Interlude Twenty Nine

Sixth day, Sixth Moon, 264 AC (+947 days)

He scurried from shadow to shadow as he crept along the unlit corridor. The damp was heavy in the air, and he could hear the storm raging in the distance, but it would have little to do with his work tonight. Tonight – tonight was a night to be remembered.

It would be a great signal that would bring suffering on those who had wronged us. Those who stepped on us; suffocated us; starved us.

But no longer – for we were many, and we had friends – tools as well. As we had been used, we will use others. If the guard managed to survive the night, would he realize what he had done? Not just this night, but for his entire life? The food taken and the cruelty unleashed?

Doubtful, but he could hardly complain about the guard's stupidity – after all, it had gotten him inside this night.

Everything had fallen into place - just as it should. The Drowned God was with him. The stores had been replenished and were simply waiting for him inside Pyke. It would have been easy to steal food for his family – if any of them had still lived.

He swallowed the bitter feeling down and entered the storage room proper. There was no light down here for safety, but that hardly mattered. For all their talk of being the best, of being better than Greenlanders, this castle was nothing special. In his youth, he had sailed far and sacked many Essosi keeps and palaces, and he had always triumphed on their stupidity. This castle held the same stupidity.

He lowered the small barrel he had been carrying onto the ground and opened it up. He couldn't see it, but the smell was pungent and distinct - whale oil, tar, and the sap from a tree supposedly from Sothoryos. It was a good smell tonight, though; it was the smell of victory and retribution.

Given nothing and allowed to take nothing. Food was gone, and no work to be had. Boats were plenty but none for the likes of us. Suffer in silence or be cut down like dogs.

If someone was lucky enough to work, they might be fed, but only as long as they could feed the lords and captains first – and their entire families. Of your family? They are already dead; you just don't know it yet. Thralls for them and hunger for you.

Decry the gold price but use it all the same. Iron price. Iron price. But no iron price for you. No, if those thoughts race around your head, you get beaten to the ground. No gold, no iron, no nothing.

But no longer. The people had risen and been beaten back down. But they were not done yet.

On one knee, they still held firm, and now it was the moment.

This was not how it was supposed to be done, but he spit on those who lacked the imagination. For what was an Ironborn without imagination? Without the ability to take? For that's what this was.

He was taking back his dignity. He was taking his revenge. He was taking victory.

The stupidity of these men who claimed to rule us. Supplies kept in the same place to protect them from us, so that they can have what we cannot. Wood and food piled high in their cruelty. Oil and tar so we remain blind and landbound. All secure. All tucked away nicely. Together.

He tossed the flour all across the room until the air was so thick with it, it became hard to breathe. He stuck his flint.

The lords and their cruelty took his family, but still, they want more. Their stupidity shall give them what they crave. Light shall be theirs; warmth shall be theirs; their names will live in history!

As those who lost it all.