DAVOS
Even from offshore, the isle of Skagos was the most forbidding place Davos Seaworth had ever seen in his life. And for a man who'd grown up in Flea Bottom, trafficked the dimmest and most disreputable corners of the world during his years as a smuggler, been given a keep on the wind-scoured cliffs of Cape Wrath, gone to the smoke and salt and sulfur of Dragonstone to serve his king, and seen the Blackwater Rush turn into a murderous green inferno, there was a good deal to compare it to.
Davos kept well out to sea, studying the horizon intently. Rocks lurked just beneath the breakers, waiting to tear his hull out, and a pack of seals occupied the bleak bare beach ahead, making such a racket that he could hear it even over the similar efforts of the gulls. Stacks of basalt sculpted the great cliffs to either side, and the crashing waves had carved a cave, a gaping black chasm that made a sort of music with the whistling wind, a savage, skirling air. Further inland, the ice-clad terrain rose into jagged peaks, their snowbound summits shrouded in desolate clouds. Gouts of mephitic steam geysered from blowholes, and crags of salt-splattered schist tottered like old men. And that is not even to mention the flesh-eaters. No one knew for certain if the wildling tribes of Skagos were actually cannibals, mainly because no one ever went to Skagos. But that was in part why Davos was here.
He turned away. "Reef the sail," he called. "Unship the oars. We'll row the rest of the way in, make landfall – " his shortened fingers sketched the spit of sheltered sand between the seals' beach and the sea cliffs – "there. We'll have to hide the boat, continue on foot."
His companion nodded but did not answer. Davos had not expected him to. Wex was ironborn, a boy of twelve or thirteen, who had provided the intelligence which sent them here. But it had all been by pantomime and a few laboriously written words, for the lad was as mute as a stone. Theon Turncloak's squire, and now mine. It made him think of his Devan, in the north with his king. Davos could not recall if Devan had stayed at the Wall with the red woman, or accompanied Stannis on his march. Each was fraught with its own dangers.
As for the fact that Wex could not speak, this was more boon than curse. "It would not do at all for you to be seen, onion knight," Lord Wyman Manderly had told him, just before they slipped out of White Harbor. "You will recall, your head and hands have been mounted on my gate, and for the purposes of the realm, you are a dead man. It will be very unfortunate for us both if that is discovered not to be so."
"I understand, my lord," Davos had answered quietly. He was no stranger to outrunning the authorities, to departing on dark moons and high tides, giving false names to customs masters and port factors. He somehow doubted there would be much bureaucracy to evade on Skagos, but if he did find Rickon Stark and the wildling woman with him, he would have to bring them back to civilization, to men, men with eyes and tongues alike. Davos Seaworth, Lord of the Rainwood, Admiral of the Narrow Sea, and Hand of the King, would be known to many. And Davos Shorthand the onion knight, to more.
But he had no choice. That was the price Lord Manderly had set. "Smuggle me back my liege lord," he had said, "and I will take Stannis Baratheon as my king."
The last living Stark. Or one of the two living ones, at least. The crippled boy, the simple-minded giant, and the crannogmen had gone one way, Wex had conveyed, and the wildling woman and the younger boy had gone another. Either of the sons would serve, so long as he had his wolf to prove his identity. Only a trueborn scion of Eddard Stark could liberate the North from the monstrous Boltons, and Lord Manderly – one of the bravest men Davos had known, for all that he looked old, fat, and feeble – intended to see him placed on his ancestral seat in Winterfell. While my king fights the Boltons too. Often Davos wondered how Stannis Baratheon fared, faced with the fury of the wild. It makes no matter if he is winning or losing. I am sworn to do my duty for him, always. And if, gods forbid, he should be hurt or dead, he would want me to carry on, to press Shireen's claim. Any abomination born of incest can never sit the Iron Throne. At times, it made Davos more weary than anything. To be sure, we overlooked it in the Targaryens for three hundred years.
They were entering the treacherous tide race, and Davos needed his attention on the oars. He pulled one, Wex the other, nosing the narrow currach through the rocks. It was twenty feet long with one mast, built of skins and planks and wicker ribs, a hide lashed over the stern to create a cramped shelter where they took turns sleeping. It had been a voyage of a fortnight from White Harbor, sailing with the coastline just in view, putting farther out to sea if a watchtower was sighted. The currach had proven much sturdier than it looked, even though a freak squall off the Grey Cliffs had nearly swamped it. Not my Black Betha, but not a bad little craft.
The hull scraped on a submerged obstacle, and Davos' heart briefly visited his throat, but they came free and caught a breaker almost up to the beach. Wex jumped overboard and grabbed the bow line, apparently impervious to the cold water. He is ironborn, after all. And seemed deft and quick of wit as well. And even if they torture him, he cannot reveal who or where I am. Davos hoped it would not come to that. He had lost four sons already; no need for him to send another lad to the grave.
The currach rode up onto the shell-strewn sand, and Davos helped Wex haul it clear, a stray wave battering them sideways as they did. The air smelled as it had on Dragonstone, which had the odd effect of steadying his nerves. I will not fail you, Rickon. If his guardian was a wildling, Davos reasoned, she might well have kin here, and thus was not necessarily inviting the Stark heir to become a tasty morsel for some bearskin-clad barbarian. As for their own victuals, Lord Manderly had provisioned them with as much from White Harbor's larders as he could, but it would not last them far beyond two weeks, three if they were careful. After that they'd have to hunt.
Davos touched the sword at his hip. His adventurous life had furnished him plenty of practical experience in fighting his way out of tight corners, but he had never had to live off the land before; hunting was either a nobleman's pastime or a peasant's necessity. He prayed that Wex was a good shot with that curved horn bow he'd brought. In this place, that might well be the difference between life and death.
Resolutely pushing away the thought that the Skagosi might eat human flesh only because there was no other meat to be found on the island, Davos began to untie the cargo lashings. There was a whole plague of seals, to be sure, and seabirds as well. Of the multitude of ways in which they were likely to die here, starvation was hopefully not one, and Davos folded back the hide, then pulled out two canvas rucksacks, one for him and one for Wex. He was already wearing the heavy wraps Lord Manderly had given them: a cloak and hood of double thickness, lined on the inside with fur and on the outside with waxed leather, fur gloves and three woolen surcoats, boots that laced up past his knee, and a fox pelt that could be fastened across his nose and mouth with a bone pin. But the rucksacks held their food, their bedrolls, their flints and whetstones, a sealed scroll, and something Lord Manderly had given Davos especially: a knife with a blade of glittering black glass, seeming to hold its own fire deep in its heart.
"What is this for, my lord?" Davos had asked, startled. "I have weapons enough, and surely this is very valuable – " He had tried to give it back.
The fat lord caught his hand, hard. "Take it, onion knight. I beg you. It could be that some stories are merely stories, but I will not run the risk, not with my lord's life and my own fate at stake. No man can doubt that the cold winds are rising." His eyes met Davos' unblinking, his face grim and solemn as a statue. "Long the Manderlys have been considered to be not quite proper northmen, but we know the tales too. At night, keep this blade on your person at all times. Or the boy's, if he's standing the watch."
A cold chill had run down Davos' back then, and now, just to think of it. He sheathed the black glass knife alongside his own dagger, and checked the sky to see how much daylight was left. Not more than three hours, by his reckoning. Night came earlier each time, especially this far north. Soon, the sun would not rise at all, but remain below the horizon, casting only an uncertain blue twilight. And in a winter that could last for years, men must wonder if they had only dreamt its light and warmth, its very existence.
Another chill ran down Davos' back. Seven save us, how does anyone ever live here? He helped Wex drag the currach into a fissure in the cliff face and heap it over with the few scrawny, stunted bits of brush that were at hand. Then he hoisted the rucksack up on his shoulders, and took a deep breath. "Come," he said to the mute boy, his breath puffing silver on the air. "We've a few hours in hope of finding a sheltered spot for a camp. If we haven't found one by the time dusk is falling, we'll make do. On no account will we blunder on ahead in the dark."
Wex nodded, hitching up his own rucksack. He made a gesture inviting Davos to lead the way, and the onion knight did so. He skirted a tidepool, bouldered up a scatter of glacial moraine, and gained the steep, narrow path that led almost vertically upwards. He and the boy both had to use their hands, and Davos avoided looking down. Although the rock walls to each side prevented the route from being too exposed, it was still a heady fall, and he'd take out the boy on his way.
At last, the couloir opened up and leveled out to an alpine meadow. Monolithic cliffs rose to each side, the last of the sun gilding their spurs a fiery gold, and an eagle circled in the updrafts. Davos could hear running water somewhere in the tundra. There must be a hot spring around here; that was good, as it meant they could potentially keep warm without a fire. Who knew how many far-sighted eyes might already have caught a glimpse of them?
"We'll not find any better ground for our camp," Davos said to Wex, and the boy nodded agreement. They both pulled off their rucksacks, and Davos scouted about until he found the rock under which the hot spring bubbled. The warmth was delightful on his cold face, and he beckoned Wex over to share it. The water would be no good for drinking, Davos knew, but there was snow and ice enough.
The shadows grew longer and deeper. The sun receded from the clifftops, but the eagle remained, wings outspread. A fine thing, to have wings. He could still hear the seal colony faintly from here. Wherever she is right now, whether at the Wall or victorious with His Grace in Winterfell, the red woman will be lighting her nightfires. Davos had to admit that up here, it was easier to believe in Melisandre's Other, the mortal enemy of R'hllor, the Lord of Night and Terror. But her faith had never seemed more heretical to him than it did now. I have seen a heart tree. It will only ever be the old gods who rule in Winterfell.
Davos did not know if the Seven had any power in this desolate hinterland, but that did not stop him praying to them anyway. To the Warrior for courage, the Smith for strength, the Mother for mercy – and also on behalf of his wife and two little ones, so far away, whose faces he might never see again. Lastly he added a short invocation to the Crone. She lifts her lamp of shining gold, and sees our fates as they unfold. Aye, the gods were here, so long as they were in his heart.
It was very dark by now, and the stars were coming out. Davos felt wistful, sad, suddenly wishing that his companion could talk after all. It would have done him good to hear another man's voice in this place. "Which gods do you worship, Wex?" he asked.
The boy pointed toward the hot spring, then motioned as if pushing his head under.
"Ah – the Drowned God?" Davos did not know much of the faith of the ironborn, but suspected it to be as hard and cold and barren as the place which had given it birth. An apt choice for a seafaring people, he supposed, and a man who'd spent as much time aboard a ship as he had well understood the nearly mystical power of wind and water. He did know a bit of their prayer. What is dead can never die, but rises again, harder and stronger. Thinking of that, and the look in Lord Manderly's eyes when he had given him the black glass knife, made Davos shudder. No, he decided, this god is not for me.
He reached into the rucksack and pulled out their supper. It was a pastry coffyn filled with mashed neeps, spiced sausage, and diced carrots, chunks of white lard, and he broke it in two and gave one to Wex. The first bite was so good, it almost brought tears to his eyes. Father Above, watch over Manderly. Lord Wyman had gone to attend Ramsay Bolton's wedding, and considering how dangerous weddings were in the Seven Kingdoms these days – not even to mention the character of the bridegroom – and if he did not return alive, it suddenly became thrice as dangerous for Davos to be risking his neck in the back of beyond.
At last, nodding with exhaustion, he stretched out on the hard ground, and gave Wex the glass dagger. "Wake me at midnight," he instructed the squire. "I'll watch until dawn. Don't let that out of your sight."
Wex cocked his head quizzically.
"I don't know what it's for," Davos admitted, "but Lord Manderly was firm on it."
Wex shrugged, then nodded. He smiled reassuringly, and Davos mustered up a smile in return. Then he closed his eyes, and almost at once fell into a murky dream of seals.
They survived that night. During his watch, Davos found himself starting at every small noise, every changing shadow, but nothing sallied forth to molest them. More than a few feet away from the hot spring, the cold was tear-inducing, and Davos thought he'd frozen himself solid when he stepped off to take a piss. It froze before it hit the ground.
Seven hells. He was relieved beyond measure when dawn came, but surprised and slightly unnerved to see that the eagle was still overhead. Just stories, he reminded himself. It can't be watching you, it's just a bird.
He woke Wex, and the two of them had a quick breakfast, fragile pearly light spilling down into the meadow. Then it was time to choose a new route, and Davos could only see one option: straight ahead, where the ground slanted up into an ice field. There were bone axes and bear-claws in his pack, and while they would get them up the ice, they certainly wouldn't get them up the cliffs.
It was a cloudless day, and the sun was incandescent. Davos squinted his eyes almost shut as he climbed, hacking out steps with his axe, periodically glancing behind him to ensure that Wex was still following. Fool, he's more surefooted than you are.
At last, near midday, they summited the glacier and stopped for a bite; both of them were ravenous. From here, it was possible to glimpse the cavernous interior of Skagos, which spread out to all sides in white mountains and barren valleys. There was no sign of human habitation anywhere, not even a rising column of smoke.
"Onwards," Davos said with a sigh. "How about you lead for a time, lad? I'm almost blind from the glare."
Wex shrugged his agreement, and steered them across the outlay of the glacier and down into a rocky ravine. The snow came up past their knees, so they had to swing from boulder to boulder like a pair of mummers' monkeys. That eagle is still overhead. Again Davos told himself to ignore it, but he had not lived so long by ignoring the bristling on the back of his neck. We need to find cover somewhere. But where? No trees grew here, and the gods only knew where going foraging would end them up.
Finally, they reached the terminus of the ravine, and Davos heard a thundering ahead. As he and Wex picked through the last strew of stones, he caught a whiff of spray, and knew what they would see when they stepped down into the basin. A giant waterfall, some hundred feet high, poured down the cliff face in front of them, exploding into a plume of freezing mist and slicking the rock like lace. The roar was deafening.
Where from here? Davos thought they were traveling in a more or less straight line, but no one could tell him about any villages on Skagos – something he wasn't sure he wanted to know anyway. It was only habit that had brought them this way. If they went far enough, eventually they had to meet something. Or someone.
Wex clapped his hands.
"Aye?" Davos asked, jerked back to attention.
The boy pointed at a narrow stone keyhole some fifteen or twenty feet above. Tied to a rock, clearly hanging down for climbers to use, was a frozen hemp rope.
"Mother have mercy," Davos muttered. The keyhole led out onto an equally narrow path, but one that had clearly been chiseled out of the mountainside by man, not nature. More ropes were strung up along it, providing a more or less safe passage for a strong man with a head for heights. Where it led was another question altogether.
Nothing for it. "I'll go first," Davos told Wex. "If you see anything at all amiss, you should – " Should what? Run and shout for help? "Just don't follow me."
Wex nodded again, and Davos, gritting his teeth, wound the rope around both arms. It would be possible to essay a cautious ascent by leaning back, bracing his weight, and crab-walking up. His shoulders complained as he crawled off the ground, hideously conscious of how vulnerable he was. If there was an archer somewhere above, he was a sitting duck.
After a painful climb, observed all the while by Wex and the eagle, he made it to the top. He let go of the rope with relief, wondering if he'd chafed blisters even through his gloves, and signaled for the boy. Well, it seems likely that we won't have another quiet night.
Presently, Wex's head emerged over the brink, and Davos offered a hand to pull him up. "I hope you have a drop of goat blood in you, lad."
Wex made a rattling noise that might have been a laugh, and Davos was startled; he'd never known the mute boy could make any sounds at all. But it made him smile in return, and he grasped the first of the ropes to start the traverse.
He lost track of how long they crept forward. At one point they were almost directly above the waterfall, and his heart stopped in his chest when the ropes skidded in his hands. He would have taken off his gloves in hopes of a better grip, but that would surely freeze them solid. He kept nervously glancing at the sun. And that bloody eagle.
The shadows were beginning to thicken by the time they emerged in another meadow, this one much smaller and lined with sentinels. They wore strange, rough faces, tooled out of the rock with adze and awl, and they gave Davos a cold, unpleasant feeling. I do not want to sleep here tonight. How far will they let us walk in, before they spring the trap?
He took a step forward, hand falling to his sword. Will I even see anything there to fight, or will I be grappling with ghosts? Or mayhaps –
Wex screamed.
Davos spun around. It was a choked, almost animal sound, not half as loud as it might have been, but it was definitely a scream. And in an instant, he saw why. The boy was on his knees, clutching at a grey-fletched arrow sunk halfway up the shaft in his shoulder.
Davos snatched for his sword, but it had barely gotten clear of the scabbard when something punched him very hard in the back. He staggered, did not quite lose his footing, and managed to get his blade up in time for it to shriek against the stone-headed axe a howling shadow had just swung at him. He could see dark, furious eyes, stripes of blue paint, teeth bared. Blow followed blow followed blow, and then Davos' foot skidded out from under him, a searing pain flowered in his ankle, and he went down, still fighting.
The Skagosi had found them at last.