On the Honeywine, the Iron Fleet formed a column.
The longship fleet flanked the Iron Fleet on both sides. Along the shore, the water was shallow, and only longships could move freely there.
Every eye turned toward the place where the Dragons roared. That earth-shaking dragoncry was enough to send a hundred lions fleeing for their lives.
High in the blue sky, the dragonfire of all three Dragons exploded against the head of the black stone beast, Hightower's black Stone Dragon, whipping up a storm of flame.
Three spears of fire pierced the Stone Dragon's flaming maw. Brightest and most dazzling was Balerion's black-red dragonfire, followed by Vhagar's and Viserion's.
Starting from the top, the black stone and dead dragonflesh of the stone beast's head shattered. Its runes were ground away and destroyed, while gems and black iron burst apart.
The headless Stone Dragon plummeted, leaving a trail of defeat behind it. The terrible crash made it impossible to imagine how completely the Stone Dragon had been smashed.
Only the two green Sphinxes remained, and they looked badly outmatched.
"A small test." Gendry watched the stone beast plunge into the sea, never again to breathe Shadowfire.
But that was not the greatest threat to the Dragons. The true threats were the Dragon Horn and the blood Kraken.
"Ours Is the Fury!"
"Ours Is the Fury!" the Iron Throne's army shouted, raising the battle cry of this fight.
Crow's Eye heard the roar from aboard the Silence and smiled faintly. Fools. Is this all you have? Let the Dragon Horn sound. Gendry, Victarion, and Rodrik will all become my sacrifices.
Crow's Eye looked toward the sky with anticipation. The longships were still at the river mouth.
On the Honeywine, Victarion Greyjoy stood at the prow of the Iron Victory. Upon its black banner, dark as a midnight sea, was embroidered a golden Kraken.
Victarion watched Rodrik Harlaw's longships vanish one by one into the waters to the north, and watched the Stone Dragon fall.
"A Dragon is a Dragon. A true Dragon is no false thing," Victarion said.
Victarion liked fighting enemies. He liked seeing fear in their eyes. But longing for battle was not the same as seeking death. Those were living Dragons, and charging straight at them meant suicide.
"I would rather die in battle than be roasted like a pig in the fire. Today, I will have both death and glory."
"Come," Victarion ordered. "The horn and the iron net."
Victarion had no choice. If they wanted to win this game, they had to capture a Dragon. A true Dragon, not Hightower's idiot toy.
One-Ear Wulfe commanded the other warships, along with Victarion's favored sailors, the strongest warriors.
His men lifted the Dragon Horn: "Lame" Ralf, Red Ralf Stonehouse, and "Barber" Nute.
Others had prepared a heavy net made of fine steel and cold iron, gleaming black, meant to bind a Dragon.
Victarion did not trust Nute, but he could only hide that thought for now. The time had not come. Once he had the Dragon, he could burn Nute to death and then take the Iron Fleet to strike out on his own.
The Dragon Horn meant power and death, but it also meant honor.
"Bring me a bowl of lemon water. A warrior gets thirsty before glory," Victarion ordered.
The dark-skinned woman came forward woodenly. There were tiny black specks in the cup of lemon water, but Victarion did not think much of it.
"If the Dragon lands on our ship, will it burn the ship down?" Nute the Barber asked.
"Shut your mouth," Victarion said. "This is our war of vengeance. Not only for the shame Robert Baratheon, that drunk and lecher, brought upon us, but also for the shame brought by the Targaryen Dragonlords. I will cut off the Stag's head and make the true Dragon submit."
Victarion looked at the Dragon Horn. From end to end, the twisted horn was six feet long, gleaming black and banded with red gold and Valyrian black steel. Euron's hellhorn.
Victarion reached out and touched it. The horn was as warm and smooth as the thigh of the dark-skinned woman.
It shone as well, bright enough that he could see his own twisted reflection deep within it. Strange ancient runes were carved into the bands wrapped around the horn.
"Valyrian runes," Victarion said despite himself.
Victarion would not blow the horn himself. Crow's Eye's lackey Crake had blown it three times and died.
"He was tall as a bull and strong as me. He could tear a man's head from his shoulders with his bare hands, and even so, the horn killed him," Victarion thought.
"That mute blew the horn three times. I'll have the thralls each blow it once. They may die, or they may not."
"Captain!" Longwater Pyke called. "The rowers are ready."
The rowers were all big men: a boy, a rough man, and a bastard's bastard.
The boy had been rowing aboard ship for less than a year, while the rough man had rowed for nearly twenty. They all had names, though Victarion did not know them.
The three rowers came from the Mourner, the Sparrowhawk, and the Spider's Kiss. He did not need to remember the name of every oar-thrall in the Iron Fleet.
"Do you remember your task?" Victarion asked. "I kept you aboard my flagship. You are safe, so long as you blow the horn."
"We know, Captain. One time each," the boy said with a nod.
"Good. Now it is time for you to keep your promise," Victarion ordered.
"All men must die. When you die, you will feast in the Water Palace of the Drowned God.
"The Iron Fleet is charging into battle. Before sunset, many men on this fleet may be dead, stabbed, hacked apart, spilling their guts, drowned, or burned alive. Only the Drowned God knows which of us will live to see tomorrow.
"Blow the horn, then survive. No matter how many of you live, you will become free men. I will give you wives, a piece of land, a ship. You will have thralls of your own, and men will know and sing your names."
"Including you, Captain?" asked the bastard's bastard.
"Yes."
"Then I'll do it."
"Count me in," said the boy.
The rough man folded his arms and nodded.
They were only thralls, the lowest of the low in the Iron Fleet.
"Then we begin," Victarion ordered. "Boy, you are the youngest, so you blow first. The moment has come. Blow it long and loud."
"Aaaaaah... uhhh... ooooooh..."
The big boy lifted the horn in both hands and blew. The curved horn flashed with black light.
As the sound swelled, the ancient Valyrian glyphs carved into the bands began to glow red.
A terrible sound rang through Oldtown, sharp enough to pierce the ears, filled with pain and fury, as if it meant to scorch every listener's ears.
It echoed and echoed, until it filled the whole chaotic world, endless and unbroken.
Victarion looked up at the sky in anticipation. "Come, Dragon. Come."
"Beautiful. That is the sound. Blow as hard as you can until you are too weak to stand, until you squeeze out your last breath, until your lungs burn as if they are on fire, until the knights of Storm's End, the nobles of Highgarden, and the knights of the Vale can hear it. Until the wretches of Oldtown piss themselves in fear as the horn resounds through the whole city. Then pass it to the next man."
Gendry also heard that shriek, but the Dragons remained unmoved.
Just as the notes were about to reach their ears, pale gray light shone bright.
A smooth pale-gray stone rune blocked the impact of the magical notes.
The Dragon swarm shook itself in the sky, climbed high, circled, then plunged. Ferocious flame exploded straight against the face of a green Sphinx. Already drained of power, the Sphinx could not withstand dragonfire.
With a thunderous blast, the Sphinx crashed down to earth as well.
"Long live Gendry!"
"Long live the Storm!"
"Try my Stone Rune, Crow's Eye. Without this, do you think I would have come to fight you?"
The first big boy collapsed. His cheeks had swollen into a ball, as if they were about to burst.
The boy fell to the deck, the muscles in his chest twitching again and again.
The runes burned violently, every line and every word spewing white flame.
The boy lay on the deck with blood and blisters covering his mouth.
"Next." Victarion clenched his fists. What in the hell was happening? This Dragon Horn felt no different from a fake.
The rough man and the bastard's bastard blew the horn as well, and both collapsed to the deck.
The Ironborn felt drunk on the sound, but the Dragons still circled and danced in the sky, spewing flame without pause, roasting the Ironborn longships on both wings before the Honeywine like pigs.
"What is happening?" Crow's Eye's eye widened. How could the Dragons still be alive and leaping?
His Dragon Horn seemed to have failed. It had sounded three times, yet not one Dragon had stirred. "No. This is impossible."
"Fuck, what the hell is going on?" Victarion quickly lifted the Dragon Horn. A thin wisp of bluish smoke rose from it, making him deeply uneasy.
After being blown, the Dragon Horn was hot to the touch, blisteringly hot.
Victarion felt his whole body begin to burn, like iron heated red in a forge.
"My hand." Victarion looked at his palm. Something seemed to be bubbling back to life inside him, trying to break through his flesh.
"Commander, your face."
Victarion's face was bright red, his entire body scalding. The heat could be felt from several feet away.
Something inside him seemed to be twitching, writhing through his flesh.
Victarion stripped off his heavy armor. A warrior never took off his armor, but this time he truly could not bear it.
"It was Crow's Eye. That woman fed me something, made me drink something. When the Dragon Horn sounded, the heat and fire woke the worms. Blood and Fire."
Crow's Eye's gift always came with a curse. In the end, I fell because of a woman.
Victarion's skin flushed dark red, and his body bulged outward, his flesh swelling and sinking again and again, as if living things were crawling inside him.
"Hot. I'm so hot." Victarion wailed, as if he were being cooked from the inside out.
"Commander!" Nute the Barber cried in disbelief, unable to understand what he was seeing.
"Water."
His men hurriedly splashed water over their commander to cool him down. Victarion's skin grew darker and darker, while curling bluish smoke rose from his mouth, nose, and fingers.
"Unite. Unite. Keep fighting. Do not let the Ironborn become slaves of the Green lands. Obey... obey my brother..."
Victarion could no longer endure it. His body swelled and shrank, his limbs seeming to roast, his skin like charred pigskin.
"That woman killed me. No, Crow's Eye too."
Victarion's eyes could not withstand the heat. They burst open and ran down his cheeks like eggs boiled too long.
Blindly, Victarion groped his way and threw himself into the river. The others rushed to the edge of the deck and looked down in panic, only to see strange things: tiny worms, twisted, slick, unspeakable. Worms with faces, snakes with hands.
They were no larger than fingernails, crawling one after another out of Victarion's flesh.