Jon Snow arrived at Dragonstone the next day, bringing with him the most essential members of his retinue to coordinate the march towards King's Landing. Last off the ship came a disheveled and chained Jaime Lannister, caught before he could escape Winterfell and join his sister. The dirty looks he shot Brienne of Tarth left no doubt as to who was responsible for his capture. Whenever she did not stand watch over him, her squire Podrick took over, clearly uncertain as to what he would do if Jaime somehow escaped.

Tyrion stood before his queen, answering her summons.

"Tyrion, your brother has joined us once more. As a prisoner this time, attempting to rejoin your sister."

"Yes, so I heard. I hope you put him under lock and key?"

Danerys looked surprised.

"You aren't asking me to free him?"

Tyrion shook his head.

"A guarded cell on this island is the safest place he could be right now. If you could keep him there until the city is taken, it would be for the best."

Tyrion was on his way to the cells when he saw Jon accosted by the Wolf. He was unfortunately also close enough to hear them, and although the Wolf did not speak particularly loudly for once, his meaning if not his words had a way of being understood at any distance.

"Hoi! You! You're the Dragonqueen's lover, aren't you?"

Jon's mouth twisted, but the Wolf plowed on as if he hadn't noticed it.

"Better get to bedding her quick, she's been all wound up ever since she came back from King's Landing. You don't fuck the frustration out of her soon, she'll start looking thoughtfully at horses or that big scaly son of hers. And when you start lying with kin and animals, there's no going back. Look what it got the Lannister bitch."

The Wolf gave Jon's shoulder a jocular shove as he walked off, as unconcerned as if he had merely informed Jon that his shirt was on backwards. Jon's expression was a mixture of hatred, bewilderment and fear as he stared at the Wolf's back. Then he saw Tyrion, who he was relieved to see wore a similar expression.

"You think he knows?"

Tyrion took some time to answer.

"I... don't think he does. He'd likely have been a lot less subtle about it if he did. Maybe he wouldn't even have worked for Danaerys."

"Why is he even here!?"

"He helped deal with Euron. Sent him away."

Jon looked at Tyrion.

"You're sure of this?"

Tyrion hesitated.

"I saw him sail towards the Silence, saw him come back, and saw the Iron Fleet sail away from Dragonstone. We've had ravens saying they've sailed south, but haven't attacked any towns. Yet."

Jon looked tired. The siege would be much easier if Cersei had only the remains of the royal fleet at her command, and he was certain Davos Seaworth would live up to his name on the waters. But leaving a Greyjoy unsupervised was not a decision to be taken lightly, and the Wolf's actions had forced them into an uncertain situation.

As preparations were made for the march and the skies filled with ravens delivering reports and messages, the Wolf did not remain inactive. The Dothraki that had been granted to him were drilled harsher than the rest, pitted in mock battles every day against his own men. The Seafang sailed out every morning while the Wolf's marauders scoured the beaches of Dragonstone, building up a vast collection of driftwood.

One day the longship returned from the mainland, towing a massive tree behind it. This was dragged onto the beach where the marauders set up an improvised smithy, melting down whatever scrap metal they could get their hands on into great iron rings.

Tyrion descended to the beach to inspect the ram's progress, passing the disgraced Dothraki charging against a group of marauders. Each had a strange emblem tattooed on his shoulder, a small circle inside a wavy crescent shape, the significance of which he thought to be a reference to their supposed feat in the forests of Winterfell.

None of the marauders spoke Westerosi, but those around the ram made sufficient reference to something called a "svinebyorn" for him to guess it was the name they had given it. He went up to the Wolf, who was lifting the ram up with both hands so the iron bands could fit around it, and waited until he had put the tree down.

"Ser Wolf, what exactly is a- svinebyorn? Some ferocious animal or great warrior, no doubt?"

"HAH!"

It took a while for the Wolf to stop laughing. At last he composed himself.

"Sveinbjorn, great warrior... Hoohoo..."

The Wolf wiped a forearm across his eyes.

"Indeed not. I call it that after someone I knew, for they share many of the same traits."

The Wolf smirked.

"Like Sveinbjorn, it is heavy, lacking in conversation, exists only to shove itself into places it's not wanted, is utterly brainless, and incapable of doing anything without a dozen men to carry its weight."

The Wolf shook his head.

"No, the only thing Sveinbjorn the... "man"... was ever a danger to was maidenheads, women's reputations, and his own allies if they were stupid enough to trust him to carry out a task with any degree of success. And immobile targets, of course, which this Sveinbjorn should excel against."

Tyrion waited a moment.

"And who was he?"

"Sveinbjorn Torgaldsson, crown prince of the Aeslings, who took the throne after his father died in battle. Or rather, after he and king Viglundr of the Sarls conspired for Torgald to meet his end at my blade. He wasn't worth even half his father, or else I'd show you his skull."

The Wolf drew a sword half out of its sheath.

"That's Torgald."

Tyrion looked with some queasiness. The Wolf's sword had a skull for a pommel, yellowed with age. The empty sockets seemed to leer mockingly out at the world.

"I take it you... killed him too?"

"I did. Sveinbjorn Snake-belly, we called him afterwards."

"But you didn't keep his skull?"

"Certainly not. In his case it was because his head was needed as a parting gift to his comrade in treachery, but I only keep trophies of worthy foes, and of those the gods demand I take... and you'd be surprised by how often those are different categories."

Tyrion looked the Wolf up and down.

"You are often called upon to kill unworthy foes by your gods?"

"Incompetents who bought their position or were born into it, weaklings who'd never held a sword, or cowards who otherwise bring no glory to defeat and only shame to be defeated by. That Fingers man was one, there was another..."

The Wolf frowned.

"What was his name again? It seems it wasn't his real one, or at least he claimed it wasn't, and yet I'm sure I heard it recently. Something like "Snotling", I think."

Searching for a better brand of conversation, Tyrion looked back at the ram, noting that the fires used to smelt the iron burned bright blue, the Wolf's sorcerer waving his staff over them.

"Some kind of magic?"

"No magic there, saltwood always burns blue. But Sven tells me it'll make the ram work better, along with the spells of ruin he's laying on it."

"How so?"

"That's the wood salvaged from the ships sunk by the Iron Fleet. If the spirits of the dead want vengeance, what better way than to be bound to the engine that will batter down the walls belonging to the bitch that ordered their deaths?"

Tyrion stared at the Wolf, who did not seem overly concerned with convincing Tyrion of the spell's success.

"And you trust in this... magic?"

The Wolf shrugged.

"Magic has a way of backfiring at the worst time on those who rely on it, and as easily as the wind changes. I do not deny its usefulness, but I'll take a blade of good steel over an enchanted sword any day."

"Wouldn't want people saying it was the magic that did the work instead of you?"

The Wolf grinned slowly.

"I can see I have little to hide from you, Tyrion Shield-slayer. Although truth be told, there is more of the apothecary than the sorcerer in him."

Tyrion looked at the sorcerer again. He certainly looked the part, wolf skins, animal parts and dangling pouches along with other unidentifiable totems and amulets strewn all over them.

"I once saw him cast an orange powder into a sword blank, after a reaver named Kromsiss had paid him to enchant it. Once the sword was forged, it looked no different than any other, and yet after Kromsiss' ship struck a reef and we managed to salvage it after the summer thaw, his was the only blade onboard not rusted through. Had Kromsiss lived, that sword would have lasted long enough to be inherited by his grandson's grandson."

The Wolf pulled out a different sword from its sheath.

"See? Not a speck of rust on it, and it's been near ten years. I saw him use that same powder to make a Druchii war-hag die in less than a year by forcing her to sniff up an entire bowl of the stuff. After she'd finally coughed herself to death, her lungs were as lumpy and shriveled as a coal miner's. He's better at poison and powders than spells, or so he tells me."

Tyrion winced, and decided he didn't need to know what a Druchii was. He looked further out on the beach. The Dothraki were still brawling with the Wolf's men, though a few of them seemed to be circling around so as to strike from behind.

"You train them for battle, even though they are to die?"

"You have a better idea for keeping horsemen busy on this rock? It's what I do with the Hung and Kurgans who join my crew."

Tyrion felt these were probably more outlandish tribes from beyond the Wall that he would have been unable to tell apart from each other.

"And the symbol?"

"The Flame of Mutation, it's called. It serves to remind them that their current lot in life comes from their claims of slaying a fire dragon, and must live up to it for them to hope that it changes for the better."

The Wolf swept his hand to encompass the view.

"To mark that their old selves are no more, they have a new name as well. In your tongue, it is something like "Deathbound", for that is their fate once we come to the city, as the Dragonqueen has decreed. They will die... but they might as well take as many of the bastards as they can before they do, and appear before their forebears with some of their honor restored."

Tyrion looked at the Deathbound, who had managed to bring down several of the marauders. He shuddered to think of what might become of Essos if the Deathbound survived the siege and spread word of their exploits and the Wolf's teachings to their own people.