Theon

Just when it seemed he'd be able to sleep even with the hell-wind screaming through the castle's towers, Theon heard a bloodcurdling scream. He started out of bed half-blind and half-drunk, succeeding only in ringing his head rung against the stone doorframe of his room. That would have hurt less were we underway. Black Wind's wood instead of Ten Towers' stone. Two doors down he could still hear the Glover boy blubbering in shock- and smell the stink of the fishwaif as it burbled past the whelps' door, on toward Theon. Uh oh. What did I do now? Warily he waited for the thing to reach him, hoping it wouldn't go all rigid. A Myrish tube for something to peer above the waves with. For once his luck held and the little thing merely croaked at him. Honestly, it's not so bad. Gods know once we make the north it will be all hateful glares. At least the fishheads just croak and poke at our steel. Wearily he trudged past it, looking in on the Glovers. Not quite ten and not quite five. Erena hid behind Gawen, sniffling into his back as he gaped at Theon.

"Fish-people." he said listlessly, shrugging, while the Glovers shook. Then again, they're only babes. I was shaking worse on going to Winterfell and all that waited for me there were Starks. "I trust you're ready to quit the Iron Islands, my lord. If not today, before the week is out. You should be on Bear Island within the month and back in Deepwood Motte not long after that." There was a fit of whispering.

"Erena says it could be dangerous to go north. She's scared of monsters."

"There are monsters everywhere, my lady, and more come by the day. From the bottom of the sea, from the furthest east, from the furthest north. It almost makes you pine for the days when we fought over chairs, eh?" More whispering.

"She says she doesn't want to go." That threw Theon for a loop. Then again, she was only a babe when she came to Ten Towers. It's all she knows. If only Daenerys Targaryen was so reticent to leave Essos we might have steered clear of all this mess.

"You have a mother you've never met, my lady. A home you've never seen. In truth, Ten Towers is no fit place for a northern lass to come up." While Winterfell proved the perfect place for an iron lad to come to manhood. He strained his ears but heard no forthcoming whisper.

"I'll try and bring her 'round, my lord." Gawen said sullenly. "Do that. Winter's given us a few cushy kisses, these towers might come down when it brings its fists to bear." Theon told him.

Gwynesse was still telling a much put-upon Reader that Ten Towers was hers by right when Theon found them in the hall, thralls moving trunks and sundry through the castle's corridors down to the docks and from there aboard Black Wind. He tried a bit of salted cod, surprisingly fresh despite the long voyage from Dragonstone.

"Have you seen my mother, uncle?"

"She's with your sister. It seems she needs a good bit of coaxing to quit Ten Towers for some uncertain place. Just where are we to go once the northerners have left our company?"

"Sea Dragon Point, Reader. As Asha said at the kingsmoot, those coasts are thinly peopled and have riches the islands can't imagine. Timber, fields, furs."

"What's to stop the northmen from simply doing away with us?"

"Better a northman than the Crow's Eye." Rodrik gave a snort and for a moment Theon could see the iron beneath the parchment.

"You speak no lies, nephew. We'll set off as soon as Sea Song and the other ships are ready for a long haul." As good as it gets with the Reader, Theon thought. When he made to leave the hall he almost collided with Jorah Mormont. He looked singularly surly.

"There are more of them about." he said. "It's gotten to where I can smell them even through the water."

"Your nose isn't that good, Mormont." Theon replied. "There are a handful of passages down to the sand of the island even in a castle new as Ten Towers. Maybe they've gone and made camp down there."

"We'd best go see. Elsewise I'm afraid someone's left a ton of rotting fish out just to draw them on." Theon shrugged and made to grab a torch, but Mormont grunted in displeasure.

"You know they aren't fond of fire."

"I know too, that you need no light to see. I've no wish to slip on slick rounded steps, though." At the top of one such stair in the armory, Theon set the torch alight.

"I'll go behind you is all."

"Just don't fall and send me falling down with you." As if it'd hurt, Theon thought. Even with the light of the torch he moved slowly, Mormont outpacing him a half-dozen times. Once he stepped into thin air and his stomach flipped only for his foot to find a step further down. His gasp, barely audible, still made Mormont spin and hold him in place.

"Fuck, I'd rather go down on hands and knees." Theon said, feeling green.

"And break your nose on every stair." Theon nearly said his nose hadn't been broken (that he remembered) but Mormont was the sort of man who would happily grant him that honor. See, I'm getting better at this all the time. Keeping my mouth shut. Nearly five minutes of straight descent followed before Mormont spoke next. "It's leveling out. Best douse that torch." When he did, darkness swallowed Mormont and the caves both until Theon could make out only his hazy figure. Aye, and the stink has gotten worse by the moment. We're right on top of them.

In the days before the world had gone mad, the only visitors the dank cave-like additions to the ironborn castles had been priests of the Drowned God, bathing in seawater easier to get to and hidden from the commons. Even among the priestly vagabonds, noble blood does come to bear. Fucking Damphair. The pools were not overlarge, but Theon knew they ran deep. For how long, no man could say. Until we teach a maester fish-croak. The creatures were nowhere in sight, but their stink lingered like an oil stain.

"How long until they appear?" Mormont grunted grumpily.

"Fucked if I know. Got a fishing pole?" Silence fell as moments became minutes, yet still the fish-heads did not surface.

"I suppose they just left." Mormont said finally, turning to Theon.

"Let's be off, Greyjoy." Theon didn't move. "Greyjoy?" Mormont's voice sounded as though Theon were underwater, a rushing in his ears quickly drowning the northman out. The darkness began to lift but slowly, and he found himself standing on a sort of reef- staring up at a great swirling mass of liquid glass. The surface, seen from below. Theon had gotten somewhat used to the intrusions, they were no flensing knife, but the dozens of long shapes that cut through the glass were another matter. A fleet, well on its way. But who? Nobody else is this close to the Islands. He blinked and found himself back in the cave, teeth gritted so hard they felt like to crack. Mormont prodded him. "If you're going to have a fit, this is the place. No need to scare the Glovers with your sea-madness." Madness would be fine enough, Theon thought. Instead, it's all impending doom. Suddenly the reek hit again, fresh andoily. Then they began to slide from the pools in almost complete silence, until the dingy cave had room enough only to stand. Theon smelled them more than saw them. They're even worse in the close darkness, where the stink has nowhere to go. They seemed alert, even agitated.More than one bore the marks of recent battle, dark slits and scratches on this one and that bleeding still, gleaming in the dim light.

"What happened to you?" Theon asked, his voice lost in the shuffling of slimy bodies and smacking on the sand of fishy feet. Not a word of Common Tongue between the school of them, most like. But there's another tongue I know, apparently, that may reach them. "Mormont, why don't you head on up? If I'm not there in ten minutes, just leave without me."

"Your sister will never allow it."

"Then say rather I'll meet her later on." Mormont didn't move, though out of northern obstinacy or pigheadedness Theon didn't know. "The Crow's Eye could be upon us at any moment. You'd best get gone before he realizes he's been robbed blind." Almost with a reluctant look on his face, the knight turned and started up the stairs. Now there's no one here to hear… Theon shook himself and tried to remember how to make the gurgling sounds. At first it just sounded like he was gagging up a piece of meat, then there were breaks I the gibberish and Theon could hear words. He heard a school's worth of fishy jaws drop slack, knew he had every bulging yellow eye on him.

The last time I tried to rally men I took an oar to the back of the head. He thought the words out a bit at a time, thinking in the Common Tongue but speaking whatever hell-gurgle he'd been gifted.

"What happened to you?" he thought, his gurgling notwithstanding. The croaking then was maddening, echoing off the walls in a pandemonic uproar, until a single croaker squeezed past its fellows to stand before Theon. The stink made him tear and his nose twitch in agony, but when its needled maw parted no croaking passed from within it. Instead a booming voice filled the cave, rich and resounding, one that somehow didn't echo. The other fish-men flopped down in reverence. The voice spoke in the selfsame tongue, though Theon understood without a hitch.

"You have enemies all about you. This does not please me, it does us no good if we cannot hold up our side of the arrangement."

"Uhh, what?"

"Go with your kind. You have precious little time and that afforded you is rolling back even now." Sounds like a good idea. Anything to be far from whatever's beneath the waves, pulling strings.

"We're doing just fine, as far as the 'arrangement'. Ironborn are no less goatheaded than northmen given the chance, and where we're going is no balmy beach."

"You asked to be informed should your enemies rear their heads. You have been. That is the arrangement I was referring to." The memory of the blue-skinned man sparked with a vengeance. His voice had been deep then, rich and bass, but the power that coursed out like heat from a bonfire had been quite absent.

"Seaworth's son." Theon gave a sigh of relief. "You could have said as much, I was expecting something quite else." His glibness did not please the man, wherever he really was. Likely still doting on his mother. Or else I've pulled him from a harem of mermaids, and he has every right to be short with me. Theon felt rather abashed.

"I am a worthy son of the sea. My siring makes no matter and what name I might have above the waves still less so."

"Right."

"Go now. Before the fight comes to you while you are yet unready." The fish-head jerked out of its trance, croaking excitedly. Clearly, Seaworth had gone. Theon stewed in the darkness, feeling so much like a scolded child or a boy told he was not ready to sail. Once he lost the fish-heads' interest he turned and felt his way back up the stairs in a definite sulk. How much more ready can I be? The Crow's Eye is only a man, Silence only a ship. Both can be sunk easily enough.

The caves had reeked of fish-head, but at least they were warm. The cold built as Theon ascended until he could hear the curses of men topside grumbling about the sudden wintery front. Eye-opening. Winters are cold. He rolled his eyes. When he finally reached the hall though, he steadily reconsidered. His hands jittered from cold even through leather gloves and he slipped one of his fur pairs on to keep what fingers remained to him. Still, I'd rather be here freezing than in Dorne abed with the Sand Snakes. The same could not be said for Asha, visibly discomfited at the state of the Iron Islands all her past bluster aside. Still, Theon felt no need to make mock of her.

"You're still not gone?"

"I wasn't about to leave without you. What kept you?"

"I had a chat with that seaborne prick."

"He's here?" The color rose in Asha's cheeks.

"Relax. He spoke to me through a croaker, and only in Croakish. Nothing much for you to miss." Her lips pursed. "Are we about ready to go?"

"Once Mormont pries the Damphair's fingers from the castle's doorframe. I don't think he's so keen to leave."

"Neither am I now that I'm back. I can't bloody well go back to Winterfell and nobody's going to welcome a ruined ironman, so the islands are all I have left to me. You may yet find a place for Asha, but Theon's was sacked and burned." Her indignant blush vanished as quickly as it had come.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I've got no particular wish to run this time. At least, to run from." I ran from Robb when I thought it would make me a prince. I ran from Euron when he took the Islands. I ran from Ramsay when I ought have killed him with my own ruined hands. I am done with running from. She stared at him.

"Theon, there's no call for you to throw your life away so uselessly-"

"Here, Winterfell or somewhere in between, it doesn't much matter. I may yet survive anyway; I'vegotten this far." She looked ready to argue further but the Reader preceded her.

"We're ready to set off. Harlaw's remaining ships are fitted and gathered just offshore, Black Wind just needs to start north for the fleet to follow." Asha looked from him to Theon, at a loss for words. What the fuck am I doing? He thought, wondering just what drove him to such futility. Euron will come and deal with me. Asha can put more open water between Silence and Black Wind in the meantime, he answered himself. No doubt the fish-heads were comfortable enough in the dank pools beneath Ten Towers as well as the other castles on the islands, likely unwilling to give them up to one such as the Crow's Eye. I suppose I have more in common with them than I thought. He got a last long look from his sister before she turned to leave, only to crash headlong into a lad red in the face and breathing hard.

"Longships from the northwest, dozens of them, it looks like the Iron Fleet's returned!" the runner cried.

"Never mind dying alone then, Theon. We'll kill the Crow's Eye together or die in the attempt." Asha said through gritted teeth.

"No, my lady. Silence isn't leading them, but Iron Victory! The Lord Captain has returned!" the boy said, pointing at the hall door.

"The last we heard of Victarion, he was reeling in the Shields." The Reader said dubiously.

"Euron must have tasked him with 'rescuing' the ironborn still stuck on the northern coast. Probably hoping the wolves would succeed where the roses failed." Asha replied, while Theon only looked to the north. The fleet massed at vision's edge was no mirage. Despite the cutting of the cold wind and the fat falling flakes it grew steadily closer, seemingly heedless of the worsening weather.

"They're against the wind." Rodrik said.

"Their oarsmen will be useless if they push on too much longer."

"Who is Victarion eager to return to, though, Reader? The Damphair or Euron?" Asha asked. Theon thought along similar lines. It isn't in Victarion to go against his elder brother, even when the Damphair pleads for him to do so. The ox deaf to all but the one farmer he will heed. The wind cut deeper and the flakes grew fatter.

"Miserable fucking weather to row in." Theon muttered, yet the arriving ships did not slow down. He heard the Reader extend a Myrish eye and raise it close to his own.

"Can you see anybody?" Asha asked hurriedly. Theon watched as his uncle's mouth soured into a frown.

"Their sails are coated in a sheen of ice. It's taken to their hulls and masts as well."

"What? But they're only sailing from so far north, Uncle." Asha said quite unnecessarily.

"They could be sailing from hell. They look as though a blizzard has had its way with them for days." Theon took the eye and looked again to the northern horizon. The longships were advancing with truly incredibly speed. Just how Victarion, a man with less imagination than a statue, had managed such a feat was lost on Theon. Closer, he could see the ice that had formed to keep each ship seaworthy, great slabs shoved ramshackle into gaps in the wood to prevent sinking- if only for a time. We ought hear them, Theon thought. Hear their curses and cries of 'Land!'. A sinking feeling formed in his stomach. Oh, I think we're in for an ass-fucking. There were figures on the decks of the ships, but they weren't moving as sailors ought. Rowing benches were filled and the men working them churning away with tremendous endurance, in such unison Theon could not believe his own eyes. They're headed straight for the beach, he realized. They have no intention of docking first.

"I think we'd best get back to the castle," he said, growing more certain of his words as the line of ships became clearer. "Uh, right now." he added. Only when the silence remained unbroken for several more minutes did people finally get moving, Theon hastily poking more than one back to hurry them along. No need to panic, he thought, the feeling rising from the pit of his belly. Jon's words sprang to mind, fear of some mysterious enemy from the north. He said they'd come, the islands peopled enough to be worth scouring. The wind picked up again, far more effective than Theon's urging at getting the lot of them back behind Ten Towers' stone walls. Even among family, better safe than Stark.

Clouds once cotton went the color of iron, sending off what sun the day would give them. Theon groaned from Ten Towers' ramparts, having spent enough time in the north to know what to expect. Sure enough, the snow was joined by driving rain, drops that felt like needles against Theon's face. Bloody fuck, it's worse than snow. Worse than I remember, even. Visibility fell to within a few strides, then a few feet. Without Asha standing next to him Theon might have suspected she'd fallen from the parapet. Even with the Myrish eye it was anyone's guess just what Victarion was up to in the bay. Then there was a sharp chorus of crunching, of ships beyond count running aground in the shallows of Harlaw. Theon heard the waters churn and froth as if in the grip of a terrible storm. More terrible than a few painful drops and numbing flakes ought warrant, anyway. Maybe Victarion had insisted a watery landing to please the Drowned God? He's certainly stupid enough. Still, there were no cries nor calls from the landing ironmen. Twin great spouts of water fountained up from the churning deep. Theon spotted even through the rain and snow a steadily surfacing mass of ice. A glacier out of one of Luwin's lessons, shaped jagged-like. One shark fin after another. There was a tremendously loud grinding sound, of ice on ice he supposed. What came next was like nothing he'd ever heard, beautiful as a maiden's voice and more terrible than any scream he'd given at Ramsay's hands. A light, bright as day, glittered midway up the frontmost fin. Then Ten Towers was shaking beneath Theon's feet, the world gone white in a blinding flash. The sound came again, the shock came again, and he could hear the fucking castle coming apart. They're loosing at us, he thought dimly. What, how, who can guess- A third sound, and this time the stones beneath his feet flew up, flew back, throwing Theon bodily from the ramparts. He came to his senses with a gasp, trying to force air back into his body, coughing and twitching until he finally filled his lungs. Disoriented, he felt around to try and determine if it was safe to stand. Though his back ached to no end, it did not feel as though he'd been truly hurt. When he stretched out his left hand, he found only air. Had I fallen another foot to the left, I might have been splattering in the yard instead of slapping against the landing. Still woozy he sat up, trying to get his legs to agree to carry him. There we are, he thought, rubbing his calves even as the rain sought to drive them numb again.

"Fuck." he gasped, unable to get anything more out as he moved to stand. A loud, hoarse bellowing in the yard below stunned him still, his heart beating faster than he could count. At least the rain has stopped. Snow fell and snow alone, the voices in the yard undeterred.

Slowly he rolled onto his side, then his belly, peering down with one eye. A half-dozen men…things… were moving about in the yard, each eight or nine feet tall and holding a thick wooden shaft capped with a twinkling two-foot tip of ice. Those don't look anything like Jon told, Theon thought. Where are the castle's defenders? He looked down to see that whatever the ice-ship had loosed had cleanly succeeded in blasting away the castle's gate. Blinking the last of the fog out of his eyes he could see the lanky brutes were not alone. Men dashed pell-mell this way and that, weapons in their hands swinging blindly through the air or else hands outstretched. The smell of low tide reached him next. Not men. Our own flotsam thrown back at us. Many still had flesh to burn, but more still were little else than skeletons swinging axes or thrusting spears. Who knew how many bodies had laid only feet below the surface of Harlaw? The Others, apparently, Theon thought, trying not to vomit. More telling was the lack of sounds of battle. Have I missed it? He saw no trace of anyone he'd come ashore with, nor for. Theon prayed to any god who'd listen that they'd somehow gotten quit of Harlaw before the dead men had pressed on from the beaches. No need for docks when you can just founder hulk after hulk and let your masses pour out of them, like ants out of a hill. He got onto all fours, edging out of sight, crawling as quickly as he dared back toward the nearest of the castle's towers. No using the front door. Not that there's a front door to use anymore, he mused. It's either jump or go back down that stair. In pitch darkness, too. Theon inched his way over the threshold, rubbing his sore ribs as he stood. The clattering of bones caught his ear and he surged forward out of instinct, spinning away from a thrust cutlass as he grabbed the first thing he could reach, a golden candlestick likely plunder from a raid on the westerlands by a long-dead Harlaw. He parried the cutlass easily enough, the skeleton's swings and jabs utterly without reserve. Theon felt almost a fool when he brought the candlestick down on the thing's bony elbow after a particularly daring thrust threw it off-balance. It splintered immediately, though the skeleton paid the injury no mind as it took to swinging its balled fist. Theon rapped his weapon against the tide-bleached skull, hearing the bone crack against the gold. The force of Theon's blow knocked his enemy backward, reeling on bony feet. Of bloody fucking course, how much can a skeleton weigh? He rushed it again and with a single maimed hand was able to grip the backbone beneath the skull and heave the skeleton, dashing it against the stone wall. Bones snapped, chipped, broke, yet the thing gave no sign the blows had in any way hurt it. Limping forward, it feebly lashed out with its remaining fist. Fuck this. Another blow with the candlestick knocked the skull free of its bony body, another shove saw it dashed against the floor. Theon looked on, breathing hard. What power moves them must pool within the bones, else a bare skeleton could not move.

He stood there, clutching the candlestick, when a fit of laughter found him. He clapped his hand over his mouth, half dismayed and half ecstatic. The first enemy I've bested in a fair fight since I don't know when. Maybe ever. He was still laughing when the sounds of countless running feet sounded from the tower's stair. Right, that was stupid, he thought, still grinning despite the crisis. He pushed a nearby heavy wooden table flush against the door, yet another up to brace the first. Then his smile died. What is that going to stop, Theon Greyjoy? One? Two? How about ten? A hundred? A thousand? He turned away from the stair, running and mumbling incoherently. How am I going to get out of here? I can't well jump into the sea from the ramparts! The noise behind him advertised just how badly the tables had failed to stymie the oncoming dead, flesh or bone. As he was facing forward, he avoided falling into a gap in the ramparts, a great fissure formed from one of the ice-ship's blows. It's either jump or meet the dead, he figured, so he gave himself some room and ran directly at the gap, leaping as far forward as he could manage. Immediately he saw his folly and lowered expectations accordingly, a single gloved hand finding purchase on the rampart's stony walkway. Dangling like a worm from a small boy's fist, tongue between his teeth, Theon tried to pull himself up only for his hand to slip against the rain-slick stone. To further fray his nerves, the dead sounded almost flush with the very ledge he'd jumped from. Down it is, he decided, using the candlestick as a pick to quickly descend down the fissure. Right, right, that's it, make the fall into the yard a bit less death-defying. The dead did not pursue him down, likely from a lack of finer movement. Let's see a skeleton climb down after me.

"Bony cunts!" he cried, cackling with glee again. The bottom of the great crack in the castle wall stopped his descent but with only fifteen feet to fall Theon slipped from the rend in the stone, landing with nary a sore foot. Or I'm too numb from cold to notice. He straightened to find himself staring directly at the lanky brutes, each regarding him with pronounced distaste. "Uh. I thought I'd escaped." Theon said lamely, almost apologetically. The nearest creature's bellow spurred his flight, dashing madly past a gaggle of skeletons and sending one flailing into its fellows' midst. A sudden grunt and Theon ducked. An icy maul buried itself in the wall where his head had been a half-moment before, a brute clad in gleaming silver scale roaring in fury as he brought his fist down next. Theon rolled over and jabbed out with the candlestick, planting it soundly in the thing's blue right eye. Howling in agony it pursued even as Theon fled, maul knocking holes in Ten Tower's masonry no man could ever manage. The stair, he remembered, down to the pools! Then he remembered the dead men, how they could only have emerged from the surf. It's a chance I'll have to take. Even if they kept some wandering around Harlaw looking for hidden ways in, that's no guarantee they found one. Much less the one I plan to use to escape! The castle was oddly empty in proportion to the masses that had come ashore, though Theon suspected during his senselessness atop the ramparts the castle had been scoured and the horde had moved on to likewise pick over the island proper. My luck, he wondered. As the others die to a man, I lie in shock out of sight. The stair down was obstructed by a trio of the walking corpses, though a good shove sent them tumbling down the steps while Theon followed as quick as he could manage without slipping. The caves were dim as they had been before, but Theon could see the flickering of the nearest pool regardless. At once he took as deep a breath as he could hold and dove in, swimming to the bottom and then crawling into a flooded tunnel leading out away from the cave and Ten Towers above it. Just as he was running out of air, he found a hollow space above the water just big enough to fill his lungs again. Before he resubmerged to make good his push to freedom, if freedom lay at the end of the tunnel, Theon was possessed of a last comforting thought. If I drown, they'll never find my body.