"FUS ROH!"

"FUS ROH!"

"FUS ROH!"

With each shout, the sail strained, the ropes groaned, and the ship was pulled just a little bit forward. While there was wind to fill the sails, and good men fit to row, Tom had not been satisfied with their speed. Being a child of the 20th century the sedate pace of a sail driven ship, even one designed for speed such as an Ironborn Longboat, simply failed to impress. Rhaenys has been in the clutches of these Ironborn for several days, almost the better part of a week really, and while Bannon had said she was too weak to move, he didn't know if that was still true. She could be recovered enough for them to take down river and away from his reach, she could be dead even, but either way he didn't have the time to dally around waiting for what in his mind amounted to a pregnant canoe to get him there at a leisurely pace. They needed speed, and like his grandfather had always told him, if you want something done, you do it your damned self.

"FUS ROH!"

"FUS ROH!"

"FUS..."

Tom coughed as the weakest form of Unrelenting Force struck the sail with a force that was all too relenting. Taking a moment to rub his throat he opened his mouth again but was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. Turning his head he came eye to eye with Bannon who gave him a steady gaze.

"When you first told me that you'd get to the fort before supper, even if you had to scream us the entire way there I thought I'd be humoring you. Now its not even midday and I swear that I can already smell the pickled herring of their larder on the wind, but at this rate all you're doing is getting these damned fools to their deaths more swiftly, for if you tire that magical voice of yours, then we're all buggered."

Bannon then waved his hand to indicate the men in the ship before them. "While they're a sad sight compared to Ironborn, we have 40 sailors here who've but sat on their arses watching the sights go by, stuffing themselves plump with rations the entire morning," He all but thrust a skin of water into the arms of the younger man, "Time for you to rest up andsave a song for my countrymen, while these sheep fucking dirt farmers get to earn their keep."

Rolf turned bright red and glared at him from his place at the head of the rowing line. "Dirt farmers?! I'll have you know, boy, I've never tilled a field in my life!"

"Probably why your pathetic little village was such an iconic example of its ilk."

"Both of you, cut it out," Tom hissed though tired vocal cords, "Rolf, get the men ready to row."

Rolf nodded and began barking orders to ready to ores, getting them moving while not with the precision of an oiled machine, at least well enough that no one was hurt. Bannon simply rolled his eyes. "Hurry up you fools. You gawked your way here, and you're just going to gawk when we get there, so this is your chance to earn those tall tales of heroism that I'm sure that you'll telling the strumpets back home!"

"Bannon," Tom took a long drag of water and glared at the swarthy ironborn. "Shut up."

In the next moment, Tom experienced what had to be one of the most surreal sights of his entire life. It was entirely fleeting, but at the same time, all too real. A pouting ironborn warrior. Then, recovering almost instantaneously, he simply rolled his eyes. "Aye. As m'lord wishes. Just trying to keep morale up and the men sharp."

"Don't," Tom replied, with a deep sigh, "Just don't"

Amazingly the Ironborn finally stopped and turned back to the task of ordering the men to keep rowing.

Tom sat back against the mast of the ship, grabbed a skin of water and after taking a long pull from it, corked it and sat back to watch the shoreline go by, albeit at a slower rate than it had been previously.

Looking back on the past several days, Tom realized with a start that he'd never driven himself so hard in his life. For most of his life, Tom had been, to be frank, a slacker. He'd never put much drive into applying himself, and when he did, it took a great deal of personal desire to make him to do so on his own. But for the last three days he'd been dashing back and forth like a meth head and now he was heading into battle against a seasoned force of unknown number, with allies with little to no experience of battle, all to save a woman he'd never met in his life, because he'd given his word to a dying man that he had just happened to find on the beach.

'How the fuck do I keep fucking falling into this horseshit?"' He all but grumbled to himself, as he sat back in an attempt to get comfortable. As much as he wanted to complain, he knew that the sheer bloody chaos of the past several days was starting to take its toll, and despite how much he wanted to complain about it, he knew that he'd better off centering himself and steeling his mind for the new batch of blood soaked chaos that was about to land wiggling in his lap. So with that in mind he closed his eyes in a half-hearted attempt to meditate.

Only a moment later, he felt a gentle shake of his shoulder and the sound of Visenya's voice speaking to him in a low, soft voice, "We've arrived."

"Wait, what?" Tom almost shot up to his feet, almost being the key word because in his attempt he almost tripped over a cloak that had been laid over him.

Visenya simply giggled melodically in response. "You were asleep. I had Bannon drag you off to the side so you wouldn't get tripped over and threw a cloak over you so you wouldn't catch cold."

"Wonderful," Tom snarked in reply as he shook the cobwebs from his mind and took in his surroundings. The sun was beginning to grow low in the sky, staining the horizon a malevolent shade of red that spoke of the bloodshed soon to come. Looking down from the sky to the shoreline, Tom could spot numerous the pillars of smoke coming from behind the stockade. Tom narrowed his eyes. Each one of those pillars was a fire, far more fires than were needed for the skeleton garrison that Bannon had said were permanently based here. But that would mean..."A raiding party's come in hasn't it?" Tom finally said, his voice low and calm despite the cold sweat appearing on his forehead.

"It would appear so, milord." Bannon answered in a deadpan as dry as a Dornish summer, "I mean the two grand bloody boats sitting on yonder shore is a bit of a giveaway I'd say," he replied, indicating two beached and dismasted longboats Tom had not noticed in the shadows of the palisade.

Tom nodded with a shocking amount calm before asking, his voice now trembling just slightly, "And our chances of getting out of here right now?"

"Slim to none, as close as we are I wouldn't be surprised if..." He was interrupted by the sound of a horn blowing from the fort. Shadows and torches began to move through the palisade as the garrison went to their positions to accept and identify this newcomer.

"Ah there we go. Unless you want to exhaust yourself again milord we won't be able to outrun them, and even if we do the fort will be alert and waiting for our return. No, I would advise we continue with our venture. After all, the last place any self-respecting Ironborn would expect an attack from is the sea."

Tom nodded, that made sense to him. While he was confident in being able to outrun any other Ironborn, the only problem would be that trying again would be damn near impossible. But the sight of the two unexpected ships meant that this had just become that much more complicated, not to mention dangerous, of a mission.

Deciding to get another opinion, he turned to Visenya who had come up on his right side watching the reacting Ironborn in silent observation. "What do you think, lady wife?" That seemed to be getting easier to say he silently noted as he waited for her answer.

Visenya was silent for a moment, slight flashes of emotions that Tom was unable to catch quickly enough flitted across her face. Suddenly she took a deep breath, let it go, then answered, "While I think that attacking now might be reckless, suicidal even... we won't have another chance like this again. If we wait the next time we try, my sister may be gone." She then set her jaw and continued, "I am forced to agree with Harlaw. We attack."

Tom looked at her face for a moment, then letting out the breath he'd been holding in one single blast he nodded. "Alright then get the men into as much of the Ironborn gear as they can get on, the rest are to cover themselves in cloaks as not to stand out. Bannon, I'm assuming that you have a way to tell them that we're friendlies right?"

Bannon quirked an eyebrow at the unfamiliar term but understood the meaning of it quickly enough to not linger on it. "I know the watch words, they change every fortnight, but the next change won't be for a long while yet. Why they may even line up like good little pegs for the knocking down to lick the shit covered boots of my late and unlamented kinsman."

Bannon smirked for a moment then turned to Tom, "Cover yourself with your cloak, and try and look like a drunken idiot." then he looked to Visenya "Tear your dress, tease your hair, and try and look as miserable as you can manage... try your best to capture that 'freshly pillaged' look."

He then glanced over towards Mya, "Make that both of you."

Tom narrowed his eyes and muttered, "You know you make yourself a hard man to like. I have to wonder, do you actively try and get people to dislike you, or are you just naturally an asshole?"

Bannon's smile was insufferable. "Years of tireless practice and diligent study, I assure you, m'lord." His smile faded, and his voice dropped from his normal, gratingly jovial tone to calm and serious, "But my point stands. The day my cousin doesn't come into port without a fresh wench or two to keep him entertained would be the day he started buggering sheep, and as there aren't any livestock on board, we'll simply have to make do."

"Am I to play your dearly departed cousin then?" Tom asked.

"Of course. As I said, just throw on a cloak, discard all shame and decency, and try and look like a drunken moron. Molesting the women in open view while drinking heavily will do much to make you seem authentic. It would be even better if one of them could get a good cry going."

Bannon's smile wouldn't have melted butter, while Mya and Visenya combined glares, if combined with the correct isotopes, could probably be used to initiate nuclear fusion.

Tom groaned but nodded, "Alright, I think we can figure out what the plan is from here." He then turned his focus on the fishermen-cum-warriors, "Everyone who has any Ironborn gear get it on now, the rest of you, throw on a cloak and try and look like you belong, and for all that's pure and holy, do not say anything from here on out. Is that understood?"

There were a flurry of nods all around as armor, helmets, and weapons were either strapped on or set next to them to be ready to use at a moment's notice.

Tom then turned to Bannon and said, "Alright, what now?"

Bannon grinned and said, "Grab that water skin and start stumbling like its full of southern wine. But first gear up. You can't do this without looking like a proper Ironborn from the neck down."

Tom nodded then turned to put on his own equipment. The helmet and the chainmail fit surprisingly well and the sword Blackfyre felt comfortable at his side, ready to be drawn the instant it was needed.

To Tom's mild surprise Visenya and Mya arrived at his side, their dresses strategically cut to look like they'd been torn. Both had applied bits of tar to their face, so at a distances they'd appear bruised, and Mya even seemed to be in tears.

"Are you alright?" Tom asked a bit worried by the authenticity of her red, watery eyes.

"Found an onion," was her only response.

Tom blinked. "Oh."

Shaking it off he then smiled and, grabbing a water skin, he took a long swig before throwing his arm around Mya from behind and pulling her in tight. She blushed, he blushed, and both hoped that from the shore this chaste embrace looked more like unwanted molestation.

Closer and closer the ship rowed towards the fort. It was, in the grand scheme of things, actually rather small. Set above a small natural bay, the fort was set on a small hill with a wooden palisade about eight feet in height with each log forming a sharpened spike at the top. A pair of wooden walls stretched the fifty or so yards from the hilltop to the beach itself. There were no actual physical docks, because Ironborn ships were of shallow draft and designed to be hoisted onto the shore when not in use. There were however eight great posts driven into the ground, to serve as a tie down in case of inclement weather.

Only two were in use at the moment, the ships drawn well away from the water, and bound securely to posts. Both of the ships were all but abandoned by their crews, protected by unmotivated looking men who were probably bitter that they were not being given the chance to join the festivities further inland, though despite this, their attention was firmly locked on the incoming ship.

There were camps and fires set up in the great courtyard between the central palisade and the sea, probably those of the lower ranking warriors who due to either limited space or noble arrogance, were not afforded a place in the inner walls.

Suddenly the palisade gates opened and a small contingent of heavily armed men began making their way towards the sea. Feeling somewhat nervous, Tom looked up towards Bannon who simply rolled his eyes.

"Give it time. Give it time," he said in a low voice, "If we announce ourselves too early we'll look suspicious. The point is to look comfortable, look confident, and act like we belong."

"Are we going to have to announce who we are?" Tom asked.

"No," Bannon replied with a tone of subdued annoyance, "Not with my cousins personal sigal painted on yonder sail as broad as a Reachland wench's arse after shitting out a couple of pups."

Tom frowned at Bannons' vulgarity and muttered, "And thank you for that wonderful mental image."

"My pleasure, m'lord, now shut up and let me do my job."

Tom shot his sworn man a look but remained silent, agreeing that this was not the time for chit chat. It was such, that as they approached, he sometime shifting his hands over Mya's body or drank from his water skin, all the while feeling his tension grow as the party grew ever closer to the shoreline. It was then, when he swore his butt was at maximum pucker, that Bannon cried out for all to hear, "WAR IS OUR HARVEST!"

There was silence for a moment, then three short blasts of a horn soon followed and the shadows and torches moved again, this time away from the walls and much more slowly. Having done their duty, the guards at the ships went back to slacking off, while the small group moving towards the shoreline visibly relaxed their pace.

Bannon turned to Tom and smirked before turning back to guiding the ship in to rest close to the shore.

Tom's lips twitched for an instant before he began to take deep breaths in an attempt to calm his nerves. Despite already having been in a battle before, Tom could feeling the icy grip of fear squeezing in his chest as well as dragging it's cold fingers up and down his spine.

Forcing himself to calm down he grabbed a waterskin, then taking a pull from it. Then he grabbed Mya around her shoulder, twisted her around, and kissed her roughly on the lips, lightly grabbing her hair to make it seem forced.

As they kissed, he swore he saw Bannon snicker once, but before he could really confirm that action, a voice from the docks bellowed out across the water.

"Ho there! Who's speaks for ye!"

Bannon took a breath, "Bannon Harlaw! I speak for my cousin, Harren Harlaw! We're coming in from a raid!"

The man frowned. "Why don't he speak for himself?"

Bannon laughed and jerked his head towards Tom. "As you can see, he's a little preoccupied. Decided to enjoy his spoils early and leave the busy work to yours truly.

Just then, Tom decided it was time to act. He pushed her away as gently as he could, and turned her around, giving her a sharp swat on the ass to motion for forward. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make a sound that had the men on shore laughing loudly.

Mya, for all of her character, bore the 'abuse' well, holding her hands, and the onions concealed within up to her eyes to bring forth a new torrent of tears.

"You too, wench," he said in a close to the voice of the man he killed as he could manage, intentionally slurring it to sound drunk and conceal his deception, turning back to give Visenya's shirt a tug, pulling her forward, and tearing it slightly, and causing a new ruckus of laughter from the men on shore.

While he could see a glimmer of outrage in the eye of the elder Lady Dragonstone, she obediently followed, her shoulders slumped, and her head downcast, playing the role of the resigned woman taken as a slave frighteningly well.

"Enjoying indeed," the man leading the beach party replied, "I only hope Lord Harlaw is generous enough to share the spoils when he's had his fun. Especially the taller one. She has the same cast as the wench be brought in last time, and believe me, its only your orders that are keeping the men from doing what comes natural."

Tom could almost feel the tension wafting off of his 'lady wife' but she kept her composure well.

"An' 'ows dat one doin' then?" Tom slurred, "Need 'er well an' intact now."

"Intact I can give you. Well I'm not so sure of. Her fever hasn't broken yet and she's in a sorry state." The man frowned. "Are you alright m'lord? You sound a bit off."

Tom froze in place for a moment. Oh shit what now?

"My cousin has taken to cold," Bannon replied, "Unsure footing when coming in for a raid and tripped. It happens to the best of us."

The owner of the voice seemed to be satisfied by Bannon's explanation, as the next thing he said was, "Well, either way welcome my lords, come in, eat and drink and tell us about what's going on further South."

Bannon turned back to Tom and smiled again, this time larger if it were possible.

Tom returned the grin and took another drink of water before walking forward, the girls in close tow. Looking more carefully at the men greeting them on shore, he had to count at least a dozen, all well off if their gear was any indicator. The leader somewhat older than the others seemed to be rather pleased to be hosting such important members of Ironborn society and was rather jovial in his demeanor.

"Welcome my lords, it's a real pleasure to have you here again so soon."

Bannon leaped down from the ship as gracefully as a cat, Tom half tumbled out behind him, a cloak covering his face and hiding the Valerian steel sword. He continued to half stumble behind the other man towards the welcoming party. The moment they knelt Bannon drew his sword and threw himself away from the party in a diving roll while Tom threw back the hood of his cloak and bellowed at the top of his lungs. "FUS ROH DAH!"

The Ironborn only had an instant of comprehension before they were blasted away like leaves in a tornado. One of them had the misfortune of crashing into one of the large mooring posts with a gut twisting crunch. The great log was actually bent over by the force while the man fell unmoving to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Another poor bastard actually landed in the cooking fire of one of the shore groups, and if the screams were any indicator, was still alive after impact.

With that the rest of the rescue party leaped from the ship armed to the relative teethand righteous fury burning in their eyes. The handful of the welcoming party that were not caught in the attack were quickly dealt with by the rescuers while their weapons, shields, and helmets were quickly stripped from them by men who had need of either.

"You lot!" Bannon exclaimed, pointing at a small group of fishermen. "Get this ship up on shore! No matter how well you fight, the raid will be a loss if our bloody ship drifts off in the middle of it."

"Do as Bannon says," Tom said as he drew his sword, the dark grey of the blade glinting off the torch lights. He then raised his sword then lowered it to point towards the buildings and the fort further up the hill where heads began to poke out of tents and shacks. "The rest of you... CHARGE!"

The men behind him roared in agreement and followed him as he and Bannon thundered up the hill towards the Ironborn crews, the whole time Tom was howling in his head, 'Don't let me get cut! Don't let me get cut! Oh God don't let me get CUT!'

The first man Tom ran into was an older Ironborn if his dark hair peppered with grey was any indicator. He was nearly naked save for a pair of trousers. He was armed with a sword in one hand and a knife in the other. Tom bellowed "IZZ!" and in a heartbeat, the man was encased in a solid coating of ice. Tom without wasting a moment, Tom twisted around, and neatly decapitated the mancicle, his Valerian blade cutting through ice, bone, and flesh with pitiable ease.

Before Tom could linger on that little act of violence, another Ironborn, this one actually still armored swung his ax at him. Tom nearly had his sword torn out from his hands in an attempt to parry the blow. He then bellowed "YOL!" Setting the man on fire and making him forget all about him as he struggled to put himself out.

Before he could finish him off, Tom was forced to involuntarily flinch when the loud *phwt* of an arrow barely indicated that the missile barely missed him. Throwing himself behind a hut he tried to learn where the had come from. A quick glance showed that the warriors in the fort proper were trying to take pot shots at their attackers before they could approach the walls.

After blasting another man with a FUS ROH DAH, Tom paused to assess the current situation. Either by a stroke of divine favor, or because of perfect timing, many of the Ironborn had been caught with their trousers down, literally in some cases as many in the encampment under the fort were slaves or prisoners of the Ironborn, and most of them being women. Regardless, they were putting up an impressive resistance, showing with regretful clarity that even against drunk, half-naked Ironborn, a large group of well armed, well prepared, and very angry fisherman were still, in the end, just fishermen. To make matters worse, the on duty guards, who were actually armored and sober were beginning to trickle out of the inner stockade.

Tom quickly recognized that while his men were technically winning, if they lost the initiative, things could get very messy. Thankfully, he knew just the thing.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and focused his mind on the thing he hated most. Spiders. The damned things always gave him the willies, and he simply couldn't stand the sight of them. As such, he felt a wellspring of primal, animalistic fear rising from his gut, as he shuddered, remembering the feeling of walking into their webs by accident, the time he ended up with one on his face. It made him want to shudder, and he latched onto that disgust, that nameless horror, and forced it into his voice.

"FAAS RU MAAR!"

Fear. Run. Terror.

The effect was instantaneous. Focused to a razors edge, the power of dismay quickly tore through the assembled Ironborn. Most of them broke combat and began to flee, some of them, especially those closest to the epicenter, simply dropped their weapons and ran screaming into the sunset, even the guards, who were farthest from Tom, quickly turned about face and advanced to the rear with a motivated swiftness, before slamming the gates shut, giving no regard to their countrymen.

The effort though was more than Tom had expected. For a moment he was almost sent to his knees by the exertion, barely able to catch himself as his hungry lungs fought to draw in air.

"Okay," he panted, thinking aloud "Can't do that too often."

As he fought to get his breath back under control and stand back up again, he saw that the fishermen had recovered and were running down the now blindly panicking Ironborn with relative ease. But the stockade, it seemed, was still going to be a problem. One man who'd become too emboldened by his success decided to make a go at the blockhouse, and was riddle by four arrows for his troubles.

Knowing he would need to find a way into that fortification somehow, Tom studied the stockade for a moment. It had heavy log walls anchoring a solid wooden blockhouse, protected by a large pair of iron shod gates with heavy hinges, which were probably imported from the Iron Islands. He nodded. Yes. He could deal with that. He knew just the shouts.

Closing his eyes, he delved into that place that held the words for the shouts he desperately needed for this plan to work. Like an annoying pop song, the bubbled to the surface. Eyes opening, he quickly muttered, "God, don't let me fuck this up," sheathed his sword and broke towards the gates in a full run.

Rolf, seeing his suicidal seeming charge cried out, "M'lord what the bloody hell are you..."

Ignoring the fisherman, he shouted, "FEIM ZII GRON!" In an instant the world greyed out as he entered ethereal form, becoming almost as transparent to light as he was to arrows. It wouldn't last long, but he didn't need it to. He only needed a couple moments.

Making the most of those moments, he voiced his Voice, and with a shout of "WULD NAH KEST", he rocketed off in a blur, almost crashing into the front of the gate as his feet skidded to stop him. He might have been able to go right through them in his ghostly form, but he wasn't about to risk it in the middle of a battle.

Not giving the Ironborn a chance to reorient, as it was understandably difficult to keep track of a transparent figure moving at almost superhuman speeds, he simply took a deep breath and exclaimed at the top of his lungs, "IZZ SLEN NUS!"

As he'd been standing right in front of it, he'd had no reason to aim. The damaging shout disrupted his ethereal form faded but he no longer needed it as he watched the results of his efforts. The blast hit the gate dead on, and quickly covered it with a thick layer of ice and frost, as the full force of the Ice Form shout froze it inside and out. It was almost like watching a nature documentary with a time lapse camera in the first person.

Once the frosty workwas finished, his ended with the coup de grâce. "FUS RO!"

He chose not to use the full power of Unrelenting Force because he did not know who was behind these doors. Ironborn yes, but he would not have been able to forgive himself had some innocents, taken as thralls, been struck in the face by the massive claymore blast of frozen wood and iron that would have resulted. Still, force and balance were more than enough on their own, and the attack did exactly as intended. As if they were but glass, the brittle, frozen iron hinges shattered under the strain. The gates themselves, acted upon by the force of both his Thu'um, and regular old gravity fell away from him, striking ground with an almost anti-climatic thud.

He instantaneously found himself looking at several Ironborn who were standing almost infront of the gate, utter shock and horror on their faces. They were probably standing guard around the gates when they fell. In fact, he wouldn't have been surprised if he was told that one or two of their number had been crushed when they fell.

Still, they were Ironborn, they were warriors, and when given the choice of fight of flight, their natural tendency was towards battle. One of them raised his axe and opened his mouth for a battlecry, but Tom simply rolled his eyes and made a cry of his own. "ZUN HAAL VIIK!"

Their axes and swords were ripped from their hands like a stick smacked from that of a disobedient child by an angry parent. They flew through the air before landing on the ground, scattered half a dozen paces from the group.

For a moment they looked dumbfounded at their now empty hands, their minds almost unable to process what they were facing. Tom simply took the chance to draw Blackfyre and said, with the most certain of terms, "On your knees with your hands on your heads, or on your backs with your heads on pikes. Decide. Now."

Slowly the group drifted to their knees, their eyes wide, and their faces ashen with terror, unable or unwilling to comprehend exactly what it was that they stood against.

Raising his voice, Tom said, "That goes to all of you. Gently lay your weapons at your feet, kick them away, and assume the position, and I swear that if any of you give me any shenanigans, I will rip out your blacked souls and feed them to the Storm God himself. Am I clear?"

Tom smiled with grim satisfaction as a shower of weapons rained down from the walls. To quote Hannibal Smith, "I love it when a plan comes together..."

"What the bloody hell was that?"

Looking over his shoulder, Tom found himself looking at the enraged vistage of the elder Lady Dragonstone.

"I was winning the battle," he replied smoothly, more than a bit proud of his successes.

Visenya stunned him by giving him a solid thump up the side of the head. "You should have told us what you were doing, you caught us as unawares as we caught them!"

Tom blinked. "Yeah, that could be bad."

He honestly hadn't expected her to fight, but in retrospect, he'd been an idiot to think anything but. While still clad in her now bloodstained peasant dress, she'd given the skirts a quick reduction with the sword she now carried, a sword that was covered in blood, testament to the fact that she really was one of the only actual warriors he'd had to his name for this battle. He also noted that her torn shirt now displayed a great deal of cleavage, once again reminding him that they were living in the time before bras.

Yowza.

"Alright," he said looking away from Visenya's breasts, and at the panting fishermen, who while strong and fit, were obviously unused to running about on dry land for extended period of time. "Bannon, I want you to strip these men of their armor any any remaining weapons. If anyone resists, kill them. Take as many men as you need."

He nodded, "Don't worry, I'll be as gentle as a virgins first time with this lot."

Tom grimaced. "Bannon, I hope you didn't expect that to be relieving, because I know what you Ironborn do to virgins."

Bannon's response was a smile of pure cruelty, but Tom ignored it, turning to Visenya. "I want you to round up any Thralls you can find, both here and out in the courtyard. I believe they'll react more positively to a woman than a man. If any have any talent for medicine, set them to helping our wounded."

"What about my sister?" Visenya asked, "We came here for her!"

"We're getting to her, don't worry!" he replied, "It might surprise you, considering how easily I can spit out fireballs, but the healing shout takes a lot out of me."

She nodded, acquiescing immediately, "Only understandable. I apologize for my impudence."

Tom blinked, "How is it understandable?"

She simply smiled, "As a woman, I know well that it is infinitely more difficult to create life than it is to take it away."

Tom rolled his eyes slightly, not sure if she was serious or if she was jerking him around. "Rolf..."

"M'lord?"

"I want the men to give me an inventory of everything they've got in their stocks. We have two fully laden raiding ships and an entire fortress of goodies. Anything we don't take with us, we burn."

"Your will be done."

Tom waited for a moment and crossed his arms. "All of you, report back to me when you're finished. Now go."

The three quickly ran off to their appointed tasks, grabbing any men they could to aid them.

Taking a deep breath, Tom then turned towards the Ironborn, "Alright, I have been told that there is a woman you are holding prisoner here. She looks something like her." He pointed to Visenya, "Do you know who I'm talking about and if you do where is she?"

There was silence for a moment before one of the Ironborn from the group he'd first disarmed spoke up, "M'lord...She's in the central hall, m'lord."

Tom muttered, "Alright" under his breath then turned back to the his companions, "Mya? Mya! Where are you?"

"Right here." Mya made her way through the crowd of fishermen to reach Tom, "What is it you need?"

"I was just told that my sister-in-law is being held in that hall over there." Tom told her, "Would you please go in and look at her until I can join you? Take a couple men with you for protection."

"Of course m'lord." Mya nodded then dashed towards the blockhouse.

Spotting Rolf, Tom then turned to him and said, "So how goes it?"

"I've set the boys to looking over the enemies goods. They'll tell you what we've found when we're finished."

Tom nodded. "Good, so..." he let his voice trail off as he forced himself to face the grim reality of battle. "How bad was it?"

"We have eight outright dead and another ten injured," Rolf replied grimly, "Would have been worse, but when you did, whatever it is you did, most of the fight went out of them. I'd say most of 'em are dead or gone, not many prisoners. Probably could have gotten more, but we didn't chase them down as, well, we figured you'd need help. We were mistaken it seems, m'lord."

"You weren't. I couldn't have kept all these prisoners myself," he replied leaning against the wall, finally letting his fatigue overtake him, "I need to rest for a few minutes before I do anything else."

Rolf nodded and handed Tom a waterskin from which he drank liberally. "Thank you, Rolf," he sighed and looked over. "I suspect you can handle it out here?"

"Aye," the old man replied. "I know how to handle my men, and Bannon, being the foul Ironborn bastard he is, knows all about Sea Raiding."

"Good," Tom replied, "Because as soon as the wife gets back, I have to go attend to my inlaw."