Gerion knew that his quest would be risky, but he had not know just how risky it actually was. The doom still ruled in old Valyria. And admist the smoke lingered the great beasts of the past and wonders no eye had ever dared to look upon in centuries stood empty within the smoke, with dark windows that stared back. Half his men had already betrayed him in Volantis and a few after he had bought slaves to take the places of the deserteurs. Now he was all alone, face to face with death.
The Curse of Ember
He looked over the railing and stared into the depth beneath the Laughing Lion. The water was almost black and sent a shiver down his spine. All his life he had been at sea but never had the water creep him out till now. He rued that he had not deserted the ship toghether with his old friends, but by now it was too late.
There was only one way left to leave the ship and that was by jumping into the darkness of the vast ocean to drown and feed the fish. It did not even sound bad to him, when he considered it. There were worse ways to die than drowning and the rumors about the Smoking Sea promised worse. Krakens and sea beasts, boiling water and poisonous gas.
"Only a few miles till we are in the doomed waters", the man next to him leaned on the railing and smiled from ear to ear: "Water looks already cursed to me, never seen no water so black in Lannisport. Think we might see a Kraken?"
"Think we might get eaten by a Kraken. Stop smiling like that, you fool, do you really think any of us will make it out of here alive?", he wanted to shake him, he wanted to hit him. Luka had always been too joyfull for his own good. An adventourous spirit who would be fool enough to fight over a bit of meat with a lion.
"Would be nice to make it out alive. Think of all the stories we could tell! I for my part am a good swimmer. No Kraken will ever get a chomp of me", he boasted and slammed a fist against his wide, hairy chest, spat into the water and winked at Cedric: "Oh, come on now, you look like a maiden who is about to cry! Don´t let all those romours get to your big head, stop thinking `bout them! Life is so much more fun when you can see its wonders."
He knocked the ashblond head jokingly and grinned: "And after we return we will both have a good shave at Casterly Rock and then sit at Tywin Lannisters dinner table and dine like kings!"
"Sounds like a god damn tale, to sparkly to come true if you ask me. Seven hells, if we ever get out of here alive I will spent the rest of my days drinking and fucking", the man yawned and stared at their captain.
Gerion Lannister was a bright fellow, quick to smile and even quicker to laugh. He was always up to a good joke and they had liked that about him from the start since it made the aspect of sailing into the Smoking Sea a little less horrifying. The golden Lannistercurls wrapped around his head and his cheeks were covered in golden stubbels. The Lannister had a last shave in Volantis the morning they took sail. The green eyes were pinned to the horizon and the wind lifted his red Cloak now and then. The Lannister had donned his golden armor and made quite an image standing right above the figurhead which showed a great, roaring lion.
"Seven hells, I should have stayed with Dora", Cedric muttered into his beard and thought of his plump wife: "He is prettier than her but I can´t fuck him."
Luka began to laugh and clapped the older mans shoulder: "You are one crazy sailor. You are far too young to resist the call of the ocean."
"Aye, I am, shame on me. Dora should have bound me to the god damn bed, instead I am at sea sailing into cursed waters to die a painful, lonley death", Cedric spat into the water und focused the younger man: "If you are as good a swimmer as you say you should make use of it and get back to Volantis."
Luka just smiled from ear to ear again and turned away, leaving Cedric alone to stare to the far horizon.
The mist was already close and dark shapes grew bigger and bigger the closer the Laughing Lion got. It was almost silent. There were no birds singing, no crickets chirping and not any of the heartwarming noises of a good occupied harbour. Just the voices of the men on the ship and the sound of the water as the ship cut through it.
His blood ran cold and he knew he would have been better off drowning as they finaly entered the smoke. To both sides of the ships loomed big masses of land. They were just black silhouettes in the fog but they made him feel as if they lured them into a trap.
The air was thick and moist, the stench of sulfur and ammonia filled his nose. Dark ruins starred at him with empty black holes. The hand of a statue reached out of the black water as if a drowning man was reaching out for help.
A loud, dull sctratching noise came out of the water as the hulk hit a stone and the ship slowed down for a moment before ripping free.
Men began to shout in the lower deck and a few of the slaves ran down with empty buckets just to return with filled ones.
"Do you see anything?", Gerion shouted to the man up in the crow´s nest. It took a moment, then the faint answer rang through the fog: "Nothing at all!"
"Seven hells", the Lannister hurried and stopped one of the slaves: "Tell me, how bad is it?"
With heavy breath the black man replied: "Just a little scratch. Already closed with a plank and a few nails, just have to get the water out."
Obviously relieved the captain nodded and commanded: "Be fast about it."
They left the ruins, the arcs, the towers and walls slowly behind them till there was nothing left to see but the cold fog that seemed to be a living demon who swallowed the ship and its crew. It absorbed every noise. The lower deck had gone silent and even the soothing sound of the clashing waves had vanished in the mist.
Then again a dull sound resounded from under the boat, a gruesome roaring that resembled nothing he had ever heard. Bubbles popped up and a splash sprinkled water on his face. He couldn´t move, as if his body had frozen or had been turned to stone by greyscale. The shape of tentacle stood out as a darker shade in the mist and it came closer. The flesh hit wood that gave in beneath the force of the blow and splintered, screams swelled up and another tentacle came down upon them.
"Cedric!", someone pushed him away and the arm missed him by a food.
"We are all doomed."
"Well a good death is all an old sailor can hope for, isn´t it?", Luka was pale and wet, his cheek was bleeding and a stake was buried into his left shoulder.