A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

crash against the longships.
The Drowned God wakes,
thought Aeron. He could hear his voice welling from the depths of the sea.
I shall be with you here this day, my strong and faithful servant,
the voice said.
No godless man will sit my Seastone Chair.
    It was there beneath the arch of Nagga’s ribs that his drowned men found him, standing tall and stern with his long black hair blowing in the wind. “Is it time?” Rus asked. Aeron gave a nod, and said, “It is. Go forth and sound the summons.”
    The drowned men took up their driftwood cudgels and began to beat them one against the other as they walked back down the hill. Others joined them, and the clangor spread along the strand. Such a fearful clacking and a clattering it made, as if a hundred trees were pummeling one another with their limbs. Kettledrums began to beat as well,
boom-boom-boom-boom-boom, boom-boom-boom-boom-boom.
A warhorn bellowed, then another.
AAAAAAoooooooooooooooooooooooo.
    Men left their fires to make their way toward the bones of the Grey King’s Hall; oarsmen, steersmen, sailmakers, shipwrights, the warriors with their axes and the fishermen with their nets. Some had thralls to serve them; some had salt wives. Others, who had sailed too often to the green lands, were attended by maesters and singers and knights. The common men crowded together in a crescent around the base of the knoll, with the thralls, children, and women toward the rear. The captains and the kings made their way up the slopes. Aeron Damphair saw cheerful Sigfry Stonetree, Andrik the Unsmiling, the knight Ser Harras Harlaw. Lord Baelor Blacktyde in his sable cloak stood beside The Stonehouse in ragged sealskin. Victarion loomed above all of them save Andrik. His brother wore no helm, but elsewise he was all in armor, his kraken cloak hanging golden from his shoulders.
He shall be our king. What man could look on him and doubt it?
    When the Damphair raised his bony hands the kettledrums and the warhorns fell silent, the drowned men lowered their cudgels, and all the voices stilled. Only the sound of the waves pounding remained, a roar no man could still. “We were born from the sea, and to the sea we all return,” Aeron began, softly at first, so men would strain to hear. “The Storm God in his wrath plucked Balon from his castle and cast him down, yet now he feasts beneath the waves in the Drowned God’s watery halls.” He lifted his eyes to the sky.
“Balon is dead! The iron king is dead!”
    â€œThe king is dead!”
his drowned men shouted.
    â€œYet what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger!” he reminded them. “Balon has fallen, Balon my brother, who honored the Old Way and paid the iron price. Balon the Brave, Balon the Blessed, Balon Twice-Crowned, who won us back our freedoms and our god. Balon is dead . . . but an iron king shall rise again, to sit upon the Seastone Chair and rule the isles.”
    â€œA king shall rise!”
they answered.
“He shall rise!”
    â€œHe shall. He must.” Aeron’s voice thundered like the waves. “But who? Who shall sit in Balon’s place? Who shall rule these holy isles? Is he here among us now?” The priest spread his hands wide.
“Who shall be king over us?”
    A seagull screamed back at him. The crowd began to stir, like men waking from a dream. Each man looked at his neighbors, to see which of them might presume to claim a crown.
The Crow’s Eye was never patient,
Aeron Damphair told himself.
Mayhaps he will speak first.
If so, it would be his undoing. The captains and the kings had come a long way to this feast and would not choose the first dish set before them.
They will want to taste and sample, a bite of him, a nibble of the other, until they find the one that suits them best.
    Euron must have known that as well. He stood with his arms crossed amongst his mutes and monsters. Only the wind and the waves answered Aeron’s call.
    â€œThe ironborn must have a king,” the priest insisted, after a long silence. “I ask again.
Who shall be king over us?
”
    â€œI will,” came the answer from below.
    At once a ragged cry of “Gylbert! Gylbert King!” went up. The captains gave way to let the claimant and his champions ascend the hill to stand at Aeron’s side beneath the ribs of Nagga.
    This would-be king was a tall spare lord with a melancholy visage, his lantern jaw