A.N: I own nothing. All rights to G.R.R.M.
As a spoiler warning that I should've issued earlier – we're picking up right after the last chapter of A Dance with Dragons from here on out.
The vote has drawn to 3 for Rhaegal (including my own vote for the green lizard) and 3 for Viserion. Neck and neck here, but agreeing with an earlier guest review Rhaegal might be the best suited – Viserion is known as the real thinker out of the three, best shown in ADWD when he figured out how to break his chains quicker. He's the instigator of the group, and very clever.
Rhaegal in comparison figured out how to break free of the chains after watching Viserion and imitating, but he's comparably more vicious and strong. In connotation, another guest suggested the theory of the dragons housing the spirits of those they're named after, and matching them accordingly. We'll see! Whoever is the riderless one will go to another suitable cannon rider later in the tale…
Much lovely thanks to you all for the kind reviews – now hide your kids, hide your wives. The Ironborn POV starts here and now with our favorite psychotic commander who needs no introduction.
Chapter 14 – The Iron Suitor
Waves were crashing on the hull by the time the fleet pulled into the bay of Meereen. Black, noxious smoke coiled up from the pyramids, but Victarion kept his eye on the most massive of the monolithic structures. In all his years of sailing 'round the outlying lands of the world, he'd never seen anything so damned large. The entirety of Oldtown looked like a hovel compared to this foreign hellhole. It was a wonder how the great pyramid was constructed, but he had an idea that these pissing Ghiscari lords weren't coming up short in terms of expendable labor.
It pierced the sky in levels. His eyesight wasn't so damned poor, so he counted out nearly thirty-three of them exposed from the ground up behind the outer wall. Maybe eight hundred feet in all. And unlike the other smaller pyramids littering the skyline, it was short a harpy statue at the apex. Probably the work of the queen who had conquered the city.
They were an old culture – that much the Ironborn knew. Ranging further back than even the Valyrian Freehold and the taming of dragons by Old Valyria.
"Please! Mercy on us, captain," pleaded the broken thrall chained to her other two companions. They had been fished out of the Drowned God's grasps and now had a chance to serve a purpose rather than eating up his dwindling rations needed for the crew. The men had hoisted the great bound horn to the foredeck of the galley and directed the gaping maw of it towards the city.
No party or sally had been gathered to meet them since they had sailed in on the high tide with the dawn. Something was wrong. Victarion turned his eyes back to the seat of the dragon queen, flicking his hand at the crew.
There. That was where he'd find her. At her seat in the stone tomb.
The crew surged forward, practically quivering with pent up energy as a man forced the head of a thrall down to the horn. Seeming to accept his fate, the thrall blew a hard note that shook Victarion's bones 'til they burned in that strange way. Just as they had at the kingsmoot all those months ago.
Sound rode the waves and crashed against the city walls. Surely everyone within ten damn leagues heard the sound, but no great winged serpent rose to greet the summons. The Ironborn waved his hand at the fruitless attempt in a mute signal.
One for the Drowned God. The thrall went overboard into the shallows where Tom Tidewood finished him off with a boot at his throat, the body thrashing under the brackish water until it filled his lungs and stilled him. It was a mercy. Elsewise he'd have spent the hour wheezing through the blackened lungs the horn inflicted on the user.
The next near shat himself at the sight of his fellow thrall being given to the Drowned God, and had practically blown a lung in his effort to sound the horn. Again, no mystic force instantly summoned any dragons from the smoking city. Victarion leveled a look at Moqorro and saw the Red Priest start to sweat in anxiety. He could practically smell the fear rolling off the man in waves.
"The last!" he shouted to the crew after the failed thrall was given over to R'hllor. Not like it mattered – the thrall was burnt up from the inside out when the heat of the brazier's roaring flames split the man open to show the cinders of his organs. Powerful magic at work, this was.
The woman lifted her lips to the horn, wetness racing down her sallow cheeks as she blew a trembling note. They all waited, and still no dragon rose up from the city at the summons. Victarion bit down on his frustration and hauled himself into the rigging.
"Ironborn!" he thundered from the foredeck to the line of galleys anchored alongside the Iron Victory. Men had massed along the railing to hear the strange call of the horn, and broke out of its transfixing enchantment once he was yelling clear and loud at them. "We're here to gain a queen, sample the goods that a shitty city on the edge of the world has to offer! Steel yourself, lads. Today we reave!"
A roar went up from the galleys that could hear his booming voice, and then swept in a wave down the massed fifty-four ships left to his name since leaving the kingsmoot on Old Wyk. The last thrall went screaming to his men, and Victarion knew that they would finish her off in mercy after their turns were taken with her dying body.
His blood was up. He went down below deck to thoroughly fuck the dusky woman proper for the last time, willing away the bustling sounds of the crew readying the longboats that would take some of the fleet ashore. He'd go parley with the queen himself, but for now he lost himself in the sweet flesh of the woman shaking beneath his hips – each soundless moan and dark curl lightening into girlish sighs and flaxen silver in his mind.
Then he snapped her neck with finality after he had spilled his seed in the wet clutch of her cunt, the reality setting back in. Nothing was left for the poor mute after he'd gone ashore – the only work she'd find in Meereen was slavery and whoring. He saved her the misery. He left the corpse to cool as one of the men came into the cabin to help him into his armor.
Above, the atmosphere was tense and thick with the smell of anticipation. An army had massed on the shores outside the city wall in the half hour since the horn had been blown – a line of armored knights gleaming at the forefront while armored foot with spears taller than a man lined up orderly behind the meager cavalry.
Across the shore and outside the bricked walls of Meereen, another separate encampment was massed. But they hung back and sported different colors than those dragon banners mounted on the pikes of the greeting army. Yunkai colors on the separate encampment, he recognized. The queen seemed to be wrapped up in her own war with an enemy army massed outside her gates.
There was a task he could extend aid towards. Piss on flowery words and declarations of love – he'd rape the whoreson Yunkai army for her with his Ironborn.
He even saw some Dothraki mounted with the queen's army, but those were few and composed of old men and green boys. Many of the soldiers wore beaten, bronzed masks shaped in the faces of beasts, and Victarion puzzled over that briefly.
"Orders, captain? Lot of companies out there with the Yunkai – I see the Second Sons hanging back in the rear. Then you've got your queen's Unsullied back there with those queer folk in the masks, and the bleedin' whoresons of a Queensguard up front, methinks," grumbled Ragnor Pyke at his elbow. He'd come over from his new galley captured from the Shields, but someone had scoured most of the rust out of his old mail 'til it gleamed like newly forged steel.
"We'll take a boat ashore. You, me, and a few of the crew. That one up front and center is in charge – we'll have words with him and go from there. But keep a landing party ready to row ashore if blood starts spilling," he gritted out. Already the situation wasn't twisting into the expected outcome he'd hoped for.
Victarion turned to the Red Priest, scowling. "Your mumblings and tales haven't gotten me anywhere, priest. We're even for the healing you've done me, now go meet your god." The crew took the initiative to haul off the fat man kicking and screeching towards the brazier, dumping him there and holding him down with their pikes as the fire consumed and whittled down the great mane of white into a black ash. The rest of the body followed – the smell of cooked meat and shit hovering over the deck.
If only she'd ridden out herself with her new husband. Two birds with one stone. He could've killed him and claimed her in one go, but now he had to go through her fucking army to get to her. The gods weren't sufficiently pleased with his offerings enough, he took it.
Fine by him. He'd do it the hard way.
The longboat banked on the shoals of the Skahazadhan as the small cadre of mounted knights surged into the shallows to meet them. Victarion was the first to hit solid ground. The gold of his cape was weighted down in the water as he slugged through the surf towards the rider heading up the group.
"Greyjoy," greeted old Barristan Selmy after he had doffed the metal of his helm from his white head. Victarion wasn't surprised. Rumor had gotten back to the ports of where Barristan the Bold had gone after his dramatic dismissal from service in that little shit Lannister's court.
Greyjoy mirrored the gesture and took his helm from his head to bare his face. Lank bits of dark hair fell into his eyes, and he slicked the strands back with his gauntlet. The plate was murder in his heat, but he had no fear of drowning this day. Selmy was outfitted in his plate, so it was only fair.
"What brings the Ironborn so far from Westeros? These shores are far from your usual reaving grounds," the old man said with a trace of humor. His long beard was grimy and exhaustion was carefully masked, but Victarion could sense it.
"Not here to fight, Selmy. Here to have words with the queen. Maybe lend men out to help with your Yunkai problem over there…" he trailed off, staring bluntly at the old knight.
"It would be appreciated, and as it stands her grace is unavailable," Selmy replied in a guarded undertone. "Which might be better explained ashore. If I have your word that the Ironborn will behave in a manner fitting their status as guests of her grace, pull your fleet further into the bay and I will extend you the right to dock. The Yunkai have their fleet moored further up the shore – small in comparison."
Anything looked small in comparison to his fleet. With luck, other ships lost might still appear within a week. He nodded to one of the Pyke men and they signaled back to the ships for a rower. One was sent out, and Victarion looked at Barristan the Bold.
"We can work out that problem now, Selmy. I'll send a portion of my fleet down to the Yunkai fleet, if you're quite finished sitting quiet and meek as maids behind the walls, just waiting for them to make a move."
The old wretch looked tempted, but military command had been his game for nearly half a century. Caution was bred into Selmy's bones just as it was ingrained in his. "You can try," he said carefully, "but I have no fleet or sea-able men to send with yours. It will be your loss and gain, Greyjoy."
"That I can manage. Pyke, you and Sparr take the Steelwing, Grief and the galleys from the Shields. Go verse these Ghiscari in real sailing. Keep the ships not going to skirmish crewed well enough against any unwelcome bastards that might try to board us in the bay – but send parties ashore. Where you want us lodged, Selmy?" he shot at the old knight.
"The docks for your Ironborn. I don't trust your kind in the pyramid, Greyjoy, so pick out a retinue and follow me in. That great bellowing you set about doing earlier has raised a small problem in the city, so I don't recommend your men go seeking inns or brothels further into Meereen."
That was interesting. So there were dragons in the city. Up to what trouble, though? Did the horn's sound raise in them a call for feeding? Or did it simply mesmerize the beasts into a placated state for taming? Thousands of questions surged, but he held his tongue and shouldered his axe. Horses were brought for him and the men, and they rode out of the waves and through the lines of Unsullied towards the gates of Meereen.