The Mountain of Ice and Fire

The nightlife in Ironoak City had just begun when a major incident exploded, spreading like wildfire throughout the city.

Ser Lyn Corbray had been beaten to death by a blacksmith from the Waynwood family.

Lyn's cousin, Captain of the Guard Horace Corbray, heard the news at the Maidenvault. He had been drinking with several women there, and his face immediately paled.

Soon, a group of his brothers gathered around him, twenty-two in total, all from Heart's Home. They were knights and soldiers under the Corbray banner, mostly from cadet branches of the family.

These brothers were all loyal soldiers of Lyn Corbray, and they had all participated in the murder of Lord Jon Royce and his party.

"I heard the whole thing started because of that boy!" one of the brothers said.

Everyone was stunned!

It was hard to believe that a common boy could trigger a bloody incident involving a great swordsman like Lyn Corbray.

Everyone knew of Ser Lyn's peculiar tastes. He only liked two things in life: money and boys.

During the day, Ser Lyn had met Ser Damon of Runestone and his group on Silk Street, and he had taken a boy from Damon's hands. That boy was the blacksmith's son from the Waynwood lands, handsome and cute, his beauty barely concealed by his rough clothes.

"Let's go see the Lady and see how she wants to deal with the blacksmith," Horace Corbray said in a low voice. "This whole thing feels ominous. Everyone be sharp. What if this is revenge from the Royce family of Runestone? If it is, we're all in danger."

The twenty-two brothers all paled!

"A blacksmith, daring to attack Ser Lyn, it's an insult. That blacksmith should be beheaded. No, no, beheading is too quick. He should be flayed alive, piece by piece, like Ramsay Bolton of the Dreadfort in the North, who flays all the enemies he captures," one of the brothers said.

"A blacksmith wouldn't dare to move against Ser Lyn without someone backing him. We have no quarrel with Ironoak City," Horace said coldly.

"Michel Redfort and Little Jon were killed too. How could one blacksmith kill three people?" one guard said, his eyes flickering with fear.

Horace Corbray hissed, "There's no point in us talking about it here. Let's go look at the wounds on the bodies and see how many people were involved."

The guards all agreed!

So the group donned their armor and helmets, hung their swords, and rushed out of the Maidenvault, heading straight for Lady Anya's main tower.

When they arrived, the hall was already packed with people, the line stretching all the way to the entrance. These people were armed with armor and swords, fully equipped as if they were about to go to war. The hall was filled with the Ironoak City guard, the Mountain's generals, and the remnants of the Royce family from Runestone.

Horace Corbray squeezed through the crowd and saw three bloodstained corpses on the ground. Michel had been stabbed many times, with some places having the flesh torn away, revealing the white bones beneath. The sight reminded Horace and the twenty others of Ser Field.

When Ser Field was killed, it was similar to Ser Michel Redfort, covered in sword wounds, deep enough to see bone, a truly tragic sight.

But even more tragic was Lyn Corbray. The sword wounds on his body were relatively few, but his entire head had been smashed like a watermelon. Hundreds of people in the hall had never seen such a horrific death. Some soldiers and servants had already vomited.

Horace approached and crouched down. He saw obvious wounds on Ser Lyn Corbray's abdomen, shoulders, arms, and legs, left by different weapons.

The person who killed Lyn Corbray and Michel Redfort could not have been alone. Judging from the different types of wounds, there should have been at least four people involved.

After examining the three bodies, Horace Corbray stood up and knelt on one knee before the Mountain and Lady Anya. "Your Grace, Lady Waynwood, Ser Lyn was murdered by a conspiracy of multiple people. His wounds show that there were at least four attackers, and they used different weapons."

"The murderer is here. He is my blacksmith, and he turned himself in!" Lady Anya said coldly.

Kneeling before the Mountain and Lady Waynwood was Anya's blacksmith. The bows, arrows, knives, and spears of Ironoak City were all forged by this blacksmith and his team.

"My Lady, this could not have been done by one person."

"You are right, Ser Horace, but our patrol only caught one person. The others have escaped, and it is not yet clear who they are."

"It was Ser Damon Shett, Ser Uthor Tollett, and Ser Royce Cwalt," Horace said with certainty.

Ser Damon Shett – Lord of Gull Tower; Ser Uthor Tollett – Lord of Grey Glen; Ser Royce Cwalt – Lord of Coldwater Burn. The three families were all vassals of House Royce, and the three men and their guards were all present.

"Why are you so sure?" the Mountain said, his voice booming in everyone's ears. "The blacksmith has not confessed to those three men being involved."

"Your Grace, where is the blacksmith's child? Bring him out. The child will recognize those three men. Why would the blacksmith kill Ser Lyn? It started because of the child. The child was in Ser Lyn's room and must have witnessed the bloodshed. Bring the child up here, and I will question him."

"The child was frightened and has run off to hide somewhere. We can't find him," Lady Anya Waynwood said coldly. "Ser Horace, I have heard of Lyn Corbray's vile habit of liking children. I wouldn't care about his debauchery in Heart's Home, but he shouldn't have done something that damages the honor of our Waynwood family as soon as he entered Ironoak City."

Horace felt a chill in his heart. Lady Anya's tone was clearly off. How could a common blacksmith compare to a knight? Even the deaths of ten or a hundred blacksmiths couldn't justify the death of a knight.

"Ser Horace, take your brothers and go look for that poor child," the Mountain said, his voice heavy and his tone strange.

"Yes, Your Grace. We will definitely find the frightened child and have him tell us the truth of what he saw," Horace said respectfully.

"Very well, go then."

"Your Grace," Lady Anya said, "I have already sent Ser Willis Waynwood with a group of men to search the entire city for the child. I don't think it's necessary for Ser Horace to go as well."

"My Lady, more people means more strength. Ser Horace is not an outsider. He is Ser Lyn Corbray's captain of the guard, his cousin, and the aggrieved party in this case."

"Very well!" Lady Anya Waynwood said reluctantly.

"Thank you, Your Grace and Lady Waynwood," Horace bowed, stood up, and with a swoosh, the crowded hall parted to make way for him. Horace quickly walked out, followed by the twenty-two brothers from Heart's Home.

Once outside, Horace said, "Lady Anya is full of hostility towards us. We shouldn't stay here long. We'll use the order to find the child as an excuse to leave the city quickly. We'll only be safe back in Heart's Home."

"My Lord, the Mountain is here. How would Lady Anya dare…"

"Ser Lyn Corbray and Ser Michel Redfort have been killed, let alone us," Horace said in a low, stern voice.

The brothers reached an agreement, quickly packed their belongings, mounted their warhorses, and hurried towards the north gate.

*

The azure sea was very calm, with only the slow, steady beat of drums and the gentle lapping of oars. The great merchant ship Baelarion, converted into a warship, groaned as the heavy tow ropes strained taut, its sails hanging forlornly from the masts, still motionless. Even so, Daenerys Targaryen felt an unprecedented joy as she stood on the foredeck, watching her dragons chase each other in the clear blue sky.

"Tyrion, is the Mountain trustworthy? Would he really surrender Dragonstone to me just because of your letter?" Daenerys asked the dwarf beside her.

"He will, Your Grace," a voice said on the deck. He stood next to the Queen, wearing a crisp, blue-black formal robe, with the Hand of the King badge pinned to his chest.

This badge was of his own design, not much different from the badge of the Hand in King's Landing.

This dwarf, whose figure was easily lost in a crowd, was Tyrion Lannister, the Imp.

"Your Grace, even if the Mountain surrenders Dragonstone, we must not let him go," an old man with a white beard said. His tone was calm, but with an imposing air, and his sharp temperament was faintly visible, like a sword hidden in its scabbard.

"Why?" Tyrion shrugged. "Ser Barristan, you don't understand the Mountain as he is now."

"I only know that he is an evil man who would not spare even children and women. On that basis alone, he must die," Barristan said calmly. "When King's Landing was sacked, the Mountain's atrocities shocked the Seven Kingdoms, and that was just one of his many evil deeds. Perhaps anyone else in Westeros can be reasoned with, but the Mountain is irredeemable and must die."

"He smashed my brother Rhaegar's child, who couldn't even walk, and raped and murdered Princess Elia Martell. I remember that, very clearly," Daenerys said coldly.

Tyrion opened his mouth, but no sound came out. A voice suddenly rang out, interrupting the discussion about the Mountain—

"Your Grace, a merchant ship has been spotted ahead," a lookout shouted from the bridge.

"This is the sea, soldier. We will encounter many merchant ships," Tyrion said.

"This ship is heading straight for us, and its course shows no intention of avoiding us," the soldier shouted.

"Let it approach," Daenerys said.

"Yes, Your Grace!"

Woah, Woah, Woah!

The flagship sounded its horns, and the twelve warships guarding the flagship split apart, creating a wide waterway in the middle.

With hundreds of warships advancing in formation, for a merchant ship to dare not give way but instead sail directly towards them, it must be a messenger ship or a gift from the king of some island kingdom.

The Dragon Mother's fleet departed from Slaver's Bay, and wherever it went, island kingdoms and coastal governors would send grain, gold, silver, weapons, and fodder for the Dothraki horses.

*

Now, Daenerys was surrounded by talented individuals: Hand of the Queen Tyrion Lannister; Captain of the Kingsguard, the fearless Barristan Selmy; personal guard, Jorah Mormont the Great Bear; Master of Whisperers, the Spider Varys; Asha and Theon of the Iron Islands, and Victarion, Commander-in-Chief of the Iron Fleet.

Three bloodriders: Jhogo, Daenerys's ko and bloodrider, who wielded a whip; Aggo, a famous archer on the Great Grass Sea, who possessed the priceless dragonbone bow, which Daenerys gave to Aggo when she hatched the dragons and appointed him as her ko and bloodrider; Rakharo, Daenerys's ko and bloodrider, who wielded a knife.

The Unsullied. The commander of the legion was Grey Worm, and the deputy commander was Hero. The Unsullied were a renowned elite infantry legion made up of castrated Astapor slaves who had undergone devilish training, with a total strength of approximately 8,000 men.

The leaders of the three mercenary companies: Daario Naharis, leader of the Stormcrows, with a total strength of about 500 riders, who defected to Daenerys during the siege of Yunkai. A flamboyant Tyroshi mercenary, and also a suitor of Daenerys.

The leader of the Second Sons was Brown Ben Plumm. The legion had a total strength of about 500 men, and surrendered to Daenerys after being defeated during the siege of Yunkai. Ben Plumm claimed to have Targaryen blood and was very loyal to Daenerys.

The leader of the Windblown was the Tattered Prince. The legion had a total strength of about 2,000 men. During the siege of Meereen, he could not tolerate the corruption and incompetence of the Yunkai army's command and accepted Barristan's persuasion to defect, on the condition that Daenerys would help him conquer Pentos in the future to avenge past grievances. An exiled Pentoshi nobleman.

*

In Daenerys's powerful warship fleet, Asha was in charge of the vanguard, Victarion was in charge of the center, and Theon was in charge of the rear.

Although the sea was calm, almost no Dothraki could be seen on the decks of the various warships.

The Queen's Dothraki called the ocean poison water, and any liquid that horses could not drink was unclean. The expressions on their faces when hundreds of ships set sail from Slaver's Bay were as if they were heading to hell, not sailing to Pentos. Her young and brave bloodriders stared at the shrinking coastline, their eyes wide and white, but each was determined not to show fear in front of the others. Her handmaidens Irri and Jhiqui had no such qualms, clinging to the railings for dear life, vomiting even at the slightest bump.

The rest of Daenerys's small khalasar stayed below deck, preferring the company of the nervous horses to seeing this terrible world without land. Six days into the voyage, they encountered a sudden storm, and she heard the sounds from below deck through the hatches: horses kicking and neighing, and riders praying in soft, trembling voices. This was met with great ridicule from the ironborn of the Iron Islands. To this end, after ten days of sailing, very violent battles broke out simultaneously on several warships one night. After paying the price of dozens of lives, Daenerys ordered the Dothraki and ironborn to be separated, and ordered that anyone who engaged in fighting would be executed, and the generals would be exiled.

But no storm could frighten Daenerys, whose title was Stormborn. When she was born crying on the distant Dragonstone, the greatest storm in Westerosi history raged at sea at the same time.

Storms were frequent on the Narrow Sea, and Daenerys had crossed it dozens of times in her childhood, fleeing from one Free City to another, always just a step ahead of the Usurper's assassins. In the process, she had come to love the sea. She loved the stinging salt smell in the air, the endless expanse of water beneath the sky. It made her feel small, yet free.

On the sea, she loved the dolphins that swam alongside the *Balerion*, piercing the waves like silver javelins, and she loved the flying fish she glimpsed from time to time. She loved the sailors, their songs and their stories. As Daenerys grew stronger, she would sometimes think of one person on the sea: her brother, Viserys Targaryen.

If her brother had been more sensible, more patient, it should be him, not her, sailing west to reclaim the Iron Throne. Though she knew Viserys was foolish and cruel, sometimes she couldn't help but miss him—not the cruel and weak victim, but the boy who used to tell her stories of the Seven Kingdoms in their childhood, the king who painted a picture of a beautiful life after ascending the throne.

"Your Grace, a merchant ship is approaching," Ser Jorah Mormont said.

Daenerys snapped back to reality and said, "Allow them to come alongside."