It was a bleak1, cold morning, and the sea was as leaden as the sky. The first three men had offered their lives to the Drowned God fearlessly, but the fourth was weak in faith and began to struggle as his lungs cried out for air. Standing2 waist-deep in the surf, Aeron seized the naked boy by the shoulders and pushed his head back down as he tried to snatch a breath. “Have courage,” he said. “We came from the sea, and to the sea we must return. Open your mouth and drink deep of god’s blessing3. Fill your lungs with water, that you may die and be reborn. It does no good to fight.”
Either the boy could not hear him with his head beneath the waves, or else his faith had utterly4 deserted5 him. He began to kick and thrash so wildly that Aeron had to call for help. Four of his drowned men waded6 out to seize the wretch7 and hold him underwater. “Lord God who drowned for us,” the priest prayed, in a voice as deep as the sea, “let Emmond your servant be reborn from the sea, as you were. Bless him with salt, bless him with stone, bless him with steel.”
Finally, it was done. No more air was bubbling from his mouth, and all the strength had gone out of his limbs. Facedown in the shallow sea floated Emmond, pale and cold and peaceful.
That was when the Damphair realized that three horsemen had joined his drowned men on the pebbled8 shore. Aeron knew the Sparr, a hatchet-faced old man with watery9 eyes whose quavery voice was law on this part of Great Wyk. His son Steffarion accompanied him, with another youth whose dark red fur-lined cloak was pinned at the shoulder with an ornate brooch that showed the black-and-gold warhorn of the Goodbrothers. One of Gorold’s sons, the priest decided11 at a glance. Three tall sons had been born to Goodbrother’s wife late in life, after a dozen daughters, and it was said that no man could tell one son from the others. Aeron Damphair did not deign12 to try. Whether this be Greydon or Gormond or Gran, the priest had no time for him.
He growled13 a brusque command, and his drowned men seized the dead boy by his arms and legs to carry him above the tideline. The priest followed, naked but for a sealskin clout14 that covered his private parts. Goosefleshed and dripping, he splashed back onto land, across cold wet sand and sea-scoured pebbles15. One of his drowned men handed him a robe of heavy roughspun dyed in mottled greens and blues16 and greys, the colors of the sea and the Drowned God. Aeron donned the robe and pulled his hair free. Black and wet, that hair; no blade had touched it since the sea had raised him up. It draped his shoulders like a ragged17, ropy cloak, and fell down past his waist. Aeron wove strands18 of seaweed through it, and through his tangled19, uncut beard.
His drowned men formed a circle around the dead boy, praying. Norjen worked his arms whilst Rus knelt astride him, pumping on his chest, but all moved aside for Aeron. He pried20 apart the boy’s cold lips with his fingers and gave Emmond the kiss of life, and again, and again, until the sea came gushing21 from his mouth. The boy began to cough and spit, and his eyes blinked open, full of fear.
Another one returned. It was a sign of the Drowned God’s favor, men said. Every other priest lost a man from time to time, even Tarle the Thrice-Drowned, who had once been thought so holy that he was picked to crown a king. But never Aeron Greyjoy. He was the Damphair, who had seen the god’s own watery halls and returned to tell of it. “Rise,” he told the sputtering22 boy as he slapped him on his naked back. “You have drowned and been returned to us. What is dead can never die.”
“But rises.” The boy coughed violently, bringing up more water. “Rises again.” Every word was bought with pain, but that was the way of the world; a man must fight to live. “Rises again.” Emmond staggered to his feet. “Harder. And stronger.”
“You belong to the god now,” Aeron told him. The other drowned men gathered round and each gave him a punch and a kiss to welcome him to the brotherhood23. One helped him don a roughspun robe of mottled blue and green and grey. Another presented him with a driftwood cudgel. “You belong to the sea now, so the sea has armed you,” Aeron said. “We pray that you shall wield24 your cudgel fiercely, against all the enemies of our god.”
Only then did the priest turn to the three riders, watching from their saddles. “Have you come to be drowned, my lords?”
The Sparr coughed. “I was drowned as a boy,” he said, “and my son upon his name day.”
Aeron snorted. That Steffarion Sparr had been given to the Drowned God soon after birth he had no doubt. He knew the manner of it too, a quick dip into a tub of seawater that scarce wet the infant’s head. Small wonder the ironborn had been conquered, they who once held sway everywhere the sound of waves was heard. “That is no true drowning,” he told the riders. “He that does not die in truth cannot hope to rise from death. Why have you come, if not to prove your faith?”
“Lord Gorold’s son came seeking you, with news.” The Sparr indicated the youth in the red cloak.
The boy looked to be no more than six-and-ten. “Aye, and which are you?” Aeron demanded.
“Gormond. Gormond Goodbrother, if it please my lord.”
“It is the Drowned God we must please. Have you been drowned, Gormond Goodbrother?”
“On my name day, Damphair. My father sent me to find you and bring you to him. He needs to see you.”
“Here I stand. Let Lord Gorold come and feast his eyes.” Aeron took a leather skin from Rus, freshly filled with water from the sea. The priest pulled out the cork25 and took a swallow.
“I am to bring you to the keep,” insisted young Gormond, from atop his horse.
He is afraid to dismount, lest he get his boots wet. “I have the god’s work to do.” Aeron Greyjoy was a prophet. He did not suffer petty lords ordering him about like some thrall26.
“Gorold’s had a bird,” said the Sparr.
“A maester’s bird, from Pyke,” Gormond confirmed.
Dark wings, dark words. “The ravens27 fly o’er salt and stone. If there are tidings that concern me, speak them now.”
“Such tidings as we bear are for your ears alone, Damphair,” the Sparr said. “These are not matters I would speak of here before these others.”
“These others are my drowned men, god’s servants, just as I am. I have no secrets from them, nor from our god, beside whose holy sea I stand.”
The horsemen exchanged a look. “Tell him,” said the Sparr, and the youth in the red cloak summoned up his courage. “The king is dead,” he said, as plain as that. Four small words, yet the sea itself trembled when he uttered them.
Four kings there were in Westeros, yet Aeron did not need to ask which one was meant. Balon Greyjoy ruled the Iron Islands, and no other. The king is dead. How can that be? Aeron had seen his eldest29 brother not a moon’s turn past, when he had returned to the Iron Islands from harrying30 the Stony31 Shore. Balon’s grey hair had gone half-white whilst the priest had been away, and the stoop in his shoulders was more pronounced than when the longships sailed. Yet all in all the king had not seemed ill.
Aeron Greyjoy had built his life upon two mighty32 pillars. Those four small words had knocked one down. Only the Drowned God remains33 to me. May he make me as strong and tireless as the sea. “Tell me the manner of my brother’s death.”
“His Grace was crossing a bridge at Pyke when he fell and was dashed upon the rocks below.”
The Greyjoy stronghold stood upon a broken headland, its keeps and towers built atop massive stone stacks that thrust up from the sea. Bridges knotted Pyke together; arched bridges of carved stone and swaying spans of hempen34 rope and wooden planks35. “Was the storm raging when he fell?” Aeron demanded of them.
“Aye,” the youth said, “it was.”
“The Storm God cast him down,” the priest announced. For a thousand thousand years sea and sky had been at war. From the sea had come the ironborn, and the fish that sustained them even in the depths of winter, but storms brought only woe36 and grief. “My brother Balon made us great again, which earned the Storm God’s wrath37. He feasts now in the Drowned God’s watery halls, with mermaids38 to attend his every want. It shall be for us who remain behind in this dry and dismal39 vale to finish his great work.” He pushed the cork back into his waterskin. “I shall speak with your lord father. How far from here to Hammerhorn?”
“Six leagues. You may ride pillion with me.”
“One can ride faster than two. Give me your horse, and the Drowned God will bless you.”
“Take my horse, Damphair,” offered Steffarion Sparr.
“No. His mount is stronger. Your horse, boy.”
The youth hesitated half a heartbeat, then dismounted and held the reins40 for the Damphair. Aeron shoved a bare black foot into a stirrup and swung himself onto the saddle. He was not fond of horses—they were creatures from the green lands and helped to make men weak—but necessity required that he ride. Dark wings, dark words. A storm was brewing41, he could hear it in the waves, and storms brought naught42 but evil. “Meet with me at Pebbleton beneath Lord Merlyn’s tower,” he told his drowned men, as he turned the horse’s head.
The way was rough, up hills and woods and stony defiles43, along a narrow track that oft seemed to disappear beneath the horse’s hooves. Great Wyk was the largest of the Iron Islands, so vast that some of its lords had holdings that did not front upon the holy sea. Gorold Goodbrother was one such. His keep was in the Hardstone Hills, as far from the Drowned God’s realm as any place in the isles45. Gorold’s folk toiled46 down in Gorold’s mines, in the stony dark beneath the earth. Some lived and died without setting eyes upon salt water. Small wonder that such folk are crabbed47 and queer.
As Aeron rode, his thoughts turned to his brothers.
Nine sons had been born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, the Lord of the Iron Islands. Harlon, Quenton, and Donel had been born of Lord Quellon’s first wife, a woman of the Stonetrees. Balon, Euron, Victarion, Urrigon, and Aeron were the sons of his second, a Sunderly of Saltcliffe. For a third wife Quellon took a girl from the green lands, who gave him a sickly idiot boy named Robin49, the brother best forgotten. The priest had no memory of Quenton or Donel, who had died as infants. Harlon he recalled but dimly, sitting grey-faced and still in a windowless tower room and speaking in whispers that grew fainter every day as the greyscale turned his tongue and lips to stone. One day we shall feast on fish together in the Drowned God’s watery halls, the four of us and Urri too.
Nine sons had been born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, but only four had lived to manhood. That was the way of this cold world, where men fished the sea and dug in the ground and died, whilst women brought forth50 short-lived children from beds of blood and pain. Aeron had been the last and least of the four krakens, Balon the eldest and boldest, a fierce and fearless boy who lived only to restore the ironborn to their ancient glory. At ten he scaled the Flint Cliffs to the Blind Lord’s haunted tower. At thirteen he could run a longship’s oars51 and dance the finger dance as well as any man in the isles. At fifteen he had sailed with Dagmer Cleftjaw to the Stepstones and spent a summer reaving. He slew52 his first man there and took his first two salt wives. At seventeen Balon captained his own ship. He was all that an elder brother ought to be, though he had never shown Aeron aught but scorn. I was weak and full of sin, and scorn was more than I deserved. Better to be scorned by Balon the Brave than beloved of Euron Crow’s Eye. And if age and grief had turned Balon bitter with the years, they had also made him more determined53 than any man alive. He was born a lord’s son and died a king, murdered by a jealous god, Aeron thought, and now the storm is coming, a storm such as these isles have never known.
It was long after dark by the time the priest espied54 the spiky55 iron battlements of the Hammerhorn clawing at the crescent moon. Gorold’s keep was hulking and blocky, its great stones quarried56 from the cliff that loomed57 behind it. Below its walls, the entrances of caves and ancient mines yawned like toothless black mouths. The Hammerhorn’s iron gates had been closed and barred for the night. Aeron beat on them with a rock until the clanging woke a guard.
The youth who admitted him was the image of Gormond, whose horse he’d taken. “Which one are you?” Aeron demanded.
“Gran. My father awaits you within.”
The hall was dank and drafty, full of shadows. One of Gorold’s daughters offered the priest a horn of ale. Another poked58 at a sullen59 fire that was giving off more smoke than heat. Gorold Goodbrother himself was talking quietly with a slim man in fine grey robes, who wore about his neck a chain of many metals that marked him for a maester of the Citadel60.
“Where is Gormond?” Gorold asked when he saw Aeron.
“He returns afoot. Send your women away, my lord. And the maester as well.” He had no love of maesters. Their ravens were creatures of the Storm God, and he did not trust their healing, not since Urri. No proper man would choose a life of thralldom, nor forge a chain of servitude to wear about his throat.
“Gysella, Gwin, leave us,” Goodbrother said curtly61. “You as well, Gran. Maester Murenmure will stay.”
“He will go,” insisted Aeron.
“This is my hall, Damphair. It is not for you to say who must go and who remains. The maester stays.”
The man lives too far from the sea, Aeron told himself. “Then I shall go,” he told Goodbrother. Dry rushes rustled62 underneath63 the cracked soles of his bare black feet as he turned and stalked away. It seemed he had ridden a long way for naught.
Aeron was almost at the door when the maester cleared his throat, and said, “Euron Crow’s Eye sits the Seastone Chair.”
The Damphair turned. The hall had suddenly grown colder. The Crow’s Eye is half a world away. Balon sent him off two years ago, and swore that it would be his life if he returned. “Tell me,” he said hoarsely64.
“He sailed into Lordsport the day after the king’s death, and claimed the castle and the crown as Balon’s eldest brother,” said Gorold Goodbrother. “Now he sends forth ravens, summoning the captains and the kings from every isle44 to Pyke, to bend their knees and do him homage65 as their king.”
“No.” Aeron Damphair did not weigh his words. “Only a godly man may sit the Seastone Chair. The Crow’s Eye worships naught but his own pride.”
“You were on Pyke not long ago, and saw the king,” said Goodbrother. “Did Balon say aught to you of the succession?”
Aye. They had spoken in the Sea Tower, as the wind howled outside the windows and the waves crashed restlessly below. Balon had shaken his head in despair when he heard what Aeron had to tell him of his last remaining son. “The wolves have made a weakling of him, as I feared,” the king had said. “I pray god that they killed him, so he cannot stand in Asha’s way.” That was Balon’s blindness; he saw himself in his wild, headstrong daughter, and believed she could succeed him. He was wrong in that, and Aeron tried to tell him so. “No woman will ever rule the ironborn, not even a woman such as Asha,” he insisted, but Balon could be deaf to things he did not wish to hear.
Before the priest could answer Gorold Goodbrother, the maester’s mouth flapped open once again. “By rights the Seastone Chair belongs to Theon, or Asha if the prince is dead. That is the law.”
“Green land law,” said Aeron with contempt. “What is that to us? We are ironborn, the sons of the sea, chosen of the Drowned God. No woman may rule over us, nor any godless man.”
“And Victarion?” asked Gorold Goodbrother. “He has the Iron Fleet. Will Victarion make a claim, Damphair?”
“Euron is the elder brother . . .” began the maester.
Aeron silenced him with a look. In little fishing towns and great stone keeps alike such a look from Damphair would make maids feel faint and send children shrieking66 to their mothers, and it was more than sufficient to quell48 the chain-neck thrall. “Euron is elder,” the priest said, “but Victarion is more godly.”
“Will it come to war between them?” asked the maester.
“Ironborn must not spill the blood of ironborn.”
“A pious67 sentiment, Damphair,” said Goodbrother, “but not one that your brother shares. He had Sawane Botley drowned for saying that the Seastone Chair by rights belonged to Theon.”
“If he was drowned, no blood was shed,” said Aeron.
The maester and the lord exchanged a look. “I must send word to Pyke, and soon,” said Gorold Goodbrother. “Damphair, I would have your counsel. What shall it be, homage or defiance68?”
Aeron tugged69 his beard, and thought. I have seen the storm, and its name is Euron Crow’s Eye. “For now, send only silence,” he told the lord. “I must pray on this.”
“Pray all you wish,” the maester said. “It does not change the law. Theon is the rightful heir, and Asha next.”
“Silence!” Aeron roared. “Too long have the ironborn listened to you chain-neck maesters prating70 of the green lands and their laws. It is time we listened to the sea again. It is time we listened to the voice of god.” His own voice rang in that smoky hall, so full of power that neither Gorold Goodbrother nor his maester dared a reply. The Drowned God is with me, Aeron thought. He has shown me the way.
Goodbrother offered him the comforts of the castle for the night, but the priest declined. He seldom slept beneath a castle roof, and never so far from the sea. “Comforts I shall know in the Drowned God’s watery halls beneath the waves. We are born to suffer, that our sufferings might make us strong. All that I require is a fresh horse to carry me to Pebbleton.”
That Goodbrother was pleased to provide. He sent his son Greydon as well, to show the priest the shortest way through the hills down to the sea. Dawn was still an hour off when they set forth, but their mounts were hardy71 and surefooted, and they made good time despite the darkness. Aeron closed his eyes and said a silent prayer, and after a while began to drowse in the saddle.
The sound came softly, the scream of a rusted72 hinge. “Urri,” he muttered, and woke, fearful. There is no hinge here, no door, no Urri. A flying axe73 took off half of Urri’s hand when he was ten-and-four, playing at the finger dance whilst his father and his elder brothers were away at war. Lord Quellon’s third wife had been a Piper of Pinkmaiden Castle, a girl with big soft breasts and brown doe’s eyes. Instead of healing Urri’s hand the Old Way, with fire and seawater, she gave him to her green land maester, who swore that he could sew back the missing fingers. He did that, and later he used potions and poltices and herbs, but the hand mortified74 and Urri took a fever. By the time the maester sawed his arm off, it was too late.
Lord Quellon never returned from his last voyage; the Drowned God in his goodness granted him a death at sea. It was Lord Balon who came back, with his brothers Euron and Victarion. When Balon heard what had befallen Urri, he removed three of the maester’s fingers with a cook’s cleaver75 and sent his father’s Piper wife to sew them back on. Poltices and potions worked as well for the maester as they had for Urrigon. He died raving76, and Lord Quellon’s third wife followed soon thereafter, as the midwife drew a stillborn daughter from her womb. Aeron had been glad. It had been his axe that sheared77 off Urri’s hand, whilst they danced the finger dance together, as friends and brothers will.
It shamed him still to recall the years that followed Urri’s death. At six-and-ten he called himself a man, but in truth he had been a sack of wine with legs. He would sing, he would dance (but not the finger dance, never again), he would jape and jabber78 and make mock. He played the pipes, he juggled79, he rode horses, and could drink more than all the Wynches and the Botleys, and half the Harlaws too. The Drowned God gives every man a gift, even him; no man could piss longer or farther than Aeron Greyjoy, as he proved at every feast. Once he bet his new longship against a herd80 of goats that he could quench81 a hearthfire with no more than his cock. Aeron feasted on goat for a year, and named the longship Golden Storm, though Balon threatened to hang him from her mast when he heard what sort of ram82 his brother proposed to mount upon her prow83.
In the end the Golden Storm went down off Fair Isle during Balon’s first rebellion, cut in half by a towering war galley84 called Fury when Stannis Baratheon caught Victarion in his trap and smashed the Iron Fleet. Yet the god was not done with Aeron, and carried him to shore. Some fishermen took him captive and marched him down to Lannisport in chains, and he spent the rest of the war in the bowels85 of Casterly Rock, proving that krakens can piss farther and longer than lions, boars, or chickens.
That man is dead. Aeron had drowned and been reborn from the sea, the god’s own prophet. No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could . . . nor memories, the bones of the soul. The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted iron hinge. Euron has come again. It did not matter. He was the Damphair priest, beloved of the god.
“Will it come to war?” asked Greydon Goodbrother as the sun was lightening the hills. “A war of brother against brother?”
“If the Drowned God wills it. No godless man may sit the Seastone Chair.” The Crow’s Eye will fight, that is certain. No woman could defeat him, not even Asha; women were made to fight their battles in the birthing bed. And Theon, if he lived, was just as hopeless, a boy of sulks and smiles. At Winterfell he proved his worth, such that it was, but the Crow’s Eye was no crippled boy. The decks of Euron’s ship were painted red, to better hide the blood that soaked them. Victarion. The king must be Victarion, or the storm will slay86 us all.
Greydon left him when the sun was up, to take the news of Balon’s death to his cousins in their towers at Downdelving, Crow Spike87 Keep, and Corpse88 Lake. Aeron continued on alone, up hills and down vales along a stony track that drew wider and more traveled as he neared the sea. In every village he paused to preach, and in the yards of petty lords as well. “We were born from the sea, and to the sea we all return,” he told them. His voice was as deep as the ocean, and thundered like the waves. “The Storm God in his wrath plucked Balon from his castle and cast him down, and now he feasts beneath the waves in the Drowned God’s watery halls.” He raised his hands. “Balon is dead! The king is dead! Yet a king will come again! For what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger! A king will rise!”
Some of those who heard him threw down their hoes and picks to follow, so by the time he heard the crash of waves a dozen men walked behind his horse, touched by god and desirous of drowning.
Pebbleton was home to several thousand fisherfolk, whose hovels huddled89 round the base of a square towerhouse with a turret90 at each corner. Twoscore of Aeron’s drowned men there awaited him, camped along a grey sand beach in sealskin tents and shelters built of driftwood. Their hands were roughened by brine, scarred by nets and lines, callused from oars and picks and axes, but now those hands gripped driftwood cudgels hard as iron, for the god had armed them from his arsenal91 beneath the sea.
They had built a shelter for the priest just above the tideline. Gladly he crawled into it, after he had drowned his newest followers92. My god, he prayed, speak to me in the rumble93 of the waves, and tell me what to do. The captains and the kings await your word. Who shall be our king in Balon’s place? Sing to me in the language of leviathan, that I may know his name. Tell me, O Lord beneath the waves, who has the strength to fight the storm on Pyke?
Though his ride to Hammerhorn had left him weary, Aeron Damphair was restless in his driftwood shelter, roofed over with black weeds from the sea. The clouds rolled in to cloak the moon and stars, and the darkness lay as thick upon the sea as it did upon his soul. Balon favored Asha, the child of his body, but a woman cannot rule the ironborn. It must be Victarion. Nine sons had been born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, and Victarion was the strongest of them, a bull of a man, fearless and dutiful. And therein lies our danger. A younger brother owes obedience94 to an elder, and Victarion was not a man to sail against tradition. He has no love for Euron, though. Not since the woman died.
Outside, beneath the snoring of his drowned men and the keening of the wind, he could hear the pounding of the waves, the hammer of his god calling him to battle. Aeron crept from his little shelter into the chill of the night. Naked he stood, pale and gaunt and tall, and naked he walked into the black salt sea. The water was icy cold, yet he did not flinch95 from his god’s caress96. A wave smashed against his chest, staggering him. The next broke over his head. He could taste the salt on his lips and feel the god around him, and his ears rang with the glory of his song. Nine sons were born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, and I was the least of them, as weak and frightened as a girl. But no longer. That man is drowned, and the god has made me strong. The cold salt sea surrounded him, embraced him, reached down through his weak man’s flesh and touched his bones. Bones, he thought. The bones of the soul. Balon’s bones, and Urri’s. The truth is in our bones, for flesh decays and bone endures. And on the hill of Nagga, the bones of the Grey King’s Hall . . .
And gaunt and pale and shivering, Aeron Damphair struggled back to the shore, a wiser man than he had been when he stepped into the sea. For he had found the answer in his bones, and the way was plain before him. The night was so cold that his body seemed to steam as he stalked back toward his shelter, but there was a fire burning in his heart, and sleep came easily for once, unbroken by the scream of iron hinges.
When he woke the day was bright and windy. Aeron broke his fast on a broth10 of clams97 and seaweed cooked above a driftwood fire. No sooner had he finished than the Merlyn descended98 from his towerhouse with half a dozen guards to seek him out. “The king is dead,” the Damphair told him.
“Aye. I had a bird. And now another.” The Merlyn was a bald round fleshy man who styled himself “Lord” in the manner of the green lands, and dressed in furs and velvets. “One raven28 summons me to Pyke, another to Ten Towers. You krakens have too many arms, you pull a man to pieces. What say you, priest? Where should I send my longships?”
Aeron scowled99. “Ten Towers, do you say? What kraken calls you there?” Ten Towers was the seat of the Lord of Harlaw.
“The Princess Asha. She has set her sails for home. The Reader sends out ravens, summoning all her friends to Harlaw. He says that Balon meant for her to sit the Seastone Chair.”
“The Drowned God shall decide who sits the Seastone Chair,” the priest said. “Kneel, that I might bless you.” Lord Merlyn sank to his knees, and Aeron uncorked his skin and poured a stream of seawater on his bald pate100. “Lord God who drowned for us, let Meldred your servant be born again from the sea. Bless him with salt, bless him with stone, bless him with steel.” Water ran down Merlyn’s fat cheeks to soak his beard and fox-fur mantle101. “What is dead may never die,” Aeron finished, “but rises again, harder and stronger.” But when Merlyn rose, he told him, “Stay and listen, that you may spread god’s word.”
Three feet from the water’s edge the waves broke around a rounded granite102 boulder103. It was there that Aeron Damphair stood, so all his school might see him, and hear the words he had to say.
“We were born from the sea, and to the sea we all return,” he began, as he had a hundred times before. “The Storm God in his wrath plucked Balon from his castle and cast him down, and now he feasts beneath the waves.” He raised his hands. “The iron king is dead! Yet a king will come again! For what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger!”
“A king shall rise!” the drowned men cried.
“He shall. He must. But who?” The Damphair listened a moment, but only the waves gave answer. “Who shall be our king?”
The drowned men began to slam their driftwood cudgels one against the other. “Damphair!” they cried. “Damphair King! Aeron King! Give us Damphair!”
Aeron shook his head. “If a father has two sons and gives to one an axe and to the other a net, which does he intend should be the warrior104?”
“The axe is for the warrior,” Rus shouted back, “the net for a fisher of the seas.”
“Aye,” said Aeron. “The god took me deep beneath the waves and drowned the worthless thing I was. When he cast me forth again he gave me eyes to see, ears to hear, and a voice to spread his word, that I might be his prophet and teach his truth to those who have forgotten. I was not made to sit upon the Seastone Chair . . . no more than Euron Crow’s Eye. For I have heard the god, who says, No godless man may sit my Seastone Chair!”
The Merlyn crossed his arms against his chest. “Is it Asha, then? Or Victarion? Tell us, priest!”
“The Drowned God will tell you, but not here.” Aeron pointed105 at the Merlyn’s fat white face. “Look not to me, nor to the laws of men, but to the sea. Raise your sails and unship your oars, my lord, and take yourself to Old Wyk. You, and all the captains and the kings. Go not to Pyke, to bow before the godless, nor to Harlaw, to consort106 with scheming women. Point your prow toward Old Wyk, where stood the Grey King’s Hall. In the name of the Drowned God I summon you. I summon all of you! Leave your halls and hovels, your castles and your keeps, and return to Nagga’s hill to make a kingsmoot!”
The Merlyn gaped107 at him. “A kingsmoot? There has not been a true kingsmoot in . . .”
“. . . too long a time!” Aeron cried in anguish108. “Yet in the dawn of days the ironborn chose their own kings, raising up the worthiest109 amongst them. It is time we returned to the Old Way, for only that shall make us great again. It was a kingsmoot that chose Urras Ironfoot for High King, and placed a driftwood crown upon his brows. Sylas Flatnose, Harrag Hoare, the Old Kraken, the kingsmoot raised them all. And from this kingsmoot shall emerge a man to finish the work King Balon has begun and win us back our freedoms. Go not to Pyke, nor to the Ten Towers of Harlaw, but to Old Wyk, I say again. Seek the hill of Nagga and the bones of the Grey King’s Hall, for in that holy place when the moon has drowned and come again we shall make ourselves a worthy110 king, a godly king.” He raised his bony hands on high again. “Listen! Listen to the waves! Listen to the god! He is speaking to us, and he says, We shall have no king but from the kingsmoot!”
A roar went up at that, and the drowned men beat their cudgels one against the other. “A kingsmoot!” they shouted. “A kingsmoot, a kingsmoot. No king but from the kingsmoot!” And the clamor that they made was so thunderous that surely the Crow’s Eye heard the shouts on Pyke, and the vile111 Storm God in his cloudy hall. And Aeron Damphair knew he had done well.
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1
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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2
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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3
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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4
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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6
waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7
wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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8
pebbled
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| 用卵石铺（pebble的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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9
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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10
broth
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| n.原(汁)汤(鱼汤、肉汤、菜汤等) | |
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11
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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12
deign
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| v. 屈尊, 惠允 ( 做某事) | |
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13
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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14
clout
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| n.用手猛击；权力，影响力 | |
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15
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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16
blues
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| n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐 | |
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17
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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18
strands
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| n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 ) | |
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19
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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20
pried
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| v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的过去式和过去分词 )；撬开 | |
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21
gushing
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| adj.迸出的；涌出的；喷出的；过分热情的v.喷，涌( gush的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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22
sputtering
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| n.反应溅射法；飞溅；阴极真空喷镀；喷射v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的现在分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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23
brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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24
wield
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| vt.行使，运用，支配；挥，使用(武器等) | |
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25
cork
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| n.软木，软木塞 | |
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26
thrall
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| n.奴隶；奴隶制 | |
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27
ravens
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| n.低质煤；渡鸦( raven的名词复数 ) | |
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28
raven
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| n.渡鸟，乌鸦；adj.乌亮的 | |
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29
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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30
harrying
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| v.使苦恼( harry的现在分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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31
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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32
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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33
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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34
hempen
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| adj. 大麻制的, 大麻的 | |
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35
planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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36
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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37
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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38
mermaids
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| n.（传说中的）美人鱼( mermaid的名词复数 ) | |
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39
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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40
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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41
brewing
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| n. 酿造, 一次酿造的量 动词brew的现在分词形式 | |
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42
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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43
defiles
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| v.玷污( defile的第三人称单数 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
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44
isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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45
isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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46
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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47
crabbed
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| adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
quell
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| v.压制，平息，减轻 | |
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49
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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50
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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51
oars
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| n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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52
slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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53
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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54
espied
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| v.看到( espy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
spiky
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| adj.长而尖的，大钉似的 | |
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56
quarried
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| v.从采石场采得( quarry的过去式和过去分词 )；从（书本等中）努力发掘（资料等）；在采石场采石 | |
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57
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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58
poked
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| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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59
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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60
citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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61
curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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62
rustled
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| v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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64
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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65
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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66
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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67
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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68
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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69
tugged
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| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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70
prating
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| v.（古时用语）唠叨，啰唆( prate的现在分词 ) | |
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71
hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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72
rusted
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| v.（使）生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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74
mortified
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| v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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75
cleaver
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| n.切肉刀 | |
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76
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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77
sheared
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| v.剪羊毛( shear的过去式和过去分词 )；切断；剪切 | |
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78
jabber
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| v.快而不清楚地说；n.吱吱喳喳 | |
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79
juggled
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| v.歪曲( juggle的过去式和过去分词 )；耍弄；有效地组织；尽力同时应付（两个或两个以上的重要工作或活动） | |
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80
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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81
quench
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| vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制 | |
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82
ram
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| (random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
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83
prow
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| n.(飞机)机头，船头 | |
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84
galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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85
bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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86
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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87
spike
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| n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效 | |
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88
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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89
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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90
turret
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| n.塔楼，角塔 | |
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91
arsenal
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| n.兵工厂，军械库 | |
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92
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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93
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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94
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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95
flinch
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| v.畏缩，退缩 | |
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96
caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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97
clams
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| n.蛤；蚌，蛤( clam的名词复数 )v.（在沙滩上）挖蛤( clam的第三人称单数 ) | |
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98
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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99
scowled
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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100
pate
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| n.头顶；光顶 | |
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101
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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102
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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103
boulder
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| n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 | |
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104
warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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105
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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106
consort
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| v.相伴；结交 | |
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107
gaped
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| v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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108
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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109
worthiest
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| 应得某事物( worthy的最高级 )； 值得做某事； 可尊敬的； 有（某人或事物）的典型特征 | |
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110
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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111
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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