Victarion II

Author's Note:

Just wanted to let you guys know that I've posted an auxiliary chapter that details every current Stark, Canon, and OC, and their birthdates. I plan to add the past Starks that are important, like Artos the Implacable's twin sons along with how they founded their brnaches but thats for the future.

Fair warning, there are a few characters that we haven't met yet in the story, along with a couple that haven't been born yet, but just knowing their names and relations isn't really a spoiler.

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[Off the coast of the Westerlands, 4th moon, 289AC]

It had now been a fortnight since the failed raid in the Barrowlands.

The winds whipped salt and fury across the deck of the Iron Victory as Victarion Greyjoy stood tall, his heavy fists gripping the railing as he looked west. His ribs still ached from his clash with the Northern wolf pup, Ser Edwyle Stark, they said, but the pain had faded into a dull reminder. He wore the ache like armor. Each breath was an oath. Each heartbeat a drum calling for war.

Behind him, the Iron Fleet stretched across the churning grey waters. 100 ships, sleek and hungry, manned by 10,000 of the fiercest men the Iron Islands could supply. Their sails were black wings against a bruised sky. Ravens wheeled above them. Ahead lay Lannisport, rich with plunder and ripe for flame.

Victarion turned as boots thudded across the deck. Euron Greyjoy strolled toward him, clad in dark leather and a cloak of cobalt feathers. His eye-patch was gone, and both eyes gleamed now, blue and blue, but wrong in different ways. One was sharp as shattered ice. The other seemed a hole cut into the world.

"Brother," Euron said, voice like honey poured over rust. "You've been quiet. Perhaps the sea has stolen your tongue."

"I need no tongue to kill Lannisters," Victarion growled.

Euron smiled as if Victarion had made a joke.

"But you do to give orders. Don't worry, Victarion. I'll leave the glory to you. You'll have your battle. I've had my fill of lions. I seek richer prey."

Victarion snorted. "You seek madness. You've found it."

Euron stepped closer, and the sea wind carried the scent of exotic perfumes and a hint of rot. "Madness? No. Vision. Our brother Balon clutches old salt-stained dreams, but the world is wider than he knows. The Reach. Oldtown. Even the smoking ruins of Valyria."

"We're here for Lannisport," Victarion snapped. "That's Balon's command. Burn the lion's fleet, gut their pride, and return with fire at our backs. I won't stray."

Euron offered a mocking bow. "As you wish, younger brother. Burn, then. I will watch the pyre."

Lannisport glimmered under the sun as the Iron Fleet descended upon it. Gold and red banners flew over towers and shipyards. The harbor bustled with merchant cogs and fishing boats, their crews blissfully unaware that the kraken had come.

Victarion stood at the prow, clad in plate and salt-soaked mail, axe in hand. "Signal the attack," he commanded. Drums thundered. Horns wailed. Black sails snapped full. The Iron Victory surged forward, leading the fleet into the bay.

The first ship they struck was a galley bearing Lannister colors. Ironborn arrows fell like rain. Grapnels flew. Victarion led the boarding himself, roaring like a storm, his axe carving red ruin through soft southern sailors.

Smoke thickened as more ships joined the fray. The harbor turned to chaos. Fire leapt from sail to sail. The Lannister fleet, caught unawares, barely managed to form ranks before being shattered. Victarion saw a lion-bannered warship trying to escape the bay and pointed his axe.

"After it! No lion leaves!"

The Reaver and the Iron Wind closed in on either flank. The lion ship's captain tried to ram the Reaver, but a great bolt from a scorpion punched through the prow. Ironborn poured aboard. Harras Harlaw led the charge, his family's ancestral Valyrian Steel Longsword, Nightfall, glistening in the sun as he cut down a Lannister Sailer. 

More and more ironborn poured onto the ship, and such a scene was happening everywhere, be it on other ships or even the port itself, as some men had landed and started reaving and burning. Screams filled the air.

Victarion was everywhere, his axe cleaving down a captain, his gauntlet crushing a sailor's jaw, his voice a bellows of iron and wrath. Fires roared behind him. The Lannister fleet burned. Dozens of ships sank beneath the waves or smoldered at the docks.

And as the sun set, Lannisport's harbor was a graveyard of charred wood and drifting corpses.

Victarion stood atop a scorched deck, breathing heavy, his armor streaked with blood and ash. Euron appeared beside him, untouched by soot or gore.

"Glorious," Euron said, spreading his arms. "The lions will weep. But do you hear it, brother? Not just their cries, the call of the deep. The Drowned God is pleased."

Victarion said nothing. He looked back toward the Iron Fleet, now triumphant. His chest swelled with grim satisfaction.

"The tide turns," he said. "Let Balon raise his crown. We have bled the lions. The kraken rises."

[The next day, Iron Islands]

The waves crashed against the black rocks of Old Wyk, but thousands stood unmoved. They had gathered in silence at the foot of Nagga's Hill, waiting beneath the bleached ribs of the great sea dragon. It was there, beneath the sky and the bones, that kings were made.

Balon Greyjoy stood atop the stone steps, the wind tearing at his grey cloak. His face was lean, bearded, weathered by salt and time. He raised a hand, and the murmurs died.

"We have prodded at the North," Balon boomed. "We have burned the lion's ships at Lannisport. And now, I cast off the chains of the mainland. The Iron Islands are free again!"

The crowd roared, Ironborn bellowed shouts of praise and ire toward the Greenlanders as they banded axes on shields and roared in voices of approval and pride.

"Let the Seastone Chair stand as the only throne I will kneel to," he continued. "I am no lord of the green lands. I am Balon, son of Quellon, King of Salt and Rock, Son of the Sea Wind, Lord Reaper of Pyke!"

Tarle the Thrice-Drowned stepped forward, water dripping from his long, seaweed-tangled beard. He bore an old crown of driftwood and seashells. The priests of the Drowned God chanted lowly in the old tongue, and some in the crowd swayed with the rhythm.

Tarle raised the crown.

"Do you swear to honor the Old Way? To take by strength what cannot be gained with silver? To give no mercy to those who kneel before other gods?"

Balon nodded once.

"Then rise, Balon Greyjoy, the Ninth of His Since the Grey King," Tarle declared. "Rise as king!"

He lowered the driftwood crown upon Balon's head. The cheers were thunder. Victarion stood near the front, his helm tucked beneath one arm, his axe strapped to his back. He bowed his head slightly, one hand clenched over his chest.

"Long live the king," he murmured.

Euron stood further back, his smile thin and knowing, his eye glinting like the sea under moonlight.

The drummers beat faster. The Ironborn shouted Balon's name, over and over, until the wind itself seemed to chant it. Balon raised his hand again.

"Now," he cried, "we take the shields of our enemies. The Wolves will break under our might. The Lion will be declawed, and the Stag, the Stag will be slaughtered and roasted for all to see! The green lands will bleed. The kraken does not hide in deep waters. It rises!"

"What is Dead may never die!" Balon declared, "But rises again harder and stronger!" The gathering of Ironborn declared in unison.

"The Greenlanders shall pay the iron price, and their gods will break under the strength of the Drowned god!" Balon roared in such ferocity, it was as if he was declaring it so to the gods themselves

The Ironborn howled their agreement.

Victarion turned and looked out at the sea. Somewhere out there, more battles waited. More blood. More glory.

He could still hear the roar of the flames in Lannisport, and he knew it was only the beginning.

[Next week, in the waters of the Saltspear, the North]

The Iron Victory knifed through the murky waters of the Saltspear, her black sails taut with wind. Fifty longships followed in her wake, hulls sleek and cruel, bearing 4,500 Ironborn hungry for plunder. Their oars beat in time like the hearts of reavers, thumping to the rhythm of conquest.

Victarion Greyjoy stood at the prow, salt crusting his beard, his armor cleaned of Lannister blood but stained now with oil, ready for the coming raid. The river narrowed ahead, winding toward Barrowton, a fortress of the North, nestled in the ancient barrowlands where the ancient Barrow Kings once ruled.

He had not forgotten the failed raid weeks past. Stark steel had cracked his ribs. One had shattered, and he still felt it grind inside him when he breathed too deeply. Ser Edwyle Stark, they said, had died at his hand. It was a hollow satisfaction. Victarion wanted more.

He wanted Barrowton to bleed, to burn to the ground.

He wanted the gates broken, the people slaughtered, and the old stones pulled down into ruin. It was not just for glory. This was personal.

The fleet slipped up the Saltspear under nightfall, dark shapes gliding along still waters. Scouts had returned with word: Barrowton had raised its levies, but not in full. A thousand spearmen within the walls, and townsfolk armed with axes and fear. No cavalry. No Starks, except for Benjen Stark, the runt of the North, one of his targets.

Not yet.

Victarion smiled within his helm.

"Oars in!" he bellowed. The command rippled down the line. The longships slowed.

"Make for the banks. Torch teams forward. We go ashore!"

The Ironborn surged into the river reeds, boots slapping onto muddy soil. They marched up toward Barrowton, its stone walls rising grim and still in the moonlight. The towers bore no banners, but the flames from within cast flickers of red against the grey.

Victarion took his axe in both hands. "We land and rest, prepare the latter and the battering ram. By dawn, we bleed them."

The Ironborn needed no second telling. They moved like wolves through the woods, laying felling axes to the trees, dragging logs for mantlets, preparing for war.

At sunrise, the kraken banners rose before the town, black and gold against the smoky sky. Victarion stood before the gates in full plate, helm under one arm.

"Barrowton!" he roared, voice echoing against the old stone. "You are no castle! You are a tomb! Open your gates, and die quickly! Shut them, and we break them, then take your women screaming!"

A horn answered from the wall. No surrender.

"Good," he muttered. "Let it be the long way."

The attack began with fire. Barrels of pitch and tar were lobbed against the gate, ignited by fire arrows. Shields went up behind mantlets as defenders loosed their own shafts, but the Ironborn pressed in close. Victarion stood beneath a battered oak shield while torch-bearers flung flame at the drawbridge.

Ladders went up by midday, and with them, screams.

Ironborn scaled the walls like crabs on a cliff. Some fell, speared by Northerners. Others gained the parapets, axes biting, booted feet kicking men from the walls. For hours, they fought, wave after wave crashing upon Barrowton's defenses. Still, the gates held.

Victarion led the third charge himself. His axe split a man's skull through the helm. He threw a torch through a murder hole. The gate began to smolder.

A great battering ram, nicknamed Leviathan by the men, thundered against the gates as dusk approached. Victarion, bare-headed now, roared encouragement as the iron-bound oak slammed again and again into Barrowton's heart.

The gate splintered.

Cracks spiderwebbed through the old wood. Another strike, and then another.

"Almost!" shouted Victarion. "Once more!"

But before Leviathan could fall again, horns rang out from the south. A low, rumbling blare. Then another, higher, urgent. Not Ironborn.

From the ridges south of Barrowton came thunder, not from storm or drums, but hooves.

Over the rise galloped riders, a thousand strong. Leather-clad and spear-armed, chainmail shone underneath, Northern cavalry, adorned in Northern furs. At their head rode a man in grey mail and boiled leather, his long cloak streaming behind him like a wolf's tail. His armor bore the direwolf of Stark.

Eddard Stark.

Victarion cursed, grabbing for his helm. "Shields! Spears to the flanks! Hold the line!"

But even as he shouted, a second host appeared behind the riders, two thousand more men on foot, spears and axes raised high, coming up, marching swiftly from behind the cavalry.

They bore banners of the North and of House Stark, but at the center flew three banners, each adorned with a direwolf yet all in different colors; the center one was the Gray Direwolf running on a field of white, no doubt denoting the presence of the young lord of the North.

The other two banners flew flanking each side, one a dark gray-almost black Direwolf running on a field of gray, and the other, a yellow, maybe gold, Direwolf running on a field of turquoise.

Victarion knew not who they belonged too, but he honestly couldn't care less, all he saw was more wolves for the slaughter.

Beside Eddard Stark now rode a younger boy who looked to be around 3 and 10, maybe even 4 and 10, with dark brown, almost black hair and a wolfish glint in his light gray eyes. The front of his helm raised, his face calm, focused. Held within his grip was a mighty northern lance. At his hip was a longsword, and around him gathered the fiercest of the Northmen.

As the cavalry neared his forces, the boy closed his helm, no doubt steeling himself for the coming carnage.

'Alaric Stark?' Victarion thought during the brief moment before the clash, unsure, 'Isn't the boy lord of the North only 10? No matter the wolf pup will be drowned by a kraken all the same.'

Victarion felt a flicker of rage, remembered the last boy he'd fought, Edwyle, and the way he had bled. He spat into the mud.

"Ironborn! Hold your ranks! Don't break!"

The cavalry hit them like a wave.

The Ironborn lines shuddered, splintered, but held. Spears braced, axes rose, men screamed. Horses crashed through the outer ranks, but Victarion's shieldwall staggered, then closed.

Victarion swung his axe in a great arc, cleaving a rider from saddle. Blood sprayed his helm. He turned, parried another spear, then drove his axe up into a man's belly. The ground beneath his feet turned red and black with churned soil and gore.

And still the Northmen came.

The footmen joined the fight moments later, smashing into Ironborn flanks already battered by hooves. Victarion could see the lines bending, curving inward.

As if the Drowned god had abandoned them, the gates to Barrowton flew open, the defenders led by Lord Willam Dustin and Benjen Stark rode out and hit their rear.

They were surrounded.

He turned to his second. "Signal the rearguard. Fall back to the riverbank! We hold them there, make them bleed!"

The warhorns blew again, short blasts of retreat. The Ironborn pulled back, slowly, shield by shield. Victarion stood last, covering the retreat, his axe whistling as he laid about himself like a madman.

He saw Alaric Stark then, across the field, blade wet, his face unreadable. He met the boy's eyes, seemingly able to see through his visor. And for a moment, neither moved.

Before he could attack the young lord, he was set upon by another Stark, this one having the gold and turquoise coloring, 'Same as Edwyle Stark.' Victarion mused as he clashed his great axe with the Stark's bastard sword.

"You squid bastard!" The Warrior roared as Victarion parried another blow, sending the Stark barreling backward with his fist. "You killed my brother!"

They continued to dance as Victarion now knew his assailant was the brother of the boy-man he had slain in the failed raid.

Although the warrior was powerful with a blade, Victarion was winning through sheer strength and spite.

Just as he was about to split the Stark in half, he felt the hellish pain of a mace crashing into his leg, the new challenger, the other Stark, wearing the dark colored wolf on a gray field.

"Ser Torrhen, on your feet! We have a squid to skewer." The man roared, helping the warrior, whom Victarion now knew as Ser Torrhen Stark, to his feet.

"Aye, your words ring true, Lord Artos." Ser Torrhen replied, stance ready for another bout

'These damn Starks keep crawling out of nowhere, were there always this many wolves prowling the north?' Victarion through for but a moment as he caught the blow Lord Artos sent his way, Mace meeting War Axe.

As they were fighting, a dance of death and carnage, Victarion heard the loud call of the horn, the Ironborn were retreating fully, stumbling back down the ridgeline toward the Saltspear. Their siege weapons burned behind them.

Victarion, bloodied but unbowed, grunted as he threw the two men aside and limped toward the Iron Victory. The longships still held the river, black sails defiant.

They had not taken Barrowton. But they would return.

He cast one last look back. Stark banners flew high. Northmen moved among the dead, prisoners were being placed in chains, Victarion could even see Harras Harlaw, the young fool, being led away in chains, House Harlaw's ancestral sword, Nightfall, now in the hands of that blasted pup Alaric.

"This isn't over," he muttered.

He turned toward the prow. The sea awaited. So did Balon. And war.

What is dead may never die.