The Kraken's Daughter

The howls and horns could be heard even here at Ten Towers. The wolves had come to Harlaw.

For once, Asha's grandfather, Lord Rodrik Harlaw, the Harlaw of Harlaw, called the Reader, paid no mind to his books. Rather, he studied scraps of parchment that had come to them on raven's wings.

"Grey Garden is gone," he muttered, soft as a whisper. "It seems the Knight made a fight of it." He meant Ser Harras Harlaw, called the Knight, Asha's cousin and boyhood friend of her dead brother Rodrik. Grey Garden had been his seat. Had.

"So soon?" Asha asked. Everything had gone so well for her. The Crag had been lightly held and yielded after only token resistance. Even now, the Westerlings were her prisoners and hostages. They had hoped to snatch some choice morsels while the Old Lion lay slain and King Stannis' eyes were looking elsewhere. Folly. It was folly.

"The Imp sent men of his own, carpenters and engineers. They knocked together rams and trebuchets quick as lightning. Most of our men have been slain beneath the walls of Lannisport or off Fair Isle." He shook his head ruefully. "God, what folly. The Iron Fleet smashed at Fair Isle twice in ten years. We'll have no mercy, I can assure you. King Stannis sent Domeric Scalp-Taker to see to us. The tales written of that one are enough to chill the blood."

The walls of Ten Towers seemed suddenly closer, like a pen holding pigs before the slaughter. Asha considered fleeing. She would take her Black Wind and all its crew to the Stepstones or beyond and live as reavers or traders as it suited them. The only issue was resupply. They would find no friendly ports to put in for provisions this side of Westeros. It would be a long, hard voyage in hostile waters, with many an enemy hunting them on their way. Dare she risk it?

They did not speak for some time, not until the maester brought another message. The Reader broke the seal and unfolded the parchment, his eyes rapidly moving over the words, narrowing with each line.

"Well?" Asha asked.

Grandfather crumpled up the note in anger. "Aeron Damphair has called for the faithful to rally at Old Wyk. Every longship still afloat, every old man and green boy left to us, and all his drowned men too. They will make a stand on Nagga's Hill. A last stand, I should think. Bolton will have all their scalps in a moon's turn. Doubt it not."

"I'll go to Father!" Asha suggested with desperate hope. "If he commands all to lay down their arms, we might receive better treatment. Many of the lords will be executed or sent to the wall, but if the common men rise, it will be the end of the Iron Islands, everything we are, just gone."

"That will happen anyway," the Reader said grimly. "Stannis is not Robert. The old king was open-handed, generous, and quick to forgive a gallant foe. If you fell to his warhammer, he'd be the first to help you to your feet. Stannis is as tight as an anchor hitch and never forgets a slight. He sent the Scalp-Taker to savage us. I'm not sure we'll find any mercy in submission. What has he to gain from letting us bend the knee? It might be better to fight to the last, but even then we shall not last long, I think. So what then, I ask you? Our choice is between certain death and uncertain mercy. You are young, and have some years yet, if you are very fortunate. With Theon dead, you are the last. Choose, girl, and soon. I believe I hear the horns and howls of our doom on the wind."

She choose. When they spotted pink banners on the horizon, the Reader opened his gates.

***

They brought her ashore amidst Lordsport's smoking ruins. The wolves had made a wreck of the place while she remained a prisoner in her cabin. A boy with a bald spot where the hair had been shaved away and a scar on the bare flesh brought her a horse. He was a polite enough lad, though the skinny wisp of a girl with him had hard, cruel eyes. She commanded a wolf as big as a pony.

Step out of line, and you'll be that wolf's supper, those eyes said.

"Lady Asha, welcome!" said the Scalp-Taker genially. He lifted the visor of his helmet, wrought in the shape of a flayed man in agony, revealing a plain, common face. The first time they met, she could hardly believe it. Domeric Bolton seemed more kind than cruel, though his banners and that armor told another tale.

"Ser Domeric," she replied as respectfully as she dared. Ten Towers and her lord grandfather were as yet untouched, as the Northman promised, but that could change. "It is a ride of a few hours to Pyke."

"I know. Some of my men are already up there, building siege engines." Those ghost-grey eyes looked sad. "You really don't want that, my lady. Balon Greyjoy is already a dead man, as you know, but if he makes a nuisance of himself, I will pull that whole castle down around his ears. It is yours by right, I understand. You are his only living child, correct?"

Did you know this story is from NovelPhoenix? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Correct," she answered him. Lord Stark had taken Theon's head, and Rodrik and Maron were long dead. The Crow's Eye might be somewhere out there, reaving, but he dared not return. The Damphair's futile resistance on Old Wyk would be the end of him. She was the last.

"Convince your father to come out and submit to judgment, and he'll have a quick death. Do it not, and I'll have to get rough. Again, I tell you, you really don't want that."

Asha considered trying to seduce the Scalp-Taker. They said he had two salt wives and one rock wife. What was one more? All men liked to fuck and fight; the trouble was finding which one they liked better. If she was warming his bed, the chance might come to slip off in the night and reach a ship on the Narrow Sea where she could be free again.

No, best not, she thought. Domeric Bolton seemed more fighter than fucker. He had not undressed her with his eyes as other men did. The longer they spoke, the more it seemed his seeming kindness was an affectation. Plainly, he would like to kill them all if they gave him half a reason. There was nothing he liked better than watering the demon trees he worshipped with blood.

So when they got to Pyke, she walked alone into the castle she had been born in, and bid her father submit to what awaited. Balon Greyjoy understood enough to know his life was over, but in bending the knee, his last living child might be saved. It did not take a deal of convincing. When they walked out together, Ser Domeric had Father bound in chains, but did not kill him right away.

"You will witness the end," he said. "We are going to Old Wyk."

***

The battle beneath Nagga's Ribs was scarcely worthy of the name. The Northern archers feathered fishermen with rusty axes and greybeards in seaweed robes wielding driftwood cudgels. Bolton brought terrible, huge horses from the Greenlands and his knights rode right over what remained in a single charge. Perhaps it was a mercy that Aeron Greyjoy fell before he saw what happened next.

Every man remaining was handed a hammer. They would spend what life remained bashing Nagga's Ribs to gravel. The holy place of the Drowned God would be profaned as a final insult. Anyone who resisted was killed immediately.

Father, even bound in chains, still had some strength in him and tried to break free, hurling curses. A Northman guarding the prisoners laughed and knocked a few of his teeth out with a swing of his spear staff. Asha tried not to weep.

Once the white stone of Nagga's ribs had been pulverized into small particles, the Scalp-Taker's men brought forth a demon tree to plant in the ruins, right there on the holiest hill in the Isles. What followed next haunted Asha Greyjoy all her days. For ten days and ten nights, they sacrificed every prisoner they had to that demon tree, and every day the tree grew taller. By the end, the white roots were spreading through the pile of rocks that had been Naga's Ribs, choking the old way to nothing. The red leaves seemed to drink the red coming off the comet above, the final sign of their downfall and humiliation. Domeric Scalp-Taker, being the cruelest man alive, saved her father for last.

"Drowned God take you, monster!" he hissed through broken teeth.

"There is no Drowned God," Bolton replied mildly, as if he were talking of the price of salted cod. He drew Red Rain, a trophy taken off the Drumm, and made a final end to it. Asha Greyjoy forced herself not to look away. She was the last.

"Can I go home now?"

"Not just yet," he answered, cleaning his blade and only half-listening to her.

"What more do you wish to do to me?" she demanded, almost surprising herself with the new heat in her voice. How she hated this man! He took everything from her!

"I have to make some provision for the governing of the Iron Islands," he answered.

"But I am the lady of Pyke! You promised! The deal..."

"I am altering the deal; pray I do not alter it any further," he said so coldly that she thought her heart might stop. "Your life and castle you have, but not to do with as you please." There was a cruel smile on that plain face. "Yes, I think that would work well," he said more to himself than to her. "You shall wed Tyrion Lannister, and he shall take these islands in hand."

"The Imp? You can't be serious!"

"I never jape, my lady, not where a maiden's heart is concerned. Haven't you ever listened to one of my love songs?"

She had no reply to that. Instead, she stared at him in sullen silence. This was the cruelest jape there ever was.

He stood up, leaving the shade of the demon tree, before turning back to her. "Oh, and the children better look like Lannisters. Don't give me a reason to come back here. You really, really wouldn't like that."