Rusty Steel stood at attention alongside the other unsullied, staring straight ahead.
They hadn't been ordered to do anything else, so they would continue to do so. Obey the order. Never question.
Ahead, upon the dais, there were two large groups of people gathered.
Their masters, the good masters of Astapor. The men who had created them. Or the ones holding the leash of the ones who had anyway.
Obey the master. Never question.
On the other hand, there was a gathering of some 60 men wearing heavy, steel armor. Well, mostly men.
There was also one woman amongst them, though she was wearing armor the same as the rest, though whereas her companions had their hands resting at the handles of their swords, the old woman simply leaned on a walking stick, as she looked out over the Unsullied.
She wore an inquisitive look, as she surveyed the gathered troops, one that reminded him of days gone by when he'd still lived with his grandmother at…
No… Best not to dwell on that.
It did not completely contradict their orders to remember, but… It was best not to remember.
It made him sad to remember.
Obey your orders. Never question.
Upon the dais the good masters were chatting away, discussing matters he could not hear.
They were as they usually were at the rare times when Rusty Steel had seen them.
Decadent, pampered, and at ease with how much they enjoyed themselves. This was just another transaction, just another game to them, despite the wealth involved.
By contrast, their counterparts were not at ease.
Even though he couldn't see their faces through their helmets(only the old woman had her visor up.) He could tell from their body language that these men were not at ease.
On the contrary, they seemed rather scared and nervous.
Scared something would go wrong.
Finally, the chatter amongst the good masters ended, and one of them went up to the old woman, a couple of slaves setting down a table between them, and putting something on it.
The old woman stepped up to the table, and nodded, then did… Something on the table.
Signed a contract.
The good master nodded gladly.
Then he turned to the unsullied and held aloft something.
"Unsullied! You are now the property of 'good' lady Olenna Tyrell! To do with as she pleases, and send to fight where she pleases!"
No one answered. But they all heard his loud and bleating yelling.
Then he handed over the whip, the symbol of their ownership to the lady in the plated steel.
Rusted steel's eyes turned from him to the lady. He was unimportant. Meaningless.
The lady Olenna now held their leash. She was their master, the only one whose opinions and orders mattered.
The woman looked down on it, with an inquisitive look, before her eyes went to the unsullied.
Then she paced to the side and looked out over the sea of spears as if she was a general inspecting her troops. She was much, much more of course. She was their master.
All the while she walked, looking down at them, and holding the Harpy's Fingers in the hand that was towards the gathered spearmen.
Then, she suddenly stopped.
The world paused as silence fell across the plaza of pain, where so many countless souls had suffered over the years.
Then she lifted the whip high.
"UNSULLIED! ARE YOU READY TO FIGHT?!"
Her voice was loud and shrill, like old bark.
Lessons drilled into him over the course of thousands of hours kicked him awake in a way that only an Order could do.
"YES!" Thousands of voices called out as one.
"GOOD! BECAUSE HERE IS MY FIRST ORDER TO YOU! SLAUGHTER THE FREE INHABITANTS OF THIS CITY! KILL EVERY FREE MAN AND WOMAN, AND STRIKE THE CHAINS OF EVERY SLAVE YOU SEE! NOW GO FORTH AND DO AS I COMMAND YOU!"
As she finished her orders, the old woman carefully raised one of her hands and closed down the visor of her helmet with a clang.
In front of him, an overseer had been trotting along on a horse.
He made the mistake of stopping to gape at the old woman up on the raised section, leaving him a sitting target to the unsullied by his side.
5 spears immediately punched into his horse, killing the animal on the spot.
Rusty Steel walked forward, and calmly stabbed the overseer through the neck.
Then he quietly joined his squad, as they began moving.
Everyone began moving.
Upon the dais, the old woman's knights had drawn their swords and were falling on the good masters, an endeavor they were quickly being assisted in by a century of unsullied that moved up the steps.
The rest began to move out from the plaza of punishment.
As he moved down a street to leave the plaza, he moved past a cross where a child had been crucified upside down, her eyeless sockets watching the entire display going on before her.
He did not give it a second glance.
He had been given an order.
As he carried out his mistress command, and the screams carried all around, he did his work in silence.
Inside of his own head, however, he remembered every single day, every lesson he had ever seen, every boy that had ever failed.
He remembered his brothers. 4 of them there had been when they were taken.
3 went to the unsullied.
Rogar had failed on his 7th day when he'd accidentally dropped his spear.
He'd died on a cross as that girl had.
Robert though, Robert had managed to make it all the way up until they were given those dogs to care for. He hadn't been able to kill it at the end of the year.
And so, they had thrown him in with other, hungry dogs.
He remembered the screams. Just like he remembered every scream of every single slave he'd ever heard or watched die, all of them dancing through his head like a symphony. A song of death and suffering, that had repeated itself so many times that he'd grown numb to it all.
And above it all, he recalled the lesson he'd been given time and time again.
Obey your orders. Never question.
He did not question why every free man and woman in the city were to be killed. He did not question why every slave was to be freed.
He simply obeyed.
A young wine seller tried to get away. He slammed his spear through his spine, then finished him off with a spear thrust through the neck.
A random woman on the street with her scarlet hair fashioned like bat wings. A stab through the eye.
A fat older woman clutching a child that could be no older than 6. A spear thrust through the mouth. He left the child. There had been no orders regarding free children.
A middle-aged man on the street wearing a toukar. Spear thrust through the chest.
A young pregnant woman no more than 19 years of age. A spear thrust through the neck.
As he passed the house of a trainer of the unsullied, he saw in the gardens some younger unsullied(not yet old enough to have earned their caps) gleefully attacking and painfully killing the members of the household.
One man had had all his limbs cut off and had been left to die as he screamed in agony. Several of the children had been mutilated, and the woman he recognized as the trainer's wife had had spears showed up in the most painful of places. That she was alive still was a miracle in and out of itself.
She would die eventually though with wounds like that, and so he did not step forth to carry out his orders by granting her a quick death.
Kill every free man and woman in the city, and strike the chains of every slave you see.
And they did that as well.
The freed slave after slave after slave.
Old slaves, young slaves, slaves in the prime of their lives.
Then more bloodshed. More death. More slaughter.
It went on like that for the entire day.
Death, after death, after death. No free man and woman were spared. Not the slavers, not visiting traders, not business owners, and not the graces in their temples.
No one.
At the end of it all, he'd killed no less than 279 people. All free men and women.
And they had freed the slaves. So, so many slaves.
But in the end, the Unsullied carried forth their orders to perfection.
They killed every single free man and woman in the city, sparing none.
Finally, once they had achieved that, they were given their next set of orders.
To go back to the plaza of punishment.
The smell of blood and shit hung heavily in the air as they marched through the bloodied streets.
Here and there there were children crying near the dead bodies Rusted Steel and his brethren had left in their wake.
The majority of the unsullied ignored them. They had not been ordered to kill the children.
The younger ones did not care about this distinction though.
As Rusted Steel passed, an unsullied of 11 years or so, broke rank and kicked a little boy so hard that he heard the "Crack" sound of his jaw. Then he slammed his spear down… Before leaving the corpse, and running up to rejoin his century's ranks.
He did not care, nor look back.
He had his orders.
Move to the plaza of punishment.
His century came there early when there couldn't have been more than a few hundred of his fellow unsullied total in the plaza.
As such, they got to position themselves in the front row, while waiting for the rest of the unsullied to come. And come they did.
Thousands of blood-soaked feet marched into the plaza, in an endless and monotonous stream of slapping wet sandals on stone.
Someone had cleared out the wise masters from the dais, for their corpses were nowhere to be found.
The bloodstains that had flowed down the dais however were still there, visible for all to see.
It took several hours before they were all there once more, in the Plaza where every single one of them had seen so, so, so many brothers in training die in the most gruesome of ways.
It was as the final centuries entered the plaza that she appeared once more, their will.
He had been straight as an arrow before as he waited, but he felt his muscles stiffen as the lady walked down the steps from one of the Manses that was connected to the dais.
He didn't hear a word spoken, or any bit of movement from the men by his sides, but he knew, through a sense deeper than sight or hearing, that every single unsullied in the army stiffened as he did at the sight of their master.
The ruler, their will. Obey the master. Never question.
Olenna Tyrell looked about the same as she had earlier in the day.
The only difference was that now she wasn't wearing her helmet, letting her long, white hair spill about her plated armor.
Unlike earlier, she was alone as she stepped up to the exact spot where she had ordered them to butcher this city's leadership.
This time as she looked out over them, the old woman seemed… Different somehow.
Stronger. Like she had grown in both power and confidence, since last, he saw her.
This time, she did not carry a walking stick in her hand as she surveyed her unsullied. Only the whip that was her badge of ownership.
But she did not say anything as the remainder of the unsullied moved into position.
She just stared out at them, wearing a confident smile on her face as the last of them moved into place.
Then, silence.
The old, short woman looked from side to side one, final time. Then raised her hand and snapped her fingers.
Almost immediately, a man in green hurried up to her carrying… A brazier? Yes. A burning brazier, that he hastily put down beside their master.
"UNSULLIED!"
The voice wasn't any less like old bark, nor any less shrill, but there was definitely something different about it.
"THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK TODAY! I AM NOTHING BUT GRATEFUL!"
Rusted Steel did not move at the praise.
There had not yet been issued an order. He would not act until there had been an order.
"HERE IS MY SECOND, AND LAST ORDER AS YOUR MASTER."
As she talked, she raised the whip up high so all could see.
The symbol of her supremacy, the proof that she was their master.
Obey the master. Never question.
Then without fanfare, or hesitation, she dropped the entire thing in the brazier.
"AS THANKS FOR YOUR ROLE IN LIBERATING THIS CITY, AND FREEING ALL THESE SLAVES, WHILE BRINGING JUSTICE TO THE SLAVERS AND SLAVE OWNERS THAT HAS CAUSED NOTHING BUT MISERY AND SUFFERING UPON THIS WORLD I FREE YOU FROM YOUR BONDAGE! YOU ARE ALL NOW FREE MEN, ABLE TO DO AS YOU PLEASE!"
Silence.
Rusted steel just stared at her, feeling his mouth dry.
Free?
Him free?
What did that mean? Where would he go? What would he do?
How could he obey his master if there was no master?
Did she mean for him to go back to… To Westeros? To the Stormlands?
What was there for him? All his kin was dead. There was nothing to go back to for him.
In his heart, he felt… Not fear, the capacity to feel fear had long since been destroyed in him, as it was in all Unsullied, but definitely… Something.
Dread. An unease about what to do.
The certainty that had once dominated his entire being now crumbled like the sandcastles of his youth before a storm.
"I AM CERTAIN THAT MANY OF YOU WONDER WHAT TO DO NOW!? WHAT SHALL I DO WITH MY LIFE AS A FREE MAN? I HAVE NO FAMILY TO GO HOME TO, NOR DO I HAVE THE ABILITY TO MAKE ONE ANEW! I CANNOT GIVE YOU THE ABILITY TO MAKE A NEW FAMILY TO YOU! BUT…"
And there, she halted. As she looked out from side to side, out across the mass of men, all eyes in the plaza of punishment were glued on her.
The void of any noise beyond his own breathing in that pause was so heavy that it felt like he could reach out, and touch it.
"I CANNOT GIVE YOU A FAMILY. BUT I CAN GIVE YOU SOMETHING ELSE IF YOU WISH IT. I CAN GIVE YOU PURPOSE. THIS CONQUEST WAS BUT THE FIRST FOR MY FORCES. THE MIGHT OF HOUSE TYRELL WILL NEXT MOVE NORTH, TO YUNKAI AND MEEREEN, WHERE WE SHALL LEVEL THE SLAVERS CITIES, AND WIPE THE GHISCARI CITIES AND THEIR SLAVERS FROM THE FACE OF THE WORLD!"
Rusted Steel stared at her with wide eyes. Where was she going with all of this? What purpose was she talking about?
"AFTERWARDS, WE SHALL TAKE THE CITIES OF TOLOS, ELYRIA, AND NEW GHIS! WE WILL BREAK! THE! CHAINS! OF! THIS! BAY!... NOW AND FOREVER! LATER TODAY, I SHALL SET SAIL NORTH FOR YUNKAI. IF YOU WISH FOR PURPOSE COME WITH ME THEN! JOIN ME, NOT AS SLAVES, BUT AS MEN, THE GREATEST INFANTRY THIS WORLD HAS EVER SEEN! COME WITH ME, AS WE BRING RUINS TO THE SLAVERS! AS WE LIBERATE THOSE IN BONDAGE! AS WE CLEAVE OUR WAY ACROSS ESSOS, NOT AS AN DECADENT EMPIRE ONLY CARING ABOUT WEALTH! NOT AS A FREEHOLD OF SLAVERS BUILDING POINTLESS MONUMENTS ON THE BACK OF THE COLLARS OF THE ENSLAVED! BUT AS A KINGDOM! A NATION OF FREE MEN, WHERE NO MAN, WOMAN, OR CHILD CAN EVER BE ENSLAVED AGAIN!"
Come with her.
As a free man.
He felt… Strange considering it.
It was a new prospect. It was strange. It was...
"Free men…"
He glanced to his side, where he saw his fellow soldier, that currently was named, green cat staring up at Olenna Tyrell as if she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life.
Then… "Thunk".
The sound of a spear butt hitting stone.
It sounded surprisingly strong across the red Plaza.
Then it came again.
"Thunk"
Then, on the third "Thunk", more sounded.
"Thunk", a dozen.
"Thunk" a hundred.
He felt his own spear rise up, and then slam down on the red stone.
Yes… This… This was good. This was familiar. He could do this. He could follow his century, as they followed this Queen above them.
Over 9000 spears were raised and slammed down as one.
He was only one soldier amongst thousands. Ready, and eager to follow orders laid before him.
As it should be. Obey your orders.
I
"I can't believe that worked." Theodore Tyrell said in an astonished tone.
Olenna snorted.
"That is because you haven't read up enough on the Unsullied. If you had, you would know they obey only their master, and never question any orders, no matter what. It took quite a lot of work and brutality to get them there, but the results speak for themselves."
Theodore was not convinced.
"I mean… It's just… It's like something out of some children's play. 'And then the wicked slave masters were foolish enough to hand over every single one of their slave soldiers, leaving them completely defenseless as the old lady then ordered those same soldiers to kill them.'"
At that, she actually smiled.
"I have to agree with you on that at least. We have to take advantage of that. Set up plenty of plays free to the public, that highlights what a bunch of simpletons they were."
And that they truly were these Ghiscari.
And she had thought Westerosi men were bad. These slavers didn't even seem to possess the wit of a duck, given how badly they had managed the resources they were given.
Even her dear oaf Luthor had understood the value of the iron of the Red Mountains to produce steel aplenty and had invested a lot of loans to help set up mines to dig it forth.
The Ghiscari didn't even do that.
They had plenty of iron in these mountains of theirs, and what did they use it on? Large and powerful armies to destroy the Dothraki so they could take their "sea" and it's Fertile fields for their own? No, they used it on slave collars instead.
That was not a mistake she would make.
No, she was planning on making something out of this new Kingdom of theirs.
Something much, much more grand and powerful than that.
The room they were currently in had once upon a time been the room of some grand slave master… Whose brains had been spilled rather thoroughly across the floor, where some maids were currently busy cleaning it up.
The room was filled with what amounted to leadership for their motley band.
The remaining members of house Tyrell, House Redwyne, House Hightower were the great powers at this court of theirs, alongside a smattering of other, lesser lords that had come with them into exile.
Baelor Hightower nodded, as he slowly drank a mug of golden vine.
"Aye, I've read enough of the Unsullied to know their reputation. Lady Tyrell is right. The slave masters' fate was sealed the moment they handed over that bloody whip."
The man named after a king that had been terrified of his own erect cock turned to look at her with a questioning look.
"Frankly, the part that surprised me the most wasn't the slaughter without any questions. It was what happened afterwards. I was certain that at least a few thousand wouldn't agree to join us after being granted that freedom. Maybe as much as half. Instead, they all joined up to this war of liberation of ours. To a man! How did you know that all would remain loyal?"
She did not. She had taken a calculated risk, and it had paid off.
There was little reason to tell that to Baelor Hightower though.
The only thing that would do, was make her plan look less impressive.
"It was simple, bloody logic. Every single unsullied has been hammered to have every bit of independent decision-making beaten out of them. It will take months, maybe years, before most of them fully understands and appreciates what it means to be free again. Even so, being as large a bunch as they are, there were bound to be at least a few that instantly grasped it. Those would step forth, and rally behind me, and the rest, used to follow orders above anything else, would quickly embrace the idea of following their new "objective". I might not have given them an order to follow me, but I didn't have to. Their own training would make sure they would follow my words, even after I was no longer their master."
She leaned back in her seat, looking over the ugly mosaic on the wall that showcased that ugly harpy these savages worshipped.
She mentally added them to the list of things she would have to get rid of.
"I suspect that had I not presented an alternative after freeing them, most, if not all of them would have rallied behind the first one that realized that they would make good mercenaries."
She shrugged.
"Now, however, they are good and true "Men" of house Tyrell. It was us who freed them after all, and once they begin realizing that, they will remember who it was that broke their chains."
Namely her.
She might have no plans of becoming a Queen in her own right(It was a thankless job, where you got all the blame if something went wrong, not to mention her Reacher lords would never get on board with it), but she was most certainly going to make certain that she had real, tangible power when Willas was old enough to rule.
Directly controlling the most powerful infantry in the world would be a large part of that.
"Did… Did we have to go this far?"
Silence.
Every single head in the room, from the lords to the guards, to even the washerwomen turned to look at the speaker.
Said speaker was, as it turned out, her twice nephew Paxter Redwyne, his head turned out to look out the window on the red city below.
"We… Did not have to slaughter the women as well…"
Olenna rolled her eyes.
It astounded her, that men who were trained for war, and to butcher each other would, without fail, flounder at the worst moments either due to idiotic displays of cruelty, or inane and poorly thought out and misplaced displays of mercy.
"Of course we had to. What, you think leaving a single adult Ghiscari Freeman was going to fly? We are going to exterminate their entire culture, and religion, and replace it with our own. For that, we have to remove every single trace of the former culture root and stem. The women themselves might not have caused problems, but the sons they would raise most certainly would. They would have raised their children to become rebels and outlaws. By removing them, and their vindictive potential out of the way, we will not get large, and coordinated outlaw bands later down the line."
She could tell that Paxter wasn't the only one who had his doubts. The man was merely the only one who voiced them.
"We need a clean slate to work with. Not to mention that since there are no previously free Ghiscari left in this city, we now control every single piece of property in the entire city, we can hand them out to people as we please, thus controlling the establishment of new jobs. That will be vitally important to building the infrastructure we will require for our future plans."
So long as there was a single of the old Ghiscari left in the cities, her family could never rule their conquest without fear. Once they had established control over the hinterlands, they could move on to the next part of destroying the old Ghiscari.
Namely, they would round up every single child on the street, and ship them off to remote farms, where they would preferably spend the rest of their lives. Far away from cities where they could cause anyone any real trouble.
Frankly, that was one of the easier parts of their plans.
She was about to continue, but Moryn beat her to it.
"Frankly Paxter, get off your high horse. I was there when you harried the stormlands and put countless fishing villages to the sword. It was war. This is war. It is no different."
Several agreeing nods and yes sounds.
"Not to mention that none of these families we destroyed were innocent. There is not a business in this city that does not have ties to the slave economy. Every single free man and woman are guilty of slavery by association. All slavery societies are."
Frankly speaking, she didn't give a damn what Paxter thought on the matter.
She was far, far concerned with seeing this through to the end.
She had no plans on half-assing this conquest and leaving up a whole bunch of loose ends that could make the whole endeavor cave in on itself later down the line.
Kicking the problems down the road would only delay them. And if there was a time to make certain the foundation was strong, it was now, while they made it.
Like she later planned to do to the Dothraki, she would obliterate every single bit of the Ghiscari from the face of the world.
Their language would be obliterated and replaced with the Common Tongue of the Andals. Their religion of winged women with the seven-pointed star, their architecture and garish pyramids and manses with castles, fortresses, and good palaces.
Every bit of art would be crushed, every statue smashed and used as gravel, every record of their language burned, and every single one of those blasted golden harpies melted down and minted as coins.
Olenna Tyrell was not a woman who believed in half measures.
She had planned this down very thoroughly.
From how they would divide out the land to the peasants, how they would convert the entire populace to their religion, utilize the thousands and thousands of Septons and Septas they had forced with them from Oldtown both to "enlighten" their new peasantry, but also to educate them away from their old language.
It would take an enormous amount of time and effort, and gods knew how much paperwork, but she WOULD see it through to the end.
By the time she went to her grave, she would have as many peasants as humanly possible, talk like Westerosi peasants, think like westerosi peasants, worship like Westerosi peasants, and be willing and ready to die for their betters like Westerosi peasants.
"Now, if we can move past any more "bleeding hearts"... Mayhaps we could discuss the actual purpose I called you here, rather than cry for slavers."
No one spoke up.
"Good. Now, for our actual plans. Now that we have an actual army and base of operation to work with, it is time to capitalize on that."
She leaned over the table, all the while feeling the soreness from where she had earlier in the day walked around with plated steel covering her body.
Storms, that some men actually liked walking about in steel… Well, it was another easy sign of spotting a fool.
"We will take the unsullied North, along with a 1000 knights, and whoever from the freed slaves are well enough to hold a spear and shield. Hit Yunkai without warning. Then quickly move past and hit Meereen. If we're lucky we'll not need to siege it, but that is no guarantee, and unlike Yunkai, it's walls are such that we can't just throw enough men at the walls until the fall. So if we don't get past the walls at the start, it'll mean a siege."
"A siege of a city with no supplies prepared is no matter. Especially if they haven't had enough time to poison the wells outside the city. It won't last longer than a month at best." Lord Hightower noted.
"I agree. In either case, the only real danger comes from the Dothraki. We need to secure this place immediately."
She pointed on the map on the spot east of Meereen between where the mountain ended and the river flowed.
"We need to construct something that will prevent the Dothraki from easily invading the vales and valleys of the Ghiscari mountains. A wall from the mountain to the river. It doesn't need to be that tall, the savages have no concept of siegecraft. But it needs to cover the entire thing. We cannot allow Dothraki Khalisars into our new lands."
Much agreement and nods followed.
"As for the hinterlands, those will be laughably easy to deal with."
"The towns and villages do not have walls, as they do not fear attack, neither from foreign armies, nor Dothraki. Rather foolish of them."
"So… We can literally just ride forth and crush them? Just like that" Theodore asked incredulously.
"Yes, I shall leave that to you, Theodore. Since you are such a good lad at leading men at chopping down men from your horse."
The man just smiled and nodded.
As for the rest, none of these states have a real navy to match ours, which gives us a massive edge. New Ghis can easily be cut off from both the island of Ghaen, as well as it's hinterlands on the mainland. Elyria and Tolos are both strong, but both rely entirely on the bounty of the sea and trade to feed their populations. Deprive them of that, and they will fall quickly to hunger just like Meereen."
More mindless agreeing.
"At that point, we have all the lands we will require for our first push. Then we shall just have to hold."
"Not to mention divvying out spoils and lands." Garth Hightower noted with a grin.
She rolled her eyes.
As of any one of them had forgotten.
"Yes. The three core cities formerly known as Meereen, Yunkai, and Astapor will become the fiefdom of the King. So will all the lands along the Skahazadhan. House Hightower will get the hinterlands of New Ghis, and refound a new city on the spot where old Ghiz stood, while Redwyne will get New Ghis and Ghaen."
As she talked she motioned towards the various spots on the map.
"As for lesser lords… Well, the shield Islanders will get the various islands in the bay. I really don't care which of them goes where."
"No doubt every one of them will want Elyria."
"No doubt. Though if any of them have the wits of goose, they'll see that Cedar will be the bigger price, given it will be our main source of wood for the foreseeable future."
"Who will get Tolos? I noticed you haven't mentioned it before in who will get what? Is there a reason for that?"
"Beyond it being the most miserable and weakest of all the cities in the bay? Not particularly. By all accounts, it is a miserable place, with little wealth beyond that black stone the dragonlords were so fond of. As for who gets it… I'm certain there will be someone who wants it amongst the smaller lords. We have no shortage of fools who would rather have the prestige of ruling a city rather than large tracts of land."
"No doubt. I'm sure many of the lesser educated ones imagine that ruling a true city immediately makes them better than those who do not."
The lord of house Hightower chuckled.
"Doubtless they think they shall become the next Hightowers, rather than our equivalent of the backwater city lords of White Harbor."
"Either way, I shall deal with that later. At the moment we still have the final part of the plan. Once we have secured our new lands, we must prepare for the coming hammer blow from the west. The Free Cities will not take their entire supply of new slaves going bottom-up lying down. They will come, and they will come in strength. However… Given they will have to sail the long way around Valyria and will reach our shores short on supplies and water, so long as we fortify right, we can make any would-be invasion suffer rather harshly. Provided we don't just obliterate them at sea of course."
All eyes turned to Paxter, the Ford Admiral of their new Kingdom and the prince of… Whatever the hell that he decided to name his new lordship. Olenna had a sneaking suspicion that it would be "New Arbor", or some sentimental nonsense like that.
"I… Think we shall manage that well enough… Provided we manage to keep the entire fleet relatively intact as we begin evacuating the entire fleet's relatives from the Arbor without Issue."
Aye… That was a big problem.
Getting the navy here in one piece hadn't been the hardest thing in the world. The Redwyne fleet was one of the best trained and experienced in the known world, only second to the Navy of Braavos.
However, the problem was that getting the families of every single noble, their retinues, the sailors own relatives, their remaining servants' relatives, the entire wealth of the Bank of Oldtown(Which the lord of Hightower had, after much arguing, agreed to fuse together with the new Bank of Thorns.), the clerks of the Bank, their families, not to mention every single sept and septa, and most of Westeros Maesters(Some had ditched their robes and chains and had slipped away across the bay, once they had realized they were going to be shipped off to Slaver's bay for the rest of their lives, but those were thankfully the minority), would all in all require several trips, from one corner of the world to another.
"Provided your ships make sure that absolutely no traders of traveling vessels escape slavers' bay, it will take quite a while before news reaches Volantis. And even after that, it will take a while before the old eunuchs and crones in the black walls get their act together for war. We'll have time to make several trips."
Hopefully.
They had taken and confiscated every single ship in Astapor, and they planned to take every single ship that there was in slaver's bay. Every trader, every transport ship, and every warship. None would escape.
But if one did after learning the full deal of what was happening here…
Well, it would make things much, much more difficult for them as they sent forth transports to ship people from one corner of the world to another.
Even though they would capture and commandeer every single wessel from east and west, and thus keep a lid on what was happening in the bay, it could not last forever.
Sooner or later, they would come.
They would have to be prepared for when that moment finally came.
"Either way, when they come, we shall require an army. The standing sort."
Silence fell, but thankfully no more blasted arguments against it.
If there was one topic she had felt more tempted to loop these men's heads off over, it had to be the damn arguments regarding a large, standing force of armed men.
A levy army backed by knights would not do for what they had planned.
They needed an army that was there and ready for when the enemy came upon their borders. Not to mention her plans of one day exterminating the Dothraki through a long campaign of attrition was not something that could be done with a levy force.
Every single one of their lords that had not been a member of House Tyrell had complained about the idea. They had whined, and moaned and bitched, and complained until she finally drilled into their skulls that without this kind of army, they were doomed.
It didn't matter that the officers and generals would all be lords and knights from their own houses. Oh no, they despised the idea on principle.
Thankfully, that debate was over now. It had required a lot of cajoling, threats, and promises. But she had gotten them on board with the idea.
"Our cavalry of Knights, infantry in the style of the Unsullied, and a ranged core utilizing those giant crossbows from Yi Ti, that outranges even the Dothraki bows. The perfect army… And if the Golden Company agrees to sign on as our armed military in exchange for land, even better."
"How… How likely is it that they will actually agree to become part of our new kingdom?"
She snorted.
"The only time the Golden Company had any sense was under Maelys the Monstrous. If they were smart, they would have conquered the entire west coast of Essos, then used the resources they got from that to conquer Westeros. So in other words, not very likely at all. Still, there is a chance, so we'll try it."
I
In the hierarchy of the faith of the seven, anyone who wanted to have a shot at making it to the council of the most devout had to serve some time at the starry sept that had formerly housed the High Septon before blessed and mad Baelor.
Catelyn had never cared for it. The politicking, the under the table deals for being sent to Kings Landing, the infestation of noble second sons, and the occasional disgraced daughter.
The faith was supposed to be free of that, but instead, it seemed that Oldtown represented the absolute worst of the faith. Not the place where the most pious members went, but the place where the schemers gathered.
Her fellow brothers and sisters had generally not taken well to being shipped across the sea against their will.
She had been shocked when they were told of where they were heading, and what was expected of them.
For one thing, they were all expected to learn the particular branch of high Valyrian that the Ghiscari spoke. Most still required a translator to speak for them.
Not her though, she had come from the barbaric and wretched east, before she had found the true Gods in Westeros, along with a new name.
Now she had returned to the continent of her birth, to spread the one true faith and the liberating light of the Seven that was one amongst the masses.
She had spent the last month preaching to the liberated people of the city formerly known as wretched Astapor.
It had been a terrible place, of death, and slavery, and suffering unlike any she had known.
She had learned more of Hell on Earth in this month alone than she had in all her 52 years before.
The things her poor flock of former slaves had suffered through in this city… Well… The Father above had cast his judgment upon the slavers and had sent his servants to deal judgment.
That was the duty of knights and lords. Hers was to spread the faith amongst the now free masses and to give them comfort and guidance.
And they both wanted and needed her guidance. In spades.
The wast, wast majority had converted easily, and with no argument to their faith, abandoning the wretched false Harpy God.
Some though still clung to Gods they had worshipped before their bondage… But those were in the minority.
Their attitude as well.
Not only did the liberated folks take to their new faith in droves, but they also were some of the most devout followers she had ever had. More than 4000 men and women in this city alone had pledged themselves to the faith, to learn it's mysteries and go forth and help spread the word of the Seven all across The Gardens.
It was not going to be easy(The high edicts of instructing the entire people in the Western tongue was ludicrously ambitious for one.), but if Catelyn knew anything from experience, it was that anything in the world worth doing, was hard.
I
As he did his exercises, Luthor Tyrell, heard the city of Red Gardens(Or Redguard) come alive down below him.
The bustling of people beginning to get their work going, distant doors opening and closing, talk, laughter, people milling about.
It was a different experience to having grown up at Highgarden, where his only claim to fame was that he was named after it's Lord… Who had gotten himself killed while Hawking, so focused on his bird, that he'd not noticed the cliff his horse was heading to.
At the castle, there was bustling in the morning too, but it was a subdued affair.
Here in the city, all he had to do was go to the edge of the layer of the pyramid, and he'd literally be able to throw rocks at any passersby.
Gods the Ghiscari had a terrible building code.
The only good thing he could say for this city was that at least it had a sewer.
Everything else though… they would need to replace.
Lots of work was already being done to change it.
Truth be told, he'd been pleasantly surprised by the former slaves of the Ghiscari.
Back in Westeros, he'd always seen the peasants of The Reach as lazy layabouts that worked only the bare minimum that they had to, and spent their free time just laying about rather than doing something productive.
Not so much here.
It had taken a bit… Okay, it had taken a LOT of work, but most of it's citizens had been assigned some work now.
It seemed like every single freed slave had been eager to jump into whatever kind of work they had been assigned to.
The concept of actually being paid for their work had it's allure.
Most were cheap laborers now, but some thousands had skills in more specialized fields, such as glassblowing, or papermakers trained in creating paper-like Yi Ti did.
Most who had no specialized skills, however, had taken to one of three jobs.
Laborers of various fields, fisherfolk out in the bay, or farmers out in fields up along the river.
And there was labor to spare.
Gods were there labor to spare.
Astapor had horrible defences, and as such, it was of utmost importance that it's defences were updated to make it impregnable.
And then there was the work inside the city.
The pyramids were currently being taken apart and their stones used for more sensible buildings, with the great pyramid the remaining nobility currently resided inside being remade, slowly but surely into a proper Westerosi style fortress.
Their laborers had taken to their job of destroying every single symbol of their former overlords with great enthusiasm, whether it be taking apart pyramids, breaking marble statues to pieces to use as gravel, or chipping away at the countless, countless golden harpies that littered the city.
He doubted that there would be a single sign that this had ever been a ghiscari city in the next 15 years.
However, that was not his job to do.
His job was far, far more personal, prestigious, and important than remaking a single city.
It was as he was nearing the end of his exercises, that his King finally appeared.
The 10-year-old King of the Gardens was wearing his padded training equipment, as well as a training helmet in his hand, and a rather nervous expression on his face.
Behind him, 20 guards quickly moved to secure the entire section of the layer where they trained.
Olenna Tyrell was taking no chances with her precious grandson.
The King of the Gardens and protector of the realm that thousands of knights, eunuchs, and freed slave soldiers were currently fighting to win for him, was a small boy, even for his age.
That said, there was nothing physically or mentally wrong with him. That was important.
The boy was also diligent. That was also important.
However, more important than anything was the sword that the King's personal shield carried.
A long, narrow blade in a thick, Ironwood sheath.
"Good morning, your grace."
"Hello, ser Luthor!" The young monarch said in that squeaky manner that only boys whose balls haven't dropped yet had.
The nervous face did glance over to the blade as Luthor has handed it, and drew it from the wooden scabbard, slowly, deliberately, and carefully.
Then raised it up as if to inspect the blade.
Valyrian steel.
The blade had been forged from quite a few valyrian steel artifacts that had once belonged to the slavers of Astapor, alongside several others.
There was one thing that made this one special though.
It was to be the sword of the king.
In shape, it was an exact copy of the legendary Ivanhoe, the valyrian sword of house Gardner, bought by the legendary prince Ivan, and brought back home by his hand.
That blade had been lost on the field of fire, melted and gone down into the earth by dragonflame, obliterated alongside the house that had used it time and again.
This blade would go under a different name.
Longthorn, after Leo the "Longthorne", the greatest warrior of their dynasty, that had once helped put down the first Blackfyre rebellion.
"Now then… It is time to begin training to master the art of war, your grace."
He made a motion for the boy to follow to the place where they kept the training dummies coated in plates of steel.
Other than his personal shield, none of the guards followed.
"Now, you have some training with regular steel yes?"
"Y-Yes, father trained me with sword and lance since I was 7."
That would be the same Mace that had chosen to back house Targaryen, rather than house Baratheon during the rebellion.
A jolly idiot who was the spitting image of his own father, Luthor's namesake.
He rather hoped this boy would not follow in his father's footsteps in that regard.
"Well, that is good, having some basics never hurts. But Valyrian steel is not like regular steel. It is magical, spell forged. Now there are a lot of things idiots have to say about it, praising it to the high heavens, and overselling it to the realms of legends, where it cuts through stone like water."
He pointed the blade at the head of one of the training dummies, and slowly, but deliberately began pressing it into the wood.
The rippled pattern went into the wood no problem, slowly, but deliberately, until the hilt hit the wood.
"So long as the pressure is there, you can pierce wood with absolutely no problem with the tip. In fact, the tip is very much the deadliest part of a Valyrian steel sword."
"But… Can it not cut through steel with the edge?"
Well, he was asking the right questions at least.
"Aye, it can. However…"
He chose the breastplate of a training dummy. Then he swung a half-hearted downwards blow, making sure the blade hit just slightly off so that rather than being hit directly, it was a glancing blow.
The cut still left a deep rend in the metal, though it hadn't broken through.
"It is very, very easy to hit a glancing blow. For one, plates and helmets are made to make such glancing blows much more likely. Secondly… despite what some idiots will tell you, you actually have to put real weight and power behind the blow if you wish to cut through steel. A halfhearted one will not do."
Then, quick as a snake he raised the blade again, and slammed the thing down on the training dummy, cleaving through steel and wood like it was grass, using all his strength.
"On horseback, with the added weight of a charge and the height of being mounted, you will have no problem killing anyone, no matter how much steel he's wearing. On the ground though…"
He stabbed another training dummy, much more forcefully than he'd done with the first one, but not resembling the savage cut he'd just delivered at all.
"Cutting not only doesn't require nearly as much strength, but it's also much, much harder to screw it up."
Willas nodded mouth agape at the display.
He smiled.
"A real proper, dignified, royal reaction you got there, your grace."
The boy blushed immediately, and his mouth shut close with a clack of teeth.
"So… When do we begin?" He asked, in that desperate tone of someone who didn't want to acknowledge something and wanted to move on.
"Right now."
He picked up a training sword and threw it at the boy.
"I want to see how you do with stabbing. Once, you've perfected that, I'll let you try it with Longthorn."
The boy swallowed, looking strangely relieved as if the thought of using a valyrian steel sword frightened him.
After that, he did relatively well for a 10-year-old squire, as he did the various kinds of stabbing blows that every noble boy was taught in their youth. Whoever his master at arms had been back during his fostering, he'd done a good job.
He certainly was not going to be a Daemon Blackfyre, but he was going to do just fine.
At least he was until they got some unfortunate visitors. Namely Lord Layton Hightower, his 12-year-old son Gunthor… And his youngest daughter Lynesse Hightower.
He internally groaned when he saw them. And as he predicted, when the King turned, he immediately went blushing red, at the sight of the girl.
"Luthor! Is his grace up for some friendly sparring?"
"No. But if you are here to watch, or train yourselves, by all means, do so."
He had seen Guthor fight in the training yard before. It wouldn't be sparring to have them fight. It would just be a beating.
And that was under normal circumstances.
At the moment, the young king was stiff as a board, as the young lady was looking him over, and then, gave him a smile that he personally found to be adorable. The way the king reacted to his betrothed grinning at him though, one might have thought that she was a woman grown and had just dropped her robes for him.
Internally he groaned.
The king did not need the pressure of her being here on the practice yard. At least he wasn't old enough that he'd need to worry about the two of them stealing off.
That would come though.
Lord Hightower wasn't going anywhere. He would still be here when the King and Lynesse were old enough to wed.
He and snooty face, his stupid snidely moustache, and his insistence on going from completely isolated with no contact with anyone, and forcing himself into the spotlight.
Gods he was pretentious and annoying. And that wife of his was even more so, with her talks of fates and prophecy.
As if either of them had any real meaning in the real world beyond that of charlatans.
I
Sansa looked to the sides of the road, feeling very, very nervous as she did so.
She shouldn't be of course.
Grandfather had told her there would be no travelers near this ancient ruin that had once been the easternmost of the free cities.
Now, it was an overgrown ruin, with foliages and greenery everywhere the eye could see.
The shadows fell dark and long, and as darkness fell, every sound seemed… Amplified somehow. Essaria was not what she knew as a "thin place"... But there were darker things here, for those with the eye to see.
Overgrown and haunted ruins were nothing new to Sansa though.
She'd been born in one, she'd grown up in several such places, and learned pretty much everything of worth she knew in them.
No, ruins did not frighten her.
What did frighten her was people.
In this case, the people of the great plains. The very same people who had turned this city into an overgrown ruin, to begin with.
"Hmmm… Interesting."
"Do we have to do this outside?"
Her eyes went to the glowing torch in her grandfather's hand, that burned so, so clearly.
If there was anyone watching, they would be able to spot that torch through the distance like a beacon.
"Yes. This place is where the great statue of Lavinia once stood. The mother of demons they called her. Those who had deformed and twisted children would come here with their doomed offspring, and give them to the goddess. Their life's blood coating the stone here. As they did, it is said they were blessed with fertility and healthy and strong children ever after."
His head turned sideways, eastwards, across the great plains of green grass.
"It was quite the sight from what I recall… But like all such idols, it was carted off to Vaes Dothrak. It makes no matter though. It was the spot that was important."
She groaned. So, no way they were moving inside until it was over.
"There is no one watching Sansa." He continued.
The old, old man tilted his head as he looked down at what he was squatting over.
A bowl with dice in them. Covered in blood, from the body of a bad, bad man that grandfather had slit the throat off just now.
She didn't know who he was, or exactly what he had done, just that grandfather had broken him in Qohor, and he'd been their silent and drooling companions since then. Until now.
His body made a kick as his lifeblood slowly poured out.
She wondered why so many other children she'd met could ever find the sight of dying to be scary.
She'd seen many people die, ever since she was old enough to walk.
This one was no different than any other.
"Luthor Tyrell… I thought he died... Yes… He was murdered, wasn't he?… Or was that another one of the sunset Lords…"
The old man shook his bald head as if that could bring back the flow of memories of older days.
For her though, the name Tyrell brought memories to her mind. She had heard the name Tyrell before.
"Tyrell… Wasn't he one of the bad men from the war?"
The older man chuckled.
"Yes… And no. He fought under the red dragon, that is true enough. But… Luthor was a fine enough fellow from what I recall. Dumb as a stump though."
He narrowed his opal-colored eyes in the darkness, looking down at the dice as if they were the most puzzling piece of art he had ever seen.
"Yes, I remember now… He is dead aye… And that means… His oldest son? No, that can't be it. I saw his death by a Storm… That means… His wife mayhaps? Definitely an older family member…"
He reached down and after picking up the dice, he rolled again.
Then he stared down on the dice once more, narrowing his eyes at the dice as he read the numbers.
"Interesting… Very interesting… But why would they care about the plight of slaves? Of our cause... That makes no sense…"
He contemplated it for a moment more. Then, to Sansa's surprise, he scooped up his dice and got up on his feet, a bit slower than he was like to do, but still, he towered over her once more when he was fully upright.
She had never met another Lengi except for her grandfather, but as she walked beside him and his freakishly long legs, she couldn't help but think that the saying that there were no taller people amongst all the races of man had to be true, for she couldn't imagine any people being taller than this.
"Well, looks like we'll have to find out for ourselves. Slavers bay it is."
The eyes that were tattooed on his face glimmered in the light of the torch. Red, gold, green, and other dancing in the light.
Sansa, who had been scared by the thoughts of possible Dothraki immediately perked up.
Slavers bay? That was great! The old Ghiscari cities were nowhere near as scary as the Dothraki Sea.
"Can we visit old Ghis again while we're there? We could visit old the old Pyramid of trade, oh, or the one of thunder!"
"Mayhaps. Or not. We'll see once we get there. I do not think it will be as stable as the last time we visited.
She just nodded. The thought of being able to ditch these green and awful plains for civilization, bringing nothing but joy to her heart.
I
They didn't set out before the next morning the two of them.
Just two travelers, with three horses, trotting along the plains of the old and broken city-state of Essaria.
As Sansa rose beside him, the 11-year-old singing a tune she'd picked up from a traveling companion, the old man thought to himself of another time he'd had foreseen these numbers.
Dragon.
Astapor.
Yunkai.
Meereen.
Fire and sack.
He'd predicted these numbers and the map they correlated to before.
The last time he had done so, he'd had thousands of armed men at his back, a war elephant, and the loves of his lives at his side.
Now, he had nothing more than his swords, knowledge, 3 horses, and the last person in the world he cared about.
It was a bad hand he had to gamble with.
He had gambled this gambit before.
And lost.
The Brotherhood of the Nine had failed. And almost everyone he had loved had paid the price for that.
And now… Well, now somehow, the Tyrells of Westeros was somehow involved in all of it. The same Tyrells that had played such a crucial role in destroying everything he had worked to build for decades, as they took up arms to prevent Maelys Blackfyre from taking his rightful place on the Iron Throne.
What was it Derrick had said?
War makes for some truly spectacular strange bedfellows.
Well… He would see what sight awaited him at Slaver's bay. Then he would make his plans from there.