Skagos

Skagos is a large, mountainous island in the Shivering Sea, lying off the northeastern coast of Westeros, north of the Bay of Seals and east of the mainland. Its name is a byword for savagery and lawlessness in the Seven Kingdoms; the islanders are reputed to be cannibals who worship strange gods and keep to the old ways, and the island itself is said to be home to unicorns, shaggy, goat-like beasts with a single horn. The maesters of the Citadel note that certain of the mountain clans of the north, and the people of Skagos, still practice the lord's right to the first night, a custom long abolished elsewhere. The island's forbidding reputation makes it a place that even hardened sailors and smugglers fear to approach, and its rocky coasts are a graveyard for ships caught in the autumn storms that lash the narrow sea.

Shipwreck and Loss

The island's treacherous shores claim several vessels during the events of A Dance with Dragons. The galleys Oledo and Old Mother's Son, part of Salladhor Saan's fleet carrying Davos Seaworth south from the Wall, are driven onto the rocks of Skagos by fierce storms, a loss that contributes to the disintegration of Stannis Baratheon's naval strength. Later, Cotter Pyke, the commander of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, reports that the Storm Crow has sighted the wreckage of a galley along the coast of Skagos, though it is impossible to tell whether the broken ship is the Blackbird, one of Stannis Baratheon's sellsails, or some other passing trader. This sighting deepens Jon Snow's fear for the safety of Samwell Tarly, Gilly, and Maester Aemon, whom he had sent south on the Blackbird.

A Rumored Refuge

Skagos is also the destination that Wex, the mute former squire of Theon Greyjoy, reveals to Davos Seaworth and Wyman Manderly. After the fall of Winterfell, Wex hid in the heart tree of the godswood and witnessed the escape of two of Ned Stark's sons, Bran and Rickon, accompanied by their direwolves. He followed the two who went south, a woman and a boy, and knows where they went. When Davos asks where the boy is, Wex flings a dagger at a map on the wall, and it strikes the island of Skagos. Lord Wyman Manderly then tasks Davos with smuggling the boy back from Skagos, promising that if Davos returns Ned Stark's son, White Harbor will declare for Stannis Baratheon. The island thus becomes the destination of a desperate quest, a place where the last hope of the Stark line may be hidden, and where the smuggler turned King's Hand must venture into the heart of legend and danger.