The Apostle

Euron Greyjoy laughed scornfully, the icy expanse swallowing the sound. When the battle turned, the snow began falling yet again, almost as if the breath of life in the silver queen's dragon had kept the winds of winter at bay.

Gone, now, he realized. Perfect.

Here, in her camp, he walked among the frozen figures of Daenerys Targaryen's Unsullied, the very last of the breed. Well, Unsullied didn't exactly breed, but there would be no more. All the methods of the Masters of Astapor were lost, burnt up with the rest. Ash was probably still raining in Slaver's Bay, now that he thought of it.

Our little lady was a true mistress of death. The last khalasar of the Dothraki perished ignominiously a few hundred leagues away south. Their sea was a sea of cinders where nothing would grow, mayhaps never again.

But these Unsullied? Here was a wonder. They stood, frozen at perfect attention like little toy soldiers, standing guard over her baggage train, such as it was. Euron despaired of finding any food or drink worth the name. They remained at their posts, even as the weather turned, a monument to human stupidity. Daenerys never deigned to give them another order. "Remain here and guard my rear," she said, and there they would remain, forever.

By now, 'Good King Joff' would've withdrawn back into the walls of his city, leaving the dead under the snow. Euron would have the carrion field all to himself, just as he liked it.

Wary little Melony had played her part well, better than she knew. Well, she named herself "Melisandre" this century. Euron had worn other guises in his travels, other names, so he had no right to judge.

That black dragon devoured his erstwhile bedfellow Renly, but Euron left a little surprise of his own in the bargain. A few squirts of his seed were in the stag lord, and Drogon swallowed his essence with all the rest. There would be a connection now, burned and branded, even beyond death.

Especially beyond death.

Euron's seed was not as the seed of other men. Only he had seen so far. Only he knew what was truly possible. There were powers upon this plane that men knew not, but Euron knew. He drank the wine of truth, the dark, dirty truth. He drank it until it made him sick, and then he guzzled another cask! After all, if a little was good, then more must be better!

More knowledge!

More power!

More!

All this frozen death would be enough.

It was so simple. If there was no spark of life in the dragon, then he must needs kindle the spark of death! It was all the same in the end, inevitable. Black and white. Winter and summer. Death and life. To truly master one was to master the other.

How foolish the red priests were! The god of life and the god of death were one and the same!

Oh, he whispered sweet words to Melony, made a mummer's show of being the curious neonate. He listened more than he spoke, and let her make of it what she would. She always saw what she wanted to see. To her, he was a stout ally, a man who'd been to Asshai, seen what she'd seen, tread paths better left forgotten. He bent a sympathetic ear. They spoke of how best to please their bedmates. She would let the hairy bear grunt and rut atop her to please the silver queen. He suffered Renly's unceasing doubts, his woe, his petty jealousies.

They spoke of how to guide the silver queen to her destiny.

He looked on the endless fields of cold white nothing. There was her destiny.

Well, he should not think too badly of little Dany. She'd played her part well. Now it was Euron's turn.

A new world was struggling to be born, a world of beauty and wonder. Someone must start the fire, or snuff it. It would be the same in the end. Why not him? Why not?

Euron Greyjoy did not feel the cold at all, or rather, he realized the truth. When pushed to the uttermost limit, cold can burn. The living could kill. The dead could be born. A dead thing would be born this day, and all for him. His brother, foolish Aeron, got this much right. The dead don't die again. They live!

He walked the snowy ground, lightly like a dancer. He walked to where the dream guided him. Drogon would be there, it promised, a mount to carry him to the edge of the world, and his divine destiny, where he would break down the wall between life and death, letting all become one, as it was at the beginning. In the world's travail, he would rise, the faithful one, the apostle of wisdom. Euron Greyjoy was ever a godly man, for what were gods but the wise? The truly wise. Knowledge is power, or so the singers said, and who knew more than him?

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He fingered the horn at his side, hanging from a leathern strap on his belt. This was the horn, the true horn. The big one was a nice little party trick, but sadly impermanent. Life could not last, but death was forever. With one blast of this, his mount would be eternal, even as he was. The seed would hear the call and rise within the beast.

The far-seeing man struggled to see in the blizzard. Euron cursed his mortal eye. Still, he walked on. It was easy to get turned around in such a squall with no moon or stars for guides. His memory of the dream guided him. Many dreams had Euron Greyjoy, but this, the one of old, the one which always returned, the dream of the promise.

Drogon would be half-buried by now, he did not doubt. The corpse would be too heavy to move, and left with the rest of the butchered fools who fought for the last dragon. None of the bodies, which had once been men, were left visible on the ground. How soon the world forgot them. Not one man in ten thousand lived a life worthy of remembrance. It was a sad story he did not care to repeat. At last, he spotted the black dragon's scales poking up out of the snow, just like the dream.

"What? Away, beasts!" Euron shouted. Those damn wolves had beaten him to his prize! They tore off chunks of flesh and lapped up steaming blood. Four of them feasted on the dead thing that was to be his! Euron drew steel. In their feeding frenzy, they did not seem to hear him.

As the man approached closer, he saw, to his dismay, that Drogon's body had been mutilated, torn into chunks and strewn about in a stream of viscera. The wings were ripped off entirely, and the head hung by a single strip of sinew that the white wolf was worrying on. Euron cursed when he stepped on a gnawed black bone, stripped of flesh.

"Get away!" he screamed, raising his Valyrian steel cutlass. This could still be salvaged, but he'd have to find a way to knit the body back together, a ponderous, tedious task.

When he took a swipe at the white wolf, it slipped away silently and beyond the vision of his mortal eye, disappearing into the grey gloom. While he searched for it, he noticed the wolves had not touched the stomach, where Euron's seed lay dormant, waiting to awaken. He considered blowing the horn, but the dragon would rise as it was, fixed eternally. He had no use for a crippled dragon, no more than Daenerys Targaryen did.

The white wolf and the others receded into the snowy expanse, running from his angry words and slashing sword. It didn't take much to scare them off. Good. They'd eaten their fill and would trouble Euron Greyjoy no more. He considered his course of action. In the dream, he raised the dragon intact, but now that wasn't an option. What to do? He sighed. There was nothing to be done but return with his slaves. This was not a job for the likes of him.

"AAAAAAAAH!" Euron screamed in pain. Something swept him off his feet, and he fell backwards into the powder. He hadn't felt pain in years, assuming he was beyond it, after the price he paid in Asshai, long ago.

The white wolf had his ankle! He took a swipe at the creature with his cutlass, and then a grey wolf seized his wrist in its jaws, forcing him to drop his weapon. Pain radiated down his limbs, pain as never had he experienced. These sharp jaws crushed bone and eviscerated flesh. This wasn't like the dream!

In the dream, Euron was alone with the dragon! With his free hand, he went for the horn. He had to blow it, or these beasts would tear him apart!

They seized that too! They had him now, four wolves on four limbs, their jaws locked on, biting and pulling. This wasn't like the dream! The dream never lied! The dream guided him to Asshai, and even-

Euron Greyjoy realized he'd been torn in quarters. It happened so fast he hardly felt it. Only by his mortal eye did he see his doom. The last thing he saw was four great wolves returning to devour the dragon, but they would not touch its stomach, and they would not eat his flesh. The dream lied!