Author's Note:
This one was tricky to write - it's hard not to make Euron a caricature. Hopefully I've managed to avoid that here. Fair warning – this is the first (though only) chapter to have a POV from an outright OC.
Chapter 11 will be from Dany's POV. She's in the Riverlands. So are the Lannisters, of course. And Harrenhal. And the Arryns. And the rebel band called the Fury. And everyone's favourite bastard, too.
THE MONGREL
Death rode the waves.
"Do you see?" The King asked. His bruised blue lips curled into a small smile. It was a gruesome sight. Some knew it as their last, its image seared on their eyelids. Others merely dreaded it, the harbinger of their final days, the source of their shivers in the dark. From Ibben to Asshai, the sight of the King's blue smile was the tale of a thousand terrors, the mark of a thousand deaths, the start and end of a thousand, thousand miseries, for all who opposed them. Wherever they saw the sails of the Silence, men prayed, but all words were wind; there was truth only in silence, and the Gods never said a word.
Against the backdrop of thunder, in the torrents of the western rains, as the Silence sailed the savage seas, the Mongrel watched, quietly. The prisoner before them was not quiet. Instead, the prisoner screamed, and raged, and cried, and pleaded. The would-be King had lost his tunic and breeches and cloak, and all his station with it. As naked as a mewling babe, the prisoner knelt, his battered skin glistening in the rains. "Please," the man pleaded. "Nuncle, please-"
The King's smile grew wider. With one firm hand he wrenched the Prisoner's head upwards, pulling at the scalp, while his other reached for the man's beaten, bruised and bloody cock. He twisted, and a fresh, desperate, almost inhuman cry erupted from the man's throat.
"I am your King," declared the Crow's Eye.
"Yes! The prisoner gasped. "I beg you, my King-"
The King of Salt and Rock laughed and threw the man to the ground. His cheek collided with the iron shackles left discarded there, and a fresh whimper broke free, graduating into wretched sobs as new blood seeped into the redness. Surrounding, the rest of them stood bearing witness to his suffering: all of them, in their cloaks and hoods, men and women, bastards and salt wives, the lost and the damned, the wordless, the broken, the loyal. The prisoner continued to shiver and cry anew as they looked on, unflinching. This was the way, they knew. The Ironborn had their iron price, but the Silence had its own unspoken truths – men had to suffer to truly see. And this man would see, soon enough: red welts snaked across his ribs, and patches of blue and black scattered across his skin like splodges of paints, and here and there, bones jutted from his limbs, piercing the skin and the air. The man was the picture of misery. The personification of pain.
"Try not to fret, dear nephew." The King's smiling eye blazed bright. "For you shall soon be the greatest of us. I promise you. I will you this honour. This is my vow to you."
"Nuncle-"
"You shall be the greatest of us," repeated Euron Greyjoy. His voice was a quiet murmur, as soft as silk, but it echoed in their ears. He reached down to coat his fingers in one of his nephew's many open wounds, before moving to cradle the face with both hands, long fingers pressing into the younger man's cheeks, leaving crimson streaks: the Crow Eye's blessing. Mongrel would remember it forever. The King, standing, pale skin almost translucent, donning black scale armour, robes billowing in the wind as he was cast against the storms; the man, kneeling, naked, beaten, broken, bloody, struggling for air, for life, for mercy, as salt and spray battered them both.
"I told you I would pay you well," The King continued, more lightly now. "And so I shall. For that Seastone Chair, I shall give you everything."
Overhead, the storm rumbled, a continuous, low growl that gave promise to the King's words. Mongrel stood witness as Rodrik Greyjoy's blood dripped from his uncle's hands, giving ink to the deed. The King's right eye gleamed, bright and blue and blazing, while the crow's eye emblazoned on the red eyepatch stared ominously onwards, to the North, to what awaited them all. Amid it all, the sea raged around them, but though waters clawed at her sides, the Silence sailed on, ever westwards through the furious waves, where the rest of their people awaited them.
"Take him," His King commanded. The royal presence presence left them, and several of the tongueless moved to prepare the prisoner, their movements quick, and well-practised, returning the man to the hidden depths below. As they did so, Mongrel turned the other way, to follow his paternal master. In the darkness of night, the redness of the wood beneath his feet glistened in the moonlight, while ahead, his Queen awaited, their figurehead, their beacon at the helm; at the mast of the ship, the iron woman was beckoning him with her arm stretched, her form perfect, her streaming black iron hair his waypoint, his guide, his sole source of solace.
Raindrops were falling across the Mongrel's face, finding home cross his cheeks and in his hair, but he barely cared. Time was of the essence. He closed his eyes, to think above. In a moment, he took a second skin, and felt flapping wings, and a chill in his feathers, and ache in his bones. Onwards - that was all that mattered. Water dripped off his beak, but he ignored it, flapping ever forwards. He flew as his father taught him and surveyed all below.
The Silence was cutting through the churning waters like a blade, her black sails taut against the howling winds. It was racing against the protesting storm to where a hundred and more ships awaited them: the Iron Fleet. Those great vessels had set sail from the Iron Isles, proceeding west, and then south, skirting away from the Old Lion's scout ships…
The Mongrel became man again. In the flashes of lightening, he could see the outline of the fleet as they neared. Those hundred ships and more were now stopped, awaiting them; many were longships, but some were galleys, and all were sleek and swift and armed with scorpions and spitfires and helmed by hungry men and women keen for glory and riches. These were hard-eyed warriors, clad in salt-stiffened leathers, bearing axes and hooks. The Ironborn lived for the taste of salt on their tongue, and the promise of plunder on distant shores, and the Crow's Eye had promised them all that, and all the more.
As they neared the mighty vessel at the tip of the armada's spear, Mongrel also spied beasts, and many of them: grim wooden figureheads of kraken and wolf, serpents and great leviathans from the deep, snarling, hungry to see men's ends. Ahead, the Iron Victory loomed. The ship's Lord Captain waited on the deck, shadowed by the storm, while above, the crows circled, cawing, dark specks against a sky yet darker still. Their cacophony cut through the thrums of the waves, harsh, and hollow; an omen, Mongrel knew, of his King and his plans.
In time, the Silence came alongside, black sails rippling, and halted by the other ship with a great groan of timbers, her hull kissing the other. The gangplank dropped with a heavy thud, and the King strode forward, long cloak billowing in his wake. "Brother," greeted the Crow's Eye. "Is it not a good day for it?"
The King's brother was a large man, broad of chest and flat of stomach; a great hulking beast, and the Ironborn 's greatest fighter: Victarion Greyjoy. By his side, one of the mutes stood – a pretty thing, with skin as brown as oiled teak. She nodded at him.
Victarion said nothing at first, and the King laughed. The younger brother resented the older, and cursed him in his heart, and sharpened his axe in the dark, as if the King did not know, as if the King did not wish for it. Mongrel had once fed similar dreams, once, before his father's lessons.
"It is a good day Father!" exclaimed one of Mongrel's brothers. It was one of the younger ones, the boy with thick woolly hair and dark skin, whose mother had been of the Summer Isles. That woman had not died well. The boy scowled when Mongrel dragged him back. Fool.
The Iron Captain eyed them both coldly. "We have 109 ships," Victarion rumbled at last. "But I dislike this plan, brother."
"And the Lannisters?" asked the King.
"They have more," Victarion said simply. "The Old Lion has prepared for this."
"Hmm."
"I dislike this plan," Victarion said again.
There was much to dislike, Mongrel knew. The Old Lion was wily. Tywin Lannister nursed old grudges from the start of summer, nine years hence, when the Ironborn had sought to sack Lannisport. That time, the Iron Fleet paid the Iron Price: untold casualties, in men and ships and two Greyjoys a head shorter. Lord Lannister had even hung the youngest of Balon's sons, Theon Greyjoy, in full view of the then-King's ships. It was an embarrassment from which Balon had never truly recovered, but it had been a swipe at the Lion's face too, and old scars ran deep.
"Have faith," advised his King. "And you will be rewarded."
"As Rodrik was," Victorian growled. "Where is he, Euron?"
The Crow's Eye smiled again. "Awaiting a greater destiny."
"So you keep saying." The Iron Captain replied. Mongrel shivered, while a murder of crows cawed as one. Victorian frowned up at them before leading them below deck. "Tell your sons to leave," He demanded.
The King did not spare them a glance. "This one stays. Mongrel, fetch us drinks." He moved to sit across and placed his boots on the table, lounging with a grace his brother lacked.
"Of course, your Grace."
Victarion took his cup with a dark look at Mongrel. "And Asha? What will you do with her?
Balon's only daughter had fled the Iron Isles after the Kingsmoot had crowned his father. That one was dangerous, Mongrel thought. She had left aboard her own vessel, the Black Wind, but to where, none knew. The King was not so worried. "Nothing," He said, with a dismissive hand. "She will-"
"-Go straight to the Dragons," Victarion frowned. "She said-"
"Words are wind, brother," The King said softly. "Let her go to Rhaegar the Dreamer." He leant back further, eye roaming the crevices of the wood. "Her time will come. And she will pay for her treacheries."
Asha had betrayed her people, so his King had told them. They had found her papers in Pyke, hastily discarded. She had been writing to Rhaegar Targaryen's daughter for months, if not years.
Victarion gave his brother a long, hard look before his look deepened into a scowl. "I will do as asked," He then said roughly. "I will follow, as I followed Balon. With Balon's boy gone, the Drowned God raised you up." He downed his wine with one great, prolonged gulp, eyes fixed on his kingly brother. "But the Old Lion-"
"-is not in the West." The smile on the King's face no longer reached his smiling eye. "Tywin Lannister is at Riverrun. And so are most of his men."
The Iron Captain's frown said it all. "Why?" He asked, puzzled.
"The fruits of his own follies are ripening," The King said lightly. "There's a dead fish in the riverbed, and the rot is spreading." The chair landed with a thud on the wood. "Now is the time. Now. It must be here, and tonight, brother, when the Old Lion is away."
"His fleet are not away," The Iron Captain complained.
The Crow's Eye merely laughed, hand reaching inside the robes over his armour. It made his brother scowl. Inside those robes there was a horn; it gleamed black, banded with red gold and Valyrian steel, covered by strange glyphs of times gone past. One of the mutes had died blowing it at the Kingsmoot. The Crow's Eye had told others it was claimed in the ruins of the old dragonlords. Mongrel knew better.
"His ships are no match for ours," The King said. "All they have is gold. We have so much more."
Victorian's fists were clenching by his side. "Another drink boy," He said, slamming his cup on the wooden table. "What do we have? Your wizards? What use are they at sea? It is blood and steel that win wars."
"Is that so?" asked the Crow's Eye. "What use indeed, brother. You will see, soon enough. What do they have, but men and the gold which buys their hearts? I have wizards and warlocks and wargs. Priests and Priestesses. The power of the gods, a thousand and one."
Victarion clenched his jaw. "And if we win? What then? You will declare yourself King of the Rock?"
"Perhaps I will." The King laughed again. "But we have higher goals than just that."
"Do we?"
"I promised Lannisport, that is true," The King stood to pace, hands now folded behind his back. "And we shall have it. Lannisport, and all the West. And from there, the rest. Think of it, brother. The slaves, the salt wives, the gold, the glory. All of it awaits us. The whole world. We need only grasp it. And grasp it, we shall." His tone was lofty and casual, but there was a glint of ambition in that smiling eye. "Too long have we lived as cravens, stealing fruits when there are orchards, waiting – too long settling for coins when there are mountains of gold. The Rock will fall. The Hightower will fall. The Lion and the Dragon and the Direwolf, all will wither in the end. I have seen all this, and more. She has seen all this, and more."
The Iron Captain shuffled uncomfortably, suddenly more awkward in his chair. His was the way of most men, Mongrel knew. He preferred his feet on the deck, dealing with life as his fathers did. Some men did not see beyond the end of their noses, hands or cocks. They did not know, had not seen, that to fly only required a jump; all men had wings, his father had told Mongrel. They needed only the courage to find them.
Mongrel dreamed, and Mongrel flew, too. It was why the King kept him closer than the others.
Victorian Greyjoy downed his second cup of wine, but he did not gesture for another. "Where is she? Your Red Woman?"
The King's blue smile reappeared. "You don't like my lady," He noted.
"She's comely enough," Victarion grumbled.
The Crow's Eye chuckled. "The least of her charms," He said with mirth. "But she is fair, that is true. Would you like her?"
"I've enough of your seconds."
"The offer remains open, brother. Her cunt is a prize all on its own…but she has foreseen my victory in the flames. The Lion's loss, the Dragon's flight, she has seen them. I will have the Iron Throne. And you, that Seastone Chair, should you want it."
"Let us defeat the Old Lion's fleet, first."
"You should have more faith, brother." The King's tone had grown light, to the point of almost mocking. "Look upon the sky tonight. Can you not feel it?"
Victarion's face darkened. He drained his cup once more in one long gulp. "And Aeron calls you faithless," he growled. "The Drowned God—"
"The Drowned God," The King interrupted, tone certainly mocking now. He stood tall, black eye shining with malice. "No brother, not in the Drowned God." He spread his arms wide, as if he held the whole world in his grasp. "Only in your one true god. Only in me."
"You should not speak so freely," Mongrel told the boy later. The words hung in the air; one could sometimes go days without hearing speech aboard the ship. They stood at the helm of the Silence, staring up at the iron woman upon the mast and the expanse beyond her. It was night now, and above them the stars glittered across the sky. There was the Ice Dragon, with its shining blue star pointing North. It called for him. He could see the Thief too, and over there, the galley, and across the sky, the four bright stars of the Crone's Lantern, its golden haze lighting the way.
"Know your place," He continued, after a moment. The Lantern seemed particularly bright, tonight. "Or you will be made to learn it."
His brother standing next to him scowled again. If the boy wasn't careful, his face would freeze that way, Mongrel mused. "Who are you to tell me what to do?" The younger brother complained.
"I am the elder."
"You're just a wildling," spat the foolish boy.
"My mother was a wildling," Mongrel corrected. Sometimes he still saw her in her dreams, walking amongst the weirwoods, in her robes and white wood mask. Her eyes would stare at him. Wildling. Free Folk. The King had stolen her, one night, before he bore a crown or even an eye patch. He smacked the boy around the head. "As your mother was a whore. Does that make you one?"
Perhaps it did. Something passed across the boy's face for a moment as he rubbed his ear, and a strange feeling pierced Mongrel's belly. Strange feelings were best left ignored. "If you don't learn how to be quiet, father will teach you," He warned. "Do you want that?"
His brother's eyes, pools of deepest darkest brown, widened. "No," He said quickly. "I can be quiet."
Mongrel had not always known the merits of silence. It was not a virtue taught by his mother's people, who were every bit as wild and loud as men south of the Wall thought them. His father had shown him the way. "Good," He muttered. There were ants suddenly crawling over his skin. He could almost feel his father's touch. "Away with you. Go join our brothers."
There was a strange tension in the air, intermixing with the falling rains and the smell of salt and sea. It was always the case, the day before battle. Aboard the Silence, Mongrel had seen his fair share of death and destruction, and he would see more still, soon enough. And tomorrow was a long time in coming. He had been barely a boy, barely stolen, when the Ironborn had last sailed to raid the West. The morrow would see their vengeance.
As he walked the ship, the mutes did their work. They were the basest, most despicable of all peoples: the most wretched, the lowliest, the least of all who worked aboard the Silence. Other men found them fearsome, and brutal, their faces scarred, their eyes haunted, their persons rugged and efficient. Mongrel stopped to watch them for a moment. The Mutes did their work quietly, and relentlessly, eyes fixed, hands quick, even now, when others slept, without need for words or tongues.
All had their roles to play on the ship as in the world, as Mongrel had learned from the King. Some adjusted the sails, manipulating the rigging, speaking through nods and signals and pointing hands and familiar looks. Others would row, or clean, or come and go, this way and that, moving through their routines. And then there were those who cared for the prisoner, under Mongrel's command. His father had entrusted this responsibility to him, and he would not fail. He observed the mutes as they tended to the prisoner; their touch was far from tender. "Leave him," He ordered.
They did so, as Rodrik Greyjoy opened a bleary eye. Balon's boy sat against the wood, gasping, blood seeping from his temples and cheeks and lips, eyes wide and whitened. "You," He coughed. Pain crossed his face with every syllable. "The wildling."
"Cousin."
"Cousin," He laughed darkly. "Baseborn mongrel scum." Blood splattered from the Greyjoy's lips as he broke into desperate, hacking coughs.
"Our fathers are brothers," Mongrel told him. "That makes us cousins."
Rodrik's head lulled to the side. "Ha," he spat in return. "I've a thousand cousins."
"Perhaps you do." Mongrel reached for a cloth and moved to clean the worst of his cousin's wounds, a great seeping slice across the cheeks. "But only one seeks to keep you alive."
"Care for me, do you?"
Mongrel ignored him.
"If you did, you would end me," Rodrik continued. "Kill me now, then, cousin."
"No," Mongrel said.
"Why?" The Greyjoy's voice was a long, laboured lament that gave birth to new, desperate coughs.
"You know why." There was a reason the King had entrusted only him with keeping the prisoner alive. Mongrel had been tending wounds since he was first given a name, in the times before his Kings. "The King does not want you dead."
"Why?" Rodrik asked again. It was more desperate, now. "Why does he do this?"
"It is not my place to know," Mongrel said.
"He'll….kill…you." The prisoner slid further down the wall. "You…know that…Mongrel?"
"I am his son."
The prisoner's laughs died as the darkness overcame him, and he finally fell to the flood with a soft thud. He would live. He would need to, for what was to come, though it would take the Red Woman's magic too. With a gesture, he sent a Mute to fetch her.
"Voryn," She called.
Mongrel shivered. Her voice was deep and light, soothing and inspiring, all at once, as if ripped from the songs. Her tones spoke of Essos and the lands beyond the Summer Seas, far to the east; far more east than even the Silence had ever sailed. Perhaps one day he would see those places too. He'd asked her, once, how she knew that name. It was forbidden. Lost to the cold winds and the hunger and all that came before. I have no name, he'd said. It is the name your mother gave you, She'd replied. The name R'hllor gave you.
He turned and held his gaze high. She stood before him. this Red Woman, a beauty unparalleled, blazing in the darkness in her dress of long red fabric and scarlet cloak, with her long copper hair, and pale perfect skin and a form every bit as perfect as the iron woman on the mast.
He had still been a boy back then, green as grass. "How did you know that name?"
"Perhaps I saw it in the flames."
"Perhaps my father told you," He accused.
"Perhaps," She smiled at that. "Or perhaps your true name cannot be hidden from the one true god."
"My mother was of the Old Gods." That was not the right answer. He'd known that even then. He frowned. "And your god is false. There is only one true god in this world, and he strides across this vessel."
There are no gods, he thought now.
"He lives, but not for long," Mongrel said brusquely. "He requires your magic."
The Red Woman came closer, and Mongrel stepped back without thinking. A strange heat was emanating from her. Did all women burn like this? He did not think his mother did. Surely he'd have noticed in the cold. This close, he could almost see the outline of her breasts, and his cock stiffened in his breeches. That would not do. It was not his place to take from his father's table. Mongrel had learned that lesson too.
"I will help him," She said. "But who will help you?"
He frowned. "I require no help," He declared. "Especially from you."
She shook her head. "What have I told you, sweet boy?" The Priestess came closer, her voice growing softer with every step. "When I gaze in the flames, I can see through walls, and through men's souls. I can see the before and the after, and I can speak to those not yet born and those long dead. And I can see you, Voryn Blightborn. He made you kneel, but there is still time; you can still stand free. I can help you, if you only ask."
"Stop saying that name," He hissed. If the King heard… "It is not mine."
"If it were not yours, you would not care."
They stared at one another. His mind seemed frozen. Her words… "Still time?" Something about those words chilled his blood.
"Before the end," The Red Woman said simply.
It felt like ice was coating his skin. "The morrow?"
"What would tomorrow bring?" She asked. "Tomorrow is nothing, compared to what will follow it. The Great Other gathers his strength, Voryn Blightborn – a strength far beyond that even of your father. You know what will follow. It is in your bones. The cold, and after it, the night that never ends. Unless true men take the courage to stand free, and find the fire in their hearts to fight it."
"My father would have you killed if he heard you," He said.
"He will have me killed, soon enough," She replied.
The words were as foreign as her tones. He could not fathom them. Before her he felt a vessel without an anchor, lost and unmanned. "Then why?" As Rodrik asked, so did Mongrel. "If you know he will kill you, why do you stay?"
"That is my role to play, Voryn Blightborn." Her reds eyes were like firepits themselves. "We all must choose between the light and the darkness. This is my choice, and my path. As the light burns in my soul. As the Great Other acts."
"The Great Other…" He shivered. Some truths were in the bones. That one had been passed down his for untold generations. "And my path leads there?"
"All do. The cold and the dark. I have seen the Great Other. I have seen the Kings dying under the bed of snow. I asked the flames to show me Azor Ahai, and it showed me the way. To the cold. To the dark. My path, and yours, and soon, all others. Unless men chose the light. Choose the light, Voryn Blightborn, or the darkness will take you too, and your fires, and all that will remain of you shall be your blood, seeping under the snow, to the roots, to the trees, to where the Great Other awaits."
-
That night, he dreamed.
He was seven again, clinging to his mother's legs. A great white bear was feasting on the guts of his grandfather, while wild white wolves circled them. Ahead, crows flew. The strange man stood before them. He had Voryn's eyes, and nose and hair. "I have come for my son," The man said.
He was eight, trekking in the snow, following his father. The wind was cutting his cheeks. Before them was a wooded hillside. Halfway up, Voryn could spy a cleft. "Why here, Father?" He asked. "There's a cave there," His father told him. "I lived there, for a time. I learned. So will you."
He was nine. The Crow's Eye's grip on his shoulder felt like daggers piercing the skin. "Kneel," He hissed. "Know your place."
He was ten, aboard the Silence. He struggled with the seas, and the sickness, and the lessons. His skin was crawling, and his limbs hurt, and pain was all he knew. "Again," the Crow's Eye demanded. "I've no need for you if you cannot do this. You either fly, or you die."
He was twelve. The Red Woman was healing his wounds. "Voryn," She called him. He cried. No. No. The…the god could not hear. That was not his name. He was not…
He was fourteen, gazing upon Asshai, flitting between his skins. "Well done Mongrel," said the King. That day, he preened. "Thank you, your Grace."
The next day dawned heavy with the weight of the battle to come, but it was the words of the Priestess of R'hllor that left him unable to rest. Something deeper, and colder, had taken root within him; some looming, alien fear that snaked about his soul, coiling around his heart, leaving his chest tighter and his breaths harsher.
He spent the day in a daze, haunted by ghosts best left dead.
It was madness. He was no green boy. Mongrel was the most trusted, most valued of the King's progeny. While other men slept, he dreamed; while other men stumbled, he flew. Mongrel could not be unmanned by some mad woman and her mad tales. No. No, there were no gods. No fires, no flames, no words. There was nothing but the Crow's Eye, nothing but his mission. Nothing but what lay beyond.
And beyond them, on the night, was the Lannister fleet: a chain of ships to the west of Fair Isles, with a line of sails, roaring lions of gold on crimson fields, set against the dimming sun and a sky of merging hues of purple and gold. The air was heavy with the brine of the sea, and the waters were churning, hungry for the discarded, for fresh souls to litter the seabed – and tonight they would have them. Mongrel watched, alongside his King and the mutes and mongrels from the deck of the Silence, as the Iron Victory surged ahead, its standard snapping in the gale. It would be the vanguard of their fleet, and its Captain, their champion. The fleet followed in his wake, a hundred ships and more, while The Silence would stay back, hiding in the darkness.
Ahead, the stars burned bright again. His eyes made out the Crone's Lantern. It was brighter tonight.
Next to him, his King buzzed. "Soon," He said, and Mongrel understood.
For a moment, there was silence, as if the world held its breath: a lull, thin and fragile, as there was always in battles…but that moment ended with a cry. Mongrel took his swings to see from above, swooping low to catch with the crow's sharp eyes the sight of the Iron Victory smashing into the first of the Lannister fleet with a crash that echoed across the bay.
Victarion was leading his men. With a great murderous roar, he leaped into the fray to board, his boots slamming into the enemy deckboards, sharp blade already sweeping through the air. It cleaved a man's skull fresh off. Blood splattered, and the Ironborn surged forward in his midst, to take yet more heads from Greenlander shoulders.
The maelstrom commenced thereafter, bloody and chaotic, and soon the air was thick with blood, and fear, and death. It was beautiful. A sight set against the jagged sprawl of black cliffs, against a darkening sky at dusk, with oars dipping and rising, ships crashing, wood splinting, men screaming, and crying in rage and fear and pain – there was no sight like this, anywhere, and Mongrel could not look away. This was his father's promise met to him, this chaos on the seas. He spied, and flew, and dodged, as men bellowed commands that were lost to the noise and flaming arrows arched to burn on Ironborn and Lannister ships alike, alighting fiery wreckages that showed men the way to their foes.
He spied reavers hurling grappling hooks, and a Lannister soldier in position to kill them with an arrow and flew to dig out the man's eyes with his claws. The Greenlander screamed, his world going black in an instant. The murder followed in his wake, ravens swooping here and there and everywhere between, to peck at eyes and fingers and feast on the fears of the Lannisters. A wave of Ironborn stormed the vessel, cutting down men in their wake, and Mongrel flew away, to the next ship, as the clash of steel on steel rose above the din.
It was a symphony of slaughter. It was music to his ears. No silence here – nothing but screams, and prayers unanswered, as men were thrown into the sea, to be claimed, to drown under the weight of their armour or dragged by the currents, to the Drowned God's embrace.
More ships surged over the horizon, bearing scorpions, and soon there were deadly bolts racing through the air, piercing ships and sending splinters in all directions. One came too close, and Mongrel withdrew just before it hit, becoming man again. The crow fell lifeless, to be claimed by the sea. The waters were littered with the dead and those long in the dying, now.
The King laughed beside him. He stood astride the Silence's deck, blue lips curled, but his eye was elsewhere. They were not alone. The King's wizards were with them, led by the Red Woman, who spoke spells that sent shivers down the spine.
Run, whispered the winds.
His legs would not answer, in any case. He watched, as a Lannister ship, its standard bearing a golden lion roaring defiance, burned from bow to stern. The flames came sudden, erupting from no spark, and it burned wood and flesh alike, rising ever higher into the night sky, casting a searing light that lit up the battle. The inferno raged, higher and wilder, and then caught onto the next ship, and then another, and then one more, furious flames that cared not for no man or god or creed – only life. It was consuming them all.
The screams grew louder. The Red Woman and her comrades cared not. The flames were reflecting in the Priestess's glassy red eyes.
"Fly," His father commanded, and Mongrel took his wings again.
The fires were relentless, and so were the Ironborn. The Lannister men were fighting like the cornered lions they were, and there was more of them, but they had only the hearts of men and the ships they sailed, and both could burn – in the face of fire or fear, it mattered not neither, both could wreck a man's courage when death awaited them. The sea was a graveyard of shattered hulls and broken men.
Then there was a roar, and it was time. There was an urge, deep inside, filling him, to fly away – to soar away and never return, but he fought it. The bird's fear grew, and Mongrel knew why…for danger did not just fly from above. It lurked from beneath.
A great shadow was emerging from the sea, with tendrils. As the battle raged across the rolling waters, as fires burned and men died and cried and screamed and shat in their death throes, amidst the spray of blood and salt and spray, beneath the dark sky and the air thick with brine and death and fear, the true lord of the sea rose to claim its domain.
The Kraken.
He stared, frozen in the air, as it emerged, snarling, fighting, a great hulking shadow rising from the waves and parting the sea. The cacophony of cries grew louder. Mongrel could almost taste their fear.
Fly away. Fly! Fly!
The bird fought and Mongrel resisted, and so they did nothing but watch, as the great beast crashed down upon a galley bearing crimson and gold, taking joy in how it snapped in two, scattering the men aboard it like ants to drown in the depths. He watched, as its tentacles coiled around ships and crashed through their decks, squeezing them like lemons until the juice dripped into the sea – blood and bones and sinew, crushed in the Kraken's grasp.
In the distance, men cried, but not all with fear.
"The Drowned God is with us!"
There was something familiar in the beast's eyes. It spied a longship with the lion defiant flying and seized it, spilling the men into the sea, as the screams of drowning Greenlanders mingled with the roars of the cheering Ironborn, who fought all the harder, eyes wild, faces etched in disbelief.
Against the Kraken, and the flames, and the witchcraft, the Lannisters fell. Some tried to bend the knee, but the kraken bent their backs. Others screamed, unmanned, eyes wild, tone wilder, fleeing, but there was no escape. Mongrel felt their fear, and his own, and the bird's too, but he could do nothing but marvel at the beast's delight. It sent another tendril forward, limbs entwining with the oars of another retreating ship, and it lurched it violently, piercing through the deck. Men flew with the splinters, rising, arms flailing, clutching at air, only to slam into the sea.
It struck, and struck, and struck again, this great beast rising from the depths, dragging all under, tearing all asunder, and then it reached with its great limbs to coil around wreckage, uncaring of the men who clutched to it, ignorant of their screams, and it lifted them to its mouth, to feast on their remains….
As he watched, transfixed, he did not see the arrow. It ruptured the raven's heart.
-
"The Great Other is upon you," murmured the Red Woman. She was running her hands over him, whispering under her breath. Her palms felt like fire and her words like whiplash. There was nothing but the pain, nothing but the loss, nothing but the descending darkness, spreading like rot, and it was coming for him, and he could not escape it, no matter how he ran, or how far he flew…
He was dying each day, at every hour, in every moment. It was if the arrow was still there, as if it flew to kill him each morning, again and again, until his world was no more or less than the pain and the presence and the phantom piercing of his heart…and his nights were the worst.
When he did not dream of dying, he dreamed of death, and choking on the raven's dread.
That dread was thick, and rich in despair. It soaked through the skin and coated his bones until he drowned in it, choking and gasping, retching and reaching, desperate for salvation. Mercy, he cried! Gods have mercy. For the first time in years, he yearned for his gods, the ones stolen from him as he had been stolen from his mother.
But there were no trees with faces on the seas, and no mother to protect him now. So he shuddered, and screamed, and relived the arrow's kiss, blinking in and out of life, knowing only the pain and the blackness.
The Silence was on the move again. A week had passed, though it felt like so much more, and he found himself unsteady, shivering in the dark. One week became two, and then three. The mutes continued as they always had, and so did his brothers. As those weeks passed, the prisoner clung to life too, if only barely, though his words had died as the days did.
The Silence changed all men, soon enough.
His mongrel brothers had also told him the state of things. The Lannister fleet had been obliterated. Fair Isle had been sacked. The Iron Fleet was now headed to Lannisport unchallenged, to take the city and its gold, led by the victorious Victarion. Perhaps the city was already burning under the banner of the Kraken, for all he knew.
It was on the third day of the third week that the King summoned him. Mongrel followed the mutes to where the King was lounging, half-naked in his room, surrounded by his salt wives. The Red Woman was there too, without her clothes. She stood there uncaring of her nakedness, or how he looked upon her, his eyes roaming over her slender, graceful form, her full, pert breasts, the tight, taut stomach, the copper hair leading a path to her sex…
The bruises on her cheeks, and breasts, and ribs.
Mongrel closed his eyes and awaited his King's command.
"Go," The King commanded his Red Woman. "And this time, ensure the deed is done."
She left without a word, and the King spared her no further glance.
"We are heading North," The Crow's Eye said.
Mongrel nodded. He watched as the King ran his hand down the leg of a salt wife younger than he.
"Beyond the Wall," the King added. "How long has it been?"
Mongrel said nothing. There was no answer to give. His life began and ended with his King.
The Crow's Eye smiled. "Have you recovered?"
No. "Yes, your Grace."
"Good. I will have need of you. Take your wings again, Mongrel, and I shall give you reward beyond your dreams."
"Of course, your Grace."
It hurt to take a second skin now. Every time he flew, he watched and waited for the arrow that never came. And as he darted through the skies, wings flapping ever further, following the Silence's cruel, fast progress through the Bay of Ice, the dread grew in his belly, and the strangeness in his heart. He could see mountains to his east and the Frozen Shore to the North, and beyond that, the Frostfangs, and the wilderness of stone and ice and palette of blues and greys and whites, and with every mile the strangeness grew too.
For the first time, he remembered those things he'd tried to forget. There were tribes upon the Frozen Shore bearing dark eyes and queer names, he knew. They bred reindeers and used chariots of walrus bone. He had meet one, once. They mostly kept to the old gods, but some…some preyed to colder deities, so it was said.
He knew too, that between the mountains were icy waterfalls plunging over sheer stone cliffs, and great icy lakes, and winding valleys and plunging ravines and bridges of natural stone bigger than any man could ever hope to build. Mongrel had never expected to return here, to the lands of his mother's people, to the lands that were once his to claim too, this barren world that was once all he'd ever known. As a crow, all land was the same, as all sky was, as all peoples were – specks on a canvas, nothing more – but on two legs, with a man's eyes, the sight of the looming coast seized his heart and his head.
When his feet landed on earth, however, he knew, most of all, that he had forgotten one thing.
Mongrel had forgotten the cruel caress of true cold.
It was relentless. Gnawing at his flesh and bones, cutting across his cheeks, piercing his skin and stealing breath from his chest, leaving every breath ragged and torturous. Here, in the far north, the coming of winter had left the sun little but a memory, and the air itself was a knife, and the wind howled like wolves, chilling his blood and his soul.
How could they keep to the Old Gods here? How could there be any gods at all, in a place such as this? How did people live here? How did he? How did his mother?
The Crow's Eye looked at home though, he thought. The King of Salt and Rock strode through the snow without care, the crunch of his boots on the frozen ground echoing, his long robes trailing behind him, even as his breath formed mist in the face of the biting winds. The mutes followed in his wake, dragging Rodrik Greyjoy through the snow. They had clothed their prisoner in rags and furs, but the man's face was already turning blue. He would not last long.
Around them, the weather barraged them, blanketing the ground with a great bed of snow they disrupted with their footsteps. Mongrel had travelled far, even to the depths of Asshai. He had survived the Red Waste, toured the Slaver's Bay, sailed through the doomed remnants of old Valyria. Yet here, now, in the cold, something scared him. The landscape stretched forever, an endless expanse of white and grey, broken only by jagged ridges of frost-shrouded stone, and further ahead, the ice and the snow and the whiteness only grew, deeper and starker and colder, and with every step, Mongrel's fear spiked further.
It was not just the ice, he thought. There was something else. Something older. Something darker. The first thought came quick, and sudden. Run.
He shivered. Words were wind, but the cold carried whispers. Run, and never look back.
The King continued, and so, Mongrel followed. That was his role to play. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, he felt the icy winds against his wings. Then he was man again, and he shivered.
Above them, the sky was a dull, pallid grey waste heavy with clouds. One could think there was no sun, living here. Yet there was life on the ground too. The King had warned of beasts in the far North – direwolves, and bears, and ice spiders, and above them, those murders of crows flew, black specks against the sky, stalking them from the sea, dogged and determined. The King had smiled to see them.
Those crows were scared. Why were they so fearful?
On and on they went, walking in the frozen wasteland. Mongrel pulled his furs tighter and was pleased to see his silent brethren do the same. Even they looked more fearful now, glancing around with wider, more weary eyes – but the Crow's Eye gave them no respite. He marched on, and so did they.
Out of the corner of his eye, the Red Woman still blazed, even here. She appeared numb to the cold, but there was something in her pale face. Mongrel knew it well. There was something beyond fear, in those red eyes.
Run, whispered the cold again. While you still can.
She caught his wayward glance and smiled at him. "A cold wind blows from the North," She said softly. Those eyes saw more than what surrounded them. It unsettled him. "The night is dark and full of terrors."
They continued walking. It grew colder, and darker, and Mongrel grew more afraid.
"Here," declared the King. He stopped suddenly, glancing up at the flying crows above. One swooped low to hover over the Crow's Eye shoulder. "Here."
There was nothing particularly significant about this place, Mongrel thought. No different to any other – just more snow, and ice, and cold…but there were trees in the distance – towering pines with branches covered in snow, and the King was staring straight at them, suddenly tensed, suddenly more alert.
"Here," The King said again. "Bring my nephew to me."
The mutes dragged the prisoner to his feet. The man was gasping, eyes wide. He felt it, as they all did. The Red Woman made to move towards him, only to shirk back at a glance from the King.
"You are not lost," She whispered. Her voice shook. "Lord of Light protect you."
"No gods protect him," Mongrel said. The King turned back with a raised eyebrow, but he felt a courage within him, the words suddenly flowed easy from his lips. "There are no Gods, here."
"Except them," declared the Crow's Eye. And then he bent the knee, and Mongrel's world shook.
The world grew colder still.
Shadows were emerging from the trees. At first, there was only one, but then a second appeared, and then a third, then more, strange creatures from the nightmares of the world. They did not walk but glide towards them, tall and gaunt, with flesh the colour of milkglass. They had eyes of the iciest burning blue, and it hurt to look upon them, but his own eyes would not obey him. They wore strange armour, which changed colour as they moved – first white, then black, then grey, reflecting all around them. In the strange steel, Mongrel saw his own fear.
The Red Woman began praying. "Lead us from the darkness, O my Lord. Fill our hearts with fire, so we may walk your shining path…"
The Crow's Eye rose and turned. "Be quiet woman."
Her voice grew louder. " R'hllor, you are the light in our eyes, the fire in our hearts, the heat in-"
The King grabbed her by the arm, face twisted in distaste. "Enough of your prayers-"
"-IN OUR LOINS. YOURS IS THE SUN THAT WARMS OUR DAYS, YOURS THE STARS-"
"ENOUGH!" With one hand the King pulled, and with the other, he punched, sending the woman spiralling to the ground.
Behind them, the Others were laughing. It felt like a whip against Mongrel's ears.
"Your prayers are useless," hissed the Crow's Eye. "Your god will not listen."
One of the Others slid forward, hand on a blade no man could ever have wielded – some translucent shard, shimmering blue, almost like ice itself, that seemed to exist one moment and fade the next – and began to speak, in some strange tongue Mongrel had never heard. Its voice was harsh, and brunt, like ice cracking.
The King blinked, for a moment uncertain, until a crow flew low to hover by his head. He let go of the Red Woman to gaze upon his nephew. Rodrik Greyjoy stood shivering, barely upright. His eyes were wide with horror, and he reeked of fear and piss.
"U-u-u-u-uncle," He pleaded.
"I promised you greatness," The King whispered in return. "And you will have it. You will ascend, far more than any Greyjoy ever has."
"You promise him damnation," snarled the Priestess of R'hllor. "You condemn him-"
His father raised a hand, but before the Mutes could reach her, the Other struck first. In a blur, it moved, faster than any being should, faster than it ever should have been possible, and from one moment to the next it struck, its blade piercing through the Red Woman, who screamed and fell, gasping. Smoke rose from her corpse in circles.
The Others hissed as one. Ahead, the crow cawed. It almost sounded sad.
The sight had unmanned their prisoner. "No, no!" Rodrik screamed. His voice was a desperate screech, piercing the air, and he went to run, only to gasp and fall, face smashing into the icy ground. For a moment, all they heard were ragged breaths and gasps, married with sobs. The Mutes moved to raise him upright once more, to face his Uncle and King and wretched fate.
"What…I…"
"What you do," the King declared softly, "Shall be remembered forever." He knelt to grasp his nephew's shoulder, his bright blue eye glinting. "For we live in times of legend, nephew. We live in times of tales long since told. And now the retelling awaits us."
With one swift moment he raised his nephew to his feet, turned, and then pushed him towards the Others, suddenly laughing as he did so, high and cold, his face the picture of triumph.
"Here," The Crow's Eye said, his words fought the winds themselves. "Behold! I am a man of my word! I have brought a Prince and the prize. As was promised!"
The Other cocked its head. Its comrades moved to join them, each face gaunt, with skin taut against their skulls, each with blue eyes blazing cold. They spoke again, amongst themselves. To even hear their voices hurt. One reached out, with skeletal fingers of blinding white, and the King held out his hands, with the prize in tow: a horn gleaming back, banded with red gold and Valyrian steel, covered by strange glyphs.
They took the horn and the man, moving as one. Rodrik cried desperately, shaking, but even the strongest, healthiest of men could not fight them, and the Greyjoy was weakened and ill. At their touch, he shivered, eyes rolling to the back of his head, and he collapsed against them, head lolling back, frost forming atop his skin, his final breath misting in the air.
Run, the winds snarled, louder now. RUN.
Mongrel stayed still, frozen solid.
All but one of the Others left, drifting back to the trees, vanishing like mist in the moonlight. Yet one lingeried, blue eyes fixed on blue, staring upon the King. It stood motionless for a long moment, as if considering, like a man would. Then it spoke, its voice garbling, inhuman. It made the hairs on Mongrel's neck and arms stand up. They stood, all of them, lost, until the Other threw its blade to the ground and left them, turning to glide back to the shadows, as if never there.
The King bent slowly. His breaths were gagged, but his smiling eye was blazing. "A gift," He murmured. He placed a finger on the shimmering blade and then, in a moment, laughter erupted from his lips, raw and triumphant. He wrapped his hand around the icy pommel and held it aloft, rising with sword in hand. Mongrel could see his face reflected in the steel.
This close, he could also glimpse some strange text, like glyphs in the steel – faint, strange markings, twisting and sharp, that disappeared as the sword turned. The King's gaze lingered on them, and his smile deepened.
I've just seen those glyphs, Mongrel realised.
"Do you know why I take their tongues?"
He blinked. "Your Grace?"
The Crow's Eye turned to him. He had never looked so triumphant. "I did not take yours. Nor your brothers or sisters." He pointed to the Mutes. "Why theirs?"
Mongrel had always known why. "They cannot speak against you."
"One of many reasons," the King said. He flexed the sword, his one eye wide. "You have done well," He declared then. "My first, and the best of my baseborn mongrels, to be sure. I was right to take your wildling mother, that night, wasn't I?" He chuckled again. "Yes, I was."
Pride rose within him. "Your Grace, thank you-"
"And you've done well," His father continued. His blue lips curled into another smile. It was as cold as anything around them. "My firstborn. And you gave me counsel. Your dreams – you have done well." He reached out, to grasp Mongrel's shoulder. "Do you remember what I told you, about flying?"
Those word were inscribed on his soul. "All men can fly," Mongrel remembered. "We need only take the leap."
The King's smiled, blue lips curling. "Time to leap."
Mongrel did not understand. "Your Grace-"
"We must all sacrifice," His Grace said. He grabbed Mongrel's cheeks with a rough hand, smiling eye widened. "And we all must play our parts, in what is to come. No great prize is won without blood. No great prize is worth it, without loss. Do you understand?"
Suddenly, he did.
"Father," Mongrel whispered, reaching out with one pale hand. "Please-"
Euron rose the Other's blade and slit his son's throat.