Resolve

Aegon's breath caught.

A chill shot up his spine to the crown of his head.

The blood had yet to dry. Old Buck had died here not long ago, but while he had struggled onward...

Why had Aegon heard nothing?

No screams, no fighting?

Aegon forced down his horror and steadied himself, looking around. Only then did he realize the terrain had changed.

The dense openings on either side narrowed here, crowding together until they merged ahead into a single enormous, pitch-black opening that sloped upward.

Its edges were jagged and covered in deep gouges, as though huge teeth had gnawed at them over and over.

Even the glowing moss grew dim here. Its light barely illuminated the edges; beyond lay darkness that swallowed everything.

The opening looked less like a passage than the slightly parted throat of a sleeping beast.

And he stood right before that throat.

At his feet lay Old Buck's blood, still warm, and his remains.

On the system map, the golden dot pointed unwaveringly into the depths of the cave.

... Silence.

Go in, or stay out?

Inside lay the system's warning and Old Buck's bloody omen.

In my condition, could I really survive going in?

But if I didn't?

Staying here meant no food or medicine, severe injuries, hypothermia, and watchers lurking somewhere in the darkness.

Remaining meant only a slow death.

Henry and Carl were still missing.

And the check-in point, that possible sliver of hope, lay inside.

The sickly green glow shone on his pale face. He looked at the terror frozen on Old Buck's face, then toward the fathomless opening.

The long blade's chill seeped into his palm.

Aegon briefly closed his eyes, for a second or two, and drew a deep breath of cold, blood-scented air.

When he opened them again, the fear remained, but now there was something else: cold resolve.

It was a choice born of desperation, a wager staked entirely on a faint hope-or perhaps an instinctive impulse from the obsessive, mad side of his Targaryen blood.

There was no way back.

He tightened his grip on the hilt and stepped over the pool of blood.

Dragging his injured leg, he entered the darkness...

Darkness swallowed Aegon's figure like thick ink. Only the faint, sickly green moss-light from the entrance behind him flashed across his silver hair before vanishing entirely.

Every sense was stretched taut. All he could hear was his own ragged breathing and the hammering of his heart.

And... an exceedingly faint, persistent rustling.

It came from no fixed direction. Instead, it seemed to fill the air and flow along the stone walls, soft and rhythmic, a little like wind moaning through a narrow gap, yet somehow more... viscous, with a damp, cold texture.

Aegon stopped and listened, every muscle tensed.

The sound seeped everywhere, plucking at his strained nerves. He forced himself to analyze it calmly.

It's the wind.

It must be the echo of air passing through these tangled openings and cracks, he told himself.

This place is one enormous resonating chamber.

Knowledge and logic from his previous life tried to dispel his instinctive fear.

He remembered how, in certain caverns or gorges, wind at particular speeds and angles could produce eerie sounds resembling sobs or even human voices.

The conditions here were even more complex. Distorted, amplified sounds were only natural.

His taut nerves eased a fraction. Although the omnipresent rustling still sent chills down his back, at least he had a "reasonable" explanation.

He stopped trying to locate its source and treated it as background noise instead, refocusing on the dark path beneath his feet and the faint system marker ahead as he limped deeper.

At that same moment, in another corner of the vast underground labyrinth.

The same barely audible rustling reached Euron Greyjoy's ears.

His situation was worse than Aegon's.

He had reacted with extraordinary speed during the fall. With his inhuman balance and ruthless survival instincts, he had kicked off several unfortunate Ironborn in midair to slow his descent, finally crashing into a relatively soft mound of mud and surviving by sheer luck.

But one arm was clearly dislocated, hanging limp at his side, and several deep abrasions now marked his face.

Fewer than a hundred Ironborn had gathered around him, all wounded, their faces stricken with panic.

Some even had broken legs and could only move with their companions' support, letting out muffled groans in the darkness.

They had just fled a junction, leaving behind several bodies torn beyond recognition, along with a pungent, rank stench and another indescribably sickly-sweet odor that still lingered in the air.

That thing-or those things-moved with terrifying speed, making almost no sound of footsteps. Only at the instant of attack did they erupt into grating, tearing noises that set teeth on edge.

Even Crow's Eye had not seen their full forms, only glimpses of black shapes lashing swift as whips and shell-like outlines reflecting a faint gleam.

That slippery old Mercenary, Buck or whatever his name was, had happened to stand in the path of the lunging monster, and Euron had shoved him forward without hesitation.

Old Buck's brief scream and the scalp-prickling sounds of chewing that followed had bought them precious time to escape.

Now they huddled in a relatively sheltered hollow in the rock, listening to the seemingly omnipresent rustling, as though caught beneath an invisible web.

"Are... are those things coming again?" a young Ironborn asked, his voice trembling. He gripped his nicked longaxe so tightly his knuckles turned white.

"It's the wind, fool." Euron's voice was quiet, yet possessed a strange, icy force that cut through the fearful murmurs. His one good eye slowly swept over the men in the gloom, his blue-purple lips twisting in the shadows.

"A little wind blowing through cracks in the rocks, and you've lost your nerve? Have you forgotten you're the Drowned God's chosen? Forgotten how the men of the Iron Islands raid through storms?"

He paused, idly stroking the hilt of the dagger at his waist with his usable hand. His blue-stained nails caught a faint gleam in the dim light.

"That bastard Corlyon..." Crow's Eye spoke the name slowly, his voice steeped in undisguised venom. "He caught us with these filthy tricks of his ancestors."

"I'll settle that debt in his blood, carving it out of him piece by piece."

"Would you like to hear what sweet screams a descendant of those supposedly noble Dragonlords can make?"

In a cruel, almost singsong voice, he described several horrifying methods of torture in vivid detail.

Fear could sometimes be temporarily displaced or redirected by another, more focused and tangible fear-or hatred.

In many of the Ironborn's eyes, unfocused terror gradually gave way to a vicious gleam.

"But this accursed place," Crow's Eye continued, changing tack as greed flashed in his lone eye, "also holds all the treasures those Dragonlord ancestors of his hoarded over who knows how many years. Dragon Eggs? Dragon bones? Valyrian steel? Or some other treasures... who knows? Those glittering golden things in the murals weren't just paint."

He licked his lips, as though he could already taste the wealth.

"Follow me out of here and find those treasures, and every one of you can build a stone house in the Iron Islands that'll make everyone jealous, marry the prettiest women, and drink the strongest wine. What the Drowned God can't give you, I can."

Threats and rewards were simple, but often effective. Especially with these Ironborn, who had just suffered a crushing defeat and faced an uncertain future, yet still retained their savage nature.

The unrest subsided for the moment. Their desire to survive and hunger for wealth overcame their sheer terror of the unknown monsters. Though the eerie rustling still prowled through the darkness,

For now, it seemed more like background noise, an obstacle to overcome rather than some incomprehensible haunting.

"Move." Crow's Eye gave the curt order and rose first, dragging his dislocated arm as he headed in a direction he thought might lead upward, or at least into another area.

Behind him, the surviving band of fewer than a hundred followed closely, flames of fear, savagery, and greed rekindling in their eyes.

In this subterranean abyss, the boundary between humanity and beastliness was growing blurred.

And they, Aegon, and the unknown presence deep within the cave were slowly following their separate paths through the vast labyrinth toward a point where they would inevitably converge.