DAVOS
The thunderheads were starting to break up, and columns of weak sunshine towered down between the cracks. It cast the restless iron-grey sea in a golden luster, a balm like oil on the waves, and the gulls soaring overhead embroidered shifting shadows alongside their own. Away down the coast, off their port side, White Harbor rose proudly snow-covered on its hilltops, but Davos for obvious reasons did not dare to approach too closely by that route. For all he knew, that tar-dipped head and those shortened hands were still rotting on the gates, and it was good money that there was at least one Frey skulking in the city – hadn't Manderly said something about wedding a granddaughter to one of them? While Davos was fairly sure that that too had been part of Lord Wyman's bluff, breaking a marriage pact with that lot was something which should only be attempted by an expert.
Instead, he steered them into the tide race, through the jungle of white-frothed boulders that outcropped the headland. He was making for the entrance of a fiord that slashed across the back of the city – inside it was a long and vertiginous stairway carved into the rock face, which at the top linked up with the path to the Wolf's Den, the ancient castle where Davos had been held prisoner. Getting a truculent five-year-old and a bloody big direwolf up that was going to be, to say the least, a significant undertaking, which was why Davos had dared to risk a daytime approach. The thought of climbing those stairs by night, in his current company, was enough to start a cold sweat.
Davos hauled in the mainline to reef the sail, wincing as the pain caught him across the small of the back. His wound had not been done any favors by the need to handle the currach alone on the hair-raising return from Skagos; at least on the outward journey he'd had Wex to assist, and only himself to mind. Now, trying to play sailor, soldier, navigator, lookout, captain, deckhand, nursemaid, and kennelmaster all at once, Davos was more exhausted and ill-tempered than he'd been in years. Rickon was still traumatized by Osha's death, but not enough to do anything Davos said without putting up an endless argument first.
Small wonder, Davos thought, tying the last knot and laboring to take his place at the oars. Rickon was curled up in the pile of furs at the stern, Shaggydog lolling next to him. The boy's eyes were blue, the wolf's green, but otherwise their mutinous gazes were identical. There was something intrinsically intertwined about the pair of them, something primal, and of late Rickon had begun to mention things he had no way of knowing, things that only the wolf could have seen.
Davos eased the currach into the narrow neck of the fiord. Indeed it was so narrow that a tall man, standing up and spreading his arms, might have grazed with his fingers the great walls of glacier-roughened rock. They rose overhead to a height of nearly a hundred feet, opening up in a way that reminded Davos of the prow of a ship. But only a vessel this size could fit through this natural sea gate; it was the way he and Wex had originally departed. Inside the fiord the water was calm, closed off from the pounding surf, and the near absence of wind made Davos, in his motley garb of oiled leather, fur, and sealskin, almost too hot. The tidal current was against them, running out to sea, and he had to pull even harder to keep them moving forward. As he did, he peered up at the stout stone towers of the Wolf's Den, just visible on the heights, praying for a sight of Lord Wyman's merman banner or any other signal. But there was nothing.
Foreboding was congealing sourly in Davos' gut by the time they reached the trickiest part of the approach. But they bumped up unmolested against the broken finger of rock that thrust into the blue water, acting as a natural quay, and the steps stood there before them. Nothing. No guards.
Davos flung out the line and made them fast, then sat back on his knees, debating with himself. Of course Lord Wyman could not be expected to know the exact day and hour of their return, but after the amount of time which had passed – and the sensitivity of the cargo that he was awaiting – it would have been only prudent for him to have posted a constant guard. While it was better than the alternative of strolling straight into the teeth of waiting Freys, this confirmed beyond all doubt that something was very wrong, and left Davos faced with a monumental dilemma. He did not know if Lord Wyman had entrusted his son or any of his household with his plans – and what reason would he have had to? The more who know, the more can tell. Ser Wylis Manderly might well be in residence, but he would think Davos either a madman or a traitor. There is Shaggydog, though. That would give him pause at least. He served with the Young Wolf, he knows what they are. But all three of them were supposed to be dead – him, the boy, the wolf. All it would take would be one wrong word, one. . .
On the other hand, he could always choose the even riskier option of trying to get as far up the White Knife as he could; one of its tributaries ran just a few leagues away from Winterfell. But if he thought he was in any sort of shape to survive a penetration that deep into the north, with the sort of supplies they had and the shape they were in, the land covered with snow and crawling with Boltons, on the threadbare hope that Manderly was there and still alive. . .
He was going to have to throw the dice on Ser Wylis, Davos realized unhappily. Mayhaps Robett Glover is still here. But he had likely returned to his family's seat of Deepwood Motte after hearing that the ironborn had been cleaned out of it. And if the Manderly heir was a puppet of the Freys, then, well. . . best not to think about that. Davos gave the moorline a final, nervous tug. "Come, my lord," he said to Rickon. "We're going to climb up there and visit your friends."
"That?" Rickon cocked his head skeptically, looking at the stairs that clawed back and forth against the spur of solid granite. "That's a long way."
"Are you frightened, my lord?" It was not the tack Davos would have chosen, and he felt like a buffoon every time he employed it on a five-year-old, but with Rickon Stark, one must use the leverage one could find. And the one thing the boy could not stand was any intimation that he was a coward.
Sure enough, it worked just as well again. The boy scrambled pugnaciously out of the boat, Shaggydog hard on his heels. "I'm not afraid. I'll climb up it even faster than you."
"Not so fast, my lord," Davos said hurriedly, snagging Rickon by the collar as the boy attempted to make straightaway onto the stairs. He found his hand seeking instinctively at his neck, for the little bag of fingerbones he had lost at the bottom of the Blackwater. My luck. Well, considering that he and they had already survived this much, what were a few mad gambles more?
The steps were steep, laced with ice, and horrendously exposed. Knowing that he was the only expendable one, Davos had arranged them thusly: Shaggydog in front, Rickon in the middle, and himself bringing up the rear. That way even if by some malchance he did fall, Rickon and Shaggy could theoretically still make it to the top. What on earth would happen then, if the boy had the ability to explain what had gone on and if there even wassomeone he could explain it to. . . no, Davos decided. It would be in his exceeding best interests not to fall.
The fiord dwindled underneath them as they climbed higher. Manderly will certainly not be returning by this route. Davos edged along, groping at the rock with his hands, not looking down, not looking down. He kept his eyes on the Wolf's Den instead, with occasional split-second glimpses only to ensure that the steps hadn't broken or crumbled. Shaggydog was a good indicator of such things. At one place where a rockfall from above had blocked the route, the wolf managed to shift them away; they fell over the edge with such a tumult that Davos winced. But still nothing.
At long last, legs cramped and back screaming worse than ever, he hauled himself up over the edge of the abyss. Not that the danger was any less; they were in full view of the Wolf's Den now. But with the successful ascent of the sea stair behind them, a sort of mad daring was creeping in. "Come," he said to Rickon again. "They'll be waiting for us."
Rickon, chastened for once, nodded meekly. Davos gave thanks that the boy had been born a Stark and taken refuge among the Skagosi; he wasn't sure that even his own sons would have managed so well at the age of five. That thought prompted him to take the boy by the hand, and Rickon did not pull away. Shaggydog gallivanting ahead of them without an apparent care in the world, they set off toward the Wolf's Den. An appropriate name after all.
"I like you," Rickon said abruptly. "You're like my father a little. You still shouldn't have kidnapped me, though."
Davos was extremely surprised, considering that not so long ago Rickon had been calling him a lying fat liar and blithely ignoring everything he said, but also touched. Gently he asked, "Do you remember your father, my lord?"
"Course I 'member him!" Rickon turned back with a scowl. "He was big and he wore furs and sometimes he'd toss me up really really high, and I wouldn't be scared, I'm not ever scared. He'd catch me and then Bran would want it too and he'd make us fly. And he was a good lord and he didn't ever break his word and he. . . and he. . ."
The child's voice trailed off. Finally he squinted up at Davos and asked softly, "Do you look really like him?"
"I. . . do not know, my lord." Ned Stark had been shorter and plainer of face than his elder brother Brandon, Davos knew, and he too was only of brown hair, beard, average height, and nothing much to glance upon. Davos had spent his life navigating the waters of the oceans, Ned the waters of politics, but for all the world knew, it had wound them up with the exact same fate. And speaking of which –
The portcullis of the Wolf's Den loomed uninvitingly in front of them, closed and chained. The gatehouse and barbican stood above, equally deserted. The sun was just about to slide behind the cliffs of the fiord, and while Davos did not imagine that the same terrors lurked in the darkness as they had on Skagos, there was no call to tempt fate.
"I dunno," Rickon said skeptically. "There's not nobody here."
"Not anybody here," Davos corrected. While he'd certainly done his share of breaking out of prisons in his time, breaking into them was a much rarer occurrence. Fear was beginning to battle once more against his relief. What if something truly terrible had happened – an outbreak of plague, a visit from the Boltons or the Lannisters? The place wasn't burned or scorched, but what if – the worst thought of all – the visitors had been of quite different provenance?
At that moment, startling both Davos and Rickon, Shaggydog stopped in his tracks, sniffed, began to growl, and ran around the gatehouse tower, vanishing on the other side. Davos strained for the sound of men, dreading it and half-praying for it as well. But there was nothing, only another yip from the wolf.
"Come on," Rickon said, tugging at Davos' hand. "Shaggy found something."
Not currently possessed of a better plan, Davos ventured cautiously around the curtain wall, ready to push the boy behind him and draw his sword at the first hint of anything untoward. But it was only a narrow path that led to a wooden postern gate, beside which Shaggy was standing. The expectant attitude of the black wolf, head cocked and ears pointed, made it clear to Davos that he was supposed to open it – or break it down.
"Don't suppose you'd help me, would you?" he muttered to the direwolf, thinking of how easily it had cleared the rocks off the cliff stairs. Shaggydog only whined, pushing his muzzle against the latch.
Davos sighed, reached for his sword, and decided that he would have to abandon any hope of doing this inconspicuously. But he had just drawn the blade and prepared for the first hack – this was going to ruin the steel, something he'd have to quickly attend to – when a hoarse, furtive voice breathed, "And who in all the hells would that be?"
Davos tensed with shock. "Ser Bartimus," he whispered back to the one-eyed, one-legged old castellan of the Wolf's Den, one of the very few men to whom Manderly had trusted the secret of his continued existence. "It's me. Ser Davos Seaworth, returned from the mission on which your lord sent me."
There was a silence long enough to make Davos fear that Ser Bartimus was having heart failure behind the door. Then it rattled, a key twisted in the lock, and the castellan hissed, "Inside! Now!"
Davos did not need telling twice. He whisked Rickon off his feet, and as the door opened a few inches, squeezed through, following Shaggydog – who, if the aghast sound from its far side was any indication, really had sent Ser Bartimus into heart failure. When Davos emerged, the old knight was plastered against the wall of the inner ward, making the sign of the horns over and over as fast as he could.
"It's just Shaggy," Rickon piped up, observing the old knight bemusedly. "He'll only eat you if I tell him to."
Oddly, this did not have the effect of calming Ser Bartimus down, but as his eye roved over the wolf and the boy, it nearly dropped out of his head. Convulsively, he fell to his knee. "My lord," he said. "My lord of Stark."
Rickon glanced around, clearly confused, in search of who he could be addressing.
"It's you he means," Davos reminded him. "It would be mannerly to acknowledge Ser Bartimus' words and thank him."
"But he's not very smart," Rickon said. "He thinks I'm – "
Davos gave up. "You are, but perhaps now is not the time. Ser Bartimus – " to the castellan, urgently – "is Lord Wyman here? Gods be good, is he here?"
Another, horrible pause. This time, Bartimus made the sign of the star.
"Gods be good," Davos said again, feeling sick. "Is he – ?"
"I don't know for certain, but it's all but a formality. He never returned from Winterfell, and we had a raven not a fortnight past. From Roose Bolton. Telling us that Lord Manderly had been revealed as a traitor, and that we would soon be dealt with by him and that vile bastard o' his, the 'lawful Wardens of the North.' You. . . you wouldn't have seen, if you came in by the fiord, but the harbor's blockaded. The Lannisters dispatched north half their remaining fleet, to assist in teaching us that lesson."
"Seven hells." Davos swallowed something foul-tasting. "Roose sent word to the Iron Throne, then?" He was terrified to ask what the Boltons knew, what if anything Manderly had confessed.
"Must have. The captains are meeting with Ser Wylis – Lord Wylis, I suppose I should say – even now. He's telling them it's all wrong, it's a terrible mistake. I don't know if he means it or not." The castellan's face was ashy with the strain. "If they don't believe him. . . I'd not wager on half of White Harbor surviving the night. When those lion bastards sack a city, they bloody sack it."
"Does Ser – Lord Wylis know of his father's understanding? With me?" Davos was feeling sicker by the instant. If not. . . if the younger Manderly found out he was still alive, he might well hand him over to the Lannisters to spare White Harbor from the torch and the sword. But that would entail revealing that he had never been dead at all, and that was singularly unlikely to put them in a merciful temperament.
"Come with me," Ser Bartimus said, as Davos teetered on the brink of panic. "I'll take you inside the keep. There's the woman there, but she won't be saying a word."
What woman? Davos wondered, but there was no time to ask. With Rickon still clinging around his neck and Shaggydog loping along behind, they hurried after Ser Bartimus, who was making considerable speed on his one real leg, into the shadows of the fortress. It turned Davos' stomach to see it again, after the interminable time he had spent shut in there, fearing for his life and for his king, not knowing what Manderly meant for him after the mummery he had put on for the Freys in the Merman's Court. Father Above, help Lord Wyman, help him. Yet if he had fallen into the Boltons' power, and they had learned the truth, prayers were almost laughably ineffective now.
They ducked into a stairwell and clattered up it, this one far preferable to its cliffside counterpart. Dim, smoky torches guttered in rusted sconces; the walls here were still as thick and well-wrought as they'd been when the King in the North, Jon Stark, had raised them hundreds of years before the Conquest. With every step Davos thought of the Lannister fleet anchored in the harbor, wondered how many Freys were present with Lord Wylis, kept hoping by some mad chance that Robett Glover had waited for him. And then they were inside a narrow hallway, Ser Bartimus was unlocking the cell door at the end, and shooing Davos and Rickon inside. "Hurry," he hissed, "hurry, hurry."
Speculating if "the woman" was one of the six washerwomen who'd lodged here before – mayhaps the mother of Therry, the young turnkey – Davos stepped into the cell. It was not his old one but another, though appointed comfortably enough as his had been. And he only had time to think that the figure seated by the window looked far too large to be a woman, when the door shut and locked behind them.
Davos turned with an exclamation, suddenly and horribly suspecting that Ser Bartimus had just decided to make his lord's mind up for him, and tugged at the latch. No good; the oak was as strong as steel. Shaggydog pulled back his teeth and growled, but they could hear Ser Bartimus' mismatched footsteps fleeing away down the corridor. Too late.
Davos put down Rickon and moved his hand to his sword, thinking of Garth the torturer, and the "ladies" he'd kept sharp and cruel. "You," he said. "Show yourself."
There was a pause. Then it – she – moved out of the shadows, and he could see that it was a woman after all. And not just any woman, but her.
She was indeed taller and stronger than most men, with broad muscled shoulders, sinewy arms and big freckled hands. A thatch of dirty blonde hair had grown long enough to tangle into something approximating a braid, and her eyes were as blue as the Others' had been. There was a festering scab on one cheek where the flesh appeared to have been torn off, and a profusion of more freckles across the intact one and her nose, which must have been broken at least twice. When he'd heard the tales of her, Davos had been given to understand that there was no way she could get uglier, but it seemed they'd all been wrong. Poor creature.
"Ser," said the Maid of Tarth. As she spoke, her eyes were fixed on Rickon and his wolf. "I am afraid I do not know you."
"You do not," Davos acknowledged, "but I know you. You are Brienne the Blue, the warrior woman named to Renly Baratheon's Rainbow Guard."
She tensed. "How do you know that?"
"There are not many like you in all the kingdoms, my lady," Davos told her gently, "and I was near enough to hear your tale. I served – serve – his brother."
This startled her enough to take her eyes off Rickon. "Stannis? Lord Stannis?"
"The same." Davos hesitated, recalling the tales of Renly Baratheon's abrupt and unnatural death – and what his king had said of it to him. Of candlelight dancing on green armor, and a shadow blown in through the door of the tent, and an unearthly blade slicing through solid steel. She was with him when it happened. She saw it with her own eyes. And he remembered his own part in Cortnay Penrose's demise, of rowing Melisandre under the bowels of Storm's End and seeing what had been brought forth from her. There were a deal of other folk he had expected as more likely cellmates than the woman who had served Renly as loyally as he'd served Stannis. She did not kill him. I know what did.
Brienne's bruised jaw set stiffly. She turned away from him, looking out the window, but was unable to stop from turning to stare at Rickon once more. Finally she blurted out, "That wolf. . ."
"His name is Shaggy," Rickon informed her. "Short for Shaggydog."
Davos, who had been watching her closely, saw a pallor steal over her abused face. She swallowed visibly. Then she whispered, "You are Rickon Stark."
"Aye," Rickon said, puzzled once more.
"Tell me." Brienne rose suddenly to her feet; she overtopped Davos in height by at least half a foot, and he noticed her sword lying in a corner of the room. "My lord. . . I think I must know you as well. The onion knight, missing the tips of his fingers. Davos Seaworth."
"I am."
"Where did you. . ." Brienne paused and had to start again. "You. . . the boy was said to be dead, but clearly he was not. . . how in the name of the gods did you find him?"
"It's a long story." Davos bore the woman no grudge, but until he found more about what had led her to be confined here in the Den with him, he was not about to reveal the least bit of how vital Rickon was to Stannis's cause. "Why do you ask?"
"I seek a Stark child as well," Brienne said in a rush. Her eyes met Davos', blue and pleading. "Sansa. If I do not find her, then – "
"Sansa?" Rickon interrupted. He seemed to perk up. "I'd like to see Sansa. And Arya and Bran and Jon Snow and Old Nan and Maester Luwin. But the Boltons killed Maester Luwin, they killed him. They should have killed Theon too."
"I would that you could," Brienne said to him, before turning back to Davos. "The girl was until recently in the Vale with Lord Baelish, under an assumed identity. But she was kidnapped some weeks ago, and I have reason to believe that she is still alive. I thought that I might find her in White Harbor, or at least a word of her. If she took ship north, she would have had to come here. And yet perhaps it is better if she did not, if Lord Wylis means to bow to the Lannisters' wishes. . ." A look of something close to torture crossed her face. "If I can't find Sansa, then he. . . then they will. . ."
Davos regarded her in curiosity and sympathy alike. "Sansa Stark?" If indeed she could be found, that drastically undercut the Boltons' claim to the north, secured until now with Ramsay's marriage to the younger sister. Not that diplomacy was ever going to uproot those wretches; only a sword would do. Stannis' sword, gods be good. Sansa had immense value as a pawn, as everyone concerned must know full well, yet something about Brienne's expression made him think that that was not who she had in mind. Renly has been dead a long time now. Whose service has she taken up in, if anyone's?
His back was starting to hurt agonizingly, and his legs were letting him know in no uncertain terms that they had been badly put upon by the climb. Davos sat on the nearest available surface, which happened to be a trunk. "Did they tell you anything?" he asked. "Did they say they meant to kill you too?"
"I don't know." Brienne was too restless to join him; she began to pace by the window, a distance so short that her long legs covered it in a stride or two. "I came here to ask Ser Wylis about Sansa, but he would not receive me. I was told that I would be given all hospitality, and yet I was billeted here."
"They've not mistreated you, have they?" Davos thought again of Garth and his axes.
"No," Brienne admitted, "but what sort of hospitality is it, in a prison? I sit here uselessly, while Jaime's time runs out and wherever Sansa goes is further from me, until – "
"Jaime?" That, to say the least, Davos had not expected. "The Kingslayer? It's a Lannister fleet that sits in the harbor now, that has allied with the Boltons, that would take Sansa and Rickon and all their kin and cast them to the – "
"I know." Brienne looked more agonized than before. "I know."
Davos eyed her, his curiosity more rampant than ever, but he could already tell that Brienne had never meant to say that and was already regretting that she had. If he was not about to divulge his errand, it seemed rather ill-mannered to pry into hers. Yet he could not help it. "Tell me, my lady, how in creation Jaime Lannister's welfare could matter to you, if it is Sansa Stark you seek so devoutly."
"They'll kill him." Brienne's lips trembled. "They'll kill him unless I can find her and prove that he didn't do it, he didn't take her. He's a different man now, I swear it. He gave me his own sword and asked me to protect her."
Jaime Lannister, defender of Stark children. That ranked among the strangest things Davos had heard in over forty years of a highly eventful life. Furthermore, death was no more than the Kingslayer deserved; it was his unholy affair with his sister that had seated his bastard get on Stannis' rightful throne. The thought of him relinquishing a chance to take Eddard Stark's daughter into his custody, to break the North's spirit once and for all –
"It is. . . extraordinary, my lady," Davos said guardedly. In truth, he felt sorry for her, wondering what lies Lannister's gilded tongue had spun to her, a young and idealistic woman reeling from the loss of her king. "But one would think Sansa Stark better off far away from him and his family, and all the loss they have wrought on hers."
Brienne looked at him miserably. She was about to say something else when Rickon, who had been sitting with suspicious quietness in the corner, uttered a small, muffled yelp. Davos swung around in concern, wondering if the boy had happened upon one of the less pleasant aspects of the cell. But Rickon was staring fixedly at what appeared to be empty air, concentrating so hard that his face went red, until at last he sat back with a grunt.
"They're out there," he said, to neither of them in particular. "I saw them. They're out there."
"Who's out there?" Davos asked. "The Lannisters? Aye, that's why we need to – "
"No! Not them! Them! The other ones! I saw fire and the trees are breathing and they're coming out of the snow. The monsters, the big ones. They're waking up."
"What's waking up?" Davos tried not to think of what they had both seen in the water off the coast of Skagos. "What monsters?"
"I don't know." Rickon shook his head fretfully. "Giants, maybe. They were big. It was too hard to see them for long. I didn't get to learn all of it. You kidnapped me before I could."
"Learned? Learned what?"
"In the village," Rickon said, and added something in a fluent rattle of the Old Tongue. Then, rolling his eyes at Davos' evident incomprehension, he said, "The shaman. When I came there, he told me I was a. . . was a warg. That I could learn to see things that weren't in my eyes, that the north was strong in me, the skins could be changed. . ." He frowned again. "It's hard to practice by myself, but that time I just saw it. I did."
"I am sure you did," Davos said, frowning. He had just turned back to Brienne, wondering if their only hope for getting out of here was going to be to forge some sort of alliance, when they heard footsteps in the hall again – but not Ser Bartimus'. These were a heavier, slower, more deliberate tread.
Garth. Davos gathered his feet under him. This seemed to serve as proof positive that Ser Wylis had been unaware of his father's arrangements, had decided to give them over to the Lannisters and hope to spare the city –
The lock rattled. Brienne reached for her sword, and Davos for his. For a moment as their eyes met, he felt a distinct kinship with her, knew that in this at least they were on the same side – yet how could that be, if it was Ser Jaime's life she held in such high esteem, and the Lannisters were the ones who awaited –
The door opened. Without another word, the two of them lunged.
"My lady! My – my lord!" The figure on the other side threw up his arms and awkwardly twisted away, as Davos and Brienne checked their blows just in the nick of time. Panting, flushed, bushy mustache crooked askew, Ser Wylis Manderly himself ducked into the room, preceded by his girth. He turned, straightened his robes, and slammed the door shut behind him, leaving them both flabbergasted in equal measure.
"My lord." Brienne did not drop her blade. "What is the meaning of this?"
"My lady, I apologize profusely. This was. . . necessary, I fear." Ser Wylis brushed himself off once more, his face haunted and solemn. He flinched as he laid eyes on Shaggydog, who had the full complement of teeth bared, but the black wolf restrained from leaping for the fat man's throat. "We do not have much time. Are you well?"
"I ask leave to continue my journey," Brienne said. "I will not be well until I find Sansa Stark."
Ser Wylis shook his head. "I cannot help you. I have told you, the girl did not pass this way. And. . . my lord of Seaworth." He turned to Davos. "I would that my father could be here to greet you in my place, but it was his brave deception that brought me home at all. You have done well. And I intend to honor the agreement. But first, you will wish to know the news of your king."
Davos nodded, not trusting himself to words.
"He lives," Ser Wylis said, and Davos had to clutch hard to the table. "But that is not widely known. No one but myself, in fact, and now you. There was a raven from. . . if it was not my lord father, a most convincing reproduction, who knew all our secret codes and signs. He made mention of injuries too grievous for him to hold a quill, that the letter was dictated. He did not dare say much, for obvious reasons, but from reading between the lines, I am utterly convinced that he is both alive and taken refuge in the camp of Stannis Baratheon. I do not know how this was achieved, for last I knew he was captive in Winterfell under threat of execution from that frothing dog Ramsay Bolton, but if it was indeed true. . . my House would indeed owe Lord Stannis and yourself a debt past all paying."
It was only then Davos discovered he was shaking. "So will you then. . . if your father is alive and so is my king. . . if you honored the promises made. . ."
"I shall," Ser Wylis said again. "I will, here and now, swear to take Stannis Baratheon as my king, the one true lord of Westeros. But you will not forget, you shall never forget, that we are Stark men, always Stark men. If a day should come in future when the choice is between your southern king and our northern lord, be under no illusions as to where our loyalty will fall."
"I will not." He cannot say he did not warn us. "But – "
"And so." Ser Wylis put both great hands on his shoulders. "The strength of White Harbor is yours, effective immediately. This is what you must do. The Boltons are still tied down in Winterfell with the great part of their strength, awaiting Stannis' attack. You will lead my men up the White Knife, and. . ."
"And?"
"The north has been on its knees too long, Lord Davos. Too long. Whether to the Lannisters or the Boltons or the Freys – false kings, turncoats, traitors, murderers. No more. An end must be written. To wed Baratheon and Manderly and Stark together, to defeat those who are our mutual enemies, you will take the Dreadfort, and you will raze it to the ground."
Davos was speechless. Finally he managed, "The Dreadfort. . . it held for four years under siege once. . . I have fought my share of battles, but I am no vaunted commander. . ."
"I am aware. I am aware as well what is at stake here. But as I said, there is no other choice. You survived the Blackwater when few, highborn or low, could claim the same. You will have all the men and supplies I am able to give you, and the Boltons and their power, as I also mentioned, are still in Winterfell. They took the Starks' ancestral seat out from beneath their noses. What do you think will happen when the same befalls them?"
"My lord. . ." Davos was still lost for words. I was a fool to ever underestimate any of Lord Wyman's blood. "I understand catching them in the jaws of the trap from both sides. . . but there is a great Lannister fleet anchored in your harbor even now, and fighting through them will certainly not leave me and your men in any shape for this undertaking."
Ser Wylis smiled an odd little smile. "Is there?"
"Aye."
"Come with me. You too, my lady."
Davos and Brienne exchanged a confounded glance, but along with Rickon – a glance from Ser Wylis making it plain that Shaggydog was to remain – they followed him. The labyrinthine corridors of the Wolf's Den were dark and deserted, but torches burned on the parapet ahead.
"Here." Ser Wylis held open the door, and they stepped onto the tower. The fleet was just visible in the harbor, snapping sheets of crimson against the advancing dusk. Brienne had come over queer again; she turned away, but Davos remained watching.
"My lord father told the world that he would open his harbor to the boy king's ships and the Lannisters' wishes," Ser Wylis said, staring at the horizon. "I stammered and whined and played enough of a browbeaten fat fool that they have no reason to regret their confidence in sailing in and assuming nothing had changed."
"My lord," Brienne began, and hesitated.
"Aye, my lady?"
She shook her head, unable to speak. Ser Wylis paid her no further mind. He seemed to be counting under his breath. "Please," he said. "Watch."
Davos and Rickon craned forward, making up for Brienne's inability. Davos thought he saw small figures moving among the towers of the city, and a flare, as of something catching fire. He thought of the sailors on those ships. He thought of advancing up the Blackwater and the chain raising spectral behind them. He thought of men crashing and blundering, water turning to torches, and gouts of green fire that blazed across the heavens.
The north remembers, Davos Seaworth thought, and knew that it was so.
He heard only the distant thumps as the catapults launched. He wondered how long Ser Wylis had had, to arrange this welcome. He must have known they were coming, from the moment the raven did.
Davos watched as the fireballs crashed down. Heard the faint splinter of shattering wood, the far-off howls. Saw the citizens of White Harbor crowding to the city wall. Wondered where the ships' captains were stranded, watching futilely, only now realizing the magnitude of their mistake.
Burning, the ships were eerily and starkly beautiful, masts showing skeletal, ropes crashing down in flaming coils. The orange light dyed the darkness for miles, smoke rising wraithlike against the moon. One by one, as each ship burnt to the waterline, it was transformed into a shapeless hulk, steaming and hissing and snarling, until at last even the most fearless demons plunged into the dark ocean and perished in its depths.