Chapter 12
The Last Kingsmoot
Drowned Priest Maron of the Cliffs
From his observation post on the cliffs of Old Wyk he watched them arrive. The sky was clear and a timid sun lighted the sea but even if it had been a stormy day it would have been impossible to miss the hundreds of sails coming in this direction.
There was no particular order in the arrivals. Humble fishers came before and after renowned captains. The black and gold sails of House Greyjoy were numerous but dispersed next to Volmark, Goodbrother, Orkwood and Sparr banners. Every type of ship was represented. The longships were overwhelming in numbers, but they were also captured war galleys of the West, merchantmen having formerly belonged to wealthy traders of the Reach, captured slavers from Essos and nimble sloops of coastal towns. The greatest of these hulls were boasting over a hundred oars and disgorged thousands when they stopped their course in the middle of the bay. The smallest were dragged ashore by the force of arms of a dozen men. But they were all Ironborn, led by captains who were their own masters and kings between the sky and the sea.
One look was sufficient to see Nagga's Cradle could not possibly contain all these ships. There were fewer reavers and ships than when the Red Kraken had mounted the millenary-old marches of Nagga's Hill, but the hundreds of hulls present were sufficient to encumber the small bay. Not that it stopped the Ironborn to come. There were other bays, other places a galley or a longship could land the passengers it transported. When a king died, nobody in the Iron Islands wanted to miss the succession challenges. Centuries under the Hoares and the thumb of the Iron Throne had not erased it from the hearts and the minds of the Ironborn.
"They came." Vickon the Twice-Drowned was gritting his teeth in anger behind him. "These assassins and madmen..."
"Brother." Maron did not raise his voice but he hoped he made his disappointment limpid to his fellow Drowned Priest.
"Brother." Repeated the Twice-Drowned, his dark hair flowing in the northern wind. "Yes, you are my brother. But those captains and their ships? They are not our brothers! Help pleas are coming from all the Iron Islands, from the valleys and the combs! Villages are torched! Families are raped, hanged and slain from Great Wyk to Harlaw! They are our own people and these captains are murdering them! They make a mockery of our religion tenets!"
"They are angry." He finally said after a long turn of hourglass listening to the waves shattering on the grey stones. "They wanted a heroic return and instead they got insults and blame."
A sinister laughter escaped the lips of Vickon. Judging by his expression, the Priest of the Drumm had never believed in a triumphant return. A new gust of wind arrived, more powerful. Northwards, he could already see dark clouds arriving. A new storm would not be long in coming. Worrying as they had endured two and this was just the beginning of this winter. Their islands rarely knew snowfalls but they more than compensated with the storms.
"They were defeated." A new bark of laughter resonated in the air. "No, they were worse than defeated. They were broken. They were broken by the greenlanders, broken by the death of the King and broken by their own actions. Countless times I urged the Lords and the Captains to raid the granaries and the warehouses of the Lannisters. I told them we were courting disaster. An idiot could see it. They enslaved thousands of Westerners and brought them back to the Iron Islands. They took all the boys who knew how to harvest the fields and provide food for our villages and harbours. They slept on mountains of gold and made sure no one would trade with us."
This was not the first time Vickon was ranting against the course of this war, but the words chilled Maron's bones after hearing this one. Perhaps because this doom-saying predictions had a core of truth for the first time in years.
"We are Ironborn. We will endure."
The retort was particularly bitter, even coming from the most vocal opponent of the Red Kraken.
"We will starve, you mean." A grimace which could never be recognised as a smile passed on the sixty name days-old face. "I have many friends on Harlaw, Blacktyde and Pyke. Our treacherous captains may have done a true bloodbath, but there still are too many people to feed. We have less than one year of supplies if we begin to ration our castles and reavers."
And it wasn't going to happen, of course. Both Drowned Priests knew it. This was a kingsmoot, a moment every captain did his best to impress his friends, rivals and enemies in the hope the multitude of voices would earn him a driftwood crown. Gold, silver, jewels and precious essences would be gifted and traded above all, but the meals were going to be large and the drinks would flow in torrents of red and white nectar. No Ironborn warrior was going to tighten his belt for the next fortnight, the time for every captain of note to come.
"We can raid the Westerlands anew. They have not the men to stop us." Honestly Maron was still far from convinced there was anything left of value in the Lannister-ruled lands; the reavers had mocked their enemies and boasted of burning every habitation on hundreds of leagues on many occasions during the feasts and victory banquets. There was Casterly Rock of course, but the failed assault of Lord Saltcliffe two years ago had proven the Lannister citadel could not be stormed. "The return of the longships will also provide us fishers."
The crowd forming at the base of Nagga's Hill had become consequent as they exchanged these words. There had been a couple of hundred men and women to welcome the captains this morning and mount the tents a kingsmoot demanded. It was mid-day now and the flow was getting stronger not smaller. There had to be thousands of Ironborn in this black mass spread on several leagues and even from their position, they made an astounding racket. Barrels were transported ashore, though it was impossible to say from here if they contained ale, wine, meat or salted fish. Knowing the reavers, he was betting on the two first choices.
"And the Redwyne fleet? They have massacred our best crews and are certainly sailing in this direction as we dither and try to crown a new King." Vickon shook his head in an angry nod. "No, Maron. The time to raid is long past. We must defend our homes now...and pray the Targaryens have no dragons to attack us."
On this the Priest of the Cliffs didn't share the Twice-Drowned fears. "Blacks or Greens, if they had dragons to use against us, they would have shown them by now." By the tales they had heard from captured greenlanders, the dragonlords had not exactly been shy in unleashing dragonfire on the defenceless villages of the Reach, the Crownlands and the Riverlands. The reavers of the Iron Fleet had made the West bleed, but it sounded like the dragons had done far more damage to Westeros. "Karek of the Holy Waves has spoken for moons that he saw the armies of the Greens and the Blacks slaughter each other in his visions. According to him, all their armies and dragons are shadows of what they were before the war."
Vickon spit in the sea in answer of this command.
"Karek is a madman and can't find his backside with both hands even if we gave him a maester to explain how the world works." In other mouths, this would have been considered as dangerous accusations but Karek and Vickon had loathed each other for the last two decades – from the first time they had met each other to be the truth.
"Did you know he wanted to crown the Mad Butcher when the Red Kraken refused the crown the first time?"
"These were rumours, brother." Well, Maron of the Cliffs preferred to think by the will of the Drowned God that they had been rumours. Dalton Greyjoy, the infamous Red Kraken, had been an arrogant and merciless reaver while he was alive, a bloody mind inside a thick skull but he knew some tactics and was a formidable reaver. Moreover, the Lord of Pyke had had the support of the greatest Houses and thousands of warriors, the large treasury his father and grandfather had gathered in their days and a powerful fleet under his name. Terrence 'the Mad Butcher' Harlaw, second son of the Lord of Harlaw, made the Red Kraken like a model of moderation in comparison. His actions in the Sack of Lannisport and scores of little towns had given him the reputation of a monster. And because the wrath of the Storm God had struck the Ironborn, Terrence was probably the new Lord of House Harlaw now. The longships of his father and his eldest brother had been reported sunk at Southshield.
"But it is not with rumours that Karek intend to support the Mad Butcher of Harlaw at the kingsmoot."
"Karek and his Drowned apprentices are only five men." Vickon chuckled under his large beard, perhaps not agreeing with the 'men' part. "They are other Drowned Priests coming and many proud captains to support. Lord Urrathon Goodbrother and Lord Captain Tristifer Botley are lost to us, but I have recognised many sails. Sargon Orkwood, Ralf Farwynd, Gormon Volmark, Asher Codd...without mentioning all the bastards Dalton sired right and left wherever he went raiding and pillaging."
Sending a last glance at the dark clouds of the north, Maron turned his back on the waves and began the long march down the stony trail. Vickon after a long hesitation followed him. The Priests of the Cliffs was glad he did. While Nagga's Cradle appeared relatively close and Old Wyk was a small island, they were not young anymore. The march was going to be long and difficult for their old bones. But as they progressed on the hard and uncultivable rocky terrain, more sails continued to arrive. More mouths to feed, undoubtedly. And not a single great Lord able to unify them except when they were commanded to get drunk.
Lord Sargon Orkwood
The northern wind was powerful when the great day of the kingsmoot was convened. Sargon wasn't complaining much. The last days had seen plenty of dark clouds, but no true storm. The visibility was appreciable for a captain of the Iron Islands, and the countless ships at anchor could stay in Nagga's Cradle without fear of sinking or being thrown on the grey stones littering the shores. It was not a sunny day, but it was certainly the best weather they could have in winter. Whether it was a good omen or not, it remained to be seen but the Lord of Orkmont prayed the Drowned God for it to be good.
By the time he reached the first steps of Nagga's Hill, the Captain of the Sea Ravager had a sizeable column behind him. The captains sworn to his House were all present and more. The last days had been very profitable for his cause and he had managed to rally the famous captains and reavers of his home island. House Tawney had bowed to him on the second day after their arrival, followed by the minor holdfasts and the independent longships. It was a powerful base and he felt sure two thousand men and forty ships would scream his own name when the moment came.
Sargon was not naive to believe it would be enough to win the kingsmoot; only an idiot believed victory was assured when six of the seven major islands were no friends of his. And Orkwood was not the richest or the most populated island. It had some iron mines, but Great Wyk and Pyke easily surpassed them in quality of the ore and the weight they extracted every year from the earth. And he was not the reaver the Red Kraken was. Then again, no one in this assembly was...
His was not the only group of warriors marching determinedly towards the ancient bones of Nagga, the great sea dragon slain by the Grey King. Hundreds of smallfolk and servants had already taken position on the outskirts with coffers and the war horns of Old Wyk. And from the multiple camps spread around the bays, columns of warriors bigger than the bannersmen he had mustered were advancing.
Some sights were amusing. It looked like Lord Gormon Volmark had been so successful in his reavings thorough the Westerlands that it had given him ideas of greatness. Ideas like melting part of the gold he had taken from House Reyne and using it to forge himself a new armour. The result was...shiny and he had seen entire crewmen giggle at the sight of the golden fish-shaped helm. From the Drowned Priests to the lowest sailors, everybody was now calling Lord Volmark the 'Golden', with nicknames like 'the Fool' or 'the Fish' behind it. Sargon saw it as arrogant and terribly uninspired: unless the enemy was completely blind, wearing this armour was just begging the archers of the other side to strike you down.
There were other captains however that had no place on the sacred soil of Old Wyk. Harras Kenning was one. The man was a coward and while Sargon had not believed the whispers on the Shield Islands about him, he believed them now. The Kenning Captain was always the first to run and steal the gains of loyal men when battles turned ugly. At Pyke there was a great deal of evidence it was his men who had begun the massacre and the coward had left the Greyjoy and Orkwood men deal with the aftermath of the bloodbath. Thus his nickname: the Coward, always eager to take the spoils of war but not fight for them like a proper Ironborn. Terrence Harlaw was the second. Where the 'Mad Butcher' went, the reavers raiding after him always found children corpses. The debates raging around the bonfires had not agreed if the rapes had taken place before or after their deaths but Sargon and the rest of the Sea Ravager's crew were in no hurry to know. Harwyn 'the Lame Kraken' Pyke was the third. The Red Kraken's eldest bastard son, Harwyn had nothing of the charisma of his genitor. Average at wielding the axe and the sword, mediocre when it came to lead men, unskilled when it was question to command a ship and if the conversations of the women could be trusted, absolutely pathetic under the sheets. The young Balon Pyke he had in his crew was a genius in comparison and the youngster was no great reaver.
Fortunately there were great captains too. Lord Urrathon Goodbrother had perished at Southshield but many of his brothers and cousins had saved their longships and were present on this day. Lord Captain Botley had died from his wounds after bringing back the body of their King but the Botleys were still one of the most prestigious reaver contingent. Far on the left, there was Asher 'the Half-Giant' of House Codd, who had vanquished many knights of the Westerlands on foot and for three fortnights reigned as Master of Sarsfield. Lord Ralf Farwynd, lunatic but without equal when it came to throw spears at the enemy. Lord Dalton Drumm, who always wielded two axes everywhere he went. Lord Wulfric Merlyn, a reaver who had raided and pillaged in the Hade Sea before this war started.
Many of these captains-lords had held no titles and castles when the dragons had descended against each other in flames and deaths. The losses in longships and men had been low in the Westerlands, but they had come back with a vengeance during the assault in the Shield Islands. Ironborn had not the numbers and the tactics to break fortresses defended by powerful garrisons. But those men who had survived were good and were gathered today to elect a new King.
The crowd grew denser and denser facing the old bones and the ancient stairs. In front of them two lines of Drowned Priests were waiting, at their head the venerable Drowned Priest Uthoron of the Old Tides – who most captains called simply 'Old Tide'. There was a big rush in the captains' ranks to be in the first places. No great fighting but one or two fists cracked a few teeth. The crew of a Stonehouse longship and a Wynch one would add one more feud to their already considerable list. Impatience and tensions were filling the air. The reavers and their support had feasted, cried, mourned, feasted and waited. Now they wanted to choose a King and go back to war.
"Dalton, our beloved King, the legendary Red Kraken, is dead!" Declared Uthoron in a powerful speech which thundered over the hissing winds the tumult of the waves. "Dalton who burned the West and by his wise strategies allowed us to take back our liberty!" The Drowned Priest continued to list the achievements and victories of their glorious reaver-king before turning to prayers for the royal deceased. "Dalton is dead and I have no doubt he is feasting in the Halls of the Drowned God as we speak! He will be missed but what is dead may never die but rises again, harder and stronger."
"What is dead may never die but rises again, harder and stronger!" Repeated the Ironborn in a loud unanimous shout.
"Dalton is dead and left no words to tell us the captain he wanted to succeed him. The waves have called! The wrath of the Storm God has been great! A kingsmoot has been assembled! Who? Who will have the strength and the will to continue our Grand King's work?"
There was a brief moment of silence. Those captains who had something between the ears knew that declaring yourself first was a good way to kill your chances. A great reaver may be popular, but declaring first all the pretenders would be able to steal his support after that.
"I will!" Said a voice and the ranks of the captains opened to reveal Harwyn Pyke.
"Harwyn King! Harwyn King!" Sang a score of men behind him. "The Kraken's Heir and the Seastone Chair!"
They made a lot of noise for such a little group, Sargon had to admit. Leading them was Harwyn Pyke, the bastard Dalton had had with a Summer Islander whore. Like his mother, Harwyn was dark-skinned and slimly built. He marched with the arrogance of Dalton and as he closed with the Old Tide his men distributed coffers full of golden dragons, silver moons and stags, and little trinkets the bastard must have raided from House Farman's vaults.
"Ironborn!" The scream should have brought silence in the Ironborn ranks but Harwyn voice was too high-pitched and the result made several captains chuckle. "With my help, my father conquered Fair Isle and the entire coast of the Westerlands..."
The whispers only grew louder and between two waves Harwyn lost the attention of the assembly. It was not because the sentences were long or boring...it was just the bastard was trying to appropriate the exploits of his father while everyone knew pertinently how little he had played in these actions.
"...and I will rule from Pyke, like my father before me!"
"Harwyn King!" Two scores of men applauded and tried to give more baubles, but except one or two lone reavers from Pyke, the crowd stayed silent. Harwyn's face was terribly shocked...had the bastard truly thought they were going to cheer him only because he was of Dalton's seed?
"Who will claim the driftwood crown?" Asked anew Uthoron once the gold distributed by Pyke and his men had been dispersed and the Summer-skinned youngster began to sulk on the right of the Drowned Priests.
"I will!" This time it was true roar and a small cohort of Ironborn raised their axes in salute as Ralf Farwynd marched on the holy stones of Nagga's Hill. Men of the Lonely Light followed him as well as a few Great Wyk and Blacktyde veterans he had saved in the Southshield rout.
"Ironborn! Proud captains and reavers! I am Ralf Farwynd!" Many cheered as the coffers were opened to reveal sculpted pieces of silver, a few tapestries, many gold dragons and a score of jewels. "I sacked Oakenshield, defeated the six knights of Lannisport Western Gate and emptied three gold mines of the Westerlands! My three sons and I are cursed by the foolish greenlanders from the Banefort to King's Landing! Join me and we will continue our raids forever! We will reave beyond the Lonely Light at the height of a grand fleet such that the world has never seen! We will make the dragons bow in fear! We will reach Leng and Yi-Ti and bring enough treasures to buy three kingdoms!"
This was where Farwynd stopped being interesting for the listening captains. The list of possible targets...they had no common points and sometimes were separated by half a world. The Master of the Lonely Light did a good showing, but in the end the large majority of the Ironborn did little more than clap in their hands and seize the dragons distributed.
"Who will become our King?" Urothon's voice boomed.
Four other captains tried their chance after Farwynd's turn. Harras Kenning was among them, of course, and had about the same support as the Pyke bastard: men booed at each word and his proposition to make peace with the Iron Throne was answered with laughs and shouts of 'coward!". The three others brought little gold in their coffers and few plans for their kingships. The last of the four proposed to fall upon the Riverlands like the Hoares two centuries ago but this fell flat when a Goodbrother screamed the dragons had already torched everything.
"Captains arise! Is there any amongst you worthy to down the driftwood crown?"
"I will!" And this time feelings of disgust, fear and anger were shown on the Ironborn of the first ranks. Terrence Harlaw was marching through the crowd, with the grand captains of Harlaw on his heels. The armour of the Mad Butcher had been black-grey at one point, but the last years of wars and uncountable atrocities had rendered it red. The few thralls daring enough to talk murmured their master ordered them to clean only the non-red parts. The reaver wanted to look like he had just bathed in blood and honestly it looked like he had achieved his goal. Many applauded in the crewmen and the captains behind. The war had transformed some reavers into monsters and these souls recognised Harlaw the Butcher as their champion. Five or six Drowned Priests were also looking very pleased.
"Ironborn!" This was not a roar but a rasp which left the ugly lips of Terrence Harlaw. Rumour said it was the result of one of his victims having nearly strangled him to death. Impossible to verify as the Butcher was always parading in full armour. "We have destroyed the West and seeded Westeros in blood and tears!"
The Harlaw reaver smiled, the Butcher felt honestly proud at the carnages he had orchestrated. On the opposite side however, Asher Codd and several famous captains spit on the stones.
"But the work is not done. Dalton fell at the Shield Islands and the Reach has not screamed in terror at the sight of our longships! Crown me King, and I promise you Highgarden! We will take the Mander as ours and piss on the gardens of these weak roses! Their women will be our thrall wives! Their men will build for us new fleets and give us all the food we need to endure twenty winters!"
"TERRENCE KING! TERRENCE KING!" The screams came from several of the main islands but in no way from the great crews. Sargon was certainly not going to cheer either. Terrence Harlaw was indeed mad. If the full force of the Iron Fleet had failed to take the Shield Islands and defeat the Reach, they were not going to win now. Over a third of their hulls had been lost on this day and storming bigger citadels was going to be harder, not easier.
"Dalton failed but I will not! We will sink the Redwyne navy and sack their fortresses! Only the dragons could have stopped us...and the dragons are dead!"
Sargon would never know if it was coincidence or the dark humour of the Storm God, but it was the moment a blue streak emerged from the clouds and the left edge of the bay went up in flames.
Balon Pyke
They were cursed. The hundreds of reavers who like him had shed Ironborn blood on Pyke preferred to pretend it had never happened but they knew the truth like him. That or they blamed the men and women they had killed. But there was no escape for what they had done. Ironborn were strictly forbidden to shed the blood of other Ironborn by the holy words of the Drowned God spoken by His priests for thousands of years. Balon knew this massacre had not pleased the Drowned God and in the middle of winter, the wrath of the Storm God would not be long in coming.
Their arrival at the kingsmoot had been the complete opposite of what the half-brother of Dalton Greyjoy had expected. Instead of being cursed and vilified by the other crews, they had been applauded. Many thrall rebellions had been suppressed with the same ruthlessness, they had been told. Insurrections and traitors were at an all time low after the lessons they had been given. Balon had then understood they were well and truly lost. They had killed their own people, and the captains loved to pretend it was just an insidious thrall plot. The more they ate and drank in the feasts on the beaches of Old Wyk, the more Balon remembered the dead eyes of the first woman killed at Lordsport and the demands of hungry people for bread and meat. A curse and a promise haunted him now.
You will starve soon enough.
Before going back to the Sea Ravager and sailing for the kingsmoot he had been among the rare ones to inspect the granaries of Lordsport. To his great consternation, the dead had spoken the truth. Perhaps three out of ten warehouses had already been emptied of grain, fishes, meat and they had not yet survived the first year of winter.
If the lords and great captains had been aware of this, they had not shown it at the kingsmoot. One fortnight of celebrations and mourning – in the Ironborn fashion: a lot of ale and wine to drink your sorrows and your joys. Then the moment awaited and dreaded came. Thousands of reavers and captains assembled before the marches of the Grey King, the entire preaching choir of the Drowned Priests and the bones of Nagga. And one by one the captains rose to claim the driftwood crown. Not a word was said to tell how they were going to eat when their stomachs growled and the storms brought more rain and cold. Well, except Terrence Harlaw but Balon was not going to follow someone who thought raping little boys was a fun deed.
"Only the dragons could have stopped us...and the dragons are dead!"
In the hours after this sentence, Balon would always remember it and how it had seemed to tempt fate. The Ironborn had had no news of dragons, the rumours and ravens flying to Pyke and the longships were moons-old and completely irrelevant by the time they had come to their ears. Some soldiers and reavers had pretended they had had messages affirming all the Targaryen and their mounts were dead. Several crewmen had told the exact opposite. But there had been no way to confirm them, short of going to King's Landing – and it was not a small journey with the war raging everywhere.
All he knew that when moments later a horrible roar had resonated over the bay, there was a blue shadow in the sky and the left part of the bay where the Goodbrother longships had been concentrated was burning in an unnatural fire.
"Dragon!" Shouted someone and it was immediately complete panic. The Ironborn had been pressed against each other like a bank of sardine and when one started to run, it was complete chaos. Many men were trampled in the first outburst while other fell under the not-so ceremonial axes and swords of warriors trying to disperse the crowd.
"Dragon! To the ships!" A cry repeated everywhere all over Nagga's Cradle. Balon did not run. He saw the mass of reavers, servants, guards and lords run to their ships...and he saw they were not going to make it. The dragon – a blue beast which looked bigger than an average longship – roared and exhaled again a wide burst of dragonfire. The result was hellish and this time the master of the beast had not launched his mount on a single point. No, methodically and patiently, the inferno targeted the left section of the bay, burning hundreds of ships and perhaps thousands of men. Wood, ropes, turpentine, sails, steel, supplies, tents, barrels...everything went in flame. This was not an attack towards the Ironborn. No, the dragon was aiming at the ships.
Oh, by the Drowned God. He wants us all parked like sheep to the slaughterhouse.
And the blue dragon began to do exactly that. A few Ironborn crews had managed to reach their longships but the monster over their heads did not give them the time to arm the light scorpions. One pass and dozens of warriors who had sailed from Tyrosh to Pyke were screaming torches. The northern wind was violent and consuming the Goodbrother and Volmark longships who had escaped the disaster.
It is our damnation.
The waters of the bay, so calm in the last days boiled under the implacable flames. A fog of steam and smoke was rising over the carnage but it was not stopping the dragon. Nothing was stopping the beast. In the distance, Balon heard the orders bellowed by Asher Codd. The Half-Giant had rallied his men under a large kraken banner and was giving back their courage.
"Archers take position!"
Two scores of men seized arrows and prepared their longbows, waiting for the dragon to come at them. But the blue streak was not in the least interested in them. The dragon and its master were only thinking about the longships...and it was incredibly fast. For the first time he thought about this, Balon recognised the greatest strength of a dragon was not its destructive breath but the incredible mobility afforded by its wings. The dragon attacked anew, annihilating the prizes and longships of House Wynch and Harlaw. In the wind a black flag was carried away, half-destroyed in dragonfire.
"Abandon the ships!"
"To the ships of the right! They're still able to sail!"
"Abandon the ships!"
"What is dead may never die!"
"We need archers here!"
Men begged for death or salvation. Plenty jumped from the masts and the bridges, seeking salvation in the cold depths and discovering too late dragonfire burned very well over and in the water. Looking back at Nagga's Hill, Balon noticed nearly every Drowned Priest had fled like cowards. Big loud mouths but when it came to a real fight, these Priests did not have much in the stomach.
"Retreat! We must retreat!"
One of the greatest longships left to the Iron Fleet rammed two smaller embarkations in its haste to reach the shore. It was not fast enough. A new infernal breath and the banners of House Shawney were destroyed along with at least four scores of reavers.
"The fleet is lost!" The young Ironborn screamed. "We must go inland and man the forts!" But no one listened to him save an old grizzled Drowned Priest five feet on his left.
The Ironborn longships went in flames by entire squadrons. Small or big, swift or cumbersome, big masts or hundreds of oars, it was of no importance. Every Ironborn knew as soon as they went to the sea that fire was one of their greatest enemies. But the flames of the dragon were an entirely different danger. An uncontrolled fire could devour a longship in three rapid turn of hourglasses. A gust of dragonfire before his eyes was torching a score of longships in less time it took to say it.
"Shoot these arrows! Kill the dragon!"
At last the Ironborn warriors counter-attacked. With the rapidity of men who knew their failure meant instant deaths, about three groups of archers had been put into position. They had also managed to drag two light scorpions somehow.
"For the Drowned God and for the Kingsmoot!" The battle-cry went loud and high in the middle of the inferno. Hundreds of arrows and two scorpion bolts were launched to slam in the dragon...which avoided them all with a stunning twirl of the winds.
"This is magnificent...but this is not war." The Drowned Priest voice was calm and posed. For a moment, Balon wanted to ask him how he could remain so calm watching the entire Ironborn fleet be incinerated like that. A new series of screams redirected his attention on the battlefield. The Greyjoy remnants had avoided the initial onslaught due to their location on the right-centre of Nagga's Cradle but this time their luck ran out. In a storm of flames, ten or twelve hulls disappeared in the dragonfire.
The archers had not stopped firing after their first arrow wave but their efforts wielded nothing. The dragon was playing with them and the smoke obscured everything. The light of the day should have provided plenty of opportunities to shoot at the best but now the bay was a spectacle worthy of the Long Night. The water was boiling under the dragonfire. The stones, grey and dark, were liquefying under the unnatural warmth. The winds of winter were dispersing the burning cinders, creating more fires and dooming untouched longships. Scores of longships were collapsing under their own weight, breaking in two or sinking after their masts and the entire structure was crippled by the relentless dragonfire. Men were screaming in agony on their ships, on the shores and in the water.
"They should have run."
The blue monster charged out of the cloud of ashes and steam and the archers had no time to evade this new course. The dragonfire came out like a torrent and when the dragon rose in the air, there was nothing left living. If Asher Codd or any of his men had survived this inferno, there was no sign it.
There was nothing to save. Perhaps the longships in the other bays had been left untouched but Nagga's Cradle and the majority of the kingsmoot were gone. And all this slaughter had been done by a single dragon.
One beast had annihilated an entire fleet.
We haven't been so decisively defeated since the Conqueror burned Harrenhal.
They had stood no chance against House Targaryen, truly. What could you do against such monsters when you had none on your side? Looking at several small lines of servants fleeing towards the heights, Balon was startled when the Drowned Priest put in his hands a smelly object without a warning.
An instant later he paled when he saw the object. It was a driftwood crown.
"The Ironborn will need someone with wisdom in the days to come, Balon Greyjoy." Told him the Drowned Priest with a grave expression.
"I am...not a Greyjoy. I am a Pyke. Dalton never legitimised me."
The Priest chuckled in a tone where there was no joy.
"You are an Ironborn and the Ironborn will need someone to survive the days to come. Kill the Pyke and be reborn as a Greyjoy. What is dead may never die."
Under the burning sky, uncountable ravens began to descend on the thousands of corpses.
"But rise again, harder and stronger."