I'm Theon Greyjoy

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***

The wind was howling, and the incessant downpour made them wrap themselves tightly in their green cloaks, which were covered with leaves, twigs, and whatever else they could find. The woodsmen of the Wolf Forest had done a good job, but John of the Harkley family didn't like woodsmen, especially those closer to the Northern Mountains. And it was unpleasant to use their 'tricks'.

Those who hid in the trees were not happy with the Highlanders - they had been at war with each other in their time, until the Winter Kings came.

For hours John had been lying on the ground, waiting for the signal. The cloak did not offer much protection from the cold and moisture, so under the cloak was a wolfskin and a thick shirt, along with a chain mail and a helmet with a noseband.

'Foresters are much easier...'

His backside ached from the long trek on horseback across the many river fords, villages and plains that swarmed the Riverlands. John hated horses because of one unpleasant incident in his childhood, and so he always stuck to the principle: 'A horse is a dangerous creature that wants to throw you off or kick you'.

His clan mates would twiddle their thumbs, but they didn't pry. Jon was always on foot, whether he was on a military campaign or trekking across the mountains in his native lands. The constant walking made his legs strong and sturdy, for which his relatives nicknamed the then-young Harkley 'Hasty Legs'.

A rather offensive nickname, but so far no one had dared to call him a coward.

The damned downpour irritated John more and more, and the dirt on his two-handed sword resting nearby made him angry. Harkley watched the weapon carefully and attentively, but there was nothing he could do at the moment. One must sit still and quiet.

King Robb had gathered all who could and had the ability to travel on horseback - knights, free riders, and his lancers and Highlanders put on free horses, just as long as there were more. John had the honour of riding not far from the king as one of the guardsmen.

Many guardsmen had died in the capital, along with the Silent Wolf, and his son, Robb Stark wished to rebuild the numbers of his personal guard, mostly preferring to take Highlanders or Foresters as soldiers.

Jon's keen eye could easily see the copper crown with sword teeth, the somewhat plain steel armour, the grey cloak lined with ermine, and the absence of the king's constant companion, a huge direwolf named Grey Wind.

The direwolf raised many questions among the southern lords, and even some of the northern lords! But to Harkley, it was all pretty obvious.

Where the direwolf had disappeared to was unknown to him. It was said to have been seen by scouts somewhere on the other side of the Green Tooth as Robb Stark and his army crossed the Blue Tooth.

They were lucky - the fords had not yet flooded, and so they easily crossed all three of the great rivers in the path of their army - the Red, Blue and Green Tooth. After crossing the Green Zubetz, the army of the North immediately experienced the incessant rains, and their movement slowed down a lot, but they had only a short distance to go.

They set up camp and waited for several days for something, preparing swords, spears, arrows and getting themselves and horses in order after the exhausting horse march.

Nearby, a green something, at first mistaken for a bush, moved slightly. John blinked and immediately realised that it was his colleague in distress, another Highlander wearing a cloak of disguise. The only people hiding in the front rows were foresters, highlanders, and northerners and rivermen with experience in ambushes. At the back, further from the road, there were those who could hardly keep still on the muddy ground without making sounds.

Where the hell were those damned valleymen? John certainly wanted to slice up a few of the brazen Andalian faces and then play bagpipes with his friends, telling them how he had dashingly and gloriously shed the blood of the Many-Faced God's lovers!

As far as Harkley knew, the patrols put out by the Valinians had already been interrupted, it seemed, by the Blackfish. Nice man, John thought, wrapping himself tighter in his cloak.

But then a sound came to his ears that made him freeze.

The neighing of horses, the stamping of many feet on a dirt road through the dense forest from the time of some ancient dragon king. A road wide enough to let an entire wagon through without hitting the side of the road.

Hundreds of riders marched in the front ranks, in three rows past the dense thickets and trees in which Harkley hid. Many banners fluttered with their arrival, but Harkley knew only one, a white falcon on a blue background. The Arrhenians.

Then came the infantry - foot soldiers, militiamen recruited from the peasantry, troubadours, standard bearers, common servants, and many others.

The cuckoo sang, and John realised that it had begun! The secret sign had been given.

Several hundred, if not thousands, immediately stood on both feet and launched everything they could at the enemy - rivermen and woodsmen fired their longbows, highlanders launched stones from slingshots, some northerners made do with spears. A few Myrian crossbows rang out. Robb Stark had ordered that no arrows be spared on the Valinians and that they be killed with any weapon.

They shot from both sides, so when someone released an arrow, immediately bent down, so as not to accidentally receive a 'gift' from the opposite side.

Such sudden fire created a bloody gap in the ranks of the valleymen - John could see whole slashes in the thin enemy formation. The screams of the wounded and dying, the frightened neighing of horses reigned in the Valley army. Moments ago all had been calm, and now a deadly hail was raining down on them straight from the dense thickets.

The horns sang loudly and resoundingly, as if they were a harbinger of death!

John, who had taken no part in the firing, rose to his full height. He threw off his long and voluminous cloak, grabbed the two-handed blade he had inherited from his father, and ran to the attack. The same 'green' tubercles of grass, which suddenly became giants, followed him.

At the random and frequent sound of horns, hundreds of Highlanders crashed into the uneven formation of the valleymen, killing many enemies for the first few minutes of the battle with their two-handed swords. Jon crashed into the ranks of the Andals like a ferocious bull and immediately impaled one militiaman.

A battle broke out across the forest, the valleymen were pinned down on both sides, the lords who commanded the army were dragged from their horses and finished off.

Harkley fought off the lunge of the knight who had managed to survive the slaughter, and with an intricate movement of his double-edged sword struck straight at the Andalian bastard's legs. The legs, protected by steel greaves, held, but the knight went down on one knee, which John took advantage of by striking the helmet with the hilt of the hilt.

There was a resounding clang. The knight, whose coat of arms was emblazoned with five crossed arrows, wheezed.

As his opponent recovered, John swung his weapon and struck again, aiming for the neck - but he swung too hard and struck the helmet again.

- Andalian degenerate, stay where you are! - roared Harkley, furious at his failure.

The knight didn't want to stand still, and tried to fend off the next blow.

Failure. The blade fell out of his hands, and from the powerful blow of the Highlander, the tired and shivering enemy fell to the ground.

- Is it fair? - came from the edge of John's ear.

The two-handed sword passed easily through the hole in his helmet, instantly taking the knight's life.

The battle continued.

John spotted some Norri frolicking around quite well, killing with his hammer. Here was the face of one militiaman, turned into a mess, and here was a blow to the head of a footman, flattening the skull in an iron jar called a helmet.

This did not please the clan representative Harkley - this Norrie fights better than he does! We need to kill more Southerners, John thought, squeezing out the eyes of one insolent ladnik who dared to insult him with his cowardice.

Old Gods be his witness, today is a glorious day!

After the battle, tired and wet from the incessant downpour, Harkley walked among the corpses, looking for any item he liked as a trophy. His eyes were drawn to the many pieces of armour and swords lying in the mud, but his eyes invariably stumbled upon something else, something far more interesting.

Covered in blood and dirt, no one realised the value of this sword. Hidden half hidden beneath a corpse, John had only miraculously managed to find it - a magical sword created by the dragon lords. Harkley had personally seen the effectiveness of this weapon. It even cuts through iron!

John immediately began to wrap the sword with hide and cloth to hide it. The eyes of the corpse lying next to him, pierced with crossbow bolts, seemed to glint furiously, but when he looked closely, he saw only dead, open eye sockets with no emotion in them.

Closing the dead man's eyes with the ravens and hearts on his surcoat, John threw his trophy behind his back, and glancing round occasionally, strode towards the crowd of his fellow Clan Harkleys.

There were screams of wounded enemies taken prisoner. At the moment, a few skilful northerners were tying them to thick trees and nailing their arms and legs together.

The common soldiers were not spared, and the captured knights and lords were taken away to a destination unknown to Jon. To cages, I think.

No one noticed Harkley's manoeuvre and he returned to his kin with peace of mind.

Tonight he will play the bagpipes and celebrate his victory by eating meat and drinking beer.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''"'

Victarion watched with indifference on his face as the ordinary captive sailors were drowned in the water by the priests of the Drowned God. Twitching and constantly trying to get out from under the clutches of the priests, they invariably failed.

The frowning sky, the constant fine rain annoying the Iron Fleet captain inside, the crowd of fellow soldiers on the shore watching the sacrifice, and the captured castle behind them. Oak Shield was a strong enough castle. Had the garrison not been weakened, it was doubtful Theon would have been able to take it at a push.

Remembering his nephew, Victarion frowned. The King of the Iron Islands had led his warriors in the front lines and had been seriously wounded. Without the intervention of his pet, who had torn the defender's eyes open with his sharp claws, the Ironborn would have lost their king.

The king's uncle himself stormed the Grey Shield. As soon as the castle fell, he left a garrison there and immediately arrived at Oak Shield, where he learned of Theon's injury.

Now, as the King's uncle and captain of the Iron Fleet, the entire Ironborn armada is temporarily under his command. The unconscious Theon is nursed back to health by the local Maester, at the risk of his own life - Victarion has promised to crucify him on a 'seven-pointed' wooden cross if his nephew dies.

Victarion garrisoned all four of the captured islands and appointed men from the Iron Fleet as commanders. Nute the Barber, Ralph the Lame, Rodrik Sparr, who had returned from a long voyage to the Lonely Light.

The Ironborn could only wait for Theon to wake up and lick his wounds. Some ships had already left the Shield Islands, determined to pay a visit to the people of the Expanse on the shores of Mandera. Victarion was not holding them - Prostor no longer had a fleet.

The elder Greyjoy could only shake his head as he thought back to the battle off the High Oak - it had been a crushing victory indeed. The Redwyne fleet was almost completely destroyed, only a dozen ships escaping. The Shield fleet was lost with them. Nearly a hundred ships were captured, the rest were sunk during the battle.

His nephew was unhappy with the heavy losses, but such was the Iron Price. Which he told Theon about, earning a disgruntled look.

'There's a price to pay.'

Thanks to the parrot that the king had named Cicero (an incomprehensible name to Victarion), the captain of the Iron Fleet was able to strike his blow at the expectant Spacers. As the battle raged and hundreds of ships collided into a single battlefield, the only thing that mattered was the numbers and fighting qualities of the sailors - the Spacers had the former, but were losing the latter. Needless to say, most of them were afraid to wear armour, content with boiled leather or simple canvas shirts.

A hundred sailors were sacrificed - the priests' satisfied faces wanted to be painted with a couple of blows, they were too annoying for Victarion. But the Drowned God must be appeased with sacrifices so that he might continue to bless them.

Not that Greyjoy cares what the Drowned God thinks. If it were up to him, or if the situation presented itself, he'd make sacrifices to the far eastern R'gor and even to the Old Gods. In his own land, his own god.

One of the priests suggested drowning Lord Redwyne, but Victarion said no. He was too much of a prize, and Theon would be displeased. Paxter Redwyne was captured by him personally and any attempts on his trophy could have bad consequences. For the priests and for Victarion himself.

The wind blew too hard behind him, and before Victarion knew it, Cicero was perched on his shoulder. Though the parrot was healthy, it wasn't heavy enough for him to stagger from its sudden landing.

Instead of raucous profanities, the bird looked at the drowned sailors whose corpses were strapped with iron to let them sink to the bottom. The parrot began to flick its beak frequently, as if in disapproval.

The insolent animal was always hanging around instead of being near its wounded master. Often it was also near Victarion, watching what he was doing.

Sometimes he saw too much intelligence in its beady eyes even for a talking bird.

And it was frightening.