Chapter 190: The Squishers of Crackclaw Point
Rhaegar Targaryen was quite satisfied with his plan to lure the snake out of its hole. It was a straightforward yet effective strategy.
He thought back to the bodies of the two assassins.
They had truly been paupers. Aside from poison, daggers, and a concealed poison tooth, they possessed nothing of value. Each assassin carried a soft black tooth filled with deadly toxin; biting down on it caused rapid suffocation. No useful information could be extracted from dead men. Their identities in Rosby had merely been fabricated disguises used to infiltrate Westeros.
Rhaegar concluded that the Sorrowful Men truly deserved their reputation as the weakest among the three great assassin organizations.
If he had encountered Faceless Men or Shadowbinders instead, they would likely have carried stranger tools or traces of magic. These assassins from Qarth, however, had merely murdered two isolated smallfolk in Rosby and stolen their identities. Their timing and methods had seemed crude in Rhaegar's eyes.
If they had truly been exceptional assassins, Ser Barristan would never have managed to save Daenerys Targaryen in the future.
Even so, their professionalism was undeniable. Their clothing, bodies, and belongings revealed absolutely nothing about their employers.
Rhaegar decided to let Barristan continue investigating the mastermind behind the assassination attempt.
"The Sorrowful Men…" Rhaegar mused.
Qarth was known as the greatest trade city in the world, and its merchants traveled across all the Free Cities. The wealthy powers of Lys and Myr could certainly contact the Sorrowful Men with ease. Compared to the impossibly expensive Faceless Men, the assassins of Qarth were far more affordable.
"Organizations like this shouldn't even exist," Rhaegar thought coldly.
Given enough time, he could destroy them with dragons and armies alike. But for now, hunting assassins across the world was less important than baiting the true enemy into revealing itself.
Barristan handled matters meticulously.
Rhaegar instructed him to seal off all news from Rosby, control movement in and out of the area, and ensure absolute secrecy. Since relatively few people had witnessed the assassination attempt, containing the story was possible.
Meanwhile, Rhaegar himself publicly flew to Dragonstone atop his dragon, while Lord Gyles Rosby hurried to King's Landing to "confess his failure." These actions only deepened the mystery surrounding the assassination attempt.
The uncertainty would leave the powers of Lys and Myr unable to determine how badly Rhaegar had been affected.
Power itself always contained an element of gambling.
Rhaegar was gambling that greedy people would reveal themselves first. Better yet, he hoped many enemies would emerge together, allowing him to crush them all in one decisive blow.
If the other side chose to tear up the peace and reignite war, then Rhaegar would retaliate without mercy.
His strategy was simple:
First, completely destroy one enemy faction before allowing multiple fronts to form.
Trying to fight enemies in every direction at once—north, south, east, and west—was madness. The wisest course was to annihilate one threat entirely before turning toward the next.
For now, the Three Daughters were the ideal target.
Once Lys and Myr were utterly broken and Ghoyan Drohe fully established along the Rhoyne, Rhaegar would be in a much stronger position to face Braavos and the Dothraki.
"Do not disappoint me, Lys and Myr," Rhaegar thought.
If the fleets of the Three Daughters could be shattered or captured, then Lys and Myr would become venomous snakes without fangs. Their land armies were mediocre; their true strength lay in naval power.
Should they openly betray the treaty, Rhaegar's "mercy" would be simple:
Reduce them to the same crippled condition as Pentos, forbidden from maintaining more than twenty warships.
And with dragons, even Volantis could be bribed into supporting him.
Rhaegar had not chosen war.
War had chosen him.
—
Rhaegar rode the Silver Dragon across the skies of the Crownlands.
The silver beast led the other two dragons in a broad arc over land, passing Rosby, Duskendale, and Crackclaw Point before finally heading toward Dragonstone.
The dragons' flight brought light and heat to the land below.
The Silver Dragon now possessed a wingspan of nearly fifty feet, while the other two dragons measured slightly smaller at around forty-seven or forty-eight feet.
The Silver Dragon gazed down upon the world with molten-gold eyes.
Its gleaming silver scales resembled polished armor or a king's silver crown. Silver was noble, splendid, and radiant.
Its enormous leathery wings beat like thunder in the heavens.
Behind it flew the black dragon and the purple dragon, soaring through clouds like living storms.
From the sky, Rhaegar saw the prosperous town of Duskendale.
Compared to Rosby, Duskendale was wealthier and busier. Rhaegar immediately considered extending the new black road from Rosby to Duskendale next. Rosby already served as a shortcut between routes, making such a project extremely valuable.
Soon afterward, the dragons flew northeast toward Crackclaw Point.
The contrast was immediate.
Unlike the prosperous lands around Rosby and Duskendale, Crackclaw Point was barren and harsh. Located on the northeastern edge of the Crownlands, it jutted into the Narrow Sea between Blackwater Bay and the Bay of Crabs.
The peninsula was filled with swamps, pine forests, cliffs, and hills.
The blood of the First Men still ran strongly through the people there.
The three defining features of Crackclaw Point were simple:
Hills
Forests
Swamps
Only the local clans truly understood the terrain. They hid within caves in the hills and watched invaders drown in bogs or bleed in narrow valleys. In many ways, the men of Crackclaw Point resembled the Dornish in their stubbornness and familiarity with harsh land.
From above, Rhaegar saw endless pine forests stretching like ranks of silent green soldiers.
Though poor and barren, Crackclaw Point was fiercely loyal to House Targaryen.
Queen Visenya Targaryen herself had subdued the region centuries ago and made its lords direct vassals of the Iron Throne. Since then, the crackclawmen had remained remarkably loyal to the dragons.
Rhaegar valued such loyalty greatly.
He intended to recruit heavily from among them in the future.
He continued flying above swamps, ponds, caves, ancient ruins, and abandoned watchtowers.
Eventually, the dragons descended upon the ruins of Whispering Sound, an abandoned castle perched atop cliffs overlooking the sea.
It lay very close to Dragonstone.
The ruined fortress had been abandoned for centuries. Built from ancient unmortared stone, every block looked different from the next. Thick moss filled the cracks, while trees sprouted through collapsed walls.
Like many ancient castles, it still possessed a godswood.
One cliffside wall had collapsed entirely, leaving only rubble covered in poisonous red vines. Fifty feet below, waves crashed endlessly against a ruined lighthouse beside a dark sea cave.
Rhaegar remembered the legends surrounding the castle.
The sea had hollowed tunnels beneath the cliffs, and when waves passed through them, strange whispering sounds echoed throughout the ruins. Thus the castle's name.
There were also old tales of Ser Clarence Crabb battling monsters from the sea.
Rhaegar ventured deeper into the abandoned ruins.
Nature had reclaimed the castle completely.
Rotting wooden gates hung broken from their hinges. Damp timber peeled apart everywhere, while green shadows filled the ruins beneath the encroaching forest.
Then suddenly—
Rhaegar froze.
The dragons seemed deeply disturbed by something nearby.
Rhaegar immediately mounted the Silver Dragon and rose above the trees until he spotted movement near the cliffs below.
A dark shape.
A disgusting black figure.
Rhaegar narrowed his eyes.
The creature's skin was pale and slick, carrying a strong fishy odor even from a distance.
It emerged from the ruins near the sea and moved toward the ruined lighthouse with an awkward squishing gait.
At that moment, Rhaegar realized the truth.
The legends were real.
Squishers truly existed.
According to ancient stories, squishers resembled humans at first glance, but closer inspection revealed their monstrous features.
Their heads were too large.
Instead of hair, scales covered their flesh.
Their swollen lips concealed rows of sharp green teeth.
Their skin was pale like the belly of a dead fish.
Their fingers and toes were webbed.
Their bodies were always wet and reeked of the sea.
And when they walked, their webbed feet made a soft squishing sound against the ground.
That was how they earned their name.
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