A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

been lost, and he was home.
    Grief
and
Iron Vengeance
were close behind as
Iron Victory
passed the headland. Behind came
Hardhand, Iron Wind, Grey Ghost, Lord Quellon, Lord Vickon, Lord Dagon,
and the rest, nine-tenths of the Iron Fleet, sailing on the evening tide in a ragged column that extended back long leagues. The sight of their sails filled Victarion Greyjoy with content. No man had ever loved his wives half as well as the Lord Captain loved his ships.
    Along the sacred strand of Old Wyk, longships lined the shore as far as the eye could see, their masts thrust up like spears. In the deeper waters rode prizes: cogs, carracks, and dromonds won in raid or war, too big to run ashore. From prow and stern and mast flew familiar banners.
    Nute the Barber squinted toward the strand. “Is that Lord Harlaw’s
Sea Song
?” The Barber was a thickset man with bandy legs and long arms, but his eyes were not so keen as they had been when he was young. In those days he could throw an axe so well that men said he could shave you with it.
    â€œ
Sea Song,
aye.” Rodrik the Reader had left his books, it would seem. “And there’s old Drumm’s
Thunderer,
with Blacktyde’s
Nightflyer
beside her.” Victarion’s eyes were as sharp as they had ever been. Even with their sails furled and their banners hanging limp, he knew them, as befit the Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet. “
Silverfin
too. Some kin of Sawane Botley.” The Crow’s Eye had drowned Lord Botley, Victarion had heard, and his heir had died at Moat Cailin, but there had been brothers, and other sons as well.
How many? Four? No, five, and none with any cause to love the Crow’s Eye.
    And then he saw her: a single-masted galley, lean and low, with a dark red hull. Her sails, now furled, were black as a starless sky. Even at anchor
Silence
looked both cruel and fast. On her prow was a black iron maiden with one arm outstretched. Her waist was slender, her breasts high and proud, her legs long and shapely. A windblown mane of black iron hair streamed from her head, and her eyes were mother-of-pearl, but she had no mouth.
    Victarion’s hands closed into fists. He had beaten four men to death with those hands, and one wife as well. Though his hair was flecked with hoarfrost, he was as strong as he had ever been, with a bull’s broad chest and a boy’s flat belly.
The kinslayer is accursed in the eyes of gods and men,
Balon had reminded him on the day he sent the Crow’s Eye off to sea.
    â€œHe is here,” Victarion told the Barber. “Drop sail. We proceed on oars alone. Command
Grief
and
Iron Vengeance
to stand between
Silence
and the sea. The rest of the fleet to seal the bay. None is to leave save at my command, neither man nor crow.”
    The men upon the shore had spied their sails. Shouts echoed across the bay as friends and kin called out greetings. But not from
Silence
. On her decks a motley crew of mutes and mongrels spoke no word as the
Iron Victory
drew nigh. Men black as tar stared out at him, and others squat and hairy as the apes of Sothoros.
Monsters,
Victarion thought.
    They dropped anchor twenty yards from
Silence.
“Lower a boat. I would go ashore.” He buckled on his swordbelt as the rowers took their places; his longsword rested on one hip, a dirk upon the other. Nute the Barber fastened the Lord Captain’s cloak about his shoulders. It was made of nine layers of cloth-of-gold, sewn in the shape of the kraken of Greyjoy, arms dangling to his boots. Beneath he wore heavy grey chain mail over boiled black leather. In Moat Cailin he had taken to wearing mail day and night. Sore shoulders and an aching back were easier to bear than bloody bowels. The poisoned arrows of the bog devils need only scratch a man, and a few hours later he would be squirting and screaming as his life ran down his legs in gouts of red and brown.
Whoever wins the Seastone Chair, I shall deal with the bog devils.
    Victarion donned a tall black warhelm, wrought in the shape of an iron kraken, its arms coiled down around his cheeks to meet beneath his jaw. By then the boat was ready. “I put the chests into your charge,” he told Nute as he climbed over the side. “See that they are strongly guarded.” Much depended on the chests.
    â€œAs you command, Your Grace.”
    Victarion returned a sour scowl. “I am no king as yet.” He clambered down into the boat.
    Aeron