Chapter Text
132 AC, Castle Kayce, Westerlands.
“Send the Ironborn goat fuckers back to Seven Hell!” The Commander of the Wall shouted as he pointed his sword down at the oncoming wave of ravens storming to the wall.
The Lannister archer drew his bowstring back until the goose-feather fletching brushed against his cheek, his trembling fingers stained black from soot and red from another man’s blood. Below the battlements, the Ironborn swarmed across the smoking ground before Castle Kayce like ants around a carcass, their shields locked above their heads as arrows and stones rained down upon them. Through the drifting smoke, the archer found the narrow opening between two salt-stained shields and released them.
His arrow vanished into the crowded mass below, though he never saw where it landed. An Ironborn shaft struck him squarely in the chest. The force of the impact threw the archer backward. His bow slipped from his hand as he stared down at the iron point protruding through the golden lion sewn upon his surcoat. He clutched desperately at the shaft, as though he could somehow pull his life back into his body, but his boots scraped uselessly over the bloody stones. A broken cry escaped his lips before he toppled from the inner edge of the battlement. The man plunged into the castle yard and struck the ground among frightened servants, wounded soldiers, overturned barrels, and panicked horses. His body landed with a sickening crack that was almost lost beneath the thunderous pounding against the gate.
Johanna Lannister looked toward the fallen man only briefly. She could spare him no more than that. The yard beneath Castle Kayce’s walls had become a battlefield of its own. Kenning men-at-arms hauled beams, carts, stones, and broken furniture toward the inner gate, desperately adding anything they could find to the barricade. Stableboys carried buckets from the well while women tore linen into strips for the wounded. Maesters and healers knelt beside men whose bellies had been opened by axes or whose flesh had been blistered by burning pitch.
Beyond the gate came another deafening crash. The ancient oak timbers groaned inward. Dust fell from the stone archway as the entire gatehouse seemed to shudder around them. Men braced their shoulders against the barricade, crying out with exertion while the Ironborn rammed from the other side.
Above them, the banner of House Kenning still flew from the western tower, though it had been reduced to a mockery of its former splendor. The four golden sunbursts upon quartered orange and black were barely recognizable through the blackened holes. Half the banner burned sluggishly, the fire eating along its torn edge while the remaining cloth snapped violently in the wind.
Johanna watched it and thought of all the proud banners the Ironborn had already dragged into the mud. Lannister lions, Kenning sunbursts, Prester oxen, and the hooded men of Banefort had all been made to bend beneath axes and salt-stained boots. The Ironborn had descended upon the western coast during the chaos of the Dance, taking advantage of a realm whose armies had marched east to bleed for kings and queens.
Johanna lowered her gaze and tightened the armored glove over her right hand. Her squire, a pale boy named Tybolt, stood behind her with fingers that trembled as he fastened her crimson cloak around her shoulders. The cloak was heavy, trimmed in gold, and marked by the roaring lion of House Lannister. It fell across the polished plates of her armor, concealing some of the scratches and dents earned during the fighting along the coast.
“Pull it tighter.” Johanna commanded as another impact shook the gate.
Tybolt swallowed and fumbled with the clasp. “My lady, it is already-”
“Tighter!” she repeated, turning her head enough for him to see the coldness in her eyes. “I will not have Dalton’s wretches tear the lion from my shoulders because you feared pinching my throat.”
The boy nodded rapidly and pulled the fastening strap until the cloak sat firmly against her gorget. “There, my lady,” Tybolt said, stepping back and trying to hide his fear. “It will hold.”
Johanna rose from the wooden stool upon which she had been sitting. Every movement caused the steel plates around her knees and shoulders to grind against one another. Her armor had been fashioned for her after Jason’s death, fitted by craftsmen who had initially believed they were making ceremonial protection for a grieving widow.
They had learned better. Johanna had not donned steel to be admired from a gallery. She strode across the yard as wounded men were dragged aside to clear a path. Her sword hung at her hip, its gilded pommel shaped like a lion’s head, while a smaller dagger rested beneath the folds of her cloak.
“My horse!” Johanna shouted, raising her voice above the uproar. “Bring me my horse, and be damned quick about it!”
A groom led a massive armored destrier from the stable passage. The horse’s barding was crimson and gold beneath sections of hardened leather and fitted steel. The beast tossed its head, nostrils flaring at the smell of fire, blood, and fear.
Across the yard, Johanna’s mounted men were gathering. They were knights and heavy men-at-arms from Casterly Rock, Kayce, Feastfires, and the surrounding western keeps. Their horses wore plated chanfrons and reinforced barding, while the riders carried swords, maces, and heavy lances. There were not enough of them to face the whole Ironborn host beyond the walls.
A Kenning man-at-arms hurried toward her before she reached the horse. His helmet was missing, revealing hair soaked with sweat and blood running from a cut above his brow. He planted himself in her path, his chest heaving.
“My lady, you cannot ride out,” he pleaded as he pointed toward the cracking gate. “The harbor is lost, and the town has been put to the torch. There are thousands of them outside these walls. If the gate falls, we must retreat into the inner keep and hold until—”
“Until what?” Johanna demanded as she seized him by the front of his mail. “Until they burn the doors? Until they climb through the windows? Until they drag every woman in Kayce screaming into their ships?”
The soldier looked toward the gate as another blow sent splinters flying from the central beam. “We cannot defeat them in the yard.” he insisted, his voice cracking beneath the strain. “Your mounted men will have no room to turn. They will surround the horses and pull every rider from the saddle. Please, Lady Johanna, we cannot ride through that gate. We will be overwhelmed.”
Johanna shoved him aside hard enough that he stumbled into a stack of barrels. “Then stand behind me and watch how the West answers those who come to steal from it,” she said as she continued toward her horse. “Afterward, you may decide whether you still possess the courage to call yourself a man of Kayce.”
The Kenning soldier stared after her, shame and fear warring across his face. Johanna placed one armored boot into the stirrup. Tybolt and the groom helped push her upward, the weight of her armor making the climb slow and ungainly. Once she settled into the high war saddle, she seized the reins and guided the destrier around to face the gate. The Ironborn ram struck again. One of the hinges tore free from the stone. A roar rose from beyond the wall. Johanna looked upward. For several terrible heartbeats, there was nothing but smoke drifting across the pale afternoon sky. Then a single arrow soared high above the eastern wall. Its shaft burned with a vivid green flame, leaving a thin trail of smoke behind it as it arced over the castle.
“They have come!” Ser Benedict Kenning shouted from horseback, raising his sword. Blood darkened the side of his face, but his grin was almost savage. “The eastern host led by Ser Erwin Lannister has reached the ridge!” For a four-and-ten boy, he had a wild look upon his face.
Johanna drew her sword. Steel hissed against leather as the blade came free, catching the firelight from the burning buildings around the yard. She urged her horse forward until she stood before the assembled cavalry. Behind them gathered hundreds of exhausted defenders archers without arrows, spearmen with shattered shields, wounded knights, blacksmiths carrying hammers, servants holding butcher’s knives, and boys scarcely old enough to grow whiskers.
All of them looked to her. Johanna raised her sword toward the ruined Kenning banner. “Men!” she called, her voice carrying across the yard. “Men of the West, look upon those walls and remember who built them! Remember the fathers who defended these shores, the sons who died beneath our banners, and the mothers who raised lions while sea winds carried the stink of raiders into our halls!”
The pounding against the gate continued, but the defenders no longer watched it. They watched her.
“For as long as the West has stood, we have driven these sea-bastards back into the waves!” Johanna shouted, guiding her horse in a slow circle before the gathered soldiers. “They have come with axes, fire, and chains. They think our husbands dead, our armies scattered, and our courage drowned in grief. They believe they have found the West helpless because they see a widow standing before them!”
A furious cry rose from the Lannister riders. Johanna pointed her sword at the breaking gate. “Today shall be no different from every day their cursed ancestors crawled from those barren rocks to steal what better men had built!” she roared, feeling her anger surge until it became hotter than the fires consuming Kayce. “Fuck their Drowned God, and send every one of them down to meet him! Give them nothing! Take everything from them! Let their last sight be the lion of the West tearing through their ranks!”
The gate shuddered as a great crack split through its center. Johanna lowered her sword. “Now ride with me!” she screamed, driving her heels into the destrier’s sides. “Ride with me, and show them why the lion still rules these shores!”
The defenders answered with a roar so immense that it seemed to shake the smoke from the sky.
“LANNISTER!”
“THE WEST!”
“WITH LADY JOHANNA!”
The gate burst inward. The outer timbers collapsed beneath the iron-shod head of the ram, crushing several defenders who had been unable to leap aside. Smoke and daylight poured through the shattered opening as Ironborn warriors surged over the broken barricade, howling beneath banners marked by krakens, scythes, longships, and bloody moons. The first Ironborn through the breach raised his axe and screamed of the Drowned God. Johanna’s horse struck him before he could finish. The destrier’s armored chest hurled the man backward into his companions, while Johanna leaned from the saddle and drove her sword down through the face of another raider. Her blade scraped against bone as she tore it free. The western cavalry crashed into the breach behind her. Heavy horses smashed men aside, trampling bodies beneath iron-shod hooves. Lances punched through mail and leather, driving Ironborn backward into the packed warriors behind them. Men who had expected to pour into a broken castle instead found themselves crushed in a narrow passage beneath the weight of armored cavalry.
Johanna ducked beneath the swing of an axe and slashed across its wielder’s throat. Hot blood sprayed across the golden lion upon her cloak. “Forward!” she shouted, pointing through the gate. “Do not let them breathe! Drive them from the walls!”
The defenders of Kayce came after the cavalry in a howling tide. Spearmen surged through the gaps between horses, stabbing fallen raiders. Archers seized discarded axes and swords. The wounded Kenning man-at-arms who had begged Johanna not to ride now charged with them, roaring until his voice broke as he buried a spear in an Ironborn belly. The Ironborn line buckled. Johanna’s cavalry forced its way beyond the gate and onto the blood-soaked slope outside Castle Kayce. Before her, the full madness of the siege stretched toward the burning harbor. Hundreds of longships crowded the shore. Ironborn warriors filled the beach and hillside, turning in confusion as the castle defenders poured out against them.
Then horns thundered from the east. Johanna looked toward the ridge. Crimson banners rose through the smoke. A second force of Lannister heavy cavalry spilled over the hill like a river of red steel. Golden lions snapped above lowered lances as hundreds of riders descended upon the exposed Ironborn flank. The ground trembled beneath their charge. The Ironborn tried to turn and face them, but there was no time. The eastern cavalry struck with the fury of an avalanche. Men vanished beneath the impact. Shields splintered, spears snapped, and whole ranks were thrown backward into one another. Ironborn warriors who had spent weeks believing themselves masters of the western shore now found themselves trapped between the defenders of Kayce and the descending Lannister host.
Johanna raised her bloody sword above her head. “Push them to the sea!” she commanded, her voice raw but unbroken. “Every step they took upon our land shall be paid for in blood!”
Her riders answered by driving forward. The battle ceased to resemble a siege and became a slaughter. Ironborn fled downhill toward their ships, abandoning rams, ladders, shields, and wounded comrades. Some tried to form walls of spears, only to be ridden down. Others threw themselves into the surf and attempted to swim toward the longships anchored farther from shore. Johanna pursued them beneath the burning banners. As she rode, she saw the remains of Kayce around her the shattered homes, the corpses in the road, the smoke rising from the harbor, and the women huddled behind broken doors. Victory could not restore what had been taken. It could not return the dead to their families or erase the terror inflicted upon the coast.
Johanna turned her horse toward the sea and watched the raiders stumble through the surf. Johanna tightened her grip upon her sword. “Run back to your master!” she shouted after the retreating men, though she knew few could hear her over the screaming and crashing waves. “Tell Dalton Greyjoy that Johanna Lannister is coming for him!”
The retreating Ironborn had nearly reached the water when Johanna felt something strike the rear of her destrier with the force of a falling tree. The horse screamed beneath her. Its armored hindquarters lurched violently to one side, while Johanna twisted in the saddle and caught only a brief glimpse of a massive Ironborn warrior wrenching a hooked axe free from the animal’s barding. Before she could turn the reins or bring her sword around, the raider seized the straps hanging from the saddle and pulled with both hands. Johanna was ripped from her seat. She struck the wet sand upon her shoulder, the weight of her armor driving the breath from her lungs. Her helmet slammed against the ground, filling her ears with a deafening metallic clang, while her sword flew from her grasp and landed several paces away. The destrier toppled beside her, thrashing and kicking as blood poured from the deep wound cut into its flank. Johanna tried to rise, but a heavy boot struck the back of her leg and forced her down again.
“You dare call for my nephew?” the Ironborn roared as he advanced through the churned sand. “Dalton will send you to meet our god personally, after he has had his pleasure with you!”
The man towered over most of the warriors surrounding him. His long hair hung in thick braids threaded with shells, bits of bone, and small pieces of tarnished silver. A beard covered most of his broad face, while old scars crossed his cheeks and brow. His armor consisted of boiled leather reinforced with overlapping iron scales, and in both hands he carried a double-headed battle-axe stained dark with blood. He bore the golden kraken of House Greyjoy upon his chest. Johanna rolled away as the axe came down. The blade struck the place where her head had rested and buried itself deep in the sand. She forced herself onto one knee, tearing off her dented helmet before it could blind her, and threw it aside. Her hair had come loose beneath it, strands sticking to her damp cheeks as she searched for her sword.
The Ironborn wrenched his axe free and grinned. “You are smaller without the horse beneath you,” he said, spreading his feet as he prepared to swing again. “I wondered what sort of beast had been making widows of our men. It seems the great lioness is only a woman wrapped in gilded iron.”
Johanna saw her sword lying behind him. She spat sand from her mouth and forced herself to stand. “Then come and take me.” she said, raising her empty hands as she faced him. “Or are Greyjoy men only brave when threatening women from behind?”
The smile disappeared from his face. The Ironborn charged. Johanna waited until the last possible heartbeat before throwing herself aside. The axe swept past her breastplate closely enough that she felt the wind of its passing against her neck. She landed hard upon her hip, slid through the bloodied sand, and reached for her fallen sword. Her fingers closed around the hilt. The Ironborn turned with surprising speed and brought the axe down again. Johanna rolled onto her back and raised her sword with both hands. Steel struck steel with a sound that rang above the surrounding battle. The force of the blow drove her blade against her breastplate and sent pain shooting through both wrists. He lifted the axe for another strike. Johanna kicked upward, driving the heel of her armored boot into his knee. The blow did little more than stagger him, but it bought her enough time to twist onto her stomach and push herself upright.
The Greyjoy warrior swung sideways. Johanna ducked, though the haft clipped the edge of her shoulder plate and spun her halfway around. She fought to keep her footing as the man pressed forward, his great axe rising and falling in savage arcs. Each strike possessed enough weight to split shield, armor, and bone together. Johanna did not attempt to meet the axe again. She retreated across the sand, dodging one swing and then another, while the battle around them continued in fragments of fire and violence. Western cavalry hunted fleeing raiders along the beach. Kenning spearmen surrounded groups of Ironborn who had been cut off from the ships. Arrows passed overhead, while the burning wreckage of a longship cast black smoke across the shore. None of Johanna’s men could reach her. The Greyjoy warrior drove her steadily toward the surf.
“Where is your lion’s roar now?” he demanded as his axe cut through the edge of her cloak. “Call for Dalton again! Call loud enough for him to hear you across the water!”
Johanna stumbled into the shallow waves. Cold water rushed around her boots, and the loose sand shifted beneath her weight. The Ironborn saw her falter and lunged forward, raising his weapon above his head for the killing blow. Johanna threw herself sideways. The axe crashed into the water. She landed on one knee, drove forward beneath the warrior’s outstretched arms, and plunged her sword through the gap behind his left knee. The blade pierced leather, flesh, and sinew. The Ironborn bellowed as his leg collapsed beneath him. He dropped one hand from the axe and reached toward the wound, while Johanna tore her sword free and surged upward.
She seized the front of his armor. “You spoke too much,” she snarled before driving her armored fist into his face. The first punch split his lip. The second crushed the shells woven into his beard and sent blood pouring from his nose. The third struck the corner of his eye and snapped his head backward. Johanna drew her fist back once more, but the Ironborn recovered and struck her across the face with the back of his hand. The blow lifted her from her feet. She crashed onto the wet sand several paces away, her sword slipping from her fingers again. Pain exploded through her jaw and cheek. For several moments, the entire shoreline seemed to tilt beneath her. She tasted blood and spat a red string into the water.
The Ironborn struggled to his feet despite the wound in his leg. “You strike like an angry child,” he growled as he raised the axe again. “I have drowned women fiercer than you.”
Johanna pushed herself upright while blood ran from the corner of her mouth. “You should have drowned yourself with them.” she answered.
He swung. Johanna leaned back, and the upper blade passed inches from her face. The Ironborn reversed the weapon and struck again. Johanna stepped aside, but the axe clipped the golden lion clasp holding her cloak. The metal fastener broke, and the crimson cloth was torn from her shoulders, vanishing into the shallow surf. He attacked a third time. Johanna dropped beneath the blade and slid through the sand past his wounded leg. As she moved, she swept up her sword and slashed deeply across his unprotected side.The edge tore through leather and opened the flesh beneath his ribs. The Ironborn staggered forward with a roar, clutching the wound as blood poured between his fingers. Johanna rose behind him and drove her sword through the center of his back.
The blade burst from the front of his armor. For a moment, the enormous man stood completely still. Then he screamed. Johanna planted one boot against his back and pulled, but her sword remained caught between bone and armor. The Ironborn reached around blindly, his fingers scraping against the blade protruding through his chest. With a roar of agony and rage, he seized the steel and forced himself forward. The sword slid completely through his body and fell into the water. Johanna stared in disbelief. The Greyjoy warrior turned slowly, blood running from both sides of the wound. His face had gone pale beneath the beard, yet fury still burned in his eyes.
“Not enough,” he gasped as he lifted the axe with trembling arms. “Not enough to kill ME!”
Johanna drew the dagger from beneath her breastplate. She stepped inside the reach of the axe and drove the blade into his neck. The Ironborn choked, one hand releasing the weapon as blood poured across Johanna’s gauntlet. She ripped the dagger free and stabbed again beneath his ribs. When he tried to seize her, she plunged the blade into his side once more and twisted it until his strength finally failed. The great warrior fell to his knees before her. His axe dropped into the sand with a heavy thud. Johanna remained close, breathing hard as she watched him sway. Blood filled his beard and ran down the golden kraken upon his chest. He tried to speak, but only a wet choking sound emerged. Johanna stepped back and wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist.
The Ironborn lifted his head. “Dalton will come for you all!” he screamed, forcing the words through the blood filling his throat. “He will burn every hall in the West! He will take your women, slaughter your sons, and build a throne from the bones of your lions!”
Johanna looked down at the massive battle-axe beside him. She dropped her dagger and reached for it. The weapon was far heavier than she expected. She gripped the haft with both hands and strained to lift it from the sand. Pain spread through her wounded shoulder and down her back, while her legs threatened to buckle beneath the weight. The Greyjoy warrior watched her and began to laugh.
It was a broken, gurgling sound filled with blood. “You cannot even lift it,” he mocked as his head sagged forward. “You…Haha agh…Bitch of a Lion you are.”
Johanna adjusted her grip and dragged the axe upward. “No,” she said through clenched teeth as she raised it over her shoulder. “I was made to break it.”
The Ironborn opened his mouth to shout again. Johanna swung. The axe blade struck the side of his neck and cut through flesh and bone. His head was torn from his shoulders and thrown into the wet sand, while the body remained kneeling for a brief, impossible moment before collapsing forward into the surf. Johanna released the axe. It landed beside the corpse as she staggered backward, nearly falling. Her arms felt numb, her face throbbed from the punch, and every breath burned within her chest. She stood in the shallow water and stared down at the dead Greyjoy while the waves carried his blood along the shoreline. Only then did she look toward the wider battlefield. The fighting had almost ended. Most of the Ironborn who had failed to reach their ships lay dead across the beach. Some had been cut down beneath the hooves of Lannister cavalry, while others burned beside the siege engines and shattered longboats they had attempted to defend. Western archers loosed flaming arrows into the vessels nearest the shore, and fire spread rapidly through sails, rigging, and tarred timber.
One longship was completely engulfed. Men threw themselves from its sides as the mast collapsed in a shower of sparks. Another ship drifted without control, flames running along the deck while the tide slowly turned it back toward the burning harbor. Only a handful of Ironborn vessels had escaped beyond bowshot.
Johanna watched them flee toward the horizon. A Kenning knight approached cautiously, his sword dripping blood. Behind him came dozens of western soldiers, many wounded and exhausted, though all stared at the headless corpse lying at Johanna’s feet.
“My lady,” the knight said as he lowered his weapon, his expression caught between awe and concern. “Are you wounded?”
Johanna did not answer immediately. She bent down and seized the Greyjoy warrior’s severed head by one of the long braids. The weight of it nearly pulled her forward, but she straightened and forced herself to remain standing. She lifted the head into the air. Blood ran down her forearm and dripped from the man’s beard. “Look upon him!” Johanna shouted, turning toward the soldiers gathering along the beach. “Look upon what became of the kraken who came to chain your wives, burn your homes, and butcher your children!”
The nearest men raised their swords. More soldiers turned toward her as word spread through the ranks. Kenning spearmen, Lannister knights, wounded archers, servants, and stableboys gathered amid the smoke and bodies. Even the mounted men farther up the beach halted their horses and faced her.
Johanna raised the severed head higher. “Let every Ironborn who escaped carry this memory back across the sea!” she roared as the western banners snapped above the burning shore. “Let them tell Dalton Greyjoy that his kin bled like any other man! Let them tell him that the West does not kneel, the lion does not drown, and Johanna Lannister does not fear the Red Kraken!”
She threw her head back and released a furious cry. The sound tore from somewhere deep within her, carrying all the grief, rage, and exhaustion that had filled her since the raiders first descended upon the western coast. It was not the cry of a courtly lady or grieving widow. It was the roar of a wounded animal that had survived the hunter’s spear and turned upon him.
The army answered her. Thousands of voices rose together as swords, spears, and axes were thrust toward the smoke-blackened sky.
“JOHANNA!”
“THE LION!”
“THE WEST!”
The roar rolled across the beach and battered against the retreating sea. Johanna stood amid the burning ships with the severed head of a Greyjoy raised above her, while the armies of the Westerlands screamed her name. With all her heart, she fucking hates the Ironborn, every last one of them, from the men who swing their axes to the women who hold their children close, the babes that have blood of the Ironborn. Most of all, Dalton fucking Greyjoy she despises the most, and she’ll be damned to leave that man alive any longer than he must.
Even though nearly half a day has gone by, the blood still stained her hands as if she just plunged them into a man's chest and ripped the very heart out of him. The ruined Greyjoy banner lay across the long table like the skin of some great beast killed in the hunt. Salt water had stiffened the dark cloth, while blood had dried across the golden kraken until several of its tentacles were nearly hidden beneath blackened stains. One corner had burned away completely, leaving the remaining fabric curled and brittle. The banner had once flown above the Ironborn encampment outside Castle Kayce, where the raiders had feasted, gambled, and divided captured women among themselves while waiting for the walls to fall.
Now it rested beneath the Johanna wine cup. She stared down at the kraken as though it might still move. The small hall of House Kenning had survived the battle, though little within it had escaped damage. One wall was darkened by smoke where fire had climbed through a shattered window. Several ceiling beams had cracked during the pounding of the siege engines, and rainwater dripped steadily into a bronze basin placed beneath the worst of the damage. The rushes had been stripped from the floor and burned, leaving only cold stone beneath the boots of the gathered captains.
The hall smelled of wet ash, old blood, and boiled vinegar. Johanna sat at the head of the table in a high-backed chair that had belonged to the lord of Kayce before an Ironborn arrow found the opening beneath his chin. She had refused the lord’s solar and chosen the smaller hall instead, where commanders could come and go without ceremony and where she could hear the rebuilding already beginning beyond the doors. Her face still throbbed from the Greyjoy warrior’s blow. A dark bruise spread from her left cheek to the corner of her jaw, while a thin cut crossed her lower lip. Her right shoulder had been tightly bound beneath a plain crimson gown, and every movement sent a dull pain down her arm. She had washed the blood from her hair and skin, yet she could still smell the battlefield upon herself whenever the fire shifted.
Johanna lifted the wine cup and drank. The wine was sour, watered, and flecked with ash. She swallowed it anyway. Across the table, Ser Marq Kenning stood over a collection of parchment rolls, tally sticks, and hastily written reports. His left arm rested in a sling, and one side of his face was covered in a linen bandage. He had been speaking for nearly half an hour, though his voice had grown rough from exhaustion.
“The count remains uncertain along the northern beach,” Ser Marq explained as he traced a bloodstained finger down one of the reports. “The tide carried away many bodies during the night, and several hundred were burned aboard the ships. Even so, our men have counted four thousand and seventy-three Ironborn dead between the castle, the town, and the shore.”
Johanna lowered her cup. “Four thousand and seventy-three counted,” she said, emphasizing the final word. “How many more escaped counting?”
Ser Marq glanced toward the other captains before answering. “Perhaps five hundred,” he said cautiously. “Possibly more, my lady. The sea was rough after sundown, and there were bodies among the rocks west of the harbor. We may never have a true number.”
“Then write four thousand,” Johanna ordered as she returned her attention to the banner. “Let the maesters concern themselves with the rest when the gulls have finished their work.”
The knights around the table remained silent. None of them appeared inclined to argue. Ser Marq moved to the next sheet of parchment.
“We have taken one thousand nine hundred and eighty-six prisoners,” he continued, while a scribe seated near the hearth scratched the figures onto a cleaner page. “The wounded may raise the count above two thousand before evening. Many hid among the warehouses or surrendered after their ships were set alight. There are also three hundred thralls who claim they were forced to row or serve aboard the longships.”
Johanna looked up sharply. “Separate the thralls from the raiders,” she commanded. “Question them before any judgment is passed. Any man taken from the mainland and chained to an oar shall be returned home, provided his story is true. Any who joined willingly will be counted among the Ironborn.”
Ser Marq inclined his head. “It shall be done,” he replied.
Johanna leaned back in the chair and felt pain tighten across her shoulder. She ignored it and extended her hand toward the prisoner lists. “How many of high birth?” she asked.
A different knight, Ser Lorent Lydden, stepped forward. His armor had been cleaned, though dried blood remained trapped between the plates around his wrists.
“Fifty-seven who claim noble blood or close relation to captains,” Ser Lorent answered. “Two lesser Goodbrothers, a Stonehouse, three men of House Volmark, and several younger sons from Orkwood, Drumm, and Saltcliffe. There may be others hiding their names.”
“Of course there are,” Johanna said as she gave a humorless smile. “A man is always proud of his blood until he learns that noble blood spills as readily as a fisherman’s.”
Ser Lorent shifted his weight. “What punishment do you command, my lady?”
The room became still. Even the scribe stopped writing. Johanna took another drink of wine and let her gaze drift across the torn Greyjoy banner. She remembered the bodies piled beneath the walls, the servants dragged from burning houses, and the screams from the harbor when the Ironborn tried to flee aboard blazing ships. She remembered the warrior on the beach promising that Dalton would take her before sending her to the Drowned God.
She set the cup down. “The common raiders will be put to work,” Johanna said. “They will clear the dead, rebuild the harbor, repair the roads, and raise every wall they helped tear down. Feed them enough to keep their backs strong, but do not permit them weapons or freedom. Any man who attempts escape will hang where the others can see him.”
Ser Marq nodded slowly. “And what the highborn? Shall we send them to the Wall?”
Johanna rested both hands upon the arms of the chair. “Take their fighting hands.”
Several men exchanged glances but nodded with agreement. Ser Lorent stared at her as though uncertain he had heard correctly. “My lady?”
Johanna’s eyes hardened. “The hand with which they carried sword, spear, or axe,” she clarified. “Take it at the wrist. Bind the wounds so they do not die too quickly, and send them home when the sea is safe enough for passage.”
Ser Marq inhaled through his nose. “All fifty-seven?”
“All who can be proven to have commanded men during the attack,” Johanna replied. “The others will remain as hostages until their families pay ransom and swear before gods and men that they will not return to our coast.”
A grey-haired captain at the far end of the table finally spoke. “Lady Johanna, House Greyjoy may answer such treatment in kind,” he warned. “Our own captured knights could suffer the same punishment.”
Johanna turned her gaze upon him. “They already butcher our men, burn our villages, enslave our women, and drown captives for their amusement,” she said, while her voice remained calm enough to make the words more dangerous. “What gentler fate do you imagine restraint will purchase from Dalton Greyjoy?”
The captain lowered his eyes. Johanna pointed toward the banner on the table. “They came to the mainland believing every field, town, and woman they saw belonged to them by right of strength,” she continued. “Let them return to their islands without the hands that once held their axes. Let every hall on Pyke, Old Wyk, and Great Wyk remember what became of the men who marched on the mainland.”
No one spoke again. Johanna reached for her wine. The door to the small hall opened before she could drink. A gust of cold air carried the sounds of hammering, shouted orders, and groaning wheels into the room. Men stepped aside as Ser Daven Westerling followed by Erwin Lannister entered, still wearing a dark surcoat over mail. Mud stained his boots to the knees, and a shallow cut ran along his brow, though he appeared otherwise unhurt.
Johanna watched her brother and cousin by marriage approached. Eriwn had led the eastern cavalry over the ridge at the precise moment the castle gates were breached. His charge had struck the Ironborn flank with such force that entire companies collapsed before they could turn. Without him, Johanna’s riders might have driven the raiders from the gate only to be surrounded outside the walls.
With him, the Ironborn had been trapped against the sea. Erwin bowed his head to her, though the smile upon his face held more warmth than ceremony. “I see you have begun ruling Kayce before the smoke has cleared,” he said as he glanced around the crowded hall. “I expected nothing less.”
Johanna studied the dried blood along his sleeve. “You were told to have that arm examined,” she replied. “Instead, you have spent the morning riding between the beach and the eastern ridge.”
“The blood belongs to another man,” Erwin said as he looked down at the stain. “Most of it, at least.”
“That is what wounded men always claim when they wish to avoid a maester.” She answered.
Daven laughed softly and stepped closer to the table. His attention fell upon the Greyjoy banner, then moved toward the iron-bound box resting beside the cold hearth. The box had been brought from the beach before dawn. Salt had been packed within it to slow the decay of the severed head inside.
Daven nodded toward the box. “I heard what you did.” he said. “Every soldier in the castle has heard by now. They say the Greyjoy was built like an aurochs and swung an axe broad enough to cut a horse in half.”
Johanna lifted her cup. “He nearly did.”
He allowed his smile to grow. “They also say you drove a sword through his back, stabbed him until he dropped, lifted his own axe, and took his head before half the army.”
“The story has grown since yesterday,” Johanna replied as she drank. “By tomorrow, they will claim he was twelve feet tall and breathed seawater.”
Daven’s smile widened. “Was he truly Dalton’s uncle?”
“So he claimed.” She muttered. “He’s fucking dead his corpose lays rotting on our beach and his head.” She looked over at the box on the opposite side of the room. “Is mine.”
Erwin stepped around the table and placed one hand upon the back of the chair beside her. He looked down at Johanna with an expression that mixed pride and concern. “You gave them more than victory,” he said. “The men believed the coast was lost before your charge. They believed Kayce would fall and that every village between here and the Rock would burn next. Now they believe the Ironborn can be beaten.”
Johanna stared into the wine. “They should never have doubted it.”
She looked toward the damaged windows. Beyond them, smoke continued to rise from the harbor. The flames had mostly died during the night, but several ships still smoldered in the shallows. Farther inland, soldiers and townsfolk moved among the ruins, carrying stone, timber, and bodies. Johanna pushed herself from the chair. Pain stabbed through her shoulder, and for an instant she had to grip the table to steady herself.
“Every seaworthy from Lannisport to here is either burned, holed, or grounded. The Ironborn destroyed most of the Lannister fleet before the battle began.”
Ser Marq gathered the fleet reports. “Seven war galleys can be repaired,” he explained. “Perhaps nine, if the shipwrights can salvage timber from the wrecks. The smaller vessels suffered less damage.”
“Nine will not guard the western coast,” Johanna replied. “Send riders to Lannisport, Feastfires, Fair Isle, and the Crag. I want every shipwright, carpenter, sailmaker, and smith available brought here or set to work where they stand. No merchant vessel leaves port without permission until the fleet is restored.”
Daven crossed his arms. “That will anger the merchants.”
“Let them be angry behind guarded walls.” She said.
“The expense will be enormous.” He replied.
Johanna turned toward him. “So was the price of allowing Dalton Greyjoy to sail unchallenged.”
Daven considered her words before nodding. “The Crown may be willing to assist,” he suggested. “The war has ended, and the regents must know the Ironborn remain a threat. We could send a raven to King’s Landing requesting ships, coin, or men.”
Johanna stared at him for a heartbeat. Then she laughed. It was not a joyful sound. Several captains shifted uncomfortably as she walked toward the ruined banner and placed one hand upon the golden kraken.
“The Crown?” Johanna asked as she looked around the hall. “Which Crown do you speak of? The one that tore itself apart while Dalton Greyjoy burned our shores, or the one now resting upon the head of a frightened child?”
Daven’s expression became more guarded. “Aegon is still the king.”
“The boy king has no dragons,” Johanna said. “His mother’s beast lies dead beneath the stones of the Dragonpit, his uncle’s monster rots at the bottom of the Gods Eye, and the last great dragons have torn one another to pieces. King’s Landing has scarcely enough strength to govern itself.” She lifted the burned edge of the Greyjoy banner and let it fall back against the table. “We are on our own.”
Daven looked toward the maps spread across the table. “Then we will need more than ships,” he said. “We will need watchtowers along every landing place, riders stationed near the fishing villages, and fresh levies ready to march before another fleet reaches shore.”
“We will build them,” Johanna replied. “Every coastal lord will keep beacon fires prepared. Every harbor will maintain chains, scorpions, and pitch. The next time Ironborn sails appear, they will find the West waiting.”
Daven studied her bruised face. “You speak as though Dalton will come himself.”
Johanna’s gaze moved toward the iron-bound box. “He will.”
“Because of his uncle?” Daven asked.
“Because men like Dalton fucking Greyjoy believe they protected by the gods.” she said. “Yesterday, the West denied him both. His men were slaughtered, his ships burned, and his uncle’s head raised beneath a lion banner. He cannot ignore that insult without appearing weak before his captains.”
Daven rested his hand upon the pommel of his sword. “So…Then when he comes?”
Johanna looked toward him. For the first time since he entered the hall, she smiled. It was a small smile, though it carried none of the warmth usually shared between brother and sister. It was the smile she had worn upon seeing the green signal arrow rise above Castle Kayce. It was the smile of a commander watching an enemy step into a trap.
“The lion never needed a dragon to win its battles.”Johanna remained beside the ruined Greyjoy banner. Her shoulder ached. Her face was bruised. Thousands of her people were dead, and much of the western fleet lay burned along the shore. She turned from the ruined banner and fixed her gaze upon one of the assembled knights.
“Ser Erwin,” she commanded, her voice steady despite the exhaustion weighing upon every word. “I place under your command every vessel we can still float from Feastfires. Fishing boats, merchant cogs, and whatever battered hulls remain seaworthy shall become your fleet. Lord Tarbeck and Lord Prester will ride beside you with one hundred knights and three thousand men-at-arms. You are not to seek a glorious battle. Shadow Dalton Greyjoy wherever he sails. Bleed him. Deny him rest, deny him supplies, and harass that band of heathen, godless bastards until the sea itself refuses to carry them.”
Ser Erwin stepped forward at once and dropped to one knee before his lady. Though dirt and dried blood covered his mail, determination burned brightly within his eyes. He struck a mailed fist across his breastplate before bowing his head in solemn acceptance of the command.
“They shall hear me roar before I send them to the Stranger myself,” he vowed. A grim smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he rose to his feet, already imagining the hunt that lay ahead. “With the Seven's favor and perhaps a measure of good fortune. I shall return to Casterly Rock with Dalton Greyjoy's head stuffed inside a sack, so every lord in the West may see what becomes of those who dare prey upon lions.”
Johanna's expression remained hard as carved stone. “See that you bring me the man rather than merely his legend,” she replied quietly. “Dead if you must...But alive if the gods grant you the chance. There are debts between Dalton Greyjoy and House Lannister that cannot be settled by another man's sword.”
She seized the ruined Greyjoy banner from the table and carried it toward the fire, the torn golden kraken dragging across the stone behind her like a conquered beast. Without looking away from its sigil, she cast the banner into the flames. Fire raced across the salt-stiffened cloth. The kraken blackened, curled, and vanished beneath the rising blaze.
“Here I stand, you kraken bastard,” Johanna declared, her voice cutting through the hall with the force of drawn steel. “Come for me. Gather every ship, every axe, and every blood-soaked reaver you can command. Bring all the strength the Iron Islands can muster. I will still be waiting.” Johanna watched it burn with cold satisfaction. “Come to my shores, Dalton Greyjoy,” she said, her voice dropping into a deadly whisper. “I will not merely defeat you. I will bathe my hands in your blood and leave your bones bleaching beneath the walls of Casterly Rock.”
////
Several Weeks Later, Fair Isle.
The sea was quiet enough to make Franklyn Farman uneasy. He sat upon a broad black rock above the western shore of Fair Isle, one boot resting lower than the other while the morning fog rolled across the Sunset Sea in pale, shapeless banks. The mist swallowed the horizon so completely that sea and sky appeared joined together, leaving nothing beyond the beach but a vast grey emptiness.
Behind him, men worked without rest. Shovels struck damp earth as Farman soldiers deepened trenches along the rise above the shore. Wooden stakes had been driven into the sand at sharp angles, while carts filled with stones waited beside newly built barricades. Archers carried bundles of arrows toward the higher ground, and teams of sweating men dragged a scorpion into position beneath a rough shelter of timber and wet hides.
The defenses were formidable, or at least that was what every captain assured him. Franklyn did not find comfort in assurances. The young heir to Faircastle leaned forward and rested his arms upon his knees. At twenty-three, he had already begun to understand that confidence was often only fear wearing a polished helm. Men boasted loudly before battle because silence left too much room for imagination.
The Ironborn had not been seen near Fair Isle for more than three week. That absence troubled him more than sails upon the horizon might have done. Dalton Greyjoy had lost thousands of men at Kayce, along with ships, captains, kinsmen, and whatever pride he had believed untouchable. Johanna Lannister had answered his invasion with fire, steel, and mutilation. The surviving Ironborn who returned across the sea carried tales of severed hands and the head of Dalton’s uncle raised above a victorious western army. A lesser man might have fled. Dalton Greyjoy was not known for behaving like a lesser man.
“You will grow old staring at fog.” a voice called from behind him. “Father will have to name me heir because you turned to stone waiting for the kraken.”
Franklyn glanced over his shoulder. His younger brother Eldon descended the rocky path with all the careless confidence of a boy who had yet to learn how quickly confidence could be punished. At sixteen, Eldon was tall for his age, though his shoulders had not fully broadened and his new mail shirt still seemed too heavy upon him. A sword hung from his hip at an angle that made it obvious he was not accustomed to wearing one for an entire day.
He carried his helmet beneath one arm. Franklyn looked back toward the sea. “If Father names you heir, Fair Isle will be in Ironborn hands before the moon turns,” he said. “You would spend the treasury on gilded armor and forget to buy grain.”
Eldon grinned as he climbed onto the rock beside him. “I would look magnificent while starving,” he replied. “The singers would remember that much.”
“The singers would call you Eldon the Empty-Bellied.” Franklyn jest.
His younger brother laughed. “They would call me Eldon the Bold.”
“They might call you Eldon the Brief.” He replied.
Eldon shoved his shoulder against Franklyn’s, though the blow barely moved him. “You speak like an old man,” he complained. “You are only seven years older than I am.”
Franklyn laughed despite himself. Eldon sat beside him and stretched his legs toward the slope below. For a time, the brothers watched the garrison continue its preparations. A group of soldiers carried sharpened stakes toward the trenches, while another rolled barrels of sand and seawater closer to the crude towers guarding the landing.
“Whatever the Ironborn throw at us, we will throw them back into the sea,” Eldon declared as he surveyed the defenses. “Look at this place. Trenches, stakes, archers, scorpions, and near every able-bodied man on the island carrying a spear. Dalton Greyjoy would need to be mad to come here.”
“Dalton Greyjoy is planning something, I feel it.” He looked at his younger brother.
His brother raised his fist up ready to be boastful. “Then he will come, and we will kill him.”
Franklyn turned his head and studied his brother’s face. Eldon was smiling, but there was impatience behind the expression. The boy wanted battle because he had only ever heard it sung about in halls. He imagined bright banners, brave charges, and men cheering his name. He had never seen a spear pushed through a man’s stomach. He had never heard wounded horses screaming while trapped beneath their own riders.
“Do not be so eager,” Franklyn warned. “Men who chase battle often find more of it than they wanted.”
Eldon groaned and leaned backward upon his hands. “I am tired of warnings,” he said. “Father warns me. Mother warns me. Ser Harys warns me every time I hold a sword differently from the way he prefers. Even the cook warned me against eating three meat pies before training.”
Eldon waved one hand dismissively. “My point is that everyone in the West has fought except us,” he said. “The Kennings defended Kayce. Johanna Lannister rode through a broken gate and cut down a Greyjoy with his own axe. Ser Daven Westerling led the charge that shattered the Ironborn flank. Even squires and stableboys are being praised as heroes.”
“And many of them are being buried.” He answered coldly.
Eldon’s smile faded slightly. Franklyn let the silence settle between them. Below, a soldier dropped a bundle of stakes and cursed while his companions laughed. The ordinary sound carried strangely across the fog-covered shore, seeming too loud in the still morning.
Eldon rubbed his thumb across the edge of his helmet. “I know men died,” he said at last. “I am not a child.”
“No, but you still speak of glory as though it is something handed out after the fighting.” Franklyn replied.
“What is wrong with wanting our house remembered?” Eldon looked toward the men working along the beach. “House Farman has been fighting Ironborn since before either of us were born,” he said. “Fair Isle stands between them and the mainland. We should be the first place they strike, yet they have sailed past us again and again.”
Franklyn frowned. That thought had troubled him as well. The Ironborn knew Fair Isle. They had taken it in centuries past, lost it, raided it, and bled upon its shores. No Greyjoy seeking revenge against the West could ignore House Farman forever.
“They have not forgotten us.” Franklyn said.
Eldon gave an exaggerated sigh. “It has been a week since anyone saw a longship,” he complained. “Perhaps Dalton fled after Kayce. Perhaps he crawled back to Pyke, locked himself in a tower, and wept because Lady Johanna burned his pretty banner.”
“Dalton Greyjoy does not strike me as a man who weeps,” Franklyn replied with a faint shake of his head, keeping his eyes fixed upon the endless curtain of fog drifting across the Sunset Sea. His voice remained calm, though there was little amusement in it. “He is the sort of man who buries his wounded pride beneath the bodies of others. Men like him answer humiliation with vengeance, not tears.”
Eldon rolled his eyes dramatically before letting out an exaggerated sigh. “Then perhaps he is hiding,” he said with an impatient shrug, tossing a loose pebble down the rocky slope toward the beach below. “After what happened at Kayce, perhaps Lady Johanna frightened the courage out of him. Maybe the fool has finally sailed back to Pyke with his tail between his legs.”
Franklyn allowed himself the smallest smile before it disappeared almost as quickly as it had come. “Predators hide before they attack,” he answered quietly, folding his arms across his chest as his gaze never left the sea. “The wolf crouches before it leaps. The lion waits before it pounces. I would sooner trust a storm that announces itself than an enemy who disappears.”
Eldon groaned loudly and threw both hands into the air in mock frustration. “Seven hells, brother, you should practice smiling more and glaring into the distance less,” he complained with an amused grin. “One day your face is going to freeze like that, and the maesters will write of the legendary scowl of House Farman.”
A genuine chuckle escaped Franklyn's lips, surprising even himself. He glanced sideways at his younger brother, amusement softening his usually serious features. “I smiled when you called yourself bold,” he replied dryly. “That alone should satisfy you for the remainder of the year.”
“You were mocking me,” Eldon answered with narrowed eyes, though he could not suppress the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “That hardly counts as brotherly affection.”
Franklyn's grin widened only slightly. “Mocking you is when I smile the most,” he admitted, giving the answer with such complete seriousness that it only made the jest land harder.
Eldon laughed despite himself and drove his shoulder playfully into Franklyn's side. Franklyn opened his mouth to answer with another remark. A faint whistle drifted through the morning air. The sound was so quiet that it could easily have been mistaken for the wind slipping between the rocks.
Then something struck the earth below them. THUNK. The impact was no louder than a dry branch snapping beneath a boot. Every soldier on the shoreline stopped what he was doing. The scrape of shovels ceased. The hammering of stakes ended. Even the men hauling carts froze where they stood, their eyes instinctively searching for whatever had broken the stillness.
Franklyn rose slowly from the rock, every instinct telling him something was terribly wrong. Below him, planted upright in the freshly dug trench, stood a single black-feathered arrow. Its shaft trembled gently from the force of its landing while tiny droplets of mist clung to the polished wood. No one dared approach it. One of the Farman archers nearest the trench slowly lowered the bow he had been stringing. His eyes searched the fog with growing unease before returning to the lonely missile standing in the earth.
“Where did that come from?” he asked, though his voice had dropped to little more than a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might awaken something sleeping beyond the mist.
Franklyn did not answer. He simply stared west. The shoreline had become unnaturally silent. Only moments earlier it had echoed with shouted orders, clattering tools, and the constant labor of men preparing for war. Now there was nothing except the rhythmic crash of distant waves and the mournful cry of gulls circling somewhere beyond sight.
Eldon climbed to his feet beside his brother, the confidence that had filled his face only moments before beginning to fade. “It... it may have been one of ours,” he suggested, though even he sounded unconvinced by his own explanation. He looked over his shoulder toward the defenders behind them before adding, “Someone could have loosed an arrow by mistake.”
Franklyn slowly shook his head. “Not from that direction,” he replied quietly, never taking his eyes from the sea. There was absolute certainty in his voice now. “Our archers face west.” He climbed down from the rock and crossed the short distance toward the trench.
The closer he came, the more obvious it became. The arrow had struck at a shallow angle. It had not fallen from above. It had flown in low......from somewhere out upon the water.
Franklyn crouched beside it. His hand reached toward the shaft before stopping only inches away. Something fluttered beneath the iron head. A narrow strip of black cloth had been carefully tied beneath the arrowhead.Upon that cloth, painted in faded gold despite the damp sea air...
A kraken! Eldon's breathing caught in his throat. His earlier smile disappeared completely as he stared at the sigil. Neither brother spoke. The fog shifted. At first it seemed no more than another movement of the morning mist. Then a darker shape slowly emerged beyond the shallows. The unmistakable silhouette of a longship glided from the white curtain like a ghost rising from the depths of the Sunset Sea. At first, Franklyn thought it might be a rock exposed by the tide. Then the shape grew taller, and a mast emerged from the mist. A square sail followed, dark as dried blood and marked with the golden kraken of House Greyjoy.
A single longship glided toward the shore. Its oars dipped silently into the water. Not one war cry came from its deck. No horn announced its arrival. The ship approached with the stillness of a funeral procession, its long black hull cutting through the fog while every man along the beach watched in horrified silence. Seven shapes hung from the forward sail beam. Franklyn narrowed his eyes.
They swung gently with the motion of the ship…Heads. Seven severed heads had been tied by their hair in a row across the front of the sail. Their skin was grey, their mouths hung open, and dried blood marked their throats. Some wore the remains of beards, while others had been scalped so roughly that bone showed beneath torn flesh.
Eldon stepped closer to Franklyn. “Who are they?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
Franklyn recognized one of them. Ser Humfrey Tarbeck had sailed from Lannisport three days earlier with orders to scout the northern waters. The man’s head now hung second from the left, turning slowly in the wind. The other six were likely his officers. Franklyn felt cold spread through him despite the weight of his mail.
A figure stood at the center of the longship. Dalton Greyjoy leaned against the prow as casually as if he were arriving for a feast. His long red hair whipped behind him in the sea wind, bright against the black sail and grey fog. He wore dark armor beneath a cloak of sealskin, while a blood-red axe rested across one shoulder.
Even from the shore, Franklyn could see his smile. Dalton lifted one hand. He waved his fingers. It was not the broad greeting of a friendly lord, but a slow, mocking gesture made by a man who knew precisely how many eyes watched him.
Eldon’s earlier confidence vanished. “That is him,” he whispered. “Seven hells, that’s the Red Kraken!?"
Franklyn reached for his sword. The blade came free with a sharp hiss. A horn sounded from somewhere within the fog. Then another answered. A third call rolled across the sea, deeper than the first two, and the mist behind Dalton’s ship began to move. Dark sails emerged one after another. Dozens became scores. Scores became hundreds. Longships filled the sea as though the fog itself had given birth to them. Their prows bore krakens, scythes, ravens, bones, serpents, and screaming faces. Oars rose and fell in perfect rhythm, while Ironborn warriors crowded every deck beneath axes, shields, and spears. The fleet stretched across the entire horizon. Franklyn had never imagined so many ships could move together.
The men along the trenches began shouting. “TO ARMS!”
“LIGHT THE BEACONS!” Another officer shouted as he ran up the path.
A Man-at-arms tossed a pear to a soldier. “IRONBORN HAVE COME!” Bells rang from the nearest watchtower. Archers scrambled toward their positions, while officers screamed orders over one another. Horses reared behind the barricades as stable hands struggled to control them.
Eldon remained beside Franklyn, staring at the fleet. His face had gone pale. “Franklyn,” he said, turning toward him. “What do we do?”
Franklyn seized him by the shoulders. “Ride home now,” he ordered. “Take the fastest horse you can find and do not stop for anyone.”
Eldon shook his head. “No, I am staying with you.”
“You are going to Faircastle.” He ordered.
“I can fight!” Eldon argued.
Franklyn tightened his grip and pulled his brother close. “Listen to me,” he said as the first Ironborn drums began pounding across the sea. “Tell Father to shut the gate. Tell him to raise every bridge, bar every door, and call every man inside the walls. You will hide our sisters in the deepest chamber beneath the castle, and you will stay with them.”
Eldon stared at him. “Hide them?” he repeated. “You think the shore will fall?”
Franklyn glanced toward the approaching fleet. The first longship had entered the shallows. Behind it, hundreds more advanced through the fog while the beat of drums grew louder.
He looked back at his brother. “Ride home now,” Franklyn shouted. “Tell Father to shut the gate, hide our sisters, and prepare for siege. Go!”
Eldon’s eyes filled with fear and anger. “I will not leave you.”
Franklyn slapped the side of his helmet hard enough to make him flinch. “You are not leaving me,” he said. “You are protecting our blood. That is your duty now, whether you like it or not.”
Eldon’s jaw trembled. “What about you?”
Franklyn released him and turned toward the shore. He raised his sword as the Farman soldiers gathered behind the trenches. “I will make certain they pay for every step they take upon our island.”
The first arrows began falling from the fog. Franklyn lifted his shield as shafts struck the sand and wooden barricades around him. One man cried out and collapsed with an arrow through his neck, while another was driven backward into the trench. Eldon hesitated for one final heartbeat. Then he ran toward the horses. Franklyn watched until his brother mounted and rode hard up the path toward Faircastle. Only when Eldon disappeared beyond the rise did he turn fully toward the sea. Dalton Greyjoy still stood upon the prow of the leading ship. The Red Kraken spread his arms as the longship struck the beach. Behind him, hundreds of Ironborn warriors raised their weapons and roared. Franklyn stepped into the trench and planted his shield against the earthworks. Farman archers drew their bows along the ridge, while spearmen lowered their weapons beside him. The green-and-gold banners of House Farman snapped above the defenses, nearly lost beneath the thunder of drums and voices.
Franklyn raised his sword toward the approaching fleet. “Men of Fair Isle!” he shouted as the first Ironborn leapt from their ships into the surf. “They have come for our homes, our families, and our blood! Let them learn why this island has never belonged to the sea!” The defenders answered with a roar. Franklyn lowered his blade. “LOOSE!”