Nerd In the North 5-14

The Onion Knight stood on the eastern ramparts, salt wind cutting through Davos’ woolen cloak as it did every morning. Below, gulls noisily dove at the corpse-meat scattered across the black rocks, and as it had these past few days, the smell rose with the tide, the familiar stench of iron and rot. Three days since the kraken died.

Three days since King Stannis cut through scale and tentacle like so much parchment.

Boot leather scraped stone behind him but Davos didn't bother to turn as he knew the sound well enough already. "His Grace calls for you, Ser Davos. The courtyard." 

Davos nodded, not trusting his voice yet. Words had weight, and he had yet to measure much these days. "Aye."

The descent down stone steps worn smooth by centuries of Targaryens felt like walking into the belly of some great beast. Each footfall echoed off black walls, sound swallowed by morning mist that clung to everything like wet wool. The courtyard held maybe five and sixty prisoners, kneeling in rows neat as any sept. 

Guards ringed them; each one steel drawn, faces stone, breath misting in the chill.

Stannis waited at the center, golden sword naked in his grip.

The blade hummed with light that didn't ease one’s mood, or flicker with warmth, not like candle-light..

Nay, it just was, like sunrise or tide or the weight of truth. His Grace stood straight-backed, jaw set like an anchor chain under strain. The red silk of his doublet caught what little sun pierced the mist, and the crowned stag on his chest seemed to watch the prisoners with eyes of gold thread. He looks rested. Like he slept sound after killing that sea-beast with his bare hands.

Davos took his place three paces behind and left, boots finding the grooves worn into stone by countless servants who'd stood where he stood now. Close enough to hear commands, far enough to stay clear of the sword's work. This is where I stand. This is what I do. Watch. Remember. Serve.

The first prisoner was dragged forward by two guards in mail that clinked like ship's bells. A young man, he was, with the lean build of a ship's rigger and rope burns on his palms. His hair hung lank with salt and sweat, and his clothes stank of bilge water and piss, neither of which had yet to dry somehow.

"Name yourself," Stannis commanded the first of the prisoners to be judged, those who survived and failed to retreat with their sea-worshipping priest.

The young Ironborn lifted his head, salt-crusted hair falling back from a face that might've been handsome before three days in chains had hollowed it out. "Quellon Drumm, Your Grace. Son of Donnel Drumm."

The accent came thick as tar, as his hands shook. The man’s eyes darted once toward the sea, like he thought he might still hear the Drowned God's voice in the crash of waves.

Stannis raised the golden blade, light catching on its edge like trapped lightning. "Quellon Drumm. You sailed under the banner of Aeron Damphair. You raised arms against the rightful king of Westeros. You worship false gods and sacrifice your fellow man for power."

Each word fell like a hammer blow, measured and final. The king's voice never wavered, never hurried, they just carved the charges into the morning air like words into stone.

Davos watched the boy's face change as understanding crept in. He thought there'd be trial. Thought surrender meant chains, not graves.

"Your Grace," Quellon said, voice cracking in a way that Davos would have expected of one five years younger than him. "I threw down my axe. I surrendered to your men. Never even stepped off the ship, I did."

"I have never once known yielding to wash away the taint of heresy," Stannis replied without pause. The sword rose higher, catching more light. "The Father demands justice."

The blade descended in one clean stroke with no more words to accompany it.

Just steel through neck, quick and sharp as gutting fish. Blood pooled on black stone, steam rising in the cold air like candle smoke. The head rolled three feet before stopping against a guard's boot. Quick, at least. Cleaner than drowning.

Stannis turned to the guards, gold-bright blade still humming in his grip. "Next,” the king spoke, voice unchanged, flat as a pond’s surface.

The second prisoner: an older woman with gray braids thick as ship's rope and arms that spoke of years hauling nets. She walked to the block under her own power, chin high despite the chains.

"Mya Sunderly of the Maiden's Kiss," she said, naming ship and self in one breath as she met the eyes of the true king without flinching. "I know what I am, y'bald bastard. Get on with it."

The sword took her head as cleanly as the first and Iron blood mixed with Iron blood.

Third came a boy who couldn't be more than five and ten, beard just starting to shadow his cheeks. He wept openly, called for his mother in between sobs. Stannis recited the same charges in the same flat tone.

The golden blade fell again, unmoved by tears or pleas. 

Davos counted the dead as they fell, each number settling in his chest.

Five. 

Ten. 

Five and ten. 

The pile grew beside the chopping block, limbs tangled like driftwood as blood flowed in thickening channels between the stones, seeking the sea the way it always did.

Storm's End, he thought, memory rising unbidden. We held that castle near a year, and Stannis took prisoners then. Questioned them. Made use of them where he could. The recollection tasted of stale bread and turnip stew, of watching the king's younger brother pace the battlements like a hungry dog. He was harder then, even as a boy but not... 

Davis.

A woman tried to run when her turn came, breaking from the guards with strength that surpassed even two grown men. She mustered three strides, fleet of foot as she was strong of arm, before the strength of three tackled her to the stones, her thrashing strong enough to bruise and dark blood, thick as fish guts, spilled from her mouth. They dragged her back to the block, and she spat curses in a thick foul voice, barely human in actions or speech, until they forced her to kneel.

Stannis waited, patient as tide, until she was positioned properly, entirely uncaring of the inhumanity on display as if the woman was no different than all those who came before her, all those who currently looked at her with fear. Then he spoke his charges; the same words, the same tone, like the prayer of a septon. The sword fell and so did the curses with it.

A guard leaned close to Davos' shoulder, voice barely above a whisper. "Ser Davos, there's near forty left. Sun's climbing high."

Davos nodded, eyes fixed on his king's back as the golden sword never dulled its work, its glow not even dimming in the slightest. Each stroke cut clean through bone and sinew, leaving edges that might've been polished by a master smith. No chips in the edge, no blood staining the metal.

Nay, it shed gore like water off oiled leather.

Another prisoner. Another name. Another clean death.

Stannis called for the next with the same authority he'd carried when this began. Just duty being done, no fatigue, no ache, nothing so human. The king’s shoulders stayed square, and his stance never shifted.

Not a bit. 

Not as the crowned stag on his chest watched it all with golden eyes.

He could do this all day, Davos realized, the thought settling cold in his belly. For a fortnight, even. Until every Ironborn in the Seven Kingdoms knelt for his blade.

A girl was brought forward, maybe six and ten, with the lean frame of a boy and hands that knew rope work. Her dark hair hung in salt-stiff tangles, and the rough-spun tunic she wore had seen better storms. 

"Mya Blacktyde. I... I just carried messages, Your Grace." Her voice broke on the words, tears cutting tracks through the grime on her cheeks. "Please. I ain't ever killed no one. I just ran letters between ships."

The desperation in her voice settled wrong in Davos's chest as she knelt there with hands bound behind her back, shoulders shaking with more than cold. Just carried messages.

Stannis began his recitation, voice flat as still water. "Mya Blacktyde. You sailed under the banner of Aeron Damphair."

The girl sobbed, shoulders convulsing from the force of her cries. Her bound hands twisted against the rope, and Davos could see the raw marks where she'd fought to free herself from her bindings over the past days in the dungeons of Dragonstone..

"You raised arms against the rightful king of Westeros."

Davos’ maimed hand twitched, phantom fingers curling into a fist that would never be. Memory rose unbidden; Stannis in the sept at Storm's End, twenty years younger, cutting the fingers from a smuggler's hand with careful precision. "You broke the law," he'd said then. "But you saved my life. A man must pay his debts."

Davos stepped forward without thinking, boots scraping stone loud enough to cut through the morning air. "Your Grace."

His voice came rough with salt and years, worn smooth by the past two decades of service. The courtyard fell silent as a tomb. Guards shifted, hands moving to hilts with the soft whisper of leather on steel. Prisoners looked up with desperate hope blooming in their hollow faces, like men glimpsing shore on the horizon.

Stannis paused, golden sword held high above the girl's neck. The blade hummed with its own light, casting shadows that danced like flames across the black stone. His Grace turned, blue eyes cold as winter sea, and fixed Davos with a stare that could freeze blood.

"Speak, Davos."

The name carried warning and he heard it without anything else being spoken. Be careful with your words, Onion Knight. "She's just a child, Your Grace. A messenger."

Stannis lowered the sword but didn't sheath it. "She served enemies of the crown. She worships the Drowned God. Her age does not absolve her of treason." Each word carved from certainty, voice like grinding stone. The king's jaw worked once.

Davos took another step forward, close enough now to smell the iron tang of blood that had soaked into the stones. Careful. "Your Grace, mercy is also justice. The Father teaches—"

"Do not presume to teach me what the Father teaches." Stannis's voice boomed with sound beyond what lungs could bring forth, echoing off the castle walls like thunder before a storm. 

The girl looked between them, hope and terror warring in her face like wind fighting tide. She'd stopped crying, but her lips moved in what might have been prayer. To which god? The Drowned God of the ironborn, or the Father that burned bright in golden steel?

"Please," she whispered. "I'll do anything. Just please don't kill me."

Davos pressed on, knowing he walked on deck that might give way beneath him. "Your Grace has shown mercy before. To me. To others who served you faithful."

The reminder sat between them like an old debt, heavy as the bags of onions he'd smuggled past the Redwyne fleet all those years past. You cut my fingers but you raised me up. You know what mercy costs.

"This girl... she's got years ahead of her. Years to serve the realm proper."

Stannis raised the blade again, muscles coiling beneath the rich silk of his doublet. The crowned stag seemed to watch from his chest, golden thread glinting in the sword's light. "I was soft before. Weak. The Father has shown me the price of weakness."

The sword fell.

The girl's body crumpled beside the others, her eyes staring at nothing.

Davos stepped back to his place, hands trembling with more than cold. 

The charges began again: You sailed under the banner... The killing continued, methodical as tides, certain as dawn. Blood pooled deeper, running toward the sea in dark streams that carved channels between the stones. Each death fell like a hammer blow, and Davos counted them all—seven and thirty, eight and thirty, nine.

Three and sixty dead, he thought when the last body fell. I counted every one.

The final Ironborn was a boy of maybe four and ten, strong enough not to weep or beg, just knelt and waited with the patience of someone who'd already made peace with drowning. 

"Callum Greyjoy," the boy said, meeting Stannis's eyes without flinching.

Stannis raised the sword for the final time, as shadows danced on black stone, sharp as spear points. "Nephew of Balon Greyjoy. You carry the taint of rebellion in your veins."

The boy lifted his head. "My uncle said the sea would take us all in the end. Looks like he was wrong about that too."

The sword fell and the last Ironborn joined his kin in silence. Without preamble, Stannis wiped the blade clean and sheathed it with the same precision he'd used to kill.

The courtyard emptied slow as tide, guards dragging bodies toward the pyres already built on the shore. Silent servants arrived with buckets and brushes to scrub blood from stone, eyes kept down and away from the gaze of the king and his shining sword.

"Dragonstone has been cleansed of heretics,” he spoke as if to himself, eyes seeming to flicker with the same golden light as his blade.

Davos bowed his head, the weight of service familiar on his shoulders. "Aye, Your Grace."

Stannis walked toward the castle, back straight, stride steady. 

The courtyard fell quiet save for the scrape of brushes on stone. Servants worked in silence, eyes down, knowing their place in the order of things. Davos walked to where the girl had died, blood still dark on black stone, not yet scrubbed away. Mya Blacktyde. Just carried messages.

He turned toward the sea. Waves crashed against Dragonstone's foundation, endless and cold, carrying away what the stone couldn't hold. A raven called from the battlements, black wings against gray sky.

News to carry. Word to spread. The king's justice has been done.