A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

islands and pillars, almost a
part of them, its curtain wall closing off the headland around the foot of the
great stone bridge that leapt from the clifftop to the largest islet, dominated
by the massive bulk of the Great Keep. Farther out were the Kitchen Keep and
the Bloody Keep, each on its own island. Towers and outbuildings clung to the
stacks beyond, linked to each other by covered archways when the pillars stood
close, by long swaying walks of wood and rope when they did not.
    The Sea Tower rose from the outmost island at the point of the broken sword,
the oldest part of the castle, round and tall, the sheer-sided pillar on which
it stood half-eaten through by the endless battering of the waves. The base of
the tower was white from centuries of salt spray, the upper stories green from
the lichen that crawled over it like a thick blanket, the jagged crown black
with soot from its nightly watchfire.
    Above the Sea Tower snapped his father’s banner. The
Myraham
was too
far off for Theon to see more than the cloth itself, but he knew the device it
bore: the golden kraken of House Greyjoy, arms writhing and reaching against a
black field. The banner streamed from an iron mast, shivering and twisting as
the wind gusted, like a bird struggling to take flight. And here at least the
direwolf of Stark did not fly above, casting its shadow down upon the Greyjoy
kraken.
    Theon had never seen a more stirring sight. In the sky behind the castle,
the fine red tail of the comet was visible through thin, scuttling clouds. All
the way from Riverrun to Seagard, the Mallisters had argued about its meaning.
It is my comet,
Theon told himself, sliding a hand into his fur-lined
cloak to touch the oilskin pouch snug in its pocket. Inside was the letter Robb
Stark had given him, paper as good as a crown.
    â€œDoes the castle look as you remember it, milord?” the captain’s daughter
asked as she pressed herself against his arm.
    â€œIt looks smaller,” Theon confessed, “though perhaps that is only the
distance.” The
Myraham
was a fat-bellied southron merchanter up from
Oldtown, carrying wine and cloth and seed to trade for iron ore. Her captain
was a fat-bellied southron merchanter as well, and the stony sea that foamed at
the feet of the castle made his plump lips quiver, so he stayed well out,
farther than Theon would have liked. An ironborn captain in a longship would
have taken them along the cliffs and under the high bridge that spanned the gap
between
the gatehouse and the Great Keep, but this plump Oldtowner had neither
the craft, the crew, nor the courage to attempt such a thing. So they sailed
past at a safe distance, and Theon must content himself with seeing Pyke from
afar. Even so, the
Myraham
had to struggle mightily to keep itself
off those rocks.
    â€œIt must be windy there,” the captain’s daughter observed.
    He laughed. “Windy and cold and damp. A miserable hard place, in
truth . . . but my lord father once told me that hard

places breed hard men, and hard men rule the world.”
    The captain’s face was as green as the sea when he came bowing up to Theon and
asked, “May we make for port now, milord?”
    â€œYou may,” Theon said, a faint smile playing about his lips. The promise of
gold had turned the Oldtowner into a shameless lickspittle. It would have been
a much different voyage if a longship from the islands had been waiting at
Seagard as he’d hoped. Ironborn captains were proud and willful, and did not go
in awe of a man’s blood. The islands were too small for awe, and a longship
smaller still. If every captain was a king aboard his own ship, as was often
said, it was small wonder they named the islands the land of ten thousand
kings. And when you have seen your kings shit over the rail and turn green in a
storm, it was hard to bend the knee
and pretend they were gods. “The Drowned
God makes men,” old King Urron Redhand had once said, thousands of years ago,
“but it’s men who make crowns.”
    A longship would have made the crossing in half the time as well. The
Myraham
was a wallowing tub, if truth be told, and he would not care
to be aboard her in a storm. Still, Theon could not be too unhappy. He was
here, undrowned, and the voyage had offered certain other amusements. He put an
arm around the captain’s daughter. “Summon me when we make