"They say night's beauties fade at dawn, and the children of wine are oft disowned in the morning light."
— A line from the smallfolk's sayings (referenced in A Feast for Crows)
…
The wind came in off the bay, sharp and cold as a knife's edge, carrying the salt stink of the sea and the distant murmurs of waves crashing against wood. Addam's fingers ached where they gripped the myrish eye, the polished brass cold against the joints of his phalanges as he watched the Ironborn disembark.
One ship. Two. Three. More behind, dozens, all leaning in with the tide, their black sails bellied by the wind. Like so many carrion birds on the wing, gliding in to pick the bones of whatever fool village lay in their path. Their oars beat the waters into a froth, each stroke punctuated by a low, guttural chant that echoed across the rocky shore. The tide pulled at the longships' hulls, eager to swallow them back into the deep. The men aboard moved quickly, organized despite the ragged look of their leather skirts and salt-rusted mail. They made no noise upon landing, no shout or battle cry. Grim men. Dead men, if the prince's plan held true.
"What do you see?" asked the man beside him, voice low and rough as gravel.
Addam lowered the myrish eye, letting it dangle by the leather strap around his wrist. He turned to face the speaker—a grizzled man with a sharp nose and sharper eyes, his red cloak muted by the shadows beneath the trees. He was a lean thing, all sinew and bone, with the sort of haunted look a man only got from too long a hard life. Kellen Rivers, the Marshal of this detachment. Though his men called him 'Stoneface' when they thought he wasn't listening. Addam doubted he cared.
"A thousand," Addam replied. "Maybe more."
"Aye," Stoneface murmured, his voice rough and low. "A bit more than we were told."
Addam glanced sideways at the man. "Think the prince was wrong?"
Stoneface's mouth twitched, the ghost of a smile. "The prince is never wrong."
He said it the way a man might say the sun would rise tomorrow. Inevitable. Unquestionable.
Addam looked back to the shore. Ironborn axes glinted in the morning light, broad heads polished and honed to brutal edges. Heavy shields, dark wood bound in iron, stacked in neat rows along the surf. Their commander stood knee-deep in the water, barking orders in that guttural manner they spoke. A man with a tangled beard and hair black as pitch, armor the color of tarnished silver. A crow among gulls.
Dalton Greyjoy.
"Do they know we're here?" Addam asked, more to himself than Stoneface.
"They don't," Stoneface replied. "I doubt they would have a reason to suspect. The Ironborn are cautious, when they think it matters. It ought not to matter now."
Addam hummed in agreement. "How many of us did you say are waiting in the woods?"
"Eight hundred," Stoneface mused. "More beneath the castle."
An army, hiding among the moss-covered stones of Oldstones, ghosts among ghosts. Addam had never known the ruins to be more than broken walls and crumbled towers. Nothing but an old song. He could still hear it in his mother's voice, a soft tune to lull babes to sleep.
And so they rose, and so they fell,
The kings of mist and bone.
Their halls lie hushed, no banners swell
O'er the ruins of Oldstones.…
He shook the memory away, a bitter taste rising in his throat. There were no songs here. Only cold wind and colder stone, broken by time and war. But Aemond had made use of them, dug deep beneath the ruins to build his garrison, his tunnels, his cabins and training yards in the heart of the woods, his secret stronghold. And the means that fed these men? Stoneface attests to a network of hidden couriers slipping through the woods at night. Small boats in the dark sailing up the Bay of Crabs, through the Blue Fork and into the Hag's Mire, laden with supplies meant for a battle no one knew was coming. How many other hidden fortresses did the prince command, in nameless woods and forgotten keeps? Addam didn't know. He wasn't sure he wanted to.
"They'll come through the valley," Stoneface said, his words as cold as the air. "It's the quickest route to the castle. No other path wide enough for their numbers. They won't know what hit them."
"Seasmoke?" Addam asked, glancing sideways at the older man.
"You'll bring him down once the fighting starts. No sooner. The smoke and the screams'll keep the rest from breaking. We want them to run, aye, but not before we've had our fill of blood. Afterwards, burn the bodies. The trees. The grass. Leave nothing standing. Nothing to say who was here, or why."
Addam could see it already, painted in his mind as clearly as a tapestry. The valley, choked with bodies and blood, Ironborn shields broken and discarded, axes rusting in the dirt. The scent of smoke and death, heavy in the air. And above it all, the roar of dragonfire, the shadow of Seasmoke circling the field.
No songs. No mercy. Only death. The wind howled through the trees, whispering of ghosts and graves.
Addam turned his back on the shore. "I'll get Seasmoke."
The commander said nothing, watching him go. The man's eyes were empty. Dead. Addam wondered if his own looked the same.
The Ironborn were coming, and they would die here, nameless and forgotten. Another secret buried in the ruins of Oldstones.
Another verse in the song of blood.
✥✥✥
Mud. Gods, so much mud. It sucked at Daryn's boots, greedy and heavy, dragging him down with every cursed step. The rain had turned the field to a bog, slick and stinking of blood and shit. A man could drown in mud like this. Wouldn't even need a sword. Just fall face first and let the earth take you.
They were screaming again. The lot of them. Bellowing like madmen as they charged, voices raw and ragged. You'd think they'd learn, after the first two waves broke on the line, but no. They came again, charging through the muck, eyes wide and white with fury or fear.
"Bastards just don't know when to give up," muttered Jorun beside him, his face smeared with dirt and blood, a crusted cut above his brow. He grinned, showing a gap where his front teeth used to be. "Ironborn, eh? Thick as oxen."
Aye, thick as oxen. And just as easy to kill.
"Shields up!" The order came down the line, the captain's voice hoarse from barking all day. Daryn raised his shield, the weight familiar, the cracks and splinters a map of every charge it had withstood. And now it would see another.
The Ironborn hit the line like a wave, all momentum and fury. Daryn's shield shuddered under the impact, the rim jarring against his cheekbone, teeth rattling in his head. He grunted, legs braced in the mud, shoving back as best he could.
A face loomed over his shield—wild and bearded, mouth twisted in a snarl. Bloodshot eyes gleamed with madness. The Ironborn swung a rusty axe, and Daryn barely jerked his head back in time. The blade grazed the wood, splinters flying. Daryn rammed his shield forward, the edge catching the Ironborn under the chin. His head snapped back, mouth snapping shut with a wet crunch.
The bastard staggered, arms flailing. Then a mace crashed into his face, caving it in with a sickening thud. He crumpled, dragging Daryn's spear down with him, the haft wrenched from his grip.
Daryn swore as he fell back in line, the mace in his grip heavy and unbalanced. A blunt tool for a blunt job.
Jorun was laughing, a high, mad cackle as he swung at a man's leg, bringing him down in the muck. "Like chopping bloody trees!" he shouted, then grunted as a shield slammed into his side, knocking him into Daryn. They stumbled, tangled for a heartbeat before shoving off each other, shields up again.
"Hold!" the captain snarled behind them, voice cracking. "Hold the fucking line!"
Easy for him to say, Daryn thought. He wasn't in the muck with us. But he gritted his teeth, feet sliding in the mud, and held. Breaking meant dying. And he wasn't ready to die.
The man in front of him swung a sword, wild and clumsy. Daryn caught it on his shield, the impact jarring his arm. He stepped in close, quick and vicious, ramming the spike at the end of his mace into the man's gut. The son of a whore doubled over, choking, breath hot and rank with beer and blood.
With a hiss, Daryn shoved the dying man off his shield, watching him crumple, face pressed into the mud. He didn't move. None of them did once the mud got them.
Another wave hit—fresh meat, eyes wide and wild. Daryn swung, stabbed, blocked, moved without thinking, a machine of flesh and bone. One unfortunate bastard was caught by the neck with a mancatcher and draw into Daryn's mace. He died quicky, at least. But Daryn was tired. So bloody tired. His arms were lead from the butchering, legs trembling, head pounding. But he kept fighting.
It was chaos. Noise and pain and blood. The world narrowed to the next swing, the next thrust, the next breath. Just kill, kill, kill.
When his gaze finally broken free of the tunnel it was caught in, he noticed a shadow pass overhead, vast and terrible, the wind whipping with the beat of massive wings. Daryn looked up and saw the dragon. Silver scales gleamed in the light as the beast swooped low over the treetops, flame pouring from its maw, a torrent of death sweeping across the hillside, turning men to ash, armor melting to slag.
Minutes later, a horn blew, long and low. There was a moment of hesitation, then the Ironborn broke. Their lines shattered, men turning to flee, dragging their wounded, stumbling over the corpses. Some sank in the mud, sucked down like stones in a swamp.
Daryn moved forward with the rest, breath heaving, shoulders screaming, barely keeping formation. Jorun was there, grinning through the blood on his face. "Still breathing?" he asked, bending to pick up a discarded spear before driving it into a man crawling away.
"Unfortunately" Daryn grunted, smashing his shield into the face of another who had turned back, screaming, before driving his mace into his skull.
Jorun laughed. "Lucky bastard."
To their left, the battle line parted, making way for the cavalry held in reserve to finish the task. In moments, the rout became a chase, then a slaughter.
Daryn looked out over the field, over the churned earth and broken bodies, the carrior birds already gathering. Aye, it was over. For now. More would come. They always did, at least in the stories. But it never mattered, really. Whenever they do return, one can at least be certain the crows would eat well again.