Carliene Stark

II Chapter 62

Jamie

I stared at the harbour of Oldtown absentmindedly, the great ship gently rocking beneath my feet. It was one of many of Euron Greyjoy's ships that were being loaded with the plunder of the Rock and Highgarden, and all the civilians travelling with us and the hostages. My gaze darkened at the many columns of smoke rising from all over the city. The ironborn had truly done a number on it. Reaving and raiding and raping, as was their way. I had done my best to keep my men in line, some of which were easily tempted by the opportunities, conquering a city offered. Even so, I feared the oldtowners would take years to recover from this. 

"You still think he'll make it back?" Bronn appeared beside me, leaning on the ship rail. My phantom had clenched. He was talking about Ser Addam. A good man and friend I had sent to his death. "You saw that poor fellow that made it back, I doubt there is anything left from the tail company" the knight offered. 

The Redcloak, Bronn was talking about was the only one who had made it back since. Half a day later than the last of the company were supposed to arrive with their wagons of supplies. He had rode in on a terrified horse that was about to collapse beneath him, nearly every inch of his body covered in burns. The men who caught him when he half jumped and half fell from his horse swear that his coat was still smoking and that his deformed armour was hot to the touch. They had tried to remove that armour when I met him, guided by his screams of agony that rang through the streets. 

"What happened?" I demanded immediately, as three tried to hold the man down and a fourth tried to remove his vambrace. They did not know, the man had hardly talked. And when he did he was hard to understand. When the vambrace was removed half the skin of his lower arm tore away along with it. This caused the man to pass out and one of the ones holding him down to turn around and retch up his lunch. 

I had a very good idea what this could mean, but I did not want to entertain that terrible thought. My fear was confirmed when the man came too, his eyes suddenly wide and white as he stared around, two words falling from his chapped lips. "Dragon" he whispered. "Dragon!" he screamed.

My heart sank, but I turned to my other men. "Have there been any other reports?"

One of them answered me with a sullen look. "The last company never arrived, it was said that there was smoke rising from the spot they were last known to be at" Its was all the confirmation I needed and still I had hope. If not for the resources or the foot soldiers then for Ser Addam. He would have been on horseback, as one of the most skilled riders I had known in my life. And he would have had the Stark girl with him, which may have caused him to get captured rather than burned. But I knew these were hopes of a fool. For all I knew they had both been burned. After all, I had no idea if dragons were smart enough to distinguish between enemy or ally. 

So much to keeping my promise to Catlyn Stark. I had broken the vow to never take up arms against House Stark and its allies again and now I had broken the vow of keeping her daughters safe. And that after realising that I had been wrong about her for so long.

I sat with the man for a while, hoping he would manage to give us some other hint of what exactly came to pass in his company. But all that passed his lips were groans and screams and cries and the word 'dragons'. They had to keep him in his breastplate as it had burned away the tunic beneath and melted against the skin. It took him an entire night to die and in the end I was unsure what exactly took him. The pain, the delusions, the fever or his blackened lungs. He had been a fisherman from Lannisport, the men who thought they recognised him told me. He had joined the army because he wanted to defend Westeros from Targaryen tyranny.

Targaryen tyranny. How could we possibly hope to match against dragons? All these ships all this gold, it would do us no good against three full-grown beasts.