Chapter 191: The Deep Ones, Abhorred by Dragons
The dragons beat their massive leathery wings as smoke curled from their nostrils. Each of them radiated a savage, violent aura.
Rhaegar could feel their agitation through the bond they shared. A dark emotion surged from the depths of the dragons' hearts—slaughter, hatred, revulsion, and cold fury.
The dragons loathed the creature before them.
This was the first time Rhaegar had ever felt such intense disgust from all three dragons at once.
"Come, my friend," Rhaegar said softly as he guided the Silver Dragon downward from the ruins of Whisperwind Keep toward the creature climbing the abandoned lighthouse.
As they descended, Rhaegar finally saw the thing clearly.
The creature was grotesque.
Roughly the size of a grown man, it possessed a vaguely human shape, yet its proportions were horribly wrong. Its bloated body resembled a pale lump of flesh. Its head was far too large for its frame, covered in slick scales instead of hair.
Its round face split open with thick lips, revealing rows of sharp green teeth.
Webbing stretched between its fingers and toes.
Its skin was white like the belly of a dead fish, damp and glistening with slime. A foul odor of saltwater and rot filled the air around it, like the stench of King's Landing's fish market under the summer sun.
The Squisher noticed the dragons immediately.
Fear flashed across its face.
It hated the dragons just as much as the dragons hated it.
Without hesitation, the creature scrambled down the ruined lighthouse with astonishing speed. Its instincts screamed at it to flee.
The dragons swooped lower over the crashing waves as the Squisher hurled itself into the sea.
Smoke poured from their nostrils.
They were furious.
"Trying to escape?" Rhaegar muttered.
He raised the Blue Great River Staff.
The Rhoynar relic answered his command. Though its power weakened upon the open sea, it still stirred the waters. A surging wave rose beneath the fleeing creature and hurled the Squisher back toward the surface.
The pale monster emerged from the water in confusion, unable to understand why the sea itself had betrayed it.
The three dragons descended together, surrounding it in a triangle.
Silver fire.
Black fire.
Purple fire.
The dragons growled deeply, smoke and sparks spilling from their jaws.
The Squisher bared its teeth and lunged upward with savage fury, trying to bite at Rhaegar atop the Silver Dragon.
Even cornered, it remained vicious.
Legends claimed Squishers stole children in the night, devoured boys, and carried off girls to breed more of their kind.
Looking at the creature now, Rhaegar found the stories disturbingly believable.
Then the dragons attacked.
BOOM!
Three torrents of dragonfire exploded across the sea.
Steam erupted skyward.
The Squisher was instantly engulfed by silver, black, and violet flames.
The smell of burnt flesh filled the air.
When the flames finally faded, the creature's corpse had become a charred black husk.
Yet the dragons were still enraged.
Instead of eating the corpse, they tore it apart in midair like predators venting hatred. Claws and jaws ripped the body into pieces while the dragons snapped at one another over the remains.
Then they burned the corpse again.
And again.
Only after the fishy odor finally vanished did the dragons fling the charred remains onto the reefs below before casting the fragments into the sea.
"Such hatred…" Rhaegar murmured.
At last, the dragons calmed.
The Silver Dragon, the Black Dragon, and the Purple Dragon roared triumphantly over the sea, their cries echoing across the desolate coast.
Fortunately, few people ever came to this forsaken place.
Even smugglers avoided it.
Still restless, the dragons continued circling overhead while unleashing streams of fire onto the ocean's surface. Silver, black, and purple flames danced across the water as clouds of steam rose into the sky.
Rhaegar had seen dragons react violently to only one other thing before:
The Others.
Creatures of ice and death naturally opposed beings of fire and heat.
Now another enemy had revealed itself.
The dragons hated the Squishers.
Or perhaps more accurately…
They hated whatever lurked beneath the sea.
"Natural enemies…" Rhaegar thought grimly.
The Squisher radiated pure malice.
It was a creature of chaos and cruelty.
And the more Rhaegar considered it, the more it resembled the legends surrounding the Drowned God and the Deep Ones.
The faith of the Drowned God had always carried a sinister nature—violent, predatory, and alien.
The Ironborn worshipped raiding, murder, and conquest.
"What is dead may never die."
Their god demanded blood and plunder.
Their dead supposedly feasted forever in watery halls beneath the sea.
Watery halls.
Sea monsters.
Deep Ones.
The connection felt increasingly obvious.
"Could Squishers be servants of the Deep Ones?" Rhaegar wondered.
Maesters had long debated the origin of the oily black stone structures found throughout the world. Some believed they were built by a strange race of malformed half-humans born from unions between sea creatures and mortal women.
Others dismissed such stories as sailor's tales.
But Rhaegar had just seen one with his own eyes.
"The sea hides too many horrors," he thought.
The Drowned God's faction, the Others, and perhaps even the Lord of Light all seemed locked in opposition against dragons in their own ways.
And then there was Euron Greyjoy.
The Crow's Eye.
Rhaegar remembered the terrifying visions associated with the man:
A towering creature with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing upon a sea of blood.
Was that merely symbolism?
Or was Euron truly becoming something inhuman?
An avatar of the Deep Ones?
A man twisted by whatever slept beneath the sea?
"I have dragons," Rhaegar said coldly. "If such monsters truly exist, then I will burn them all."
After some time, the sea finally grew calm again.
Rhaegar guided the dragons back toward Whisperwind Keep.
The ruined fortress still held mysteries worth investigating.
As he approached the ancient castle once more, Rhaegar remembered the old legends of Ser Clarence Crabb, the ancient hero said to have battled the Squisher King.
According to the tales, Ser Clarence stood eight feet tall and possessed monstrous strength. He could rip pine trees from the earth with one hand and hurl them half a league away.
No horse could bear his weight, so he rode a massive bull instead.
His wife was said to be a forest witch.
Whenever Ser Clarence slew a foe, he brought the severed head home for his wife to kiss. Afterward, the heads would awaken and speak again.
Lords.
Pirates.
Sorcerers.
Famous knights.
Even kings.
All became his counselors in death.
Though they possessed only heads and could do nothing but whisper endlessly in the darkness.
That, according to legend, was how Whisperwind Keep earned its name.
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