Chapter 375: The Disputed Zone
This historic meeting between the Primary and Deputy Princes That Were Promised had been full of twists and turns, going exactly as neither party had expected. Fortunately, things had not spiraled toward a disastrous end. Late into the night, Egger received word from Melisandre. Though he felt a lingering dissatisfaction, the bountiful results of the Red Woman's secret midnight meeting with the Red Priest forced the Lord Commander to face reality: sometimes, no amount of painstaking effort to explain pros and cons or present facts and logic can match a charlatan whispering in a ruler's ear.
Through this unofficial channel of the Red Priests, Egger received the dismissal he wanted: he and his entourage were to leave Dragonstone at dawn, and the Queen's fleet had been ordered to allow the Night's Watch's Blackbird to sail freely. As for his core request—show mercy to the Night's Watch Industrial Park—there was no explicit answer yet. However, Melisandre strongly hinted that Moqorro would strive to persuade the Queen.
The bait had been swallowed, and it had achieved the desired effect... This allowed Egger a slight sigh of relief. As long as that Targaryen girl remained curious about the second half of the magically modified The Prince, she likely wouldn't burn bridges by attacking the Industry. If he could truly lure her to the Gift as intended, he could even seize the opportunity to brainwash her or instill more ideologies, making an even bigger play.
After a brief night's rest, Egger left a letter with Missandei to be forwarded. In it, he expressed his gratitude for the Queen's personal audience, explained the location of the original version of The Prince, and extended a formal invitation for her to visit the Gift. With that, Egger and Melisandre left Dragonstone Castle in the morning mist. Before the sun had fully risen, they were back aboard their ship... slowly sailing out of the harbor under the watchful eyes of the Queen's fleet, turning their backs to the rising sun and heading toward the blockaded King's Landing.
On this journey south, Egger's entourage included not only the Red Woman and his trusted guards but also rowers and sailors from Eastwatch. Under Cotter Pyke's command, the port of the Night's Watch had a long-standing tradition of trading with foreign vessels for goods and information; the soldiers coming out of there were among the best in the Watch in terms of linguistic variety and social skills. Although the meeting in the castle had been anticlimactic and not particularly pleasant, the large contingent Egger left at the docks had successfully mingled with the guards of Dragonstone and members of the Targaryen fleet at his instruction. They gathered a significant amount of intel, which they reported to Egger in a flurry during this final short leg of the journey to King's Landing.
It was a vast collection of miscellaneous information, most of it trivial or meaningless, and much of the useful bits were things Egger already knew by virtue of being a transmigrator... Only two pieces of information were truly valuable.
First: the kraken banners in the port of Dragonstone did not belong to Euron Greyjoy, but to Victarion Greyjoy, whom Euron had sent to Slaver's Bay long ago. Since the famous Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet had perished under dragonfire, this small but authentic Iron Fleet had been forcibly requisitioned by the Dragon Queen, becoming a minor part of the Targaryen navy.
The second was a major plot divergence that caught Egger's attention: in this world, the army Daenerys brought back to Westeros did not include a massive horde of Dothraki nomads. Instead, it was replaced by a disciplined, well-armed Freemen Legion numbering over ten thousand.
These Freemen were not Wildlings from beyond the Wall—they had no connection to them at all. Their source was the former slaves liberated after the conquest of Meereen. From these freemen, Daenerys selected the strong and healthy, training them according to the Unsullied regimen but skipping the physical and psychological mutilation. The result was an elite infantry... considerably weaker than the original Unsullied, but more than a match for most common troops.
As for why this change occurred, Egger gleaned the reasons through careful inquiry. Petyr Baelish's level of political maneuvering and experience in playing the game of thrones was clearly superior to that of the Imp. With Littlefinger's counsel, Daenerys had sat securely on her throne during her rule of Meereen. The Great Masters were either exiled or intimidated into submission... Though external enemies arrived one after another, the internal structure remained rock-solid. Reactionary organizations like the "Sons of the Harpy" never even surfaced, and the stories of the nobility using pressure to force Daenerys into a political marriage to integrate with the locals never happened.
Under this series of chain reactions, the plot where Daenerys was attacked in the fighting pits and rescued by her dragon—flying off to the Great Grass Sea to win over the Dothraki—had vanished. Naturally, there was no talk of her leading them across the black salt water on wooden horses to Westeros. In its place was the Freemen Legion, trained and armed under the stable rule of Meereen... Although the troop type had been downgraded from cavalry to infantry and the numbers were smaller, their discipline and equipment levels were significantly higher, and the pressure on logistics was greatly reduced.
Three dragons, several thousand Unsullied, over ten thousand in the Freemen Legion, plus a few thousand sailors and logistics personnel scattered throughout the fleet—these were all the cards the Queen currently held. By quickly landing and seizing the Crackclaw Point and advancing to Duskendale, the Queen's army had secured a stable source of supplies and a foothold along the coast of Blackwater Bay. It was more than enough to contend with Stannis in King's Landing, but far from enough to emulate her ancestor Aegon the Conqueror in unifying the Seven Kingdoms—and this was the primary reason Daenerys was so eager to obtain recognition from a third-party power.
As the sun rose and poured its energy into every corner, the wind shifted to blow toward the shore. Dragonstone was but a stone's throw from King's Landing, and the speed advantage of a sail-and-oar vessel was fully displayed in this downwind sprint. Before noon, the Blackbird crossed the boundary of the waters controlled by the Dragon and the Stag fleets, encountering the blockade and inspection of the Royal Fleet loyal to Stannis.
Luck was on their side. One of the intercepting warships actually carried a knight who had already converted to the Red God under Melisandre's influence and had been personally knighted by King Stannis. Because the commander recognized the Red Woman, the verification process—which should have been complex and cautious—became light and simple... They passed through the blockade and entered the Blackwater River.
To prevent Daenerys's army from using the trade district outside the Mud Gate as a springboard to attack the walls of King's Landing, all the docks and houses in this once-prosperous riverside area had met the fate of demolition for the second time since Egger's arrival. Looking at the former commercial port of King's Landing, which should have been bustling but was now a barren strip with nowhere to dock, Egger suddenly remembered: Nina had mentioned to him during her last trip to Queenscrown that the Night's Watch Industry now had its own private dock on the banks of the Blackwater.
He rejected the sailors' proposal to lower a small boat to row him ashore: "Continue upstream. We're docking at our own home."
The rowers returned to their seats, pulling the oars westward and upstream into the Blackwater to the rhythm of the chants. The Blackbird glided briskly past the Mud Gate, the fish market, and the King's Gate far from the water... Soon, a large dark shadow appeared in their sight. As they drew closer, Egger rubbed his eyes and pinched his thigh, finally forced to believe he wasn't dreaming.
Inside the Night's Watch Industrial Park, which was built adjacent to the river in the middle of a vast field and surrounded by a simple wooden fence, it was no longer as empty or desolate as before. It was now filled with factory buildings and sheds of all sizes, with a density at least three times higher than when Egger had left... And in the center, where the dormitories and offices should have been, a castle no smaller than Queenscrown had somehow risen from the ground. It featured black walls, black tiles, and black banners fluttering atop the battlements. While it couldn't compare to the silhouette of King's Landing visible a few miles away, it was already more imposing and grand—at least from a distance—than the majority of the nineteen fortresses along the Wall!
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