Chapter 35 32

After cleaning myself up I went to Robert's tent and we fell into conversation. Ned had long since gone to his own tent to sleep. He has a poor relationship with alcohol and goes red quickly. The Wolf was out, leaving the Falcon alone with the Stag. We traded news and impressions, and found that most of them matched. We both liked war. We liked feeling death close and the excitement of battle. And before long I asked the question that had been sitting with me.

"Robert, where exactly did this name come from? Falcon's Eye?"

"Why do you ask?" Slightly sluggish with drink.

"I want to find the man responsible, shake his hand, and then his throat. But let us not dwell on that."

"Ha, judging by your face, shaking his hand is the least of it!" The king found the whole situation enormously entertaining.

"Do you know or not?" He could laugh about this for a long time if I let him. I needed to move things along.

"The name came from your one eye and your skill with a bow." As if I did not already know that.

"Try to tell me something I do not know." And what had I expected?

"Make your peace with it. You would have ended up with a name tied to your House one way or another."

"And you, the Demon of the Trident?"

"That one required organizing a rebellion." Robert attempted to explain. "Axel, I genuinely do not understand why this troubles you so much. Believe me, it could have been far worse."

"I know. But I do not like being talked about behind my back."

"Forget it. There will always be worms. You cannot do anything about that." The king pulled a face.

"Personal experience?"

"The very same. It drives me mad that everyone tries to get their tongue as far up my backside as possible. That is precisely why I was so looking forward to seeing you."

"If someone is licking your arse, do not relax. It may just be lubricant." I delivered this piece of Dornish wisdom with appropriate gravity.

"Pff... kh-kh..." The king choked on his wine, then burst out laughing. "Ha! Dorne ruined you."

"You cannot prove that. You know, what I liked most there were the women. Only a Dornish girl would offer to bring her friend to bed to do it together, 3 people at once."

"Ohhh. Now that is interesting. I need every detail."

"It was one of those cold nights, the wind moving through the whole palace, and..."

…

Using the catapults to breach the gates and take the castle by storm. That was the full extent of what anyone had been able to imagine. A plan as straight and simple as a stick. I could grumble about it all I liked, but it was not a bad one on its own merits.

Though honestly, I could not see how we expected to take the entire castle in one rush. In practice it was four separate castles. The Great Keep, the main structure, where the stone Seastone Chair sat in a great hall capable of holding no fewer than four hundred men. To reach the Sea Tower from the Great Keep you had to cross three bridges, the final one being a swaying rope bridge, and to reach the Bloody Keep you had to pass through a stone corridor. The Kitchen Keep, where the kitchens and servants' quarters were housed. The Sea Tower, a round, crenellated tower at the very farthest end of the former headland and the oldest structure in the castle. The Greyjoy banner flew from its top. The lord's chambers and those of his family were here. I had pieced together the general layout through private conversations with Lord Harlaw.

Day and night the catapults kept up a steady, aimed fire on Pyke, and when the operators swore on their lives that the gates were near to breaking, the king drew up his entire force. We stood by the engines and watched the unbroken barrage. It did not last particularly long, only two hours. Then one of the towers and a portion of its wall came down.

"ATTACK!" roared the armored giant.

By every tradition in Westeros, a ruler goes into battle with his closest companions at his side: the royal guardsmen, the heads of the great houses and their most formidable bannermen. Together they form the sharpest point of the assault.

I stood to Robert's right and covered him from the clever bastards who would not face him openly. I could understand their reluctance to fight him directly. Robert swung his hammer one-handed as though it weighed nothing, while his squires could barely lift the thing off the ground, which said everything about the monstrous strength of the man.

Hell. At fifteen I was already meaningfully stronger than I had been in my Númenórean form , and that was without any magical enhancement. I was afraid to imagine what I might become at twenty-five, and if I kept augmenting myself on top of that, no one would be able to stop me. The gap was visible with the naked eye, and written plainly in the bodies of my enemies.

Cutting down squids with Bloodbeak was a genuine pleasure. I was exploiting one of the advantages of that steel, its extraordinary lightness and sharpness combined. At my speed there was no avoiding or blocking my strikes, and the edge allowed me to kill with a single precise movement.

"Forward! Forward! FORWARD!!!" Robert drove them on, because after twenty minutes of hard fighting the men were beginning to tire, while he showed not the slightest sign of it.

"Give them fury! FOR THE KING!" shouted the Storm's End guardsmen.

"Hear my roar!" The crimson cloaks surged forward after Lannister.

"WE DO NOT SOW!" the Ironborn bellowed back.

The fighting was a pleasure. I was in the front line in the thick of the assault. My blood was hot with the joy of battle. Enemies ahead, their faces twisted with fury. Comrades behind, their eyes burning. The sky. The earth. The castle. All of it filled me with something that could only be called happiness.

One of the raiders slipped behind Robert and was moving to make his play when I took his head off. Robert spun around with his hammer already raised, then saw me and the headless body.

"HA! Well done, that's the way!" We fell into position side by side and killed together. "How do you like your first war?" A poor wretch caught a hammer to the skull and died before he could register what had happened.

"It suits me. At least here you know who to kill and there is no endless talking."

"HAHAHA! You are right about that!" Apparently I was not the only one having a good time. Ned caught up with us somewhere along the way. The three of us gave the raiders no chance at all: Robert out front smashing everything in his path with the hammer, Ned and I on the flanks keeping anyone from coming around the sides.

"Bet you a bottle of Arbor gold that I kill more." I decided to add a little more edge to things.

"YOU?! Beat ME?! Only in your sweetest dreams!" Robert took the bet.

"You two are never going to stop." Ned's voice carried resignation and acceptance, but he started fighting considerably harder.

"PUSH THROUGH!" the king called.

...