A blizzard howled and moaned through the courtyard making the world appear white with swirling snow. Struggling against the headwind, Grey Lorren staggered through the snow banks carrying his prisoner over the shoulder. During the hours the Captain had been occupied inside what the men had dubbed "The chamber of horrors", the weather had taken a turn for the worse, forcing him to take shelter inside the cellar he had led the Bolton Bastard into earlier that evening.
Even though Lorren had placed himself at the top of the stairs furthest away from the trophy room, he had still been able too pick up the grunts and anguished screams that emanated from behind the door. The sounds had made his skin prickle; the worst of it all was the rhythmic rattling of the dining table which created foul images inside his head he couldn't seem to shake off again. It had come as a true relief when Greyjoy had called for him to come collect what remained of his toy, and Lorren had been down the stairs and through the door in a flash, eager to get the job done so that he could get the fuck out of the cellar and away from whatever had transpired down there.
The two men had made it to the bottom of the stairs before the whelp's weak legs had finally caved in under him and he collapsed on the ground next to Lorren, smacking the back of his head against the stones. "Arhhh," Ramsay whimpered, blinking up at him a few times but making no indication of getting to his feet by himself. With reluctance, Lorren had picked him up and slung him over a shoulder. His back wasn't what it used to be; time and a hard life upon the seas had made sure of that, and although he could still perform certain tasks as effective as the younger lads, carrying around large amounts of deadweight wasn't one of them. Luckily, the man turned out to be as light as he was short and Lorren found that he could lift the body with relative ease, and without the fear of his back giving in halfway through the lift.
He fought his way across the courtyard, cussing the weather and his semi-conscious freight equally. As he pushed down the door-handle, the wind pulled it out of his hand and the door swung open with full force. Struggling to close it behind him, he almost dropped Ramsay down the stairs but managed in the last moment to tighten the grip around the man's torso, preventing him from slipping from his shoulders. The Captain would have given him hell if his prize had taken a fall like that, and had his cursed neck also been broken in the process there was no telling how Greyjoy might react to the news. Lorren managed to force the door closed then began descending down the stairs, small whimpers escaping the prisoner's lips with each step he took.
In the cell he carefully placed Ramsay on a fresh pile of hay. There was no need to handle the boy with further brutality at least not for the remainder of the day. Lorren knew he ought to revel in the fact that the Bolton bastard was finally getting his comeuppance, but the joyous feeling of seeing him suffer had long since passed. The revenge Euron Greyjoy had promised them all had turned into something depraved soon after the capture and at this point it felt more disturbing than satisfactory to bare witness to the King's retribution on his men's behalf. Lorren wished they could just cut the bastard's head off and be done with it, erasing him from the Ironborn's long list of scores in need to be settled which had grown longer and longer in the last couple of years under Balon's rule, but the delay in execution unfortunately suggested that Euron had other plans with his catch. At this time there was no telling how much longer their King intended to torture the man, before they could put him out of his misery and move on, hopefully returning to the sea soon after Ramsay Bolton had been sent to whatever hell he belonged in.
Looking down, he saw Ramsay had curled himself up in a fetal position, his glossy eyes staring into the wall ahead. The blanket lay curled up in the corner where it had been left earlier that night. Lorren picked it up and spread it over the trembling body, then left the cell closing the door behind him. Pulling up a chair in front of the bars, he sat down watching as his prisoner struggled to sob quietly under the cover. Lorren closed his eyes, hoping the remainder of his shift would pass quickly.
The crew of the Sea Bitch had dubbed him Grey, his twin brother Black. For the first eight years of his life he went by a different name, but he could no longer recall what it was. His mother had given him it to him when he was born fifty-some winters ago, and though he had tried to remember it many a time throughout the years, the name remained lost in a fog of the past clouded by a lifetime of drinking, fighting, fucking and pillaging. In the end he had given up and stopped trying, even though it felt like a betrayal, burying one of the few things she had given him in the large pile of things forgotten. It was simply too long ago he had answered to that name, and perhaps he had even cleared it from his memory for a reason. There were after all, a lot of things from those days best left in the past.
Their mother had originated from the Summer Isles where the people were dark of skin and had woolly hair like sheep. Though Lorren had inherited his father's straight, thick hair and sturdy build, everything else about his bearing he took after his mother, his dark eyes and broad features that contrasted to the Ironborn's pale skins and thin noses. He remembered that much about her looks, but her face itself had blurred in the fog along with all the rest. She had been brought to Pyke from Braavos by Black and Grey's father, the Captain of a major barque in the Ironborn fleet, though unlike most of the other women who were taken as salt wives by the Reavers, she had gone to the Iron Isles by her own free will.
Like a black diamond in the midst of salt flakes she was. A rare curiosity from a far away land with strange looks and even stranger customs, and although it had been hard for her at first, growing accustomed to the new land and its people, she ended up earning her place amongst them, accepted as one of their own due to her knowledge of medicine and seafaring skills (the latter she bested every Ironborn man in, even the sailors who had spent their entire lives at sea). She followed their father from one expedition to the next until the drowned God claimed them both in a storm just south of the Fingers.
Within three months of her death Lorren's black hair had turned completely grey. The Maesters of Pyke had summoned him when they heard about the new silver-haired orphan curiosity that roamed the streets stealing scraps of food, but not one of them could explain the change in his appearance with true conviction. One Maester told him it could be due to the grief of losing both his parents, the other that it might be caused by his heritage and that a defect in his people simply generated such a phenomenon every once in a while. Though being of opposite minds about the origin of his ailment, the Maesters did both agree on that whatever had caused the shift in his appearance wasn't deadly to anyone, and after their interest in him had worn off they made sure Grey and his brother found hiring on the "Sea Bitch". Their shipmates had been fond of nicknames, but they were not exactly a sophisticated lot, so Grey and Black became their new callings, and eventually throughout the passing of time their old names just faded away and disappeared for good.
In the cell, Ramsay made another muffled sob, the sound causing Lorren to sigh and shake his head unconsciously. It wasn't exactly sympathy he held for the little twat, but witnessing Greyjoy's abuse of him was becoming unbearable, and even though Lorren did have a very good reason to hate Ramsay Bolton and wanted to see him suffer immensely at the beginning of his captivity, witnessing the bloodied shit-bucket and trembling body curled up in the corner every day now made him wish for the man's swift release from his misery.
At Moat Cailin his brother had lost his life when Theon Greyjoy under the white banner of truce had convinced the Ironborn to surrender to the Boltons. Balon's son had promised them free passage to the Stony Shores, and exhausted from the sickness that had already claimed half of their shipmates, the remaining men had agreed to the terms and opened the gates, letting the serpent inside the walls. It had all been a trick conjured up by Roose Bolton's bastard, and instead of the amnesty they had been promised, every Ironborn man including Black had been flayed alive.
What a way to die, Brother... he thought and felt a stab of sadness from the horridness of Black's demise. Up until his death, the bond between Black and himself had remained unbroken no matter the amount of time passing between their reconciliations. They could read each others thoughts and despite great distances between them, Grey would get a strange throbbing sensation in his gut when Black was in peril. The same went for his brother if their roles were reversed. Neither of them could explain it; there was just something there, like an infinitely long rope running across land and sea through mountains and valleys, connecting their heart strings to one another. Then one day out of nowhere, an overwhelming feeling of hollowness had filled Lorren's being and he knew then that Black's heart had stopped beating and whatever thing had held them together was cut for good.
A hand tapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Grey?", Owen's deep voice hummed from somewhere above him, disturbing his reminiscence. Lorren looked up at the man meeting his small, deep-set eyes. "Captain wants to see ya'." Standing up, Lorren cast a glance inside the cell. Bolton lay on his side up against the wall, unmoving except the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest as he breathed. It appeared as if he had finally fallen asleep. "Did he do it...again?" Owen's question came off as more than a little bothered. Resignedly, Lorren nodded his head and sighed. "Aye." The large man absorbed the answer with a contorted face, then moved over to the chair Lorren had occupied moments before and dropped down into it like a heavy sack of flour, the wood creaking dangerously from the strain of bearing his weight.
"Well, I bloody hope he'll end him soon enough! This place makes me balls retract and I itch for the sea an' a piece of cunny…haven't developed the taste for splitting boys in half like he has! Aye, the little shit deserves it an' all, but it's getting out of hand and we're all so fuckin' bore…" Lorren cut him off before he could finish the sentence. "Shut your trap, Owen! Or you'll find yourself keel-hauled all the way back to Pyke!" The man fell silent at once. Lorren rubbed his eyes. The watch and his worries had taken its toll on him and what he needed badly was sleep, not more of his men's bitching. "For fuck's sake! I'll speak with him…where is he?" He grabbed the keys hanging from around his neck and handed them to his replacement. "The grand dining hall" The large man said in the middle of a yawn, then gave a strained sigh at the prospect of the long watch ahead of him. Lorren had made it halfway to the dungeon door when Owen in a slightly worried tone of voice added "and Grey…leave out the bit about splitting tail, right? Me wife needs me."
In the great dining hall where the bastard and his predecessors had undoubtedly spent countless meals trying to best each other in cunt-ish behaviour, torches along the walls had been lit engulfing the room in a dim, flickering light. Lorren walked directly inside the room without knocking. The Ironborn did not believe in such formalities and their new King didn't either. They were a seafaring people after all, not a bunch of landlubbers with a trail of perfume following their powdered arses, giving off a reek strong enough to make even a Braavosi whore gag. The Ironborn lived each day as if it could be their last because it very well could be. The sea was a harsh mistress indeed but so was the life of a Reaver. Paying the iron price wasn't without its costs and dangers, mainly because poor villagers had a tendency to fight back when their livelihoods were threatened.
Near the hearth at the far end of the hall, Euron Greyjoy stood leaning over the battle planning table with his eyes fixed on the game pieces. Lorren cleared his throat "Captain." The King looked up at him, sending him a sly smile. "Lorren! Me ole' friend! How fares our guest?" "He's resting, worn out from the day's trials", he looked down at the table, covered with miniature Westerosi castles and armies carved from wood and rock. "You wanted to see me?" Greyjoy, still smiling, picked up his goblet and took a sniff of the wine. "Aye. I seek your council. You know the northern waters better than I...can our ships pass through White Knife or not?" His finger pointed to a piece of red cord on the table representing the river that carved through the landscape from White Harbour to the Lonely Mountains just north of the Dreadfort. "It depends on how far up river you want to go; the barques and crayers can make it to the bifurcation. Beyond that, the waters are too shallow and only the cogs and the other flat-bottoms can pass through, but even with those vessels, Captain, you'd have to wait for the tide." Greyjoy pinched the bridge of his nose like a headache was coming on. Apparently it was not the answer he had been hoping for. "I want Winterfell, Grey, and I want it before the Starks get a chance to regain their strength."
Although he had known Euron Greyjoy's plans of expanding the Ironborn's dominion in Westeros, realizing the king's overly enthusiastic strategy to do so almost made Lorren drop his jaw. During his forty-some years in the Iron Fleet he had seen hoards of men die from bad decisions made by Balon Greyjoy, and he remembered all to well how his similarly ill-conceived plan of an uprising against the Iron Throne had ended. It was a fight they had been destined to lose from the very beginning, but the Lord Reaper refused to listen to any advice that spoke against his disastrous idea. As a result, the Iron Fleet had been near decimated, Balon's own sons had been killed and the last of his whelps was sent to the Starks as a hostage leaving only the girl-child, Yara, as a potential heir to the Salt Throne.
He liked Yara. She was a strong, fierce and capable captain but nevertheless he had not voted for her at the council met when the Crow's eye had been anointed the new King. She was unfortunately for her just a woman and even though she was fit to be a leader per se, the fact of her sex was enough to make her vulnerable to the scrutiny of the patriarchy that ruled their nation. There were those who couldn't stand the idea of being lead by a pair of teats, and the very moment she would have made her first mistake those same men would have jumped at the chance and stabbed her in the back. All they needed was an excuse to usurp her throne, and perhaps they would even have made their own excuse up to achieve their goal. Either way, a woman could not be an Ironborn ruler no matter the level of her intellect or battle-experience. Lorren liked Yara too much to see her getting herself killed so he had stood behind Euron instead. Of course that decision (which had seemed so right at the time) was one he had questioned many times over in the last couple of weeks.
"Winterfell cannot be overrun like so. Sailing up the White Knife, we would be too exposed. A fleet of such size would draw a lot of unwanted attention, and the news of our presence would travel to Winterfell ruling out a surprise attack. The Starks would be waiting for us with swords drawn...we wouldn't stand a chance against them." Greyjoy took a big gulp of his wine, his face contorting into a sour grimace like the wine itself was pure vinegar. "What about climbing the walls? Theon succeeded in doing so, didn't he? That little cunt took Winterfell as easy as scratching his own balls…well, back when he had any balls to scratch." The King gave a loud snort at his own jest, then recoiled back into his bitter condition once again.
"A child was the Lord of Winterfell back then. Sansa Stark may be an inexperienced ruler of the seat, but her bastard brother who sits beside her was the Lord Commander of the Nightwatch once, and he must have some experience with night-time climbing from his years on the Wall. Even if he hasn't, it is not a mistake the Starks can be expected to make again. They are too smart for that, always have been." The King had fallen silent, weighing Lorren's words while staring at the strategy table and biting his bottom lip. "Has the Bastard's information proved true?", he asked finally. "More or less. The ravens have all returned and bore the same message. Most of the Bolton allies have already bend the knee to House Stark, the remaining Houses do not have the men to matter to us."
Euron swept the goblet from the table in one swift, violent motion of his hand. It bounced along the floor with hollow clunking noises before coming to a halt several feet away from the table. "FUCK!" The King yelled, his nostrils flaring as he slammed his fists down making every item on the table rattle and the pieces carved as wolves-heads tip over. Lorren stood silently by, watching Greyjoy's fit of rage and keeping a stiff upper-lip while arguing with himself whether or not he should present the idea that had occupied his thoughts for several days now, or the one that had only just popped into his mind a moment ago.
His original plan had been to appeal to the Captain to dispose of the prisoner, so that they might return to the sea instead of rotting away at the Dreadfort, but after he had learned what the King's intentions were towards Winterfell, Lorren assessed that the situation now demanded a more refined approach to keep Greyjoy from throwing his people into yet another war they had no chance of winning. Even though he hated the idea of handing their enemy over and letting someone else give Ramsay Bolton the punishment he deserved, the bastard might prove too essential a part in securing thousands of Ironborn lives for Lorren to justify doing the killing of the man himself. Besides, dead was dead.The Starks would without a doubt execute Bolton, so in reality it was only a question of who would get to swing the axe. Lorren decided the wolves could have the honour of doing so, if it meant preventing Greyjoy from sending them all to their deaths for nothing. Also, with his new diplomatic proposition Lorren didn't have to confront the King with his alarming proclivities and that in itself was almost as big a relief as stopping a pointless war.
Lorren inhaled deeply, carefully selecting his words before he spoke. "There is onemore option available to you, Captain". Greyjoy looked up, his face had a sceptical mien like Lorren had just announced that Theon Greyjoy had grown his balls back. "And what is that, Lorren? Should we dig ourselves inside the walls like fuckin' moles, hmm?" Greyjoy snorted, burying his hands in his hair, his face flushed and contorted with angry perplexity.
"You could marry," Lorren said, and paused for a second, "we need an alliance, if we are to conquer anything except fishing villages along the shores of Ironman's Bay." Silence filled the hall, as Euron looked up from the table trying to make sense of Lorren's words, the expression on his face now puzzled. When he finally spoke his voice had turned a little less skeptical. "To whom? The dragon bitch has already taken in my niece and cock-less nephew. Cersei Lannister hates my House and fucks only her brother!", he pondered the situation deeply, "that leaves only the Stark girl, but little Theon, the twat, has ruined any good standing I could have hoped to obtain with the wolves."
Taking a risk, Lorren interrupted him. "The girl might be interested if you give her something in return...a gift, like the one you have locked up in the dungeon. The Starks want him back. They even have a fair reward out on him or so the rumour in the nearby village says. Perhaps, Sansa Stark's yearning to see her husband part ways with his head is stronger than her need to remain a widow after it is all over."
Greyjoy's blue eyes widened with sudden realization of the value of his negotiating asset. He stood swaying for a prolonged minute, staring at the table, trying to find an answer in the now ruined miniature landscape of Westeros, before raising both hands in the air in celebration. "Excellent!" he exclaimed, then picked up one of the carved wolf pieces from the table and kissed it, long and passionate like he was making a wish on a holy medallion. "By the drowned God" Greyjoy inhaled deeply its wooden scent, curling his lips in the widest smile Lorren had ever seen "I swear, I can smell the sweet nectar of a she-wolf's cunt already." He hugged the piece to his chest. "Lorren, my trusted friend! Ready the Messenger hawk. Make sure she is rested and fed properly, and bring me quill and paper…I have a proposal to make."