The King's face was a mask of chiseled stone, his grey-blue eyes fixed on Victarion Greyjoy, who was bound tightly to a wooden frame. Stannis Baratheon spoke with a voice that carried the weight of a death sentence. "I will ask one last time: are you willing to serve the realm and command your captains to strike their colors?"
Since the battle at Sunspear, Stannis had come to respect the Ironborn's mastery of the storm. Their longships were agile predators, capable of striking where heavy galleys could not. The repaired scars on the deck of the Fury were testament to that lethality.
But Stannis, in his rigid sense of charity, expected the Ironborn to seek redemption. It was a fundamental misunderstanding of the Kraken's soul. To an Ironborn captain, every man was a king upon his own deck. They did not "redeem" themselves to a second-born stag.
"Stannis Baratheon," Victarion replied, his voice raspy but unbroken. "If you think an Ironborn follows a man just because he holds a title, you know nothing of the sea. They listen to their blood and their King. And you... you have no balls to lead men of iron." Victarion spat a glob of blood and salt at the King's boots.
Stannis's jaw ground with a sound like grinding millstones. The sky above was a bruise-colored canopy of thick, shifting clouds. A gale swept the beach, whipping the sea into white-foamed fury against the black reefs.
"I told you," Lord Wyman Manderly remarked, holding a flickering torch. The Merman Lord looked almost eager. "The Ironborn do not beg. Even Balon Greyjoy only knelt to wait for his next chance to strike. The Kraken doesn't fear the Stag, and it certainly doesn't fear your priestess."
"If you have the guts, fight me one-on-one!" Victarion roared.
Wyman Manderly saw the flicker of something new in Victarion's eyes. It wasn't just defiance; it was the terror of a man who believed his soul was about to be stolen. For a faithful servant of the Drowned God, death by fire was the ultimate blasphemy. He craved the cold, watery halls of the abyss, not the scorching judgment of a red god.
"I gave you a choice," Stannis said, his voice dropping into a hollow, final tone. He turned and walked away. Stannis never asked a third time.
"Hahahaha!" Lord Manderly laughed, a booming sound that cut through the wind. He tossed his torch onto the damp wood at Victarion's feet. "Haunt your brother's dreams, Greyjoy. Tell him the North sends its regards!"
The wood, though slick with sea-spray, caught fire with an unnatural intensity. Melisandre of Asshai, draped in crimson silk, began to dance around the pyre. Her movements were fluid, like a red butterfly caught in a draft.
"O, R'hllor! We are in darkness! Descend upon us!" she cried. "Lord of Light, we dedicate this symbol of the Kraken, this king's blood, this follower of false idols! Take his life! Grant us your light, for the night is dark and full of terrors!"
"For the night is dark and full of terrors," the Queen's Men echoed.
Lord Manderly spat on the sand and looked away.
Suddenly, a thunderclap shattered the air. A torrential rain began to fall, not a gradual drizzle, but a sudden, violent deluge that appeared out of thin air.
"I AM A BELIEVER OF THE SEA GOD!" Victarion screamed through the smoke, his body wreathed in flames. "I WILL NEVER DIE IN FIRE! SINK ME TO THE ABYSS!"
Stannis stood in the rain, his hair plastered to his forehead, his red-gold crown glinting. He looked at Melisandre with a silent, questioning fury. The ritual seemed to be failing.
But the priestess did not stop. She danced harder, her red robes becoming a blur. The ruby at her throat began to pulse with a light as bright as a dying star. She shrieked the name of her god into the storm.
Then, the pyre changed.
The flames didn't go out. They rose higher, seemingly fueled by the rain itself. Within the inferno, a colossal figure of living fire and shifting shadows began to emerge. It stood tall, holding a sword of liquid flame that it stabbed upward into the heavens.
In response, the dark clouds swirled and condensed into the shape of a colossal Kraken head, its tentacles lashing across the sky. The clouds became a mountain-heavy axe of shadow and storm, swinging down to meet the fire-giant's blade.
Wyman Manderly felt as if his skin were being flayed by a million tiny knives of static and wind. He shielded his eyes, unable to look away from the clash of "monsters." He didn't believe in the Red God, and he hated the Drowned God, but he couldn't deny the power that was currently tearing the sky apart.
As quickly as it began, the rain stopped. The clouds vanished, replaced by thin white lines that dissolved into a clear, sun-drenched sky. The pyre was gone. Only a circle of fine, lonely ash remained where Victarion Greyjoy had been.
"Your Majesty, the sacrifice is accepted," Melisandre said, her voice steady as she approached Stannis. "The One True God has bestowed his protection. The winds and waves will follow your will."
"Prepare to set sail," Stannis commanded. He walked toward his tent with a light, purposeful step.
Wyman Manderly watched the King, a chilling thought crossing his mind. Is human power truly this insignificant? He had just seen gods play a game in the clouds, and Stannis - a King, was merely a bug commanding other bugs.
The Royal Fleet and the White Harbor fleet, resupplied and repaired by the "hospitality" of the Martells, set sail from Dorne.
As Melisandre had promised, a rare and powerful east wind filled their sails. For days, the combined armada of hundreds of ships raced across the Summer Sea, crossing the Redwyne Straits and arriving at Shipwreck Bay near Oldtown.
The dawn was a pale pink when they spotted black sails. A group of Ironborn longships were chasing merchant cogs from the Summer Isles, prey that had ventured too far into dangerous waters.
"Intercept them!" Lord Manderly roared from the deck of the Mermaid. "Galleys at full speed! If we kill these bastards, I'll buy every man a drink in Oldtown!"
The horns sounded the pursuit.
Dozens of fast Northern ships cut through the water like arrows, surrounding the Ironborn like a wolf pack. The Ironborn, seeing the overwhelming numbers, tried to retreat toward the reefs of Blackcrown, hoping to lure the deeper-drafted Northern ships onto the rocks.
But the wind was with the North. Manderly's ships cut off the escape. Walton Wynch, the commander of the raiders, was dragged onto the deck of the Mermaid, his knee shattered by a Northern mace.
"Walton Wynch," Manderly said, looking at the purple blood-moon banner of the prisoner. "I allow you to say your last words."
Wynch spat a mouthful of blood and grinned. "You're already dead, fat man. King Euron and his Kraken are waiting at the Shield Islands. You'll be food for the abyss soon enough!"
"Funny," Manderly smiled, his eyes cold as a winter night. "I just watched your sea god get broken by a priestess in red. Your Kraken won't save you here."
Manderly waved a hand. Two sturdy sailors stepped forward, expertly binding Wynch with heavy iron chains and lead weights.
"Splash. Splash."
Every Ironborn prisoner, wounded or whole, was thrown into the sea. Lord Manderly had promised the King of the North that he would leave no kraken alive. He was a man of his word.
The Fury led the way toward Oldtown, its sails gleaming like firehawks. Stannis was focused on the submission of the Reach - on Tarly, Hightower, and Tyrell. But Manderly had a different goal. He was binding the Royal Fleet to his own crusade, ensuring that Euron Greyjoy would find no mercy.
"Raise the sails!" Manderly shouted. "Let's go see Hightower's Oldtown!"
[System Notification: The Sacrifice of the Kraken: Complete.]
[Event: Divine Intervention - The Winds of R'hllor active.]
[Naval Status: Royal Fleet approaching Oldtown.]
Plz Drop Some Power Stones.
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