who wore a blue-green cloak and silver armour with engravings that looked like seaweed. Their eyes were fixed below, where scores of men were dragging battered cuirasses, helms, gauntlets, and all assortments of armour to pile in the clearing. Some of them were taking off their own surcoats and armour to try and fit the ones they collected on themselves. Timely, one of the men who looked like a knight would run up to Stannis and tell him something, and the king would nod.
"What are they doing?" she asked Ser Richard who walked by her side.
"Those are Frey armour," was the only answer he would give before departing to the king.
The king turned with his retinue when he heard what Ser Richard had to say, and there Asha found the icy light she had been expecting. She felt herself be pushed forward, and Theon beside her. She held onto the promise she made her mother that she would take Theon home. They would survive.
"See that," one of Stannis's knights jeered as they came close, pointing at something,"That will be the fate for you krakens."
Asha looked, and saw where he pointed were three tall stakes hammered into the earth. There were already three piles of ash beneath them.
She ignored the jeers, and faced Stannis,"Your Grace burned someone already."
"Ser Hosteen Frey and his two lieutenants," Ser Richard answered,"They led the charge of their host, and reached our side of the lake before the king sprung the trap and broke the ice. They were captured, not drowned."
"So we gave them to the Lord," declared another of Stannis's knights, one with a pea pod on his cloak,"So he may bless us, for the night is dark and full of terrors."
The night is dark and full of men, Asha silently scoffed. That was all the terror she need fear.
"Turncloak, raise your face," Stannis spoke for the first time. Theon did not, so Lord Giantslayer wrenched it up for him.
"I will give you this last chance, to confess," Stannis said,"Confess, and tell me. Do you deserve to die?"
Theon made some unintelligible mutterings that only Asha and those near to them could hear. It was clear that Stannis's retinue did not.
"He confesses with his silence," one of the northern clansmen said, a giant man in a thick fur cloak,"He turned his cloak on his foster brother and the man he swore to as his king. Even if he did not kill the two Stark princes, treason is still punishable by death."
"He did not kill the two Stark boys?" Asha asked.
The greybearded man in a blue-green cloak beside Stannis stirred,"I am Ser Marlon of House Manderly, and I had come from my cousin Wyman, Lord of White Harbour, with a message for King Stannis. I was to tell King Stannis and his men that White Harbour remains true, that Ser Davos is alive, and we were to join our forces against the Bolton usurpers in Winterfell. I was also to tell them that Brandon and Rickon Stark were not dead."
"Truly, that is a blessing," Asha looked at Theon. He may yet live. She could hold to her promise and bring him home.
"Yet treason is still punishable by death," the clansman said again,"I urge Your Grace that justice be done. Burn the turncloak."
His cry was soon taken up by others, not only other northmen by some southrons as well,"Burn him. Burn him. BURN HIM!"
"I hear he's killed two farm boys in place of the princes," someone said,"Is he not guilty of those murders?"
Asha thought about her youth, where Theon was that little brother whom she and her mother had danced between them. That was before Theon was taken away, and Asha learned to dance an axe instead.
"Your Grace," Asha snapped, cutting through all their cries,"He is innocent of those murders. What is he guilty of-of trying to have a home? If this be your justice, then you might as well burn me as well."
She knew as soon as those words left her mouth that she had overstepped. It never paid to be honest. Ser Richard looked at her with a horrified expression on his face. Lord Giantslayer japed at her, saying that His Grace would be happy to oblige. Stannis's face remained unmoving, as still as a calm sea before a storm.
The gathering fell to silence, and that was when King Stannis spoke:"If I do not punish treason, then all the hearts of my host shall be set to wavering. But I shall not burn Theon Greyjoy. When I take Winterfell, I shall behead him myself by the ways of The North, as Ned Stark would have done."
There were at first mutterings of disapproval from the knights leal to the Lord of Light, but they were soon drowned by the cheering shouts of the northmen and even some of the southrons. Ser Marlon nodded, bobbing his grey beard up and down.
"Take Theon Greyjoy away," Stannis said once the cheers began to die down,"But Lady Asha, you shall join me."
"You listened to my counsel," Asha said as she stepped before him.
"I do not ignore sound counsel," Stannis said,"yet it was my notion that you wanted your brother alive."
"I did," Asha answered,"but if he must die, I would rather it be as I counseled you-a quick death by the ways of The North."
"That shall be after I take Winterfell," Stannis turned to the men dressing in Frey armour,"I presume you shall not try to escape with your brother before then."
"Where shall we go?" Asha answered,"There is nothing but endless snow for a hundred leagues no matter where we go."
"Winterfell," Stannis said.
"I am already going there with you," Asha touched Stannis's hand, feeling that it was cold.
Stannis curled his hand into a fist, then turned to look at her,"Winterfell is not ours yet."
"I wonder," Asha asked,"What use are these men in Frey armour?"
"To disguise themselves as broken Freys and enter Winterfell," Stannis said,"When we engage Bolton's men outside the castle, they shall act. There are men in Winterfell who are already on our side."
"Manderly."
"Not just Manderly," Stannis said,"but many others who see profit in my victory. Our men in Frey armour shall join with them and secure Winterfell from the inside. Before the moon turns, mark my words, Winterfell will be ours and the Boltons will be dead."
"You did not bring me here to discuss Winterfell, though," Asha said.
"You are right," Stannis answered,"Deepwood Motte received a galley from the Iron Islands, and only now has the messenger delivered their message into my hands. Your uncle is dead."
"Which uncle?" Asha asked. She would only have tears if it were The Reader.
"Euron," Stannis said,"Your uncle who made himself a false king."
Asha threw her head back and laughed, before swiftly composing herself: "What, did my uncle drown after drunkenly walking off the plank? Ironmaker would have to think of a better tale to lure me back."
"The missive did not come from your husband Erik Ironmaker," Stannis said,"but your uncle Rodrik Harlaw."
"My nuncle," Asha echoed. If it were The Reader who told Stannis of this tale, then it might have a hint of truth in it,"How did my uncle die?"
"He embarked on a reaving campaign in the Reach," Stannis said,"marching ashore several moons ago. Since then, he has not been heard from again. His captains in the Sunset Sea have deserted his campaign and fled back to the Iron Islands, spreading a tale to all the ears from lords to shepherds that your uncle had fallen to Reach swords. Your Islands are in turmoil, with no one knowing who to follow. Your uncle Rodrik Harlaw has gathered a number of lords in support of you. Orkwood, Goodbrother, your uncle's House Harlaw, and others."
Orkwood had once lent twenty longships to her uncle's cause, and Goodbrother's men had been the ones to shout her uncle's name the loudest at the kingsmoot. If they had turned, it meant that her uncle was truly dead. "Truly?" was all she could manage.
"Your uncle Rodrik has asked to ransom your return with gold," Stannis said,"I am inclined to agree to your return, but I have in my mind a different sort of ransom."
Oh, Asha smiled. So Stannis was cleverer than she had thought. She had offered him loyalty once before, but he had dismissed it out of hand. There had been nothing to guarantee that loyalty beyond her own words. And winds are wind that the seas blow away. Yet no winds could blow away the words she would give now. Only through leal service could she even have a chance to return to Pyke, and there she would return not as a queen but as a lady sworn to Stannis.
"Bend the knee," Stannis echoed her thoughts,"Serve me lealy by my side, and write to your uncle to bring your ships in the Iron Islands under my command. When the wars are over and the Seven Kingdoms are mine, you can return to the Iron Isles. But not as a queen, for I shall suffer no usurpers. You shall return as my Lady of Pyke. That is my ransom."
"And I accept," Asha swept aside her cloak and bent her knee. She was her father's daughter, and Lord Balon had always known when it was wise to bend the knee. Others would name her a greenlander whore, but their words did not matter, for they were dead, and she was alive.
"Repeat after me," Ser Richard said evenly,"I offer my services, King Stannis. I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours if need be. I swear it by the Old Gods and the New."
"I offer my services, King Stannis," Asha said,"I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours if need be. I swear it by the Drowned God."
"And I vow," Stannis said,"that you shall always have a place by my hearth, and meat and mead at my table. And I pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you dishonor. I swear it by the Old Gods and the New. Arise."
"And I vow," Stannis said after she rose,"that my power will shield your lands and protect your people, whether it be famine or plenty, pestilence or health, war or peace."
War or peace, Asha closed her eyes to the endless snows.
"This has become a farce," he mused,"It seems the Seven wish to play me until I beg to be given to the Stranger." He hoped that he could have lost count of the number of times that he had been bound and led. Tyrion vividly remembered each time, though the number only sat at four, five by now.
Lady Stark was the winter lady of Riverrun. The southern pride that had embraced the cruel north. When she thought that Tyrion had attempted to murder her son, she had a heart and face of stone.
When he had been framed for the murder of his nephew, his sweet sister had made certain that Tyrion would have every discomfort. Mercy was to Cersei as the Maid was to the Mountain.
"If it had not been for my father and brother," he realized in disgust,"I might not have lived to see the trial, though much good that did me." He would not thank them, for they did him the same mock honour that the noble boy before him did now. But the gods had granted him the chance to live. He would survive these masters as he would have survived the last, as he had survived the yoke of the lion banner. He would live to give his sweet sister the same favour that she had allowed him.
"A creak of an iron hinge," he thought,"A saunter of a small shadow at night, and I'll have what my brother tasted. I'll see how sweet it is to drive him mad."
The hospitality of the Yunkish was no more welcoming than the embrace of his sister, though he were more than oft overlooked as they had many more slaves to attend to.
"There was the knight as well," he looked to Ser Jorah, remembering that painful tryst when the knight seized him for his queen. Yet he would be fortunate to live to see the queen again, much less win back her favour.
He glanced at the bear knight, who sat brooding, regaining his former fury.
"Don't try anything foolish, Mormont," he thought, hoping his eyes would betray his message through that thick skull,"They do not know us, and the tongue of the dwarf may win them to our favour. I cannot let it be undone because a bear thought it suitable at this time to try his chance." It was no use for a bear to strike with blunt claws.
These men, the New Ghiscari, treated them far better than any of Tyrion's other captors, and he had no wish to give them reason to change their will.
It was the eastern camp to which they were led..
"The New Ghiscari," he thought,"The men that claim to be the heirs of the old Empires of Ghis. They were said to be the most courteous of slavers, but would still twist their poison within you as much as the Yunkish would twist a knife. It is said that they keep the laws and customs of the ancient empire the truest in Slaver's Bay."
"New Ghis sits upon an isle," he thought,"There was a reason that led the Ironborn to be less learned than the mainlanders. None could disturb their peace had they kept their navy strong, so their customs were not diluted by the fires of war. They were the weakest in Slaver's Bay, though, as the ancient ways were old and decrepit compared to the men upon the shores. Men who made constant battles with each other had the greatest need of advancement. Yet these men of the isle, even far away, came ashore to fight eternally with the other masters of Slaver's Bay. All sought to claim the crown of the trade, to be the first in gold of Slaver's Bay. It was only the arrival of the dragon queen that united them in a common cause. Her threat was the chain that bound the slavers together, much as they hated each other."
"Yet after the dragon queen is defeated," Tyrion wondered,"What then would become of this slaver league." He already knew the answer. Even now, when the dragon queen still stood in power, the allies have already begun to plot against each other. If they defeat the dragon queen, they would turn on each other as surely as winter would take the world. It was wise of the Yunkish to separate themselves from their island kin, but it was not as wise as they think.
It was clear that only necessity had brought the slaver alliance together, and the Yunkish hated the New Ghiscari almost as much as they hated the Meereenese and the dragon queen.
Meereen rose in the west. They looked upon the city as if from the skies, for the steep hills on which the New Ghiscari were encamped rose higher than even the tallest watchtower.
It offered the camp a numerous bounty of natural defenses. Aided by the cesspits and caltrops laid outside the camp as they arrived, with countless other traps that they did not know, any dragon that thought to torch the golden drapes would find needles in their wings. Their comfortable defense, however, had made the New Ghiscari less eager to seek out open assault. He had heard Yurkhaz zo Yunzak complain that their allies were as lazy as swamp dogs. Tyrion supposed that they were what the Westerosi named lizard lions.
"Lizard lion or no," he thought,"it is a lion all the same. It knew, just as a true lion, when to hide and when to strike." The little lion had known that all his days.
Tyrion looked back at the city, and the vast stretch of land between himself and the kingdom he wished to be. There was the place where he could bring himself to power, where a lion meant something more than a slave that was dragged about by a noble boy. There was no place for his sort of lions in this golden camp. The Lannister sort did not thrive outside the Seven Kingdoms. "Yet anywhere, a lion was still a lion. He knew where to mark his power." He knew that all his vengeance would soon come.
Battle lines were being drawn upon the sands outside Meereen. The Yunkish prepared to face Ser Barristan. "Let them bash in each other's skulls, and open a place for me by the dragon queen."
The Yunkish had planned to attack at dawn, but the Drunken Conqueror's missives were insulting. The New Ghiscari saw it as addressing a slave rather than a fellow equal. They responded, of course, but not in manners of arms as the Yunkish had wished. They dispatched messengers with gifts and promising swords, exchanging flowery words that had no meaning. So the day passed, with much tongues wagging and no accord established between the two factions as to their assault. The attack at dawn had been ever delayed, and now the noon sun lay high in the sky.
Tyrion knew that they had their own designs, for they would otherwise not threaten their greatest ally. This battle would judge not only the course of the dragon queen's war, but also who would become the chief power in Slaver's Bay following the death of the dragons. The New Ghiscari wanted that crown to be their own, so they could not win victory under a Yunkish banner.
He just needed to find how they wished to succeed with their lesser numbers and gold. He needed to find who was backing them, for this would surely aid only the dragon queen. They could not sway themselves to aid the queen's cause, so what was the cause of this change of heart? What promises had been made, and where would the dragon queen go?
"Someone is spinning this web," Tyrion thought,"The Spider's legs could have spread as far as Meereen."
Perhaps it was not that Lysene eunuch that was plotting this treachery. There are spiders in every city, after all.
"I need to find this spider," he thought,"and I may yet survive." His skin tingled with sweat as the sun reached its apex.
His captor had surprisingly been the most informative. The New Ghiscari noble, as Tyrion judged by what he wore and how he spoke, wore a white silk doublet crowned with golden thread. It was light and tight-fitting, a shirt worn by a warrior at leisure. The boy's dark hair grew into a vulture's peak, close-cropped to frame a youthful face. He sported no cloak, but upon his shoulders the gold thread formed the shape of the beaks of falcons.
"Eagle," he corrected himself,"their eyes are not brown, but shining gold."
This boy had been the one to spring the trap on Mormont and Tyrion. The bear knight had taken the longer route to Meereen in order to avoid pursuit. The more common passages had been manned by the more experienced men, while the ones more remote were given to green boys. They were still capable of snaring a dwarf and his companion.
The boy's name was Calysus Flinias, of the noble house of Fliniance. He was the second son of a New Ghiscari Pyramid master. He had no place in the inheritance, as his elder brother had already wed and birthed a pair of twin sons before he was conceived on his father's third wife. He thought to become one with the sword and travel the lands selling his blade, earning renown and glory that he would have not had by law.
The noble's eighteenth nameday had passed several months ago, as he had told Tyrion. He had been preparing to leave his isle home, taking the life that he had wished. But he heard of the dragon queen, and New Ghis raised its legions. He came with their host to win gold and glory at the gates of Meereen.
"When the war was won," he said,"I'll claim my fair share of Meereenese gratitude. I'll form my own company. Perhaps the name the Second Sons will do, and we shall surpass those men of dishonour. It is an apt name for the heir that wins his own fortune, and we shall win the name truthfulness and honour once more."
It would seem that the boy's father had wisely urged the legions' leader to look out for this green boy, for the noble whined ceaselessly of how his orders seemed to always place him out of the line of battle.
It was the only chance that had led Tyrion into his net, and the noble was all too glad.
"Too glad," he thought,"and joy opens mens' mouths. I would never have found this trove of gold if the master who captured me knew to keep their lips sealed. I hope only that Mormont does not wound this boy's pride and ruin this farce. "
Taken from his dragon queen at the last moment, with the city's walls in his eyes, he had fought fiercely to break free. The New Ghiscari had been instructed to capture, and only kill when necessary. Mormont had broken free of the spear wall for an instant, as they withdrew their points so as not to pierce his neck. He drew his sword, and lived up to his house words. He stood, though not for long. It had taken ten men to subdue him, and even now he marched brooding in fury, glaring daggers as Tyrion and the boy conversed.
"Don't do anything," he thought again,"I do not care if the dragon queen takes you in, fucks you, or discards you, only that I would gain her dragons through you. If you would kill yourself, I would not care. I might even welcome it as just recompense for the ill hospitality you allowed me as your prisoner. But if you raised your hand to a master, I would most like be lynched beside you."
The young master had invited Tyrion to walk alongside him though the dwarf was his prisoner.
Tyrion gazed at the golden banners that adorned the New Ghiscari camp. They were many, showing their might to their foes, though these camps were empty.
"For hands of gold are always gold," he thought in amusement,"But a woman's hands are warm. So are a dwarf's. My hands are warm. In the summer heat of Meereen, you feel all the cold. Here, you can shield yourself from the winter winds, the blood and the steel, when you could not in the Seven Kingdoms."
"Yet my hands are warm," Tyrion thought,"In this heat, you feel the cold, but not my warm hands wrapping around your throats."
The mocking voice of that dead singer felt warm now, though it might have been the Meereenese heat.
"A woman's hands are warm," the true words came back to him.
"She was not a whore," he told himself,"not a whore. Jaime would not lie. Shae had been a whore, but my maid that was as fair as summer was never one. Her hands were warm, but so were Shae's. The true whores all caress me with warmth, so that I cannot find my wife. Where do whores go? Are the dragon queen's hands warm with the blood of dragonfire, or was it cold as my father's. I touched his hands once, and know how it feels. That blood spilled black on the privy in the dim sheen of the moonlight, stained with all the graves that scream his name. I can touch his blood within myself, though why does my skin feel as warm as spring? The souls of the Blackwater would cry my name as loud as Castamere would cry his. Every lion was the same at the core, black and cruel."
"What of this dragon queen?" Tyrion wondered,"No conqueror is not also a butcher. Her blood was traced with the ashes of half the souls of Slaver's bay, her cities company with the razing flames that raised her reign. A dragon's soul may be flame, and its scales may burn, but its blood is as cold as any other beast. The brighter the flame, the colder the heart, for it burns all the longer, and slays all the more. A dragon's heart is as cold as a lion's. As cold as winter. As cold as snow. But that would suit my purpose. Cold mates with cold, as my gallant brother and sweet sister proved for me."
"As cold as a whore," Tyrion thought,"So whores do go to Meereen. Whores go to Meereen, whores become queens, and a queen's hand is always cold. So is her other Hand. As cold as gold and steel."
The hosts in these camps had marched to war, and many tents bore no inhabitants. But perhaps it was supposed to be so. He saw no remnant from the morning cookfires that would surely be still spouting black tendrils. He did not see the frequenting of serving girls and boys, as well as the guards that were left to garrison the camp. He could not see any master leading a reserve line of slaves to join the battle. He did not see any that he saw in the camps of his father when his host marched to battle.
"This is a ghost camp," he thought,"A mummer's host, erected to make the numbers of the New Ghiscari seem larger than they truly were." It was almost truthful, for the trail that they trod bore the prints of many men, and the green grass that had otherwise grown lay filthy and beaten.
Vultures, however, flew above them, breaching the secret that the camp held.
No vultures flew above the centre of the eastern slaver camp , which lay upon a sheer cliff. It lay afar, for they had only entered the outskirts. The camps housing the masters were shielded in their flank by those of their legions and in the west by the rocks.
Ser Barristan would have been unwise to assail them here, which was perhaps why he had thought to strike at the south.
"The east has not joined," Tyrion thought,"If they join, then Ser Barristan is sure to fall. If Ser Barristan falls, Meereen will fall. If it should yield to the siege, it should fall into the right hands."
It seemed that the city was doomed to fall, yet that did not mean that the dragon queen's cause was done. A game had to be played with the city's conquerors. There were already rifts in the slaver alliance, held thinly by their fear of the dragon queen. If the city fell, the rifts would divide the conquerors into scrambling for the spoils. Meereen's fall would mean that the power of the conquerors would be broken. This enemy would be destroyed, and the city could easily come back into the dragon queen's hands. Thinking back, Tyrion wondered if it was best that Meereen was conquered.
"Which would make the weakest conquerors?" he thought,"New Ghis. They are at odds with all of Yunkai, the Lhazareen, and even Volantis." If New Ghis were to take the city, then it shall surely plunge into anarchy. From its ashes, his dragon will rise.
This camp was empty, but Tyrion could see that it had once been glamorous. Not as the camp further east, which he could watch from afar.
"The slaves' camp," he thought. His father's army had oft as many camp followers as they did soldiers.
"Cooks," he thought,"Pages. Smiths and Crofters. Servants. Washerwomen. Whores. Our slaves were much the same, though my father's were told that they were free."
A startling crash disrupted their march, and they heard chains rattling again.
He did not search for another excuse to tell the boy,"Mormont chose quite an opportune time."
What had plagued Tyrion since his capture was how to meet the New Ghiscari lords. Tyrion knew that all lords were proud, and would only agree to meet someone of much the same rank. Tyrion needed to seem a lord himself. It was not difficult to pretend to be a master, for Tyrion had been raised the son of Tywin Lannister. Tyrion was Dnomea Ragahv, a wayward Yunkish lord who took offence if men commented on his height. Ser Jorah's outburst gave Tyrion another chance to prove the truth of his word. "What better way is there to prove a lord than commanding one's servant?"
He turned to find the knight thrashing again, bashing two slavers to their knees as three more struggled to contain him. They dealt several blows to his gut, though a bear does not fall easy, and only when all five of his captors restrained his every limb, beating him all the while, did he lie spattering on the earth. Blood was scattered over amidst worn bits of tattered cloth. The sun revealed the black bruises that had begun to form on Mormont's tattooed cheek and under his right eye. His left arm was a patchwork of blood and linen, with yellow pus flowing from open wounds. He lay kneeling, puking the bile of his morning meal. His captors edged their feet away from the growing mass of stinking green moss, but kept their arms on Mormont.
Tyrion walked before the knight, glaring at him with what was sure to look a furious glance. He shouted gibberish at him, and hoped none here could understand true Ibbenese. When the knight raised his head in confusion, Tyrion pretended that it was the New Ghiscari boy's, and slapped him as hard as his bound hands could allow.
"I'm sorry," he added in Dothraki. That phrase was the only phrase he had bothered to learn of that harsh tongue. It was for the case when he might accidentally offend one of the horselords should he have met them, but the words worked just as well here.
With the knight's eyes in utter confusion, Tyrion shouted with a tone even greater than before, uttering nothing but more mangled gibberish. He added some Valyrian words for good measure to deceive the boy on this show. Words such as "slave","city, and "horse". He slapped Ser Jorah another time, this time with much greater force.
The remaining captors were pulling him away in an instant. He soon saw the amused eyes of the boy.
"I have figured that you speak true, my friend," he spoke callously,"You are a master. A Yunkish master, and I have finally caught a golden batch."
As the boy delighted in his realization, Tyrion widened his eyes in mock horror.
He could hear the clamour before he saw it. As he drew closer, For a moment, Tyrion thought that he was back at Joffrey's wedding, though he was glad that his nephew had not returned at similar revels.
The masters' camp looked to be in the midst of a feast rather than a war. Amidst the shouts of drunken men who gambled and laughed, he heard the singing flute that would have been commonplace at a harvest ball.
He passed a pavilion hosting dozens of mailed men. Their weapons, however, lay abandoned to their side. They relished in their seats, enjoying their drinks and spectacle. One man who had only one eye and no nose told the others a jape. They all laughed. Slave serving girls made rounds refilling the cups that were exhausted. They seemed to forget that they might be called in an instant to battle. The war lay forgotten as they reveled in their pavilion with little sight of the distant storm. The spectacle had demanded the attention of their eyes. It seemed that the New Ghiscari had no less need of entertainment as the Yunkish. A fool and an acrobat put on a play, which many were watching as they reclined on the grassy ground. Far aback in the tent, he saw a troupe of dancing maidens, which saw the attention of many men.
"No," he thought as he saw one of the golden-clad sellswords rise and reach under a girl's skirt,"Not maidens."
The other tents were much the same, with only select soldiers gazing afar to the true battle. The sands were calm in the peace before the storm, and men had other desires than watching an empty field. Most of the others were too embattled in the fights of their own amusement to make note of whether their host shall meet victory.
Some in the camp had dug a deep pit and filled it half with sand. A fence had been crafted around it, where hundreds of soldiers loomed. Catching a glimpse through the thin crack that had momentarily appeared between two sellswords, Tyrion gained an understanding of what had drawn their attention. He saw a bloody lion chained to a post, facing a pack of ravenous hounds. Three corpses already lay beneath its claws, but the hounds still pressed forward together. The sun lit the blood that shone on the lion's mane. A distant dragon screeched, and they removed their glares for an instant. Then, they remembered their true foe, and the hounds snarled. The lion roared in response. The men watching were hooting, shouting their encouragement and their lust for blood.
"They shouldn't have been left behind," he thought,"When they have half a nose left, let them love blood again."
A group of young men turned and waved at the boy leading Tyrion. They all wore distinct patterned armour wrought with intricate designs from flowers to beasts. Their mail was arranged in scales that formed a cuirass, under of which Tyrion could see boiled leather. Some bore square shields, the sigils of their masters carved unto the wood.
His captor smiled, and waved back at his friends, answering in a tongue that Tyrion did not know. He spoke High Valyrian to Tyrion, but his home tongue was foreign to him. The New Ghiscari dialect of Valyrian bore the least semblance to High Valyrian amongst its bastards, for they kept to the Ghiscari manner. The nobles spoke in the more flowery speech of the old dragonlords, while the common men conversed in a more vulgar tongue of the local dialect.
They came at last to a great gold pavilion grander than all the others. Thick drapings covered the roof to shield the occupants from the Meereenese sun, its four sides open to the passage of messengers and servants. Four pillars supported the the wooden framework that formed the ceiling, their stone white marble. He saw that the masters had also laid the smooth ground with marble that showed their magnificence and opulence. A dozen banners lined the side of the pavilion from which Tyrion was about to enter, and dozens more lay blazing at its flanks. Above them all, on a great wooden pole, rose a shining Harpy carved of gold. Its eyes watched the distant dust rise, and its poised to fly. He gazed at the gold in a trance, and his eyes were blinded by a white glare that the Harpy wrested from the light of the sun.
A banquet was set within the pavilion. The masters erected one long table in which they sat and feasted. He saw the glimmering robes of the New Ghiscari masters, but also the shimmering mail of sellsword captains that had been also invited to the feast.
An old man with white hair and wrinkled skin sat at the table's head, his head bowed as he exchanged words with the master to his right. His shoulders seemed to sag under the weight of his mail, and his winged helm lay abandoned by his empty plate. The man he spoke to was young and dark-haired, his nose angular and his brows bushy. His face was adorned with a thinly cropped beard, and he looked to be around thirty years of age. When he creased his brows, the black hair came together to form a single dark line. His tone was clearly agitated, for his cheeks pulsed as his thin lips formed phrase after phrase. The old man closed his eyes, shaking his head. The man to the old man's left offered a word, but the commander silenced him with a glare and a curt command.
Tyrion saw that three chairs were empty, their occupants beyond the pavilion's shade. The figures conversed tightly together, pointing at the pinpricks of dust in the distance. They stood near the sheer cliff that plunged into a hundred feet drop. The sun burned behind them, and their shadows were short. Tyrion could scarcely see his own, and it barely cast beyond his own feet. The grass that he trod beneath his feet could not be seen beyond the cliff. There were only harsh deserts that greeted the city and the beach. Nothing stirred in the far distance, for now the sand blended the distant light of the land and yellow sun. He saw the high walls of Meereen, but the sands blended them into the landscape as well. The lands between the city and the Yunkish camp lay as stark as the winter wasteland beyond the Wall.
"There were at least trees there," Tyrion thought,"The Haunted Forest was black against the snowy white. This land is only yellow. No, not yellow. Gold." He wondered if he should consider pissing off this cliff if he and Ser Jorah were to survive the first minutes with their throats intact. The figures near the cliff clearly had no intention of doing so, for their attention was demanded to more striking matters, such as the soon-to-be expanse of blood.
Though the banquet was rich, most of it lay untouched, the masters choosing instead to anxiously address each other in hushed voices. It seemed that the warm winds kept the food from turning cold despite the indifference of the feasters.
Golden plates bore the cuisine that was alike to that of a Westerosi king's. Tyrion thought that some of the delights would not appear even upon Joffrey's table.
Goblets of wine lay beside each master. Despite ignoring the food, they took sips of their drinks regularly. Slaves were beckoned to refill their masters' cups, and it seemed that their tones grew ever more agitated.
There were still men unheeding of the coming battle, and ate to their heart's delight. Each man had a silver cup from which they spooned salt to spill over their food. They reached for the courses, but their eyes would timely study the horizon as well.
The main course was a grand serving of roast duck, half-eaten by those who had the stomach. It was caught upstream the Skahazadhan, where he read that reeds and marshes adorned the shores of the river. One boiled brown wing still remained, and its scent drifted into the holes where Tyrion's nose used to be. The dish was decorated by slices of cheese and lettuce, though he could also see the dark glitter of spices that came from the east lands. Even when Tyrion was Hand, he had rarely been able to sample such in his meals. Only lords could afford the exquisite eastern commodity, and the War of the Five Kings had made it near impossible to attain. Here, perhaps, it was as common as bread and wheat.
He approached closer, and the scent of the duck faded to reveal an air of garlic. Two dishes decorated the flanks of the main dish. One bore rolls of spinach dipped in a thick sauce of which he did not know the name. The other was the cooked remnants of chicken that had been largely snatched by the few that ate, its taste sweetened by the honey that aided the taste of the spice.
Masters wiped their mouths with white handkerchiefs, and carved their fare with silver knives.
Two guards dressed in shining golden scales guarded the entrance of the pavilion. They bore winged designs on their helms, and wore golden cloaks.
"Are these their white cloaks?" Tyrion wondered,"Their semblance of a Kingsguard? Gold would not be the colour that I would choose. If I were to form my guard, I would rather that they not see the colour of their cloaks as the base of their honour. In King's Landing, the colour of the City Watch cloaks was all that made up their loyalty."
As Tyrion and his captor made to enter the pavilion, the guards crossed their spears to refuse passage. Some of the masters looked curiously to meet his gaze. The boy told a guard a message in New Ghiscari Valyrian, and the guard gave a nod.
He withdrew his spear to go over to the old man, and Tyrion saw the commander nod in approval. They were soon let into the pavilion, and Tyrion was led by his captor to meet his justice.
"I had thought," the old man said as the boy approached,"Young Calysus, that you had been assigned to guard the Shepherd's Way, and that your shift would not end until noon. Have you forgotten your duty?"
The boy answered quickly and plainly,"You also ordered, great-uncle, that I should come to you should any man chance upon the remote paths. I gave command of those rocks to my lieutenant. They are in good hands. I assure you of that. I did not neglect my duty."
The old man's face darkened,"Do not call me great-uncle, boy. Call me Lord Commander. In this host, by the Grace of His Eminence Lord Magistrate Allius Rongolus, you are not my brother's son's son. You are a soldier, and I am your commander. You swore on your honour as a New Ghiscari noble to follow any orders given when you begged to be allowed into this host. If you cannot follow the simplest of commands, then I would have left you with your mother and sisters. Tell me, why have you abandoned your duty?"
Tyrion saw the boy's eyes widen in fear,"Yes, Lord Commander."
"Good, young man," the commander continued,"Tell me why you have come."
The boy turned to Tyrion, and gestured,"I feared, Lord Commander, that you had given me a menial task, and that I would sit out this war without winning any glory. But this morning, these two men walked into my trap. After lengthy questioning, I have concluded that this is a Yunkish master, and the burly man is his slave guard. That is why I have brought them before you, as you ordered any noble captured would be treated so."
Some of the men at the far end had stood to see the boy's prize. All caught a glimpse of the dwarf, and all laughed. Some were bellowing with laughter, rolling backwards in their chairs. The old man's eyes narrowed, and he pursed his lips. The young man's face clenched in embarrassment, and his face turned a crimson shade.
They were laughing at Tyrion also, but he smiled. The young master would never have known what a dwarf had to endure his whole life.
"I have long since embraced that I am a dwarf," Tyrion thought to the boy,"Could you embrace that you are a fool?"
A single figure rose from the opposite end of the table and took quick long steps towards the boy. This was a much taller man, a griffin brooch pinning his mahogany cloak to his shoulders. He was much older, too, as he had already grown a full beard, though his face was still smooth and brown.
He grabbed the boy's shoulder,"Caly. I know you hunger for glory and honour. I, your brother, have known that once. Our father and our valiant grandfather who was Lord Magistrate twice, have known that once, and were as rash as you are. I had been rash, and tried to rush into every war as if it were a game. This is not a game. Our father was a fool to be moved by your words. He should have never sent you to accompany our host. An unlearned boy has no place here. A host is only as strong as its law and efficiency. It is only as strong as how willing its members are to share truth and honesty, to cooperate in a suitable manner. Please do not shame our family any further with your follies. Please heed my advice. Check this impulse, and return to our father's Pyramid in our golden city. This is a war too great for green boys. You will learn your skills as I once did, fighting in lesser battles. Safer wars. You need not seek to prove your worth here. Lord Elisus departs our host on the morrow to report the tidings of our war to New Ghis. I can speak to him, and find you a place on his ship. Please heed my words, and go home."
The boy cast his eyes downwards, but raised it soon after with renewed defiance.
"I tell only the truth," he spat,"This is not the fantasy of a child seeking to capture a lord."
"Then who is it?" a sellsword captain bellowed between fitful guffaws,"This is no Yunkish master. More a Yunkish fool."
Tyrion decided that he should relieve the boy of his torment. After all, he had been a gentle captor.
"I'll be careful on who you name a fool, my captain," Tyrion responded,"A master has a long memory, and a Yunkish one the most."
The sellsword made to respond in kind, but the old man held up a silencing hand,"You are no Yunkish. They care too much of their grace and dignity to tolerate a dwarf in their midst. Children born stunted as you would be tossed by their mothers off the tips of their Pyramids to preserve the honour of their families. But you are a lord, that much is clear, or once was. It would take no less to have the young man believe that you are a master. Tell us the truth, dwarf, of who you are, and we may spare your neck."
Tyrion laughed inside. He hoped that the New Ghiscari masters had ears as polished as the Westerosi lords to bear the burden of a speech worthy of a lord.
"I must first apologize," Tyrion began,"for the minor deception that I afforded the strapping young lord. It was to my greatest displeasure to dispense falsehoods from my tongue, for I had judged that he was a man of honour and valour. I must speak the truth that New Ghis raises its princes to be the greatest of quality, not only fair in tongue and face, but also not lacking in the disciplines of words and war. We spoke at length of the matters of you golden camp, and I had seen that his wit is uncommon. I have foreseen that he will make a great warrior as he wishes, if he has not the chance to serve in your city's governance. I fear that you have only leashed the deeds he may accomplish if you forbid him the chance to prove his worth. It would not do for a boy to not taste war's flavour but relish in its delights. There are much worse princes in my home, pampered from birth by their loving mothers but shielded by their noble name. They hunger for battle, yet are unblooded and know little of the way of man's beast. I trust that this young man would make a finer captain of men than perhaps even his great-uncle when he wears a white beard. Though he was of fine quality, I would still fear an unknown heart. A fair guise may hide foul intentions. I feared to bequeath the truth to a man that I did not know. But now I shall."
"It is true that I am no Yunkai'i," he continued, surveying the eyes of all the masters that had fallen silent,"In truth, I was never of this land. My home lies beyond the Narrow Sea, beyond the rocky shores of Essos. I am of the blood of the Westerosi, and in my blood flows flowers and steel. I am Tyrion of the House Lannister, Lord of the West. You may have heard my name in the rumours that have breached the east. I have come to serve the dragon, so that she may depart Slaver's Bay and win her rightful throne in the Seven Kingdoms. There is only one mighty host that I would think to plead aid to my cause. I have come to the New Ghiscari, and received quite an ignominious welcome. But I shall forget it, for my mission is far more important. Ser Barristan's force lies outside the city, to engage the Yunkish. The city is open for a ready master to claim. If you secure the city, and make her realm in peace, I may be able to convince the dragon queen to look her eyes west, and abandon this folly. I need to meet the dragon queen at a city of peace, and I ask your aid."
"Well damned me," the same sellsword captain spoke,"if he truly was a lord. I would not think that anyone lesser could speak those flowery words. How many dwarven nobles are there?"
"Only one, I believe," a black bearded master said," He was one of the sons of their great houses. I heard he killed his father and his nephew, and fled his home. That man is named Tyrion Lannister."
"You are dragon men?" the old man asked.
"Yes," Tyrion spoke through gritted teeth,"but we need not be your foes. It is inevitable that she would need to depart the Bay to claim her rightful throne. She would leave its governance to the masters that aided her the most, and helped her make peace. You cannot slay a dragon, but you can befriend it. Let it leave your lands to your rule."
The old man studied him carefully as his father once did, and Tyrion felt a shiver crawl down his spine.
A man in faded blue robes spoke in agreement with Tyrion's words,"Lord Commander. The dwarf's words ring true. We have this chance, and we may storm the city walls while it is still lightly defended. We may claim Meereen for our own, and all its gold as well. The Yunkish have proved that they could not be trusted to divide our compensation. Lord Rongolus's position in the city already hangs at a thread. Last we heard, Lord Antigonius has been gaining support in the Noble Council after a long siege without fruit. He had refused our preparation for war, and it was only at Lord Rongolus's urging as Lord Magistrate could we have commenced our campaign. We cannot return to New Ghis empty-handed. We have spent too much on this war, from raising our legions, raising provisions, and raising sellswords. It cannot be used by Antigonius to say that our warmongering brought only bankruptcy to New Ghis, and was all for naught. If we were to return empty-handed, then Lord Rongolus would surely lose the Noble Council vote next year, and our heads would be sitting on pikes soon after. Our families have already declared our support, and we may lose all if we fail."
"The Prince has given his word," the old man replied,"Do not worry. We will have our gold. He will know better than to risk the wrath of the only men that shield his place beside that fickle tattered sellsword. Master Anlanq is with him, so he will not have any traitorous ideas."
"He's a Westerosi," the blue-cloaked man replied,"Their word is not to be trusted. Though Anlanq went with the messengers, taking two thousand of our own, we should never trust that they will stay loyal to our agreement. This prince could have swayed greedy Anlanq with gold, and turned him and all those swords against us. The signs grow more certain by the hour. That white flag the prince promised has not been shown, and none of our scouts sent have returned. Could this prince have joined with the Yunkish, and now seeks to destroy us? We should strike now, striking first so that no greater damage is done to our cause. We should start with this dwarf. He is Westerosi just like the prince, and they are sure to be in league with each other. I say we snip off that grotesque head of his, and storm the city in our own name."
"The Prince," Tyrion was confused,"Is this the spider I seek? He's a Westerosi. That is for certain. I have never seen such a bold spider before. No, the only spiders that dare to call themselves Prince are lords. This is a Westerosi lord, and I need see what he gives to the dragon queen. Why else would a Westerosi come afar to Meereen, if not to serve a Targaryen? I am too late for this game."
"What lord styles himself a Prince? " he wondered, and realized the identity of this lord,"Martell."
"Ser Barristan has not yet marched far from the city," the old man said,''We would be fools to try and storm the walls now. If he seeks to betray us, then he will soon find that he has no men to hold the walls, and the Meereenese have proved to be the bane of conquerors. Even if Lord Anlanq could be swayed, he cannot convince the whole host to abandon their home. We wait until the time is right. The Yunkish will send another messenger, calling for our aid. We will return with the same reply. We are not ready. They cannot risk a march if we do not march as well. We wait. When Ser Barristan meets the Drunken Conqueror, we strike. We wait until one takes the other down, and we take the victor. Meereen will open its gates for us, and we will have our gold. Once the Prince has his whore, we shall have our gold that is our rightful compensation. Lord Antigonius cannot utter a word if we have victory. We shall leave on friendly terms with the Meereenese, as we will be seen as the saviors of their city. Yunkai will never be able to raise another sizable host in months. In the lands of the Bay, we will emerge the true power. Astapor is ash. Yunkai is burning. Meereen is half-ashen shambles that would fall by any wind. Only we shall have the gold and the city to remake the trade in the Bay. New Ghis shall rise, and we shall by the Bay's master once more. Though this farce of this dragon whore was an unpleasant debacle, it shall make us great in the end. Sometimes, only a storm can remake an old world."
He stroked his white beard, and chuckled,"As to our guest, I have something in mind. Your tongue and bravery I give you, Lord Lannister. There are no craven kingslayers."
"If he waits to enter the city," Tyrion thought,"This Prince will sink his roots into it, and he will receive the favour of the dragon queen when she returns."
"There has been a recent war in our lands," Tyrion spoke,"a war of five kings.The Martells, the Princes of Dorne, never took a side. They sat out the war, until a victor emerged. This wisdom is of the prince that sits now in Meereen. "
A guard interrupted them,"Lord Commander. A Yunkish envoy has arrived from the high road. He wished that you would grant him an audience."
The old man nodded,"I shall grant it. Please escort Lord Lannister aside."
Tyrion found himself led to the side, and a glamorous warrior entered the pavilion. He wore a high-plumed helm sporting carvings of vipers. A reeking scent of perfume accompanied the warrior as he entered the pavilion. He was of a muscular build, and wore a haughty smirk.
He strode arrogantly before the old man,"Lord Commander. I come at you with an urgent order from the supreme commander. Our scouts have reported that Ser Barristan has marched to engage our host. We demand that your forces be prepared, to aid us in our struggle. You placed your men under our command, and we have allowed you time aplenty. Serve your command as you are bid."
The old man did not wince at his barbs, but rose. He grasped his hand. Tyrion saw some of the masters wrinkle their noses in disgust.
"My friend," the Lord Commander said,"Our forces have been assembled. I was about to send a messenger to report to Lord Morghaz. We shall join your host in battle, and we shall win victory over the dragon queen."
The perfumed warrior nodded,"Then I shall thank you, my lord. We shall greet you on the field of battle."
The Lord Commander nodded also, smiling warmly,"I trust it you have your command to attend to. If there is naught else, I shall bear you farewell."
"Farewell," was the curt response. The Yunkish warrior let go of the Lord Commander, turned, and left the pavilion.
As soon as his shadow departed the vision of the masters, the Lord Commander turned to Tyrion and Ser Jorah.
The night did not liberate him. He may feel himself whole again, abandoning what little remained of his flesh, but that was in itself another punishment. His dreams of late were livid, of times that came to him in a cloud of haze. The chains that bound his wrists to the wall had numbed him, so he never felt the pain. Lord Ramsay had taught Theon well.
He dreamt of the day King Robert's trebuchets had breached the walls of Pyke. For three days, the greenlanders had peppered the walls with boulders. Theon's father, Lord Balon, had ordered that all the women, children, and injured men be housed within the Great Hall, far from the threat of enemy fire. Even there, the continuous rumbling outside the castle walls had haunted Theon all childhood. No one could ever catch a wink of sleep, and each day more men were brought from the castle walls. Some were beyond rescue, and the remaining able bodies had others to attend to before moving the corpses. The rotten stench of dead men permeated the Hall, and he found himself as a child of ten namedays again, burying his nose in his mother's skirt. His mother, Lady Alannys Harlaw, had gently stroked and comforted him, though he knew now that her heart was elsewhere. Within two days, she would receive tidings that her son Maron's body had been found beneath the wreckage of the breach.
The sky was drowned in the smoke of the enemy camp, and it seemed that with each day that passed it became grayer than the last. At the day of the battle, he had not known anything but the occasional messenger's reports until they had ceased to come. His sister, who was two years his elder, was assisting his father as his cupbearer while he oversaw the siege with the other captains at the Watchtower. A day may have passed in the hall. Perhaps three. No one dared to open the gates and risk their lives.
When the door finally opened, Theon willed his old self to run, knowing what was to come, yet his boy legs did not move. An army of men entered, though he could only recall the faces of three. There was a fair-haired man who wore the surcoat of a lion, his armor glinting red and gold. Amongst the sombre mood of the Great Hall, he surprisingly wore a lighthearted smile. He whispered something, perhaps a jape, to the man next to him whose face he could not remember, and they had both laughed. The second face he knew from recent memory, although his black hair had still crowned his head at the time. His blue eyes and face of stone remained the same, though, stern and unforgiving. His mouth had twisted in contempt when he saw Theon's younger self. The last face was a man he knew well, his cold, grey, and northern eyes never straying as he snatched little Theon from his mother's grasp. The sight of his monstrous greatsword, while sheathed at the time, had scared Theon greatly, as he had thought the man had meant to kill him.
His mind recoiled."Was this his memory?" Theon wondered. The dream had felt foreign, and yet familiar at the same time. It was a forgotten time, yet it was his forgotten time. "This is the life of Theon Greyjoy," he realized,"the man that I am, the man that has returned. Theon, which rhymes with nothing."
Lord Stark met his eyes with his winter gaze, and his dream changed.
It was high noon, with the air heated and watery. Little light, despite the high sun, could penetrate the thick canopy of the forest, and much of his body was cloaked in shadow. The wood itself was alive, the various creatures' songs blending together to form a cacophony of whispers. He was wearing armor he no longer wore, riding a horse that he no longer knew. The memory began fluttering into his mind, and he whispered,"The Whispering Wood."
"That's quite an apt description," he heard another soft voice whisper," Perhaps I will have maesters remember this battle as such." A low growl responded to the voice. He looked towards the source, and there, likewise cloaked in shadow, was Robb Stark, the only brother he knew and his closest friend. He did not yet wear a crown, and tidings of his father's death had not yet reached his ears. Nor has he seen the horrors of battle and war. That was what they were, who Theon was, two young boys trying their hand at being heroes. Dampered in grey steel armor while sitting astride a handsome destrier, his body tall and strong, Stark was every bit the hero of the stories. Beside him stood his wolf, Grey Wind, and his retinue. Smalljon Umber, Dacey Mormont, Eddard Karstark, and others. That had struck envy in his heart. Robb would win honor and glory and be remembered as the hero beyond his years who struck down the enemies who dared to strike against his father. History remembers the deeds of kings and lords. Robb Stark would win the admiration of every maiden in the realm. Theon had consoled himself on the notion of being the Ironborn prince, and their future king. He had desperately wanted to be recognized, to be a great man of note, to be the Ironborn prince that would live on in name beside the Young Wolf in histories. He wanted to be someone.
Theon was never a Stark, not in heart, and he soon found that he was no Greyjoy either. He tried too hard to be both, and in the end he became no one. Glancing at Robb, he wanted to say everything that was in his heart, that he was sorry for all he had done. He wanted to say that if given another chance, he would have stayed, even if a thousand swords would have pierced him at the Twins. When he opened his mouth to speak, he found that his tongue was not within his control.
"Are you certain,"Theon had asked jokingly," that the Kingslayer will take the bait? We have been waiting here for half a day."
Robb had given him a stern look. His eyes were so reminiscent of Lord Eddard's that Theon had silently stifled a gulp of fear.
"What did I tell you, Theon,"Robb lectured, his tone quiet but hard as ice," about raised voices. We're not like to catch the Kingslayer if you alerted him to our presence with your needless shouting." His old self had begun to laugh at Robb's attempt at being his father, until he felt the gaze of every man and woman of Robb's honor guard upon him. To them, Robb's words were not japes. They were law. Even the eyes of Grey Wind were upon him, seeming to silently judge his unworthiness. "The beast was too intelligent by half," he had thought,"It is unnatural for wolves to seem as sensible as men." Theon had withdrawn, though, and obeyed Robb's order, muttering agreement.
Not long after, a messenger would bring news from the Blackfish, that the Kingslayer had descended into their trap. The Lannisters had shown up, decked in crimson and gold and arrogance. The Kingslayer himself had rode in the front, not even troubling to shield himself with a guard. When Robb gave the order to sound the horn, Theon would be one of the first to charge the lions, abandoning his proficiency with his bow. He knew that Robb's bannermen had erupted subsequently from their posts, but he wished for the glory of killing the Kingslayer for himself. Lannister had paid him no mind. When he came upon the company, the Kingslayer had slapped aside his shield easily, Theon with it, and he found himself engulfed by Lannister knights. He was salvaged from the Westerland blades by his fellow northmen, but they could not save him from the rising pit of jealousy as he soon found that Lannister had made directly for Robb. He had brushed Theon off as no more than a common gnat. Only Robb Stark had mattered.
He choked upon the memory as he found himself another horse, gazing at Robb again. He had betrayed the only brother he ever had, and for what, his petty pride. A thousand times he opened his mouth to shout that he was sorry, and a thousand times he found that his tongue was not his.
The dream seemed to freeze at that moment forever, one of the last times he and Robb fought together, forever amplifying the pain.
After what seemed like an eternity passed, the dream changed again. He was no longer on land, but under the sea. Schools of fish swam curiously around the foreign object, but when he moved they scattered. A mighty palace of stone sprawled before him, a maze of mighty towers and grand halls. The only light that he could see were the faint sunlight dappling the waters above, and torches of the palace that burned in water.
"I am dead," Theon thought,"Stannis had killed me, and those memories were only a vision of my failed life. The Drowned God's Halls lie before me now, as it did to my forefathers when they died. This is where I shall feast for eternity." He made to enter the palace, but the front gate was barred. The gatekeeper, he soon saw, was none other than his father, King Balon Greyjoy.
"Is my father dead?" he wondered. He could still remember the loathing look his father gave him when he first returned to Pyke wearing that golden chain, and his father wore it now.
"Begone," he father proclaimed,"You are no ironborn. You were raised by greenlanders, and you have become one of them, turning your back on your traditions and forefathers. Only true ironborn, those that follow the Old Way, are worthy of entering and feasting in the Drowned God's watery halls." As his father's voice dropped, a sudden change took hold of his body, and he found that he could no longer breathe in the sea. Gradually, choking, the image of the palace and his father's look of disgust began to fade. He tried to reach out, to push past his father and enter, but he was overwhelmed.
He found himself at last in a familiar place, a familiar hearth fire roaring and warming the hall. It was Winterfell's Great Hall, before it was burned. His home. He looked towards the lord's seat, and there he was, Lord Eddard Stark, seated beside his wife Lady Catelyn. It would seem that Lord Eddard was holding court. Robb and Theon had been required to attend when they were of a certain age. Lady Catelyn had not wanted Jon there, but Lord Eddard had insisted that the bastard had needed to come as well.
A realization came to him. The court was only set up in such a way as befitting Lord Eddard pronouncing judgement. Theon saw Maester Luwin seated on Lord Stark's left, his quill and paper ready to record testimony. Suddenly, he knew, as he found himself standing in the established place of the criminal.
"Bring in the accuser,"Lord Stark boomed. A man entered. "No," Theon thought,"it was not a man. It was a boy."
"Robb," he choked out. His brother wore a black cloak stained with blood. It might have been kingly once, but now its brooch was torn and its cape shredded. Several quarrels stemmed from the many wounds on his body. He could still see open ones from which oozed fresh blood, dark and endless. The boy's face changed then, as it was no longer the boy's face that he knew so well. It mangled into that of a wolf, red hair freezing into gray, yellow pupils eyeing Theon, and mouth opening in a snarl.
"You never were my brother," it spoke, voice low with a touch of a wolf's howl,"Bran and Rickon were your blood as well as mine. And you killed them."
Theon realized that the hearth fire no longer burned warm, and the chill of the North began to creep into the hall. He could feel flurries of snow kissing his cheek and exposed neck.
"I didn't" he stammered in reply," They were never...,"
"Kinslayer, Oathbreaker," the monster with the wolf's head spoke, its voice somehow booming with the thunder of what he imagined would be the tones of the old kings of winter."The wolf blood still runs strong, and my brood shall have their vengeance."
A familiar oily voice began to echo in his ear."Is that not true, Little Theon. The northmen will always despise you. You killed their precious princes. Come back to me, and be my Reek."
A myriad of voices rose, and his eyes, while he tried fiercely to close them, shone with all the men he had killed. Benfred Tallhart, Mikkel the Smith, the two farm boys, all the Ironborn of the Moat, the guards of Winterfell.
"Too many," he thought,"End it."
Theon jolted awake and found himself drenching wet. The clarity that persisted in this mind during the dream fell away, the drape on his broken body and mind continuing to their earthly torment.
"That was a waste of good water," he heard someone say,"A good kick to the had would accomplish the same."
"Anyway," he heard someone else reply,"the Turncloak is awake. Get him out of those chains. King Stannis says we're to break camp."
His vision corrected itself, and though his mind was still foggy from the dream, he could see the two men-at-arms peering at him. Both wore furs, which they huddled close against their bodies. They wore no helmets, and Theon could see their faces. A beard windswept by snow adorned the face of the first man, and Theon could not tell his age. His hair was either the color of straw or white, and his torso sagged as he sat on the wooden floor. The other man also sported a beard, though he was of much closer distance and Theon could spy that his was black. Both men were lean and tall, though he supposed men of lesser stature would not be assigned to guard a prisoner.
As the second man drew near, Theon saw the fur cloak give way and reveal the stitchings of the banner of a flaming stag and a red crab, sewn onto the forefront of his boiled leather breastplate.
"One moment," the man who was sitting said, fumbling with a package that Theon supposed were rations. He took a bite, looked as though he might spit it out, but ultimately decided to swallow. "For weeks," he complained,"we have been living off on this. Not even maggots could endure half-frozen horse meat for long. Even in this fur coat, I can feel the winter. And the northmen say that this is not yet the worst, only autumn. Old Loban, I heard, was found dead on watch last night, frozen to death. These northmen are a queer folk. I wonder how they stay the winter in these lands. Was King Stannis mad to march us here? He means to kill us all by the cold." He glanced at the package,"or by hunger."
The second man stopped in his task and turned to address his companion,"Do not speak ill of his grace. He promises that within a week we'd be feasting in the walls of Winterfell. We'd have warmth within those walls, and food aplenty."
The first man grumbled and wrapped his package,"I would hope so. Though King Stannis said the same before I lost three of my brothers beneath the walls of King's Landing."
"That was not a king's word," he heard the other man reply,"It was the Onion Knight's, who was nothing but an upjumped smuggler who won favor by kissing the king's arse. He was not no proper lord. I might even bet my sword that the Onion Knight was in league with the lions. Isn't it queer that he was the only one to survive the wildfire. It was his word at King's Landing, not the king's. It seems that the king has realized the ill counsel the smuggler has been feeding him, saw him for the spy that he was, and sent him away. We are led by sensible men now, noble lords that mean what they say."
The first man slowly nodded and pocketed the package. The second man turned back to Theon. His mind finally took in reality, and the weight of the shackles again twisted his wrist, rubbing the sore spots red again. He closed his eyes, and dared to try and venture again into sleep. Though his dreams made ill his mind even more so than his waking moments, it was a bliss in comparison to his broken body. Stannis had not given him anything to warm himself, as he was already a criminal marked for death. His jailor had taken pity on the wretched creature that was Theon and gave him a thin blanket. Theon squinted at his two new guards, and saw that the kind man was not among them, not that he would have remembered his face. The blanket had been taken away, he now realized, and he, for the first time since waking, did he note that the little heat within the cabin had given up its fight against the northern cold, much like Theon himself. Its cruel fingers seemed to phantomly caress his shortened stumps, his fingers, and ... he tried not to think of it.
"Help me,"a man's voice interrupted his thoughts, and he opened his eyes to one of the men towering over him. The other had begun to stand, and from his belt he withdrew the keys to Theon's shackles. He walked to Theon and held the key to the slot upon his left wrist.
"Do not struggle," he said,"I would prefer if we did not have to beat you bloody." The chain fell away, revealing a red patch of skin, some flakes already peeling off and revealing the gore and tissue underneath. It was quickly replaced by the shackle the other man held. The soldier unlocked Theon's shackle binding his right hand, and was quickly clasped again by the other man.
Even if Theon had the strength of his youth, he doubted that he would have tried to escape. Stannis, doubtless, like Lord Ramsay, would have dogs posted to catch him should he have ran. He did not know if Stannis took man's parts, but he did not wish to visit his wrath.
"Give him a cloak," a voice said, as Theon was pulled to his feet,"The king does not wish him to die from this cold." During his stay in the cell, he had little to eat save some stale horse meat and water the jailor gave him.
His legs, already weak from exertion and lack of proper rest, collapsed beneath him.
"Seven Hells," he heard a guard, perhaps the older, curse. Soon after, a mailed fist crunched into the side of his head, blazing pain flaring in his skull. Every instinct told him to scream, but he knew better than to cry out. Lord Ramsay would take more if Reek had screamed. For all he knew, this was another game that Stannis meant to play with his new toy. He lay on the ground, unmoving. He had the strength barely to raise his head, which he tried vainly to do, much less his heavy body.
"Well," he heard the other guard say,"His grace wanted him alive. You might have just killed him. I believe there goes our heads."
Theon whimpered, a pitifully small sound, but within the echoes of Theon's mind it may have well been a trumpet.
"We're very much lucky that he's still alive," he heard the same guard continue,"I suppose we may still have our heads."
"Hmph," the old guard grumbled,"How will we bring the turncloak to the king, if he cannot stand?"
"We take turns carrying him,"he heard the other respond,"Anyway, give him the cloak that I told you about."
Theon felt hands lifting him to his knees and a cloak of rough fabric draped around his torso. It was furs though, so he supposed that he would not freeze to death.
"Though that may be a more merciful end," Theon thought. He had received visitors from Stannis's men, and they had wagered in front of Theon on how long he would last on the stake. He had no doubt that this was the "warmer end" Stannis had intended. One of the guards picked Theon up and slumped him over his shoulder, as though he weighed no more than a burlap sack. Then again, perhaps he did. He felt his head bob in rhythm with his carrier's strides as they journeyed to the doorway. Upon opening the door, a gust of cold air entered the room, dampening the already sour mood. Theon felt his carrier's muscles stiffen in anticipation of the cold, and thought in bravado that perhaps his captor was shivering.
The snows crunched as the soldiers' heavy boots marched at a steady pace. His jailor had told Theon that his holding cell had been near the centre of the crofter's village, so he supposed that they would not have to go far to the place of Theon's execution, which he supposed was there.
It was obvious that the camp was in a state of turmoil, as he could hear many boots marching here and there. He had not the strength to look up. Soon after, he gave up any attempt at recognition of his surroundings and buried his head in the soft furs of his captor's cape. It could at least warm his face,even for a short while.
After time beyond Theon's knowledge passed, he felt his body lurch backwards and dropped to the ground. His vision corrected itself, and he saw that they were in the middle of the outer camps. They had left the village, and tents were instead arranged for Stannis's men. He saw the banners of white sun on black, and the mailed fist on red. "Karstark." Theon thought," and Glover. Some of the North stand with Stannis. Perhaps they did have a chance." Chiding himself, he did not want to continue the line of thought. It was treasonous talk, and Lord Ramsay would never permit it.
"Still, They cannot win. Lord Ramsay is too strong. TOO STRONG," his mind screamed at itself.
He saw soldiers of all motley, from boiled leather to full plate, some with helms and others caps, handling their baggage as they gathered their tents and loaded it upon wagons. He counted at least a dozen wagons and twice as many horses in this part of the encampment.
"They will all die," Theon thought,"Do they not know? I should tell them." Though he wished to open his mouth, no words came out of his parched tongue.
"It's your turn," he saw the guard who carried him pant,"He may not be heavy, but you try carrying him half a league in this thrice-damned cold."
"Can you walk?" the other guard asked him again softly,"We are not far from the king."
When Theon gave no answer, he sighed and moved to pick Theon up. He let himself be carried, and they began their journey again. Along the way, he saw the gradual flats of the village and its entrapment give away to broken branches, and ultimately the trunks of trees. It was the Wolfswood, he realized in a pang of memory.
Of all the men he had forgotten, one name could not be erased: Robb Stark. He, Robb, and Jon had often ventured into the Wolfwood when they were still callow boys. Young Theon had never wanted a bastard to accompany them; they were the trueborn heirs of Kingdoms. Robb, however, insisted that his brother come with them. And three they were, Robb and his brown destrier, Jon with the humble-colored grey steed, and the proudest of them all, young Theon with his magnificent white-furred mount. He rode upon the very same destrier against the Lannisters. It was one of his greatest regrets to not bring it to Pyke. Smiler was a fair steed, but only dimly comparable.
Once, when they had journeyed without supervision into the deep wood, young Theon had then thought of a foolish venture.
Lady Stark was originally opposed to them venturing alone into the unknown wild, but Lord Stark had told her that it was good practice for the future Lord of the North to know his lands. Besides, one day Robb may end up relying on himself, and it is better to learn skills sooner rather than later. It would also build bonds of friendship that were better nurtured if they were alone. He left the other portion of his speech unsaid in the boys' hearing, as he had secretly dispatched huntsmen to monitor the boys' activities, and intervene if any danger prevailed. It was most likely for this net of safety that Lady Stark conceded. It was, in hindsight, perhaps the best choice he could have made.
When they thought they were out of earshot of Winterfell, well into the Wolfswood, Theon prevailed upon them that perhaps they should, as Robb was heir to the North, visit his bannermen. They, young and foolish boys that they were, had not thought whether they had the necessary supplies to undertake such a journey, so great was their fantasy of arriving in a blaze of glory in Torrhen's Square or Deepwood Motte. Needless to say, as they had not even troubled to bring a map, they became lost in the Wolfswood, and if not for the Lord Stark's huntsmen, they may have starved.
When questioned by Lord Stark over the instigation of their folly. Robb had taken the blame, thereby sparing Theon and Jon the harshest of the punishments. This was yet another sickening memory that reminded Theon that he could never be Robb, and only follies and unworthiness came of the kraken's son.
They were never allowed to venture alone again until well after a year later, and no fond memory later in the woods could surpass his embarrassment. He was grateful that the cold made certain that his cheeks were already red, so they would not appear as such to any onlooker.
Thought his face was burning, and the Old Gods of the North did not seem to take pity on him. His captors wore fur-lined helmets as far as he could see, but nothing shielded his own head to the winter winds. The cold of the north had numbed his ears, and he thought, in his addled mind, that he may lose parts to frostbite. Another part of Stannis's game. No doubt it was. Perhaps it would be better anyway. If Theon could not feel, the flames seemed less frightening.
His captor suddenly stopped, and Theon was flipped over the guard's shoulder once again.
"Your Grace," he heard the guard say,"the turncloak, Theon Greyjoy."
"Lift his head," he heard a familiar deep voice say," I want to see his face, make certain that it is him." Theon felt a hand wrench under his chin and twisted it upwards. A gust of wind blew his white hair from his face, and revealed the sitting figures.
There Stannis sat, upon a hastily wrought wooden throne, his crown of flames resting majestically upon his brow. His face of stone did not change whatsoever, his eyes burning glares of dark fury. At his side sat, to Theon's surprise, a woman.
"Strange," he thought,"the jailor said that Stannis's queen did not accompany their host." Then, as sudden as a storm, a memory from another life began to form. "She had visited me once before, when Reek died and Theon returned," Theon thought,"I ought to know." He searched for any hints of her identity. She huddled her furs close around her torso, so any sigil that may bear a clue was hidden.
"Still," Theon thought," black hair, vulture's peak, dim remnants of freckles. That is someone I used to know." He remembered. He had spoken to her, knew her, before Stannis's men had taken him away. A thousand lives ago.
Yet all other men in this camp he did not. A hundred there may be, perhaps a thousand in the king's retinue, and several dozen commanders and knights. He felt every eye on him.
"Thank you for your service," Stannis stated," you are dismissed and may return to your posts. You are no longer needed here."
The soldiers nodded and quickly withdrew.
"Have you brought this traitor here to face justice for his crimes?," a voice called.
The voice opened a dam, and soon every man who stood within twenty feet began to spit insults.
"Turncloak."
'Burn him. The Lord of Light demands an unbeliever to bless our battle."
"Justice for the Stark princes."
"Burn him:
"Burn HIM"
"BURN HIM"
The chant rose, and Theon could see that it was the men that wore the banners of Dragonstone that led the chant.
"Silence," Stannis declared, and the chant froze,"the turncloak shall face justice when we capture Winterfell. Do not fear. I have not forgotten of the murder of the Stark boys. In the meantime, I cannot afford to lose him during the battle and have him escape justice, so I have arranged his stay with us as I oversee our assault."
"My lord," one of the knights said,"we must still give the Lord an unbeliever. He would not bless the battle otherwise."
"We have given him unbelievers aplenty,"Stannis spoke,"Did the Lord of Light bless the Blackwater? Aye, he did, and I thank him for his fires."
"Your Grace, but don't you see," a man with a bear sigil engraved on his banner said," that his sister might want to rescue her dear brother? My ladies would stop at nothing even if it were Ser Jorah."
"You presume too much," Theon heard that woman beside Stannis say,"Not every woman is as noble as your ladies. Ser Jorah, as far as I know, did not stoop to kill children." Theon's eyes were drawn to her, and she gazed at him back mournfully. Though her words held tones of jest, her eyes were not that of a fool. They were neither warm nor cold. Only soft pity poured from her pupils.
"Was that his sister?" he wondered,"Truly?"
Another clamour rang out among Stannis's knights. Most sided with the man who spoke, and the others remained silent.
"The King's Whore," someone shouted.
"KRAKENSPAWN"
"IRON SAVAGE"
That cry took hold, and soon the camp rose in chant once again.
"IRON SAVAGE. IRON SAVAGE. IRON SAVAGE."
"Enough," Stannis's words cut through the clamour, his voice seeming to be ever louder. Theon saw his grip tighten on his sword,"ENOUGH. There shall be no more squabbles. I will not have my men fight while the Boltons laugh at our mummer's farce of an army. There shall be no issue with Lady Greyjoy. I can vouch for her honor. That I can assure you."
Stannis rose, and raised his sword,"Lightbringer is raised to the south this day, to mortal wars and the clash of petty kings. But that is not the true fight, as the greater enemy lies beyond the Wall, Dead men, and greater magic that has ever been known. The Seven Kingdoms must unite, such will perhaps the smallest chance of our victory arise. Not under the boy king and his whore mother, nor the flayed men that had divided the North to the likeness of the days of Torrhen Stark. That duty I must prevail to take, and yet that may only come if we win this day. Yet how may the Seven Kingdoms unite, I ask you, if already under my banner a northman and ironman would seek to cut each other's throats."
His voice, beginning majestic and kingly, gradually saddened as his speech continued. His eyes, Theon could see, no longer burned with the fury that Theon had once seen. Theon looked in the direction of his gaze. They were on a hill, overlooking a lake and the tip of the Wolfswood. Beyond that stood the faintest designs of Winterfell's outer wall.
A day passed with Theon staying at the king's perch upon the hill. Time and again, messengers would arrive, bringing tidings of the various companies. Stannis would receive each, and sometimes send out his knights in detachments with a portion of his men. Theon, through the furthest vestiges of memory, saw the boy who was Theon Greyjoy do the same with another host of other men in northern armor whose names he had forgotten.
He found himself led by guards into a tent. He sat there furiously rubbing his ears with what strength he had left. No one ever came to speak with Theon. Even those who brought Theon his food, some helpings of meat and a cask of water, had left as soon as they dropped the rations at his feet. They wanted to do with a turncloak. Theon was inclined to agree with them. He wanted nothing to do with himself, either. Not even Theon's supposed sister had come to visit him.
Apparently Stannis had not wanted his captive to freeze to death before his execution, so he had given him a ravel of warm furs to cover himself with. They had not wished to light a fire, so, through the sliver of the tent that Theon could see, they made plans deep into the night by the light of Stannis's sword.
The ground was cold and hard, and his hands were bound, but it was much better compared to the cells that he had normally slept in. The night passed warm and dreamless, and Theon felt, for once in many months, truly at peace.
Morning dawned a pillar of light and life, as the sun filtered behind the tent flap when the guard woke him. Though he was grateful for the long-awaited slumber that his body sorely lacked, he half-wished that his soul had fallen into the abyss of release when sleep took him. It was the right hour to pass, when he was only ever truly at peace. A cough suddenly racked his throat, and a gop of phlegm became lodged in his airways. He felt his nostrils beset with snot, the waves of euphoria accompanying the dawn washing away mercilessly. The same fog that had seized his mind again struck away at the remnants of his sanity.
When he looked upwards, he saw the guard's eyes narrow in pity. He drew from his cloak a piece of cloth, ragtag and worn. It may have once sported an intricate design, but now it was an object of age and deterioration. "You'll need it," the guard said," when the snot comes. You are not the only man who fell ill because of this accursed cold. Get yourself sorted. His grace wants you to be present at the council."
Shocked by his kindness, Theon looked at the guard. "A southerner," he thought,"Stannis may have wanted to keep me alive after all. The northmen would surely slay the turncloak if they stood guard." The guard turned, but left the tent flap open. It had begun snowing in the night, and the open flap allowed for some flurries to settle upon his brow. Once, a younger Theon Greyjoy had marvelled at the sight of the northern wonders. Now, it only reminded him of old men, its colour the very same of the snowbeards near death. "Those near death," thought Theon,"one of whom was Theon Greyjoy, or whatever had remained of him." He shook off the blanket, then gathered it and wrapped it around his body as he rose.
He gathered himself, and rose to his feet. Hands upon the tent opening, he stepped outside, shrugging his furs close around his body. Near an inch of snow had pooled upon the forest floor, and his boots made wet squelches, his own prints adding to the ranks of the already blossoming maze of paths that Stannis's people had tread. A council was already arranged near the trunk of which they had planned the previous day. Their eyes, however, were not upon the map that was already arrayed. The gaze of all of Stannis's men were upon the direction of Winterfell, and the large snowstorm that had assembled before its walls.
"An army," instincts told Theon,"Lord Ramsay's army." A voice inside grew ever more fierce,"They cannot stay here. Could they not see that Lord Ramsay comes to take their heads as trophies? They must run."
"You must flee," he burst at Stannis,"His men number in the thousands, the bravest of the North. Lord Ramsay will defeat you and your men, sure as sunrise."
Stannis turned as his stone eyes met Theon's. The others turned as well, though their faces only betrayed expressions of mild to moderate annoyance.
"They should be fleeing," Theon thought,"Lord Ramsay will tear each one of the fools apart piece by piece, as he did with me."
Stannis's eyes glimmered with rage, but did not say a word, and turned again to face Winterfell and Lord Ramsay's army. The others echoed their king.
Theon sank with hopelessness, his knees crashing against the forest floor. The snow did little to cushion his fall, and his knees fell like stones onto the frozen soil. The pain did not hurt him as much as his sorrow racked his mind. He ignored the continuous coughs and sneezes that would occasionally burst from his nostrils and mouth. There was no hope for escape, as Stannis had made certain of that with his folly. He could only hope that a Bolton slew him before he could be delivered to Lord Ramsay. He gazed south, at the ever-growing mound of dust that was surely the forefront of Lord Ramsay's horse.
An army of fools. Those were the men arrayed before him. They did not know that the storm they were welcoming was their doom.
The storm drew closer, and he could see the outlines of some of the running and galloping figures. It became clear to him that Lord Ramsay's cavalry were chasing fleeing men, Stannis's men.
"That was Stannis's vanguard, most like," Theon thought,"and they were torn to shreds. They cannot hope to stand against the might of Lord Ramsay."
The encroaching storm drew closer still, and the fleeing men's banners were made clear. White sun on black. Karstark. Many of the men had been cut down by their pursuers, but the lingering portions of that defeated host still fled to Stannis.
The broken men drew closer, and so did the encroaching host. Two volleys were fired from Stannis's archers, the speed of their arrows helped by the northern wind.
"Too little," Theon thought,"Too late." The arrows did little to impede the progress of the Bolton horse, and their leader, seemingly seeing Stannis, raised his blade in rally.
Theon knew that armor."Lord Ramsay," he thought in fear.
Lord Ramsay rallied his cavalry and charged at the enemy commander, not caring to pursue the remaining broken men.
"Stannis has failed," Theon thought,"Lord Ramsay has won. He cannot escape now."
Stannis raised his sword, its fire as bright as a second sun. His knights drew their swords as well, and for a moment the singing of blades hung in the winter air. One of his knights dipped his banner in flame and heaved it upright. By the fierce northern wind, the flaming stag shone as clear as a new dawn. And the ice cracked, and Bolton's men fell.
In the fields below, his queen's host marched against the slavers.
Barristan often heard a certain jape from the lips of the queen's host. It was a common saying amongst the Ghiscari,"Never trust the Yunkish in battle, but trust them always in a siege." Their Yunkish foes were always more apt at sitting cushions than saddles.
He knew, however, that it was deadly foolishness to look down upon the foe. His fathers had learned the lesson from the thousand years when Harvest Hall stood unyielding upon the borders of the Stormlands, guarding the marches from the flowers of the Reach. Their thorns were as sharp as any sword once a man looked past the beauty. The Selmys, who had lorded those lands, had led the battle for as long as memory could serve. First against the Gardeners, and then against the Tyrells, the blood of the Reachmen had stained the soils of his home.
"If I had chosen to lord my lands after my father," he pondered,"and not accepted the king's grace, I may have fought them yet again, as a bannerman to Robert Baratheon. I may have won glory and a name for myself all the same."
"But not honour," Barristan thought,"It was for honour that I served my dragon prince. For honour I served his sister. For honour that I chose to take the vows of the Kingsguard so long ago. There was no righteousness, no justice, in serving a drunken fool."
If he was the Lord of Harvest Hall, he would be serving one of Robert Baratheon's usurper brothers. He would not have found a queen who was truly worthy.
The sigil of House Selmy was three stalks of yellow wheat, yet the men of House Selmy learned to reap as well as harvest as soon as they were old enough to hold steel in their hands.
"If I were a lord, and not bound to the vows of the white cloak, could I have had her?" his mind broke free to wonder for the first time in years. Her face was pale as moonlight, her hair black as a raven's, dazzling majestically as she laughed with her maids in that feast. It was the time when Barristan's hair was still spun gold. Ashara Dayne was only her likeness, her beauty only to hers as Barristan's sword was to the warriors. But even when he was old and not caring of such matters, when he had closed his eyes to all else besides duty, Ashara Dayne had drawn his sight as a locust to a shill of wheat, even if her beauty was only a fraction of his maid. He had hid her face away for far too long.
Barristan had refused to admit it all these years, that he had made the wrong choice. He chose his white cloak, and he could not stray from the oath that he swore to abide from the beginning of his new life until its end. His love was his bane. But he could not go then, no more than he could have deserted his cloak when he was young. Not when those dreadful wings came to bear black tidings. They could have spent their last days together. but Barristan had duty then. Duty to his Prince, duty on the bloodstained waters, and he chose not to go. He chose not to see her, not even that one last time.
Her face lingered still in his dreams, reminding him with a shimmering beauty as fair as sunlight dazzling upon summer grass. He could not face her gaze in his memories, so he hid it under another face. A face that was of similar beauty. A face that he could never have, but desired, so he would not think of the brighter star that he had grasped but forsaken. The guise that Barristan held for seventeen years will soon shatter. He will see his love again.
It was one month after his fifteenth nameday. His brother had styled him then the Golden Man, as he was Lord Lyonel's firstborn heir. His sword was renowned in Harvest Hall even before Ser Duncan gave him his honour. Every man knew of the promising knight that was dubbed "the Bold'' by the Prince of Dragonflies. Every maid wished herself to bed this noble heir, but his eyes were drawn to only one.
Old Lord Manfred, his mentor, had smiled, seeing his squire's eyes flit over, and told him to go.
His brother had japed as well,"If you would not take her, Barry, then I will be glad to receive your leavings."
"If I had not the love for battle and honour, and was wise enough to take after my father," he mused softly, the wind dry on his tongue,"perhaps I could have made true the love that we gave each other." He had never seen her again since that day he bade her farewell at King's Landing, for the Stepstones had given him a king to serve and an oath to hold. He had only the enamelled steel of his guard, and the embrace of his cold white cloak to bear him through his winter. He had only duty, and a command to take. It tasted as dry as the dust of Meereen.
In another life, Lord Barristan Selmy would have drawn his sword to face another host, though their banners would be green instead of gold. He saw the slaver banners, as fearsome and many as the Reach's host would have been had he accepted Harvest Hall.
He hoped that the ancient Ghiscari saying proved true, and that the Yunkish would fall as easily as the foes reaped by the Stormlander lords of old. But he knew that in the end, songs were tales, and true blood was true blood.
The sun glinted off the shields of his host, as it had reached its zenith. Yellow light cast out, which saw his men burn as golden as their foe. He felt soft crutches as his horse's hooves trod the sand, and heard the bells of his mount ring merrily. Barristan's long white hair flew outwards beneath his helm, and for a moment, in the gleam of the sun, he thought it too was golden again.
He thought of the ride upon the Stepstones, where both his glory and his doom had awaited. The ride that sealed his greatness, and the ride would seal his death, all amongst the soft crunches of hooves on sand.
"There will be many songs sung of this day, no matter the victor," he thought,"but I will never hear them."
He gazed at his squires,"They perhaps, will win glory as I once did upon these the same speckled slaughterhouse, and have a thousand bards brighten their futures with a thousand songs. Their time is still young, and can do so much else, and not make the same blunders that this old man made. When they are old greybeards, they may not ride to death but savor their last moments in the arms of their grandchildren."
"What songs will they sing," he wondered,"of the old knight on his last ride? Or shall they think of me as the fool who did not realize that he was too weak for his pride?"
Barristan remembered that first song that he had heard sung of him, when he had returned from the Stepstones to a city of joy, cheering the slayer of Maelys the Monstrous.
"They sang of many men that night in the palace," he thought,"Of Duncan the Tall. Of the White Bull. Of the winged twins of Skyreach that were the light of the Kingsguard before they died. But the man that they cheered the loudest was their newest hero. Their youngest hero. The newest Kingsguard knight, who was known by all as Barristan the Bold." He remembered that song. It began:
A man who was born from shadows,
no honour to his name.
He had won too much honour, laid too much glory to his name. For this ride, he could pretend to be that knight again, and slay foes as a man with no monikers to his name, and be a young knight one last time. To be that knight that knew nothing, whose honour was not tarnished with duty, who saw all that is lawful and good as what he had fought for.
"To serve the queen," he thought,"Barristan the Bold failed his king, but Barristan the Old will not fail his sister."
"My lord Hand," he heard Tumco Lho say,"Shall we sound the charge?"
Barristan watched the field below, where the Yunkish legions marched to array upon the sand. Grey Worm's Unsullied march opposite to them, their spears a forest in their shield wall, descending the string of hills to meet their foes. The Stormcrows held their flanks, adhering to their new command. The Widower had been made their new lord, much to his displeasure. Far in the east, the brown attire of the freedmen companies clashed humbly with the golden sand. They were to shield their flank against the forces of New Ghis that were sure to aid their ally. They would never be able to hold them, but they could delay them until such time as they could crush the southern Yunkish host.
Far on a taller hill, the dragon banner was raised high, for all within a mile to see. Barristan and his select company formed their reserve horse, waiting upon Valaena's Hill.
"No," he responded,"The forces must clash before we commit our reserve."
Barristan would not mobilize his horse when they could no longer surprise the slavers. That card of surprise had been played when Barristan sent the vanguard of Goghor's men. Barristan remembered that Goghor had set fire to the closest Yunkish camps, causing enough delay in the enemy ranks that gave Barristan the time to bring his full force outside Meereen.
He remembered as well the haughty voice of the envoy,"Know that for every master you slay in dishonour, two of your own will die. Every drop of golden blood is worth two of you common men. We are men of honour, but we are men of justice as well."
Their vanguard's fire seemed to have taken more than soldiers and tents.
The heads of Jhogo and Daario Naharis were laid richly on silver plates, burnished in mocking bronze glitter.
The former he had mourned, for he was loyal to the queen and had been her bloodrider.
"He would have preferred to die with Arakh in hand," he had thought,"defending his queen. His blood stains my cloak as the Queen's Hand. I shall remember his blood as I fulfill Jhogo's last duty."
He knew little of Dothraki tradition, but he had said a silent prayer to the Stranger to guide his fallen spirit to whatever lands the warrior desired.
But for the latter dead, he felt no tears, and breathed a sigh of relief. His blue beard had seemed to curl his mouth into a permanent sneer, as if to slyly say,"Ser Grandfather. You will join us soon, will you not, on this fine silver?"
It looked grotesque, but he was glad that it would never smile upon the queen again.
"This poison is gone," he had thought,"But how soon will another take its place?" The queen was still half a maiden, and he did not know how to shield her from her desires. For that, he as a Kingsguard had failed all his life, for every man he had served.
"If I had stopped only one," he had thought,"the Targaryens would still rule Westeros,and we need not dance with this pit of vipers in Meereen, but would have looked upon her brother Rhaegar on the Iron Throne, a rightful, valiant, and just man. The best man that I knew, and the best man that I served. The queen would have been laughing and dallying with her fellow maidens in the Red Keep, while the king and I looked from above, savoring the peace of the dragons. She would have needed not to play this game of thrones, in a game that I could not guide her, and her love would be to the man who was kind and true, a man Rhaegar would have chosen."
Barristan remembered his faults all too well in all the kings stood by.
Those were the times when the Kingsguard were still men of honour, when the fields of white were not yet sowed with the rotten seeds of men like Boros Blount, Meryn Trant, and Jaime Lannister.
Barristan had been Aerys's greatest friend. He was the brother the prince had said he never had, for he was the only white cloak who was of his age. Barristan had sworn in his heart to serve the prince until the end of his days. It was he that was trusted enough to stand guard over Aerys's door at his wedding night, since the Prince would only listen to his words.
He had to make certain that the prince would not be bold enough to challenge his father's match in a drunken stupor. Though Aerys had been displeased with his bride, he was still a prince before a love-struck boy. But he was also a warrior before a prince, and only Barristan could restrain his arm. It had been his duty, then, to see that the marriage was performed smoothly.
Only his most trusted Kingsguard had known who the young prince truly loved. Every other white cloak was a king's man first and foremost. Only Barristan had been a prince's man before the king's.
"And that has cost the realm dearly," he thought,"when I laid by my duty to the realm and the king for my brotherly love."
It was only Barristan who was trusted as company to the prince on his nightly trysts. Aerys had met her at a tourney, and was smitten with the maiden at first sight. She had been one of their guests, as the lady-in-waiting to the would-be queen.
King Aerys never loved his sister, but he did his duty with all due enthusiasm. Barristan thought that he must have forced himself to see his true love in his true bride, to see golden hair in silver.
It had been Barristan's greatest fault, though it was never his place to judge. The Kingsguard act only by their orders, and Barristan no less. It was his duty to never judge. He was bid to never act, and he never did. The Kingsguard never choose. They only serve. Jaime Lannister chose, and he was no true white cloak. Barristan would hide his mutterings behind his mask of duty, and made certain the seeds remained only seeds.
Barristan remembered the second verse of that song made of him:
In a dance that was spun of black drake and red,
and a choice that they told to this day
Barristan remembered his great-grandfather Lord Arstan Selmy, the Locust's Bane, who chose the black, and fell with the first Blackfyre at the Redgrass Field. He served the Daemon that bore the Conqueror's blade, but that king had not the dragonflame to make the second Field of Fire his victory. Their flames had scorched the fields, and the grasses of Westeros had turned red again. When dragons dance, it is the world that burns. Lord Arstan had burned.
His grandfather chose the same in the third dance of black and red, and he fell amidst a field of gold at Crackclaw Point, disguised as a common sellsword to aid the Blackfyre cause. His squire, who had been lucky enough to be captured and ransomed by a knight of seven pink roses, returned to Harvest Hall in disgrace.
The squire was an old man at Barristan's time, but still remembered, telling wondrous tales of how his lord had drunk with Bittersteel and King Haegon. Bittersteel was an old sour man, but he clearly had the respect of every sword in the Golden Company. Haegon may be the king in name, but Aegor Rivers was the king in truth. The Great Bastard had exiled himself beyond the sea, making almost every man in Westeros forget his name, to win his brother's son his rightful throne. He had groomed his brother's son across the sea, until he saw a king worthy to rule, and led the Blackfyres to Westeros again at the head of the Golden Company.
"The young king," he had said,"was wise beyond his years, trained in every art that a leader of men should be. He was fair and handsome, but not that of the pampered princes in King's Landing. He knows of the ills that befall the people, having lived amongst them himself. He has friends about him who would die for his cause, not just sycophants and lickspittles that would turn at the slightest wind. The dragon across the sea was truer a king than the one upon the Iron Throne could ever hope to be."
Barristan had chosen the red all his life. He chose red yet again, for the queen across the water over all the golden stags and the grey wolf.
"I chose to stand by the men that I saw fit to rule the realm," Barristan thought,"May the Crone see that my choice is not wrong again."
He saw afar the great black sails of the krakens, and he thought it ironic that the pirates were their ally. The men of the western coasts learned to shield themselves from the krakens that rise from the sea, but the Stormlanders learned as well. It was not Greyjoys that were commonplace by the Narrow Sea, but the pirate kings of the Stepstones and the Free Cities. Some raid bearing the banners of none, while others reave coasts flying proudly the banners of Pentos or Lys.
Still, it is not uncommon that an Ironborn galley would disguise themselves as a Stepstone pirate and reave the Stormlander coasts. They could not raid the west under the watchful whip of the king's peace, for the crown knew that only Ironborn would sail there. One can change, however, as ship's banners, and can don another set of mail, but it is the same that fights underneath the guise.
Barristan had fought Ironborn himself, leading the assault on Old Wyk in the Greyjoy Rebellion. Sailors from every generation would have had to answer the call from the crown at least once in their life to put down an ironman uprising. Though if a Stormlander village was raided by a pirate galley that was in truth a ship of the Ironborn, none could be done even if the lords knew. The crown would not risk another war for the sake of one village, and Greyjoys would say that not every captain listens to their laws.
"Pirate or Raider," he thought,"They are foes of the Yunkish. Foes of the queen's enemies, who I am bid to destroy. The Greyjoys swore to the Targaryens, after all. Let them come to aid our plight."
Though Barristan thought again of the mighty galleys that sailed the waters of the Bay,"Why would the Greyjoys aid the queen in Slaver's Bay? They were no close friends of the dragons, though they swore to be their vassals. Lord Quellon swore to the stag's banner. Lord Balon made himself king, I heard, and he has no love for the dragon."
"Perhaps," he thought in curiosity,"A sailor's rumor is not to be trusted, and the tidings from Westeros are not as they seem. Robb Stark is not truly dead. These are not Lord Balon's banners, but his son's that had taken his place. Robb Stark may have won the war, and sends Theon Greyjoy as an emissary to bring the dragon queen home. If he means to take the Iron Throne, he would need a dragon to cement his claim."
If it is so, then a bloody conquest could be averted. He had heard the Young Wolf was much like his father, and would make a much worthier consort for the queen than the likes of Daario Naharis. If the queen would grow to love him, then all is for the better. Then the Seven Kingdoms shall bleed no more.
It would have meant that the boy Joffrey had seen justice, and Lord Tywin was overthrown.
"Robb Stark would have cause to send men to the dragon queen. He is only one of the five kings to have such an aim. If he would be king, he would have cause to send Theon Greyjoy with the ships of the Ironborn to win the wolf king's queen."
"We could leave this folly behind," Barristan thought,"for the queen should not refuse such an earnest invitation. It would offer the Iron Throne on a silver platter." He did not think that the queen would love her throne of thorns in Meereen more than she would love a throne that was her own.
If the ships had come a month ago, perhaps Meereen would not have seen this disaster, and battle would not have been joined. The hour is too late now, for steel was already drawn, and the duel begins.
"This sally cannot fail," he thought,"The Yunkish must be defeated, and the armies of the slavers stayed another day." The Greyjoy fleet still saw no sign of victory over the Qartheen, and only if the field was won could they lend aid. If the queen's battle is won, then the queen's war is as well. Barristan would have to win it for his queen. They could not withdraw into the city. If they did, then the ships would be denied aid, and Robb Stark is not like to send another fleet if he heard that his friend sank beneath the seas.
He remembered the third verse of his song:
And doom was laid on his own hand,
a dragon's war upon the sands.
The Unsullied marched in lockstep, their shields raised high to shade them from the sun. Winter may be coming in Westeros, but in Meereen it was the land of ever heat. He wondered if it would have been preferable to sally north instead of south should ice have claimed the Skahazadhan.
It was always best to strike first the weakest link in the chain. In the slaver league, the Yunkish formed the encirclement to the south and the New Ghiscari the north and east. Of them, the New Ghiscari to the north were the weakest link. The Yunkish were too numerous, and the New Ghiscari to the east held themselves on high hills.
The New Ghiscari to the north were the weakest link in the slaver alliance, so Barristan would have preferred to assail them first before attacking the mightier strength of the other slavers. If the river could be crossed, then Barristan would have been able to dismember the alliance link by link, from the weak to the strong. When he assailed the north, his men could easily shield his flank, and he would have more time to crush his main enemy. In the south, the greatest fruit he could hope to pluck were to only injure the Yunkish, all the while with their flank a step from doom.
This plan for the north was a fool's hope, for the scorching heat still burned as fierce as the brightest summer in Westeros. Barristan could afford the luxury of taking his armour off, for he was far from the Yunkish bows, but he wore it for his men may be needed at a moment's notice. The heat often slew as fiercely as steel could in a long day at battle, but Barristan had braved worse times.
"In my youth, though," he thought,"when I trained in the dense and stifling grasp of a Stormland castle, under the watchful eye of Lord Manfred. I had lost that life when I became a Kingsguard. An old knight's strength is not that of a young man's, no matter his will."
The Unsullied did not have his luxury, though they only wore leather. Their shields served as much a barrier to the sun as it was to protect themselves from the steel tipped arrows that could easily pierce their light mail.
"Water," he demanded, feeling the thirst stiffen his throat by the long day on his mount. It would not do to fall to heat before Barristan met the enemy. He had already emptied his last skin. Tumco Lho fumbled within the satchel that he brought, and drew a waterskin outwards.
"Lord Hand," he said as he handed Barristan the water.
"You have my thanks," Barristan said, as he emptied a short swig of water onto his parched tongue. It healed the raw skin inside, and left a measure of coolness and comfort that was sure to be gone within minutes of the desert wind. He noted that his lips had grown cracked, and dry slabs were peeling at the edges.
"I have been too long in Meereen," he thought,"It is no place for Westerosi, particularly an old one." He closed his skin, it still holding much of its content, and fastened it on his saddle by his side.
One of the first lessons a knight learns in his youth is how to eat and drink in a battle. The shortest last for hours, and the longest days. One should never consume too much at one time, for they needed to preserve their strength throughout the entire course. Many knights put on a belly so they would not need the necessity of constant nourishment, and could fight all the while longer.
"They never put that in songs," Barristan thought,"Lords and maidens never want to hear of the fat and ugly true knights that were the bane of their dreams. Knights like Duncan the Tall were rare, to fulfill both the image and heart of what men commonly saw as the perfect man. There were men like Jaime Lannister, dampered in golden armour and golden hair. He looked like the statues of the Warrior come to life, when at heart his blade was as rotten as the cruelest villain." There were always men like the Kingslayer, knowing nothing of honour and duty, turning his cloak and his sword at the slightest whim. Those that forsook old loyalty as soon as they learned of the new, those that never knew to shield their honour until they fall, betraying all that their oath bids.
The songs had made Barristan himself more a warrior than he truthfully was. He was never the tallest, nor the strongest, perhaps not even the most skilled in the blade if he were to judge himself again against the others of his time.
"But I slew the right man," Barristan thought,"and the singers made me immortal."
He remembered in the next verse of the song:
His helm was forged of crystal hewn,
his pale cloak shimmered like the moon,
and light was cast from his white sword,
his white steed bore the silver lord.
Tumco Lho had opened his own skin and eagerly began to drink his fill. Barristan glanced at his squire, thinking,"He may very well prove himself this day, and not fall like so many others will. He will slay men that the singers will call monsters, and he will ride steeds that they will name the heaven's chariots. The men of the queen's kingdom will forget that he was still half a boy at the time, as the Seven Kingdoms have forgotten that about me. They may say the name Tumco the Strong in the same breath that they chant Barristan the Bold."
He could only remember moments of his faded past, as his boyhood grew more and more distant. In three years, perhaps, he would forget, if he lived to that day.
"But let Ser Duncan's spirit flow through me one last time," he thought,"Let me be a true knight as I die, shielding the dragons that he shielded to his last breath." He had only known Ser Duncan the Tall for a short time, but the truest knight makes his mark on every man he meets. The honour of the white cloaks lived through Barristan, and it is not in him that they will die.
Grey Worm's host suffered volley after volley of arrows, but their phalanx held. Their shield wall braced most of the storm, and only in select places where the arrows pierced the crevices in their line did any of the Unsullied fall. Some formations broke entirely in the forefront, but another took their place, and they continued to advance across the sands. If it were the Mother's Men, or any of the other freedmen companies, they would have broken already under the rain of the arrowstorm.
The Unsullied approached the Yunkish legions. They were a stark contrast. The Yunkish wore dyes and colours of all kings, from golden silks to crimson stains. Most of them were slave legions, and they laid bound together in lines of chains. Riders that were sure to be their captains rode from end to end of each legion, rallying their men. They bore many banners in their midst. A ship of flame. A giant man slaying a scorpion. A circlet of griffin and dragon, each biting the other's tail. The emblems may bore many colours but they flew solely on fields of gold. The queen's soldiers wore only monotonous grey garb, blocks of iron with slits of darkness where the spears of death stuck outwards. A banner-carrier would have broken their shield walls, so the legions of the queen bore no dragon.
The hosts seemed to slow as they approached each other. The arrowstorm had halted, for the Yunkish wished not to harm their own men. Spear soon met spear, and the shields clashed. The sands will soon find which legion was greater. The line of battle stretched for a mile,from the foaming waters of Slaver's Bay to the half-green plains of Angerou's Field. From his perch of the heights of Valaena's Hill, he saw only gold and grey thin.
The Yunkish outnumbered the Unsullied, and their line spread further outwards. The Stormcrows did their duty, and the legions that were to meet the Unsullied flank were soon met with the thundering charge of the sellswords. They soon forgot that they were bound together in chains, and collapsed in great heaps, forming little resistance to the thundering charge.
The Stormcrows remembered their orders, and only cut down one man from every fleeing legion. When they were tangled in a mass of bodies, their archers shot them down while they could not form a shield wall. The slaver flank was routed, and theirs was temporarily secured.
But he soon saw the slaver horse rise from the mists of the sandstorm, and the Stormcrows rode to greet them. They clashed in a flurry of banners and chaos. A dust storm began to rise on their battleground, and the sun's heat boiled all the more.
He gazed at the fields below, knowing that his time had come, and his hand must be shown.
"This is the time when my men may win the day," he thought,"or lose." As he observed the field, unease crept into his throat The sellsword companies formed most of the slaver horse. He saw the red cat of the Company that bore it on their banners, as vibrant as their captain's beard. He likewise saw the long-tipped lance of Gylo Rhegan's band. He saw a dozen more sigils, but two were missing.
"Where are the Second Sons?" he wondered,"Where are the Windblown?" They were sure to be held in the slaver reserve, so his last contingency will have to be realized.
He smiled bitterly, for he would be glad to be worthy of meeting the Kingsguard of old.
He could not dwell on such matters, for the time of his strike had come.
"Tumco Lho," he ordered, and the squire turned his head,"You shall bear the queen's banner. Make certain that it shall never fall unless you fall with it. Raise it high so that all may see her glory."
The squire received the banner,"Yes Lord Hand."
"Red Lamb," he called, and the other squire made to ride at Barristan's side,"Red Lamb. When our time comes, sound the horn of advance. It will now that we sound the charge."
His squire smiled,"Yes, Lord Hand, I shall."
Barristan nodded, rueing the hour the squire's lust would turn into fear, and he may run from the field like many others.
"I should not have kept them in the reserve at dawn," he thought,"I should have given them a taste of battle, and let them judge whether its flavour suits them. When blood and pus stain's one's mail. When you smell nothing but the rotten stench of the dead and dying. You forget everything about suns and smiles. You forget everything of song and glory. You forget everything of honour and duty. All you know is the man swinging his sword at you, and you swing your sword back to live. All you know is that you must kill another man, hoping that it will be your last and the battle will soon end."
There was one thought that preyed on men's minds during battle, and it was not victory.
Goghor's men had known a valiant end, those of the vanguard that he had sent first into the slaver camp. Yet it was death nonetheless, and those men would never see the fruits of their sacrifice.
Larraq brought him his lance, and he gripped the steel firmly.
He turned from his squires and looked upon his own men. They were what he could conjure to supplant his numbers, and all men that could ride a horse well formed their ranks. They had only a short time in training, but he could trust them more than the hearts of the sellswords. They were freedmen, and swore themselves to the Breaker of Shackles. The Queen's Men were a thousand strong, and as green as summer grass. They could not hold a line without breaking, but they were loyal men that looked to the queen as their mother.
"Only the best steel can make an anvil," Barristan thought,"but even the most rusted iron could make a hammer." These men could not be used as the bait that the Unsullied and Stormcrows would, for they would break almost instantly in the face of true blood. They were interlaced with Rakharo's Dothraki, though their leader Barristan had dispatched away to find the queen. All knew how to ride, and even the most craven squire may feel brave in a mounted charge with his comrades beside him.
"These are the queen's hope," he thought,"for they are tasked with the greatest duty. They will win this day."
Din could be heard rising from the northeast, and messengers had come, reporting of the fight that began. The New Ghiscari had come to aid their allies, and the Mother's Men with the other freedmen companies were beginning to give them battle. He had told the messengers what he himself doubted, voicing with certainty that all they needed to do was hold, and aid would soon arrive if they would buy Barristan more time.
They would certainly fall to the strength of the eastern slavers, but their sacrifice would win Barrstan's men the seconds needed to crush the Yunkish. They must take this chance now, for every second wasted was dearly paid by the blood of the queen's soldiers.
"We must do our duty as well," he thought.
He spurred forward, and turned to meet the eyes of his men.
"Men,"he cried, and the eyes of every rider were centred on him. They all turned to face the white-cloaked knight who burned with one last fire. Larraq shouted in translation, for he had the deepest voice of his squires.
"I asked you once to fight this dawn," he shouted,"and make the fires the birth of her grace's kingdom. You have fought well. I cannot ask any more of your duty. I bid no man to follow me now against his will. Many of you have seen the corpses of your comrades. Many of you have seen the might of the foe. Many of you will still break and run even when you have tasted battle only this morning, and you may still run even when we are on the brink of victory. The battle that I ask you to claim is more deadly than all the last tastes of blood you may have thought the greatest pain. This is the fight that would claim the queen's kingdom, the fight that will decide who stands victor upon the sands this day, and all the days after. The foe will fight with all their strength, for they know as we do, that whoever shall emerge victorious shall win the war. I would not bid you to fight, for even I know fear in the thought of bloodying my sword again. But if I shall need to face the alone, I shall do so gladly, for I know that even if I live this day and her grace's kingdom is in ruins, I shall regret to have never fallen for her on the battlefield, shielding her honour. I ask you to fight, to protect the free of the queen's realm. I ask you to fight, so that tales of your valor and honour may be told amongst the hearths of your children and your children's children, telling of the deeds of their fathers in the greatest war of righteousness. I ask you to fight, so that the Breaker of Shackles may rule and see her kingdom in peace. Our foes will not see true victory, for their soldiers are bid by chains, but I will only ask that you should stand at your own will. Under the might of the dragon's wings, I ask you to stand, not as the dragon's slaves, but as the dragon's men."
His and Larraq's voices echoed in unison, until a ragged cheer broke out amidst the men."Zaldrīko," they shouted,"Zaldrīko, Zaldrīko."
"Dragon," Barristan understood the meaning of that word, even though he knew little of Meereenese Valyrian. He understood their chant,"Dragon. Dragon. Dragon."
The chant spread like green fire, and soon all his host were cheering with the sound of thunder,"Dragon, Dragon, Dragon." They raised their lances to glint in the sun, and Rhaegal soared over their blades. The chant only grew louder. Tumco Lho raised their dragon banner, and the red three-headed wyrm swayed majestically as its black fabric rippled in concordance with its emerald likeness by the strong western wind.
"The Winds of Westeros," he thought,"The winds of all the knights of old, come to bless this old knight's last ride."
Red Lamb sounded their horn, and under the screech of the emerald dragon above, they rode to war.
He thought of the next verse in that old song:
And swift was his hooves, mighty his host,
That painted the fields with heaven's stroke.
Barristan never meant for his battle today to be a heaven's stroke, but the queen's beast seemed to follow their ride.
As sudden as a storm, a worry came over him. He had meant for his horse to be a flank, to not be seen. One would only need to look under the green wings, to spot the rising mound of dust that were the queen's horsemen.
"I did not mean for this to be a heaven's stroke," he prayed anxiously,"and the gods need not have the beast divulge our intentions."
Silver, the queen's steed, buckled as her fine hooves found crevices and pits. The slavers would surely see the man armoured all in white from helm to steed. They would know that it was the white knight Barristan the Bold, and he needed them to think so. Their trail would have been revealed to the slavers eventually, but the dragon had hastened that. The dragon had earned their foes several moments to prepare.
"If its fire could aid us," Barristan thought,"then I would not mind it as our companion, but it saves its flame only to serve the queen who is afar."
He cast all his doubts aside, for at this moment there was only the battle ahead to see. Dust rose from Silver's hooves, and he found his vision blur with the sands and soil of their storm.
"And in that storm," he recalled from the most distant of memories,"my silver flower." Those were the last words his love had given him as he bade her farewell at King's Landing, embracing his duty as a white cloak after the Stepstones.
"I shall see her again," he smiled,"I shall see her again this day."
But the kiss he felt here were not yet those of the red lips of his fairest maiden, but of the cruel winds of duty. He tasted that bitter taste again, and steeled his sword.
Afar upon the horizon, he saw the reserve of the slaver horse raise themselves in another storm. He looked to the side, where Banqo, his lieutenant, awaited his order.
"Go," he called, nodding while pointing his arm to the fields of death,"May the gods grant you victory."
Banqo spurred his steed to the side, and the banner-bearers that bore the heraldry of eight of the ten contingents followed, the horsemen assigned to them in their wake. Their banners were shorter than average, only tall enough so that their horse behind could see them. Eight hundred riders detached from the main force, and rode to greet their greatest duty.
Only two hundred followed Barristan and his squires, but they only needed to serve as a deterrent to the slaver horse until their own would rout the enemy infantry.
"Warrior," he called on penitently,"Sharpen the foe's sight, and let them see the white knight. Let them think to slay the enemy lord."
Every moment passed like honey dripping from its comb, and the heat of the sun grew all the greater.
He took a drink from the skin at his saddle, and raised his eyes to meet the foe's storm.
The storm did not turn, and rode forward towards Barristan, and he let out a breath. He glanced to the side. The battle by the bay had reached its apex. The cavalry of the Stormcrows and slavers lay in heaps of discarded mounts, mail, and large pockets of fighting men on foot. The battle line between the Unsullied and slaver legions swayed back and forth, no man's spears gaining the favor of the sand at their feet.
"They will soon wear the Unsullied down," he thought,"their numbers are too many." His own horse lay a mile away now, to the sway of only the gods and Banqo. He turned to face the oncoming enemy storm.
The relief that he felt wore away by the glint of enemy steel, growing ever closer. He lowered his lance, and his men did the same. A cheer rose among his men, heightening Barristan's own heart as he neared their foe.
"Dragon," they cried, and he heard the deep young tones of his squires among them.
"Dragon," Barristan shouted with all his might.
In Barristan's memory, the bard sang:
Of thundering charges, telling of heroes of old,
none have mustered the glory of the Bold.
Barristan could see the silken threads in the golden Yunkish banners decorating their lowered lances. He saw the broken sword of the turncloak Second Sons. He saw all the eyes of his foes, glinting with the fury that rivaled his own.
A fleeting moment of silence passed, and he knew battle once more.
He broke his lance in the helm of the first rider he met, the soul that he had slain soaring backwards to claim two of his comrades. A lance was broken against his own shield, and he staggered in his saddle. His old bones did not fail him, and he was able to wrench himself back into his seat. Barristan let go of the broken shaft of his lance and drew his sword, bashing another Yunkish rider off his horse with his hilt. In the corner of his eye, he saw Red Lamb dropping his own broken lance embedded in the torso of a brown-cloaked man, drawing his own sword.
Barristan raised his blade in rally, hoping that his white cloak was not yet stained by too much red blood to make it indistinguishable. Only his foes answered, and two riders approached. One's blade glanced off Barristan's shield, while Barristan buried his own between the man's helm and breastplate. The other missed Barristan's armoured leg, and cut a streak in Silver's flank.
His horse collapsed, and Barristan loosened his feet from his stirrups just soon enough to not be crushed under the horse's weight. He rolled to a stop, emerging decked in sand and soil. His face was streaked by dirt and newly spilled blood. In his white beard, he tasted and smelled a coppery scent. He spat it out.
A horse collided into his flank, throwing him to the ground again. As he raised his head, he saw a giant of a Yunkish man swing his warhammer to crush Barristan's skull. He rolled clumsily, tangling himself in the white cloak. He cut through the fabric with his blade, and rose, unheeding of the weight of his plate. The foe's hammer left a mark where Barristan had been, and he turned to find Barristan's blade in his throat. He fell as every other man, but his collapse raised another cloud of sand and blood.
He felt steel strike against his back plate, and he turned, swinging his broken shield towards the man's skull. The wood met bone with a resounding crack, and the man collapsed with a scream to the ground.
He suddenly found that he was in a sea of enemies. The nearest pocket of his own men that bore a dragon banner were several corpses away.
The bard's voice had awakened the battle again:
The roaring sun upon the sands shined great into the night,
to light the knight of greatest honour, and the monster of greatest fright.
"There were no monsters," Barristan thought as he swung his longsword two-handed to fend off foes from all sides. He cut one man's throat, red blood erupting from the wound.
"Only men."
He brought his blade into the chest of another.
"Only men."
The third foe that he fought was half a boy, his face young and green. His arm that clumsily grasped his sword hesitated to swing at Barristan. Barristan buried his own blade inside the boy's chest. Bile erupted from the boy's mouth, showering Barristan's face with its reeking stench. Barristan tore his blade out, and then wiped his eyes with his tattered glove.
"Only men."
His ears rang, but he could hear faintly the shouts of his men in the distance amidst the chaos of the sand-strewn field glinting in blood.
"Rally to the Hand," he heard men shout,"Rally to the Hand."
His sword was stained with the lifeblood of two other foes before he was swarmed by a dozen cloaks shielding him from the hostile blades. He fell to lean on his sword, the cuts in his legs taking their toll upon his strength. His head swam, and the tendons in his head stretched and tensed. Sweat ran in drivels, cold upon his skin, and the muscles in his arms and legs burned though he fought for only a short while.
"I am too old," he thought, as Larraq supported him. He breathed his exhaustion with ragged breaths. The Red Lamb was fighting amidst the throng of men, in a haggard line that was formed around him.
"Where is Tumco Lho?" Barristan observed desperately, until he found the squire's body on a hill of other corpses. A freedman whose name he did not know carried the queen's banner.
"His death may not have been in vain," he mourned,"if the plan will succeed."
He gazed westwards, over the field of blood to the beaches where the main line still held.
The final verse of the song sang:
He turned from his blood to the lands he made bliss,
To a hero's warm cloak and a maiden's kiss.
Barristan fought for the dragon queen, but he would never kiss her when he won her battle. He would not kiss any other women in his life.
"But there is one," he thought,"I may have finally been worthy to win her hand. By the halls of the Father, when my soul is judged, wait for me ."
Yet as his eyes found the field, he saw not his men triumphant over their foes, but in defeat. The great golden shields of the slaver legions looming over the corpses of hundreds of the queen's horses and men.
A sudden pain seized him, and he coughed, opening his eyes, to see blood upon the sands before his face.
"It was the chains," he thought,"They served the slavers' purpose. None could run, so they must fight or die. And they held."
Far in the north, Barristan saw the banners of the New Ghiscari rise, another golden beast that would catch the dragon in its jaws. They had defeated the freedmen companies, and the Unsullied flank was now open to their assault. The battle was lost.
Barristan had lost the queen's war. He had lost Meereen.
In the din of defeat, Barristan heard a horn screech.
Asha could see in the distance a dense black mass that was sure to be Bolton's host.
He's a fool, she observed, to make a second blunder so soon after the first. Stannis had shown her their stores, rather their lack of them, and the Boltons had already starved the host within an inch of its life in the northern wastes. To meet Stannis in battle was folly, yet it was not too late for the Boltons to retreat. Stannis's host was still far away behind the tree line of the Wolfswood. Even so, the Boltons did not fall back to their walls.
She knew it was unlike for her enemies to be starved, as Ser Marlon had told Stannis of barge after barge of food and wines and furs coming up the White Knife to replenish the stores of those in Winterfell. It had to be a trick, if their enemies would give battle when they held all the cards.
A stark realization came unto her, as she suddenly knew what had transpired within those double curtain walls. Roose Bolton would never leave the walls of Winterfell and seek such wild and rash a battle. There was little and less that she had heard about the Leech Lord, but it was that he was calculating and cold, as cunning as he was vile. The only cause for the Boltons to seek battle is that Roose Bolton was dead. Whether by Stannis's spies or the northern flu that came with the cold, it did not matter-it only mattered that his son the Bastard had command of Winterfell, and the Bastard made folly after folly.
The Bastard is bold, and means to flaunt his strength to all the North to command their fear. He gives Stannis battle, a great blunder. Had he not wished to destroy the king's host upon the field, the North itself would destroy it in due time.
"Is it the Bastard?" she asked King Stannis, flexing her wrists, glad that she was finally free of the chain.
He nodded,"This battle is the Bastard's deadliest gamble. That is why he shall be defeated. He has given me victory on a silver platter."
Stannis had sent the Karstarks in first, to lure the enemy into the place he wanted them to be. The Karstark lords had been false and made cause with Roose Bolton, and the ashes of them and their maester now decorated the stakes about Stannis's camp. Their men did not know of their treachery, Ser Richard had assured Stannis, so Stannis had made them prove their loyalty. They would strike as his vanguard, masking as Bolton's friends and luring the enemy into a deadly advance.
"Ser Corliss," Stannis commanded one of the knights by his side,"Rally your men, and ride to Ser Richard. Tell him to sound the advance of our infantry. Skirmish the enemy down with our longbows. Do not worry of their answer. As the northmen have foretold, the north wind is strong this day. If the Bastard seeks to attack with his heavy horse, your knights shall counter his charge, shielding our infantry as they march to form their line. He is certain to attack, as the Bastard is nothing but bold. Let the Bastard come to you, and when our forces clash, our aid will come. Victory shall be ours."
"Aye, Your Grace," Ser Corliss responded,"I shall vanquish the enemy in the Light of the Lord."
"This may very well be my last battle," Stannis answered,"and the realm's last battle as well, for if my host falls, none shall stand against winter's blade. If Ser Richard is to be slain, the command shall pass to you. If you fall, to Ser Godry, and if he falls as well, then to Lord Brandon Norrey. If you should all be slain, then we have already lost, and I shall lead my reserve to give battle personally. If they are to win the day, they will not rest until they slay the king, and we cannot escape their light horse that would be sure to give chase. But should we be defeated, I shall use my death to dissuade them from further pursuit, and the rest of my host would be hundreds more swords for my daughter to shield her claim until Ser Justin can return from across the sea."
A raven landed on the branches of the pines above them. After it loosened its bowels on an unsuspecting young knight under it, it called in a high-pitched croak. "Sea," it cowed, repeating Stannis's last word,"Sea, Sea, Sea." A quivering gave from the strong wind that buffeted the pines, and the raven fluttered again to find a safer lodge.
Sea, Asha thought the ravens were mocking her, but soon she found that they were praising her, for she found her sea in Winterfell.
The raven's crows were soon drowned by the shouts of Stannis's men, of "Azor Ahai" and the "Prince that was Promised". Those were the names of the prophesied heroes of the faith of the red god, as most of the knights present were among the followers of that lord of light.
They seem to think that their hero is Stannis, she mused. She was inclined to think the same. It did not matter if he wore a thousand monikers from a million men, only that he would be godless enough to win over the priests of the sea.
Stannis drew Lightbringer, and it shone with an unearthly light. His knights drew their swords as well, and for a moment, the singing of blades hung in the winter air. One of his knights dipped his banner in flame and heaved it upright. By the fierce north wind, the flaming stag shone as bright as a new dawn.
Ser Corliss Penny departed, his knights cheering their Lord and his mortal image Stannis Baratheon. There would not be as many knights as Stannis would have liked, as horse meat had been their only rations for days.
As Stannis's blade remained shimmering like a second sun, Asha thought that she saw the Bastard's host quaver and freeze in fear. Then, she realized it was because of the hail of arrows that sprouted from within the forest, lancing through the air at the Bastard's host. The host answered with a hail of their own, yet they were blown their own way by the wind and landed harmlessly in the snow.
Stannis plunged Lightbringer into the snow, the Old Gods parting to allow the blade its place. As bright as it glowed, Asha half expected it to radiate heat and melt the snow it touched until naught was left but water, but it did not. It sunk into the white, its shining blade covered with crystal flecks.
Asha looked at Stannis's face, the light of his crown and sword no longer lighting up his face. It was lined with a hundred wrinkles, his face thin and hollow with his skin seeming to have shrunk unto his bones. His beard was a mass of tangled curls, and it seemed only by his hairs did his crown stay aloft. His host may win, Asha observed, but he has already lost. It is for his daughter that he lives now, for his heirs and his kingdom. He himself had died long ago.
Stannis's men dispersed from the lofty ledge as soon as the first hail of arrows descended upon the enemy. They all had their duties to attend to in the battle. Only Asha and one other northern clansmen remained with Stannis to stand upon the snow, gazing at the enemy host. She knew why she was here, for she had no duty. She did not know why the other man still stood with Stannis.
"You may be wondering," Stannis said to the chansmen,"why I had not given you a duty in the battle. If the host falls this day, then I must need to have my will sent to my daughter, who will be the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms upon my death. I dare not trust it to any of my southern knights, as they know not how to brave the colds of the North. The extra swords my daughter could survive without, but this she must have if she were to be queen. If by any chance this army fails, you must find the swiftest mounts that we still hold, and make certain that these letters make their way to Castle Black."
He produced the letters from within his cloak, each bearing a red seal of the flaming stag,"I dare not tell you its contents in case you are captured by the Boltons. I cannot trust this to raven, as ravens can be lost or hunted. You are not to try to break any of the two seals until you reach the holdfast of Lord Snow. If you have any chance of being captured by the flayed men or cannot reach the Wall, slide your finger around the circle of the seal. It will burst into flame and crumple to ash within seconds. But that is only a last resort. When you reach Castle Black, and are greeted by Lord Snow, you shall declare my decree that his queen and heir must come to the castle from Eastwatch. Only Lady Melisandre, the woman in red if you do not know her, is capable of breaking the seal. She is to break the seal of the first letter and read it in light of an assembly of every man of note in Castle Black. The second letter you shall wait until Queen Selyse arrives, and give it to her to read privately. She is to make of its contents as she wishes. You are to take a company of men of your choosing, and Lady Greyjoy as well. Do you understand?"
Theo Norrey took the letters, then glared at Asha," I will take your will if the battle is lost, if that is what your grace wishes. But why should I take the krakenspawn?"
"When the first letter is read," Stannis responded,"you shall know. That is my will. Do you understand?"
"I had wished,"Norrey replied," to lead my kin in battle with the traitors. I wished to feel the head of a Bolton splatter at my feet, knowing that with each man I killed, I would be one more step closer to avenging Owen. I had wished to tear down the Dreadfort brick by brick, and when it is reduced to rubble, march to the Twins and do the same. The North remembers, and there are still true men in the North, who do not forget that it is Starks who are lords of Winterfell. Since you have found Arya, I had thought to fight for her to the end. But if it is Your Grace's wish that I deliver the letters to Castle Black should this host be defeated, even with the krakenspawn in tow, I shall."
Asha cared not to hear her insults, and turned her ears away from their words. She had heard of many such words from the knights of Stannis, so much that it had grown commonplace. She saw nothing to do until Stannis's host either won or lost the battle.
At the very least, Stannis had ordered the clansmen to take her as well. She worried about Jon Snow, who would not take it well for a kraken at his castle, believing that Theon had murdered his brothers. He did not know the truth. Even if he believed that she had brought Arya to him, one girl would not replace two boys, as her father had proved. That path was closed to her, so the only path remaining was the Bastard in Winterfell. It was mayhaps better to deal with him than with the Bastard at the Wall.
She supposed that Theon would die, and gulped. She realized who will have to do the deed.
Theon is already dead, Asha prayed, This is no murder, only a mercy. The Drowned God would not look upon it as a kinslaying. The alternative would be to leave Theon to the mercy of the flayed men, a deed she was loath to do. She prayed that a northman, if Stannis should fail, would find the courage to slay The Turncloak.
"Your Grace," she heard another voice say from Stannis's perch. She looked back, and saw that the clansman had left. A young knight stood in his place.
He spoke,"Do you believe that we could truly trust the mermen? They were Bolton men, and there is no reason to abandon their masters. We still have hundreds of men that make up our reserve. I say that before the mermen could betray us, we strike their camp and neutralize the threat, so that our men upon the field could triumph against the Boltons."
The knight who spoke wore the mud-strewn surcoat of a green turtle upon a faded green cloak. Ser Ewis Estermont, if her memory served her correctly, one of the grand-nephews or grandsons of the Old Turtle himself.
The Old Turtle was the moniker that the Ironborn gave Lord Eldon Estermont when he had still commanded the fleet of the Stormlands. He had been one of the ironmen's deadliest enemies in her father's first failed rebellion.
The Craven Turtle he was named for a time, as he was the man who led her nuncle Victarion's fleet into the straits of Fair Isle by feigning defeat and cowardice. It was there where Stannis and Paxter Redwyne surrounded and crushed her nuncle's ships. But that name proved only an insult given by defeated and bitter men, for two weeks later, Lord Estermont led only small portion of the Royal Fleet to defeat her nuncle's Rodrik's attempt to relieve the Siege of Pyke with the last remnants of the Iron Fleet. His nuncle had blockaded Ironman's Bay with a good portion of his fleet, with lost ships from other battles strengthening his host, but he was still defeated by the shores of her father's island.
The Ironborn ceased to call him the Craven Turtle, and due to his age, named him the Old Turtle instead. An insult by Ironborn tradition, as her men value the young and strong. But it was laced with praise as well, for an old captain is a captain whose ship never sunk, and whose glory was never tarnished. Her grandfather was not named the Old Kraken out of spite. Her father may have called him such out of hatred for his greenlander ways, but her father was a fool in all matters concerning her grandfather.
Ser Ewis was still a young turtle though, and looked nothing like a sailor, sporting a long and sinewy build. A sword hung at his side, intricately patterned with golden and silver-threads upon its hilt and guard. The knight wore no red that she could see, so she presumed that he was not a follower of the red god. If she were still a captain, and faced him in a raid, his arms and armour would be sure to be worth the labour of the iron price. For he was a young fool, bold and sure of his own folly.
"If the mermen do not mean to betray us," Stannis said,"then your attack would most certainly harden their hearts. You risk our entire battle with your foolish rashness. The Bastard has fallen into our trap, and that is his doom. That is how I crushed the krakens at Fair Isle and the wildlings at the Wall. You would unravel this trap as we fight amongst ourselves."
These guessing games were always the most tiresome for Asha as a captain. To judge the strength of a village is testament to an Ironborn captain's skill. To guess a crew's loyalty even more testing. She gazed at the banner of Stannis's stag, whose last cinders were melting what remained of the snow near the flagpole's feet. The cloth of the banner had served its purpose, having burned away. One of the knights heaved the now-empty pole off its crevice in the soil, and replaced it with another banner of a flaming stag, this one not given to true flame.
The young knight that had appealed to Stannis shook his head and descended from Stannis's perch. She saw the knight give her a strange stare, and then turn to his companions that extended their arms to point and gape at what would soon be a field of blood. The last of the Karstarks with their white suns on black had retreated back to their lines, melting into the folds of the Wolfwood.
The Wolfswood itself eventually gave way to the flat fields around Winterfell. Asha stood upon a hill to Winterfell's northwest, and she saw now the true bulk of Stannis's host issuing from the folds of the wood. Banners of the flaming stag flew, and here and there she could see others. They marched as any greenlander host would, orderly and slow. A red crab, a green tortoise, a blue sailfish, three golden buckles, a crow in flight, and many others adorned the southron knights as they marched. Of the northmen she could see a mailed fist, a chained giant, and an iron tree. The clansmen served as Stannis's true vanguard, themselves bearing no banner except a few bolts of cloth. The men in the front carried heavy ironwood shields that towered of equal height of a man, a courtesy of the woodmen of Lord Forrester. Horns blew, and the remaining knights of Stannis reared their horses in anticipation of their battle. The host stretched for several leagues, and this was only the pinprick of their assembled might.
Stannis's men, Asha knew. They were her men as well, should Stannis win the day and see her upon her father's seat. She saw more emerge from the forest as the first began to organize their ranks. Messengers would timely come to Stannis from the host below, and Stannis would send them back with his orders. A figure was riding amongst the host below, which she supposed was Ser Richard Horpe, whom Stannis had given the command.
As they marched, hail upon hail of arrows sprung out of the Wolfswood onto the enemy host, and she saw it writhe in agony, turning in upon itself.
She saw some of the knights that called themselves the queen's men array themselves on the ledge of the lower hill and raise their arms in prayer. One amongst them was the loudest, a red-caped knight named Ser Raymond Fell. Most of the queen's men had left with Ser Corliss, as they were not only the most holy, but also Stannis's most skilled knights. Ser Godry or Ser Corliss would normally lead the prayers, but now they both led companies of men on the battlefield.
"Lord of Light," Ser Raymond Fell boomed,"Shine your holy light upon your humble servants and bless their sword arms with courage. Smite the enemies of your devout with your heavenly strength, as you broke the ice and slew the men that sought to slay your chosen king. Rust their blades, and make heavy their hearts that are infested by gods of darkness and evil. Shine your holy grace upon this battlefield, as your servants beg you, for the night is dark and full of terrors."
His voice's tone was swiftly carried away by the strong wind, but his companions took up his chant and echoed the words to boom upon their hill,"For the night is dark and full of terrors."
"May the Lord bless us," Ser Raymond continued, and the hundred cloaks that were the queen's men rose. They lit their torches, but the wind blew south, and Asha was still cold.
Those that did not follow the red god looked on in silence, and Stannis stood unmoving to the prayer that besought his supposed Lord, eyes centring on his host's march. She did not expect Stannis to turn to her, sheathing Lightbringer that he had held in his grasp ever since his knights issued forth. The air darkened before them.
"Lady Greyjoy," he spoke," I suppose that your company is not distasteful. I miss the presence of my Hand sorely. I sent Lord Davos to White Harbour and treat with Lord Manderly. The fat lord was said to have killed him in order to kiss the feet of the flayed men. Lord Seaworth was my best man, regardless of what you might have heard from my other lords."
"I heard them say that your Onion Knight was the reason you lost at the Blackwater," Asha said,"He was in league with the Lannisters, and that was the reason he survived the wildfire. They say that you sent him away because you finally tired of his ill counsel."
"They resent him for earning his place with talents they lack, and they resent me for raising a smuggler to nobility, no matter how capable that smuggler may be. Not only did he always speak his truth, he made a welcome respite from the endless boasts of young cattle who think they are lions, and the braying of old mules that think they are wise men. Those are the knights that I bring from the south, and the northmen are not much better. They are bitter, consumed by revenge and mourning, either for their men that were slain in the war or the Twins. Bitter men do not make happy company. Nor sound company."
A gallop of a horse's hooves suddenly sounded behind Asha, and they turned to find a messenger bearing down on them. The messenger dismounted his horse and rushed to Stannis. The rider shot her a glare, and then bent the knee to the king.
"Rise," Stannis commanded, and the man rose,"What does Ser Richard wish to report?"
"I have come to report that all of our companies have marched successfully by your order, and all are fit for battle. But in many companies, there are men who have deserted their shields and banners, fearing to engage with the enemy."
"They will return after the battle," Stannis said,"None would survive two days in the cold without the supplies of my host."
"What do you command, your grace?" the rider asked.
"Naught as of yet," Stannis answered,"We will deal with deserters after the battle is done. What would be done with deserters that are caught now is for Ser Richard to judge."
"Aye, Your Grace," the messenger nodded, then rode off.
The clouds had darkened the sky altogether, masking any sign that the sun had risen hours before. The snowfall deepened, and the winds grew stronger. The banners of Stannis's host dipped as the banner carriers felt the stronger wind haul upon their strength. The host stopped and formed, and Asha saw the glimmer of the fletchlings of another thousand arrows fly towards the Boltons. The enemy finally formed itself up to answer with a hail of its own, but many of their arrows fell short due to the northern wind. Few in Stannis's ranks fell. But for the Boltons, the full wrath of Stannis's archers were visited upon them, and even though Asha could not see far due to the blinding snowfall, she believed that many of her foes lay slain by the bows. Their commander seemed to realize their disadvantage, and Asha saw Bolton's host advance to attack Stannis's men.
Asha saw below that thousands more of Stannis's men had emerged from the forest, the knights that bore once-bright armour now snow-covered. A silver coat covered the emergence of the host.
The battle began, and she knew that Stannis had the advantage of the defense. He will continue to have it, all the while shooting the Boltons with his bows. The bastard's blunder is great.
Stannis withdrew from his cloak another letter, this one's blue-green seal broken. He pointed southwest, to a section of the Wolfswood where Asha saw nothing. He handed Asha the letter with his free hand, and she took it. The seal was already broken. The light was dim, so she squinted her eyes to read the words. The print was rough and slightly unkempt. It was written with black ink, and she moved her head to shield the parchment from the flurries of snow that would otherwise land on the paper.
King Stannis," it read,
Your loyal Hand writes, and I must speak on the mission that you set me upon to win you the swords of White Harbour. I cannot say that I have succeeded, yet I also cannot say that I have failed. I have spoken with Lord Manderly, and he cannot declare for you in name, not whilst his son is held prisoner by the Lannisters. You might hear that Lord Manderly has slain me to please the lions and weasels, and hung my head and hands on spikes outside the city walls. I write to tell Your Grace that it is all a farce, and Lord Manderly is not to be held accountable for my death should you conquer Winterfell. The lord does not love the Boltons, and he means to declare for Your Grace as soon as his son is returned to him. That, and when I fulfill my mission.
There is another matter that Lord Manderly has told me. Brandon and Rickon Stark are not dead. Theon Greyjoy did not murder the boys at Winterfell. I journey to retrieve them, and Lord Manderly promises that as soon as his rightful liege lord is returned to him, he will lend you his knights. The North Remembers, and the hearts of the Northmen are true.
Signed,
Hand of the King,
Davos Seaworth
"The North remembers," she whispered.
"The North remembers to seek gain for themselves," Stannis said,"Manderly would never join me if Bolton's rule was not trembling. Bolton's hold on the North had been strenuous at best, and now it is completely broken. Manderly saw a greater chance for power beneath my banner. The glutton was wily, and kept my Hand alive for the likelihood that I would win Winterfell. It was wise, for he could now easily shift sides when he sees no future in the Bastard's cause."
It did not matter to Asha the reason why Manderly turned his cloak, but that he had truly shifted his allegiance. Yet a figure of doubt rose in Asha's mind even in this, and she remembered Ser Ewis's words,"What if Ser Davos was coerced by his captors to write this, to have you falsely trust the mermen?"
"He wrote this with his right hand," Stannis replied,"the hand of which I took his fingers, the hand of which most men would think he could not write with. I did suspect the northern lords of treachery at the time, but the following days proved me wrong. Manderly was the only lord to give me swords, but not the only one who sought alliance. If it were only one lord, I would suspect that it was Bolton's scheme. Yet there were too many that wrote to me, whether by raven or messenger or marks on Winterfell's walls. A league exists within Winterfell's walls. A league is as true as their goal, and that goal I know. Bolton made too many enemies usurping the north, and the house would inevitably fall. If it was not by my hand, then someone else's. Bolton's vassals see no future in following him to his grave, and so they seek another path of advancement. They seek me. I seek battle this day, when the enemy is divided. A swift stroke will bring me victory."
Asha turned below, and watched as the Bolton host approached their own. Upon their banners blazed the flayed man, the twin towers that were sure to be the remnants of the Frey host, and an array of banners from other northmen.
The hosts clashed.
As if in answer, a host of horsemen began to emerge from the Western Wolfswood. They bore banners of the white merman. But another banner rose in their midst, bearing that red dreaded sigil of the Boltons of Winterfell.
Panic seized the knights present at the hill, and they rushed to Stannis's side.
"We must mobilize our reserves and shield our flank," one said,"otherwise the traitors will fall upon us and all shall be lost." Stannis held up a hand, and they all fell silent. They watched as the hosts below engaged in battle, and Manderly's men filed from the trees. She knew their purpose, but Stannis's knights did not.
"We did not give the Lord an unbeliever," Raymond Fell spoke," and he has cursed us with treachery."
He raised his hand to point at Asha, and shouted,"Give the kraken to the fires, so the Lord may lift the curse."
He drew his sword, and steel sang as the other queen's men echoed him to draw their swords as well. They made to move on Asha.
"Sheathe your swords, or you will be branded as traitors for drawing steel upon your king," Stannis commanded,"I shall take it now that you are cheering my victory with your blades. Sheathe your swords. The god will have his due, but not now."
And am I to gape and be saved, Asha grimaced, like some weak and defenseless greenlander maid. She felt a sinking need for her axe. Stannis drew Lightbringer, and the tension seemed as palpable to freeze the air.
Suddenly, they saw the Manderly host hoist the dreaded Bolton banner up high. Horsemen approached it with torches, and lit the banner on fire. As the enemy's sigil burned, two new ones were raised by the knights. One was a banner bearing a flaming heart that was the stag of Stannis. The other was also raised, streaming by the north wind, bearing the likeness of the grey wolf of Winterfell.
"Ser Ewis," Stannis called, to a knight that was not amongst the would-be mutineers, and had drawn his sword to aid Stannis,"I give you command of my reserve. You are to aid the battle below, and support our host in wherever Ser Richard or the other commanders deem necessary for your forces to be."
"Yes, Your Grace," the knight responded, and left the hill to command Stannis's force.
Asha's cloak billowed before her, an expanse of black fabric. Stannis's line had held during the first Bolton onslaught, the northmen savoring their bitter revenge with their axes and spears. The only portions of the line that had shown signs of breaking were the lines of the southrons, but they rallied when they saw their aid. What reserves the Boltons had attempted to halt the Manderly charge were fruitless, and the charge thundered through the snow.
The snow tasted sweet on her tongue, a taste she had not the pleasure of savoring ever since her last victory at Deepwood in her father's invasion all those months ago.
The Crow's Eye, she hoped her uncle could hear her from beyond the grave, The kraken's due will be sowed. She would take for herself the Iron Isles that she was owed by the iron price, and his victory was now nothing but ashes that she would reap.
The men had begun to cheer, but now they felt their king's stone-cold gaze. Their words had been told as treason, and their eyes betrayed their fear.
"Come with me," Stannis ordered,"You have followed me far, but this battle is not yet at an end. Keep your steel sharp, for Winterfell is not yet ours, and we must look to the siege."
Asha watched Stannis and his men depart the perch, and looked in the distance to the battlefield. It was still a bitter clash, as the Bastard would not order a retreat. A line attempted to form to halt the Manderly charge, but they broke as soon as they saw the knights. The mermen collided with the unprotected flank of the Bastard's line. A rout ensued, and much of the Bolton line collapsed. She saw a few horsemen flee from the Bolton banners, riding for the gates of Winterfell. Men broke like a fleeing tide, and the remaining horse of Stannis began to run them down.
Though it was a victory, a soft taste of bitterness welled within her. Asha rued that neither she nor her Ironborn would have the glory of the battle.
There are still many fights to come, Asha knew. Stannis's war was far from over, and hers had just begun.
The cheers that Stannis had slain were revived as the soldiers in their encampment registered their victory. As the light began to break again through the clouds, the darkness began to be lifted. The raven once again landed on the pines above her after its lengthy departure.
"King, King, King," it croaked, echoing the soldiers' cheers.
Ser Richard Horpe was dead. It was said amongst the men that while trying to rally a contingent of broken southrons, a stray Bolton arrow found the gaps in his gorget, and he tumbled off his horse. The stampede of broken men trampled his corpse, if he were not already dead from the wound. The command fell to Ser Corliss Penny, who also fell in the midst of the Bolton assault. Though the knight was pompous and arrogant, Asha could not help but admire his valiance in those last moments when he caved in the skulls of several Boltons with his broken shield when he lost both his sword and his horse. Ser Godry Farring took up the command after Ser Corliss's fall, and rallied Stannis's remaining men to hold off the Bolton attack until the mermen could arrive. She would not be surprised if the knight also took up the name "the Boltonslayer" after the battle. The northmen fought more valiantly, and took the brunt of the casualties. The clansmen formed the vanguard, and so were hit the heaviest. Many of their chieftains fell, chief among them Hugo Wull who was called the Big Bucket, Amron Harclay who was named the Moontaker, and Torren Liddle the chieftain of the Liddle clan.
The northmen told each other the tales of the Liddles' fall. The chieftain had stubbornly wished to be placed upon the front line. His son the Middle Liddle joined him. Little Liddle would have accompanied him as well, if Old Liddle had not ordered that his youngest be placed further back to save his life. The Liddle and his son who had joined him fell to Bolton blades, but they both took at least ten men down with them. It is said that the Old Liddle had his arm cleaved at the shoulder by a sword, but still fought as fiercely as the savage creatures that adorned many of the clansmen armour and furs. He had taken the axe of his fallen son, having lost his own cleaving the mail of a Bolton, and wielded it one-handed. He fought until he himself bled to death from his wound. The clansmen japed that the Bolton cowards had cut a wide ring about his corpse until they were certain that the body would not move and the Liddle was dead.
Asha was certain that the youngest Liddle would have trouble reining in the clansmen that his father left him, as he himself avoided the chief carnage and thus won less honour and renown.
May their gods, she prayed, whether Old or New, bless their souls in the halls of their passing. And if some of them chance upon your halls, O Drowned God, you'd better find them a bloody place upon your banquets in your undersea palace. Her father might even approve of the men fallen today, having died in the manner an Ironborn were supposed to die, with blade in hand to win their kingdom a victory.
Stannis had thought to prepare a siege of the castle and assault its depleted forces the next day. But an hour after the defeat of the sally, a white flag was raised upon Winterfell's walls. She saw a raven rise from Winterfell's tall ravenry, and it looked to fly north. Asha could not guess its purpose, for the far north consisted mostly of Stannis's men. Stannis's archers did not seek to shoot it down, and it passed unmolested. The pink banners that adorned the walls were burnt or loosened.
The surrender of the castle may have been the work of Stannis's men that she knew now had already been disguised in Winterfell, or perhaps that of lords that had already turned or turned now when they knew defeat was certain. It was most like to be both.
Whatever the cause, Winterfell fell to Stannis, and his men had entered to secure the walls and keep to greet their king's arrival. They were to make certain that there was no treachery upon their surrender. When the banner of the flaming stag was raised upon the walls, Stannis prepared to enter his conquered castle in a grand ceremony. They had gathered what remaining horses and banners they could scavenge after the battle to create whatever procession they could. It was formidable, most of its riders blooded men, but there was no glory in their eyes.
Stannis rode in the front, his sword sheathed with his crown gleaming eerily bright. He looked the image of the greenlander Father come to life, with his black beard and glow of heavenly light. Ser Godry Farring, having distinguished himself in command, received the honor of carrying Stannis's banner at his side. A line of both southrons and northmen followed the king's wake, ordered in the presence of their merit upon the battle.
Asha was placed near the back of the line, as she had not fought, next to a red-cloaked young knight who had also stayed with Stannis during the course of the battle. A horse was given her, a black palfrey with white streaks running down its sides. Not as glamorous as her former dark courser she had ridden in Pyke and Deepwood Motte, but it was a fine steed.
They passed the field where the main battle had taken place, and saw there the array of broken swords, cloven shields, and desecrated corpses that were yet to be cleaned. Stannis and his banner-bearer dismounted for the king to say an eulogy to the dead, and there was silence for a long moment. It was at this time when the clouds had fully parted, revealing the sun shining in all its glory. The snows, both those clean and those stained with blood, shone bright with the sun's light, and she had to avert her eyes from its glare. Stannis and Ser Godry mounted their horses again, leading the line before her as it bent to meet the Kingsroad that would lead to Winterfell's northern gate.
The Kingsroad serves a king yet again, Asha noticed. Stannis may finally match his claim with his might, and march openly upon the road that was laid for a proper host. When his men hid in the Wolfswood, he was only another pretender to be brushed off by the men who held the Iron Throne. But now that he has won Winterfell and the North, he is a king. Their remaining able host had all rallied to attend Stannis's arrival along the sides of the kingsroad, and a sea of streaming banners and proud men greeted their king.
Stannis is a chaste king, Asha was amused, but a king nonetheless, and a king must have glory.
The horses that bore them halted, for her king at the forefront of the procession stopped so that Winterfell's surrender would issue from its gates and greet him. The Gate opened, and a procession of men streamed outwards. A banner of a crown above two axes hung from the banner of the man accompanying the lead figure.
Asha had first thought that the leader was a man, but a closer glance revealed to her that it was a lady. Other men followed in her wake, all of them on foot. She saw a fat lord struggle to hobble as he was supported by two servants. A merman carrying a trident flew above him, and she knew that he was Lord Wyman Manderly. She was surprised that the lord was still alive, having survived the Bastard's wroth that was sure to follow his betrayal. A servant held a stained bandage to his throat, so perhaps he did not leave unscathed. A tall white-bearded giant followed him, who towered above his companions, marching beneath a banner of a giant in chains. More and more banners emerged from the gate to accompany the surrendering host. One bore a chevronny of russet and gold, another a horse with a flaming mane, a third a grey hand on a cross of white, beyond them several dozen more sigils that Asha could not make out.
The lady leading the procession held in her hands a plate of sorts, which held an object that she seemingly wished to present Stannis as a gift. Asha squinted, and saw that she knew the shape, having won so many of the same trophies.
The bastard's head? she wondered, Or his father's?
The stream of men who sallied from Winterfell's gates ceased as the lead figure approached Stannis. The entire surrendering host knelt, and Asha heard the lady boom, her voice so great that even Asha, far from her, could hear.
Barristan knew of flame. He had been bid to serve the red dragon, who had all too much flame in their flesh. He knew of Summerhall, when roaring flares brightened the splendid halls as their light painted the skies in blood. He learned then that even dragons could burn. The fifth Aegon and his sons were all as true a dragon there could be, yet ash took their souls all the same.
He knew of the Mad King that Aerys had become, when pale shrieks of agony rang true against the slow sighs of the green death. He knew the heat. He knew the silence, as all Kingsguard had been bid in those last days before the dragons fell. They watched as their king did as he willed, hands gripping their hilts until they could not feel the leather. Yet none acted, for they knew that it was not their duty. No man dared to risk his wrath then. He knew of the helplessness, for mortals were not meant to dance with dragons.
He knew all he felt as dragons ruled war again. The world now was painted in fire and ruin.
His men had fallen. The battle had been lost. Barristan had grasped his sword, saying a silent prayer to the Stranger before raising it for what he thought would be one last time. The foes had broken their haggard line, and a flood of gold and brown had emerged to engulf them in their steel. The old knight had been ready to embrace his doom.
Then, he saw a dark dot appear against the noon sun, growing greater with each resounding pulse of his heart. Warm wind grasped his dry skin, and a shadow raised itself over their eyes. From the shadows, came wings, and searing flame.
Barristan remembered little of what had followed the fire. Cold seized his spine as the dragon scorched the sands before him. He remembered bringing his sword into his foes as he did a thousand times before, the dim screams of dying men, and a burning banner. A burning dragon banner amidst all the flame, where the queen's majesty crumbled into ash under the sun.
At the battle's end, what had once been many armoured soldiers were now piles of ash. Their battle had been a pit of chaos, so the breath of the dragon spared naught of friend or foe from the dancing flood of dragonfire and smoke.
Barristan himself would have stood in the path of death if not for one of his own men, a young freedman who pushed him out of its way. His saviour had then perished, for he had put himself in the fire's way in his act. Barristan was ashamed to have not known his name. That name would forever escape him, for the remnants of the man were only darkened ash.
"Unburnt," Barristan thought of the queen's title,"The fires may not harm her, but they still scorch us the same as other men."
For a moment, a blossom of hope dawned upon him.
"The only one that commands a dragon is the queen," he thought,"Has she returned? "
Yet as he raised his eyes to the skies, he saw not the black shadow that was the queen's steed. The dragon's scales glimmered emerald in the light.
"It is Rhaegal," his heart sank,"not Drogon. His back bears no rider. Why has he chosen to burn this small skirmish? Is it perhaps fortune that granted us this boon, for the queen's children are beholden to no man but her own."
He gazed upon the field, and knew that it was not fortune that prevailed. His men stood victorious in the field, though there were less than fifty left. They stood him, cleaning the rest of the foe. The dragon had chosen to burn all of them. The only fortune that came upon them was that they survived the skirmish in the wake of the dragon.
He saw still the distant clash, where gold began to triumph against grey. His own company had served well as a diversion, and their true force had struck the flank of the slaver legions. Though their numbers were far too great. Their flank had failed. The Unsullied were bound to lose if they fought alone. Their skill paled in the numbers that the slavers boasted.
Their last hope had been vanquished by the New Ghiscari emerging in the north, ready to strike their backs. Barristan had fought his hopeless skirmish in the hopes of winning the Unsullied time enough to break that main host so that they could face the other foe. That had failed, and the slaver legions had the Unsullied surrounded, doomed to crush them between their golden teeth.
Barristan's own victory did not matter, for he had known that his battle was inconsequential in the beginning. He had been prepared to sacrifice his own in the hopes of gaining the greater triumph. Yet the battle he wished to win had failed. The dragon would have done better to serve its mother by burning the greater golden legions. His hope turned to sand upon his dry tongue.
"Flame is not my friend," he thought,"Not even the Targaryens, the blood of Old Valyria, could wield it safely in their hand. Not even the queen could. I certainly cannot. These beasts are not for mortals to master. In the end, I still must win this day with the hosts that a knight may command."
"I have no hosts left to me," he thought,"A knight without an army had only his own honour. Honour shielded him from shame, but not from death."
He could barely feel the strength of Larraq holding him upright, and he turned to the city.
"That is all that remains of the queen's realm," Barristan thought,"I must hold it with all the strength left in Meereen to keep those walls until the queen returns. If she does not, then I shall die defending my duty."
Barristan saw Tumco Lho's eyes amidst the hill of corpses that the dragon had thought to spare. Far in the west, dust rode to blind the sun's shimmer. The distant storm felt like a searing poker, yet he was powerless to fight it. The tide of battle had turned against his men, yet he could not brave the torrent of doom with them. It had been his plan. His path into the storm. Yet others now fight the battles, while Barristan could not raise his steel to aid their strength.
"It was my will to march in a sally," he thought,"Their deaths are my fault alone. I failed all that served her loyally. I failed the queen. I failed my duty." The only path left to him was to hold the walls of Meereen, to hope beyond hope that the queen would return with fire and blood to vanquish her foes.
Yet the city was another battle that he had put to the side. He did not wish to meddle again in the schemes of the Meereenese masters. It was too alike King's Landing, where scoundrels prospered and the honourable died.
"It was never my place to be a Hand," Barristan thought,"The gods are loath to allow this knight to serve as a knight. Though perhaps I am too old to serve as a knight as well."
"I thought it my last battle," he prayed,"and was glad that it might be so. Warrior, why do you let me linger? Father, what is the price for me to meet my glory? Why can I not be with my men as they fell for me?"
"Lord Hand," he heard Larraq gasp,"What should we do? The foe is vanquished, but we have lost the greater part of our strength." He left the other half unsaid, as most there knew the fate of the battle outside the walls.
Barristan lifted his eyes to meet the bewildered gazes of all his remaining men. They were a haggard following, hardly numbering more than a score.
"Though I may be glad to die with sword in hand," he thought,"There is a greater duty, for the city must never fall. These are men that I could still save even if the others are lost. I may need to command a siege."
They had only these men now. These, and the Shavepate's. He would need to forsake all those that fought outside the city.
Barristan at last had time to take another glance at the mighty Greyjoy galleys that sailed the waters of the Bay, squaring against the Qartheen,"Why would the Greyjoys aid the queen in Slaver's Bay? They were no close friends of the dragons, though they swore to be their vassals. Lord Quellon swore to the stag's banner. Lord Balon made himself king, I heard, and he has no love for the dragon."
"Perhaps," he thought in curiosity,"A sailor's rumor is not to be trusted, and the tidings from Westeros are not as they seem. Robb Stark is not truly dead. These are not Lord Balon's banners, but his son's that had taken his place. Robb Stark may have won the war, and sends Theon Greyjoy as an emissary to bring the dragon queen home. If he means to take the Iron Throne, he would need a dragon to cement his claim."
If it is so, then a bloody conquest could be averted. He had heard the Young Wolf was much like his father, and would make a much worthier consort for the queen than the likes of Daario Naharis. If the queen would grow to love him, then all is for the better. Then the Seven Kingdoms shall bleed no more.
It would have meant that the boy Joffrey had seen justice, and Lord Tywin was overthrown.
"Robb Stark would have cause to send men to the dragon queen. He is only one of the five kings to have such an aim. If he would be king, he would have cause to send Theon Greyjoy with the ships of the Ironborn to win the wolf king's queen."
"We could leave this folly behind," Barristan thought,"for the queen should not refuse such an earnest invitation. It would offer the Iron Throne on a silver platter." He did not think that the queen would love her throne of thorns in Meereen more than she would love a throne that was her own.
He still had men under his banner, even though it was half-burnt and only two dragon heads remained. He still had his duty to fulfill.
"How many steeds do we have left?" Barristan asked.
"Four," Red Lamb replied. One of the horses that a freedman led suddenly collapsed.
"Three," his squire sighed. Barristan nodded, and gazed to the smoke-strewn skies above Meereen's mighty walls.
"Red Lamb," he ordered,"Take the strongest of the three. Ride to Meereen and report to the Shavepate to prepare for a siege. He may know of our situation, but you must tell so in any case. Return then with fresh steeds to carry us back to the gates. This battle may be lost but we still have the city's walls. We must sharpen our steel for a siege, and bloody again the blades that all of you have stained. When we return to Meereen, we shall deal with the war."
As Red Lamb rode off with a great plume of dust in his wake, he turned to his other men,"The rest of you, get to burying our comrades. Gather what you can from their corpses if you know them, and make their tombs as best as you can. We will not leave their bodies to serve as a feast for the vultures. We will give them a proper funeral once the war is won."
"The war is won," Barristan almost laughed at the absurdity of those words. Yet he needed to keep the morale of his remaining men up, else whatever strength they still had would vanish. His men nodded, and they began their work as Barristan bid.
However, he found Larraq unmoving. His squire stared into the distance, eyes glassy and empty. The fury that grasped him in the battle had faded.
"What is it?" Barristan asked.
"Ser," he murmured, calling him by what he was,"I killed a man. I felt his warm blood stain my hands, and saw the life leave his eyes as he grabbed at me. I wanted to help, but I could not think. I pulled my sword out instead. I did not think then, but after the fires died and that madness faded, I am frightened of his corpse. I am frightened of my sword where I hear his last gasps each time I think to grasp my hilt. Does it ever get easier? Killing?"
"No," Barristan said,"Not for good men. I remember in my youth, I fought in the war they called the Ninepenny Kings. I dueled their king, Maelys Blackfyre, the last of the false dragons who sought to usurp the crown of the sunset lands and that of my king's. The common soldiers in our host had named him Maelys the Monstrous, for they heard the rumours that the man had another head upon his neck, the remnant of the brother he consumed in his mother's womb. It had served to heat the blood of us young knights then, for we all knew the songs and tales of valiant heroes slaying monsters. Every one of us wished to become that hero. When I laid my eyes upon him, I saw that the rumours were true. But at the very end, when I looked him in the eye with my sword through his chest, I saw no monster. I saw another man."
"If you seek the answer of good men, then it is no. It never gets easier, not while you fight men. There are many false knights who slay as sport, though those few that are true slay only when it is their duty. They know that their hearts are true, and so they have the courage to raise their blades. It never gets easier, only that you know your duty, and what is right to hold to it."
Larraq nodded, and clumsily began his work.
Barristan found the body of his other squire lying amidst so many others that fought both for the queen and against. He said a prayer to the Stranger to bless their souls as they pass on, asking the Father to judge those innocent and guilty.
As he approached his squire's face, he fingered the dark locks that framed youthful features. He had been taken much too young. He should not have been, not while old knights as Barristan lingered beyond their life. Barristan wished that the Stranger would allow him to trade his own for this boy's soul.
The brown face was lifeless, eyes having lost their fierce gleam. Tumco Lho's fingers still grasped his shining sword as firmly as he had followed his knight.
"He could very well have been my son," Barristan thought,"in another world. I might have done my duty as a father then, as I did not now for that white cloak. Though even then, he would still have followed me to war."
Tumco Lho was always the closest to Barristan, as if he saw him truly as a father.
His squire had followed him, and died in his place. All for a cause that Barristan lost. He brushed Tumco Lho's eyes to a close. He was at peace with his gods.
Barristan had little strength, but he dug his son's grave. He would not let the vultures scavenge his corpse. As he dug with a spade and buried the fallen soldier, he saw a glimmer of light in the corner of his eye. He chanced a glance towards the seas where it shone.
What he saw froze his hand. The Bay was aflame. Sails collapsed and hulls broke as a dragon soared with wings of destruction. Wherever its shadow passed, fire and death followed. As he saw what sails the burned ships bore, his fingers tightened upon the spade. The purple silks of the Qartheen darkened to ash as they melted off the poles. The dragon had chosen only to burn their foes.
Aside the one Ironborn galleon that Rhaegal torched, the largest of them, the others emerged unscathed. Rhaegal had burned the slavers before, but he never torched such a mass. He thought again of how the dragon burned their skirmish, though it lay too far to attract its wish to burn. It was too organized. Too unlike the instincts of a beast. He looked to the east, but the horizon stood empty with no sign of resurgent wings.
"Not the queen," he thought. His heart then sank, as he knew the truth. The dragon had another master.
He saw the dragon lean its wings against the wind after it had set fire to almost all the Qartheen fleet, and it turned.
Towers of waves sprung as hulls collapsed into the dark of the seas. Wooden splinters and tattered satins were all that remained afloat, the last surviving sailors hanging onto their last thread of hope.
The Qartheen had denied the Ironborn the shores, but only their smoldering ruins lay now in the ironmen's path.
"How did Theon Greyjoy," Barristan thought,"come by the sorcery to master a dragon's will? Has Robb Stark found the buried writings of the Targaryen kings before the Dance? Is there a scroll in the Red Keep that tells on the hearts of dragons?"
"What will the queen think," he wondered,"when she sees that one of her children serves another banner? She is proud, though she had enough sense to share her power with Hizdahr zo Loraq. I pray that she shall see the same sense again. A king needs a queen, after all, and a queen also needs a king. Robb Stark is as good a man as there could be, and his lords sailed the distant waters to Meereen to offer her a throne. If he has won Westeros, there is no worthier suitor."
"It might be well," he dared to ponder,"that three dragons are not held by the same hand. She needs someone to rein her power when it needs to be reined, an equal. Though the man that thinks to rise as her equal needs to be capable. Only fire can dance with a dragon, as that Martell boy never learned. The young prince fell, yet perhaps this suitor shall rise to her favour. One beast is not too great a dowry when she has two more. Robb Stark shall prove a worthy master of a dragon, and perhaps even a balance necessary to weigh against the queen. It was a timely act for Lord Theon to seize that fire, for we had lost the battle. Without a dragon, we would have had only Meereen's walls. With it, we shall break all our foes as Aegon did at the Field of Fire. We shall claim victory this day, until the queen should return a city without the fires of war. When that time comes, the queen could sail contentedly for her throne, and I for my home."
He would not fall in a foreign land, having failed his duty to see a worthy queen upon the throne. When all is done, he would be a true Queensguard. He would be buried beside his fathers and past knights, worthy of being entombed in a grave of honour. The histories shall see that Barristan the Bold earned his name to the very end.
Barristan gazed north, where the New Ghiscari rallied. He observed that they halted their advance. They knew what he knew, that the queen's men had a dragon under their command. They would not risk the wrath of Valyria that had once trembled their namesake, an empire that far surpassed theirs.
"They laid siege on the assumption that the queen had lost her rein over her beasts," Barristan thought,"Now that her time of fire has come again, will they seek peace? When we sail for Westeros, we must stay the fleet from their isle."
He shook his head, and saw the New Ghiscari host disappear beyond the ridge. The dragon crested the sun in the path to the battlefield.
Barristan saw that it set its course for the mass of gold and grey beside the sea. It meant to aid them in a battle that was once lost. They clashed, some unknowing of the fury that would come.
Others noted its approach, and a volley of arrows blinded the skies. They buried themselves in the dragon's wings and chest, unable to pierce the thick scales that formed its armour. All failed to stay its wrath, which then came.
A shadow fell on golden banners, dimming their glory, and flame followed. It kept its burning path away from the front lines, for it sought not to burn its own men.
The slaver legions panicked as their rear ranks became ash. Their harsh discipline finally broke, one that survived the charge of hundreds of horsemen. The New Ghiscari were nowhere to be seen.
The golden ranks began to crack, and Grey Worm's host seized their advantage. The remainder of the Stormcrows seized their chance to rally the dozens of horsemen left to them.
Though chains bound many of the legions together, those that did not see battle fled in a tide. Grey Worm and the Widower, if they lived, were wise, allowing those who fled unscathed to be seared with dragonfire as they distanced themselves from the Unsullied.
The queen's legions overcame whatever remnant remained to fight, now only tiny pockets that were swiftly decimated by overwhelming odds.
"Her Radiance's justice," he heard someone say,"A dragon's justice."
"Dragon," he heard his men cheer,"Dragon. Dragon. Dragon."
The day was soon over, and the battle was won. A dragon banner rose above the corpse-strewn beaches, flying over sand and ash. In the skies, a true dragon roared their glory, its scales rippling in the sun's mighty light.
"I shall need meet Lord Theon," Barristan thought,"to thank him for his deed. We must plan our next course."
The sun had reached the horizon when Red Lamb arrived with their new mounts.
The last fires of the battle began to simmer and die. The shimmering light of the sunset consumed the land in its clammy orange glow. A breeze fell on Barristan's taut skin, soothing the worn wrinkles that blossomed in this battle. The dragons rose above their foes, winning this day.
He saw only the green one soaring above the battlefield. He had not seen the white one since noon when it soared into the city.
"There is still the next day," he thought,"More for dragons and dragon men to conquer. When the sun casts not its blessing on the earth, we shall strike the camps in the cover of darkness. We shall make good on our victory here and break all our foes. For the queen. For her kingdom."
Red Lamb brought twenty riders with him and three times as many steeds. They reined in their horses before Barristan, striking up a mound of dust. His squire and his riders dismounted to kneel at his feet.
"Lord Hand," Red Lamb reported.
"Rise," he said,"How does Meereen stand?"
"As well as we left it," Red Lamb said after standing,"Fires burning in every corner of the city. The white dragon makes his nest on top of a Pyramid, timely soaring to add to the flames. The pale mare is running ever more rampant in the streets, though the corpses have stopped. The man who received me told me that the Sons of the Harpy have risen in full force to wreak havoc."
"Meereen is another task that I am set," Barristan thought,"though matters of war must come first. The Shavepate must await my aid. Once this matter outside the city is settled, I shall turn my eyes within."
"Who received you?" Barristan asked,"Was it the Shavepate?"
His squire shook his head,"It was one of the men from your Sunset Lands. They told me his name was Lord Drinkwater. He served as the Warden of the Gate of Gold from which I entered. He had blond hair and pale skin. The man told me that the Shavepate had gone to quell the uprising by the Sons of the Harpy. He garnered what you wished of them, and I thought to return."
"Two men came with that Martell boy," Barristan thought,"Ser Gerris Drinkwater, and Ser Archibald Yronwood. I sent them with the Windblown, so why have they returned? Why has the Shavepate accepted their service when it is clear that they failed in their duty? Is he a fool, to trust men foreign to his cause when times are so dire. But there might not be other worthy leaders in the city, and knights are trained to command hosts of men. They are taught to kill - more, to lead men that kill - so the Dornishman may serve his purpose. When I return to Meereen, I shall hear his word. I would accept his service if he proves loyal to the queen. The same for Ser Archibald if he yet lives. It is uncertain to ask of true heart when one's beast burned their prince."
He thought again on Ser Gerris's words, that they sought the aid of the dragons in the war against the Iron Throne. The queen would certainly have lost Dorne's spears now, though the boy never had hope.
"The blood of the dragon," he thought,"There is no notion that would make a fool more than this. My grandfather once told me that his father seduced and wedded the first Daemon's daughter before he rose in rebellion. He was said to have fathered a bastard on her, and swapped him with his trueborn babe by his own wife as the heir to Harvest Hall. My grandfather boasted that he was that bastard, having the blood of the dragon in his veins."
It had been assuredly a jape, to have the blood of Valyria in his veins. A fantasy of a lord who thought to make royal his bloodline. Even if it were true, he had no more dragon blood in his veins than the Martell boy did. He could most certainly not command dragons, no more than that fool could.
"What hate does Prince Doran bear the Young Wolf?" Barristan wondered,"Why would he wish to wed a dragon to his son? Why should he seek to seize that throne and risk another war - It is clear that the queen would choose Stark over Martell if he had offered, for one holds the realm and the other does not. And Stark has sent his man. Martell has naught to to gain from such a foolish gamble. It was also Lannister hounds that slew Lady Elia and her children. Lord Eddard only arrived when Lord Tywin had already sacked the city, when the princess and her children were already dead by the lion lord's hands, when the Kingslayer sat smiling on the Iron Throne, gloating over the king he slew and the oath he broke. What design does Prince Doran weave?"
"Very well," he answered Red Lamb,"You have done your duty well."
He glanced over the men that accompanied his squire, and his eyes fell upon one.
Barristan walked over to the kneeling man and lifted his bowed head.
"Windblown," he thought,"That man they named Straw. I sent him and the captured Windblown from the city as a gesture of good will to the Tattered Prince, fruitless as that venture proved to be. How has he returned to Meereen?" He remembered that he did not see the banners of the Windblown amongst those of the slavers, and a dreadful thought came upon him.
The blue eyes of the sellsword shone beneath a mop of white hair. His skin was as rough as worn leather, pocked with scars.
"Ser Barristan," he greeted,"The Tattered Prince bids his welcome."
Barristan's hand went to his hilt,"I dispatched an envoy to your captain promising to honour the deal the late Prince Quentyn made with him. He refused. How have you entered the city again?"
"We agreed to honour that deal," the sellsword replied,"though we saw no chance bashing our meagre strength on the great Yunkish legions. We had revealed ourselves when the Prince slew their Lord Commander, so we decided to evade their might and aid you when the time was ripe in the battle. The charge of the Second Sons distracted their attention long enough for our host to break free of their pursuit. With their might split between you and the Second Sons, we rode east. The commanders then conferred with each other, and concluded that the Yunkish had their eyes set upon blue-white banners, and would be on guard for any assault. Hungerford suggested that we ride even further East to take the New Ghiscari camp by surprise, for they did not yet suspect us of being men of the queen. We rode down their camp as they welcomed us, torching their banners and slaying many. When they rallied their men in answer, we swiftly departed their camp, knowing that we could not match their full force."
"We then thought to aid you in the battle that was joined in the south, but your men blocked our way. The messengers we sent to herald our goodwill were all shot down. We feared riding that way, so we pursued the only path left to us. Meereen. The East Gate. Your warden gave us the blessing of speaking our minds. Seeing the New Ghiscari horse trailing after our tails, they opened the gate to let us in. Tatters then met the Shavepate, offering himself and his swords to his service. He was in dire need, as the city was in uproar. We had thought to pass through it and join the battle, but it soon became apparent that the Shavepate required our aid in pacifying the city. We stayed, cleansing the queen's streets and meaning her walls. When your squire came, Ser Gerris Drinkwater, having won the favour of the Prince by securing the promise of Pentos, had the command of the Gate of Gold. He bid us ride to your aid in escort of your squire, and here we are."
"That is fantastical," Barristan thought,"though no more the stuff of legend as dragons who rule the skies again. No more the strings of myth as an old knight traveling half the world to a house he forsook for near two decades, serving a queen who rose to rule another realm."
One matter perplexed him.
"Why would the Shavepate send no messenger," Barristan asked,"to tell me of your arrival?"
The Windblown man looked to a companion.
"He did," another voice rose,"though there was battle in the lands outside Meereen, and a messenger ventured at his own peril. They could very well have been intercepted by foes. We ourselves were unsure of their success, for none returned. It was to the Prince's discretion to send our horsemen to attempt to give you tidings. We only knew to do our duty as he ordered."
The man who spoke had a lean face and a dark beard. He wore patterned plate that bore the carved sigil of a rose strewn in snow on his breast, the petals and flakes etched into the steel.
"Ser Lucifer Long," Barristan remembered,"one of that noble Westerosi house if he is to be believed, though sellswords take whatever name they please. He may bear that sigil, but he has no truth to that name. Even if he once was a man of that house. Only an exiled knight would be forced to sell his sword and ride with a company. True knights do not weigh their duty on gold. He has no claim to his house. This is the mettle of the men Ser Gerris set to my command. But they shall suffice for now."
"Do you speak the truth?" Barristan asked.
"Lest frogs turn into princes," the sellsword replied,"and the sun rises in the west to set in the east, I swear that no false words have come out from my lips."
"A sellsword's word is as good as gold," Barristan remembered the saying of the famed Golden Company,"yet gold is as treacherous as an oathbreaker's blade. They have earned my tolerance, but not my trust. We have promised them gold with our victory on this day, so that should please the company now and sway it from treason."
"Very well," he said as he withdrew from the throng of sellswords,"Rise, We ride soon."
"We must deal with this war."
They mounted the steeds that their aid lent, Barristan choosing a brown stallion.
"The queen's Silver has fallen," he thought,"She told me that the Dothraki horselord had given it to her as a wedding gift. It was the steed that had followed the queen since the very beginning. It did its duty, and fell under my hand. I have lost too much for her. All the queen's men this day fought valiantly, sacrificing their utmost for that banner we must serve. This victory is what little I could bring her. What little I could do to honour their souls."
"Pocho," he called once they sat astride their newfound mounts.
The surviving Ghiscari man trotted before him, greeting him in mongrel Ghiscari,"Lord Master."
"I am no master," he thought ,"as I was never a Hand. They honour me in each breath, though I know that I am only a knight. An old knight at that. A man who's tasted enough of the world's fire."
"What did Cregan Stark think," he wondered,"when he rode to King's Landing to end the Dance of the Dragons, bearing the greatest burden in the Hour of the Wolf? One misstep would have ignited fire and ruin once again. What was in the mind of Bloodraven in all his schemes and whispers? How did he shield the realm of the brother he loved from the lingering yet fierce fires of his father's last folly? He bore the duty when no other could. I cannot hide from this duty that calls me, much as I would have liked. It calls me as it called many men from the days of old, to truly serve the realm I chose."
" Ride to Grey Worm," he ordered Pocho,"with two riders of your choosing. I would lead my company to treat the ships that came to our aid. You must convey my wishes that Grey Worm is to meet us there. Our host is surely tired, though the war is not at an end. Tell him that it is my wish that he marches our remaining host along the shore to meet our allies. From there, we shall march to break the Yunkish camp. The slaver alliance will shatter at their defeat, and our queen's rule and cause in Meereen will be secure from her foes."
"The most dangerous part of the war has begun," he thought,"The war's end. Perhaps those great men of old were as I were, fearful to tread a path that was not theirs. Yet that road I must take. The battle is won, yet the queen's host must survive these coming days. Her kingdom must survive these coming days. I am no Hand, but I shall bear this burden if no other would. Let the Hour of the Dragon rise above Meereen to herald her return."
He did not know why he still held onto that hope. It was most likely that he held a broken city for a dead queen.
"She has to live," he thought,"Our efforts were not for naught. All who fell were not for naught. I cannot face King Jaehaerys, or Prince Rhaegar, or even her father who I once called my brother if I fail. She must live, to see my duty fulfilled."
The Ghiscari freedman gazed at the ashen fields, and smiled,"The free shall walk again. I shall relay your message as you command."
He took two riders with him and swiftly rode for the western shore.
"Do you command the dragon?" Red Lamb asked,"I saw it burn our foes in mere moments."
"No," Barristan answered, shaking his head,"I only serve. The beasts are only the queen's to command."
"We ride to meet who truly has," he thought.
"Then she shall return soon to bring us peace?" Red Lamb asked.
"Aye," Barristan knew that it must be true,"she shall."
Barristan surveyed his newfound company of horsemen, riding past them on his buckling steed. Amidst the sombre call of the horn, they rode to greet the queen's new fleet.
The Ironborn landed a mile south of Meereen's dock, preferring to avoid the city. Barristan was glad that they did, for he knew the nature of these men who were half-pirate. A city of gold is ripe for plundering, and he will not allow a sack on any of the queen's realm.
More than seventy longships lined the beach, stretching far along the shores to the point of which the farthest disappeared beyond the horizon. Men unloaded mounts and baggage from within the decks. Near a thousand sailors stood guard outside the ships as the others arranged their provisions.
The golden kraken blew high above the mighty host, soaring in the sea wind. It rose beside a three-headed drake. The queen's banner shone amidst the screech of the emerald beast spiraling above the fleet.
"No wolf," he began to doubt his presumption,"Is this truly Theon Greyjoy, to not bear his king's banner?"
A scout from their new allies greeted them, and Barristan told him to report to their leader of their coming.
Their allies knew of the small company that entered their vision, and the Ironborn turned their steel to shimmer against Barristan's riders. Barristan ordered his men to half upon a ridge overlooking the shore.
Soon, a company of riders emerged from the beaches to greet their approach. They came before Barristan, and the lead rider trotted from their midst.
"Who comes to seek the Iron Fleet?" the man asked,"Who are you vagabonds to hold the dragon banner of the queen?"
The man was of middling height with a squat head and balding hair, though his glamorous chestnut courser made up for the might he lacked. His arms were well-muscled, and grasped his reins loosely.
"Ser Barristan of the House Selmy," Red Lamb spoke,"Queensguard and Hand to Her Grace Daenerys of the House Targaryen, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lady Regnant of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, Breaker of Shackles, and Mother of Dragons."
"Have you any proof of your word?" the ironman asked.
Barristan pointed north at the Unsullied host marching slowly towards them,"If you wish me to arrive at the head of a host to prove my word, then I shall. They are under my command in the name of the queen. But that is a delay I cannot afford, as I need meet with your commander at this very moment. Allow us passage."
The ironman nodded slowly, and Barristan posed a question,"Who are you? Who holds command of this fleet?"
"I am Lord Urrigon of the House Sunderly, Captain of the Young Kraken. I come at the behest of Captain Victarion Greyjoy, who bears a gift from his brother King Euron of the House Greyjoy, the Third of that Name since the Grey King, King of the Iron Isles and the North, King of Salt and Rock, Son of the Sea Wind, Lord Reaper of Pyke, and Lord of the Seastone Chair.
"Euron," Barristan remembered that name from a raven long ago, when the eunuch read aloud of Lannisport to every lord in the Red Keep.
"It is not Theon Greyjoy that holds the Ironborn. It is his uncle, the sinister trickster who made the plan to drag half the realm into war. We had Varys's birds then to report on his acts, but we have none now. Why does he seek the dragon queen? Who holds the Iron Throne in Westeros, if he rose to be king of the Ironborn? Euron Greyjoy is not one to be trusted with a dragon."
The beast overhead landed on one of the larger ships, a towering galleon with near a dozen sails that all bore either the Greyjoy sigil or the queen's.
He drew a sharp breath as it roared, and a tingling chill slowly ran down his spine.
"Who is the true master of the beast?" he thought,"This is not Robb Stark's fleet, but one of a like far more malicious. Should I trust that its banner serves the queen?"
He briefly pondered riding away to the Unsullied and calling for an assault, but Rhaegal, who perched on an Ironborn deck, named that notion a titan's folly.
Barristan saw his company give the beast admiring glances. "Ser Barristan," Urrigon Sunderly called,"Captain Victarion requests the honour of your presence."
"I must see the truth of this gift," Barristan thought,"the truth of this ally."
"Lead the way, my lord," he answered."
Urrigon Sunderly turned and rode off, his company in his wake. Barristan and his own riders followed. The Ironborn lord led them past the line the Ironborn formed to protect their ships.
The lord told him that the captain resided in the ship where the dragon perched. Barristan judged that the captain would be wise to call the dragon to his mast, to make his presence all the more imposing.
He wondered of the ship Rhaegal had torched before these men had tamed him. Power is never without price, and these men knew it. But what is one ship compared to many? The fury they bought with corpses brought them victory in the end.
It was the Iron Victory that Rhaegal sank. The dragon burned their victory, yet they still won it. That galleon was the flagship of Victarion Greyjoy. It seemed that the captain did not wish to sink with his ship, as he escaped the wreckage with a small half of the crew.
Victarion Greyjoy resides on the Holy Halfmast now, a ship named for the fame it won in that disastrous Greyjoy Rebellion.
That ship's former name had been forgotten after it met Lord Sunderland's fleet outside Orkmont. In the chaos of the battle, the mast snapped into two jagged halves, leaving only half a mast for the Ironborn to sail. It was fortunate enough to survive the battle, ships becoming sitting targets when they could no longer sail. The Ironborn had defeated the crown's fleet that day, for Stannis Baratheon had only launched the Orkmont campaign as diversion from his true assault on Pyke, Great Wyk, and Barristan's own battle at Old Wyk.
Thinking themselves blessed by their Drowned God, the sailors of the surviving ship named it the Holy Halfmast to commemorate the fiercest battle it won against the direst odds.
Urrigon Sunderly was eager to share the exploits and glory of the Iron Fleet. The guide named the others as they passed. He was glad to name his own, a small vessel compared to the others, but swift in its own right. They rode by the Iron Vengeance, the Lord Vickon, the Maiden's Bane, the Red Tide, and more than two dozen others before they arrived at Victarion Greyjoy's new flagship.
The captain seemed to know their coming, as he had prepared a sizable procession to receive them. A red priest stood at its head.
"Lord Sunderly," he spoke,"You may leave us." The lord grunted agreement and departed for his galley.
"Ser Barristan the Bold," the red priest then greeted,"I have seen you in my fires, a bright torch that shines alone in an endless night. Lord Victarion has bid me to welcome you to share in his counsel."
"Who are you, my lord?" Barristan asked.
"Moqorro, but I am no lord. Only the Lord of Light and his chosen can claim such honours. I am only their leal servant, to slave in their fires."
He gestured to the ship,"Lord Victarion awaits."
Barristan took a lingering look at the dragon that crowned the ship's banners.
"This could very well be the end," he thought,"but I must find the truth. We cannot fight this force with the strength we have, yet I cannot let one of the queen's children languish in an unknown hand."
"After you," he agreed. Barristan kept a hand on his hilt as he ascended a plank, feeling the eyes of the dragon stare at him. He pressed himself to dare forward, for a knight was no coward. He needed to be true to the queen. Barristan ripped his eyes from the alluring dapple of the dragon's scales.
As they came onto the deck, a golden glimmer caught his eye. He saw, high on another deck, a massive warhorn decorated with red gold and shimmering steel. The warhorn gave a black gleam that spoke of the darkness within its crest. Two men stood guard at its flanks. It was caked in ash and soot, dripping glimmering beads of water on the sodden wood.
Barristan felt the searing breath of Rhaegal behind him, and he tightened his grip. He did not turn to the furnace wind. Only a cold gust of the sea's kiss caressed his eyes.
At the stern of the ship, a burly figure looked out to the sea. He wore a suit of plate though he was a seaman. Wet brown locks ran down his broad head, grey strings mingled amongst them. He had seemingly taken a swim for the puddle that formed at his feet. One of his hands gripped an axe, the other the railing. He wore a golden bracelet on the wrist gripping, a pulsing ruby set into it.
Barristan knew Victarion Greyjoy from a war an age before, and he was still the man he was at Fair Isle.
"Your sword, my lord," Moqorro said as they approached,"You are to meet with the captain alone. Your companions can keep theirs, for they shall stay here."
"A sword will be of little use anyway should Victarion Greyjoy choose to slay me," Barristan thought,"I have already entered his den."
He unstrapped his sword and gave it to the red priest.
Moqorro smiled, a face that was all too similar to Thoros of Myr,"You deal with the Lord of Light's chosen. The Lord took him in his embrace, yet the captain rose from the wreckage. He bathed in dragonfire, yet rose from smoke and salt. His is the soul of heroes, and he has a greater duty to fulfill."
Barristan advanced alone to the stern.
"Ser Barristan the Bold," Greyjoy greeted without turning his head,"or would Barristan the Old be more fitting. The queen must lack for able men, if hobbling greybeards such as you command her hosts."
Barristan stomached his anger and approached the ironman.
"Captain Victarion," Barristan spoke,"I give my thanks on behalf of the queen for your aid in the battle."
"I should like her to thank me herself. This fleet is my brother's gift to serve her banner. It is hers by rights if she agrees to my proposal. Her foes are our foes. I shall need meet Her Grace Daenerys. Where is she?"
"She passed beyond the Dothraki Sea on her dragon Drogon," Barristan replied, "I rule in her name in Meereen. What proposal do you have?"
Greyjoy turned to cast a scoff at him," I have not come to treat with old men."
"An old knight," Barristan said.
"A greenlander," Greyjoy responded,"Your knights are like girls to us. I could have your head at this moment to adorn my prow."
"Aye, you could," Barristan replied, "but you may find it difficult to endear yourself to Her Grace if you slay her Hand. Though you'll have to call upon all your blades to subdue me, for I judge that you're too cowardly to face me man to man."
Greyjoy sniggered,"I like you, old man. I can see why she put her trust in you. Only the rarest of greenlanders are your like. Very well, I shall give you the right to treat."
"What are your terms?" Barristan asked.
"I bring a proposal from my brother King Euron of the Iron Isles." Greyjoy said,"A man fit to rule the Ironborn. A man fit to master a dragon as you have seen. A man who has sailed the Fourteen Seas, from the ruins of Valyria to the frozen shores of Ib, A man fit to be king. He has charged me to gift Her Grace Daenerys the Iron Fleet and the support of the Ironborn in her campaign to win back her father's throne. On one condition."
"What?" though Barristan already knew. There was one thing all men wished of the queen.
"Her hand in marriage," Greyjoy echoed his thoughts,"to be king at her side. They shall rule Westeros and bring it order and peace."
"He has gifted us his aid in our direst need," Barristan thought,"when none other would cross the seas to declare their loyalty. Is Euron truly not fit to be her consort? He has proven that he can master a dragon, to be a worthy companion of her power. The queen would need to wed anyways if she were to rule Westeros, for this debacle in Meereen is doomed to fail. Euron Greyjoy has proved a suitable husband, worthy of raising a kingdom to her call. He could be fit to wed the queen. Better than that sellsword she loved in any manner in the wars to come."
"There are some truths, however," he thought,"that I must find."
"Who sits the Iron Throne?" he asked Greyjoy.
"Tommen Baratheon, the bastard abomination of the Kingslayer and the queen."
"Tommen," Barristan thought,"Joffrey is dead. What of the others?"
"How many of the kings remain?"
"Four dead, one at the Wall," Greyjoy answered.
"Westeros may be a ruin," he thought,"ripe for the queen's conquest."
"How fares Westeros?" Barristan asked.
"Chaos," Greyjoy responded,"The boy on the throne holds no true power, and the lords are weakened by their squabbles. Still, they scramble for what is left. With her dragons and our might, the throne will fall easily to Her Grace."
Barristan thought of the beast again, and this time he could not resist turning his eyes to its glare.
"How did you tame him?" he dared to ask.
"The Dragonbinder," Greyjoy pointed to the horn, "My brother found it upon the shores of Valyria when he sailed into the shadow and returned unscathed. It was what the dragonlords of old used to bind dragons to their will. Only the blood of kings can command such power, and Greyjoys were kings once."
"No wonder the dragons listen not to even their own mother," Barristan thought,"There is another answer. Though any man who has that blood could use this to command the beasts for good or for ill. It is too dangerous a weapon to keep."
"The screech I heard in the battle," Barristan asked,"Was that the Dragonbinder?"
"It was," Greyjoy responded,"How does my brother's gift of the Iron Fleet fare in your mind? Do you agree to my brother's proposal?"
Barristan pursed his lips,"If it were up to me, I would accept for Her Grace, but it is ultimately her will to decide."
"Very well," Greyjoy said,"Then we shall wait until she returns to hear her will."
A shrill scream tore into Barristan's ear. He turned to find a raging fire on the shores, a red priest burning a man at the stake. He tightened his grip on the railing and steeled himself.
"This is not Westeros," he thought,"Not my part to interfere. I have seen this a thousand times before in this land."
It never became easier to bear those wails.
"When she returns," Greyjoy said,"we shall make her a gift of the end of her war. This is a sacrifice for a blessing in the battle to come."
"The slavers are not vanquished," Barristan thought,"Their camps still stand. There are more hosts to the North and East."
"We march for Meereen," Greyjoy spoke,"This city that betrayed their queen. Our men shall need their rightful due."
His words alarmed Barristan,"This is the queen's city. If you rise under her banner, you are here to defend it. It is not yours to plunder. There are still foes outside the city that we need to defeat."
Greyjoy glared at him, "They shall taste the queen's fire when their time comes. But the city shall come first. It shall be ash three days hence, so what does it matter if our men take what they should like. They shall be otherwise lost in the flame."
"Flame," Barristan whispered.
"A great sacrifice that shall grant us blessings in all the wars to come. The queen should have cause to linger, and an example would need to be made of the queen's might to the slavers who still feel an urge to resist."
"A city of innocents," Barristan felt the chilling salt spray on his skin.
His memory brought him back to a starless night when only green fire shone amidst the darkness. When he heard the roar of green fire, and screams.
"Burn them all," the king hissed,"Burn them all."
Barristan had stood by the king, watching as his madness unfolded. He did not do anything then, and all had suffered for it.
"This man's madness," he thought,"is what I feared in the queen. I served her knowing that she would break these men, not couple with them."
He would not make the same mistake twice, and Barristan cannot stand by now. This dragon cannot serve in the hands of a madman.
Greyjoy smiled at him, but he only felt the cruel glint of his eyes.
"This is my duty," he thought,"that I made my virtue for all the kings I served. This is the duty I owe Queen Daenerys, the Breaker of Shackles. The mother of dragons. The mother. Mhysa."
"Blood of kings," he heard the echo of his grandfather's tale,"We have blood of the dragon."
"I will give her dragon back."
His eyes found the golden surface of the warhorn, knowing what he must do.
Greyjoy saw it a moment before he sprang. The captain raised his axe, but it was too late to stop Barristan's lunge.
The old knight heard the weapon whoosh past his flank, but he did not turn as he flipped over a railing and landed on an Ironborn soldier below.
He knocked out with a swift blow to the temple, and took up his abandoned sword. The deck broke out in confusion as half his men drew their swords when they saw Barristan drive his blade into another Ironborn's unarmoured belly. He pulled it out glistening with blood, eyes set on the crimson bands of the Dragonbinder.
Barristan saw some of his own fall under Ironborn blades. He steeled himself from straying from his course, for he needed to reach the horn.
He heard a shout, and ducked by instinct. A torrent of flame engulfed where he was. He rolled to the side and rose.
The ship was on fire, flames catching easily upon the wood. He heard the desperate screams of those who had stepped in the path of the dragon. Many dove into the water, not caring that it was shallow enough to break their necks.
Barristan saw his duty, unbroken amidst the clamour. Only one man stood between them, the one of the two that did not desert his post.
The old knight ran upon the wooden deck, the fires licking at his heels. In the flame, he could not tell friend from foe.
Barristan parried an ironman's blade and stabbed his own in the foe's eye. A fallen splinter cut his palm, and blood gushed out.
The man before him fell screaming, and Barristan climbed to where the Dragonbinder lay on an unburnt deck. He clasped the gold with his bloody hands. The flames surrounded him, cutting off all paths of escape. He had no wish of doing so, for he knew that this was his end. He raised it to his lips.
A cold blade suddenly pierced his flash, and he saw a man holding a sword.
"Why?" he wanted to ask, but he could not stray from his duty. He blew, thinking of the queen.
The sound that emerged was a low rumble unlike the screech he had heard.
Barristan felt as if he had drunk fire, the winds of the horn searing his lungs and burning his throat.
He dropped the Dragonbinder, and collapsed gasping to the deck. The flames reached them, and all he could hear from the ships were screams.
Barristan himself could feel neither the fires kissing his skin, nor the gaping wound in his chest. He saw his blood glow upon the fallen dragonhorn, and all turned to ash.
He woke on a small isle with endless seas to all his sides.
A great gray dragon curled on the ground before him. At his tail sat a man Barristan knew.
"He's dead," Barristan thought,"It cannot be. The slavers would have slain him when he was their hostage. This is a dream."
The man lit a candle and planted it on the grass before him, a lone light in the shadows of the isle that lit the sea.
His face had been as handsome as it had been, with deep blue eyes that were almost purple. The ghastly blue that he dyed his hair and three-pronged beard were as dark as the sea. When he smiled, he revealed his golden tooth.
"I had thought to meet the queen," Daario Naharis spoke,"Why have you come, Ser Grandfather?"
"You're dead," Barristan said, "How?"
The sellsword deepened his smile, and his face turned into that of another. His blue turned to a raven's black. A patch appeared over one eye, and his teeth were a glistening white with no gold amongst them.
"Who are you?" Barristan asked.
"Do I unsettle you?" the man replied,"I've seen glamours far stranger than this one. If you could stand the glamour Moqorro placed to mimic my brother Victarion, why not tolerate mine? It is the simplest of magic, and the least frightening. There are bloodier spells, more demanding of sacrifice. Sailing without the shore. Binding shadows and souls. Calling a god's wrath in a place that has not seen such fury since the dawn of days."
"What are you truly, sellsword?" Barristan echoed his question.
The man stroked his beast's head, "Oh, I am no sellsword. Perhaps a king, perhaps not. Some know me as Euron Greyjoy. Some the King of Salt and rock. Others the Captain of the Sorrows. The Nightwalker of Qarth. The corpse-king of the east. The open eye of the crow. The first storm and the last. A man may see with a thousand eyes. A man may wear a thousand skins. But in the end, who is he? No one. Faceless. Formless. Would you call me a god?"
"A sellsword becoming a king," Barristan thought,"There are queerer tales, though I am mad to deal with ghosts in dreams."
"There are Seven who are One," Barristan said,"above the will of mortal men."
"You see not past the ceaseless glamour villains have set in your eyes," Greyjoy spoke,"You see not the fate that awaits this world."
A cup materialized in Barristan's grasp.
"Drink from that cup, and see."
Barristan peered inside the silver chalice, at a murky blue liquid that swirled inside. Its scent was sweet, and it tempted him to try its taste. He brought it to his lips and took a cautious sip.
It tasted as sweet as summer honey, yet also as rotten as putrid horsemeat. It was a mix of what his tongue most loved and hated.
As it ran down his dry throat, he saw the light of Greyjoy's candle brighten. It lit what he thought was the dark of the sea, showing him a sight.
A great gust of ice rose on one horizon, a great torrent of fire in the other. Cities and fields lay between, but the storms expanded mercilessly. All that stood between their fury were consumed in mad ruin. When the storms met each other, they clashed, melding into one great bout of chaos. It reached Barristan's Isle.
As droplets of bloody water touched his skin with a burning mark, the shimmering light faded to reveal Greyjoy and his candle.
"A song of ice," Greyjoy said,"A song of fire. Their tunes bring forth the winds of death. The world stands on the brink of ruin, when the blood of kings mingled when it should have not, awakening an ancient power that should have slept. What came was abomination. A wretch, yet more mighty than all the hosts that mortal realms can muster. The master of death. The master of Winter. The king that shall rise from ash and sorcery. The King of the Everlasting Night. The gods are dead, and men are weak. Only I can save us from fate. Only I can be the shield against doom, the storm that shall rise against theirs. I do not know why fate has chosen you to come, but I shall ask you this. Will you stand at my side as we crown the new dawn? Your battle for the queen is only one of many. Her duty is great, her burden greater. There are many wars to come."
His candle shimmered again, and another patch of the sea shone with a light.
And Barristan saw himself, in the blaze of his younger years, in dusted grey mail as dull as the earth. He wandered amidst the quiet shadows of a dungeon, and he was not alone. The knight timely turned to glance at the stumbling man that followed him, whispering comforts in his ear.
"The Mad King," Barristan remembered.
The king sat upon the Iron Throne, though only the dark robes of the pyromancers formed his court. He saw a ghastly glimmer of the fires on his white beard and jagged strips of uncut nails. A young knight stood beneath his seat. The Kingslayer, the gold in his hair dimmer than the glint of the throne's grey swords.
He could not hear the king's words.
Barristan saw Lannister tighten his grip on his sword, creasing his brow.
"Your Grace," Lannister said,"What of your people?"
"Get out," the king answered,"Return to me with your traitor of a father's head."
The green of Jaime Lannister's eyes shone brightly, and he drew his sword to earn his name.
"I serve him no more."
Barristan tore his eyes away from the vision. He no longer served the Mad King, and did not need to dwell on those mistakes. He served another Targaryen, someone far worthier. The old knight wondered where she was,"If Greyjoy knew about my past, then surely he would know about the queen."
"What of the queen?" Barristan asked, tearing his thoughts away from the vision,"Where is she?"
"Becoming who she should be," Greyjoy answered,"and you will be here to follow her, if you accept my gift. She needs able men about her. Be true to your duty and do what you can for her battle. I offer you the chance to make right the wrongs you did. Do you accept this gift? Pledge your fealty to kneel before my banner, and swear to bring me her dragons and her love, and I shall make you anew. Your old body died on that deck, though your soul lived on when you blew that horn. That is all that matters. I can gift you a new body. A stronger body. She needs the ablest of heroes about her banner to bring the light. We need the swords of worthy knights against all the evil in our path. What is your answer?"
"My duty is not done," Barristan thought,"I must return to serve her until she meets her true realm."
"A poison," another voice whispered. It was a boy's voice, young and pleading,"A slow poison, but a poison nonetheless. Whatever skin he may take, he is the same. A poison that will kill you in the end."
"No," Barristan said, "I serve only the queen."
Greyjoy's eyes burrowed in him, and Barristan saw his true form. A shapeless and bloody ghost with tentacles crawling from his darkness. A raven cawed, and the form faded. When Barristan saw his face again, he wore a frown,"As you wish. You have made your choice."
A harsh bolt split Barristan's skull, and the isle disappeared.
A scorching flame blossomed into his mind, its fingers slowly devouring his senses.
He saw himself soaring high above the beaches. A host of grey men rallied before him, their leather a patchwork of clear stones in the light of dusk.
"The foe," he thought as his mind burned,"the men that stand between you and your mother."
Anger arose in his blood, and he prepared to dive and give his wrath. Yet something stayed his wings. A formless call from a life he remembered now.
"Mother," Barristan thought,"Mhysa. The dragon queen I served. Daenerys Targaryen. These are her men."
He opened his mouth in a screech.
"I am Barristan the Bold," he thought amidst the growing madness of fire,"The knight of the Stepstones. A white cloak of the Kingsguard. A servant of three kings. This is my duty. To serve. Always, to serve."
He cast his eyes south, where his true foe was. His wings brought him to his true course. The fires burned fiercer, and he knew only what he was bid to do. Searing pain racked his mind, yet he found his purpose.
"Burn them all," a shriek echoed.
The ground blazed in a sea of red. He saw a giant of a man lumber through the wreckage of a ship. His eyes knew naught but fury to the one who thought to claim him.
"For duty," he thought in a final moment of clarity,"For the queen."
His mind gave itself to the fires as crimson light tinted his sight. He dove towards the pit of death. The world bathed itself in red and white as the wind whistled his doom and glory.
Fire forged a summer crown. Ice, a winter one. There was always the endless war. Neither was mightier. Neither was brighter. Neither greater in power to make a king.
Melisandre chose fire.
She asked the Lord to show her king in the fires.
The Lord gave her many visions. Visions of the future, hidden and veiled may they be. Only the truest of his followers could bathe in the heat of his guidance amidst the cold of ignorance. Only the most devout, the most honest to his designs in his endless struggle. The Lord is just, and sends every priest what they ask.
"Yet it is men, in the end," Melisandre thought,"to make of the will." She had prayed to the fires since the night, and the Lord had again proved his divination.
He showed her the dark designs of the enemy, bewitching the hearts of men with a host of false kings. A hundred false lords, who were aided by the beguiled that saw only the seductive fruit of dark gods and heathens, straying further and further away from the truth.
The fires divined a man who bore no shadow, shining in false light.
The Lord showed her the dances of the Others and their brood of demons, their faces parched with roots and their many eyes red, feasting on green flesh. They reeked the fires of the lost and dead.
She saw a blue-eyed king rise from the womb of a beach of bones, the sand seeping blood and milk. His crown was bleeding corpses, and his armour frozen banners. The priestess could see their sigils. Lions, falcons, wolves, stags, suns, dragons, and roses, amongst many more, bitten by the frost of his presence. He raised his sword, a dim mockery of King Stannis's bright and holy Lightbringer, wrought in the cold gleam of the gods of darkness. A thousand dreading songs boomed to his call, and she saw the corpses of a million rise and march. She saw castles and fields freeze in the shadow realm of ice and snow.
The king turned to his queen, a blue-skinned woman who rose at his side, and he kissed her in earnest. Her skin was frost and her breath poison. She burned with an unearthly flame despite the cold, and the snow at her feet melted into streams and rivers which flowed outwards. Melisandre could see that her hand, laced with the king's, drooped silver blood that burned into the shape of wings. A pack of wolves howled, and red and black shadows danced until they blurred the flame, to fade to its sheen.
She had asked to see the king, yet it did not show her.
The Lord showed her false kings aplenty. A red dragon burning, until its scales were ash, sitting upon a throne of gold and green fire. A young cub decked in a crown of antlers, led into an eager throng of ravenous hounds by its blind mother. A mass of weathered stone statues raised their blades to a stone-lipped monster beneath a smoking tower.
Above them, winged snakes danced about the golden sun. They were soaring, twirling, mating in the warm glow. Yet winter came. Snow washed upon the earth, and their corpses dropped in heaps of ash.
She saw them all, all save the Lord's champion. All save Azor Ahai. All save King Stannis.
"Lady Melisandre," she heard Queen Selyse demand," Have you seen in your fires the truth that befell my husband? Is the letter true, and his host is scattered and his grace dead, or was it a falsehood? Does his grace live? Did he emerge victorious from the south?"
Melisandre withdrew her gaze from the fires that burned in the hearth of the King's Tower. She turned to her steward, the boy Devan Seaworth. She knew he had gazed within the fires in curiosity. The boy had many grievances to state, ever since he knew of his father. She wondered if the Lord had extended his gift to the smuggler's son. It was only given rarely.
"What did you see?" she asked him.
"My lady," he stammered in reply,"I saw... knights."
"King Stannis's knights?" she dared to venture. Had the Lord shown the boy what he had denied her? Was the boy somehow more worthy of the Lord's favour than she, his devoted priestess, was?
The boy shook his head, his eyes flitting back to the fire. "Strange," Melisandre thought,"He could never so easily break his gaze from me before." She heard a discord of muttering break upon the assembly of men. She sensed shadows conversing, and the touch of the Great Other upon the men. Perhaps it was their impatience for her response. But she could no more give them an answer, for the Lord had denied her the flares of Stannis.
"Perhaps his light burned too low in his labors," she thought,"and the fires of false kings burned bright but still cold. The humble warmth does not seek the greater fire, but the cold light of the Great Other and his servants seek it to stifle the eternal hearth."
"I saw...," Devan replied,"knights..., but they were as if stone, in a shadow-strewn room of darkness. It was as if the knights were pieces on a board. There were other pieces as well, men with crowns and women with crowns. Lords with goblets, lords with coin, and lords with seven-starred swords. Dragons, great beasts that protrude a grey mast from their heads, horses and castles, stewards and merchants, all arrayed on a board. They bore many banners, of all the kingdoms of the realm, the flaming stag of his grace as well. Two shadows loomed over the board, one slender and one fat. There was also a third shadow that loomed, but it was too short to play. The slender and the fat shadows took their turns moving the pieces on the board. The slender shadow reached for the banners bearing a golden flower, and when his hand came into the light I saw that it was golden too. The fat shadow waited, biding his time carefully, but he made his pieces as well, moving the kings and knights bearing both the red dragon banner and the black dragon banner. His hand was monstrous, and on each fat finger was the head of a child. The room suddenly darkened, and even greater shadows loomed above. Two shades, their crowns shining bronze and gold. Only their eyes were discernible. One of the men had only one eye, which burned red and was laced by cracks of lightning. The other had two, but they gleamed a striking and shimmering blue, vastly brighter than any normal blue eye ought to be. They appeared as lanterns in the night, lonely and eerie, glowing as bright as the midnight stars against the darkness. The little shadows that played on the board fell into their shade. The vision then ended. That is all I saw. The Lord showed me nothing of King Stannis."
"His vision is set in riddles," Melisandre thought,"so that its truth is not clear to mortal men. It might be that Lord Seaworth's son is blessed with the holy sight, despite his father's stubborn rejection of the true faith. At least the boy knows to heed the Lord. His devotion may earn the Lord's graces one day."
She thought of another boy the Lord had graced,"Daggers in the dark. I warned him, but he did not listen. Those that do not heed the Lord's warning pay a dear price."
Yet that matter could wait, for the matter of the king was paramount at this time. She knew that all the eyes and hearts of Stannis's men were to follow her guidance, for her guidance was the light of the Lord.
She sighed,"Should I lie? Say that King Stannis is alive, and please their hearts." She did not know why the Lord had shown her what he had, though she knew that they would serve a purpose.
"The blue-eyed king arises," she thought,"and the Others come. The false kings of the realm sit on their mummer's thrones, quarreling over petty squabbles, all the while ignorant of the true threat that lies north. The Wall will soon come under assault. The dance was their ritual, and their feast this war's herald. The Wall will be too few to hold them. I must unite as many as I can, as the Lord of Light bid me his messenger. We must look north, not south."
While she lingered in her thoughts, a voice broke the still silence of the chamber. It was the fool that the Princess, no, Queen Shireen now, brought as her companion to join their assembly in the king's tower. He spoke by his half-crazed mind, spouting another incoherent dawdling.
"A mummer's priest. A mummer's feast. A mummer's light they see," the fool sang, his bells ringing,"A dance there be, of demon and queen. A dance there be, of suitor and queen. By the shade that comes, brightly seethes. Hee Hee Hee."
Patchface's bells rung merrily as he danced, and she noted the irritated gazes of the lords and knights at the mad fool. The queen would not win the hearts of her subjects if she continued to converse with the madman as she did. Queen Shireen would need to be weaned from that companionship.
"Is it a prophecy," she mused,"on the reign of the queen? A mummer's priest, and a mummer's light they see." The old Maester Cressen had called her a mummer's priest, and many in the realm believe the righteousness of King Stannis's light to be false.
"Unbelievers and ignorants," she thought,"fools and stubborn old men." Her red choker burned with fire. That was all the light she needed to trust in the Lord. The rest of the fool's words remained a mystery. Perhaps there were no meaning at all, and they were the genuine rambles of a madman beyond any saving grace.
Queen Selyse signaled to her guards, and two of them seized the fool and removed him from the room.
Patchface raved as he was pulled, not caring that two guards had hold of his arms,"Lord of Crows. Lord of Lies. Lord of a sister's sigh. The fish, they come, from under the sea, to King of Light, to King of Night. By mist that comes, young wings rise. Aye Aye Aye."
The room was again silent after the fool was removed.
"They all look to me," she realized,"I must make this leap. They cannot live on lies."
"The king is dead," she declared," I have not seen him in my fires, and I do not believe that the Lord will not show me his grace should he have lived. I cannot see into the heavens, and the Hall of Light. That is where they surely must dwell now, beyond my sight."
She strode to the Princess Shireen, her red dress brushing against the floor, the swish of its fabric the only voice within the assembly. She knelt before the princess still cradled in her mother's arms.
"Long live the queen," she declared in a booming voice that the Lord would have granted her in ceremonies of prayer,"May the light of the Lord bless your reign."
The room was silent to greet her proclamation, and it was asking much of their loyalty to serve a greyscale-ridden girl. It was the only path, however, and she trusted that those true and righteous would choose the right path. His Grace Stannis was most like to have fallen.
"There may have been another," she thought,"if he had proved more faithful. My visions saw greatness in his future." But Lord Snow was gone, gone as the wisps of the nightfire at the break of dawn.
A large crackle sounded outside the tower. The Watch were burning their fallen Lord Commander, and the pyre was now lit. The crackles were soon lost to the whistling of the winter winds.
"Much like Lord Snow," she thought,"his fire could have burned brighter than any other, or lost to the shadow or winds of darkness like so many before. He chose, and his fire is lost to the darkness of eternity."
She continued to kneel, her head bowed, and wondered if the lords would prove their loyalty and devotion to the queen, his grace's rightful heir.
A lord raised his voice. It was Axell Florent, the dowager queen's uncle,"The Lord has spoken, and the king is dead. Long live the queen."
He drew his sword singing from its sheath and knelt with a plop on the stone floor. The other men took their cue, and drew their blades, the room thundering as dozens of knights knelt on the stone floor, swearing their fealty to the Lord's chosen queen.
"Long live the queen," they boomed,"Long live the queen."
Melisandre gazed upwards at the queen and her mother. The torches flickered and the winds blew. The light of the fires illuminated the greyscale in the queen's face.
"She would not be loved," she thought,"perhaps never, even if she could grow in beauty. But she is the queen the Lord has deemed me to follow, for she is the child of Azor Ahai."
Lady Selyse kissed her daughter on the cheek that did not hold the plague. She whispered something in her ear. The queen, dumbfounded, rose from her mother's embrace.
Melisandre suddenly felt a flicker of cold touch her neck. She flinched, and memories from another life washed up within her. Memories of times long past, when she was still the uncouth highborn maiden, unknowing of the grace and light of the Lord as she ungratefully bathed in what he offered. Memories of the times of mortal pleasure before that night, when blood turned the pale red stones a darker shade, and steel stung on flesh. Before she found the people the Lyseni fearfully called the Red Men, their hands stained with blood and flame. How cold she had felt then, devoid of the fire of the Lord, alone and old, in a thin silken dress on the steps of the temple.
But those days were centuries past, and she stood now the Lord's humble servant, his fires warming her at every moment. Seeing the girl before her, clad in almost the same dress to what she had worn so long ago, a princess, awakened the cold of that tale.
"It would not do to dwell on times of yore," she chided herself,"The Lord deals in fires, in this day and future days. The past serves the cold of the god of darkness, the bitterness and remembrance of the old of their youthful strength, only a maker of the darkness of men. King Stannis might well be dead, and Lord Snow is as well. It is not a girl that stands before me, nor the princess that loved a fool, but a queen."
There was no man that could smith a crown at the Wall, so Queen Selyse took off hers. She gave it to Melisandre, and the priestess stood.
"Kneel, your grace," Melisandre said. The cold that had briefly washed over her faded as her choker glowed red with the god's grace.
"May the Lord bless her reign," she prayed,"and that her fire burns strong."
The queen, her eyes fearful, fell to her knees, not caring that her dress was ruined from the dust of the floor. Queen Selyse scowled in disgust, but no other man made to object.
She raised the crown over the young queen's brown-haired head.
"Do you solemnly swear, by the Light of the Lord," she declared, her voice enhanced by the Lord's grace," rule with a just and fair heart? Will you abide by the righteousness of the Lord of Light, and show true piety in his service? Will you show kindness to your people, blessing the needy with alms and the weak with strength?"
The queen responded, though her voice was weak and whimpering,"I will."
Melisandre continued,"Will you protect your people with the swords and fires that you will command? Will you judge criminals with an even hand and condemn the guilty for their crimes? Will you be the Shield that guards the realm from treason and invasion?"
"I will," was the response. The queen's voice had hardened somewhat, and her body had stopped its shaking fits.
"Perhaps she has found her courage," Melisandre thought,"and her fire to shield her from treason. Even the men here, by the blessed fire of the Lord, are certainly plotting in the shadows."
"Will you do your duty to the realm as its queen?" Melisandre demanded,"Will you do your duty to your people? Will you do your duty to the Lord of Light? Will you swear your utmost to lead the realm from the hands of traitors and usurpers into peace and prosperity?"
The queen's eyes rose to meet hers, their brown pupils small yet brave. The light illuminated her greyscale, which sunk grotesquely into her otherwise hale skin. "I will," was her stiff response.
Melisandre nodded, and laid the crown on her brow," Then by the Light of the Lord, you are hereby crowned Shireen of the House Baratheon, Ruling Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Queen of Westeros, Lady Regnant of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. Let all true men declare their loyalty. Bright shall your fire burn, for the night is dark and full of terrors. Long may she reign."
The queen stood, and Melisandre dropped to her knees again. She heard the men in the room echo her chant,"Long may she reign. Long may she reign."
The queen, still a girl and having braved little of the court of her father due to her greyscale, was shocked by their devotion, and she looked desperately to her mother.
But the red priestess heard amongst the men their almost silent mutters," Queen in the North. A queen of wastelands."
"It would not do," Melisandre thought,"for the new queen to beg her mother's approval like a cub not yet off teats."
When the chant died, Queen Selyse rose,"As my daughter is not yet grown, I shall serve as her Regent. Lady Melisandre has not seen my husband his grace in the fires, and it may yet be that he still lives. If he is to return, the crown shall be surrendered to the king. Until such that his fall may be confirmed, my daughter is your queen, and I her regent to rule and counsel her reign."
"Arise, my lords," she commanded, and they rose.
"Ser Axell," she called, and the old lord heeded her call and came forward,"You shall serve as the Hand of the Queen, as Lord Davos has unfortunately fallen and his grace had not named a successor." The man nodded and fell back, though Melisandre could see a smile upon his face.
Another man came forward. She saw that it was Ser Benethon Scales. He knelt before the regent and the queen.
"Your grace," he started. The Lady Selyse nodded, and he continued,"Now that Princess Shireen is queen, she should have a retinue and a guard befitting that status. A queen's safety, after all, is paramount. I thus volunteer my swords to serve as the queen's guards. They are trained at my own hand, and are loyal to the last. None shall ever desert or abandon his duty in guarding the queen's safety. I hope that your grace considers this proposal with all seriousness."
Lady Selyse nodded, smiling,"Very well, Ser Benethon. You shall serve as the Captain of the Queen's Guard. You are a man that I would trust to be suited to this duty, as you have always been known as a loyal man of my household. If your men are trained by your hand, I do not doubt their loyalty. Please rise." She offered Ser Benethon her hand. The knight kissed it, rose, and returned to his former place.
"My lords," the Lady Regent declared,"We must decide on our future course, and the protection of my daughter's crown. The Watch has murdered their Lord Commander, and Ser Patrek is dead. I believe all of you have heard of the contents of the letter. King Stannis is dead if it is true, and the Bastard demands the head of my daughter, your rightful queen. Lord Snow meant to defy the letter and march a host south to strike at the bastard, avenging my husband and reclaiming Winterfell, but he was murdered in cold blood. I would say that the mutineers mean to abide by the letter, and give my daughter to the traitors' dogs that are the flayed men. You say that all of you are queen's men, and you have sworn your swords in my daughter's service in the sight of both the Lord of Light and the assembly. So serve the queen, and protect her. Storm Castle Black and arrest the lead mutineers, Marsh and Yarwyck, and make certain that her grace's safety is ensured."
"Lord Snow was never our man. He roused himself for his sister, and betrayed the oath of the Watch. The Night's Watch takes no part." a voice called.
"They've taken a part," another answered,"the part of the Lord of Winterfell. The part of the Boltons of the Dreadfort. It will be lawful and just in the eyes of the Lord to strike."
"What of the wildlings?"
"They were Lord Snow's men. They have only stayed their hand because Marsh holds their hostages captive. They will not take a side."
The room collapsed into shouts and men arguing, one voice more fiercer than the other.
"They would never dare to do so when Stannis was king," she thought. The new queen stared wide-eyed at her subjects, and curled in her mother's arms in fear.
Queen Selyse gave her a sharp glance,"Lady Melisandre. You must do something about this, elsewise we can plan nothing." She nodded, knowing the shouts of the fools would reach no end. She saw Devan's hand curl upon his hilt, as if anticipating a brawl. Melisandre prayed to the Lord to lace her voice with command and courage.
"Silence," she boomed with the Lord's voice,"Lord Snow is dead. King Stannis is dead. Quarreling will not serve you any further. May the Lord's Light fall upon her grace to illuminate her path. I have not seen his grace in my fires, but I have seen much else. The Great Other rises, and his army of death marches to war. A blue-eyed king who cast no shadow but horror and cold. Have you forgotten the quest that the Lord foretold through I of our destiny north in these barren lands of war and hardship? I would not have asked you to abandon your southern struggles if there were not a greater battle that may hold the realm in balance. King Stannis was the Prince that was Promised, the man that legend foretold would strike against the Others and deliver us from doom. There are men to our south, but death to our north. Lord Snow crossed the path of shadow when he chose to break his oath. The Watch is the realm's shield, and we cannot break it. Victory can only be achieved if all men unite against the gods of darkness. Remember your oath, and remember your loyalty, to be the shield against the endless night. Do not worry of treason. The light of the Lord shall guide Her Grace in the coming darkness."
Her voice had scarcely fallen when a protest rose. She could hear mutters amongst the men doubting her voice, but she knew that her tone must not give way. The distant memory of the scribble of the septon's pen still rankled in her mind, while the winds blew, singing in the crevices of the swords. It was most certainly true that those of lesser faith were plotting treason against the rightful queen.
It was Ser Hubert Grandison that spoke. He was a man that gave himself to the Lord, but she knew that he remained foolishly doubtful of its truth.
"And how may the Light of the Lord guide her grace through Bolton's storm when the Lord of Winterfell strikes against Castle Black with a thousand swords. The Watch is not shielded from the south, and we have little men. We also have traitors within our walls in the guise of black cloaks."
"You lack faith, good Ser," Melisandre responded, her voice as silken as Myrish honey,"If the foes of Queen Shireen are to ride north, the Lord shall drown his host in the storms of righteous fury. If the hearts of the black brothers prove treacherous, the Lord shall cast light to show the shadows in their hearts, and smite them with his heavenly fire." She had no doubt that the Lord would show her a way. Even though King Stannis was dead, his blood lives on in Queen Shireen. The blood and future of the Prince that was Promised is blessed by the Light of the Lord. When King Stannis faced his treasonous brother, the Lord cast down his might and smote the usurper when he had the greater host. Melisandre was certain that the Lord would show the same grace to aid the queen.
Another voice shouted, its tone dry, dusty, and reeking of filth,"My Lords, I say that we abide by the Lord of Winterfell's terms. We have no swords to defy him, and a child cannot lead us to victory. Good men of the south. We trusted our faith in Renly, in Stannis, but they proved to be usurpers and were cast down. This red god is unrighteous, and we have cursed ourselves by turning on the Seven. I say that we give the false queen and princess to Bolton and bind ourselves back to the crown. We may return south, to the warm embrace of our lands, our hearths, and our wives. I beseech you to abandon this folly, and leave the North the northmen's duty. This has not been our battle, and we never saw what death the witch speaks of. King Stannis was a fool, and a false king, and following him has doomed us as well. We will not need to suffer his folly anymore, if only we trust in the terms and good will of the Lord of the North."
"This is treason," Melisandre thought,"and blasphemy as well. The Lord of Darkness would welcome the man in his ranks, he who would betray the Lord of Light's chosen." Those that were of loyal and pure heart drew their blades and converged on the knight who spoke. He was a lord, she could now see, of a minor banner house of the Velaryons of Driftmark. His liege was a descendant of the great Valyrians of old, who proved true to the Lord. Yet his vassal dares to doubt the word of the Lord's priestess, sacrilege at the highest order, of which there could only be one path to cleanse the soul of impurity. If his soul were not to languish in the endless dungeons of the Hall of Night, his sins must burn away.
"Seize him," she commanded,"and prepare a pyre. take him to the ice cells for now, until the time such as the Lord will pronounce his judgement. The fires, by the Lord's grace, will clean his soul, and even unbelievers such as him may achieve salvation and bathe in the pleasures of the Hall of Light." The man shouted curses at her, calling her a red whore, the witch who enchanted the hearts of men. Words borne of shadows and darkness within the soul, to make filthy the pure and untarnished flame of the Lord's servants.
Unease gripped the hall as another man was dragged from the room.
"They should not be fearful, but grateful," she thought,"for an enemy of the Lord has been found dark of heart and mind, and cleansed this tower of the Great Other's hand. Though they may be uneasy, for that man is not the only heart that would prove untrue. The Lord has not granted me the power to see the hearts of men, and many of their minds lay cloaked in shadow. I cannot judge whether the hearts of all the men here are true to the Lord's light."
Melisandre turned to the young queen. Queen Shireen was clinging to her mother's skirt at the sounds of the singing of the swords. Queen Selyse lifted the hand that was comforting her daughter and raised her head.
"My lords," Queen Selyse said,"Lady Melisandre is correct. We cannot risk open war and rebellion, especially since the loyalty of the men in our own ranks are doubtful."
"My lady," the old queen turned to Melisandre,"Has the Lord granted you knowledge of a future course that my daughter must take?"
Melisandre spoke:"The Lord has granted his wisdom to all his believers. He grants me visions of the future. He has shown me the Others amassing beyond the Wall, and they will soon come. We are to be the Lord's arm, and the realm's shield. Our might will run strong, as we defend the cause of the righteous."
A voice rang out unexpectedly from Queen Shireen herself.
"My lords," she squeaked, her voice weak,"Have any of you wisdom as to our future course? For all I know, my father is dead, and the foes that my mother speaks of are riding to kill me as well. What should we do?"
One of the lords rose to kneel before Queen Shireen. It was Ser Benethon Scales again, the newly appointed Captain of the Queen's guards, and his bulky body cast a shadow that blinded the glow of the torches. She saw a shadow within him as well, but she could not yet judge its source. She saw shadows in all men. Some by fear, some by treachery, and some by lust, but this man's shadow was none of them. Melisandre realized what it was. Lord Snow held the same darkness within his soul.
"The shadow of duty," she thought.
"Your Grace," he stated in a gravelly tone to Queen Shireen. He turned to Melisandre,"My lady." He turned again to Queen Selyse,"Your Grace."
Ser Benethon then turned again to face Queen Shireen," It is my honour that you have granted me the privilege of serving as your Captain of Guards. It is therefore of utmost concern that your safety is secured. To be frank, I cannot promise that you will be safe while we dwell in Castle Black. It, as my mind has compelled me to speak the truth, a foolish notion to come here from the safety of Eastwatch. I beg your grace's pardon if my words have offended, and that I feared to speak my mind until now. But now that I am responsible for your grace's safety, I must suggest a course. This castle has proved perilous, as the events of last night have proved. I do not trust that the black cloaks would keep to your grace's interests. Though I trust Lady Melisandre's word that the foe would not dare or be capable of striking against your grace, it would be foolish to risk it at any rate. I propose that we leave the might of our retinue here at Castle Black to secure the Watch's loyalty, while my company of guards will escort your grace and your mother the Lady Regent to Eastwatch. Your safety is paramount in the continuation of King Stannis's cause. Eastwatch is safer, as our fleet can escort your grace's escape if danger arises and the foe crosses the Lord's storm. I dare not risk a larger escort for fear of detection, and my guards are willing to lay down their lives to shield your escape should any danger arise."
"Are you saying that her grace should flee in the manner of the Dornishmen, and declare to the world that our queen is a spineless coward?" A protest broke out amongst the lords.
"I speak only the truth," Ser Benethon shouted amidst the din greeting his proposal," Castle Black is no place for a queen."
"Silence," another voice called, this one loud but shrill," The Hand of the Queen demands order." Lord Axell Florent stood, and strode to kneel beside Ser Benethon. "Your grace," he proclaimed," The words of the Captain of Guards have merit. Castle Black has proved a dangerous place for a young queen to dwell. I would be glad, as my duty as Hand, to serve in your stead and take command of the castle while your grace rests safely in Eastwatch. I shall take command in Lord Snow's stead and put the castle to rights, organizing both the Watch and wildling savages. I shall raise another host loyal to your grace, and when it is raised we may invite your grace to lead our march, when we will take Winterfell and begin your campaign for the Seven Kingdoms, fulfilling King Stannis's wishes. I cannot promise that order will be bloodless, and I plead that your grace remain as far from the castle until such time when we may receive a queen again."
Hearing her uncle's words, Queen Selyse nodded. She looked to Melisandre, as if to ask for her approval. Melisandre nodded, as she knew that the little queen had little safety here. A man's shield must protect Azor Ahai's heir as much as divine grace will. Queen Selyse saw her, and whispered again in her daughter's ear. Queen Shireen stood, and made to speak.
"Then I accept your proposal, my good lords. Do you have in your mind a time in which we could depart?"
"In two days, your grace," Ser Benethon responded," I trust that my men would make the necessary preparations in time. I trust that Your Grace will ready yourself in time as well."
The queen nodded, and opened her mouth to voice assent. Before the words ran off her tongue, Melisandre unconsciously felt as if the room collapsed suddenly into cold. The flames of the torches withered, and she could no longer hear the crackle of Lord Snow's pyre.
A horn sounded.
"The horn of the Watch," she knew,"the Others have come." She braced herself for a second blast, but none came. The attention of the assembly had been seized, fearing the worst, but the men seemed to relax when no second call followed first.
"Rangers," she heard many of the men mutter.
"Your grace," Ser Axell proposed,"Shall you grace their return with your presence?" His eyes were on the queen, but his voice clearly carried to her mother. Queen Selyse nodded, and Ser Axell made to prepare, shouting orders to the men to arrange the retinue of their sally.
Melisandre touched her choker, and it burned red and warm. The Lord would warm her even while the winds of the bitter north blew. She was curious of the rangers' return. Had they seen the dead in the North, or an Other itself, for she felt that the Others marched ever closer to the Wall. Perhaps not, elsewise they would not return from death's grasp. The Lord had sent her more and more of the Others in her visions in the fire of late, and she took it as a dire warning that the foes were approaching.
"How have they returned," she thought,"when the Haunted Forest keeps true to its name?"
Queen Shireen's retinue filed from the tower, exposing themselves to the cold. The other knights huddled their cloaks to their chest, but Melisandre needed not, for she had given herself to the flames of the Lord long ago, and fire was her companion that dispelled the cold of darkness.
"If they were of truer faith," Melisandre thought,"They need not fear the cold as they do now."
Ser Axell barked orders, arranging for an escort upon their retinue. Ser Benethon Scales and his picked men stood with their hands on their hilt by the queen's side. The queen's men strode to a balcony overlooking the courtyard, and saw the black brothers in the aftermath of their Lord Commander's funeral. Several black brothers greeted their arrival.
After a time, two riders approached from a path that led from the Wall's gate. She recognized the stern face of Ser Alliser Thorne, and another black brother that she did not know the name. He was bent over, clutching a wound in his thigh.
"Ser Alliser. Dywen," the Acting Lord Commander Bowen Marsh called, a trail of Watchmen following in his wake as the former Lord Steward made to greet the returning rangers.
"Lord Marsh," Ser Alliser declared," Where is Lord Snow? We have urgent tidings to report to his lordship." The black brothers looked at one another.
Bowen Marsh made to respond,"Lord Snow is dead. That fire you see burning is his pyre. I am Acting Lord Commander of Castle Black. What tidings you have to report shall come to me?"
Ser Alliser's mouth dropped into a frown, and pursed his lips,"How did the boy die? Did the fool fall off the Wall? Did he get a knife in his throat while fucking a wildling whore?"
"He deserted the Watch, wanting to march and claim Winterfell. We executed him as the oath required."
The ranger did not ask any more, and sniggered,"Hmph. I always knew that traitors' blood would show itself. Like father, like son."
Bowen Marsh appeared unsettled,"Let us not speak of him. What tidings have you gained beyond the Wall?"
Ser Alliser dismounted his horse,"Dywen was shot by wildlings in the thigh when the Weeper's scouts detected our party. We removed the arrow, and sealed it with fire, but a night has passed, and we fear the worst. He needs aid urgently."
Bowen Marsh gestured to his stewards, and two of them helped the other ranger dismount. They acted as the injured rangers' crutch as they led him to the infirmary.
The former Lord Steward broke the silence after they departed,"This is no place to discuss your tidings. We can speak at length of your findings by the hearth of the Lord Commander's Tower."
Ser Alliser shook his head,"This cannot wait. The tidings that I come to report are too queer."
"Very well,"the steward said,"What did you find beyond the Wall?"
"We were three when we departed. I myself, Dywen, and the White Flint, whom Lord Alf recommended to join my ranging. We journeyed for days in the Haunted Forest, and we expected not to return, as I knew that Lord Snow meant to use this ranging as an excuse to exact revenge. It was our misfortune that we chanced upon the host of the Weeper. They were closer than ever before, and we fear that they may strike soon at Castle Black. Some of their scouts found us, and our horses barely outpaced theirs. Dywen had suffered an injury, so we thought to return."
"Is this the urgent tidings that you bring?" Bowen Marsh stated,"If the Weeper means to attack Castle Black, then it is dire indeed. Come to the Lord Commander's Tower. We must join with King Stannis's men and prepare for battle."
"No," Ser Alliser said,"that was not the queerest. It was last night, when the Haunted Forest proved its name, and we were set upon by dead men, all with shining blue eyes. The White Flint had our flame, and slew one or two. Almost no one could see, though, in the snow and madness. He was soon overwhelmed, and Dywen and I thought we were doomed. He could not fight, and I could not defend two with one sword. Suddenly, as if by some divine stroke, the dead became true corpses again, and fell into the snow. We were dumbfounded, but we were grateful, for that is how we were able to return. I had meant to tell Lord Snow about this strange happening, but since he has died a traitor's death, I will report to you instead. I trust that you will make a better Lord than the bastard."
"The dead... died again,"Bowen Marsh voiced in disbelief,"They fell on their own?"
Ser Alliser nodded.
"It is the Wall's magic," Melisandre thought,"that stopped them from marching close. The spells cast by the First Men of Westeros were potent and strong, and they raised the Wall for one purpose. Or is it the might of the Lord of Light, that smote down the dead and the servants of the Great Other to shield the realm from his great foe. Whatever the cause, it will not last, and the dead will inevitably break the spells. The Lord has shown me that future, and the Wall will fall. They will bring with them ice and snow, and envelop Westeros in an everlasting night of winter."
"Azor Ahai must come," she thought,"The Prince that was Promised must rise to lead the living, elsewise the dead would conquer all. I thought it was King Stannis, but he fell, and a princess is not a prince. Queen Shireen is also too young."
Her eyes suddenly caught a white blur on the opposing battlements. It blended with the snow, so a mortal eye could not see it, but the Lord enhanced her sight, and made clear the fur of the wolf.
"Ghost," Melisandre realized. Perhaps that was an omen that the Lord sent her, telling her the answer to Azor Ahai.
"But Lord Snow is dead," she thought. Melisandre recanted the prophecy,"Born again from salt and smoke, to the light of a bleeding star. King of the ashes. King of the Light. The Prophesied Hero that would lead the realm against darkness. Lord Snow was a warg. Could his soul be with his wolf? His body may be burnt, but his soul is untarnished. He may be born again, to claim his duty."
"Where are the wildlings?" Ser Alliser asked, as her attention was directed again below.
"I see King Stannis's men," he continued,"but not the wildlings that Lord Snow had so kindly invited into our castle."
"They left this morning, before you returned," Othell Yarwyck responded,"They were Lord Snow's men, and keeping them would be a danger. They sought to rescue their kin at Hardhome."
"They will all die," Melisandre knew,"I warned Lord Snow that the path to Hardhome is doomed in failure. When I sought the fires to ask of Lord Snow's ships, the Lord showed me only a dark king rising over a mound of corpses. His fingers were daggers, and stained with blood." These wildlings never knew, and they would never return.
Some of the men were muttering,"The wildlings are gone."
She even saw Devan mouth,"They're gone."
The red priestess saw Ser Axell and Ser Benethon share a knowing glance, and they both dipped their heads.
The black cloaks below continued to speak of their exploits, but she was disinterested.
"I need to see about Devan's sight," she thought,"It is strange indeed that the Lord chose him."
"Devan," she said,"accompany me." The boy nodded, and she saw Ser Axell give them a glance and a nod. After taking the leave of her grace, her two guards and the boy following in her wake. They came soon to her tower's chamber, and she strode to the balcony overlooking the courtyard below, where small figures were still standing in the snow.
"Is this what the Lord sees," she wondered,"when he looks upon us humble servants?" She swiftly barred herself from thinking of such things, for such thoughts were blasphemy.
She turned, her copper hair flying in the snow,"Devan, come here."
The smuggler's son wore a fur-lined helm and a similarly coated cloak of fur. His gloved hand was set upon his hilt, and his youthful eyes were hardset. He strode to Melisandre's side, heeding her command.
"I am at your service, my lady," he spoke softly, his voice quavering from the cold.
"Do you feel the cold, my young lord?" she spoke in a sweet voice,"That is the spell of the Great Other. Snow is his army, and winter is his kingdom. The Lord's realm is fire, and he fights eternally against his evil foe. I have given myself to the flame, and I feel no cold, as the Lord's fire warms me."
The boy's eyes, however, were set upon the courtyard below, his soul seemingly undeterred by her words.
The snows fell in flurries, and she soon found her copper hair matted with snow. Devan took off his glove and gripped the railing, as if relishing in the coolness.
"He has changed," Melisandre thought,"No longer the meek and callow boy from before. Is it last night's fight, when he first blooded his blade? The Lord chose to grant him sight. Perhaps the Lord chose to enlighten his darkness, as he did with that wretched woman so long ago."
"The Lord has granted you sight,"she said,"That is no common gift. He only grants it to his most devout. You are to play a part in his designs, in his fight against evil."
Devan lifted his gaze from the clustered figures below and looked to Melisandre. He released his hold on the icy railing and slipped on his glove.
"I have been thinking," he started,"of the Lord and his will. How it might be done, and how it might be served. When I looked into the flame this morning, I saw only shadows. Shadows cast by knights. Shadows cast by kings. Shadows cast by other shadows. Do you know what I asked the Lord to show me? I asked him to show my mother, and my brothers in our holdfast in the Stormlands, and how they may fare. My father had left them when he had taken his other sons to war. And now my father is dead. Dale is dead. Allard is dead. Maric and Matthos as well. All of them, dead. My mother and my two brothers are all that I have left, and I have abandoned them to shadows. My caring mother, who had reared me. I still remember the times in which she would tell me bedtime tales by the hearth of my chamber. The stories of the Storm's Song, when a thousand Stormlander galleys landed on the shores of Northern Dorne. They landed in the midst of a great storm, but they endured to shield their lands from the Dornish pirate lords. She would tell me the tale of the great outlaw Ser Owen of the Rainwood, a noble knight forced into banditry by the lawlessness of his liege lord. He would raid from the greedy rich and give to the needy poor. I barely remember little Stannis, and only know Steffon from my father's letters with my mother, as I had been taken by my father to foster at Dragonstone as soon as I reached my sixth nameday."
He sighed,"I asked myself why I came north. I came to serve the will of the Lord. I came so that I may fight and do my duty, and feast with my fallen brothers in the Hall of Light. I was naïve, a young boy, not even learned to be a knight, and knew little of lordship. I realized that I was my father's heir, when my four elder brother's fell. Now that my father has passed on as well, I am Lord Seaworth now. I am the head of the family, to shoulder the burden and duty that the position calls for. I never realized that before. When I came north, I thought to win glory by the king's side, and serve my duty to the Lord. But if I served the Lord's will, would I have abandoned my kin to the monsters of the south? What good is a thousand victories to the blood of my kin. I have given all to the Lord, and received only shadows in return. Is this his will, and what do I seek to fight for at the Wall? But is it the Lord that is wrong? I asked myself that question. No, it is not, for he is the greatest, but why by his guidance does his followers fall into shadow?"
She saw doubt in the boy's heart, and made to harden it,"The brightest flames cast the darkest of shadows. The greater the duty, the greater the trial. It is not untrue that the greatest heroes were also the most tragic. If you are to be the Lord's champion, you have to trust in his will. The shadows of his visions are your trial. You are blessed with holy sight, a gift so few men are given to possess. You are foretold to do great deeds. A shadow is a reflection of the past, and a hero must forward beyond the shadows of memory thrust upon him by the gods of darkness, to journey into the holy fires that will make bright and glorious his future."
Devan laid his gloved hand upon his hilt once again, and moved his gaze to the men below,"You say that I am blessed with the Lord's sight, and have the future of a hero. I believed it once, as I was a young fool that thought to win glory by the Lord's fire. Yet the only future that the Lord has shown me is darkness, laced with my ill-begotten sight."
She did not know how the boy had turned his mind so quickly, and she made to correct his course,"Those are dangerous words to utter in the presence of the Lord. You are young, and the Lord is merciful and will forgive your brashness. He gives no ill gifts to his devout worshipers. Only the dark-hearted have cause to fear his wrath. Do you not see the Light of the Lord that shines upon us even now in this snow, the light that blessed our fathers as they toiled the soil and grew our kingdoms. That is the Lord's light, and we have life because of his kindness. The sun is his hand, and the light his generous gift."
He laughed joylessly,"Forgive me, my lady. I am a smuggler's son, and a criminal has no trust in anything but gold and swords, lacking in faith."
Devan turned to her again,"Then if the storm you speak of shall blind the sun's light hindering our foes' passage, is it the blessing of the Lord of Light or the Lord of Darkness?"
The boy was proving unfaithful, and her smile faded,"You speak as your father once did, lacking in trust of the Lord, and that was your father's greatest bane. The Lord of Darkness has no friends of man, and helps only to destroy. The light is the Lord of Light's gift. He can give or withdraw it at his will. When he brings the storm, he withdraws his light. The sky, in the end, would rather serve the righteous than the evil of the Great Other."
Devan did not give a response, and Melisandre saw a shadow grow in him. He eventually spoke,"May I take my leave?"
"Yes, you may," she said, and the boy departed the balcony.
She gazed alone at the courtyard below, and heard the bells again. It struck as sudden as the cold, a great evil looming upon the courtyard. Before her wisdom could tell what it was, a horn sounded below. This was not the horn of the Night's Watch, but the horn of Stannis's men. She saw Ser Axell, Ser Benethon, and all of Queen Shireen's new guards draw their swords in unison. They turned upon all the other knights below and swiftly ran them through. Almost none were able to draw their swords before their blood stained the snow.
"Why would they do this," she thought,"committing this treason? Treason against the queen. Treason against the Lord. They will freeze eternally in the Halls of Darkness. They will doom Westeros with their strife when the dead come." She heard the bells ring louder, and the sound of steel stinging on flesh once again, to the cheers of a hundred men. She saw not the courtyard of Castle Black, but the coarse stones of a keep she had forgotten, looking on from the same tower. A dead man fell, and stained the stones. She saw dead men fall now, their slayers looking at her with the same eyes. The dowager queen huddled the young queen to her chest, and soon dozens of blades were trained on them. Ser Alliser made to draw his blade, but Bowen Marsh stayed him with his hand. All the other black brothers watched the treason unfold, their hands on their hilt but unwilling to intervene.
Melisandre heard a blade sing to her left.
"Not Devan," she thought as she turned to find the boy's blade buried in the throat of one of her guards. The other guard made to charge at him, but the boy nimbly sidestepped him, and used his momentum to catapult him from the balcony. He fell upon the ice below, the blood of his broken body black against the frozen ice.
She made to move, to escape, but found that Devan had trained his blade upon her throat.
"I'm sorry," he spoke, blood staining his white squire's doublet and his furs. He looked the mask of a blooded soldier, not a boy,"A smuggler's son trusts in gold and swords, not gods. I trust not that the shield your god lends the little queen can save her from the blades of her foes. I am Lord Seaworth now, and I must lord my lands, not fall in the abysmal north by the folly of a fool of a priestess."
Anger and righteous fury arose,"You would betray the Lord. You would betray your oath to your king."
"I betray no one," he responded, his words harsh and forbidding,"The king is dead, and it was King Stannis that I followed. We will bind ourselves back to the crown, and return south to our homes."
"You would trust the word of the usurper's hounds?"
"I would trust them more than our number of swords."
Her will broke, and the ruby along her throat faded for an instant, revealing her to the cold.
"No," she thought,"The Lord has no weak servants. He blesses those that trust in him with strength." Ignoring the touch of cold steel, her ruby burned warm, and the snows lost their frozen kiss. She heard again the great roar of the beast that greeted its master's victory. But now her eyes did not linger on the courtyard below, where the traitors dragged the queen and her mother at swordpoint to wherever their masters would demand.
She looked away, beyond the reach of mortal steel. Her gaze was drawn to another battlement, where she saw what she desired to see.
The white wolf opened his fangs in a snarl, and gazed at her with stark grey eyes.
The stars cast lonely glows, and the night was long and grey.
Gloom filled the musty air, its coolness falling on his tongue. It was the gloom of the darkness stretching forever and beyond. The gloom of the whispering waters splashing upon a forgotten shore. The gloom of a fallen kingdom broken in this life. It was the gloom of the wait.
"The wait," Jon looked at the sky,"seventeen years through this night."
Jon remembered his home in the days before, when his silver prince's banners soared through the fields. Those were the days when Jon had laughed in those meadows, by the rivers that flowed into the endless sea. The times before the war, before the Usurper Robert Baratheon and his dogs took the realm. They marred it beyond recognition, and all Jon loved was gone.
He was home again, returned to the lands that looked the same. Yet the salt did not taste as he knew, nor did the fields hold the sweetness that he remembered.
What he remembered was gone. All gone, in the wars that took their beauty.
"Even when the sun rises," Jon sighed,"the shadows of the nights still linger."
Yet the sun had risen, and all their sorrows were laid bare. The Usurper took the throne and cast away the rightful dragon kings. Jon saw the sorrows, but he also saw the light beyond. The light of the young prince he raised in shadows and fear. The light of the king who returned to reclaim his throne. "The light of Aegon Targaryen."
Jon stood beside his fathers who lay now in soil and stone, all the thousands of lives before him watching. He had almost forgotten their voices in his years away from the earth of the Stormlands and the Seven Kingdoms. Home again, he knew their calls at once. His fathers were waiting for Jon's duty. The duty to meet the usurpers again in sword and fire, and this time he would never flee. He raised the boy in exile, and the boy has turned into a king. The king has returned to his kingdoms with an army to conquer again his land. As the king's Hand, Jon would see the true king on his throne. He had waited half his life. His fathers were waiting for him.
"They were also waiting for something else," Jon flexed his fingers, feeling the numbness beneath his glove. The numbness spread across his hand, its grey death mirroring its empty taste. His fathers were waiting for Jon himself to join them beneath the earth. He would join them, in due time when his duty was done. "But not yet."
"I failed the father," Jon whispered those words,"I will not fail the son." He had lost the kingdom of his silver prince a life before. Waiting a life after, Jon would reclaim it for his silver prince's son.
Tonight, Jon was still waiting. There was a boy he was waiting for, to take this castle, Storm's End, for his king. The wait was a brewing storm, but he knew that naught should show from his face. "Just a little longer, for the last time. I must wait for the other way. If this wait is a storm, it ends at this castle."
Storm's End was the seat of the Stormlands, one of the Seven Kingdoms. If they took it while the king's uncle Prince Doran rallies Dorne to Aegon's banner, two of the seven would follow the dragon. Lords will rally to Aegon's banner as they see gain in following a victorious king. There will still be battles to come and more of the kingdoms to win, but Aegon will stand steady in the Seven Kingdoms with this castle.
Had the Usurper's Dogs not fought amongst themselves in this recent War of Five Kings, Aegon's road to the Iron Throne would still be long and hard even with Storm's End. Yet Aegon's foes had bled each other dry, and the king would stand above them. Their foes bred destruction where Aegon brings prosperity. They bred scarcity where Aegon brings abundance. They bred enmity where Aegon brings friendship.
The road would be easy after Aegon takes Storm's End. This will be the last day that Jon would have to wait.
"My lord," Jon heard Haldon speak,"Why do you look to the skies? I sent the ravens this morning. They will not return for a fortnight at the least, if those lords you named ever choose to send them back."
What Haldon spoke of was another matter that threatened to tear Jon away from the duty before him. Jon did not feel like speaking of that when there were more pressing concerns.
Jon shook his head. "I was looking at the crows," he said,"flying above the sea. They will scatter when the ships come."
"And when will that be?" Ser Franklyn grunted. The captains of the king's Golden Company did not favour Jon's plan to take Storm's End. Jon would have preferred not to have the sellswords near him, but a King's Hand did not act alone.
"Tonight," Jon said for the thousandth time that night. It would not be the end of the complaints, for the field was full of skeptical sellsword captains.
He heard a scoff. It was Tristan Rivers,"This boy changes his plans by the day, makes me prefer the fat man. At least the fat lord's plans had some sense to them when he turned to another course. We were to storm the walls of this castle half a fortnight ago, and my men were ready. Their steel were as sharp as they could be, to fight and die for His Grace. Yet the order came, and it was not for battle. It was to wait, again, and again, as we had for months."
"Have you never been in a siege before, Rivers?" Dick Cole said,"Most of it is waiting, hoping winter will take you before the pox."
"Careful with that tongue of yours," Ser Franklyn said,"Do not presume to slander His Grace."
"Lord Connington," Rivers spoke again,"I plead with you, to know that His Grace is a boy. He does not know the ways of war. He cannot set his mind on a plan. Letting him decide now will lead us to doom. I plead with you to guide him in the reins that he does not know. Plot his course for him, and His Grace will learn. You can give the reins back when he is old enough to know what it means to rule. Look at us now, waiting here for this other boy, hoping he will deliver us to this castle, mayhaps with his wit and dreams."
This time, Jon turned his ears to him as he heard Rivers's words. He was treading dangerously close to treason. If not for the fact that Jon knew that he was always so bold, Jon would have his stripes for suggesting such an act. Rivers's boldness had aided him in his victories, and he had earned his keep in claiming Crow's Nest for the king, bending the knee of Ser Richard Morrigen. It would not avail him by the side of His Grace, and Jon made a silent note to send him off on campaign the next day. Perhaps Broad Arch, a day's ride away, to win the loyalty of Lord Alexander who had been a dragon man. Storm's End would fall on the morrow, and they needed to secure that flank before they marched north upon the Kingsroad. The fall of the castle would serve enough to sway Lord Alexander's loyalty, and Rivers would join them again when they would meet the usurpers in battle. With the enemies across the field, however bold his tongue is would not matter.
"The king, perhaps, would lead us to doom," Dick Cole answered,"but also to glory."
Rivers laughed,"When we fall, we'll drink to that glory with our gilded skulls."
Jon silenced them with a look,"Speak no more of this. You will not question His Grace's plan. I knew of it, and it has merit."
There were no more words after, and Jon was glad that it was the end of it.
The Halfmaester's voice was a pleasant relief, but his words less so,"Are you certain of this plan, Lord Hand? Captain Strickland has his misgivings."
"Captain Strickland always has his misgivings," Jon thought. If they abided by him, they would still be across the sea, waiting for the right day to raise their sails. All while the usurpers sharpen their steel and train their hosts in their ill-begotten kingdom. "There are no days without a storm, and we shall need to plot our best course through."
This plan was Jon's own. He promised Strickland ten days. Ten days for Jon to take the castle. Ten days the captain needed to win him in the siege. It is only on the eve of the seventh.
The whole host had doubted Jon. Jon had seen the sense in their doubt, for Storm's End had never yielded to storm since Durran Godsgrief and Brandon the Builder raised those walls strong enough to stay the wrath of the gods. It was much beyond the power of men. Yet His Grace needed the castles, for Storm's End was the place of a kingdom. It was the seat of a high lord, a prize that would seal Aegon's banner in the hearts of the Seven Kingdoms. Storm's End had never fallen to storm before, and perhaps never will. Jon did not mean to take it that way. This siege would be his prince's landing, as all the lords in the realm will see his prince was capable and true.
When Storm's End falls, the glory would not be Jon's. He would give the glory to the king. It would be the king's plan in the end. "The prince's plan."
"Not his prince," Jon reminded himself, as he had a thousand times before ,"My silver prince is dead, dead by the blades of the usurpers. This is his son."
"Would you truly wager on a bastard?" the Halfmaester's voice brought Jon back to life,"You trust this bastard boy we're waiting for to bring you Storm's End."
"Not the boy himself," Jon answered,"and neither his blood alone. The boy is not the only piece in this storm."
Haldon was right to be troubled, especially after the letters Jon had ordered sent. Oldtown, Duskendale, White Harbour, and King's Landing, and a dozen more ports within the Seven Kingdoms.
"You'd do better to send envoys," the Halfmaester had questioned the sense in sending them when Jon gave the command that dawn,"These are proud lords you seek to win, and a mere raven will insult them. There are Stormlander lords that we hold. They are all of noble stock, enough to make worthy emissaries. My Hand need not worry of their loyalty, for they will hold true to His Grace so long as we hold their keeps and kin."
For other lords, lords he sought to win, Jon did send emissaries. Selmy and Dondarrion and Estermont, the castles that still stood for the Usurper in the Stormlands. Their castles were all besieged by the Golden Company, as Aegon needed to secure the Dornish Marches and join with Prince Doran's lands before the king's host could march north. The tongues of the emissaries would serve to hasten their fall. Jon had to give promises of honour, of the lords being worthy of a place in Aegon's realm. Promises of safety, as they were needed to serve the king. Thereafter there were promises of gold.
The ravens to these ports were not emissaries in truth. Jon knew that Haldon could seal his tongue from his years with Aegon, so Jon had answered him.
"It was not to win the lords," Jon had told the Halfmaester, though it did not sate him,"It is to spread the word. Aegon is no king if no one sees His Grace as such." The ports were the centers of trade in the Seven Kingdoms, and word spread in those cities would soon spread to all the land.
In truth, Jon needed to spread the tidings of Aegon to both the lords and the common folk. The ravens themselves were meant for only the lords, as the lords held sway the ravenrys. Receiving notice personally from the king would make them feel honoured, even if they do not declare for Aegon outright. Jon only needed to plant the seeds. As to the common folk, it was not much Jon's duty as Lord Connington but Lord Varys's, that eunuch spymaster. His agents in those cities would be able to spread tales praising the merits of this rising dragon king, and it was best if they were as grand and fanciful as possible. The tales would race across the realm like fire. "Aegon's fire."
Jon had briefly worried that the eunuch would not cooperate, but he had agreed easily to Jon's plan.
"My Hand's course is wise," Jon grew suspicious of the eunuch's amicable tone,"The word of Aegon shall spread to every center of the Seven Kingdoms. Before the moon turns, all the ears in the realm would know of him. My little birds in every place shall aid my Hand in this, for they are glad for the chance to serve their king. When the tales of our victories reach their ears thereafter, the realm will be in His Grace's hands."
It was worrying, the courtesy that the eunuch offered Jon. It was almost as if he knew what Jon wished him to say. Jon reminded himself that the eunuch's words were poison. Yet he also reminded himself that the perfumed creature was useful, and had spies lined in every city. Before the moon will turn, there was no doubt with the eunuch's aid that Aegon shall be known in every ear. The Lord Connington would tolerate his presence for the moment.
But only for the moment. Jon knew that the eunuch's words were poison and his reach dangerous. Jon would not allow this sort of power to stay by Aegon's side long. When Aegon came unto his throne, Jon was sure to rid the king of his false counsel.
"The Golden Company shall win His Grace's battles," the eunuch had said,"We shall win His Grace's war."
Jon turned his mind from the eunuch to the present and the Halfmaester standing before him.
Jon had not revealed his plans to Haldon, for there was need of secrecy. Haldon remained doubtful to this hour, though Jon was not in the mood for questioning. Jon had his own doubts which he himself knew all too well.
He was certain that the letters themselves would go unanswered. The cities were all dragon men in the last war, but times change and so do hearts. Words are wind and vows are wind. Aegon is yet to win his battles, yet to win their trust.
"I trusted my silver prince," Jon thought,"as did all the true men who fell in the Usurper's war, fighting with bravery and honour."
These lords fought with naught but greed. They would only join if they saw profit in Aegon's rule. When the dragons fell in the last war, they had swept to the Usurper like a falling tide.
"But there are still men in the realm that are true." Jon knew.
Jon had written another letter, this one by his own hand. He himself had watched the raven soar from its cage into the sky. The raven flew to the Eyrie, to Petyr Baelish, the Lord Protector of the Vale.
Baelish was the only true man in the Usurper's council. All the rest were traitors or fools, some both.
The Usurper did himself well by making his council to ripen his rule.
The Hands he chose served his ill-begotten place well. Lord Arryn, with a tongue that spoke of cunning and treachery, was just the man to silence his foes in the shadows. As was cold-eyed Eddard Stark with his heart of frost, so very cruel that even the Usurper's dogs rallied against him. The Usurper laid his tyranny bare for all the world to see.
The eunuch was a lickspittle. So was the old knight who men called the Bold, swaying wherever the wind blows.
All the rest were fools, unearned men such as the Usurper's brothers or the doddering greybeard who had been Grand Maester since the fifth Aegon sat the Iron Throne.
In that sea of sycophants, Jon was certain of only one who truly earned his place. An honest man, who rose through his merit and valour. The Usurper was the only king he knew, and so he served the wrong man.
"Baelish would see sense," Jon knew,"The Usurper has fallen. His dogs have bled each other dry. The Usurper's kin, the Lannisters, are spent and Baelish well knows. He will raise himself for his true king, as will he raise the Vale that he rules."
The Vale will make three of the Seven Kingdoms. Not even the Lannisters, the greatest remnant of the Usurper's kingdom, could contest that power.
"Lord Baelish is a small man," the eunuch had questioned him,"who has cast himself a very large shadow. He is certain to be useful, but I must caution you. His loyalty can go to His Grace just as easily as it can sway to Tommen."
The eunuch would not sway Jon in this. He would never believe the eunuch's lies.
"A raven is a risk," Jon knew, and it could just as easily fall into Lannister hands. Even if it did, the letter would only serve to drive a rift between the Lannisters and Baelish, which would make it easier to sway the Lord Protector of the Vale to Aegon.
Haldon did not hesitate in sending these ravens, but his words betrayed his lingering doubts.
"Would you truly wager on a bastard?" Jon pondered the Halfmaester's question,"He is right to doubt this bastard as well, on whom I wagered this siege and Aegon's crown."
"A bastard," Brendel Byrne brought Jon back to the present as the sellsword answered Haldon,"Have you forgotten whose banners we march under? I cannot remember how many times the black dragon's flown above these shores."
"And all those times," Haldon answered,"you were swept away. You should pray that under a red dragon, a bastard can bring you glory."
"Under a red dragon, you will find glory," Jon thought back to his king, the boy declaring that he would lead the assault. Jon winced at that particular notion again. All the camp had counselled him against it. For once, they were united in purpose. Jon himself, Harry Strickland, Tristan Rivers, the Halfmaester, and even Duckfield had agreed on this matter. His Grace must not show himself in battle.
He was an unblooded boy. No matter how well he was raised by the sword, it would not last beyond the first moments on that field of blood. Jon planned to see the least of battles anyways, for they were too risky, gambles which he could not afford to lose. He could not see his dragon fall again. A man should train for battle, but should never seek it.
"He does not know what to do," Jon remembered that day, when the bells tolled,"He never had blood on his hands."
"This is my will," the king had not swayed, and for a moment, Aegon's eyes were that of Jon's silver prince,"I have given my word to the men, and promised that the man to whom they have sworn their sword would fight for them. I will not betray it. What man will follow a craven who goes back on his vow?"
As the candles danced in the tent, all Jon saw was Rhaegar come again.
Strickland had given in to the king,"Your Grace, if that is your will, it is not our place to disobey. You shall have our best guards about you. Ser Rolly, of course, and my best men. There shall be a shield of steel about at all times during the assault."
Jon looked at the boy, who was so much like his father.
"A boy who is Rhaegar's son," Jon had thought,"the son of my silver prince, who could best most knights when he was his age."
Yet his silver prince died.
"I failed the father," Jon had thought,"I will not fail the son."
The flash of light died, and Jon saw the boy he raised,"He would do better to let me face his battles until he is grown. This is no place for a boy." Jon would never let his boy face his battles alone.
Jon would carve out Aegon's path to King's Landing. He would make mighty his rule in all the eyes of the realm. Jon will see the High Septon place a crown on Aegon's brow, see him rise in the same place that all the dragon kings had for centuries, a place that his silver prince lost.
Then, when his world was at peace, Jon would give the reins to Aegon, certain that he could rule as Rhaegar would , with justice and honour and grace. The grey plague would take him then, but he would be glad to rest, worthy to lay in the silent stones beneath the halls of his fathers. Perhaps then, he would never hear the bells again in his dreams.
"Yet now," his heart rose in the present as he saw a distant sail,"I will do my duty to my king."
A messenger arrived at Jon's perch soon after, bringing the tidings of the ship's arrival. The Golden Company's fleet had been blockading Shipbreaker Bay from any supplies that sought to reach the castle. Their patrols had found the ships that Jon was awaiting for months, ever since he dispatched part of the fleet to Lys.
"Again, the eunuch was right," Jon had not considered the notion of Edric Storm until the day before they set sail. The eunuch advised him with his knowledge of the boy's whereabouts, and Jon had sent men to retrieve him before they landed on the Stormlander shores, before they laid siege to this castle that had never fallen.
"The Lord Hand was right," Brendel Byrne hissed through his teeth,"They've come at last."
"The eunuch was right," Jon thought,"Even Lysono Maar's spies had not known of them. The eunuch was right again, all this time."
There was an unspoken thought amongst all of the Company captains standing with Jon,"And Storm's End may yet fall."
"Lord Hand," the messenger rode before Jon and dismounted his horse,"I come to you with urgent tidings. Our patrolling galleys found three ships two days ago approaching Shipbreaker Bay from the east. They have raised sails of peace, and their envoys have declared that they have come at His Grace's invitation, being host to Lord Edric Baratheon of Storm's End. They desire to meet His Grace. Captains Sellacor and Qarlmyr are uncertain of the truth of their claim, so they seek my Hand's guidance. Our galleys have escorted the ships through our blockade into our seas. They await your command."
"I know of their coming," Jon thought, and gave an answer,"Dispatch an envoy to our new guests. Tell them that they rest under the shield of the king's law, and no harm would come to them. However, none are to leave their ships without my consent. His Grace will see them at dawn, and I shall then dispatch messengers to inform them. If they wish to speak of anything now, they are welcome to send an envoy to me."
The messenger did not leave,"This was only one fleet that our ships encountered. The patrol met another fleet, this one great in number with sails as black as the night. They wished to see His Grace as well. Our captains made peace with them, but did not allow them inside our blockade. They lie at anchor now a few miles south on the shore. What are we to do with them?"
"Sails as black as night," Jon wondered,"Sails that bear no banner, and no loyalty." These would be pirate ships, but Aegon had no dealing with pirates. No corsair would be fool enough to assail an armed host.
"How great in number?" Jon asked.
"There are at least a dozen dromonds," the messenger replied,"and countless smaller vessels. The captains estimate at least a hundred. This fleet could only be wrought by the richest of the Seven Kingdoms or the Free Cities."
"Who could build such a host?" Jon wondered,"This is a fleet worthy of a king. It could very well be the enemy."
Jon looked south, where the fleet was said to lay at anchor,"or our own."
Perhaps it is the Dornish, Prince Doran's fleet joining his nephew in battle. Perhaps it was Daenerys, coming at last from across the sea, to wed Aegon with her dragons.
"Black is the Targaryen colour," Jon knew,"and in the night, one would not see the red dragon." It would have to be Daenerys on her way home.
"Dispatch another envoy to the other fleet," Jon commanded the messenger,"They are to tell this fleet the same words I ordered the others to tell Lord Edric. They are to also find who truly commands these ships."
The messenger nodded, satisfied, and rode away.
Jon stared south, but this fleet was beyond the horizon. If the messenger's words were true, they were some miles away. Strickland and Maar would need to be informed to prepare the south of their camp, for there was every chance of treachery. Though if it were truly Daenerys to aid her nephew, Jon had much more to sway the realm in Aegon's favour. Daenerys and her dragons would make a worthy call to loyalty, and there would be letters to write.
"Would Daenerys be Aegon's queen?" Jon wondered. He himself thought not. With them not married, Jon had two of royal blood to offer in marriage to the lords of the realm. With them married, Jon had none. If all comes to accord, Prince Doran would rise for his sister's son. He was a beginning, but was not enough to make Aegon's victory certain. He would need to seek more lords and more swords with a dragon's hand in a wedding.
Those ships were still miles away, and Jon would deal with the fleet before him first. The ships of Edric Storm, and Storm's End.
"Ser Lorimas," Jon called, and the knight swept before him,"Go to the stocks, and inform the quartermaster to give to Lord Edric's fleet any supplies they may require. They have sailed a great journey, and will be lacking in many stocks. They are His Grace's guests, and I expect them to be treated as such."
Jon curled his numb fingers, trying to find some touch of warmth. Nothing stirred beneath his gauntlet. He flexed his fingers again, hoping to feel something. Anything. Yet nothing came. He wrenched his eyes away, fearing that the captains saw. Haldon was giving him a strange look.
"Aegon is not yet in his kingdom," Jon thought,"I must look away."
He looked to the distant ships, watching them draw ever closer.
The envoys Jon asked of the fleet arrived shortly. There were at least a dozen men, and Jon's men at the shore stripped them of all their weapons.
Two of the envoys seemed to be their leaders, and they were at their column's head as they greeted Jon. One was a man taller than Jon, with a shaven chin and brown hair flowing beneath a cap. His eyes were a faded brown that shone almost gold in the torches, and he wore a necklace of emeralds. One emerald was set on his chest, and it was carved in the shape of a turtle. The other man was young, about Aegon's age, sporting scraggly silver stubble across his chin. His pointed grey eyes reminded Jon of the dwarf, and it unsettled him.
They came before Jon, and knelt.
"Arise," Jon said,"Whom do I have the honour of welcoming?"
"Ser Andrew of House Estermont," Tristan Rivers was the one who Jon sent to greet their guests at the shore, and introduced their new arrivals,"Shield of the True Blood and Knight of the Emerald Isle."
"And here," he gestured to the other,"Master Garin Truewaters, Master of Oars on the Proud Tart."
"His Grace sent a bastard to receive us," Ser Andrew began,"What are we to think of that? We expected someone… more."
"You stand before the man you seek," the Halfmaester declared,"Here is Jon of the House Connington, Lord of Griffin's Roost and Hand of the True King, who rules in the name of King Aegon of the House Targaryen, the Sixth of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm."
"The rumours are true," Ser Andrew said,"My lord Connington is Hand again. You did not drink yourself to death as the rumours told me, my lord, but returned with a prince and an army."
"I have," Jon answered.
"I fought with you at the Battle of the Bells against the Usurper, or does my lord not remember?" Ser Andrew said,"After the war, most of the dragons were dead, and the ones that survived too young to follow. Yet I had been a true dragon man all these years, and now I know of His Grace who has truly survived and returned in all his glory, I wish to pledge my sword to his service again. I wish to pledge my sword to the return of the king."
"You are no true man," Jon thought,"True men fought and fell in the Rebellion rather than bend to the Usurper." Those were men like Harlan Grafton, like Benjen Blackwood and Uthor Morrigen. Men like Lewyn Martell, like Arthur Dayne, like all the white cloaks that died defending their oath. Men whose names were lost to history, when their foes took the crown.
Jon knew why Ser Andrew had fought for the dragon, even though he was the Usurper's cousin. The Usurper would have been stripped of Storm's End had he lost the war, and a new lord would be needed. Ser Andrew had a distant claim to the castle through his aunt Lady Cassana Baratheon whose maiden name was Estermont, and sought to ingratiate himself with the dragon to press his claim. Jon was disgusted by his acts, by the acts of all the lords who were loyal only to themselves. They were why the dragons had fallen, why Jon himself lost everything.
"You bowed to the Usurper when the tides turned," Jon looked at Andrew Estermont,"and now when Aegon returns, you bend and scrape before me."
"These were dragon men now," Jon reminded himself,"whatever they were in the last war."
"His Grace should be glad to receive the sword of such a worthy knight when he sees you on the morrow," Jon said,"but that is not the sole reason my lords are here. You are here to speak of Lord Edric, are you not?"
"Why can we not see His Grace now?" Garin Truewaters asked.
"His Grace is sleeping," Jon answered,"and he will see you when he wakes on the morrow." "And when he greets you, I will be there at his side."
"There is a matter that we wish to speak of," Ser Andrew said,"We have heard of your plans with Lord Edric. We wish to ask, how can a boy bring you Storm's End?"
"Lord Edric Baratheon would not bring His Grace merely a castle," Jon said,"but the whole of the Stormlands." Jon pointed at the direction of Storm's End's mighty walls,"Do you see the castle?"
"I do," Ser Andrew answered.
"The usurper Stannis Baratheon," Jon said,"brother of Robert Baratheon, holds this castle. He recently sailed to the Wall to plunder and lay waste to His Grace's northern lands. He abandoned these men to the castle, commanding that if the castle should fall, they should fall with it. But why should they obey him, a man a thousand miles away who cared nothing of their lives? Men were not born warriors. Men were born farmers and shepherds and cobblers, with homes and loves and hearts. They were asked to forsake all they had for a king that did not care. Each day they had looked north, looking for an usurper that would never return for them. Usurpers would never grieve for the fallen, would never bleed for their men, and would not die for their people. That is why usurpers will falter and fall, for men would never die for them. Men would abandon them to a king that would share their burdens, and that is what the castle shall know. Lord Edric was the Usurper's son, on all accounts King Aegon's sworn enemy, yet His Grace has made peace with him. He will be proof that King Aegon would honour the wishes of the men in the castle, that His Grace can forgive, and bring them into his peace. Lord Edric would, after all, be their trueborn lord in the end."
"How shall you tell the garrison of their lord? Ser Andrew asked,"Show my ward, Lord Edric, in front of the castle?'
"No," Jon answered,"Not by brashness. By guile."
The envoy for a moment, then nodded,"Wise, my Lord Hand. It is always best to shed the littlest blood."
"There will still be bloodshed," Jon knew,"but a true king's host does not seek blood. A true king's host seeks peace." "Where is Lord Edric?" Jon asked.
"He is aboard Rhaella's Revenge," Ser Andrew said,"guarded by the dromonds that the Lyseni lent us, the Proud Tart and the Smiling Rose, both of whom had been striving all the voyage against each other for the glory of the lord's worthiest guard. Lord Edric awaits His Grace's pleasure."
"My pleasure, you mean," Jon thought,"You have done naught but grovel and bandy with me."
"His Grace will be pleased to receive Lord Baratheon," Jon gritted his teeth as he spoke these words. The Usurper's name scathed his tongue. Yet this was the last piece, the last scheme, the one who will seal the garrison's loyalty to the king.
"Will he begin the battle?" Ser Andrew asked.
"No," Jon said,"He will end it."
Ser Andrew nodded again, then stood still for a moment,"There is one more matter, my Lord Hand."
Jon met his eyes,"What is it?"
"A word of warning, my old friend," the envoy said,"It has always come to me that you should trust a man as much as he needs you. Trust a septon as much as he needs his gold. Trust a servant as much as he needs his lord. Trust a soldier as much as he needs his war."
"The same goes for a king," Ser Andrew said,"You would trust a king as much as he needs his honour. You would trust a king as much as he needs his glory. You would trust a king as much as he needs his power."
"How old is the prince?" the envoy asked.
"Eighteen," Jon answered.
"Eighteen," Ser Andrew echoed,"A man grown. A man of this world. So why do you rule instead of him?"
