The King of Winters

Chapter-136

Asha

The ceremony began at dawn and continued until dusk, an endless day of drinking and feasting as the ravens from King’s Landing arrived bearing news of Andrew Stark’s victory over Rhaegar Targaryen. Asha had heard the news from Lady Allyria who was almost hopping with joy as she shared it with Asha with great vigor. The Dragons were dead and gone and for the first time in three hundred years the red three headed dragon banner of House Targaryen had been removed from King's Landing, the city founded by Aegon the Dragon himself. And now it was replaced by the direwolf of Stark to hear Allyria Dayne say.

Asha had hardly believed it at first. But word of Stark’s victory travelled quicker than anything. The ships and sailors sailing down from King’s Landing proved the contents of the letter. The city was had been liberated by the rebels and fighting had ceased to exist.

Asha Greyjoy sat picking at the salmon kept in front of her with the smooth edge of her fork. Asha and Ser Garrison were seated on the High Table just below the Daynes. The Hall of Gods looked splendid in the torchlight, it's white marble walls illuminating a faint white glow. Ser Robert Arryn and some of the other Knights of the Vale sat on the other side of the Daynes. Theirs was the place of high honor, just below the Daynes recognising their efforts in the defence of Starfall.

She remembered the day they were all saved from a certain death. Asha had sat on a wooden crate in the yard of Starfall, running a cold wet cloth along the smooth shaft of her throwing axe, all the while watching Lady Allyria Dayne smother her nephew in kisses. The winged knight who had saved them all was beside them, Ser Robert Arryn, and the legion of knights who had come with him waited patiently as aunt and nephew embraced each other after a very long time. She watched the defenders of Starfall who survived the battle holding the gates open as the victors brought in food and loot and prisoners. She watched the lords and ladies, the serving men, Lady Allyria's maester, the strange man Marwyn, and everyone else who had been cowering in the castle afraid of a certain death as they welcomed their saviours into Starfall. Women and children were showering flowers upon them and laying their clothes at their path as they rode.

The smallfolk and the nobles alike had eyes only for the knights in spectacular, shining armour and wings, not for Asha or Ser Garrison or anyone else who had been locked up there in the castle along with them for half an year, fighting for them and dying for them. Of the two thousand men who had taken up arms to defend the castle less than two hundred remained. The rest had all died trying to save the castle and it's inhabitants, including many of her own ironborn who had been her friends, companions, confidants and captains. Instead it was the Winged Knights of the Vale who had saved Starfall according to the smallfolk and the singers. It was carved into the pages of history already as the singers were already singing songs of the battle, of how the Winged Knights were sent by the gods to save all of them from the demons of the east. Asha hated the song.

Ser Robert had also brought with him wooden boxes with silver clasps and hinges loaded with food and provisions. Fine-looking boxes, no doubt, but many of those assembled here in the yard of Starfall were interested on what was in those chests. They had been starving for the past two months once the stores of Starfall had dried up and the promise of food had elated the people as much as the victory did.

And there were prisoners too. Plenty of them at that. After Robert Arryn's  Winged Knights had destroyed the unsullied and the Torrentine had smashed through the siege engines of the slavers, the surviving masters and their slaves had sought to escape on their ships only to see them destroyed or captured by the Hightower fleet led by Ser Gunthor Hightower. The masters and magisters and most of their followers had simply surrendered after that. Some of the mercenaries who wanted to avoid capture had vanished into the Red mountains. There were search parties sent after them and often the search parties found stragglers rotting at the side of the roads or half eaten by the wolves or their bones picked clean by the vultures.