Fifty-four, Victarion thought sourly when they woke him, and she sails alone. Silently he cursed the Storm God for his malice2, his rage a black stone in his belly3. Where are my ships?
He had set sail from the Shields with ninety-three, of the hundred that had once made up the Iron Fleet, a fleet belonging not to a single lord but to the Seastone Chair itself, captained and crewed by men from all the islands. Ships smaller than the great war dromonds of the green lands, aye, but thrice the size of any common longship, with deep hulls5 and savage6 rams7, fit to meet the king’s own fleets in battle.
In the Stepstones they had taken on grain and game and fresh water, after the long voyage along the bleak8 and barren coast of Dorne with its shoals and whirlpools. There, the Iron Victory had captured a fat merchant ship, the great cog Noble Lady, on her way to Oldtown by way of Gulltown, Duskendale, and King’s Landing, with a cargo9 of salt cod10, whale oil, and pickled herring. The food was a welcome addition to their stores. Five other prizes taken in the Redwyne Straights and along the Dornish coast—three cogs, a galleas, and a galley—had brought their numbers to ninety-nine.
Nine-and-ninety ships had left the Stepstones in three proud fleets, with orders to join up again off the southern tip of the Isle11 of Cedars12. Forty-five had now arrived on the far side of the world. Twenty-two of Victarion’s own had straggled in, by threes and fours, sometimes alone; fourteen of Ralf the Limper’s; only nine of those that had sailed with Red Ralf Stonehouse. Red Ralf himself was amongst the missing. To their number the fleet had added nine new prizes taken on the seas, so the sum was fifty-four … but the captured ships were cogs and fishing boats, merchantmen and slavers, not warships14. In battle, they would be poor substitutes for the lost ships of the Iron Fleet.
The last ship to appear had been the Maiden’s Bane, three days previous. The day before that, three ships had come out of the south together—his captive Noble Lady, lumbering15 along between Ravenfeeder and Iron Kiss. But the day before and the day before there had been nothing, and only Headless Jeyne and Fear before that, then two more days of empty seas and cloudless skies after Ralf the Limper appeared with the remnants of his squadron. Lord Quellon, White Widow, Lamentation16, Woe17, Leviathan, Iron Lady, Reaper’s Wind, and Warhammer, with six more ships behind, two of them storm-wracked and under tow.
“Storms,” Ralf the Limper had muttered when he came crawling to Victarion. “Three big storms, and foul18 winds between. Red winds out of Valyria that smelled of ash and brimstone, and black winds that drove us toward that blighted19 shore. This voyage was cursed from the first. The Crow’s Eye fears you, my lord, why else send you so far away? He does not mean for us to return.”
Victarion had thought the same when he met the first storm a day out of Old Volantis. The gods hate kinslayers, he brooded, elsewise Euron Crow’s Eye would have died a dozen deaths by my hand. As the sea crashed around him and the deck rose and fell beneath his feet, he had seen Dagon’s Feast and Red Tide slammed together so violently that both exploded into splinters. My brother’s work, he’d thought. Those were the first two ships he’d lost from his own third of the fleet. But not the last.
So he had slapped the Limper twice across the face and said, “The first is for the ships you lost, the second for your talk of curses. Speak of that again and I will nail your tongue to the mast. If the Crow’s Eye can make mutes, so can I.” The throb20 of pain in his left hand made the words harsher than they might have been elsewise, but he meant what he said. “More ships will come. The storms are done for now. I will have my fleet.”
A monkey on the mast above howled derision, almost as if it could taste his frustration21. Filthy23, noisy beast. He could send a man up after it, but the monkeys seemed to like that game and had proved themselves more agile25 than his crew. The howls rang in his ears, though, and made the throbbing26 in his hand seem worse.
“Fifty-four,” he grumbled27. It would have been too much to hope for the full strength of the Iron Fleet after a voyage of such length … but seventy ships, even eighty, the Drowned God might have granted him that much. Would that we had the Damphair with us, or some other priest. Victarion had made sacrifice before setting sail, and again in the Stepstones when he split the fleet in three, but perhaps he had said the wrong prayers. That, or the Drowned God has no power here. More and more, he had come to fear that they had sailed too far, into strange seas where even the gods were queer … but such doubts he confided28 only to his dusky woman, who had no tongue to repeat them.
When Grief appeared, Victarion summoned Wulfe One-Ear. “I will want words with the Vole. Send word to Ralf the Limper, Bloodless Tom, and the Black Shepherd. All hunting parties are to be recalled, the shore camps broken up by first light. Load as much fruit as can be gathered and drive the pigs aboard the ships. We can slaughter29 them at need. Shark is to remain here to tell any stragglers where we’ve gone.” She would need that long to make repairs; the storms had left her little more than a hulk. That would bring them down to fifty-three, but there was no help for it. “The fleet departs upon the morrow, on the evening tide.”
“As you command,” said Wulfe, “but another day might mean another ship, lord Captain.”
“Aye. And ten days might mean ten ships, or none at all. We have squandered30 too many days waiting on the sight of sails. Our victory will be that much the sweeter if we win it with a smaller fleet.” And I must needs reach the dragon queen before the Volantenes.
In Volantis he had seen the galleys31 taking on provisions. The whole city had seemed drunk. Sailors and soldiers and tinkers had been observed dancing in the streets with nobles and fat merchants, and in every inn and winesink cups were being raised to the new triarchs. All the talk had been of the gold and gems32 and slaves that would flood into Volantis once the dragon queen was dead. One day of such reports was all that Victarion Greyjoy could stomach; he paid the gold price for food and water, though it shamed him, and took his ships back out to sea.
The storms would have scattered33 and delayed the Volantenes, even as they had his own ships. If fortune smiled, many of their warships might have sunk or run aground. But not all. No god was that good, and those green galleys that survived by now could well have sailed around Valyria. They will be sweeping34 north toward Meereen and Yunkai, great dromonds of war teeming35 with slave soldiers. If the Storm God spared them, by now they could be in the Gulf36 of Grief. Three hundred ships, perhaps as many as five hundred. Their allies were already off Meereen: Yunkishmen and Astapors, men from New Ghis and Qarth and Tolos and the Storm God knew where else, even Meereen’s own warships, the ones that fled the city before its fall. Against all that, Victarion had four-and-fifty. Three-and-fifty, less the Shark.
The Crow’s Eye had sailed halfway37 across the world, reaving and plundering38 from Qarth to Tall Trees Town, calling at unholy ports beyond where only madmen went. Euron had even braved the Smoking Sea and lived to tell of it. And that with only one ship. If he can mock the gods, so can I.
“Aye, Captain,” said Wulfe One-Ear. He was not half the man that Nute the Barber was, but the Crow’s Eye had stolen Nute. By raising him to Lord of Oakenshield, his brother made Victarion’s best man his own. “Is it still to be Meereen?”
“Where else? The dragon queen awaits me in Meereen.” The fairest woman in the world if my brother could be believed. Her hair is silver-gold, her eyes are amethysts39.
Was it too much to hope that for once Euron had told it true? Perhaps. Like as not, the girl would prove to be some pock-faced slattern with teats slapping against her knees, her “dragons” no more than tattooed40 lizards41 from the swamps of Sothoryos. If she is all that Euron claims, though … They had heard talk of the beauty of Daenerys Targaryen from the lips of pirates in the Stepstones and fat merchants in Old Volantis. It might be true. And Euron had not made Victarion a gift of her; the Crow’s Eye meant to take her for himself. He sends me like a serving man to fetch her. How he will howl when I claim her for myself. Let the men mutter. They had sailed too far and lost too much for Victarion to turn west without his prize.
The iron captain closed his good hand into a fist. “Go see that my commands are carried out. And find the maester wherever he is hiding and send him to my cabin.”
“Aye.” Wulfe hobbled off.
Victarion Greyjoy turned back toward the prow42, his gaze sweeping across his fleet. Longships filled the sea, sails furled and oars43 shipped, floating at anchor or run up on the pale sand shore. The Isle of Cedars. Where were these cedars? Drowned four hundred years ago, it seemed. Victarion had gone ashore44 a dozen times, hunting fresh meat, and had yet to see a cedar13.
The girlish maester Euron had inflicted45 upon him back in Westeros claimed this place had once been called ‘the Isle of a Hundred Battles,’ but the men who had fought those battles had all gone to dust centuries ago. The Isle of Monkeys, that’s what they should call it. There were pigs as well: the biggest, blackest boars that any of the ironborn had ever seen and plenty of squealing46 piglets in the brush, bold creatures that had no fear of man. They were learning, though. The larders47 of the Iron Fleet were filling up with smoked hams, salted pork, and bacon.
The monkeys, though … the monkeys were a plague. Victarion had forbidden his men to bring any of the demonic creatures aboard ship, yet somehow half his fleet was now infested49 with them, even his own Iron Victory. He could see some now, swinging from spar to spar and ship to ship. Would that I had a crossbow.
Victarion did not like this sea, nor these endless cloudless skies, nor the blazing sun that beat down on their heads and baked the decks until the boards were hot enough to scorch50 bare feet. He did not like these storms, which seemed to come up out of nowhere. The seas around Pyke were often stormy, but there at least a man could smell them coming. These southron storms were as treacherous51 as women. Even the water was the wrong color—a shimmering52 turquoise53 close to shore, and farther out a blue so deep that it was almost black. Victarion missed the grey-green waters of home, with their whitecaps and surges.
He did not like this Isle of Cedars either. The hunting might be good, but the forests were too green and still, full of twisted trees and queer bright flowers like none his men had ever seen before, and there were horrors lurking54 amongst the broken palaces and shattered statues of drowned Velos, half a league north of the point where the fleet lay at anchor. The last time Victarion had spent a night ashore, his dreams had been dark and disturbing and when he woke his mouth was full of blood. The maester said he had bitten his own tongue in his sleep, but he took it for a sign from the Drowned God, a warning that if he lingered here too long, he would choke on his own blood.
On the day the Doom55 came to Valyria, it was said, a wall of water three hundred feet high had descended57 on the island, drowning hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, leaving none to tell the tale but some fisherfolk who had been at sea and a handful of Velosi spearmen posted in a stout58 stone tower on the island’s highest hill, who had seen the hills and valleys beneath them turn into a raging sea. Fair Velos with its palaces of cedar and pink marble had vanished in a heartbeat. On the north end of the island, the ancient brick walls and stepped pyramids of the slaver port Ghozai had suffered the same fate.
So many drowned men, the Drowned God will be strong there, Victarion had thought when he chose the island for the three parts of his fleet to join up again. He was no priest, though. What if he had gotten it backwards59? Perhaps the Drowned God had destroyed the island in his wroth. His brother Aeron might have known, but the Damphair was back on the Iron Islands, preaching against the Crow’s Eye and his rule. No godless man may sit the Seastone Chair. Yet the captains and kings had cried for Euron at the kingsmoot, choosing him above Victarion and other godly men.
The morning sun was shining off the water in ripples60 of light too bright to look upon. Victarion’s head had begun to pound, though whether from the sun, his hand, or the doubts that troubled him, he could not say. He made his way below to his cabin, where the air was cool and dim. The dusky woman knew what he wanted without his even asking. As he eased himself into his chair, she took a soft damp cloth from the basin and laid it across his brow. “Good,” he said. “Good. And now the hand.”
The dusky woman made no reply. Euron had sliced her tongue out before giving her to him. Victarion did not doubt that the Crow’s Eye had bedded her as well. That was his brother’s way. Euron’s gifts are poisoned, the captain had reminded himself the day the dusky woman came aboard. I want none of his leavings. He had decided61 then that he would slit62 her throat and toss her in the sea, a blood sacrifice to the Drowned God. Somehow, though, he had never quite gotten around to it.
They had come a long way since. Victarion could talk to the dusky woman. She never attempted to talk back. “Grief is the last,” he told her, as she eased his glove off. “The rest are lost or late or sunk.” He grimaced63 as the woman slid the point of her knife beneath the soiled linen64 wound about his shield hand. “Some will say I should not have split the fleet. Fools. Nine-and-ninety ships we had … a cumbersome65 beast to shepherd across the seas to the far end of the world. If I’d kept them together, the faster ships would have been held hostage to the slowest. And where to find provisions for so many mouths? No port wants so many warships in their waters. The storms would have scattered us, in any case. Like leaves strewn across the Summer Sea.”
Instead he had broken the great fleet into squadrons, and sent each by a different route to Slaver’s Bay. The swiftest ships he gave to Red Ralf Stonehouse to sail the corsair’s road along the northern coast of Sothoryos. The dead cities rotting on that fervid66, sweltering shore were best avoided, every seamen67 knew, but in the mud-and-blood towns of the Basilisks Isles68, teeming with escaped slaves, slavers, skinners, whores, hunters, brindled69 men, and worse, there were always provisions to be had for men who were not afraid to pay the iron price.
The larger, heavier, slower ships made for Lys, to sell the captives taken on the Shields, the women and children of Lord Hewett’s Town and other islands, along with such men who decided they would sooner yield than die. Victarion had only contempt for such weaklings. Even so, the selling left a foul taste in his mouth. Taking a man as thrall70 or a woman as a salt wife, that was right and proper, but men were not goats or fowl71 to be bought and sold for gold. He was glad to leave the selling to Ralf the Limper, who would use the coin to load his big ships with provisions for the long slow middle passage east.
His own ships crept along the shores of the Disputed Lands to take on food and wine and fresh water at Volantis before swinging south around Valyria. That was the most common way east, and the one most heavily trafficked, with prizes for the taking and small islands where they could shelter during storms, make repairs, and renew their stores if need be.
“Four-and-fifty ships is too few,” he told the dusky woman, “but I can wait no longer. The only way”—He grunted72 as she peeled the bandage off, tearing a crust of scab as well. The flesh beneath was green and black where the sword had sliced him.—“the only way to do this is to take the slavers unawares, as once I did at Lannisport. Sweep in from the sea and smash them, then take the girl and race for home before the Volantenes descend56 upon us.” Victarion was no craven, but no more was he a fool; he could not defeat three hundred ships with fifty-four. “She’ll be my wife, and you will be her maid.” A maid without a tongue could never let slip any secrets.
He might have said more, but that was when the maester came, rapping at the cabin door as timid as a mouse. “Enter,” Victarion called out, “and bar the door. You know why you are here.”
“Lord Captain.” The maester looked like a mouse as well, with his grey robes and little brown mustachio. Does he think that makes him look more manly73? Kerwin was his name. He was very young, two-and-twenty maybe. “May I see your hand?” he asked.
A fool’s question. Maesters had their uses, but Victarion had nothing but contempt for this Kerwin. With his smooth pink cheeks, soft hands, and brown curls, he looked more girlish than most girls. When first he came aboard the Iron Victory, he had a smirky74 little smile too, but one night off the Stepstones he had smiled at the wrong man, and Burton Humble75 had knocked out four of his teeth. Not long after that Kerwin had come creeping to the captain to complain that four of the crew had dragged him belowdecks and used him as a woman. “Here is how you put an end to that,” Victarion had told him, slamming a dagger77 down on the table between them. Kerwin took the blade—too afraid to refuse it, the captain judged—but he had never used it.
“My hand is here,” Victarion said. “Look all you like.”
Maester Kerwin went down to one knee, the better to inspect the wound. He even sniffed78 at it, like a dog. “I will need to let the pus again. The color … lord Captain, the cut is not healing. It may be that I will need to take your hand.”
They had talked of this before. “If you take my hand, I will kill you. But first I will tie you over the rail and make the crew a gift of your arse. Get on with it.”
“There will be pain.”
“Always.” Life is pain, you fool. There is no joy but in the Drowned God’s watery79 halls. “Do it.”
The boy—it was hard to think of one so soft and pink as a man—laid the edge of the dagger across the captain’s palm and slashed80. The pus that burst forth81 was thick and yellow as sour milk. The dusky woman wrinkled her nose at the smell, the maester gagged, and even Victarion himself felt his stomach churn. “Cut deeper. Get it all. Show me the blood.”
Maester Kerwin pressed the dagger deep. This time it hurt, but blood welled up as well as pus, blood so dark that it looked black in the lantern light.
Blood was good. Victarion grunted in approval. He sat there unflinching as the maester dabbed82 and squeezed and cleaned the pus away with squares of soft cloth boiled in vinegar. By the time he finished, the clean water in his basin had become a scummy soup. The sight alone would sicken any man. “Take that filth24 and go.” Victarion nodded at the dusky woman. “She can bind83 me up.”
Even after the boy had fled, the stink84 remained. Of late, there was no escaping it. The maester had suggested that the wound might best be drained up on deck, amidst fresh air and sunlight, but Victarion forbade it. This was not something that his crew could see. They were half a world away from home, too far to let them see that their iron captain had begun to rust22.
His left hand still throbbed—a dull pain, but persistent85. When he closed his hand into a fist it sharpened, as if a knife were stabbing up his arm. Not a knife, a longsword. A longsword in the hand of a ghost. Serry, that had been his name. A knight86, and heir to Southshield. I killed him, but he stabs at me from beyond the grave. From the hot heart of whatever hell I sent him to, he thrusts his steel into my hand and twists.
Victarion remembered the fight as if it had been yesterday. His shield had been in shards87, hanging useless from his arm, so when Serry’s longsword came flashing down he had reached up and caught it. The stripling had been stronger than he looked; his blade bit through the lobstered steel of the captain’s gauntlet and the padded glove beneath into the meat of his palm. A scratch from a little kitten, Victarion told himself afterward88. He had washed the cut, poured some boiled vinegar over it, bound it up, and thought little more of it, trusting that the pain would fade and the hand heal itself in time.
Instead the wound had festered, until Victarion began to wonder whether Serry’s blade had been poisoned. Why else would the cut refuse to heal? The thought made him rage. No true man killed with poison. At Moat Cailin the bog89 devils had loosed poisoned arrows at his men, but that was to be expected from such degraded creatures. Serry had been a knight, highborn. Poison was for cravens, women, and Dornishmen.
“If not Serry, who?” he asked the dusky woman. “Could that mouse of a maester be doing this? Maesters know spells and other tricks. He might be using one to poison me, hoping I will let him cut my hand off.” The more he thought on it, the more likely it seemed. “The Crow’s Eye gave him to me, wretched creature that he is.” Euron had taken Kerwin off Greenshield, where he had been in service to Lord Chester, tending his ravens90 and teaching his children, or perhaps the other away around. And how the mouse had squealed91 when one of Euron’s mutes delivered him aboard the Iron Victory, dragging him along by the convenient chain about his neck. “If this is his revenge, he wrongs me. It was Euron who insisted he be taken, to keep him from making mischief92 with his birds.” His brother had given him three cages of ravens too, so Kerwin could send back word of their voyaging, but Victarion had forbidden him to loose them. Let the Crow’s Eye stew93 and wonder.
The dusky woman was binding94 his hand with fresh linen, wrapping it six times around his palm, when Longwater Pyke came pounding at the cabin door to tell him that the captain of Grief had come aboard with a prisoner. “Says he’s brought us a wizard, Captain. Says he fished him from the sea.”
“A wizard?” Could the Drowned God have sent a gift to him, here on the far side of the world? His brother Aeron would have known, but Aeron had seen the majesty95 of the Drowned God’s watery halls below the sea before being returned to life. Victarion had a healthy fear of his god, as all men should, but put his faith in steel. He flexed96 his wounded hand, grimacing97, then pulled his glove on and rose. “Show me this wizard.”
Grief’s master awaited them on deck. A small man, as hairy as he was homely98, he was a Sparr by birth. His men called him the Vole. “Lord Captain,” he said when Victarion appeared, “this is Moqorro. A gift to us from the Drowned God.”
The wizard was a monster of a man, as tall as Victarion himself and twice as wide, with a belly like a boulder99 and a tangle100 of bone-white hair that grew about his face like a lion’s mane. His skin was black. Not the nut brown of the Summer Islanders on their swan ships, nor the red-brown of the Dothraki horselords, nor the charcoal-and-earth color of the dusky woman’s skin, but black. Blacker than coal, blacker than jet, blacker than a raven’s wing. Burned, Victarion thought, like a man who has been roasted in the flames until his flesh chars101 and crisps and falls smoking from his bones. The fires that had charred102 him still danced across his cheeks and forehead, where his eyes peered out from amongst a mask of frozen flames. Slave tattoos103, the captain knew. Marks of evil.
“We found him clinging to a broken spar,” said the Vole. “He was ten days in the water after his ship went down.”
“If he were ten days in the water, he’d be dead, or mad from drinking seawater.” Salt water was holy; Aeron Damphair and other priests might bless men with it and swallow a mouthful or two from time to time to strengthen their faith, but no mortal man could drink of the deep sea for days at a time and hope to live. “You claim to be a sorcerer?” Victarion asked the prisoner.
“No, Captain,” the black man answered in the Common Tongue. His voice was so deep it seemed to come from the bottom of the sea. “I am but a humble slave of R’hllor, the Lord of Light.”
R’hllor. A red priest, then. Victarion had seen such men in foreign cities, tending their sacred fires. Those had worn rich red robes of silk and velvet104 and lambswool. This one was dressed in faded, salt-stained rags that clung to his thick legs and hung about his torso in tatters … but when the captain peered at the rags more closely, it did appear as if they might once have been red. “A pink priest,” Victarion announced.
“A demon48 priest,” said Wulfe One-Ear. He spat105.
“Might be his robes caught fire, so he jumped overboard to put them out,” suggested Longwater Pyke, to general laughter. Even the monkeys were amused. They chattered106 overhead, and one flung down a handful of his own shit to spatter on the boards.
Victarion Greyjoy mistrusted laughter. The sound of it always left him with the uneasy feeling that he was the butt107 of some jape he did not understand. Euron Crow’s Eye had oft made mock of him when they were boys. So had Aeron, before he had become the Damphair. Their mockery oft came disguised as praise, and sometimes Victarion had not even realized he was being mocked. Not until he heard the laughter. Then came the anger, boiling up in the back of his throat until he was like to choke upon the taste. That was how he felt about the monkeys. Their antics never brought so much as a smile to the captain’s face, though his crew would roar and hoot108 and whistle.
“Send him down to the Drowned God before he brings a curse upon us,” urged Burton Humble.
“A ship gone down, and only him clinging to the wreckage,” said Wulfe One-Ear. “Where’s the crew? Did he call down demons109 to devour110 them? What happened to this ship?”
“A storm.” Moqorro crossed his arms against his chest. He did not appear frightened, though all around him men were calling for his death. Even the monkeys did not seem to like this wizard. They leapt from line to line overhead, screaming.
Victarion was uncertain. He came out of the sea. Why would the Drowned God cast him up unless he meant for us to find him? His brother Euron had his pet wizards. Perhaps the Drowned God meant for Victarion to have one too. “Why do you say this man is a wizard?” he asked the Vole. “I see only a ragged76 red priest.”
“I thought the same, lord Captain … but he knows things. He knew that we made for Slaver’s Bay before any man could tell him, and he knew you would be here, off this island.” The small man hesitated. “Lord Captain, he told me … he told me you would surely die unless we brought him to you.”
“That I would die?” Victarion snorted. Cut his throat and throw him in the sea, he was about to say, until a throb of pain in his bad hand went stabbing up his arm almost to the elbow, the agony so intense that his words turned to bile in his throat. He stumbled and seized the rail to keep from falling.
“The sorcerer’s cursed the captain,” a voice said.
Other men took up the cry. “Cut his throat! Kill him before he calls his demons down on us!” Longwater Pyke was the first to draw his dirk. “NO!” Victarion bellowed111. “Stand back! All of you. Pyke, put up your steel. Vole, back to your ship. Humble, take the wizard to my cabin. The rest of you, about your duties.” For half a heartbeat he was not certain they would obey. They stood about muttering, half with blades to hand, each looking to the others for resolve. Monkey shit rained down around them all, splat splat splat. No one moved until Victarion seized the sorcerer by the arm and pulled him to the hatchway.
As he opened the door to the captain’s cabin, the dusky woman turned toward him, silent and smiling … but when she saw the red priest at his side her lips drew back from her teeth, and she hisssssed in sudden fury, like a snake. Victarion gave her the back of his good hand and knocked her to the deck. “Be quiet, woman. Wine for both of us.” He turned to the black man. “Did the Vole speak true? You saw my death?”
“That, and more.”
“Where? When? Will I die in battle?” His good hand opened and closed. “If you lie to me, I will split your head open like a melon and let the monkeys eat your brains.”
“Your death is with us now, my lord. Give me your hand.”
“My hand. What do you know of my hand?”
“I have seen you in the nightfires, Victarion Greyjoy. You come striding through the flames stern and fierce, your great axe112 dripping blood, blind to the tentacles113 that grasp you at wrist and neck and ankle, the black strings114 that make you dance.”
“Dance?” Victarion bristled115. “Your nightfires lie. I was not made for dancing, and I am no man’s puppet.” He yanked off his glove and shoved his bad hand at the priest’s face. “Here. Is this what you wanted?” The new linen was already discolored by blood and pus. “He had a rose on his shield, the man who gave this to me. I scratched my hand on a thorn.”
“Even the smallest scratch can prove mortal, lord Captain, but if you will allow me, I will heal this. I will need a blade. Silver would be best, but iron will serve. A brazier as well. I must needs light a fire. There will be pain. Terrible pain, such as you have never known. But when we are done, your hand will be returned to you.”
They are all the same, these magic men. The mouse warned me of pain as well. “I am ironborn, priest. I laugh at pain. You will have what you require … but if you fail, and my hand is not healed, I will cut your throat myself and give you to the sea.”
Moqorro bowed, his dark eyes shining. “So be it.”
The iron captain was not seen again that day, but as the hours passed the crew of his Iron Victory reported hearing the sound of wild laughter coming from the captain’s cabin, laughter deep and dark and mad, and when Longwater Pyke and Wulfe One-Eye tried the cabin door they found it barred. Later singing was heard, a strange high wailing116 song in a tongue the maester said was High Valyrian. That was when the monkeys left the ship, screeching117 as they leapt into the water.
Come sunset, as the sea turned black as ink and the swollen118 sun tinted119 the sky a deep and bloody120 red, Victarion came back on deck. He was naked from the waist up, his left arm blood to the elbow. As his crew gathered, whispering and trading glances, he raised a charred and blackened hand. Wisps of dark smoke rose from his fingers as he pointed121 at the maester. “That one. Cut his throat and throw him in the sea, and the winds will favor us all the way to Meereen.” Moqorro had seen that in his fires. He had seen the wench wed4 too, but what of it? She would not be the first woman Victarion Greyjoy had made a widow.
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stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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wed
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| v.娶，嫁，与…结婚 | |
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5
hulls
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| 船体( hull的名词复数 )； 船身； 外壳； 豆荚 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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7
rams
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| n.公羊( ram的名词复数 )；(R-)白羊（星）座；夯；攻城槌v.夯实（土等）( ram的第三人称单数 )；猛撞；猛压；反复灌输 | |
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8
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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10
cod
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| n.鳕鱼；v.愚弄；哄骗 | |
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11
isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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12
cedars
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| 雪松，西洋杉( cedar的名词复数 ) | |
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cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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14
warships
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| 军舰，战舰( warship的名词复数 )； 舰只 | |
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15
lumbering
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| n.采伐林木 | |
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16
lamentation
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| n.悲叹，哀悼 | |
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17
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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18
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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19
blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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20
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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21
frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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22
rust
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| n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退 | |
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23
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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24
filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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25
agile
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| adj.敏捷的，灵活的 | |
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26
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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27
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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28
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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29
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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30
squandered
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| v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31
galleys
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| n.平底大船，战舰( galley的名词复数 )；（船上或航空器上的）厨房 | |
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32
gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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33
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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34
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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35
teeming
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| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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36
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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37
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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38
plundering
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| 掠夺，抢劫( plunder的现在分词 ) | |
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39
amethysts
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| n.紫蓝色宝石( amethyst的名词复数 )；紫晶；紫水晶；紫色 | |
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40
tattooed
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| v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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41
lizards
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| n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 ) | |
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42
prow
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| n.(飞机)机头，船头 | |
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43
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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44
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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45
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
squealing
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| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的现在分词 ) | |
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47
larders
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| n.（家中的）食物贮藏室，食物橱( larder的名词复数 ) | |
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48
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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49
infested
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| adj.为患的，大批滋生的（常与with搭配）v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的过去式和过去分词 )；遍布于 | |
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50
scorch
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| v.烧焦，烤焦；高速疾驶；n.烧焦处，焦痕 | |
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51
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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52
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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53
turquoise
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| n.绿宝石；adj.蓝绿色的 | |
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54
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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55
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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56
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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57
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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59
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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60
ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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61
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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62
slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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63
grimaced
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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65
cumbersome
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| adj.笨重的，不便携带的 | |
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66
fervid
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| adj.热情的；炽热的 | |
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67
seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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68
isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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69
brindled
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| adj.有斑纹的 | |
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70
thrall
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| n.奴隶；奴隶制 | |
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71
fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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72
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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73
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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74
smirky
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| adj.假笑的，傻笑的，得意地笑的 | |
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75
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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76
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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77
dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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78
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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79
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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80
slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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81
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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82
dabbed
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| （用某物）轻触( dab的过去式和过去分词 )； 轻而快地擦掉（或抹掉）； 快速擦拭； （用某物）轻而快地涂上（或点上）… | |
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83
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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84
stink
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| vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭 | |
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85
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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86
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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87
shards
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| n.（玻璃、金属或其他硬物的）尖利的碎片( shard的名词复数 ) | |
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88
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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89
bog
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| n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖 | |
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90
ravens
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| n.低质煤；渡鸦( raven的名词复数 ) | |
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91
squealed
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| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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92
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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93
stew
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| n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑 | |
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94
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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95
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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96
flexed
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| adj.[医]曲折的，屈曲v.屈曲( flex的过去式和过去分词 )；弯曲；（为准备大干而）显示实力；摩拳擦掌 | |
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97
grimacing
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 ) | |
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98
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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99
boulder
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| n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 | |
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100
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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101
chars
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| abbr.characters （复数）角色，人物（剧本中用语）v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的第三人称单数 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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102
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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103
tattoos
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| n.文身( tattoo的名词复数 )；归营鼓；军队夜间表演操；连续有节奏的敲击声v.刺青，文身( tattoo的第三人称单数 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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104
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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105
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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106
chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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107
butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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108
hoot
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| n.鸟叫声，汽车的喇叭声； v.使汽车鸣喇叭 | |
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109
demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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110
devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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111
bellowed
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的过去式和过去分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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112
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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113
tentacles
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| n.触手( tentacle的名词复数 )；触角；触须；触毛 | |
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114
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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115
bristled
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| adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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116
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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117
screeching
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| v.发出尖叫声( screech的现在分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫 | |
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118
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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119
tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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120
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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121
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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