Eymund let out a long, satisfied belch, the heavy scent of stolen ale thick in the air. The woman clutched in his thick arm flinched like a cornered rabbit, her frame trembling as his calloused hand traced patterns along her smooth back.
He savored the shudder. In his mind, there was a specific pleasure in forcing these soft green-land creatures to bend to his will. The woman had been the wife of a household knight from the upper valleys. Eymund still remembered the sharp stroke of his sea-axe cutting through her husband's iron helm a few suns ago, right before her wide eyes while the man was still struggling to defend his hearth.
The hard stone of the Iron Islands and the salt winds of the Sunset Sea had shaped them into natural killers, and now they had entered the soft valleys of the Trident to claim the true harvest of the iron price.
They could finally practice the old ways, taking the plunder and dragging away the salt-wives without a single lord to check their steel.
He took another deep swallow from his pewter flagon, muttering into his rough beard. "This is the life the Drowned God promised us!"
The warm ale splattered through his greasy mustache, dripping onto the woman's brown hair. She remained perfectly still, her hollow stare fixed onto the dark corner of the timber cottage, her spirit having abandoned the flesh hours ago.
He stumbled through the threshold, dragging the captive behind his boots. Outside the stolen cottage, the chaotic laughter of his companions and the sharp weeping of the village women rose in a ragged chorus, a sound that carried the sweetest music to a raider's ears. This advance into the interior had proven so simple it felt like a dream from the sea.
The high command of the longships along the Greenfork belonged to Lord Gorold Goodbrother of Hammerhorn, a traditionalist who followed the old code with a brutal, unyielding violence, currently spending his lances to invest the walls of Twins.
Eymund turned his eyes toward the commander of their single longship, Captain Harlon Botley. He was a youth of seventeen winters, the eldest son and heir to Lord Sawane Botley of Lordsport, though the young captain had carried a dark, sullen scowl for days.
He stood by the ruts, his brow furrowed as he scanned the slate water of the fork, as if the river itself owed his house a mountain of dragons.
Eymund could not fathom the frustration. In his accounting, their current situation was a direct blessing from the depths, an endless market of gold, ale, and women to bed before the snow returned.
It was a far better trade than tracking with the main fleet to break their iron against a thick curtain wall. The brothers stuck on the great ships were likely green with envy over the freedom the secondary raiding parties enjoyed down the river channels.
Later, he caught fragments of a whisper between the oarsmen. It seemed Harlon believed that Gorold Goodbrother had insulted his lineage by assigning Sawane Botley to these common village raids.
The young captain had shouted into his cups during the previous night's watch. "My father is Sawane Botley!"
"He should be guiding the fleet to reduce a proper castle, not spending his steel like a low thief digging out rat-holes in the brush!"
Honor, Eymund thought, spitting into the dirt. Honor could not fill a flagon or warm a cot when the wind turned. He would rather play the thief in a fat valley than break his bones in a vanguard or freeze in a long investment.
He shook his head, content to remain a simple sailor who cared for nothing but the blood, the loot, and the flesh.
He looked upon the common smallfolk who were shivering along the village lane, their spirits entirely broken. The green-land men were as soft as fresh bread. The master of these fields had been named... Enford, or some such vanity.
Old Sawane Botley had brought barely a hundred axes to the gates, and the noble lord had immediately locked his entire kin behind the timber curtains of Heron Hall, refusing to open his portcullis for a turn of the moon.
To Eymund's mind, the entire Riverlands was nothing but a private park for their axes. He squeezed the woman's arm to feel the familiar shudder, breaking into a loud, mocking laugh.
"Everything is ours!"
The sharp shriek of his laughter echoed over the despoiled structures before a heavy, leather-tooled boot slammed straight into his ribs, throwing his bulk flat into the mud. The flagon shattered against the stones, the ale spraying through the dirt as the sudden pain cleared the fog from his head.
He looked up in sudden alarm, encountering the dark, youthful features of Harlon Botley.
The captain's tone was cold as a Pyke winter. "Where did you find the license for that noise?"
Eymund scrambled to his feet, his voice dropping into the quick, defensive whine of a whipped hound. "My pardon... captain... the ale was..."
Harlon offered a brief grunt of disgust, his eyes passing over the sailor as if marking a heap of offal, before jerking his chin toward the lane.
He raised his voice to reach the raiders who were still tearing the thatch from the granaries. "Gather your iron! To the center!"
Some twenty ironborn trotted into the lane, their arms full of stolen wool and salted meat. In the custom of the longships, a captain who lacked the steel to force compliance would never hold his row, even if his father sat in a high hall at Lordsport.
Harlon studied the ruins, his mind tracking the resources before he spoke.
"The harvest here is finished."
"Heron Hall has been stripped down to the mortar."
A scarred raider offered a loose, mocking grin from the rear. "Do we turn our hulls back to the fleet then, little captain?"
"Or is there another fat flock to shear?"
The sailors had no desire to return to the main investment, wishing to keep their oars in the soft valleys. Harlon understood their arithmetic, a thin, cruel smile showing through his beard as he pointed his sword toward the southern track.
He paused, a dark excitement flaring in his tone.
"Two leagues south sits the valley of Willowdale."
"The scouts claim the master of the hold is a young upstart named Solomon, a boy the green-land smallfolk call the Black Lion."
"We shall step our boots across his borders and see if his iron matches the vanity of his name."
The mention of a new target brought a ragged cheer from the sailors, their scowls vanishing at the prospect of avoiding the main sieges. They held the title of the Black Lion in total contempt, knowing a green-land name was nothing but a fine mask worn by a fat sheep.
"A lion? Let him grow a hundred teeth! Once our axes touch his skin, he will bleat like the rest!"
"The Drowned God opens the track to Willowdale!"
"There are no lions in the grass!"
Harlon guided his small vanguard across the border line without a single scout to clear the paths, entering a wide expanse of summer fields that stretched flat to the horizon.
A handful of common farmers who were cutting the grain went still at the sight of the iron caps, before dropping their sickles as if they had encountered a specter from the crypts. They abandoned their tools in the ruts, snatched small timber objects from the hedge, and fled toward the distant ridge without turning their heads.
The frantic scramble drew another round of loud, mocking laughter from the ironborn. These were the creatures grown on the green grass.
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