The hemp rope dug deep into his wrists. With every shove, its coarse fibers scraped wounds already rubbed raw and bleeding, sending a burning sting through him.
Henry kept his head down as the guard behind him impatiently prodded his back with a spear shaft. Numb and hollow-eyed, he staggered onward.
The ground beneath his feet was no longer smooth obsidian, but rough, sharp fragments of volcanic rock that painfully jabbed his soles.
The air was thick with a strange odor-a mixture of sulfur, ancient dust, and... something deeper, sickeningly sweet and bloody.
The farther they went, the stronger it became, coating their throats like sludge and making them gag.
"Move!" The guard's shout cracked beside his ear, as grating as metal scraping metal.
They were driven up a slope that had clearly been carved by human hands, though it had long since fallen into ruin.
Collapsed walls and broken pillars carved with dragon motifs lined both sides, like ribs scattered after some enormous beast's death.
The light was dim. Only daylight filtering through a fissure far overhead, pale as the belly of a dying fish, barely outlined their surroundings.
At last, they reached the top of the slope: a relatively level blackstone platform at the highest point of the ruins.
A gaunt figure stood at its edge with his back to them, gazing down below.
His velvet robe, once sumptuous but now covered in dust and suspicious dark red stains, looked strikingly out of place and eerie beneath the pallid daylight.
At the sound of footsteps, he slowly turned.
It was Corlyon.
Gone were the restraint, anxiety, and occasional lapses of composure he had shown before Crow's Eye. In their place was an unsettling expression that mingled utter fanaticism with a strange serenity.
His sunken eyes shone with a frightening intensity, as though two cold flames burned deep within his pupils.
His gaze slowly swept over the bedraggled, bloodstained survivors brought before him-Henry, Carl, and the other mercenaries bound together, as well as several Ironborn tied up on the other side, their faces full of fear and uncertainty.
"Heh..." A short, dry, humorless chuckle escaped Corlyon's throat, unnaturally clear on the empty platform. "So many of you... crawled out alive?"
"What astonishing tenacity."
"It seems the ruins' 'selection' wasn't thorough enough." His tone was casual, as though he were commenting on a swarm of insects that had accidentally wandered into his garden.
Henry jerked his head up, his bloodshot eyes glaring fixedly at Corlyon. Angry, guttural sounds scraped from his throat as he struggled to lunge forward, only to be held firmly in place by the guard behind him.
Corlyon seemed unconcerned by his fury. Instead, he turned slightly and extended a withered hand with long, slender fingers, elegantly gesturing beyond the platform.
"It seems you still don't fully understand where you are, or what you are about to witness."
His voice suddenly rose, trembling with an almost liturgical cadence. "Look, you insects! Behold Torregar's true legacy! Behold the sacred moment... that has waited hundreds of years!"
As he spoke, light suddenly appeared in the ink-thick darkness below the platform, as though answering his words.
It was neither firelight nor daylight, but a dark, heavy crimson glow, like congealed blood!
The glow spread upward, faint at first, then steadily stronger, staining the rocks and air around the platform's edge an ominous blood red.
Henry and everyone else brought up with him involuntarily held their breath and followed his pointing hand, looking beyond the platform toward that dark red radiance.
Then every one of them, even the fiercest Ironborn, lost the ability to speak. Their pupils contracted sharply, and the most primal awe and terror rose from the depths of their souls.
Below the platform, there had been nothing but ruined buildings when they arrived.
Now the earth seemed to have been torn open and hollowed out by the hand of some invisible giant god, forming a terrifying chasm of unimaginable size, its edges beyond sight, as though it plunged straight into the heart of the world!
At last, they understood why the underground palace had suddenly collapsed.
The chasm's walls were sheer as if cut by blades, riddled with honeycomb-like holes and the remnants of enormous man-made passages. They extended downward into the boundless "lake" below, which radiated that dark red glow.
No, it was not a lake.
It was blood.
A lake of blood as vast as an inland sea-thick, dark red, gently rippling, and giving off an overpowering, nauseatingly sweet bloody stench!
A single glance at that limitless expanse of crimson and its unimaginable scale was enough to weaken the legs of the bravest warrior and make the coldest killer's soul tremble.
How many lives, how much blood, would it take to fill it?!
And an even more horrifying sight lay upon the towering rock walls surrounding that sea of blood.
Countless enormous, hideous stone dragon heads, their jaws gaping wide, were embedded densely throughout the walls like the vilest of ornaments.
At that moment, thick, dark red blood poured ceaselessly from those dragon mouths, gushing down in waterfalls and streams to join the boundless Blood Lake below!
The blood struck the lake's surface with a low, viscous, unending rush, blending into a scalp-prickling background sound that belonged to death.
The blood that had "strangely drained away" beneath the cages during the battle... the blood that had seeped into cracks in the walls and vanished without a trace... this was where it had all gone!
"This... this is... how is this possible?" one surviving mercenary asked, his teeth chattering, his voice barely audible.
"The altar..." Carl's face was white as paper as she murmured. At last, she connected the murals she had seen, the structure of the cages, and the hellish scene before her. "The people in the murals... the ones who were sacrificed... their blood... it all flowed here..."
"Do you understand now, fortunate survivors?" Corlyon's voice sounded behind them, condescending, as though bestowing charity. "You were fortunate-no, honored-to receive Torregar's grace. Only through it can you stand here and witness this magnificent moment with your own eyes-the awakening of the Progenitor Dragon... who will soon return to this world after a long slumber!"
His voice trembled slightly with excitement as he spread his arms, as though to embrace the terrifying Blood Lake below.
Just then, one of the Ironborn bound on the other side, a man with a scarred face, seemed to recover from his initial shock.
Perhaps he had grown accustomed to Corlyon's earlier "weakness" before Crow's Eye, or perhaps desperation had driven him mad. He suddenly raised his head and roared hoarsely at Corlyon, "Corlyon! You scheming bastard! When Lord Crow's Eye comes up from below, he'll skin you alive and tear out your sinews! He'll-"
His words cut off abruptly.
For Corlyon slowly, very slowly, turned his head to look at him.
On that face, previously twisted with fanaticism, there appeared an exceedingly peculiar expression: surprise mingled with realization, then swiftly transformed into an almost delighted, sickly smile.
"Crow's Eye? Euron Greyjoy?" Corlyon repeated softly, as though savoring the name. Then he began to giggle, his laughter growing louder and more frenzied, piercing and chilling against the rippling sea of blood and the sound of blood spilling from the dragon heads.
"Ah... I almost forgot about you... loyal 'good sons' of the Drowned God." He laughed until he could scarcely breathe, wiping nonexistent tears from the corners of his eyes. "Your Lord Crow's Eye... your captain... perhaps he has already gone ahead of you and gloriously become part of this sacred Blood Lake, turning into the finest 'nourishment' for awakening the progenitor. Who knows?"
As he watched the Ironborn's faces turn deathly pale with disbelief, his smile grew crueler and more gleeful.
"Since you... miss your master so dearly, and are so eager to follow in his footsteps."
Corlyon's voice abruptly turned cold, carrying the unquestionable ruthlessness of one who held sway over life and death. "Then, as his 'close' partner, I ought to indulge this... touching loyalty of yours."
He raised a hand and waved it carelessly, as though brushing away dust.
"After hundreds of years of accumulation, along with today's... 'replenishment,' the Blood Lake already holds enough to awaken the progenitor."
"But I wouldn't mind adding a few more... living sacrifices to this magnificent revival."
"Guards!" His voice suddenly rose, shrill as a night owl's cry. "Escort these 'honored guests' from the Iron Islands... to the stone pillars around the altar."
"Let us use the oldest, most sacred method... to send them to join their Lord Crow's Eye!"
"Yes!" the guard captain answered coldly.
The guards immediately pounced on the Ironborn like wolves and tigers. Ignoring their frantic struggles, curses, and screams, they roughly dragged them toward the platform's edge.
There, along the rock wall near the edge of the Blood Abyss, stood thick, ancient obsidian pillars covered in twisted runes. Dark brown stains that could never be washed away still marked their surfaces.
Just as... the murals had depicted.
The Ironborn were bound tightly to the stone pillars like livestock awaiting slaughter.
The guards drew sharp daggers.
"No-! The Drowned God curse you! Corlyon! May you die in agony!" Screams and curses rang out.
Corlyon paid no heed. He had already turned toward the vast Blood Abyss below, spread his arms, and closed his eyes.
He drew a deep, intoxicated breath of the overwhelmingly bloody air. Then he began to chant aloud in an ancient, obscure language, its twisted, uncanny syllables sounding as though no human throat could produce them.
It was High Valyrian, yet steeped in blasphemy and madness.
Every syllable he uttered seemed to make the air tremble and stir the Blood Lake below into greater turmoil.
As he chanted, at the center of the Blood Lake, in the deepest reaches of that boundless crimson, a shadow too enormous to describe seemed... to move slightly.
The ancient ritual, reaching across the dust of hundreds of years, began anew at that moment upon the lake of blood and sin.