Hail to the Stag Kings

Chapter 13: The Kraken's Daughter

—The Iron Islands—

Pyke...

Sailing to the Iron Islands through the dense, heavy fog was rather endearing for the crew of the Falcon's Flight; the winds guided their sails, the captain steering the steam galleon through the Sunset Sea, and the engineers shoveling coal to fuel the oceanic vessel... As befitting the Age of Industry, ships ranging from merchant to military were incorporated with steam engines into their design along with resources sent to Westeros from its colony Mirantibus Spe—effectively making each vessel sturdier and faster than its ancient predecessors. Regardless, because the inventions were relatively new, almost all ships used a hybrid combination of both steam and sail power.

Daemon narrowed his eyes. "Qrimbrōstan sambrar (Cursed fog). Can't see a damn thing," he cursed silently.

"Captain!" Broden called out. "How far are we from Lordsport?"

"We should be arriving within the hour, lad!" the ship's captain responded.

Petyr, however, remained as apprehensive about the Iron Islands. They rebelled against the Baratheon dynasty twice and were almost wiped out entirely the second time they did so; nearly every ironborn—man, woman, and child—were buried underneath a pile of rubble when the Royal Fleet bombarded each of the archipelagos and the island chains themselves were rendered uninhabitable after being engulfed with wildfire caches. Of the few ironborn that were left, some were on the other side of the known world while one remained on the mainland; only House Greyjoy remained standing... but only due to the persuasion of Queen Sansa the Red Wolf.

After the War for Westeros ended, the Iron Islands began the process of rebuilding—and with aid from the crown, slowly began to show signs of progress. Under Theon's leadership, diplomatic ties to the mainland were established, the Old Way was banned, maesters were allowed onto the island, and thralls were freed as his grandfather Lord Quellon once tried to reform. Instead of reaving and pillaging, the new ironborn were instead sailors, explorers, and occasionally hired as privateers, tasked with carrying out assignments deemed too shady and scandalous for House Baratheon to deal with. Although their actions were critical in the War against the Band of Twelve and did have a seat in parliament, most continued to look down on the ironborn due to their history.

Relations turned sour once Argilac ascended to the Andalosinian Throne and worsened once they learned of their delegate Briala's execution. Once civil war broke out, the Iron Islands engaged in vicious naval warfare against House Lannister and House Redwyne at the Sunset Sea. Daemon heard rumors that despite the ironborn winning their fair share of battles and territorial gains, it was always a back-and-forth struggle—one party gains ground only to be pushed back by the other again. The ironborn were exceptional at naval warfare, on par with the Redwynes and second only to the Velaryons.

"Land ho!"

Daemon, Petyr, and Broden leaned over the edge and saw the Iron Islands. The shore was all sharp rocks and glowering cliffs, and the castle seemed one with the rest, its towers and walls and bridges quarried from the same grey-black stone, wet by the same salt waves, festooned with the same spreading patches of dark green lichen, speckled by the droppings of the same seabirds. The point of land on which the Greyjoys had raised their fortress had once thrust like a sword into the bowels of the ocean, but the waves had hammered at it day and night until the land broke and shattered, thousands of years past. All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god's temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them.

Drear, dark, forbidding, Pyke stood atop those islands and pillars, almost a part of them, its curtain wall closing off the headland around the foot of the great stone bridge that leaped from the cliff-top to the largest islet, dominated by the massive bulk of the Great Keep. Further out were the Kitchen Keep and the Bloody Keep, each on its island. Towers and outbuildings clung to the stacks beyond, linked to each other by covered archways when the pillars stood close, by long swaying walks of wood and rope when they did not. The Sea Tower rose from the outmost island at the point of the broken sword, the oldest part of the castle, round and tall, the sheer-sided pillar on which it stood half-eaten through by the endless battering of the waves. The base of the tower was white from centuries of salt spray, the upper stories green from the lichen that crawled over it like a thick blanket, the jagged crown black with soot from its nightly watchfire.