Euron did not return to the hall. Instead, he went down to the lower decks of the Silence.
It was unnaturally quiet there. Most of the crew aboard the ship had had their tongues cut out.
He pushed open a heavy hatch. Inside was a dimly lit cell.
A figure was chained in the corner, clothes in tatters, hair and beard knotted together. It was his own brother, "The Damphair" Aeron Greyjoy, priest of the Drowned God.
"My dear priest brother..."
Euron said mockingly, "How goes your contemplation down here? Have you felt the Drowned God's guidance?"
Aeron lifted his head. The fanatic fire once burning in his eyes had faded, leaving only exhaustion and dullness. His voice was hoarse and rasping.
"Euron, why have you imprisoned me here? Since the Kingsmoot... have you forgotten the gods' gift? Release me at once! This is the will of the Drowned God!"
Euron snorted. He stepped forward, seized Aeron by his tangled hair, and wrenched his head back, forcing the Shade of the Evening into his cracked lips.
Aeron struggled, trying to spit it out, but most of the liquid was forced down his throat.
"This is the Warlocks' wine, my dear brother."
Euron laughed with smug delight. "Drink it, and you'll see things you've never seen before. You'll see my road to conquest. You'll see how I grind all of Westeros beneath my heel."
"You're mad! Let me go! This is blasphemy!"
Aeron felt a strange heat rise from his stomach, surging toward his head. His vision blurred and twisted.
"Gods? Hahaha!"
Euron burst into laughter. "My foolish brother, I pity you. That so-called true god you kneel before in fear is nothing but a pitiful joke."
Aeron coughed violently. The taste of the Shade of the Evening made him retch, but Euron's words terrified him even more.
"No! I serve the true god, the Drowned God of the Palace of Flowing Waters!"
"The Drowned God?"
Euron leaned in close, madness glittering in his single eye. "Heh. A pitiful worm, my dear brother. Your eyes are clouded by lies and illusions. All the gods of this world are false gods. There is only one true god, and that god is me, Euron Greyjoy."
Aeron stared at him in shock, unable to believe what he was hearing.
Euron spread his arms and lifted his face, as if proclaiming to some unseen presence.
"The bleeding star, the coming of the long night, all things burned to ash. Doom will arrive, and the world will be reforged from ruin and cinders. From endless graveyards and seas of corpses, a new and true god shall be born..."
"You're insane, Euron! Completely insane! You godless blasphemer! You'll be punished for this!"
Aeron screamed in terror, struggling against his chains.
Euron lowered his head and looked at him, a chilling, sinister smile curling across his face.
The next instant, Aeron's consciousness was dragged into an endless abyss of nightmares.
He saw Euron seated upon a throne built from charred human skulls, dwarves dancing in circles at his feet.
As he tried to look closer, the skulls suddenly vanished. Beneath Euron was a towering throne formed from countless jagged steel barbs and shattered sword blades.
Every blade dripped with blood.
The corpses of gods were impaled upon the highest points.
The Maiden, the Father, the Mother, the Warrior, the Crone, the Smith, even the Stranger.
They hung there one after another, alongside strange and foreign deities.
The Great Shepherd, the Black Goat, the Three-Headed God, Bakkalon the Pale Child, R'hllor the Lord of Light, the Butterfly God of Naath...
And among them, bloated and green, devoured by countless crabs, endlessly rotting as seawater streamed from its flesh, was the god he had worshipped all his life.
The Drowned God.
"No—!!!"
Aeron screamed himself awake in absolute terror, only to find that he was still in the cell. Euron was coming toward him, holding yet more Shade of the Evening.
He thrashed wildly, clawing at himself, trying to tear out his own eyes and rip at his throat.
Euron was clearly pleased by the reaction. He laughed smugly.
"See, priest? Your god abandoned you long ago. He can't even save himself. No one is coming to save you."
Once again, he brutally forced Aeron's mouth open and poured more Shade of the Evening down his throat.
Aeron fell into the dream again, and this time the visions were far worse than before.
He saw the longships of the Iron Islands drifting across a boiling sea the color of blood.
Once more, Euron sat upon the Iron Throne, but he was no longer human.
He looked like a monstrous Kraken risen from the deepest abyss, his face sprouting countless writhing, twisting tentacles.
Beside him stood a shadow shaped like a woman, tall and gaunt, radiating endless cold. Her hands burned with pale, icy flames.
Countless dwarves swarmed around them, spiraling and colliding, tearing and gnawing at one another.
Euron and the female shadow laughed without pause, a shrill, maddening sound that chilled the bones...
Aeron also dreamed of "drowning," but not the sacred rite that led to the Palace of Water after death. This was a suffocating terror he felt with his own body.
"The Damphair" Aeron convulsed violently in the real world, white foam spilling from his mouth.
He woke three times, yet each time he found himself falling from one nightmare into another, deeper still, a dream nested within a dream.
Euron watched his brother's complete collapse with satisfaction, then left the hold.
He stepped onto the deck and issued a new command to all the Iron Islands captains and chieftains gathered at the harbor of the Shield Islands:
"The revelry is over. Raise the sails. Attack Oldtown!"
...
While Euron led the main fleet toward Oldtown, Victarion was carrying out his brother's orders.
He commanded dozens of longboats and nearly four thousand of the fiercest Ironborn warriors, sailing upstream along the broad Mander River.
The Ironborn longboats, shallow-drafted and highly adaptable, struck relentlessly at villages and manors along both banks.
They burned, killed, and plundered without restraint. Thick smoke rose endlessly along the shores of the Mander.
The lords of the Reach were not completely unprepared.
Ser Jon Fossoway of New Barrel and Lord Samwell Tarly of Horn Hill hastily gathered their forces.
They joined troops from several nearby lesser houses, assembling a force of roughly six thousand men, hoping to block Victarion at a narrower bend of the Mander.
The two armies met on a grassy riverbank.
The Reach coalition formed ranks with a woodland at their backs. Spears stood like a forest, banners snapped in the wind, and morale was high.
But when Victarion's Ironborn appeared on the far bank, the hearts of every Reach soldier sank.
The Ironborn did not attack at once.
Instead, they shoved forward a massive, dark mass from the center of their ranks, more than a thousand people.
They were civilians seized from riverside villages. Men, women, the elderly, even children.
Roped together, clad in rags, their faces hollow and yellowed, fear and despair written plainly upon them.
The Ironborn grinned cruelly, driving them ahead with swords and spears, forcing them to serve as living shields.
Samwell drew in a sharp breath, his face turning deathly pale.
He had never imagined war could be so ugly, so cruel.
These were unarmed civilians, people he had sworn to protect.
How could he give the order to loose arrows at them?
How could he command his soldiers to drive spears into these helpless souls?
An Ironborn officer rode a stolen, scrawny horse to the riverbank and shouted arrogantly:
"See these people? If you don't want them dead, lay down your weapons right now. Otherwise, we'll dye this grass red with their blood!"
A wave of unrest rippled through the Reach lines. Soldiers looked at one another in confusion, then turned their eyes toward their commanders.
Ser Jon Fossoway's face twisted with fury.
Clenching his teeth, he spat, "Damnable filth. To stoop to such despicable tricks."
Samwell looked at Jon, his voice shaking.
"My lord... we... we can't attack... those hostages..."