"A fight well worth it for the ripest fruit in all of Westeros!" one man bellowed. "If not Oldtown or Highgarden than at least the Arbor! We want the Arbor! The Arbor!" The other captains took up his call. "The Arbor! We want the Arbor! The Arbor!"
...
Victarion could not help the smile that came to his face at seeing Euron so thoroughly rebuffed. Almost every man seemed to agree with the sentiment that the Reach lay open to more raids. Victarion did not know if he was with them - Euron was likely right about the rest of the Reach itself being far better defended than the Shields, and the Shields themselves had been suspiciously poorly defended - but he wasn't about to gainsay them. The Crow's Eye let the cries wash over him, teeth clenched. Then he shook his head, arose from his seat, his smiling eye more black than blue, and departed the hall in a huff.
Victarion joined the feast with a grin, suddenly eager to sup with his fellow captains. They might have placed him on the Seastone Chair, he thought, but they will not follow him to Slaver's Bay. He shared a cup with Nute, showing that he did not begrudge the man his lordship, even though he had been improperly elevated above his captain. Victarion drank and drank, making merry with his fellow ironmen, harassing the girls. None of them compared in beauty or skill to the dusky woman waiting in his cabin aboard the Iron Victory, of course, but teats were teats.
Even as he sank into his cups, Victarion regarded the Reader with a close eye. Aye, he decided, a good ally indeed. Lord Harlaw had utterly humiliated the Crow's Eye with just a few softly spoken words. And whilst he was now old, and quickly becoming frail, the Reader's strengths matched perfectly with Victarion's weaknesses. The Drowned God may not have fashioned me for fighting with words, but perhaps he didn't need to.
But before Victarion could think on it any further, he was broken from his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder. It was one of Euron's bastard mongrels, with skin the colour of mud. "My father wants words with you."
Victarion rose reluctantly from his seat. He followed the boy warily through the halls and up stone steps, the sounds of rape and revelry diminishing behind him. The chamber Euron had chosen likely belonged to Lord Hewett, at least judging by the elegant designs on the door. Victarion dismissed the boy, pressed his hand up against the patterned oak and pushed.
What greeted him on the other side of the door was unsightly, to say the least. Euron lay in bed, slouched against the headboard, insensate, bathed in moonlight that streamed in from the open window. There were two crossbow bolts lodged deep in his eyes, one going straight through his eyepatch, blood trailing down both his cheeks like tears and matting his beard.
Victarion took a tentative step forwards, a strange mix of dread and delight roiling his stomach, looming over his elder brother and reaching out to touch him, to confirm what he already knew.
The Crow's Eye is dead, Victarion thought.
And the Seastone Chair is mine for the taking.
...
( Reek POV )
He would not run. He could not run.
I will deliver my lord that castle, Reek resolved. I will. I must.
The ruins of Moat Cailin were visible at a distance, obscured by mist. His horse jostled between his legs, rubbing his thighs. Reek did not mind it. He observed himself. For the first time in weeks, he did not stink. Lord Ramsey had gifted him not only fresh clothes, but the rare luxury of a bath in preparation for this task. But Reek could never forget how the past few weeks, months, or years had gone. Years? It can't be years, can it? Yet when he looked at himself he did not recognise what he saw. His hair had gone white. His cheeks were hollow to the touch, his forehead creased with wrinkles. He was missing his toes, forced to hobble when on his feet. I have an old man's hands, he thought. More skin and bones and half-healed scars than flesh.
Reek looked away from himself. He was too hideous to bear, well and truly worthy of his name. Fit only to inhabit the dungeon that he had called home for so long, drowning in darkness, with only Lord Ramsey and his games for company. Instead he turned his eyes ahead, to his task.
I've come this way before, a traitorous part of his mind thought, but Reek quashed it. That part of him had come to Moat Cailin atop a mighty steed, an army at his back, raging and ready to make war against the Starks, the banner of the kraken to back him in battle. The part of him that approached Moat Cailin now was on a sickly mule, carrying the standard for peace, not worthy of the title man. He was not even a dog. He was a worm; a worm in human skin, graciously given a new lease on life as a servant to Lord Ramsey.
The air was wet and heavy as Reek rode, little puddles dotting the patchwork of snow and dirt on the ground. Reek proceeded carefully between the puddles; already, he could tell he was being watched. He could feel the eyes prickling against his skin. He cast his gaze up from the ground, taking in the collapsed wall that was supposed to ring the fortress and the towers lying beyond. They were no much better: one straight with it's top shattered; another whole but crooked, threatening to topple; the third slimy with moss and infested with vines that had wormed their way into the mortar, cracking the stonework.
Pale faces peered down at him from all three. The faces of my people, the treasonous part of him again interjected. As he drew closer the road began to become lined with rotting corpses half sunken into the bog. Crows picked at their flesh, flies buzzed above. The corpses had long since bloated, pale and swollen. The sight reminded Reek of himself, of what he had become. The garrison won't recognise me, he thought. They knew Theon. But Theon was dead now, no better than those bodies slowly sinking into the bog. There was only Reek.
And yet, he thought, I must be a prince again.
"Stop!" a voice rang out, with a familiar accent. "What do you want?"
"Words!" Reek answered, his voice scratchy and uneven from disuse. "Peace."
Inside, Reek knew, the ironmen was likely discussing whether to admit him entry or to fill with arrows. It made no difference to him. A death like that would be a thousand times better than returning to Lord Ramsey a failure.
Then the gatehouse doors flung open.
"Inside!" a low voice hissed. "Hurry! Before they get you." It belonged to a lone ironman, half-dazed and crazed, hair wild about his head. A hand grabbed him and pulled him off his mule, then pulled him to his feet again. The familiar cold of steel was on him again before he knew it, a knife on his throat. "Who are you?" the man asked, sleep-deprived eyes wandering across Reek's face, red.
"I am ironborn," Reek lied, the words acid on his tongue. "Look at my face. I am Lord Balon's son. Theon."
"Lord Balon's sons are dead," the man said.
"My brothers, not me," Reek answered. "Lord Ramsey took me captive after Winterfell. I've been sent to treat with you. Who commands here?"
There was a moment's hesitance, then the blade was withdrawn. "Lord left Ralf Kenning in command, but he took an arrow in the belly and the bloat got him. Dagon Codd rules us now."
Codd... The name rang a bell in Reek's head. The Codds were not well regarded amongst the ironborn. The men were said to be swindlers and thieves; the women so wanton they spread their legs for their sons and fathers. It did not surprise him that Uncle Victarion had chosen to leave them behind.
"Take me to him," Reek commanded, affecting his best manners as prince. It felt forced, unfamiliar. Like a worm squirming in a man's shoes.
The man shrugged and sheathed his dagger. "This way, m'lord." The guard led him through a door and up a spiral stair, dusty black stone reminiscent of the walls of the dungeon in which Reek had been born. Hell, the only things missing were the rats scurrying across the floor. Moat Cailin was in the middle of a marsh, and from the stench in the air one could tell. The floor was damp; not quite slick but certainly rotted in places.
"How much of the garrison is left?" Reek asked as he hobbled after the man.
"Some, but not many," the man said. "Two of three towers is now unmanned. Most of us are dead and gone. If not from the fighting than by the disease. The water here isn't good, tainted. But that's why we have the ale."
Moat Cailin has already fallen, Reek realised. One more assault by Roose or Ramsey and it's all over.
...
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