Author's Note: Man, has it really been three whole months? Time sure does fly.
Some darker themes are in this chapter, though most is merely hinted at and there is no detail to the rest. In any case, tread carefully.
I hope you enjoy!
Harras Harlaw knew what some men said of him, and why they said it. He was not like other Ironborn, in a score of small ways and a handful of significant ones. "Harras the Knight" some called him, for Harras Harlaw was indeed a Ser, knighted at the Tourney of Hornvale when he was seven and ten by his maternal uncle, Lord Lucamore Serrett of Silverhill. "Harras the Faithless" others called him, and from their point of view they were correct, for Harras did not follow the Drowned God of the Iron Isles but instead the Seven of old Andalos. "Harras the Riddle" still others claimed, and that one was Harras' favorite. He was indeed a riddle, a follower of the Seven yet an Ironborn reaver and raider, forever caught between two worlds.
But his men called him none of those things; they called him captain.
"Brace!" Harras called, squatting down both in anticipation of the blow and the volley of arrows that whistled towards them, slamming into the Black Scythe and its crew in a rain of steel and colorful fletching. His crew was well trained, holding their shields overhead and repeating the call to brace even amidst the shower. Three arrows hit Harras' shield, a fourth bouncing off the light armor covering his right leg, and then the ram struck.
The sky split with the crack of breaking wood and cries of dying men. Harras, long practiced, used the momentum to aid a dash forward, trusting Ralf and Two-Finger to slam the boarding ramp in place from the Black Scythe to the Redwyne ship. They did, Harras taking four strides across the boards suspended over the mangled mess of wood where the ram had speared the enemy ship three feet from the centerline. On his fifth step Harras leapt, Nightfall raised high in his hand, and landed amidst the Reachmen.
He'd killed two before they knew he was there, his blade of Valyrian steel a blur of constant motion. Another he butchered when he turned to run, a fourth when he stood to fight. It made no difference really, not to Harras. Run, fight, he would kill them all the same. He felt no joy in it, had no love for killing, but his duty to Euron was to fight and to win, and the fewer enemies he left alive the closer he came to that goal.
Harras Harlaw never forsook his duty. By the time he reboarded the Black Scythe, the Reachman ship was a burning hull filled with corpses.
He called out orders to push onward, then took a moment to assess the battle from the prow above the ram. The Iron Fleet drove into the Redwyne ships relentlessly, like a red tide. His fellow captains, usually so quarrelsome and disobedient even to the men they served, were following Euron Greyjoy's orders to the letter. Gone were the attempts to capture the galley's they faced or the crews aboard them for ransom; each Ironborn ship, outfitted with a ram at their new king's insistence, sank and slaughtered with a fierce purpose. They had been ordered to destroy, so they destroyed. Anything the rams left floating the fire took, the Redwyne Straits soon choking with burning hulls.
The slaughter took one evening.
Harras put ashore on the northern tip of the Arbor itself, his crewboat touching up alongside the one from the Silence. Already rumors were flying about the destruction that one ship had carried out, soaking her already dark red decks with Reachman blood. Those rumors were easy enough to believe, for Harras knew Euron's reputation as a killer had been well earned. It was the other rumors he dismissed, the ones of shadows beneath the waves that tore gashes in the hulls of Reachman vessels and drug any who entered the water far beneath the waves. Those were just rumors from men to explain away how such a total victory had been achieved with seeming ease. Ironborn determination and experience had won the day, not krakens or selkies or horrors of the deep.
Though it was easy. Half the men I killed didn't have the heart to face me, and the other half did so poorly. It was like slaughtering lambs. Terrified, helpless lambs.
Harras and his officers stepped into the flaming mass of what once had been a fishing village. It was like stepping into one of the Seven Hells, every building burning hot in the cool night air, a fitting background to the debauchery throughout the flames. Corpses lay everywhere, both man and beast. The villagers belongings lay intermixed among them, discarded and trodden underfoot. A horde of naked women, those young and pretty enough to draw interest as salt wives, huddled together crying amid the flames while jeering reavers bartered with one another for rights to them.
Harras waved a hand—Two-Finger and Urrigon broke off towards the mass, to claim any too young in Harras' name. He always sent the girls back to Grey Garden to serve in the kitchens or the sept or as handmaidens to his own wife, sparing them the horrors of what other Ironborn likely intended. The other captains never challenged him on it, for none could match his might with Nightfall in his hand. It was but another quirk of Harras the Riddle in their minds.
But the Knight of Grey Garden did not lie to himself. It was a way to salve his conscience of his other sins, a laughably hollow attempt at righteousness amidst the unspeakable actions of those he served both under and alongside. The bodies scattered around the docks and alleys—old women and the men not strong enough to man an oar—spoke to the lie.
As did everything about the man he called king.
Euron Greyjoy sat at the head of a mismatched line of tables in the very center of the burning village, chairs of every make and style filled with the captain's sworn to him. It had all clearly been taken from the homes of the burning town around them, as had their 'feast' of bread and salted pork and wine aplenty. The crews drank or looted or raped around them, while their captains and king made merry amidst it all.
"Harras, come join me!" Euron called, the fires flickering in his one good eye. He had a woman in his lap, her face tear-streaked though she did not actively resist the Crow's Eye. He's replaced the Flowers girl from Oakenshield with another it seems. At least Falia was willing, whereas this one is anything but. Knowing Euron, that's what he prefers. But Harras came, as he was bid. Euron Greyjoy had been voted King of the Ironborn, and whatever Harras' own vote, he would honor the decision of the Islands as a whole.
"Congratulations on your conquests, King Euron," Harras said as he took a seat at the Crow's Eye left hand, his crew joining the drinking and looting Ironborn amidst the burning village. Greyjoy seemed to always keep a seat near him open for Harras and had courted his support ardently after the Kingsmoot. The Knight of Grey Garden was no fool; Euron valued Harras as a captain and fighter, true enough, but he valued Nightfall more. Ralf and the rest of Harras crew would be watching his back as they always did, and the knight kept himself ready for the moment Euron finally decided to try and take the weapon he so coveted.
And yet I serve him loyally, knowing that is in my future. Harras the Loyal should be my name, or better yet Harras the Fool.
Dunstan Drumm, Lord of Old Wyk and captain of the Thunderer, spoke from Euron's other side. "Stonecrab Cay, the Isle of Pigs and the Mermaid's Palace all taken, as well as half of the Arbor itself and parts of the other Redwyne isles. We'll have them fully in hand within the week. Not a bad evening of work."
Harras did not envision it happening like that at all, but he said nothing out loud, for he viewed the older man as almost an ally. Drumm was in much the same predicament as Harras, something both men knew and knew the other knew. Drumm also wielded a sword of Valyrian steel that Euron coveted; Red Rain, once the blade of House Castamere. Unlike Harras, who was still young and deadly, Dunstan Drumm was aged and wearing down. He was no match for Euron, especially after the Crow's Eye granted one of the captured Shield Isles to Andrik the Unsmiling, he who had once been House Drumm's fiercest warrior.
Ignorant to Harras' inner ponderings—at least Harras hoped he was, though there was something profoundly disturbing about the Crow's Eye at times—Euron spoke. "We won't be holding these islands, Drumm. The Redwyne Fleet took our bait and the few ships they left here proved no match, but their full strength will soon be setting sail for home."
Lord Dunstan frowned, his bald head glistening with sweat from the fires all around them. The heat was suffocating, but the Ironborn feasted and fucked on regardless. "Do you fear them?"
Euron laughed, a most unpleasant sound. "Fear them? No. But I'm not ready to face them in open battle just yet. Still waiting on a final piece before we annihilate them for good."
Harras knew nothing of this 'final piece', but he did know the Redwyne fleet was nothing to scoff at. They had fallen for Euron's ruse, sailing to the recently conquered Shield Isles while the bulk of the Iron Fleet slipped around them and hit the lightly defended Arbor, but he did not hold non-Ironborn sailors in the same contempt many others did. Though today makes that difficult. "We'll be hard pressed to hold them off while also taking the remaining holdfasts on the islands."
The Crow's Eye nodded, fondling the woman in his lap absentmindedly. His good eye jumped from one man to the other as his lips smirked lightly, as if it was all a game. "You're right. That's why we aren't going to."
Harras cocked a brow. "Back to the ships, then?"
Greyjoy's good eye was pure malice. "Not right away." Abruptly Euron shoved the woman to the dirt beside Harras and rose. The man didn't seem to be sweating despite the intense heat of the fires, whereas Harras himself felt his skin would soon catch fire. "Come."
Lord Drumm glanced at Harras, face pointedly blank, and stood to follow. The Knight of Grey Garden, waving one hand to forestall Ralf and the rest of his watchful crew, did the same. He stopped for a moment to try and help the woman Euron had shoved down back to her feet, but she did not rise when his calloused hand gently touched her bare arm, nor when he bid her to stand. Harras dropped into a crouch to peer into her face, only to find the tear tracks dried and her eyes empty, a shell of a woman left behind.
Swallowing, Harras regained his feet and followed after the man he called king.
The three men—none of the others had come, certainly as Euron intended it—walked away from the burning village, towards a small rise. The Knight of Grey Garden kept his hand on the hilt of Nightfall, having noticed the absence of Euron's crew of mutes from the burning feast. He was not blind to the danger of walking into the night with Euron Greyjoy, but he did not let his steps waver. He could hold an attack off long enough to shout for aide, and his men were well disciplined and quick of foot.
Besides, something told him that the day Euron truly betrayed him, Harras would not so easily see it coming.
Euron spoke as the three men walked, starting up the rise of the hillock. "We will spend the next two days taking everything we can from these weak islands. Every scrap of food, every woman of beauty, and especially every cask of wine. But we will not make the same mistake as our ancestors. For centuries the Ironborn take and rape and burn, as is the Old Way. But they also try to occupy, to keep, and that is our folly. Eventually, those from the green lands build enough strength to drive us back to the sea. No matter what we take, they inevitably take back." Euron reached the top of the hill and stopped, the two men coming up beside him. "That is not how I will rule."
Euron gestured, and in the moonlight this far from the burning town Harras could see what he gestured towards. Fields of grapevines, which the Arbor turned into the finest wine in the world, spread out below. It was a common sight on the Redwyne Isles, for each of them were covered with vineyards as old as the Great Houses of Westeros. Harras and Drumm took them in, waiting for clarification that did not come from Euron.
Dunstan finally broke the silence as a cool breeze soothed Harras burning skin. "What are we to see, King Euron?"
Harras understood what was happening a breath before Euron stated it outright. "Ash, Lord Dunstan."
A tiny orange and red light drew their attention, as if on cue. Then others, throughout the fields, from one side of Harras' vision to the other. Torches. Those points of light began to grow, slowly at first, the quicker as the ancient vines took to the flame. He means to burn the vineyards of the Arbor. Not a few of them, all of them.
Lord Drumm spoke quickly, voice aghast. "You don't mean to…"
"I do," Euron said, and Harras could hear the cold smile and the burning anger in his voice. "The Greenlanders treat us as if we are flies. Mere annoyances, capable of inflicting pain but driven off easily enough so they can return to their lives. I don't intend to be forgotten. I will not pillage a small amount and then flee, leaving the rest. I intend to take and then destroy. If they do not swear fealty to me, I will leave them nothing. No smallfolk, no crops, no stock. Whatever we cannot fit on our ships we kill or we burn."
Drumm's voice rose. "Those vines are older than all of our men combined, Crow's Eye, and those further inland even older than that. They are the only source for Arbor Reds and Golds! All Seven of the Kingdoms, including our own, treasure it!"
Euron was unperturbed. "So it's not the burning that bothers you, eh, just the future lack of wine? That is why we're loading all we can and storing it on our islands. In a few years, when whatever we leave of the greenlanders burn through their stores, they'll be desperate for more. Guess where they will find them?"
"Profit?" Lord Dunstan, so rarely driven to anger, seemed infuriated at the idea. Harras wasn't certain why; he didn't like the idea of complete annihilation any more than Drumm, but the lack of wine seemed an odd thing to fixate on. Besides, Drumm had none of the religious qualms Harras did. "You'd destroy the Arbor for profit?"
Euron Greyjoy's turned to face both men and smiled. Harlaw and Drumm both took a step back at the sheer bare madness in his expression. "I'd destroy the Arbor for fun, and all the world with it."
"That is insanity."
"Will you stop me then, Bone Hand?"
To Harras' shock, Dunstan Drumm decided to. Staring at Crow's Eye, at the fire dancing in his mad eye from the burning village behind them, Lord Dunstan suddenly drew Red Rain and drove the point for Euron's heart.
Euron Greyjoy was sidestepping the blow before Drumm even began to move. The old man slew only air, whilst the madman sank a dagger into the side of his neck and twisted.
Harras was a great warrior, but Drumm was dead before he even drew Nightfall halfway from her sheath.
Euron, bloodied dagger in his hand, did not dart for Harras. He merely laughed his horrible laugh, peering down at where the dead old man lay facedown in the dirt. The knight of Grey Garden, Nightfall now drawn, stood ready for an attack that did not come. For half a moment he thought of stepping forward and ending Euron where he stood, but something inside him warned him how futile an effort that would be.
"Sheath your very nice sword, Harras," Euron said with a smile, kneeling to take Red Rain from Dunstan Drumm's dead grip. He stood, admiring it appreciatively. "And perhaps now you'll stop tensing like a maiden when you're around me." Euron looked at him again, the madness from earlier completely gone from his affable grin. "I have my own Valyrian steel now, after all. I don't need yours."
It was a long moment before Harras hesitantly stepped out of his stance, lowering Nightfall slightly. "The Drumms won't stand for this, Euron."
The lean man waved his hand dismissively. "King Euron, mind you, and most of them will. He attacked me first, after all—the Knight of Grey Garden can attest to that, can't he?"
Harras shook his head. "That won't matter."
"It will, Harras. Only two of his sons truly have the spine to do anything about me, and they both died before even old Dunstan here."
"You…"
Euron was peering down the blade in the moonlight. "Me? No. But my crew wasn't at the feast, as I am sure you noticed. I imagined old Dunstan would be easy to goad, though even I didn't think it'd be quite that easy, and the old man's speed was a surprise. He's been talking against me ever since I beat him at the Kingsmoot, though he didn't know I knew." Euron abruptly peered at Harras, then, his usual smirk gone. "I know a great many things others don't think I know."
The madman's smile returned before Harras could think of how to respond. "Besides, his third son Greydon has long coveted Old Wyk. He'll grumble, but he'll take the lordship and the sudden lack of older brothers and fall into line."
Harras, usually calm and decisive, had no idea what to do about the man in front of him as Euron knelt again, undoing Red Rain's sheath from it's former owner's waist and fastening it around his own. "Was none of it true, then? Were they all just words to drive Lord Drumm to strike at you, so you might claim his sword?"
"No, my good knight. They were meant to drive Lord Drumm to action, yes, but they are all true. We'll burn every vineyard on every island. Only those inside the Redwyne seat will survive the torch, and those won't be near enough to satisfy demand for it." Euron clapped a bloody hand on Harras' shoulder, ignoring the fact that the knight had never sheathed Nightfall. "They are weak. We are of iron. It is time the world truly understood that."
Euron looked back towards the yards below, which were burning hotter and brighter with every passing minute. "In two days we sail east, while the Redwynes arrive here to try and put their world back together. There will be naught but ash for them, but I suppose I can applaud the sentiment."
Harras, swallowed, eyeing the dead body, the burning vines, and the madman responsible for both. "What is east?"
"My brother, Victarion. He comes with a message, and a betrayal. My answer to the first will be no. And to the second?" Crow's Eye turned to him, nodding at the bared Nightfall in Harras' hand. "That is where you come in."
His wife met him at the door of his appropriated chambers.
"I take it things went poorly," came the husky voice of Arianne Martell, stepping naked out of one of the adjoining rooms despite the presence of Ser Rolly at the door. His Kingsguard shut it between them without looking up, by now long used to both the queen's lack of clothing and lack of shame about it.
Aegon shook his head once, pinching the bridge of his nose to try and forestall the headache there. "No. Talks have stalled. The Iron Throne can have but one ruler, and Daenerys is insistent that it be her."
His wife took him into her arms, placing a kiss upon his lips before drawing him towards the balcony. She stepped out with him, despite her lack of clothing and the winter's chill, to look over the Bay of Crabs, wrapping her arms around him from behind while he leaned against the railing. "I am from Dorne, my love. No one supports the right of a woman to rule more than I do. But even ignoring what is between who's legs, you are the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms. You are your father's oldest child, who was his father's oldest child. The lords will not go for her, whatever she insists on."
I love you, woman, but this I already know. "You forget Rhaenys."
"I certainly do not, but Rhaenys was murdered by those who also claim the throne." Her voice hardened. "A common trait amongst our enemies."
There it is. Arianne Martell had been opposed to Daenerys from the onset—his wife had a crown on her head, and while she was far from a fool she also had no intention of letting it go. The truth that had come out in their second meeting a moon ago had hardened her heart to the Mother of Dragons for good. Quentyn, Arianne's elder brother, had been sent to marry Daenerys at the same time Arianne had been sent to seduce Aegon. Whereas the sister had succeeded, the brother had failed, dying in a foolish attempt to tame one of the riderless dragons to win Daenerys' favor.
Arianne blamed his aunt personally, though to Aegon it seemed mostly Quentyn's fault. It had been a most unpleasant conversation with his lords and councilors when the truth of it came out, for Aegon himself had not been told of this hedging of Dornish bets. Only Arianne herself had soothed him in the end despite her own mourning, and even then she had only achieved it after much effort. As it was, Aegon had halted the Dornish rise in power for a time, refusing them further honors and grants, though much of that damage was already done.
Aegon stared out at the sea, enjoying both the cold wind and his wife's embrace. Maidenpool, loyal still to the Baratheon king they had heard nothing of for most of a year, had fought him fiercely despite their few numbers. It had fallen, though, to sheer weight of numbers. Aegon had himself stormed the castle of House Mooton with Blackfyre in hand, being first over the wall, and captured much of the ancient line alongside it. They were now prisoners in their own home, as Aegon and his contingent used it as a base from which to treat with Daenerys' representatives farther up the coast.
He spoke words to her that he had dared not speak to anyone else. "Perhaps it is the best decision."
Arianne's head, until then pressed to his back, snapped up. "What?"
Aegon the Sixth turned to face her, keeping her gently but firmly in his grasp despite her halfhearted attempt to pull away. "She has dragons, Arianne. I do not. Perhaps I should give in to her demands."
This time his wife did pull back, face angered. "You would bend the knee to that—"
He cut in gently. "She will name me heir, and it is an unspoken point that I would ride either Viserion or Rhaegal."
Instead of growing more angry, his wife's features softened, surprising the young king. She returned to his embrace, Aegon wrapping the heavy cloak he wore around her. "You would only be heir until she has her own, love. You know this."
"There are rumors she cannot."
Arianne snorted. "How convenient. A rumor that would make you give in to her somehow makes it between opposing armies."
Aegon sighed, unable to deny that fact. "They say she walked through flame unburnt."
She leaned up to kiss him once more, then smiled. "They say many things, but I will tell you things I know. The blood of the dragon is as strong in your veins as it is hers. Whatever she has done or can do, you can achieve more. You are the strongest of what's left of House Targaryen." Suddenly her caresses changed, as did her smile. It meant she had an idea on how to persuade him to her side, Aegon knew, but he did not resist when she asked. "Shall we go inside and prove it?"
Some while later he sat with his back to the stone wall, Arianne leaning back against his chest while he idly played with a lock of her raven black hair. "It wouldn't have to be permanent," he finally said. "Perhaps, once I have a dragon..."
"You would kill her and take her place?" Arianne stroked his arms as she spoke, but her tone was dismissive. "She is a murderer but not a fool; she wants your army, not you yourself. The moment she has the first, she will have no need for the second. For the very reason you just stated, you would be a threat she could not ignore."
Aegon had thought of this, of course. He was grasping and knew it, but what choice did he truly have in the end? "I don't know how to kill a dragon, Arianne, much less three of them."
"You are a dragon, my love. You are not meant to serve another, but to rule them." Softly, she drew his hand from her hair and placed it upon her belly. "As you heir will be meant to, after you."
Aegon stiffened, everything suddenly having changed. "Are you saying…?"
His wife tilted her head back to look into his face and smiled, breathtakingly beautiful. "You have much to fight for, my love. We have been looking at this wrong, and the knowledge that I carry the future of the Seven Kingdoms has made something clear to me."
Arianne Martell narrowed her eyes. "You don't need to kill a dragon. You only need to kill her."
A/N: *tease* What's a little theft and murder betwixt family?
Just for reference, Harras Harlaw is a book canon character, as his his Valyrian sword Nightfall. So are the sword/dude combo of Dunstan Drumm and Red Rain, and Quentyn dying in an attempt to tame one of Daenerys' dragons. This story is obviously not-canon-compliant, but I like to throw in some tidbits and people when I can, even if it's just to twist it all around.
Let me know what you think if you don't mind!