Martin, R.R. - A Dance with Dragons - A Song of Ice and Fire - Book Five

“My uncle is never coming back,” Reek told them. “The kingswood crowned his brother Euron, and the Crow’s Eye has other wars to fight. You think my uncle values you? He doesn’t. You are the ones he left behind to die. He scraped you off the same way he scrapes mud off his boots when he wades ashore.”

Those words struck home. He could see it in their eyes, in the way they looked at one another or frowned above their cups. They all feared they’d been abandoned, but it took me to turn fear into certainty . These were not the kin of famous captains nor the blood of the great Houses of the Iron Islands. These were the sons of thralls and salt wives.

“If we yield, we walk away?” said the one-armed man. “Is that what it says on this here writing?” He nudged the roll of parchment, its wax seal still unbroken.

“Read it for yourself,” he answered, though he was almost certain that none of them could read. “Lord Ramsay treats his captives honorably so long as they keep faith with him.” He has only taken toes and fingers and that other thing, when he might have had my tongue, or peeled the skin off my legs from heel to thigh . “Yield up your swords to him, and you will live.”

“Liar.” Dagon Codd drew his longsword. “You’re the one they call Turncloak. Why should we believe your promises?”

He is drunk , Reek realized. The ale is speaking . “Believe what you want. I have brought Lord Ramsay’s message. Now I must return to him. We’ll sup on wild boar and neeps, washed down with strong red wine. Those who come with me will be welcome at the feast. The rest of you will die within a day. The Lord of the Dreadfort will bring his knights up the causeway, whilst his son leads his own men down on you from the north. No quarter will be granted. The ones that die fighting will be the lucky ones. Those who live will be given to the bog devils.”

“Enough,” snarled Dagon Codd. “You think you can frighten ironborn with words? Begone. Run back to your master before I open your belly, pull your entrails out, and make you eat them.”

He might have said more, but suddenly his eyes gaped wide. A throwing axe sprouted from the center of his forehead with a solid thunk . Codd’s sword fell from his fingers. He jerked like a fish on a hook, then crashed face-first onto the table.

It was the one-armed man who’d flung the axe. As he rose to his feet he had another in his hand. “Who else wants to die?” he asked the other drinkers. “Speak up, I’ll see you do.” Thin red streams were spreading out across the stone from the pool of blood where Dagon Codd’s head had come to rest. “Me, I mean to live, and that don’t mean staying here to rot.”

One man took a swallow of ale. Another turned his cup over to wash away a finger of blood before it reached the place where he was seated. No one spoke. When the one-armed man slid the throwing axe back through his belt, Reek knew he had won. He almost felt a man again. Lord Ramsay will be pleased with me .

He pulled down the kraken banner with his own two hands, fumbling some because of his missing fingers but thankful for the fingers that Lord Ramsay had allowed him to keep. It took the better part of the afternoon before the ironborn were ready to depart. There were more of them than he would have guessed—forty-seven in the Gatehouse Tower and another eighteen in the Drunkard’s Tower. Two of those were so close to dead there was no hope for them, another five too weak to walk. That still left fifty-eight who were fit enough to fight. Weak as they were, they would have taken three times their own number with them if Lord Ramsay had stormed the ruins. He did well to send me , Reek told himself as he climbed back onto his stot to lead his ragged column back across the boggy ground to where the northmen were encamped. “Leave your weapons here,” he told the prisoners. “Swords, bows, daggers. Armed men will be slain on sight.”

It took them thrice as long to cover the distance as it had taken Reek alone. Crude litters had been patched together for four of the men who could not walk; the fifth was carried by his son, upon his back. It made for slow going, and all the ironborn were well aware of how exposed they were, well within bowshot of the bog devils and their poisoned arrows. If I die, I die . Reek only prayed the archer knew his business, so death would be quick and clean. A man’s death, not the end Ralf Kenning suffered .

The one-armed man walked at the head of the procession, limping heavily. His name, he said, was Adrack Humble, and he had a rock wife and three salt wives back on Great Wyk. “Three of the four had big bellies when we sailed,” he boasted, “and Humbles run to twins. First thing I’ll need to do when I get back is count up my new sons. Might be I’ll even name one after you, m’lord.”

Aye, name him Reek , he thought, and when he’s bad you can cut his toes off and give him rats to eat . He turned his head and spat, and wondered if Ralf Kenning hadn’t been the lucky one.

A light rain had begun to piss down out of the slate-grey sky by the time Lord Ramsay’s camp appeared in front of them. A sentry watched them pass in silence. The air was full of drifting smoke from the cookfires drowning in the rain. A column of riders came wheeling up behind them, led by a lordling with a horsehead on his shield. One of Lord Ryswell’s sons , Reek knew. Roger, or maybe Rickard . He could not tell the two of them apart. “Is this all of them?” the rider asked from atop a chestnut stallion.

“All who weren’t dead, my lord.”

“I thought there would be more. We came at them three times, and three times they threw us back.”

We are ironborn , he thought, with a sudden flash of pride, and for half a heartbeat he was a prince again, Lord Balon’s son, the blood of Pyke. Even thinking was dangerous, though. He had to remember his name. Reek, my name is Reek, it rhymes with weak .

They were just outside the camp when the baying of a pack of hounds told of Lord Ramsay’s approach. Whoresbane was with him, along with half a dozen of his favorites, Skinner and Sour Alyn and Damon Dance-for-Me, and the Walders Big and Little too. The dogs swarmed around them, snapping and snarling at the strangers. The Bastard’s girls , Reek thought, before he remembered that one must never, never, never use that word in Ramsay’s presence.

Reek swung down from his saddle and took a knee. “My lord, Moat Cailin is yours. Here are its last defenders.”

“So few. I had hoped for more. They were such stubborn foes.” Lord Ramsay’s pale eyes shone. “You must be starved. Damon, Alyn, see to them. Wine and ale, and all the food that they can eat. Skinner, show their wounded to our maesters.”

“Aye, my lord.”

A few of the ironborn muttered thanks before they shambled off toward the cookfires in the center of the camp. One of the Codds even tried to kiss Lord Ramsay’s ring, but the hounds drove him back before he could get close, and Alison took a chunk of his ear. Even as the blood streamed down his neck, the man bobbed and bowed and praised his lordship’s mercy.

When the last of them were gone, Ramsay Bolton turned his smile on Reek. He clasped him by the back of the head, pulled his face close, kissed him on his cheek, and whispered, “My old friend Reek. Did they really take you for their prince? What bloody fools, these ironmen. The gods are laughing.”

“All they want is to go home, my lord.”

“And what do you want, my sweet Reek?” Ramsay murmured, as softly as a lover. His breath smelled of mulled wine and cloves, so sweet. “Such valiant service deserves a reward. I cannot give you back your fingers or your toes, but surely there is something you would have of me. Shall I free you instead? Release you from my service? Do you want to go with them, return to your bleak isles in the cold grey sea, be a prince again? Or would you sooner stay my leal serving man?”