A Wolf in the Sands

Grey

Ben had hoped for four days before being discovered. He got two before someone heard something – what it was, Ben would never know. What he knew for sure was that he had not heard the opening of the door, the storm howled and raged so much, so he had felt no pressing need to stay unmoving, something that was quite hard anyway with the ship being tossed this way and that. At one point, Ben seriously considered praying to the Drowned God but then someone pushed aside the high piles of gleaming weapons that he was hiding behind and stared at him, shocked. Ben stared back, and then the sailor turned on his heel and disappeared in a moment. Ben had barely had the time to absorb the fact that he had been caught when the hatch opened again and Alor leaped down without using the ladder. Ben rose and wasn't surprised when Alor slapped him, first thing of all. He had never done this before and oh, Ben had never realized just how callused his hand was.

"Do you know what you did, Benjen?"

"Yes," Ben replied.

"No, you don't!"

Ben made no reply and didn't look away from him, although light of the torch in Alor's hand hurt his eyes. But a moment later, Alor came to realize it because he looked around to find a hold, realized that in the storm, there was no sure place to put it, and told Ben to look away.

"Why, Benjen? You've never done something this stupid before!"

"You've never left me behind before. You're supposed to help me grow into a man, right, Ser? How am I going to do this if you keep me away from wars?"

Alor clearly disagreed with this reasonable line of thought but then, Ben had not really expected that he wouldn't. If he had agreed, Ben would have boarded Arianne with him openly.

"Rebellion," he corrected. "And I am also supposed to keep you alive until you become a man because the bloody peace in the bloody Seven Kingdoms depends on it! You're supposed to live to wed my niece, remember?"

"My lord father would have expected of me to come with you," Ben said. "The Greyjoys are worse than their krakens, he says…"

"I'll make sure to ask him in person when we meet with the Manderly fleet," Alor said drily. "He'll be there."

Ben swallowed. While it was true that Lord Rickard would have expected of Alor to take Ben along, he would have not expected of Ben to defy orders…

The ship was getting increasingly steady. The storm had started to quiet. The hatch opened once again and down came Carral Gargalen, the head of the Dornish navy and Master of the Ships of King Aegon, the Sixth of His Name, and Lord Qorgyle. They both stood silently and watched but while Carral's face was impassive, there was a definite grin on the desert man's. "My young avenger," he said contentedly looking at Ben, and Alor glared at both.

"How did you do it anyway?" he asked. "I can swear I saw you at the tower when we left."

"You saw someone at the tower, clearly," Carral said, giving his son a stern look. "What I am more interested in is how you managed to get in here. Was the night guard asleep?"

Ben's feeling of triumph – why, they were too far from the shore to return so he was going to war – quickly turned to fear. He had never stopped to think how his actions could affect someone else. As glad as he was that the conversation had veered away from Blaze, he now realized that he had brought trouble upon the heads of the men who had guarded the ship. "The fault doesn't lie with them," he said quickly. "I am fast and agile. They couldn't have turned back in time to…"

"That's their last time at a ship under my command," Carral said.

Ben almost groaned and even Alor seemed disturbed. "Everyone here had been serving ably for years," he told his father. "Doesn't this fact mean anything to you?"

"Yes. It means that for years, I've been lucky. I no longer trust them. Sleeping on their post… or not making sure that no one had boarded while they were away… anyway, letting a boy of seventeen best them isn't the mark of a good sailor. I will not have them. Next time, they might sleep through a vessel coming right towards us. No."

Horrified, Ben opened his mouth to interject but Lord Qorgyle caught his eye and firmly shook his head. Ben changed his mind mid-breath. He'd try to make Carral understand later.

"So," Lord Qorgyle said, changing the subject, for which Ben was very grateful, "what are we going to do with him? Surely we cannot spare the time to take him back?"

"No," Carral said grimly.

"I'll tell you what!" Alor's anger had grown in inverse proportion to the storm. "My ward clearly feels good in the hold. I'll leave him here."

Not fair, Ben thought as the men went out. But he was prudent enough not to voice it.

Next step in approaching his first war – well, rebellion, since Alor would not accord the Greyjoys the greater definition – was no more glamorous than the first one. The day he was allowed to leave the hold and be present at the discussion about the battle plans which ended up with Alor being told to leave by Lord Qorgyle – for cutting into his words and saying that doing something else was a better option! Ben thought that was the entire purpose of a meeting – to make suggestion and discuss plans?

"Trying to take all the islands at once would be a study in uselessness," Alor insisted. "This way, we'd scatter our forces that aren't too big to begin with and make all of them weaker! If we still had the Lannister fleet…"

"Well, I guess we can use some burned wood from the debris," someone said and Carral's face became grim. He was no longer charming, affectionate, amusing as Ben had seen him with his family. Instead, he wore an expression quite similar to Ben's father's when faced with something distasteful.

"We don't have the Lannister fleet," Alor went on, "and as good as our own Dornish navy is, it's small which affects the support we can offer the royal navy. Balon had been building his Iron Fleet for years. If we deplete our forces, we might as well hand them over to him. It'll be the peak of thoughtlessness…"

"Yes, we got your opinion, boy," Lord Qorgyle interjected. "No need to enlarge upon it. Now, you can go out and return when your head has deflated enough to be contained in this cabin!"

To Ben's amazement, even some of those who had been nodding at Alor's arguments, looked stern. Carral's face was stony and Alor's burned bright when he rose and headed for the door. Ben expected that he'd slam it behind him but Alor had enough self-control to close it softly.

"We should meet them at Fair Isle," Lord Qorgyle said as soon as Alor was out. "There is indeed no use to try and conquer all the islands at once. The Pyke should be our purpose. That's where Balon will be."

Moments ago, Alor had said literally the same thing! Why, then, had this drama taken place at all? Ben asked Alor as they were leaving for the supper Carral was giving for his officers and his temporary guests.

"Because I made an unforgivable mistake," Alor said curtly. "It doesn't matter that I was right. One should never show disrespect to the man who taught him. Of course, my loose tongue got me into a situation where I looked grasping, greedy, and trying to shine at his expense. He did many things for me but he couldn't teach me to not be, well, me."

"Never show disrespect," Ben repeated. "I'll remember."

The look Alor gave him was now different, softer, with shades of something like regret. "I hope you do," he said.

Amidst the burning ruins of the Pyke, Rickard Stark smiled when he read the Princess Regent's letter. Tywin Lannister might be disgruntled, or it might be just Ben imagining things. Still, he supposed the Lion of Lannister had wanted to take the youngest Greyjoy boy as a ward and hostage himself. Instead, this power and prestige had gone to House Stark, as the honour of the great match had. Ben and Blaze amused themselves by counting the men who looked disappointed and mildly or not so mildly envious of this so harmonious relationship. Better than counting the number of them they had killed or the corpses lying all around, although both of them had taken part in digging the pits for mass graves before diseases from the corpses could spread. Despite the cold permeating every bit of the landscape, every bone of the body even with Ben, they could not be contained forever.

"You're dishonouring my men," Balon Greyjoy said, watching them, and they shared a look, truly astounded that he knew the word dishonour. His version of honour certainly did not include working to keep his surviving men, women, and children safe, as he made no attempt to help with the pits, just watched those who worked.

"The fact that you're without your chains is dishonour, Greyjoy, and that's the truth of it," Lord Rickard snapped as he came near. "How is the fair-haired one?" he turned to the boys. "Errol?"

He paid no more attention to the defeated King of the Iron Islands and Balon looked murderous for the offense. His loss, his sons' deaths, the near ruining of his castle, the chains he had worn had not softened him one bit. He still looked as grim and death-promising as this vast, desolate grey sky of his and Ben was equally impressed and revolted.

Ben glanced at Blaze and saw how his friend looked down to hide his face. But his voice sounded steady. "He's getting better."

You make a good liar, Ben thought and indeed, when after working their arms off they went into their allotted quarters, they were told that it was still a toss. Ben saw Errol for a moment, unconscious, with the blood turning the bandages around his arm red and soaking. He could lose the arm, the maesters said. He could still lose his life…

"He won't," Carral said firmly but his eyes betrayed him. The horror. "It won't happen again. Not on my watch."

By now, Ben knew enough of Salt Shore to know what he was talking about. "Lady Alynna's first husband died as you all watched, didn't he?" he asked Alor who would not look away from his cousin's face as if he could make him better with sheer willpower.

Alor nodded. "We were in the sea, we were returning from the Tyrosh. The storm came all of a sudden… and it could not be withstood. It was so fierce that it demolished stone houses in the mainland. We were all trying to survive and keep her above water, wet and determined, and terrified. And Myles was happy because Alynna and Ilana had been supposed to come with us but she discovered that she was with child again. We were cursing and clinging to the ropes and he was grinning and claiming that he was ravenous. He was so joyful that I thought for sure he had lost his wits." He paused. "He told me that we'd drink to their absence as soon as we got that bitch of a storm under control… and then a great wave sent him crashing straight into the starboard. He was dead before it even withdrew."

He was still staring at Errol, his face grey. "I couldn't face her if… Not again. Not again."

His absent-minded voice, the lack of any realization of what he had said as if it should have been obvious made Ben feel uncomfortable. In the last few months, his attraction to Alynna had not abated. He had been thinking of her even when he finally did it with a girl but now he realized how ridiculous it all was. Had he really imagined that one day, she might reciprocate his infatuation? He might still prefer to take her to wife and not her daughter if given the chance but she only saw him as a promise of peace and perhaps Ilana's future. A boy. I am no wiser than Lya, it seems, Ben thought. Alynna was happy with Errol Gargalen, stolen happiness as it was. He panicked just when he thought of what he might have done when into his cups… or a moment of madness.

"He'll be fine," Ben finally said. "Soon."

"Yes," Alor said slowly. "He will. And then, many things will change, I think. That's what my sister wants."

For a moment, his eyes turned to Ben and the boy recoiled. They were defiant, regretful… and a little scared.