"No, you thieves!" the elderly Grey Cloak sister cried out in accusation.
Then an Ironborn chopped her in half with an axe, sending her head, bones, and brains flying.
"Old crone, you talk too much."
No sept, monk, or priest escaped this calamity.
The Citadel's gates were shut tight. After hearing the bells of the Hightower, it too began ringing its bells, signifying submission.
The Sphinx descended, once again at the Citadel's gates.
Oldtown's bells rang without pause. Even Gendry, far outside Oldtown, heard them.
"What does that mean?" Gendry asked.
"Oldtown has submitted, Your Grace. Those bells announce a change of king," Randyll said.
This was the worst possible outcome: Hightower had surrendered again.
"Where is the Redwyne Fleet?" Gendry asked Marwyn and the Red Priestess.
"They're approaching by way of Whispering Bay. If we withstand the first few waves of attacks, we can surround the sea dragon. Otherwise, the sea dragon will defeat us one by one," Marwyn answered.
"Your Grace, almost all of Oldtown has become waterways. Only boats can travel through it," the lookout sent to observe reported. "Apart from the Hightower and the Citadel, everything else is probably destroyed."
"Board the ships." Gendry decided at once.
"Loose the trebuchets."
The trebuchets standing upstream beyond Oldtown's outskirts, on either side of the Roseroad, roared. Stones the size of bushel baskets began hurtling toward Oldtown.
After circling through the sky, the real magic dragon returned to the rear, first burning some longships near the Citadel.
"The dragon's coming! The dragon's coming!" the Ironborn shouted.
"Have you come?" Euron Crow's Eye stepped onto the deck and looked toward the distant sky.
A vast spread of longships, like scattered stars, had already appeared upstream, flying none other than the Golden Four-Part Banner.
Victarion, it's up to you now, Euron