Asha
The halls of Pyke were dreary, so dreary, and the wind screamed at the stones of the Greyjoy castle at every hour, summer or winter. Near as loud as the babe wailing away in his nursery, Asha thought sourly. Of course it was no trouble to Rodrik and Maron, eager young reavers both who lived to brag to Father of their conquests. Conquests, part of her said. Ships of ironborn fighters taking helpless hamlets by surprise on the far shores of Ironman's bay. Unfortunately for Lord Balon, he was as assured of his sons' invincibility as they were. Rodrik learned how blessed he was when it was Mallisters of Seagard armed and armored with castle-forged steel he was squaring up against. Maron, when Robert Baratheon dropped Pyke's south tower on him. But in this Pyke they lived still, Rodrik bold and brainless as his sire and Maron who fancied himself cunning. Among ironmen, anyway. She was of no interest to them, even less so than the babe, and scarcely looked at her twice whenever they passed her in the corridors. Asha took it upon herself to check on the wailing babe, scarcely tall enough to peek over the edge of the cradle. The image of the flensed pup-babe lingered at the edge of her mind but only baby Theon waited for her in the cradle, face red and eyes shut tight. The sound was so loud, so piercing, so punishing, that it was all Asha could do not to pitch baby Theon out the nursery window. Then the babe's shrieking stopped. All of a sudden, the air emptied of cries and it was silent. Or, as silent as Pyke would be with the wind howling outside. Looking down, Asha saw the babe reaching for her, his fat little fingers wiggling and his tongue poking out of his mouth in an energetic smile. Astonished, Asha picked him up and he put his hand on her cheek, all his focus needed to pull it off. He burbled curiously. Sounds echoed in her ears. Voices. Some high and sweet, some sharp and deep. They were vaguely familiar to Asha, though when she tried to think on it all she got was a dull throbbing headache. A numbness bloomed out from her nose, covering her entire face just as her right leg gave out. Lying dazed on the nursery floor all but insensate, something moved to block the window. Blood, Asha thought. I smell blood. She could feel it dribbling down her face, taste it on her tongue. A pair of clawed hands swung down to pin her to the stone, the leering muzzle of the wolf-Theon dripping down into her face. Wake up, she thought. Any pain in the waking world would be worth getting away from this.
"Pain." The word was hoarse, dry, spoken by a thing more dead than alive. "What do you know of pain, Asha Greyjoy? Count my missing fingers, teeth, toes, balls. Count the corpses I've left behind, the rot I've left in my wake. If I can be trusted to do one thing right, it's fail." A foul black tongue dragged itself from the spot on her neck, the sweet one only Qarl knew about, up her cheek over her eye and into her scalp. "Winter is Coming." it hissed in her ear. The horrible thing threw back its head and laughed, a sound that made the babe's wailing sound a bard's sweet ballad.
She woke with the horror's laugh echoing in her ears even full of blood as they were. She could hear it clearly, even as everything else was an utter cacophony. Be quiet, she thought, trying to will away the nightmare. Then her head thrummed, her face throbbed, and her leg felt as though someone had split it at the knee with a mining pick. She bucked, she screamed, but before she could blink the wooziness out of her eyes a cloth soaked in a chalky substance was shoved in her face. No, she thought, thrashing furiously. Not milk of the poppy. Every time she moved though, some part of her or other throbbed in agony anew. She drifted into empty sleep, this time blessedly free of hurt and horror both. Waking on the other side of her small cabin, head wrapped tightly in cold seawater-soaked cloth, Asha braced for the pain to hit yet again but was greeted only by dull throbbing from her nose and leg both. Her hand came up to find her face wrapped neatly 'round with a strand of dressing, feeling two small round objects shoved up her nostrils. Are these bloody stones? Were they trying to get me to suffocate? Then, trying to steel herself as much as she could manage, she looked to her leg. I knew what I'd see, she thought. I felt that cunt's nails drive clean through. The sight of her right leg ending in a wiggling bandaged stump had her bursting into tears all the same. It hurts, she thought. More than the pulsing throb in her knee, though, the shock, the fear, the dismay, they hurt what no cold claw could. The door opened and dawn's cold light came in a blinding surge. Asha had not even the fire to tell her visitor to go away, her cheek in her palm with the tears falling strong as ever. The door closed as quickly as it opened, the heavy step of Jorah Mormont causing Black Wind's boards to creak. What am I going to do now?
"Don't touch your face too much. Your nose wasn't more than bloody splinters when we got quit of the coast, Gawen thought maybe if we forced it to keep its shape you might at least keep prettier than a certain dwarf we know." I was pretty before, even with my too-big nose. Qarl thought so. "A few more days, maybe we'll get that dressing off and see what we'll see. As for your leg…" he trailed off. "Essos wasn't a place to live life well, but I saw more than my share of wounds made and unmade. Even lost limbs."
"Essos was a pit of slavery. You saw slaves hobbled for running and left to crawl and beg, you mean." Asha finally spat, resisting the urge to sniffle and fill her lungs with snot and blood.
"If you want to paint it so black. A shattered nose isn't going to kill you, but if you don't have someone who knows wounds well on hand when your leg's torn off, you're not lasting long." She had her retort ready, but he tilted her head back before she could react, pouring something past her lips. She spat instinctively, only then realizing Mormont had given her hot ale.
"Bloody fuck, give me that." she snatched the skin from him, guzzling it thirstily until a pleasant warm feeling built in her belly. While she drank, Mormont talked.
"Do you know, of late I've had my wife on my mind. Ten years we were married, and I never had a cross word with her. I should have known better than to keep trying for a babe, but Evlyn so wanted a girl. Well, a girl the gods gave her, though the babe never drew breath. Evlyn died in the birthing bed an hour later, the girl still in her arms." He looked into his hands, once scarred, weathered, and worn by hard living. No more, Asha saw. Aside from the rich brown hair that ran right up to his knuckles, there was nothing to suggest Mormont had ever seen strife. His face was much the same, shed it seemed to Asha of thirty years' worth of scars, lines and pockmarks.
"The moon." Asha remembered from their little chat on the voyage to the islands from Dragonstone. Mormont nodded.
"I can smell the beef jerky on Roggon's whelp's breath from here. I can hear the sail part the breeze even when becalmed. And I dream." He took a long, slow breath. "The sun may barely show its face, but the moon's as fond of us as ever." Asha was quiet for a little while.
"How much longer 'till the next full moon?"
"Two days. Three. I suppose it makes no matter." Mormont said, turning his hands over. "It will out, Asha Greyjoy. A barrel full of silver was all that held it back last time, all that kept it penned up in here." He tapped his temple. "It's not enough anymore. Stings plenty, but even a fistful of stags isn't enough to turn me back the way I ought be. Whatever's in here with me, waiting for its turn, comes back too quick for silver to matter." She gulped. Fuck me.
"We'd best get you ashore for it, then."
"Aye. But no telling what waits for us there."
"Fuck what waits for us there. If it's got to get through you, we'll have all the time we like to get away." Asha said flatly.
Eventually she felt bold enough to take Mormont by the shoulder so she could stand. After a fashion, anyway.
"You might be worried about walking but having your thigh and calf still will help tremendously. You'll learn how to move around on a polished steel peg just fine. For now, we'll make do with what we have." he said, as Gawen Glover came into Asha's cabin holding something like a cudgel.
"The Reader had books aplenty on the maimings ironborn gave and took over centuries of reaving. It's just a matter of getting the balance right." he said, showing Asha his work. Not pretty, she thought, looking at the wooden peg. When they got it flush to her leg, what remained of her knee throbbed but gave no further protest. "Done proper, there's some space so your leg isn't pushing down on the thing and giving you seven kinds of grief. I had a bit of wood and your axe to go on, it's enough to keep you upright." Asha felt like a newborn foal learning how to walk again, staggering and limping heavily.
"The bottom is too narrow. I might have two legs again but I'm still missing a foot." she said through gritted teeth, trying not to cry all over again.
"There's no foundry on Black Wind. Maybe Seagard will have what we need…" Gawen replied.
"I've never seen anyone add a metal base to a wooden leg, anyhow. Puts all the weight on the bottom and fucks up your stride." Mormont grunted dismissively. Asha looked down her front, down to her toes, where the wooden peg scuffed up Black Wind's floor and hung off her leg like the stumbling useless object it was. I used to dash about the deck, lead raids and swim nimble as any seal, she thought. Now all I'll do is limp about and just now I can barely do even that. She flailed her way over to the door. Let's get this over with. Pushing it open she moved outside, using the doorframe to help hold her up. Fresh salty air hit her nose and made it sting something awful but Asha gulped it down regardless. Day had come, for what it was worth, and a grey-white sky sprinkled fat lazy flakes down on them. Cold, Asha thought as Mormont tossed her coat to her. To her surprise she caught it with both hands, standing unaided for the moment. She pulled it on, studiously ignoring any forthcoming glances from her crew to study the shoreline visible to port. The Cape of Eagles, Asha knew at once. We're heading right for Seagard. In ages past, the Mallisters would sound the Booming Bell to draw the countryside's smallfolk behind stone walls in preparation for an ironborn raid. Just now, though, I'd rather hear that bronze monster peal than nothing at all. As the cape rolled by, Asha got practiced at hobbling about.
"I could always have you carry me if we have to get gone in a hurry, as well." she told Mormont ruefully.
"Sacks of oats get carried. If you can learn to walk again, you can learn to run." he replied, eyes roving over the shoreline. "When's the next fishing village?"
"They're not so close together, Mormont. I'd bet the smallfolk quarrel endlessly over whose fishing waters are whose. The Mallisters don't care, they get to tax the catch no matter whose nets haul it in- I'd be surprised if we found another village before nightfall. Even with Black Wind flying at full sail."
"Are we stupid enough to stick ourselves in the same poxy trough twice?" Qarl called incredulously from his post.
"You'd not be so skittish if the Sands were waiting for you on the docks." Asha said.
"Once you've had one Dornishwoman you've had them all. Besides, no Sand is worth giving up a Greyjoy for." The Maid gave her a grin. A whole one, anyway. He's trying to make me feel better. Further down the deck, Asha saw Tris frowning. Despite his baseborn origins and unmannered way, Qarl the Maid had a gift Tristifer Botley so dearly lacked. Namely, he knows when to shut his fucking mouth.
As Tris approached, Asha tried her hardest to will a village into existence on the eastern horizon. A pack of wolves. An Other showing his ass. Anything.
"Are you in any pain?" Tris asked. The words themselves seemed exhaust her.
"I've got a fistful of uncooked crab instead of a nose just now and a monster from the furthest north tore my leg off at the knee easier than a man would pull the skin off a chicken. Muster all the wits you can, take a chance and give an answer. Do you think I'm in any pain?" Asha barely got the words past her gritted teeth. She saw the hurt in Tris' face, but she could not find it in herself to care. "You cling to one night years ago like a man in quicksand grasping at reeds."
"We were in l-"
"We were children. I wasn't bursting from my jerkin to be made a brood mare, either. I'd sooner have no nose, and no leg proper, too, than spend my life in the birthing bed, more than likely dying in it." She turned to him. "When we make Seagard, if we make Seagard, you can flatter all manner of ladies from the mainland. You said yourself you don't care if the Botley lands are restored to you as is your birthright, so better you end your days in some soft green court with your soft green manner, wed to a lady more fitting you. Fitting you at all, in fact." Out of the corner of her eye, Asha spotted Qarl scale the ship's mast as only he could to peer due east out of the crow's nest. Blunt as she'd been, Asha knew her words no more moved Tris off his course than his had wooed her. She elbowed past him, limping slightly, to take the measure of the rest of her crew. Hagen and Harl were nowhere in sight, probably fucking somewhere, while Rook darted about the deck keeping wind in the sail. The almost-dwarf was short in a way even the Imp was not, squat and round. A barrel with a beard. His build belied a startling deftness, though- excepting herself, Asha had never seen a better axe-thrower. No one will try him at the finger dance, either. Roggon and Grimtongue were caught up in another of their lovers' spats as well and it took a sharp word to get them acting less like bickering children and more like seasoned reavers. I should switch one from each pair, Asha thought. Hagen and Harl will be too busy eyeing each other and these two hoary old barnacles do nothing but get into it with each other. I bet it is the beards that have them so oft at odds.
"You seem to be doing half-decently." Gawen Glover's voice called from behind her.
"Half-decently for someone newly hobbled. Not so well as I'd be had I still two legs."
"Well, you haven't, and you're not like to until it doesn't matter anymore. It could have been you smacked in half or smashed against the mast instead of Fingers or Dale."
"I'm not in the mood to take a scolding from a northern boy lord who's spent half his life the Reader's prisoner." Asha said.
"No more than I am to have to dunk your head in seawater mixed with milk of the poppy until you get your head in the right place."
"You couldn't reach."
"I could on Ser Jorah's shoulders." Right, Ser Jorah. As if there were the first knightly thing about him. At a glance Asha could tell the tide was due for the northman, and soon. His breathing was heavy, labored, though surely not from the exertion he was putting himself to. His nose didn't stop twitching either and more than once Asha caught him wincing or looking fretfully to shore, as if to make sure it was still there.
"Rook." she muttered as quietly as she dared. Though the short man appeared at her elbow in seconds, she had no doubt Mormont had heard just as easily from the other end of the ship. "You pulled night watch last night."
"Aye."
"The moon was out, I'll wager."
"Aye."
"How long until we have the light of a full moon? In case we find Seagard surrounded by dead men in need of killing a second time."
"Why d'you think I'm scrambling about? I want to have castle walls between me and any northern monsters the next time they roll around. Blue-eyed or brown." Asha frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean this sun's the last we'll see before we have the full moon peering down on us. We'd best have dry land underfoot by then." And out of reach as well, Asha finished, her stomach sinking. For the first time she forgot about her leg, about the dressing knotted around her head. She turned toward the sun. The lazy bastard had already begun leaning westward, like some great fat man who thought getting out of bed for a trip to the privy was a hard day's work.
"Port!" came Qarl's sudden cry. Asha dizzied herself turning around even as the rest of Black Wind's crew rushed to see what they'd come upon. All save Mormont, Asha noticed, seated on a crate with his face in his hands. Getting closer, Asha could see that the Maid had called 'port' more out of tradition than any true fact. This pisspot might be even smaller than the last, Asha thought. As before, there was no sign of anybody. Mormont's getting worse by the hour. We haven't time to stop and poke around.
"We'd hear an outcry if there were anyone to give it." Hagen said, suddenly reappearing from wherever she and Harl had gone.
"Right." Qarl said from his perch, cupping his hands. "OI! There's worse on these waters just now than ironborn! If you dumb cunts know what's good for you, you'll get yourselves to Seagard right quick!" he bellowed across the water. Diplomatic.
"At least this ought be the last village before Seagard. The land's rolling off where sea was just yesterday. A neat turn right and we should be knocking on the Mallisters' door before sundown." Asha headed for her cabin, intent on getting a rest in before she found herself trying to tell Lord Jason a story so mad it couldn't be a lie. It seemed only moments before shouting on deck woke her, rushing to her feet only to fall flat on her face. At least I didn't bash my nose to pieces this time, she thought ruefully as she picked herself up, limping to the door and edging it open. The dock that ran alongside Black Wind was a dock proper and no doubt, while the great stone wall that ran along the land behind it had purple banners flying from its parapets. A dozen men with swords bared had her crew surrounded, even when all the ironborn had to hand were harsh words and buckets of bilge. Asha couldn't help smirking at the sight of one of the Mallister soldiers, who looked as though a bucket had caught him in the face. She stepped into view, wincing at the torchlight after her dark, quiet cabin. Bilge-face looked ready to pull her over to join her crew, paling at the sight of Mormont pushing two Seagard men out of the way (and overboard) as he moved to squarely block the dock patrol's way.
"I am Ser Jorah Mormont of Bear Island, accompanied by Lady Asha Greyjoy as well as Lord Robett Glover's own children." Mormont gave a long swallow. As if words were a trial to get out. "We're here on behalf of Daenerys Targaryen as well as the Blackfish-"
"-who want to rally the riverlands behind the Floppy Fish of Riverrun. The Tullys were never more than stewards, there's not a drop of king's blood in a one of them-" Mormont took the interruption poorly. He grabbed the man and threw him over his shoulder, letting him crash onto the dock.
"We're here for an audience with Lord Mallister, if you'll take us to him. Quick, like." The rivermen to a man were struck dumb by Mormont's trick, so Rook elbowed one of them in the ribs.
"Quick, like." he said hollowly, hurrying off Asha's deck, closely followed by his fellows.
Slick with snow, the deck made for tricky going. Maybe a bit of metal at peg's end is warranted after all, if just to help me catch the ground. They were stopped again at the castle gate.
"Who goes there?" The sergeant of the watch called, peering down from the parapet. Mormont was giving it his all to keep his wits about him, Asha saw. My turn.
"A sorry mix of ironborn and northmen. Here to get an audience with Lord Jason. Or Patrek, I suppose, if Jason's kicked it." The sergeant's umbrage was apparent to Asha but another head poking over the stones spared her a dismissive barb (and perhaps a loosed quarrel).
"My father's well and good, no thanks to the ironmen chasing his commons from their villages or the northmen bankrupting him of coin and prestige both thanks to Robb Stark's marriage to an Essosi camp follower."
"I'm afraid ironborn are every bit as chaseable to the cold monsters prowling the Cape of Eagles, Lord Patrek. Chewable, too." Patrek Mallister's face pulled from incensed to baffled. Before he could say a word more though, Mormont let out a long, slow breath- and drove his fist clean through the wood of Seagard's seaward gate. The crack of the wood, the pop of the iron studs firing from their divots drew Patrek further out over the wall.
"What the fuck is going on down there?" Mormont, having decided his course too ponderous, simply threw himself through the gate next, crashing through it like a child through a hay bale or perhaps a pile of leaves. Feeling faint, Asha took the opportunity to peek through the Mormont-shaped hole in the gate. Oh, fuck me. It looked like everyone the Cape of Eagles over had come to take shelter in Seagard, commons huddling around small fires, keeping out of the snows thanks to a few torn sails serving as makeshift pavilions.
"Where is Lord Jason?" Mormont said slowly, clearly, in a voice just shy of a bellow. Asha slipped through the hole after him, hearing the rest of the crew file in after her. She caught another Mallister soldier staring at the lot of them.
"What are you looking at?" she snapped. An older man in a deep purple cloak lined with thread-of-silver and a winged helm, flanked by knights true and no common dock guards, came through the gathering crowd.
"Father." Patrek called from his perch. Asha spoke quickly and concisely, before something worse could happen.
"Well met, Lord Jason. I am Asha Greyjoy. You and your people are in grave danger. Winter masses out on the cape and no doubt it will follow all the fleeing commons straight here, where the food is." She had not forgotten the mindless hunger in the monster's ravenous blue eyes. I have no reason to lie, she reasoned. Nothing to gain by wandering straight into their midst all but defenseless, save for Mormont. Then again, Asha wondered if perhaps she was quite well protected. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted one of the splendid purple banners held fast by a knight flicker suddenly. From fluttering due east it snapped smartly south, flying full. Wind from the north. Her stomach tightened. The best warning we'll ever get.
"Mormont." She said suddenly. "To the parapets. Whatever it is, it will come from the north." Anyone foolish enough to get in the northman's way quickly discovered the gravity of his error, knights armed and armored thrown to the ground with a single hairy hand. Asha followed as best she was able, grateful at least Mormont had not seen fit to create a hole through people as he had through wood.
She was out of breath by the time she joined Mormont up top, panting heavily while the knight remained utterly unmoved.
"Captain." The word was so unexpected, so out of tone, that Asha straightened out of pure confusion. Then she discovered it wasn't Mormont who had spoken but Rook. His eyes are not due north, either. She followed his gaze west, to where the sun had found the horizon at last. Sunset, with moonrise to follow. The softest steady thumping in her ears made her feel self-conscious, until she realized to her faint horror it wasn't her heart's doing at all. Fuck me blonde, I can hear his fucking heartbeat.
"Asha." This time, it was indeed Mormont who had spoken. "Go back below. You and the rest."
"Piss on th-"
"Go, or I'll throw you." he said, reaching for the sword that hung forgotten on his back. "Take this, too." He held it out almost absently. As if it were a shovel. Asha stared at it, her arm it seemed unwilling to take the Conqueror's sword. Finally, Rook took it for her, giving her a nudge with the dragon's-head pommel to get her moving down the stairs. When the Glovers, Gawen in particular, saw what she was holding, he immediately tossed her a scrap of the rag Theon had wrapped it in to begin with.
"Why did Ser Jorah give that to you? He knows it's useless in your hands…"
"Useless in his too, Ga." Asha said, a hand on his shoulder while her other took Erena's. "Better where we know it is than lying in the woods somewhere." Gawen's brow furrowed. I suppose we won't know anything until the moon has come and gone. She picked Erena up, the girl laying her head on Asha's shoulder. Despite her leg, she found herself quite able to leave Mormont's vicinity with all speed, Gawen hurrying to keep up. The castle. Get to the castle. Get the Glover babes out of harm's- One of the towers exploded. From the cascade of bricks and bodies tumbled a boulder, wide as a man was tall. It fell on a house, through it, sending its walls collapsing outward. "To ships!" Asha found herself screaming again. This time though, the noise was far the louder and besides, dust coated her lungs and reduced her to a coughing wreck in moments. Don't fall, she thought, the idea of being trampled by a terrified mob or else crushed under rubble enough to keep her upright. Another boulder flew from over the wall, this one careening down a street and splattering smallfolk and gently bred alike on Seagard's bricks.
"EGIR VERGIR!" The bellows were loud as an oncoming tempest, the answer the thunderclap that must follow.
"EGIR VERGRIR!" Even the sound of the northern gate splintering to kindling at the gentle touch of what sounded like an enormous boot was not enough to put Asha on her ass. The sound of the Booming Bell somewhere overhead gave a mad answer to the chaos that reigned- at least until a third boulder split it mid-peal, two bronze halves crashing into the castle yard and armory, respectively. Then Asha saw a giant for the first time. Even as madness roiled around her, the sight was enough to stop her where she stood. Some kind of thick hairy hide around his waist was all he wore. His beard reached his shins, a wild white thing, human skulls clacking away in it the way tinkly bells hung in the braids of the Dothraki. He gave a primal, senseless bellow, loud enough to crack the stones he stood on and knock people to the ground. Peasants, soldiers and everyone in between became the same red mash beneath his great bare foot. Steel plate crumpled in his fist or under it, horses flying like throwing daggers. Some, Asha saw with a detached kind of awe, thrown so hard their legs snapped clean of their bodies in the giant's grip. Keep going, Asha thought.
Even if she reached Black Wind, Asha realized, there would be no getting away. Not when they have a ruined castle's worth of rubble to throw. Even a glancing hit would send us to bay's bottom. That did not stop her from trying to flee the chaos, the slaughter, the utter devastation the giants could bring. Were bringing. A glint of silver to the east was the only light in the darkness, the only thing Asha could see through the haze of screams, dust, snow and blood. Now would be the time, Mormont. Then she remembered Mormont had been on the northern gate, the one the giants had crashed through to get into Seagard in the first place. Well, Asha thought, as earth-shaking footsteps thundered closer. Unless they had silver on hand, it ought not matter. She felt Gawen bury his face in her side.
"HERE." The word was loud enough to make Asha's bones twitch. When there was no squashing fist or foot forthcoming, she dared to look around. A man was visible in profile against the rising moon, a dark splinter taller than the giants whose ire he'd drawn thanks to the rubble on which he stood. Bone-beard was closest, a wild wordless bellow his only answer. Asha watched as Mormont's fists went to his temples. Then his figure grew. Taller, broader, his head twisting and limbs thickening in the indomitable light of the full moon. She tore her eyes away to find the other two giants quite spellbound, faces frozen in disbelief. Bone-beard was not so easily cowed though, screaming furiously at the thing on top of the rubble-pile. He heaved a great stone slab up at his enemy only to watch it shatter on impact, doing not the least bit harm. A low, surly grunt came from the top of the pile, the thing evidently taking exception with being hit by rubble. Asha turned back and nearly blacked out. A bear, she thought. A monstrous bear. To her eyes it was of a height with the giants, or near enough. More significant was that it easily overmatched any one of them in weight. Slowly it- he- clambered off the pile, sniffing around. He's disoriented, Asha realized. Bone-beard promptly stomped toward the bear and drove his fist into its flank- or would have, had Mormont been an ordinary bear. Instead the creature lowed in furious alarm, swiping out with a paw the size of a tower shield. Asha heard the ribs in the giant's belly crack with the force of the blow, sending him to earth gasping for air and coughing up blood that looked inky black in the moonlight. Mormont was on him a second later, jaws crunching flush on his shoulder and flailing him around like a dog would a rat. The other giants' faces went from disbelief to determination, one bringing an icy greataxe down on Mormont's back. It did no more than the monster on the dock's claw or Bone-beard's slab had, while Mormont took the opportunity to crunch down on his assailant's knee and fling him, bloody fling him, sending the giant bodily through the air and through one of Seagard's walls. The third giant had only enough time to raise his tree-trunk maul before a bear-paw crushed his skull, dropping dead where he stood. Bone-beard had made it to his knees by then, an inky puddle of spit and blood forming in front of him as he tried to breathe with broken ribs. Mormont, never ignorant thanks to his nose, turned toward the giant, muzzle covered in more of the same. A scream from the giant, a bellow from the bear and they were heading for each other- at least, Mormont was, and at full speed. The giant folded forward when the bear hit him, gurgling out his last when the two great arms crushed him to the bear's chest. Detecting no further resistance Mormont dropped the giant, turning to sniff after the last.
Asha turned away from the carnage, starting off for Black Wind again. Standing here watching isn't going to get us to safety. Who's to say once he's done tearing the giants apart, he settles for smaller fare? Of course, the survivors had massed near the water, as far from the giants (and the massive rampaging bear) as they could get. What ships laid at anchor were packed to the deck rails, Asha's own ship lying a bit further out as she'd ordered of Harl. The moonlight threw everything into sharper relief. Wounded, some still coughing from all the dust in the air, others screaming for those they'd lost. Asha found herself climbing on a pile of shipping crates, the Glover children still tight in her grasp, waiting for the mob to realize the threat had been dealt with. For now, anyway. Once she could hear her own breathing, the people of Seagard exhausted and hoarse, Asha spoke.
"This is why Dragonstone sent us. Something from the furthest north has decided it's going to have its way with Westeros and hard. The Others have already reached the Iron Islands and we met one of their monsters in a cape village on the way here. If you want to live, come with us. More ships are always a welcome sight at sea. The Kingslayer's task was to rally the west and hold at the Rock, we'll sail down the coast and meet him there. Maybe with a few of his countrymen rescued from their own bloody castles before the Others knock them down." From the throng came Lord Jason and his knights, his purple cloak in a dozen pieces and tied around this arm or that head.
"That will keep my people safe?"
"Nowhere the Others can reach is safe. You'd be safer at the Rock than squatting in Seagard's ruins, though." He turned to look at what remained of his castle. Grander than Pyke by far, in Asha's opinion. Reduced to sagging walls, a broken gate and countless corpses. Then asha remembered something. "We ought burn the dead if we can. The Others can get them up and walking again and it's not something you want thrown in your face." Mallister's aghast face could not go paler.
"There's no need to be tidy. Corpses burn, stone doesn't. If you survive to return, you can worry about rebuilding then, my lord." Gawen said, Asha squeezing his hand. Good lad. Off to the north Asha heard the bear roar, heard a chorus of dismayed raspy voices and even the occasional sound of ice cracking clean through. A flash of red had Asha homing in on Hagen, blood dribbling from her lip where she'd bitten it.
"Have you seen anyone else?" Asha asked. Hagen shook her head, evidently stunned speechless. "Right. You're to take the Glovers back to the ship, I'm going to help the mainlanders toss a few torches." Asha said, trying to rein in her own urges. To scream, to run blindly, to swing out at any nearby movement. Grimly she got to prodding the survivors on, seeing to several craters in the ground filled with bodies and set alight. The fires burning from below compared with the blackness of the sky and the brightness of the moon turned Seagard into a hell of opposites. Quiet and loud, hot and cold, blindingly bright and crushingly dark. Recognizing the dead was impossible unless they had faces left to recognize, something Asha realized quickly was not a given. It wasn't a friendly face she spotted, though, but Tristifer Botley's lush dark hair. Numbly Asha drew nearer, looking down into his glassy eyes. But for the fallen wall that had cut him near in half, he seemed merely dazed. Not enough time even to realize what had happened to him. He wanted me to have his sons. I wanted to have adventures. She looked around, here and there a dazed, bloody survivor wading through the brown haze that had resulted from the blood mixing with the dust and snow. Walking dead, ice-ships, man-bears and giants. And us, left to scrape ourselves off of the bottom of a boot. Corpses, fires, and bits of broken masonry were all that remained of the proud Mallister castle. Asha sat in the street next to Tris. First a whimper, then she began to sob.
"Up." A rough voice said. Asha started awake so stiff and cold it was a labor to lift her head up, groaning audibly at the ache. Morning had come, cold and white. A dusting of snow covered the devastation the giants had left, including Asha. She blinked the light out of her eyes. Mormont stood before her with a torn bloodied Mallister banner tied around his waist. Her jest was on her tongue before she could stop it.
"Purple isn't your color."
"And you look just as foolish-stupid in white." Mormont said, brushing the snow off her shoulders and pulling her to her feet. Foot, Asha amended. "Are you hurt?"
"My nose still throbs and my leg aches something hellish, but that's probably the cold."
"Aye. That and having it torn off at the knee, ass." Mormont grumbled, looking around. "Gods, but they hit hard."
"Not hard enough to keep you off them." And you hit harder. Was Mormont really going to gloss over what had just happened?
"Well, now what?" he asked, looking down the street to where the docks lay.
"Mormont, I just saw you tear through three giants without stopping for breath." Despite the cold, despite the devastation, Asha swore she could see a blush rise in the northman's hairy cheek. "More importantly, so did everyone else. They saw too that nothing the giants did so much as made you sniffle."
"Well, their blows weren't silvered, were they?" Mormont asked in reply. "Can you move?"
"I could barely move on flat even ground. With this peg I'd do better getting on all fours and crawling to the docks."
"A sight that'd be, a sneaking squid." Mormont simply picked her up and made his way toward the water where the other survivors pooled.
"A sack of oats now, am I?"
"Better a sack of oats than a frozen squid." If Qarl, Roggon and Grimtongue took exception to seeing Asha carried, they gave no sign. Mormont set her on her feet, making sure she had her footing before letting go.
"Where's Rook?" she asked of them.
"The maester was killed so nobody's about who can staunch wounds proper. Rook's probably out among the riverlanders lopping off what they've lost to frostbite." Qarl told her.
"Lady Asha." She turned to see Patrek Mallister stepping toward her, hair frozen with frost and armor forgone for leathers.
"Does your father know you're alive?"
"He does now." Another man separated himself from the masses, wrapping his arms around his son. A lucky family.
"Father." Patrek said, voice cracking from emotion or his father's arm's squeezing the life out of him. "Father." Finally Lord Jason released his heir, tears freezing on his cheeks. "We've got to get the fuck out of here." The father's face faltered. "Look for yourself. Seagard is a smashed ruin. No doubt it was a squashing for us, but there were only three of them. It was a raid, a reaving, happening by chance. More will come. We must be well gone by then. Somewhere they can't follow." This eaglet is quicker on the uptake than his sire. He and I have that in common.
"Patrek speaks true, Lord Mallister. That we're alive at all is pure luck, no more. Had… had we come tomorrow, there would be nobody alive to ferry south."
Jason's eyes flicked to Mormont, who seemed unbothered by the cold all but naked.
"Ser-"
"A whole month until the next full moon. Time enough to sail south and more, but I'd bet Blackfyre the giants will be back before then. Every moment we linger here puts your people in peril." Talk of the sword only mystified Lord Mallister.
"You'll see. My dolt brother pulled it out of the surf at Dragonstone and nearly cut his own head off with it. Bloody idiot." Asha said, playing it off as Mormont had. "Come, my lord. Get your people on your ships, and south we'll go."
"There are a hundred villages between here and the lip of Ironman's Bay. After them, the castles on the coast. The Banefort and the Crag. Faircastle on Fair Isle. Kayce and Feastfires." Patrek intoned. All full of people, Asha thought. The Others will be on them soon, and the giants, and the Drowned God knows what other monsters they've brought.
"Then we'll beat the Others there." Asha said. "We'll fly our bloody underclothes if it means more speed, but we'll pinch every person out of their cold grasp we can all the way to the fucking Rock. By the time we get there, we'll have enough people to fill it twice over. The western lords might not take the word of an ironwoman or a northman, but Lord Jason Mallister of Seagard would go a long way toward bringing them 'round."
"Though, we have to get there first. That's not getting done except by doing it." Mormont said, walking off to move what needed moving and haul what needed hauling. Lord Jason turned to look at his crumbling fast one more time.
"Never mind, Father." Patrek said. "We'll build it anew when we come back. Higher and stronger than the Eyrie, even. What falcon can claim to be the equal of an eagle?" Despite his spirited words, Asha could see the tears threatening to fall in Patrek's eyes.
"Fuck, you might come back with more Mallisters than you started with. There are unwed women aplenty in the westerlands, I'll bet, after the War of Five Kings. You'll get the chance to show your pretty son off in every western court, if nothing else." In the end Patrek had to lead his father to the ships by the hand, the Mallister ships just big enough to take on all the rivermen wounded and whole both. A few of the more seaworthy men Asha picked out for Black Wind. At last the coast began to shrink into the distance, the sounds of the other ships a sharp shift from the silence Asha had arrived in. She spotted Mormont sitting by the steps up to the aft deck, wearing garb Gawen Glover had scrounged for him. "How do you feel?" she asked, almost sheepishly.
"Fine. Not so scrambled up here, though I doubt I'll feel the same when the full moon draws near again." Out of the blue, Asha recalled something.
"You spent a lot of time with the Dothraki."
"Aye."
"Once or twice in Meereen, I heard them talk about Daenerys' surly shadow. Jorah the Andal, they called you."
"What of it?"
"If they'd seen what I have, they'd know how ill it suits you. You're First Man to the bone." At first the northman did not react, then his eyebrows rose so high they threatened to join his hairline. He began to laugh, loud and strong, until his face was in his hand. I wonder if that hurts him, Asha thought mildly.
