The rain came down in sheets, cold and insistent, hammering the deck until the planks turned slick beneath boot with a slurry of water and blood alike. Thunder rolled somewhere beyond the black clouds, and each flash of lightning cast the fighting men in pale white shadows.
Thoros's sword of fire still burned in his hand. The green flames hissed and spat as the raindrops hit them, screaming like a nest of angry vipers. It was a trick, a mummer's bit of business he'd used a hundred times before, but in this gloom, the sickly emerald glow felt strange in a world turned to water.
Wildfire had that power. Even soaked in rain the flame clung stubbornly to the blade, spitting and crackling as the wind worried at it. The light of it painted the deck in bright hues, glimmering on wet steel and frightened green eyes.
Across from him stood a pirate. The man was tall and broad, skin dark as teakwood, the look of the Summer Isles about him. One of his eyes was gone, the socket sealed by a puckered scar. In the other burned a red fury that matched the storm. He wore boiled leather stiff with salt and old blood, and in his hand he carried a curved blade that gleamed silver when lightning split the sky.
"Fuck you, fucking die you red bastard!" the pirate snarled. He came on like a gale. His curved blade whistled through the dark, a silver arc that would have taken Thoros' head if the priest had been half a heartbeat slower.
Thoros raised his shield and caught the blow with a dull clang that jarred his arm to the elbow. He pushed forward at once, grunting as his boots skidded on the slippery deck. Then he lunged, thrusting with the burning sword, but the pirate was quicker than his size promised. The man slipped aside, rain spraying from his shoulders as the green fire passed close enough to kiss his leather.
"You'll have to speak up, friend!" Thoros shouted over the wind, his voice sounding thin and raspy even to his own ears. "By the lord, it is a bit hard of hearing in the rain, especially when the words pouring out from a shit tongue like yours."
The deck lurched with a violent heave of wave that sent a fresh spray of sea over the gunwales. The pirate slipped, his heavy boot treading into the open chest cavity of a fallen archer. There was a wet, sucking sound squish.
Moments ago, he'd been perched on the rail of the caravel that carried him here like a fat, pink cow. He swore he would not fight in this battle. No one even asked him too either. But somehow Thoros still found himself waist-deep aboard an enemy galley, in the sort of madness that usually required a much better vintage of Dornish wine to endure.
The Manderly fleet commanded by the Bastard of Driftmark had come upon the pirates in the midst of the storm from the south, when the sea was grey and the wind howled loudly. The pirates had not been ready as they were deep in fight with the king's fleet. The enemy galleys had been caught in the middle of the water between the two isles like a fish in a net.
And then the fighting had turned. Steel rang across the decks which turned into slaughterhouses. The air was thick with the copper tang of blood and the brine of the sea. Men shouted in half a dozen tongues and a hundred different curses. Somewhere often, a man would shriek as he tumbled into the black, churning water, his cry cut short by the waves.
Thoros pressed forward again, cold rain streaming down his beard.
"You chose a poor side for war," Thoros called out, his voice cracking with a weariness he tried to mask. He raised the green-flamed blade, "The Lord of Light's fire burns within me!"
The pirate spat a glob of red phlegm at his feet. "Fuck you and your lord."
The curved blade flashed again, quick as an adder. Thoros caught it on his shield and felt the impact rattle his bones, a dull ache radiated through his shoulder. The pirate didn't pause; he followed with a low, vicious cut aimed at his knees. He turned with every bit of agility he could muster. The wet wool of his robes slapped heavily against his legs. The blow still struck but skidded harmlessly across his mail with a screech.
Thoros stepped in close. His burning sword swept upward in a jagged arc, forcing the pirate back a step. The green flame hissed where rain struck it. "Have you ever fought a priest before?" He asked between breaths, grinning. "They say it is a blessing and a curse."
The man didn't blink, his one good eye tracking the shimmering blade. "I hate priests," he spat, circling like a shark in the surf, "and there's no blessings, you too, will die like any other man."
Around them the battle raged on, filled with sounds of distant splintering oak and dying screams. A Manderly man-at-arms, his surcoat sodden and grey, crashed into a pirate beside the mainmast; they went down in a tangle tumbling hard across the wet boards. Somewhere behind Thoros a grappling hook snapped free with a crack like a whip and clattering uselessly across the deck as the ships groaned against their moorings.
The pirates curved blade darted toward his throat. Thoros brought his shield up just in time, steel meeting steel with a harsh crack. The force of it drove him back a pace. The pirate pressed him hard now, slashing again and again, quick cuts meant to find a weakness in mail or leather. As the heavy rain ran into his eyes.
Seven hells, he thought, I should have stayed drunk in King's Landing.
Thoros swung his burning sword toward the pirate's head, the green fire hissing where rain struck the blade. At the same time he stepped in close, intent on sweeping the brute from his feet. But the pirate was quicker and he brought his curved blade up just in time. Steel rang against steel, the impact jolting Thoros's arm to his shoulder.
Thoros did not give up, he remembered the clumsy, honest lessons of a hundred tavern brawls he had in this sorry life. With that faith in his experience, he stepped forward hard slamming the rim of his shield into the pirate's chest while his leg hooked behind the man's ankle. It was a muddled, graceless bit of business, made worse by the slick, gore-streaked boards and the sodden weight of his own mail, yet it served.
The pirate lost his footing and crashed down upon the wet deck with a grunt, his curved sword skidding from his grip. Thoros stood over him, the green light of his blade painting the man's terrified face in the hues. He raised the blade to finish him when suddenly another pirate came rushing toward him through the storm.
The man screamed as he ran with madness in his eyes and a short axe in his hand. Thoros turned to meet his attacker but then saw another flash of steel appeared behind the pirate's back.
A soldier in a surcoat marked with the twin towers of House Frey stepped from the gloom. With a savage, two-handed stroke, he bit deep into the pirate's spine. There was a sickening crack, like the sound of a dry branch snapping in winter. The pirate fell forward with a wet gasp.
Thoros spared the soldier a quick, grim nod, before turning back to the man at his feet. The fallen pirate had begun to struggle up, his fingers clawing at the slick wood, his mouth open to shout a curse or a plea. Thoros didn't give him the breath for either. He drove the point of his sword down through the man's neck.
The green fire hissed as it bit into the meat, the smell of scorched flesh rising up in a sudden, foul cloud that even the rain could not wash away. The pirate gave one violent, spasming shudder, his boots drumming briefly against the deck, and then he lay still.
Around him the battle still raged. Rain lashed the decks. Ships ground against one another in the dark water beyond the rail. Men shouted in harsh tongues as steel clashed and arrows hissed through the storm.
The Westerosi had begun to draw together now. Shields rose shoulder to shoulder as the sailors and soldiers formed a rough wall upon the galley's deck. Thoros found himself pulled into the line almost without thinking. A man with a dented helm stepped beside him and raised his shield, while another planted his spear between them. Across the narrow stretch of deck the remaining pirates gathered themselves, snarling like dogs.
Then a voice rose above the storm. "OAK AND IRON, GUARD ME WELL!" Darius shouted.
The Galladon knight stood at the front of the line, tall as a tower in his blue armor. Rain streamed down his helm while the strange starry light of his shield glimmered pale in the darkness.
The men answered him at once. "OR ELSE I'M DEAD AND DOOMED TO HELL!"
The cry rolled across the deck like thunder. Thoros found that it was a queer sort of rhyme to his ears, yet it stirred the blood all the same. The line tightened, shields pressing close. Darius moved one foot forward with his shield raised and his mace held high, the pale gleam of the star upon his shield cutting through the storm. The men followed without hesitation.
They would have marched behind him into Hell itself, Thoros thought.
The pirates came on then. They crashed against the shield wall in a rush of bodies and steel. Thoros braced himself behind his own shield, the impact of the first blow jolting through his arm. He answered with a thrust of his sword, felt it bite, then wrenched it free as the line surged forward another half step.
The Westerosi's were always strange in their ways, he thought as he saw the determination of the line. In the east he had seen men fight for coin, for plunder, for fear of the lash. Here these men fought for heroes. For the man who led them, for some notion of honor and duty towards them that Thoros had never quite understood.
A hero. Thoros cast a glance toward Darius, It seems today I follow one as well.
Darius surged forward with his shield raised high, and his mace lifted in a swinging arc. He ran through the pirates like a heavy tower of blue and iron. Every time the iron head of his mace descended, they could hear a crushing sound. Thoros watched for a fleeting heartbeat as one pirate's skull gave way with a sound like a melon dropped on stone, while another folded around broken ribs as the iron head crushed through leather and bone alike. The rain caught the spray of red, washing it across his blue cloak, staining the fabric dark as wine.
Thoros saw little more of it, for two of the enemies came at him at once. Both had blades drawn, curved steel flashing in the lightning. The first rushed him headlong with a raw scream of terror. He was a young thing, barely old enough to grow a proper beard, but his steel was real enough.
Thoros stepped into the attack and swung his flaming sword sideways. The wildfire hissed as it carved through the curtain of rain, the blade catching the pirate high along the side of the head.. It was a messy, imprecise stroke, slicing clean through the ear and peeling back a great flap of scalp. The boy reeled away with a high-pitched howl, his hands clutching at a face that was suddenly half-gone.
The second pirate was on him before the first had even finished his screaming. He was older, scarred, and far more cautious. He circled to Thoros's left, his blade low and weaving. The man lunged, a thrust aimed at the gap beneath his arm. He turned just in time to catch the man's strike upon his shield. Steel rang and slid aside.
Thoros didn't give the man the breath for a second try; he loped forward with a low and heavy thrust that drove through the man's ribs. The pirate made a wet choking sound, a bubbling gargle of a man trying to speak through a throat full of his own blood. He sagged against Thoros for a heartbeat, his weight a heavy, dying heat, before he tumbled into the floor like a sack of grain.
Thoros had no time to offer a prayer for the man's soul, because behind him the first pirate was not as dead as he ought to be. With a howl of desperate, jagged fury, the boy leapt onto his back. The red priest staggered, his knees buckling under the sudden burden.
A dagger flashed past his shoulder, and drove into his back with a jarring thud. Thoros grunted in pain, the wind of his chest knocked from him as the point met the stubborn resistance of his mail.
The young lad was in a mad frenzy of motion, stabbing again and again with the frantic energy of a dying animal. The dagger clanged against the iron rings and the hidden plates sewn beneath Thoros's sodden red robes,
Then, the steel found a home. One thrust slipped through a gap in the arming doublet and bit shallow into the meat of Thoros's shoulder. The blade came cold and sharp, with a sudden sting that made his vision swim. He let out a gasp of pain and let out a groan.
"Die! Die!" the pirate shrieked into his ear.
Before Thoros could shake him, the man's arm snaked around his throat, thick and corded with muscle, cutting off his air. The priest's sword slipped from his numbing fingers and onto the wet planks. Thoros clawed at the arm, his fingers slick with rain and the blood. His lungs burned, as he fought for a single gasp of salt air.
Bloody hell, Thoros thought as his breath failed him, his vision blurring into a grey haze of rain, A fine end for a red priest. Choked to death in the middle of a sea.
His lungs were a pair of empty bellows, screaming for air that wouldn't come. Blindly, Thoros's hand fumbled at his belt, his fingers dancing over leather and iron until they closed around the hilt of his own dagger. He didn't aim; he simply drove the blade backward into the man's arm once… twice… again.
He felt the steel bite deep, the wet resistance of flesh giving way to the edge, but the pirate only let out a jagged snarl and tightened his grip even further. With a desperate, wheezing grunt, Thoros found a flicker of strength in his legs. He staggered to his feet, the pirate clinging to his back like a vengeful imp.
The world spun, the masts, the storm, the blood-slicked deck and with a hoarse cry of "LORD OF LIGHT!" Thoros threw himself backward with every stone of his weight. They crashed onto the deck with a bone-shattering thwack. The pirate took the brunt of it, the air fleeing his lungs in a sharp, ragged burst.
For a heartbeat, the man's grip loosened. It was all he needed. Thoros quickly twisted round, his robes heavy and sodden. Thoros drove his dagger upward with a savage, desperate strength. The blade buried itself in the man's crotch, sinking through wool and leather into the soft, vital heat beneath. The pirate's scream was a high, thin sound that pierced even the roar of the gale.
Thoros didn't let him finish the cry. He ripped the blade free with a wet, sucking sound and thrust again, his teeth bared in a grimace that was more weariness than hate. This time, the steel found the man's neck. The scream died instantly, replaced by a wet, bubbling gurgle as a fountain of hot, dark crimson poured down the pirate's chest and his hands, steaming in the cold rain.
Thoros rolled off the corpse, his chest heaving as he finally sucked in a lungful of the freezing, salt-laden air. He lay there for a moment, his heart a frantic drum, watching his own blood mix with the pirate's in the deck.
"You really... should have... stayed in the islands," Thoros wheezed, as he looked at the young boy. He looked at his shaking hands, then at the carnage around him. "And I should have stayed in the dungeons."
Thoros struggled to find his feet, his knees trembling like a newborn calf's. He had barely pushed himself upright, wiping a stinging slurry of rain and pirate's blood from his eyes, when the sudden blow came.
Something struck him from behind with the force of a charging bull, a stray pirate crushed onto him, or perhaps the heavy fist of a god who had grown weary of his jokes. His vision burst into a blinding white spray, as the slick oak of the deck vanished from beneath his boots.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing but the howl of the wind and the bite of the rain against his face as he tumbled through the dark. Then the water took him. The cold hit like a hammer, iron-hard and freezing, shattering the breath from his lungs. Thoros plunged deep beneath into the churning gut of the sea.
The roar of the battle, the ring of steel, the screams of the dying, the crack of burning pitch, was swallowed instantly, replaced by the muffled, heavy silence of the deep.
Down he went. His red robes, once so fine and light in the sun of Myr, were now heavy as leaden shrouds, wrapping around his limbs to bind him. The mail shirt beneath was no longer protection but a drowning stone, an iron weight determined to deliver Thoros to the Merling King's court.
Thoros's mind went blank, a white void of panic, while his limbs flailed without sense or rhythm against the crushing pressure of the black water. Up, some small voice in him whispered. Up, you drunken fool. You are a bloody priest of fire, Do not die by water, UP!