Flames burst upward. Black smoke shot into the sky. The entire village was engulfed.
Viken stood on the village's only dirt road. The earth beneath his feet had been stained red by blood.
His crew was carrying out the final harvest on the poor farmers.
Grain was roughlyly dumped into sacks. Some spilled on the ground and no one cared.
The few surviving sheep screamed in terror. Their legs were broken and they were thrown onto carts.
There were still a few women, hair disheveled, clothes torn, strung together with ropes like livestock. Their eyes were hollow. Only silent sobbing remained.
Too easy.
Viken smiled.
His gaze passed over the forty-plus fellow Ironborn who were celebrating wildly, and settled on the silent, softly weeping figures behind them.
More than three hundred Riverlands refugees who had been forced into their ranks.
They stood like soulless walking corpses, numb.
Ragged clothes. Yellow faces. Thin bodies.
In their hands were pitchforks and wooden sticks that, against real weapons, were nothing but ridiculous toys.
But this "great army" was effective.
It was enough to scare off any scout who dared to peek from a distance.
It made the nobles hiding in their castles overestimate the size of their force by ten times.
"Too easy."
Viken licked his cracked lips with his tongue.
He tasted the fire and blood in the air. It gave him a twisted kind of pleasure.
An Ironborn beside him grinned, showing rows of yellow teeth.
"Drowned God above, these sheep on the green grass don't even have the courage to bare their fangs."
"They only breed courage in their women, Viken first mate."
The gathered Ironborn laughed uproariously. Their laughter was rough and piercing.
When night fell, a campfire rose in the center of the ruins.
The flame greedily consumed the villagers' furniture and dry wood stripped from their houses.
The Ironborn sat together.
Large pieces of lamb sizzled on the fire. Oil dripped into the flame and sparks flew up.
They drank stolen ale, talking and laughing loudly.
As if this was not human hell, but their victory banquet.
A beard covered man with lice tore into a hot lamb leg and shouted mumblingy, "Those so-called knights! They only hide in small castles and tremble! Their swords are basically for cutting bread!"
He tossed the bone, cleaned to nothing, into the fire. It triggered a burst of laughter.
"At least their women are tougher than their swords. They fight back on the ground!"
Another Ironborn, blind in one eye, heard this and scanned the bound women nearby with his single eye.
He let out a strange laugh.
The laughter grew filthier, full of unmasked desire and cruelty.
Viken did not join their celebration.
He sat quietly beside them, drinking in small sips, listening coldly.
Like a wolf watching a flock of sheep.
He kept analyzing, summarizing the patterns of this invasion.
He had noticed that especially those nobles whose men had been summoned to Seagard—leaving only women and children in their lands—those noble ladies would lock themselves up in their castles like oysters.
They wouldn't even open the gates.
They let him collect Iron money on their lands.
A younger Ironborn, with several fresh scars on his face, looked especially excited.
"Speaking of that," he said.
"These people who grow up on the green grass always like to label themselves with wolves, lions, bears."
He deliberately stretched out his tone, as if telling a joke, trying to draw attention.
"I heard the people of the Riverlands call a certain child 'Black Lion'."
An old Ironborn glanced around and sneered, "Ha! A slightly fiercer one among the sheep on the green grass, and they call him Black Lion?"
"We'll go straight to his land! Scare him until he's shaking! Will he dare to show his face?"
Everyone laughed and chimed in.
"What Black Lion! I think it's just a black cat!"
"A black cat! Right! That's the nickname a grasslander should have!"
"Hahaha! Black cat!"
"Well said! Drown that cat!"
The campfire crackled, lighting up their savage faces in flickering light.
Only Viken remained silent.
The young Ironborn who had started the topic, stimulated by alcohol and victory, had become unusually bold.
He held his cup and swayed toward Viken.
His voice carried a hint of challenge.
"First mate Viken."
"We should learn from that drunkard Rodrik. Take men deep inland and go straight under that woman's castle to show our power."
He spread his arms as if he had already seen victory.
"Just imagine! If we park this great army under her castle, that woman might get so scared she'll run and abandon the castle! Just like that stupid woman at Letryce Castle!"
Some younger Ironborn cheered in agreement. They craved greater glory and more loot.
Viken lifted his eyelids and looked at him coldly.
"Careful, young man. The drunkard you speak of is the crown prince of the Iron Islands."
"Our mission is to create panic and rumors among the Riverlands people."
"Not to attack meaningless castles."
The young Ironborn's face stiffened, then he snorted.
Viken set down his cup and looked toward the gaze that had turned to him.
"Going deep inland, far from the rivers, is too risky. Our ships are moored downstream. That's our only retreat."
"If our true strength is exposed, these forty-plus men won't even be enough to fill the teeth of those knightly lords you call bread-cutters."
His words were like a bucket of cold water, dousing the enthusiasm of the Ironborn there.
"Coward," the young Ironborn standing in front of him snorted. He almost formed those three words with his mouth alone, then turned and walked away, squatting back down among his group of companions.
Viken could clearly hear the hushed mockery from the crowd.
"He's becoming more like a grasslander than an Ironborn."
"Just like a merchant, only calculating risk. The Drowned God will spurn him."
"That's why Rodlik prefers that newcomer Hadwin. He sent him and us off to this small place."
"Rodlik never fears Hadwin's smart suggestions. He's brave enough to stick his sword into any noble castle gate."
Viken did not raise his head. He did not get angry.
He simply picked up the cloth beside him and quietly began wiping his longsword.
The blade flashed under the firelight, a cold, sinister glint passing through his eyes.
His fingers were steady and strong.
As if that sword was part of his body.
Coward?
He was just more know how to survive than those hot-headed fools.
On the Iron Islands, the ones who lived the longest were never the most brave. They were the most cunning.
Night deepened.
Most of the celebrating Ironborn were already drunk and passed out.
Snoring and muttering in their sleep rose and fell.
Viken pulled out a crude map.
His fingers, stained with oil from the roasted meat, moved slowly across the map.
Two more villages to raid.
He had already set his plan.
Follow this river's tributary. Sweep downstream and raid two prosperous villages. extract out the last Iron money.
Then immediately return along the riverbank and rejoin Rodrik's main force.
He did not want to take any unnecessary risks.
That pitiful woman, like a moth trapped in spider silk, could only watch her lands being destroyed piece by piece, powerless.
He, Viken, was the hunter who held the initiative.
He enjoyed the feeling of playing with his prey in his hands.
With his finger on the map, he drew a clear raiding route from their current position to the next village.
At that same moment, on the other side, an army was also drawing a line on a far more precise map.
The endpoint of that line was not Lady Rona's castle.
It was his current position.
The hunter could become the prey at any moment.
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