As the mighty ironborn captain, Dagmer Cleftjaw, plummeted dead to the deck of the Queen Cersei, an enormous cheer erupted from the throats of King Robert's warriors, who along with their marauding foemen had stood nearly motionless to watch in rapt wonder the dazzling duel between the two pairs of titans. The shouts of triumph broke the inertia and a half dozen men-at-arms in the livery of Storm's End rushed forward to bury Victarion Greyjoy under a mound of mailed figures. The morale of the invaders led on to the King's flagship by Dagmer and Victarion broke and scores of men started to leap over the gunnels to escape back to their longship.

"After them!" yelled Gerion Lannister. And even as the fleeing ironmen started hacking away the lines tying the Iron Victory to the Queen Cersei, many of the King's bannermen fearlessly flung themselves over the rails in deadly pursuit of the krakens. The blond, elegant Lion did not himself chase after the prey, but instead stooped down to check on the fallen Badger.

But the ironborn who'd come aboard from the longship stuck tight to the other side of the war galley were made of sterner stuff. A dark haired and bearded man with an eye patch cried, "Slay the King! Pay the iron price!" Dozens of squids on the other half of the deck surged forward, crowding Robert at the point of the wedge he led, forcing him to punch with his heavy war hammer instead of swinging it. A slew of swords and axes clanged off the shiny steel plate protecting his rock hard abdomen, broad chest, and thickly muscled arms. The Kingslayer and Mandon Moore's stabbed and cut to either side of the great Stag, protecting their liege as best they could with cunning, speed, and strength.

A dazed Ned stumbled to his feet, twisting his head around, trying to make sense of the scene. Seeing Robert imperiled, he shouted, "To the King!" And those disorganized remnants of the wedge Ned had led down from the poop deck that were not chasing after the escaping rebels from the Iron Victory formed up loosely and warily approached a disciplined line of ironborn guarding the flank of their attacking brethren. Looking about the crowded deck for the missing Ice, Ned at last spotted Lohgun being tended to by the Westerlander. The Lord of Winterfell kicked his bannerman in the foot. "Get up."

Gerion Lannister's head jerked up and he looked with surprise and concern at the Northerner. "I fear your friend has taken the mortal wound meant for you." And he bobbed his chin down at the spear buried in the Badger's side, held up by Gerion's hand.

Ned's eyes narrowed as he gazed at the grimacing, moaning wildling. He kicked Lohgun's foot again. "Get up," he repeated.

"Lord Stark!" the man snapped. "Please! His kidney's been split. If he doesn't bleed out today, the corruption that will then ravage his insides will make death a sweet release."

Ned sighed a placed a hand on the end of the shaft. "Ready?"

Lohgun moaned again and nodded weakly.

The flesh gave a wet sucking sound as Ned yanked hard, tearing out the spear head.

"Aggghhh!" screamed the Badger, body convulsing from the pain and blood welling up out of the terrible gaping hole in his belly.

"Others take you!" Gerion snarled.

Ned simply snorted and turned away, continuing his search for Ice.

Lohgun took several shuddering breaths and just as many mucus expelling gasps. Gerion tried to shove his hand into the wood to make it stop. "No … 's alright," he whispered, placing a hand on the Westerlander's wrist and tugging it back.

"Gods! That's … that's … that's impossible." The flow of blood dropped, then stopped altogether. New, pink skin started growing on the edges of the wound, slowly the flesh started to knit itself back together. Gerion Lannister watched in utter amazement as a man healed himself.

"We're tougher in the North," Lohgun proclaimed in a raspy voice.

"Is there … ? What can I do?"

The Badger licked his lips before smiling. "I'm parched," he rattled out.

The awestruck Lion reached for the wineskin at his side.

Ironmen fell in front of the King from punctured guts, slashed throats, and crushed chests. A pile of dead and wounded slowly started building a barricade in front of the trio of talented killers. As the press on Robert finally eased a bit he took the opportunity to swing his hammer again, causing his Kingsguard to duck for their lives but succeeding in separating a marauder's head from its torso. The upright corpse danced a little jig before tumbling over on the row of more traditional, supine resting bodies.

"Haha!" guffawed Robert. "Come on you whoresons! Who dies next?! Mine it the Fury!"

A horn warbled. The ironmen took several steps backward while keeping a disciplined rank facing the King's men. Twang. Twang. Twang. Taut ropes sang as they were cut by axe or sword. Men-at-arms rushed forward, but the marauders never wavered, weaving a deadly pattern of steel in front of themselves; slaying any who came too close without the support of his mates.

Creeeeeeeeeak! The timbers of the Queen Cersei and the Silence squealed from the friction as the two ships started slidding across each other's bulwarks. The squids nearest the rails made the jump off the King's flag, some scurrying to the oars, a few raising the sail, and others standing ready with weapons to repel any boarder that might follow them. The beachhead of ironborn grew smaller and smaller as they beat an organized retreat.

"Seven hells!" Robert bellowed and kicked his way over and threw the dead around him. Twirling his twenty pound war hammer as easily as a child might swing a stick, the King charged the reduced line of foes. The nearest squids cringed at the oncoming giant.

The one eyed commander of the remaining ironborn slipped through the ranks of his men to meet the charge.

Whoosh!

The black bearded man dodged the decapitating strike and slid the tip of a blade through an elbow joint of the Stag's armor.

Robert shoulder into him, knocking the Kraken wearing demon back a step.

Whoosh!

A backhand swipe whizzed just past the eye patch, but a whirling sword stroke caught the just past steel gauntlet of the Stag, adding force, momentum, and misdirection to the arc of the barely misplaced blow.

Smash!

The war hammer slammed into the deck, rupturing planks and throwing splinters.

But a steel gloved fist cracked into the side piece of Robert's helm, a pointed knuckle or two scouring the Stag's cheek.

An answering elbow by the King was dodged, and then the back of the Stag's knee received a clanging sword strike, almost buckling Robert. He growled deep in his throat in frustration and thrust the top of his war hammer into the ironman's breast plate, sending the one eyed man sprawling backward ten feet.

White cloaks swept around the Baratheon Stag, deadly blooded blades at the ready.

"No!" Their King roared. "He's mine!" The three Kingsguard halted. Robert took a step and then … nothing, his knee wouldn't move; the joint hammered tight, locked.

Lohgun, with the assistance of Gerion, had barely regained his feet when he saw the black haired kraken sporting an eye patch leap jauntily atop the gunnels of the Queen Cersei, a superior, lazy feline grin on his face. Only a handful of other ironborn still remained on the ship, forming a tight knot in front of their captain. The man gave an exaggerated bow in Robert's direction, then, without even looking, he jumped backward into space.

"Bows! Bows! Where at the Gods damned bows!?" the King snarled as he staggered to the railing, dragging his recalcitrant, locked up leg angrily behind him.

Oars pulled the Silent away from the Queen Cersei. No other war galleys, only a few transports, lay between the escaping ship and the open, grey chill waters of the Sunset Sea. Next to the rudder stood the swashbuckler, swaying naturally to the roll his longship as he stared back at them, or perhaps even past them at Pyke itself, with an inscrutable face. Finally noticing the vengeful glare of the King, he opened his mouth to unleash an enigmatic laugh that carried to them on the wind and waived a goodbye.

"Others take your black soul, Euron," Robert howled.

Lohgun squinted and tilted his neck to focus better on the shrinking figure of the Greyjoy lord. Hmmmn, 'Euron,' he pondered.

(creed)

Even after the captured Iron Victory was separated from the Queen Cersei, the King's flagship was in no condition to chase after the frustrating brother of Balon Grejoy, because the powerful war galley was taking on salt water through its ruptured bow. For when she had crashed head on into an oncoming longship, shattering it to kindling, the impact had ripped the bottom plate of the ship's ram out of the keep, breaking mortise and tenor joints and tearing out oaken pegs helping secure the ton of shaped bronze in place. When the Queen Cersei moved any faster than the slow walk speed beat out on the Bosun's Drum water gurgled up from the cracks to flood the bilge.

So as the wounded ship made way slowly for the nearest end of Lordsport beach, a triple banked galley, the War Hammer, soon came over to escort them. Robert quickly pointed out that thanks to the assault by the Iron Fleet the main invasion force was now landing on the far other end of the beach. In a matter of minutes the King, his Kingsguard, his squires, his closest advisors, a copious amounts of spirits, one very important prisoner, and two friends from the North were arranging for a ship-to-ship transfer. Upon arriving on the assisting vessel, the Stag immediately rechristened his new flagship Robert's War Hammer by smashing a bottle of red on the maul carried by the knightly figurehead jutting off the front of the bow.

The promoted vessel only carried her liege long enough for Robert to drink a second bottle of red before discharging him through the surf to the waiting arms of his army; already well in hand under the direction of Yohn Royce having sacked the wattle and mud village of Lordsport while throwing a line of pickets around the wooden keep of Lord Botley. When the King arrived a lively, but brief debate ensued as to whether the piss poor fortification should be charged in a straight out assault or simply burned down. Soon enough a few hundred men-at-arms were dodging a desultory shower of arrows to get close enough to fling improvised torches and bundles of oil soaked sticks at the base of the pathetic citadel.

Once an exterior wall caught fully on fire and flames licked up as high as the second story, Lord Botley must have believed honor was sufficiently satisfied. The main door to the keep swung open and under several white flags three hundred ironmen, women, and children rushed out. The pickets quickly apprehended the ragtag lot and divested them even faster of what valuables they were hiding upon themselves. Lord Botley, wearing chainmail under a livery of white fish on a pale green field, cried out for help to extinguish the blaze until someone cuffed him into silence and dragged him off to the house in the village that had been appropriated for holding the ransomable prisoners.

Seemingly the entire afternoon Gerion Lannister had glommed on to the Badger, continually asking to see the now healed wound, and questioning the wildling about other injuries he had suffered and recovered from through the years. At first he'd been too tired while his body mended to care about the incessant hounding. Then he'd drunk a bottle of red with Robert and enjoyed himself too much to mind. But by the time he stepped ashore the Westerlander, who'd been an amusing drinking companion over the last three days had become a fucking annoyance; Lohgun felt a rising urge to bury his claws in the man's jabbering mouth. Instead, upon noticing the banner of the unchained giant, the wildling cold cocked Gerion and walked away from the unconscious arse.

"Badger!" shouted the Greatjon, sitting around a large bonfire. "Good to see you. Thought a squid might have eaten ya or something."

"Ale," he grunted, ignoring the jibe. Lohgun snatched a skin full of something wet that the clansman Donnel tossed silently at him from his perch in the turf. He threw back his head and poured a golden stream into his mouth. "Ahhhhhhhhh," he sighed.

"ooohhhhhhhh," several men crooned seeing Botley's keep take a fire a half mile in the distance.

The wildling reached down a picked up a stick leaning out over the camp fire, a mostly cooked whitefish skewered on it. He blew on the hot flesh before taking a bite. The men, except for Greatjon, were a quiet lot. The Greatjon was never quiet. He looked at the men sitting in the sandy soil. One was missing. "Where's Edgur?"

Torrhen turned his head and spat.

Jorah rubbed his bearded chin. "Dead," he announced glumly.

Rodrick cleared his throat, before jerking a thumb toward the hard scrabbled village of Lordsport. "Some salt wife didn't take kindly to him having a bit of fun. Stuck a wee gutting knife in his balls, then gave him a smile. Scrrrritch," the knightly scion of House Locke said, drawing a finger across his throat.

Lohgun shivered. "To Edgur." And he drank deeply again.