A Feast for Dragons

Nuncle here will give you more. Not me.”
    “What will you give us?” asked Lucas Codd. “Knitting?”
    “Aye, Lucas. I’ll knit us all a kingdom.” She tossed her
dirk from hand to hand. “We need to take a lesson from the Young Wolf, who won
every battle . . . and lost all.”
    “A wolf is not a kraken,” Victarion objected. “What the
kraken grasps it does not lose, be it longship or leviathan.”
    “And what have we grasped, Nuncle? The north? What is
that, but leagues and leagues of leagues and leagues, far from the sound of the
sea? We have taken Moat Cailin, Deepwood Motte, Torrhen’s Square, even Winterfell. What do we have to show for it?” She beckoned, and her Black Wind men
pushed forward, chests of oak and iron on their shoulders. “I give you the
wealth of the Stony Shore,” Asha said as the first was upended. An avalanche of
pebbles clattered forth, cascading down the steps; pebbles grey and black and
white, worn smooth by the sea. “I give you the riches of Deepwood,” she said,
as the second chest was opened. Pinecones came pouring out, to roll and bounce
down into the crowd. “And last, the gold of Winterfell.” From the third chest
came yellow turnips, round and hard and big as a man’s head. They landed amidst
the pebbles and the pinecones. Asha stabbed one with her dirk. “Harmund Sharp,”
she shouted, “your son Harrag died at Winterfell, for this.” She pulled the turnip
off her blade and tossed it to him. “You have other sons, I think. If you’d
trade their lives for turnips, shout my nuncle’s name!”
    “And if I shout your name?” Harmund demanded. “What
then?”
    “Peace,” said Asha. “Land. Victory. I’ll give you Sea Dragon
Point and the Stony Shore, black earth and tall trees and stones enough for
every younger son to build a hall. We’ll have the northmen too . . . as
friends, to stand with us against the Iron Throne. Your choice is simple. Crown
me, for peace and victory. Or crown my nuncle, for more war and more defeat.”
She sheathed her dirk again. “What will you have, ironmen?”
    “VICTORY!” shouted Rodrik the Reader, his hands
cupped about his mouth. “Victory, and Asha!”
    “ASHA!” Lord Baelor Blacktyde echoed. “ASHA QUEEN!”
    Asha’s own crew took up the cry. “ASHA! ASHA! ASHA
QUEEN!” They stamped their feet and shook their fists and yelled, as the
Damphair listened in disbelief. She would leave her father’s work undone! Yet Tristifer Botley was shouting for her, with many Harlaws, some
Goodbrothers, red-faced Lord Merlyn, more men than the priest would ever have
believed . . . for a woman!
    But others were holding their tongues, or muttering asides
to their neighbors. “No craven’s peace!” Ralf the Limper roared. Red Ralf
Stonehouse swirled the Greyjoy banner and bellowed, “Victarion! VICTARION!
VICTARION!” Men began to shove at one another. Someone flung a pinecone at
Asha’s head. When she ducked, her makeshift crown fell off. For a moment it
seemed to the priest as if he stood atop a giant anthill, with a thousand ants
in a boil at his feet. Shouts of “Asha!” and “Victarion!” surged
back and forth, and it seemed as though some savage storm was about to engulf
them all. The Storm God is amongst us, the priest thought, sowing
fury and discord.
    Sharp as a swordthrust, the sound of a horn split the air.
    Bright and baneful was its voice, a shivering hot scream
that made a man’s bones seem to thrum within him. The cry lingered in
the damp sea air: aaaaRREEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
    All eyes turned toward the sound. It was one of Euron’s
mongrels winding the call, a monstrous man with a shaved head. Rings of gold
and jade and jet glistened on his arms, and on his broad chest was tattooed
some bird of prey, talons dripping blood.
    aaaaRRREEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
    The horn he blew was shiny black and twisted, and taller
than a man as he held it with both hands. It was bound about with bands of red
gold and dark steel, incised with ancient Valyrian glyphs that seemed to glow
redly as the sound swelled.
    aaaaaaaRRREEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
    It was a terrible sound, a wail of pain and fury that seemed
to burn the ears. Aeron Damphair covered his, and prayed for the Drowned God to
raise a mighty wave and smash the horn to silence, yet still the shriek went on
and on. It is the horn of hell, he wanted to scream, though no man would
have heard him. The cheeks of the tattooed man