Land of the King

Chapter 52: Assault

Somewhere off the coast of Pentos

Prince Ciryaher stood on the command deck of his flagship. The invasion had been synchronised such that his fleet would reach Pentos with a few days of the fleets attacking Myr and Tyrosh though delays in communication had led to fleet setting of slightly later than scheduled.

It had been almost four days since his fleet had set off from Tol Mor and Essos had been sighted to the east. A few hours after that and they had found the Pentoshi fleet defending the bay in which the city rested in.

"Your Highness, the Pentoshi have formed up in the bay. They seem intent on blocking our access to the city," his lieutenant reported.

"Wedge formation. Send the galleons in first. Smash right through their formation and clear a path to the city. If the Pentoshi think they can hold us for long, they are sorely mistaken," he commanded.

Obeying his commands, the Arnorian fleet formed up into a wedge and cut a swathe through the Pentoshi blockade.

Unfortunately, it seemed the city's defences were well prepared as the harbour was defended by catapults and scorpions that made any landing difficult. Desiring to avoid unnecessary casualties, Ciryaher sent a great part of his fleet to land in other parts of the bay and unload their forces before they besieged the city itself.

The Pentoshi were not dumb. They must have spotted his fleet and had done their best to fortify the city but there was simply no way they were holding it against him for long. Unlike Tyrosh in the south, Pentos had no black walls and its sheer distance from Valyria meant that reinforcements would likely reach it last. If he wasn't mistaken, only Lorath was less accessible to Valyria than Pentos was as both Norvos and Qohor were upstream on the River Rhoyne.

Valyria had grown too lax, relying too much on their dragons and believing in their invincibility, they had not taken the proper steps to secure the far-flung outposts of their empire and now Ciryaher would exploit that arrogance.

In the span of a single day, almost the entire army had been offloaded from the ships and they formed a camp around the city. The Pentoshi nervously watched as Ciryaher's army set to building their siege equipment and unloading their weapons from the ships.

The next day at dawn, Ciryaher began his assault on Pentos. Countless trebuchets and mangonels unloaded massive barrages of boulders at the city walls even as a hail of arrows descended upon the defenders, crushing their morale. The Arnorian army was so large that Ciryaher could assault each of the city's three land-facing gates simultaneously even as his navy attacked the harbour.

Ciryaher himself was overseeing the assault on the most prestigious of Pentos's gates, the Sunrise Gate which faced due east in the direction of the Rhoyne.

He would acknowledge Pentos's defences. The Sunrise Gate was defended by a stalwart gatehouse strong and large enough to be a keep of lesser men. It was a double gatehouse defended by portcullis and murder holes. It was so strong that it reminded him of the Great Gates of Annúminas which had been thoroughly rebuilt and redesigned to be truly impregnable after the first and only time they were breached a thousand years ago during the Kin-Strife. His army would almost certainly bleed taking that gatehouse which was why he ordered his army to focus on breaking down the walls instead.

The walls of Pentos were high and thick. To any lesser adversary they may prove challenging to overcome but as Pentos thankfully had no black walls, Ciryaher decided to take the long route of breaking the walls rather than breaching the impregnable gatehouses.

Finally, after two days of constant barrage, the walls came down in a number of places, allowing Ciryaher's army to swarm in and take the gates from behind. What ensued was a single day of urban chaos as the Pentoshi City Guard fought against his army as they marched through the city.

Per his orders, the city was spared a sack and the discipline of the Dúnedain held through. There would be no use sacking the city when he intended to rule it. That being said, though the common people were spared from a sack, Ciryaher ordered his army to ransack the manses of the rich magisters and free all the slaves. In his mind, slave owners had no right to keep any of their ill-gotten wealth which would serve better uses in Ciryaher and Arnor's hands.

Though the main goals of Arnor in the war were the reclamation of Tyrosh and the Stepstones, Ciryaher had convinced his father of the merits of taking Pentos and Myr as well, allowing them to wholly deny Valyria access to the Narrow Sea as well as secure a bulwark on the Essosi continent to serve as a buffer against the inevitable Valyrian counterattack.

As the son of the King and the man who taken the city, there was no better option than Ciryaher to rule it. Prince Ciryaher of Pentos had a nice ring to it. He begrudged Aragost not that he would inherit Arnor and all its power, it was his right as the eldest. Yet unlike his adventurous younger brother Túrin who would probably be perfectly satisfied if he was allowed to explore to his heart's content, Ciryaher desired power of his own, a kingdom of his own.

Though a Pentos ruled by him would no doubt be subject to Arnor, it would still be a place for Ciryaher to rule. And not a bad one either, Pentos had grown fat and rich in the past few hundred years off of trade. It was certainly not a bad prize.

"Your Highness, the Prince and the magisters have been secured and await you in the palace."

Nodding his understanding, Ciryaher casually rode to the Prince's Palace to accept the surrender of the elite of the city.

Once they had realised that the city had been lost, the rich magisters had taken shelter in the palace where they had been intending to hold out as long as possible. Ciryaher had gained their surrender when he had promised that they would not be harmed and the gates of the palace had been opened for his forces to secure it.

Like a triumphant general, Ciryaher rode right up into the throne room of the palace where standing beneath the throne were the magisters. The Prince of Pentos, one Narys Narratys, was seated upon the throne.

Dismounting from his horse, Ciryaher walked forward where the sycophantic magisters had already started to try and get into his good graces.

"We welcome you, oh mighty Prince Ciryaher to our esteemed city. Please do-", one of them said.

Ciryaher cut him off, "I came to accept your surrender not hear your flatteries. You can save your pleasantries for later."

"Of course of course, we hereby surrender to you, Your Highness, and hope that you may find it in your heart to treat us kindly."

Ciryaher looked unimpressed at the magister. He was fat and balding and had likely gotten rich of the backs of his slaves. That being said he had given him his word. As annoying as he was becoming, he couldn't execute him without just cause. That didn't mean he couldn't hurt him in other ways however.

"Yes. Per the terms of our agreements, you and your fellow magisters will be spared. However, you will hold no further political power in this city's governance and unfortunately as all of you have been found guilty of owning slaves, your estates and all the wealth therein have been confiscated and seized under Arnorian law and all of you have been sentenced to lifetime imprisonment," Ciryaher pronounced with no small amount of pleasure.

At the outrage of the magisters, Ciryaher coldly silenced them, "Be thankful that you are losing only your wealth and freedom. The proper punishment for slavery under Arnorian law is death."

"You won't get away with this! The dragons will come and throw you back into the sea where you belong!" one of the magister shouted as he was led away.

"I welcome it. Let Valyria try. We will show them that the Men of the West do not bend to their foes, even to dragons. Take them away!"

With the magisters handled and led away by his guards, Ciryaher turned to man sitting on the throne, his throne.

"I do believe that you are sitting on my throne," he told the former Prince of Pentos.

"You are welcome to have it," he said as he got up from the throne.

"May it serve you better than I. At least now I no longer have the fear of beheading following me around."

Ciryaher supressed a grimace. The Pentoshi had an unfortunate custom of beheading their ruler whenever anything went wrong such as crop failures or defeat in wars. Had Ciryaher not taken the city, the Pentoshi would likely have beheaded the Prince.

"You are no longer the Prince, but I do have need of a trustworthy aide, one who knows the city. It would be an honourable position, and one that would secure your livelihood. You need only swear your allegiance to me," Ciryaher said.

The former prince considered it for a while before bending his knees and swearing his fealty to Ciryaher.

Narys Narratys, as that was the name of the former prince, rose as the aide of the new Prince of Pentos.

"As your new aide, I find it wise to inform you that Valyria has already been alerted to your invasion. The magisters informed them using glass candles."

"It is unfortunate but not unexpected. I must ask however where these candles are. Arnor could find a use for them," Ciryaher said.

Arnor had palantiri which were superior by far to anything the Valyrians could make but they were limited. They only had seven whilst Valyria could make glass candles. If Arnor could find a way to reverse-engineer the Valyrians' glass candles, it would go a long way in their war effort against them.

As his new aide showed them a cache of glass candles in the palace, Ciryaher smirked as he ordered his men to round up every glass candle they could find both in the palace and in the rest of the city to be sent back to the homeland.

Arnor would endure as it always would, and the glass candles would be very helpful in weathering the storm that was soon to come.

Tyrosh

Things however were not going nearly as well for Arnor in another theatre of the war.

It had already been a week since their armies had landed on Tyrosh and though the Tyroshi fleet had been destroyed easily enough, the city itself was proving unyielding.

Túrin sighed as yet another withdrawal was ordered. When faced with fortresses defended by black walls, a besieging army had little choice in the means of assault. As the walls could not be damaged or sapped, the only way to take the city by force was to take the walls with ladders and siege towers and breach the gates with rams, no mean feat.

Furthermore, Tyrosh had three levels, of which but the middle one lacked the black stone walls. It was no surprise that even the Arnorian army could not easily break through.

Over a millennium earlier, the Arnorian city of Peluicarnë had been built on the island to control the Stepstones. When the city was conquered by the dragons, the Valyrians had built on the foundations of the city and expanded its Arnorian black walls with their own dragonstone, which was much the same.

Yet Admiral Celosien was undoubtedly right in his assessment that Tyrosh had to fall before the dragons arrived. If they were having difficulty taking the fortress city now, Túrin could only imagine the impossibility of trying to take the city if it was defended by dragons as well.

They needed to take Tyrosh so they could turn the city's impregnable defences to use against Valyria. Its black walls were impervious even to dragonfire and they could use the populace of the city as hostages as well. Tyrosh had to fall if Arnor was to stand a chance in holding the Stepstones in the long term.

Shaking off his thoughts, Túrin cleaned Anglachel and wiped off all the blood on his sword before he put it on and went back out of his tent.

Admiral Celosien had ordered another assault on the walls to be led by a reserve force. Back into the fray it was. Túrin could only hope that Arnor had had better luck in Pentos and Myr. He wondered how his brother Ciryaher was doing. The news of Myr and Pentos would reach them soon he knew. He could only hope it was good, the men needed the morale boost.

Valyria

It was a rare occasion that Jaenara sat in the Senate chamber. Her father had ordered her and her brother to attend that day's meeting as a learning experience and as a Triarch, he had the authority to get them a place inside even though neither of them were senators.

Jaenara had to actively keep herself awake. The Senators were debating on a new bill proposed to increase the funding given to the militia forces as well as expedite coordination between the various militia forces, the auxiliaries, the slave soldiers, the colonial city guards, and of course, the Valyrian Senatorial Guard, the most elite army in the Freehold.

The Senators were hemming and hawing over things like cost and pros and cons and ultimately getting nothing done. If it was up to House Belaerys, they'd abolish the whole militia-auxiliary system entirely and form a single uniform professional army to serve in the defense of the Valyria and its colonies and vassals.

This was a view spearheaded by Jaenara's father, one which Jaenara and her siblings had followed, who also believed that Valyria gave too much autonomy to its colonies and thought that dragonlords should be stationed outside the peninsula to expedite readiness and response to any threats faced by the Freehold.

Unfortunately, despite her father's position as Triarch, it was unlikely that they would ever find enough funding or support for either policy. As much as they called themselves the greatest people in the world, Valyrians were surprisingly stingy and selfish individuals, with the dragonlords feeling that a professional standing army was unnecessary and that staying outside the peninsula was beneath them.

There was another world power which ran its territories and military much more sensibly but Jaenara crushed that line of thought before it took her to yet more treacherous ideas. It had been five years since she had seen Túrin and the rest of his crewmembers in the Arsarothod, but the time she had spent with them had never been forgotten and try as she might, Túrin's offer to go to Arnor with him had remained at the forefront of her mind the whole time as well.

She had yet to muster the courage to again ask her father for permission after he turned down her request to go to Arnor.

You are a Valyrian, not an Arnorian. There is no use in you visiting the homeland of a foreign and rival nation.

Jaenara winced slightly at the memory but she understood her father's concerns. The Belaerii were not untouchable and it was scandalous already that one of their members was a half-blood Arnorian who had been raised in the Arnorian way. Despite her father's best efforts, that information had leaked out, making Jaenara almost a pariah in the Forty Families.

She could not do anything that could lead to her loyalty being questioned, it could ruin her family.

As the debates over the bill turned into outright argument, Jaenara sighed as petty insults began being traded between the Lords Freeholder. No wonder outsiders were rarely allowed into the Senate Chambers, it wouldn't do for lesser men to see the most powerful men and women in the world arguing pettily like little children.

All of a sudden, the Senate doors burst open. The Senators all turned to see the interloper, outraged that someone had interrupted without permission yet the man did not cower under their glares.

Jaenara recognized the man. He was one of the courier mages who operated the glass candles and oversaw communications with the colonies, but why was he here, interrupting a Senate meeting? Was he not aware of the consequences of entering the Senate chambers without permission?

"Forgive my interruption my Lords Freeholder and esteemed Senators but this is information of the utmost importance. Word has come from the colonies that the Kingdom of Arnor has attacked the Freehold. Pentos and the Stepstones have fallen and Myr and Tyrosh are both under siege. The colonies are begging our aid. They call upon Mother Valyria."

It took a few seconds for what the courier said to sink in before pandemonium ensued. Senators were shouting and demanding immediate action whilst others suggested waiting first to muster their armies and logistics chains.

Jaenara's father stood up and calmed the Senate with his authority as Triarch before speaking.

"My Lords Freeholder! Esteemed Senators! Calm yourselves. Carry yourselves with the dignity and maturity befitting the rulers of the greatest nation in the world! We are Valyria! We do not allow lesser nations and powers to challenge us unscathed, even one as mighty as the Kingdom of Arnor.

I hereby ask the Senate and my fellow Triarchs to recognise the state of war that now exists between the Kingdom of Arnor and the Freehold of Valyria. All in favour of declaring war on Arnor?"

Every hand in the room went up, excepting Jaenara and her fellow observers who could not vote.

"Very well. With a unanimous passing, the Freehold of Valyria hereby declares war on the Kingdom of Arnor. As Triarch, I propose that we muster a force of three hundred dragons and send them to the aid of the colonies as soon as possible. We must teach these Arnorians a lesson, they have tickled the sleeping dragon and now they must feel its wrath!"

The Senators gave her father a thunderous applause.

"Arnor knows, as well as we do that so great a force would take weeks to assemble truly. They will have planned accordingly. We cannot allow them the time to entrench into Tyrosh and Myr. Those cities cannot fall. I propose that the Forty Families assemble their riders and that the Freehold's force leaves by the morrow, so as to relieve the colonies as soon as possible."

"What of the logistics and the ground forces?" one Senator asked.

"Those are important, but we have not the time to send those as well. They must come later. What is of the utmost importance is that Myr and Tyrosh are relieved. If necessary, we can withdraw some of the dragons so as to avoid over burdening the food stocks of those two colonies."

One of the other Triarchs stood up and asked, "All in favour of Triarch Belaerys's proposal?"

More than half the hands in the room went up.

"Motion passed. The relief force will be dispatched as soon as possible. A thunder of three hundred dragons will depart the capital on the morrow. Each of the Forty Families is required to contribute no less than two thirds of their total dragonpower."

The Freehold began to prepare for war. By the Senate's orders, the auxiliaries and militias were to be mobilised and trained, the fleet was to be readied and Lys was placed under high alert in case Arnor attacked it as well.

Jaenara could only stare in horror at the realisation that one of her greatest fears was coming true before her. Her mother's homeland and her father's, were going to war.

"Is this why you tried so hard to get me to join you Túrin?" she thought. As a Prince, Túrin had no doubt known of the invasion. The level of preparation and planning required to simultaneously strike Pentos, Myr, and Tyrosh, and to do so without Valyria suspecting, was enormous. It suggested that Arnor had been planning this war for decades, maybe even centuries.

"And I allowed myself to trust them," Jaenara thought disdainfully of herself, disappointed that she had not seen through Túrin and his crew's paper thin reasons for exploring Sothoryos. There was no doubt now in Jaenara's mind that it had had something to do with the Arnorian war plans.

Yet in the back of her mind, Jaenara wondered if it was truly wrong of Arnor to seek vengeance for the atrocities committed on its people, on her mother and her kin. However, like always, Jaenara tried to shake her mind free of the treasonous thoughts but this time she was not wholly successful and the seed of doubt and treason remained in her mind.

The next morning, Jaenara packed as much food as she could into Terrax's saddle bags. For them to reach Tyrosh and Myr as soon as possible, the dragons would have to ride through the night, barely stopping.

It would be costly on the local farmers, but the dragons would have to feed off the livestock of the local area as they passed by and wouldn't that be a nightmare for whatever unfortunate farmer found three hundred dragons devouring all their animals. Compensation or not, that was not an easy loss to recover from.

At her brother's signal, Jaenara took to the skies with Terrax, her siblings and other Belaerys family members joining her with their own dragons.

Flying due west, they met up with the forces sent by all the other families and began to fly as a joint force.

Even as she wondered at the righteousness of the Arnorian cause, Jaenara believed that they had made a terrible mistake provoking Valyria and they would realise it soon.

As the dragons passed overhead the lands below, they blotted out the sun and made the day like night. Perhaps the most powerful force in the world in that moment was moving, and fast.

Three hundred dragons flew west beneath the hot Essosi sun. They flew to bring fire and blood upon their foes. Their wrath had been aroused and what a wrath it was.

Yet would their anger betray them and lead them astray? Was Valyria really going to win? Jaenara did not know, she was not sure if she wanted to know the answer or not.

Author's Note: Never tickle a sleeping dragon, such a wonderful motto to have. Also what Arnor wants to do with Pentos is akin to what Germany planned for the Baltic states in WWI, basically set up a puppet state ruled by the son of the Arnorian/German monarch