New chapter! Thanks for all the support!
x
Clatter, clatter, clatter!
A few days after the council at Riverrun, columns of northern soldiers, spirited and eager for battle, were preparing to move out from the temporary camp outside the castle.
During this time, Theon had been leading the Iron Fleet and overseeing the newly surrendered and renamed Northern Fleet as it carried the Westerlands smallfolk who had temporarily been moved to the Iron Islands northward.
Because of that, the northern army's actual fighting strength now stood at roughly twenty-five thousand men. Two thousand were left to garrison the Twins, and five thousand were left at Riverrun.
The original two thousand Riverrun guards, together with sixteen thousand northern soldiers, made a force of eighteen thousand. They were divided into three armies of six thousand men each and sent to retake Raventree Hall, Stone Hedge, and Darry.
The commander leading the effort to retake Raventree Hall was Lord Tytos. Stone Hedge was given to Lord Rickard, and Darry to Lord Jason.
These three lords had all been chosen by Robb and approved by Brynden. Each possessed the ability to command troops and enough judgment to read the battlefield.
Brynden remained at Riverrun, responsible for overall coordination and command. The Winterfell heavy cavalry, expanded to a thousand men after receiving supplies from Casterly Rock, was kept at Riverrun as a small hidden trump card.
Robb, meanwhile, had seen dangerous sparks rising from his own foundation because of a raven letter sent a few days earlier. He prepared to personally lead two thousand Winterfell light cavalry back to Winterfell and put out the fire.
Of course, the basis for this deployment was the intelligence sent back by Smalljon and Edd from the front. Tywin's army had acted exactly as Robb predicted. It had garrisoned Harrenhal and sealed all roads leading south toward the Westerlands.
According to the intelligence Crey received, however, there was another important reason Tywin had made such a move in so short a time.
Stannis, who had been training and mustering troops at Bitterbridge while continuing to recruit men, had begun moving toward King's Landing with his army of nearly forty thousand.
Robb had already discussed this situation with Brynden in detail. If the scout riders confirmed that Tywin's army had left Harrenhal to reinforce King's Landing, Brynden would lead all the forces at Riverrun, join the three armies retaking lost Riverlands territory, and attack Harrenhal and the other Westerlands strongholds with all their strength.
They would seize the opportunity to pull out every nail the Westerlands army had driven into the Riverlands.
If Tywin chose not to return, then they would see whether King's Landing's few thousand Gold Cloaks could stop Stannis's forty thousand men.
Over these past months, the war in Westeros had shifted again and again. Now it was Tywin's turn to face the hard choice.
"Move out!"
Mounted on Bloodwind, Robb swept one hand down heavily and gave the order. The twenty thousand soldiers formed in neat ranks outside Riverrun's temporary camp split into four armies and marched in different directions.
Splash, splash!
A large oared warship sailed across the waters outside the Whispering Sound, its sail glittering golden beneath the sun and painted with the sigil of a flaming stag.
South of the Whispering Sound lay the Arbor and the Redwyne Straits. This stretch of sea sat right on the boundary between the Sunset Sea and the Summer Sea.
Davos stood on the deck of the large oared warship named Fury, frowning as he watched the sea with intense focus. The voyage from the Summer Sea had gone smoothly, but a faint unease had lingered in his heart all the while.
On either side of Fury were two large oared warships only slightly smaller than it, named Sea Stag and Lord Steffon.
These three clearly superior warships were the leading flagships of Stannis's Royal Fleet.
Behind them, arranged in ten long columns of twenty ships each, warships flying the same flaming stag banners followed in a mighty procession that seemed to occupy the entire sea.
The Royal Fleet had originally possessed only one hundred and sixty warships. The other forty had been made up of the pirate Salladhor Saan, recruited by Davos, and hired fleets from the Narrow Sea and Myr.
Their ships were all kinds: oared warships, ordinary sailing vessels, great cogs, flat-bottomed boats, and everything in between.
Half a month earlier, while Stannis was drilling his army at Bitterbridge, he had received a plea for help from House Florent of Brightwater Keep.
They were his queen's family, and they had also been the first house to give him meaningful support. For both public and private reasons, he needed to send aid and display the bearing of a king.
Since the land route had already been blocked by Highgarden and Horn Hill, Stannis immediately ordered his good-brother Imry Florent and Davos to lead the entire fleet to their rescue.
The journey from Shipbreaker Bay to the Whispering Sound was long. After finishing the mustering and expansion of his army at Bitterbridge, Stannis slowly advanced on King's Landing. His plan was to surround the city first, wait until his fleet relieved Brightwater Keep, and then attack by land and sea together.
Moreover, nothing tested men's hearts like a siege.
King's Landing held nearly five hundred thousand smallfolk, but only a few thousand Gold Cloaks guarded its walls. Stannis believed that by the time Davos and Imry brought the fleet to King's Landing, the Red Keep might already be covered in his flaming stag banners.
"Signal them. Take in sail and slow the fleet."
As the Royal Fleet sailed into the inner waters of the Whispering Sound, the unease in Davos's heart grew stronger. He gave the order to the sailor beside him.
Davos's command spread through the Royal Fleet by Fury's flags. The massive, aggressive fleet immediately took in sail and slowed.
Sea Stag, sailing to Fury's left, slowly drew closer. A gangplank was laid from Sea Stag onto Fury.
"Deputy Commander Davos, one more day of sailing will bring us to Brightwater Keep. Yet you make the whole fleet lower sail and slow down. You had best give me a proper explanation."
Imry Florent, commander of the Royal Fleet, crossed from his flagship over the plank and jumped onto Fury's deck in a few quick steps. He spoke loudly to Davos, his tone clearly suppressing anger.
"Commander Imry, our original plan was to pass Oldtown, turn into the Honeywine, and reach Brightwater Keep by river.
"Not far ahead is Oldtown, one of the most important ports in the Seven Kingdoms, second only to King's Landing in prosperity."
Davos first bowed politely to Imry, then pointed in Oldtown's direction and spoke.
"So what? What are you trying to say?"
Looking at Davos, who seemed to be speaking in riddles, Imry felt his temper nearing its limit.
"There are no ships, Commander Imry. From the moment we entered the Whispering Sound until now, we have not seen a single merchant ship.
"How could such a prosperous port as Oldtown be like this? Something is wrong."
"Something is wrong? Then tell me what is wrong!
"Shall we turn back now and tell His Grace Stannis that because we saw no ships before Oldtown and felt something was wrong, we came home?
"Will that do, Davos Seaworth?"
At Davos's words, Imry immediately lost control of his temper and shouted at him.
The other sailors aboard Fury saw the two fleet commanders arguing and lowered their heads, staring at the deck for fear of drawing fire for no reason.
"That is not what I mean, Commander Imry. I..."
"Enough. I do not want to hear another word from you. Davos, I have endured you for long enough."
Davos had wanted to explain further, but Imry, flushed with anger, cut him off directly.
"When we passed the Arbor and the Redwyne Straits, you said the same thing. Something was wrong. Something felt off. We made shore and waited two or three days, and what came of it?
"His Grace Stannis values you. He raised a smuggler like you to deputy commander of the fleet and even gave you command of his Fury. I ask that you do not betray his trust.
"House Florent has been besieged by twenty thousand Highgarden troops for more than half a month. If anything goes wrong with this rescue, you cannot bear the responsibility."
Imry was deeply agitated. As he spoke, he walked directly in front of Davos. At the end, he raised his right hand and jabbed his index finger several times into Davos's left chest.
Davos was forced back two steps. He wanted to say something more, but after hearing the word smuggler, he pressed his lips together, lowered his head, and looked at the deck beside him without speaking.
"From this moment onward, Fury no longer holds command authority. All commands will follow Sea Stag's signals."
After venting his anger, Imry calmed somewhat. He swept his eyes around and gave his order to the hundred sailors aboard Fury.
"Yes, Commander!"
The sailors hurriedly saluted and answered.
After this small episode, Sea Stag took the lead and sailed at the front, signaling the Royal Fleet behind it to advance at full speed. The fleet raised sail again and moved in a mighty formation toward Oldtown.
After sailing at full speed for half a day, the Royal Fleet arrived at Oldtown, once the most prosperous port in Westeros.
The most striking thing in Oldtown was a high tower built upon an island, with a roaring flame burning day and night at its peak. Its name was the Hightower, and it was the seat of House Hightower, one of the strongest noble houses in the Reach.
The Hightower served as both castle and lighthouse. It was the tallest structure on the entire continent of Westeros, even higher than the Wall. The people of Oldtown needed only look at the direction of the Hightower's shadow to tell the time of day.
Since the Hightower stood at the mouth of the Honeywine, the Royal Fleet needed to pass around it on either side before entering the inland river channel.
When the Royal Fleet entered Oldtown's harbor, Imry also clearly felt that something was wrong. Oldtown was far too quiet, as though all the people and ships in this lively city had vanished.
But the Royal Fleet had already entered. Imry could only grit his teeth and command Sea Stag to continue forward.
Sea Stag was about to pass around the left side of the Hightower when the ship suddenly lurched as if it had struck a reef. The whole vessel shook violently and could no longer move forward.
A piercing horn blast rang out. Countless soldiers appeared atop the Hightower's walls, holding bows and loosing burning arrows down at the Royal Fleet.
At the same time, more than a hundred small oared warships hidden in the harbor emerged ahead of the Royal Fleet and came straight toward them.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
Without waiting for Sea Stag to signal, lookouts on the masts of the Royal Fleet's ships immediately shouted the alarm.
"Do not panic. Order the oarsmen on the left to stop. Turn Fury sideways across the water. Everyone else to your stations. Load the deck scorpions. Turn the catapults. Prepare to attack!"
On Fury behind Sea Stag, Davos saw that there truly was an ambush. He grabbed a young sailor beside him, shouted down the commotion among the crew, and issued battle orders in a steady sequence.
Seeing Davos so calm, Fury's sailors steadied themselves and moved according to his command.
Fury had once been Stannis's flagship. It was a large oared warship with three hundred oarsmen and three decks.
Scorpions lined both sides of its deck, and adjustable catapults had been placed at both bow and stern.
The small oared warships flying House Hightower's sigil swiftly approached Sea Stag. Under the cover of the soldiers on the Hightower's walls, they threw hooked ladders and forced their way aboard.
'Because they are small ships with shallow draft, they did not hit whatever is hidden under the water?'
Davos had been watching Sea Stag the entire time. He murmured to himself. Feeling that Fury had finished turning, he immediately shouted, "Scorpions, target the enemies in front of Sea Stag. Catapults, target the enemies on the castle. Attack!"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Scorpions were different from great crossbows. What they fired were not arrows, but steel spears that tore through the air with terrifying force.
Thud-crack!
A steel spear carrying tremendous momentum struck a small oared warship with precision. Splinters flew at once. The spear pierced straight through the bottom of the ship, and seawater rushed greedily through the hole.
If a warship suffered that badly under a scorpion shot, men fared even worse. The unlucky soldiers struck by the steel spears had parts of their bodies vanish in an instant, leaving them no longer whole.
Whoosh, whoosh!
After being adjusted, the two catapults at Fury's bow and stern began hurling burning pitch barrels at the enemies on the Hightower's walls.
These had originally been meant for other warships, but the scorpions could not angle upward to attack, so Davos could only use the catapults to suppress the Hightower's soldiers.
The effect, however, was unexpectedly good.
The flaming pitch barrels, thrown in a high arc, began spilling boiling pitch while still in midair. The soldiers on the Hightower were caught unprepared and were drenched by the scalding pitch falling from above.
Shrill screams immediately came from the Hightower.
The burns alone were dreadful enough, but pitch was also irritating and corrosive. It could easily send wounded soldiers into shock, infection, and death.
Sea Stag and Lord Steffon were both large oared warships with two hundred oars apiece. Imry personally commanded Sea Stag, but now it had been forced to stop on the Hightower's left, while Lord Steffon had stopped on the right.
Even so, both ships were likewise equipped with scorpions and catapults. After the initial panic of the ambush, they began to return fire.
For a time, the ambush beneath the Hightower became rather strange. The side being ambushed was pressing the ambushers down.
But that was only temporary.
Splash, splash!
At the rear of the Royal Fleet, Salladhor Saan, dressed in splendid clothing, stared blankly across the inner waters of the Whispering Sound.
At least two hundred and fifty warships now filled his entire field of vision, advancing firmly toward the Royal Fleet.
Most of those warships flew the purple grapes on blue of House Redwyne. A smaller number flew House Hightower's tower sigil.
At the front of the fleet was a magnificent three-masted oared warship with three great wine-red sails and oars painted in alternating gold and white. This was the Redwyne Fleet's flagship, the Arbor Queen.
Beside it was a great four-banked warship no smaller than it. This was the Hightower Fleet's flagship, Glory of Oldtown.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Clearly, warships of this size were armed to the teeth. Before they even drew close, more than a dozen burning pitch barrels were hurled from their catapults toward the Royal Fleet.
It was deeply ironic. The front of the Royal Fleet had just used this tactic against the enemy, and now its rear tasted the same suffering.
The rear half of the Royal Fleet was made up mostly of smaller ships from pirates and hired fleets. Faced with this kind of long-range attack, they had no means to fight back.
The attacked area immediately filled with screams. The decks and sails of many smaller warships were set alight by the pitch, and roaring fires rose with choking black smoke.
"Run! Along both sides of the coast, run!"
Having spent years as smuggler, merchant captain, sellsail, and pirate, Salladhor understood the outcome of this naval battle at a glance. He strained his throat and shouted the order to flee at his crew.
Salladhor's flagship, Valyrian, was in truth also a large three-hundred-oared warship.
But he had no intention of fighting head-on. He directly led several of his personal ships to turn around and flee separately along the Oldtown coastline on both sides.
The thirty-odd hired ships from the Narrow Sea and Myr were not blind either. Seeing Salladhor flee, they immediately followed his example and scattered after him.
In a melee involving hundreds of warships, a few fleeing ships might have meant little. But nearly forty fleeing at the same time made a target far too obvious.
The Arbor Queen sent out a signal. From the left and right wings of the vast united fleet, thirty warships each broke away and began pursuing the nearly forty fleeing ships in a clear effort to annihilate them all.
Splash, splash!
As the distance narrowed, the Arbor Queen slammed heavily into a smaller Royal Fleet warship set crosswise on the water for defense.
The ram at the Arbor Queen's bow bit deep into the middle of the smaller ship.
With its own momentum and weight, the flagship split the smaller vessel cleanly in two after a sharp crack.
After smashing through the smaller warship, the Arbor Queen continued forward and struck a large Royal Fleet oared warship before finally coming to a stop.
Thump, thump, thump!
Hooked boarding planks were thrown down. Soldiers in House Redwyne armor surged eagerly onto the Royal Fleet ship.
"Tell them that any man willing to swear loyalty to Renly II may kneel and live. Otherwise, kill without mercy!"
At the bow of the Arbor Queen stood a fully armored man with slightly sloping shoulders, a lean body, and only a few tufts of orange hair left on his balding head. He shouted to his family soldiers.
"Yes, Lord Paxter!"
The Redwyne soldiers nodded to Lord Paxter, answered, and began shouting that those who swore loyalty to Renly II would be spared as they boarded and fought.
Unexpectedly, the shouting worked. Some Royal Fleet soldiers, already shaken by the ambush and the disparity in numbers, knelt and surrendered at once.
Davos had long since seen the Royal Fleet's rear being attacked, but he could not spare any attention for it now.
Once dozens of Hightower small ships closed in on Sea Stag and Lord Steffon, he could no longer have Fury's crew fire for fear of striking their own men.
At this moment, Sea Stag and Lord Steffon were locked in bloody and brutal boarding battles.
At the same time, the soldiers on the Hightower's walls seemed to have finally prepared their defensive engines. Catapults and great crossbows began firing one after another. Fury alone could no longer suppress them.
'No. If this continues, His Grace Stannis's Royal Fleet will be finished.'
The battlefield was deafeningly chaotic, yet Davos's thoughts were extraordinarily clear. In his eyes, the whole field seemed to slow.
In the end, his gaze fixed on the left side of Oldtown's coast, where thirty Redwyne ships were pursuing Salladhor's Valyrian.
"Turn the ship. Prepare to withdraw. Signal every ship that can still move to break out toward the left side of the coast!"
"Captain's order! Turn the ship..."
With Davos's order given, Fury, already positioned sideways, turned its bow with relative ease. Hundreds of oarsmen in the hold began pulling in rhythm with loud chants, and Fury's speed started to rise.
The moment the conspicuous Fury began moving, Ser Baelor Hightower, eldest son and heir of Lord Leyton Hightower of Oldtown, saw its intent from aboard Glory of Oldtown.
"Their flagship is the target. Full speed ahead. Ram it and stop it!"
After Baelor gave the order, all four banks of oars on Glory of Oldtown moved at once. The ship rushed toward Fury with astonishing speed.
"Enemy ship approaching on the right! Enemy ship approaching on the right!"
Just as Ser Baelor had noticed Fury, the conspicuous Glory of Oldtown was also spotted by Fury's crew. They shouted warnings to Davos.
But Davos could do nothing. If they were stopped in this situation, their chance to escape would be all but gone.
"Prepare to board!"
Davos watched Glory of Oldtown approach at speed, drew the longsword at his waist, and prepared to fight the last battle of his life in loyal service to His Grace Stannis.
The ram of Glory of Oldtown drove straight into the middle of a warship. Both ships shook violently from the impact.
On Fury, Davos stared at the Royal Fleet's large oared warship that had suddenly placed itself between him and the enemy, as if realizing something.
As the violent shaking slowly settled, a young man who bore some resemblance to Davos climbed up from the deck of the ship that had collided with Glory of Oldtown and shouted toward Fury, "Father, go!"
"Matthos, no! Come here. We leave together!"
Seeing his son, Davos immediately shouted, stretching out his left hand as if trying to grab him.
But Fury had not been stopped. As the oarsmen found a smoother rhythm, it swiftly pulled away from the two ships locked together.
"No!"
Watching from afar as his son was swallowed by a crowd of Hightower soldiers, Davos broke down in tears and collapsed against Fury's rail.
The chaos on Oldtown's waters lasted for a long time. Nearly three hundred warships attacked one another. Ships burned, and lives vanished constantly in the battle.
Because Salladhor's flight had torn a hole in the Redwyne and Hightower encirclement, Davos escaped with Fury and more than twenty Royal Fleet warships.
Stannis's fleet had not been entirely destroyed, but it no longer had the strength to contend with any other major fleet. It had withdrawn from the struggle for naval supremacy.
At the same time, because the rescue had failed, Brightwater Keep, besieged by Randyll Tarly, was now in grave danger. Stannis, who had just taken in Renly's remnants and seemed to be in a strong position, saw his strength fall sharply.
x
x
x
If you're enjoying the story so far, consider supporting me on Patreon ❤️
You'll get weekly early access to chapters, along with some exclusive content:
https://www.patreon.com/cw/TheDevotedReader