"Kill them," Crow's Eye ordered.
Every longship offered up its prey. Septons and septas captured from the great Septs of Oldtown had their throats cut by the Ironborn before being thrown into the sea.
Even with Oldtown facing disaster, there was still such devout blood for the gods. Some of the old priests had refused to leave.
Only death could bring the Storm and the Kraken, and make the Drowned God and the Storm God rejoice.
"The Storm is coming!"
"The wind is here! The Kraken are here too!"
"Kill the King!"
"Kill the Stag!"
Falia Flowers died aboard the Silence. The beautiful bastard girl became a pale, withered corpse, and brought the howling west wind with her.
Oldtown's west wind roared violently. The Ironborn steered their ships through wind and wave, turning Oldtown into the cruelest battlefield.
The storm shrieked. Even the Dragons found it difficult to adapt to the path of the gale.
Such a great storm was beyond human imagining. A lighter man might be lifted clean off his feet.
The wind whipped the great banners: golden quartered banners, and Crow's Eye banners of black iron and blood-red.
"Euron!"
"Euron!"
"Euron!"
The Ironborn roared, shouting the name of Euron Greyjoy as they waved battleaxes and greatswords.
The Dragon Horn sounded again and again. Its voice was sharp and piercing, loud and deadly, an urgent shriek that made bones tremble.
The horn's shifting cry wandered across Oldtown's bloody battlefield.
It echoed, echoed, and echoed again, but the sound could not drive the Dragons back.
It only left the Ironborn entranced, their blood boiling in their veins.
The Ironborn could naturally hear that the Dragon Horn had failed. It had sounded many times, yet the Dragon swarm showed no reaction. Not one Dragon had fallen.
But the Ironborn had no road home. Balon had once promised to bring them freedom, and Crow's Eye had promised them even more.
Even if the changing battlefield left them shocked and confused, Redwyne's fleet might soon be blocking the way behind them. They could only seize the victory before them first.
Three rebellions in ten years. Balon had raised two, and Crow's Eye had raised one. No one needed to think hard to know what brutal revenge the Iron Throne would take after victory.
"Throw the stones."
"Throw the stones."
"The wind is weakening."
As the Iron Throne's longships formed against the wind, the "Stubborn Stones" from Storm's End were thrown into the sea one after another.
The force of the west wind and the tide visibly slowed, and the Dragons could once more soar upon the wind.
The mouth of the Honeywine was rich with water, and the land there was flat. For thousands of years, it had been the greatest port in Westeros, though in the last three hundred years, King's Landing had stolen much of its glory.
Now the seawater poured back in again. On both sides of Oldtown, the ruins of the city hall, the Starry Great Sept, and other places were full of waterways of uneven depth. Streets were flooded, and houses stood in water.
Gold and blood-red collided.
The longships of the Iron Islands had come too close, and could no longer pull back quickly.
The Ironborn formation was a long-winged array, with the Iron Fleet in the Honeywine and the longships in the flooded ruins on both sides of the river.
Gendry's reinforcements met them in the same fashion. Longship against longship, the fleet in the river against the Iron Fleet, while distant trebuchets howled.
Gendry looked over the brutal battlefield. Randyll and Garlan commanded the left wing, Gendry led troops on the right, and the Dragons circled in the center.
The Kraken also clawed and lashed along the current, but the Dragons did not indulge them.
"Dracarys!" Gendry called for the Dragons' fire.
This was a battle of water and fire, Gendry thought.
Dragons belonged to Fire and Blood, to heat. Kraken belonged to the sea, to cold. Water and fire had never been able to coexist.
When the Dragon swarm saw the many-tentacled Kraken emerging from the sea, they roared in fury.
Balerion circled and descended, rose and dropped, repeating the motion. His spread black leather wings were vast and broad.
Balerion was clad in black scales, with blood-red eyes, horns, and spines along his back. The black Dragon swept over the battlefield, watching for any Kraken that surfaced.
"Roar."
Gray smoke rose from black Dragon Balerion's maw. The black Dragon opened his jaws, and light and heat came together.
Balerion's flames lit the sky. Black-red fire spun downward, blasting longships and Kraken alike.
The other two Dragons roared as well. Dragonflame was a hundred times brighter than any torch.
Vhagar breathed an orange-yellow storm threaded with green, while Viserion unleashed a pale golden pillar of fire mixed with blood-red and orange-yellow.
Kraken limbs and Ironborn alike were burned, and the stench of scorched flesh filled the air.
The Kraken shrieked and waved their tentacles. Whenever one surfaced, Dragon flame swept across it, and even the Kraken began to fear.
"Kill the Kraken!"
"Kill the wild stag!"
The turmoil and shouts rose wave after wave, and men still stole glances at the Dragons flying through the sky.
Hot wind and the stink of the sea swept over the land. The Kraken noticed the Dragons, noticed the terrible heat.
Dragonfire threatened Ironborn and Kraken alike. The Kraken had thick, tough hides, but fire was still fire, a fear buried deep in cold-blooded creatures.
Only the Kraken among Kraken, the greatest of them, rose with the largest rolling wave.
A blood-red ten-armed Kraken surfaced from the sea. It swung its tentacles, and several Iron Throne longships and the soldiers aboard them were sent flying.
All Kraken stood beneath the might of the blood Kraken, and the blood Kraken still wished to contend with Dragons.
"Is that what Crow's Eye relies on?" Gendry thought as he saw the great blood-red Kraken. Its eyes were like a squid's, shaped like a W.
The blood Kraken was enormous, thick-skinned and tough. It could drive waves and fling ships aside.
People said Kraken were giant squids capable of destroying whalers.
But Gendry felt this thing only looked like a squid. It carried the taste of magic as well.
The blood Kraken stirred up a great wave, and its massive sucker-lined tentacles slapped toward the Dragons in the sky.
Boom!
The blood Kraken was met by the united fire of all three Dragons. Balerion threw his head back, then suddenly breathed flame. Vhagar and Viserion followed close behind.
Three different colors of dragonfire appeared at once. The blazing heat could be felt from dozens of feet away.
"Arrows! Loose arrows!" Nute the Barber ordered from the Honeywine. The Iron Fleet's warships had ballistae and small catapults as well.
But the long iron bolts fired by the ballistae and catapults could not hit the Dragons at all.
The Dragons swayed through the sky like goose feathers, their paths agile and ever changing. The Dragon swarm continued to bring death and fury.
Some bolts seemed to catch the Dragons during low flight, offering the slightest chance of success.
But golden and pale-gray symbols lit around the Dragons' scales, and the bolts could not touch them in the slightest. The Dragons beat their wings and flew away.
"These are one-year-old Dragons?" the Barber cursed. "This is fucking one year?"
Nute the Barber grew more and more anxious. By rights, young Dragons were nimble and fast, but they should have lacked nerve and battlefield experience.
Yet these three Dragons looked flawless. If this continued, their only hope would rest with Crow's Eye.
The battle grew more and more desperate. Oldtown had become the battlefield, its ruins strewn with corpses.
The Ironborn had brought the Iron Fleet and Kraken, while the Iron Throne had brought elite soldiers and Dragons.
The final battle unfolded in the middle of Oldtown's ruins, in the square that had once stood before the Starry Sept.
A broad marble square, now flooded by seawater, where longships collided.
It was boarding combat, the cruelest kind of war.
Ship crashed against ship, and knights played the dance of steel.
"Gendry the Breaker, today I will drink my fill of your blood!" Crow's Eye roared.
"Then come."