The war had entered its decisive stage. Robb sought to bind together his coalition, while the hatred between Stannis Baratheon and the Lannisters boiled over into a brutal series of confrontations.

DAVOS

The wide and fast-flowing Blackwater rush was before him. Beyond it lay the city of King's Landing. Their ultimate goal and the home of his boyhood, the city for which he felt such a strange mix of distaste and affection. If he was not so intimately familiar with its seedy underbelly and its faecal fragrance, he imagined it would look like a glorious beacon of victory.

To look at what stood between them and the city, though, would fill any man with the slightest semblance of sense with the greatest dread. Even to get under those murderously strong walls, they would have to cross the river. It was clear the enemy had no intention of merely letting them.

Davos understood that there was a cost to be paid for every good fortune, and an obligation incurred by every favour or reward. He had learned this as a boy, scraping a meagre living amidst the slums. He had learned it again as a smuggler, forging bonds with men of dubious character but a peculiar sense of honour.

As he had rose alongside Stannis Baratheon, he had had cause to learn this simple lesson again and again. Knighthood had bestowed upon him some semblance of status, but forced him to alter his own fundamental self. It had lifted his wife and children out from the muck, but deprived them of so many of the hard lessons that had forged his character.

If he had any doubt remaining as to this truth, all of the things he had witnessed in the service of his King since this war began had allayed them.

Their cause had been desperate, Stannis unnoticed and unwanted amidst the other contenders for the throne. Davos himself had spent many a night in the cold, turned away from one holdfast after another. Stannis Baratheon? they had said. Who would take him for their King?

All that had changed now, but he struggled to find much joy in it. For sure, they could no longer be ignored. Not just a mere 5,000 riff raff from the Narrow Sea, but the a great host from the Crownlands and Stormlands. If the price for this was only that Davos himself should be pushed further from the centre of power, he would gladly pay it.

It was not so simple, though, and perhaps he alone knew the true cost. It plagued his sleep each night, that dark and evil shadow. It taunted him, pricking at his conscience. What kind of man would serve to such a wicked end?

No, he thought. He could not think that way. Stannis had lifted him up, and Stannis was his King. There was no room left for doubt, there was only a future in victory or a none in defeat. But he vowed to himself that he would fight only for Stannis, and not for the Red Woman. And if there ever came a time where he could be for Stannis and against her all at once, he would be ready.

For now though, there was work to be done. This battle would not unfold in anything like the fashion they would have wished. Circumstances had forced their hand.

For one, the weather had nullified their greatest advantage. Fierce gales blew in from the Narrow Sea, battering the coast for hundreds of miles. To sail in such conditions would have been madness, and Davos thanked the Seven that his King was not so far lost to the Red Woman as to heed her talk of allaying the storms through a worthy sacrifice to her fiery god.

They still might have waited, held back until the weather became more favourable. He himself had advised such a course, and to his surprise found his word backed by many a lord.

But Stannis had been adamant, and had become ever more so as news trickled in of events further west. Robb Stark had been crowned at Bitterbridge, beside his new Tyrell wife. Not just the King of his own frostbitten wastes, but of the whole land.

Davos would never forget the reaction when the message had been read to the war council. He had never seen Stannis so close to losing his iron composure. He had looked genuinely enraged. Is there but a single lord who will not usurp their rightful King? he had said, fists clenched.

It was that which had set them on this middle course. It had lit a fire of urgency under them all. The men of the Narrow Sea had disembarked from their ships and joined up with the Stormlanders. They meant to force a crossing by land against Lord Tywin and take the city through the weight of their 20,000 men.

Davos looked to his King now. His own lad Devan had squired well, for Stannis looked all the ready and every bit a King. He was armoured from feet to neck, his fiery stag emblazoned across his chest plate and fluttering on the banners held aloft by his standard bearers.

Davos was a part of his close retinue, albeit likely the lowliest among them. Even that was madness, in truth. He was still a smuggler at heart. He wasn't made to raise banners or sound warhorns or stand at the head of great armies.

And theirs was a great army, he thought. He was with the King in the centre, made up mostly of those who'd been true from the beginning. The fishermen and dockhands of the Narrow Sea, many flying the banners of proud houses born of Old Valyria. Velaryon, Celtigar, Bar Emmon, and so forth.

The left were those Reachmen that had pledged themselves to Stannis' cause, the Florents being the greatest among them. The Queen's uncle, Lord Alester, commanded that portion of the army. On the other side, the men of the Stormlands flew the banners of a dozen houses under the command of the well-aged Lord Eldon Estermont, the King's great uncle.

Hundreds of makeshift rafts and pontoons were laid out meticulously before the whole army, dedicated groups of men hoisting them up and carrying them forwards as the drummers began to beat the advance. They had more than enough craft to traverse the whole army. If only it were that simple.

As much as Lord Tywin's thrashing at the hands of the Starks had shattered his reputation of military prowess, it was clear he had been no sluggard in preparing for this battle. His Westermen had withdrawn across the river in good order well before their approach, and they were formed up with their allies from within the city.

They had had created extensive fortifications, a patchwork of sharpened stakes and deep trenches. Davos would bet all he had they were even more formidable than they appeared. They would have to be, to prompt Lord Tywin to give up the advantage of the city walls.

The scouts reported about 15,000 enemy troops in total, a motley of Westermen, gold cloaks, Crownlander levies and freeriders.

The battle was opened as a duel of scorpions and bowmen. The cavalry held to the rear, such an engagement held little place for them. As the army of King Stannis advanced towards the river, skyward shield walls formed around the carriers and among the columns of infantry.

The air above the Blackwater seemed to be coated in streams of spent arrows. Nock, Draw, Loose. Davos could hear the same refrain all along the line, again and again.

It was hard to take any kind of measure of the damage from here, either received or inflicted. Still, it did not seem to have slowed their forward momentum. The first of the pontoon boats was being pushed off the banks onto the river, dozens of men packed aboard. Many others followed.

The boats began to draw most of the arrows, to little avail. It was relatively easy for the men to shield themselves aboard the little rivercraft, and as the first waves drew the fire their comrades followed practically unmolested.

The Lannister scorpions were proving far more destructive. As inaccurate as they were, the range was short and straight. They could not fail to find some targets, and each time they did scores of men were sent to a watery grave.

They were in full advance now, their infantry was being pushed forward to force a crossing of the river. Davos looked to his King. Stannis' jaw was clenched, and he fiddled with the reins of his horse. Inaction amidst battle did not come easy to so decisive a man, but this particular vanguard was no place for him.

Nor for Davos either, in truth. He was no coward, and he had given a decent account of himself in fights before, albeit far smaller scraps. Still, no crossing would be made here without a great price in blood.

That price was being paid now, but he could see that there were gains. Further toward the coast and the Red Keep itself, the Stormlanders were having the greatest difficulty. More inland, the levies from the Narrow Sea and the Reachmen were having better luck. Men were crashing ashore, and hundreds upon hundreds more were joining them every moment. The inroads made it more difficult for the Lannisters to impede the new wave of troops rowing across the river.

Yes, he thought. Keep pushing forwards. The King's retinue did not give in to any kind of premature celebration, but there was an undercurrent of satisfaction all the same.

The reverse, when it came, was so sudden that it send a bolt of pure shock straight to his heart. For a moment, he found it difficult to breath.

Their men had been forcing the crossing, the Lannisters beginning to fall back towards the walls. Then the great river had erupted, in a ferocious and unholy discharge of bright green flame. It became a scene of the deepest hell, to which they were rendered little more than powerless spectators, utterly mute to the devastation.

Their men on the river were dead or dying. The sounds of their awful screams carried across the field. Dozens of pontoons were up in flames on the river, their carries cooked alive by the unnatural flames. Some could be seen desperately seeking respite, but the flames spread too quickly. One could not outswim wildfire.

The Lannisters chose this moment to spring the second part of their trap. At least a few thousand of Stannis' men had already forced the river before the trap had been unleashed. They now found themselves trapped between the river and the enemy.

The Lannisters had abandoned any semblance of retreat, and were turned about to destroy those poor men. With nowhere to retreat but to an awful death, many a sword dropped and many a knee fell to the dirt.

The wildfire now was becoming as much a danger to their foes as it was to them. The river itself looked unworldly, the water literally boiling from the scorching heat. The flames were leaping up onto the land, only partly arrested by the sandbanks. Patches of grass and dried mud were smoking.

The King spoke out suddenly. "Sound the retreat."

Davos turned to the voice of his liege. Like the others, he had been transfixed by the unfolding disaster as Stannis came to the only possible choice.

A tepid young squire, the son of some Stormlord, unwisely interjected himself. "Your Grace, the men! Hundreds will die."

Stannis showed no visible reaction, neither irritation nor despair. "Thousands" he replied flatly.

Davos gathered himself, and made the short gallop to the signallers. He relayed the command. "The King commands the sounding of the retreat."

The frightened young lad nodded shakily, and the retreat began to sound across the field. In truth, it had little real effect. Which troops survived and which were lost was already determined by whether or not they were on the right side of the terrible wall of fire.

Davos had not so much as drew his sword for this battle, and yet he felt completely exhausted. This bitter repulse was far from the result he had hoped and prayed for. He was possessed with worry for his sons. Devan was with the King, but his older boys had been amongst the fighting.

There was no immediate respite to be found, either. Only a quick march to some greater safety. As soon as the army had put a few miles between it and the boiling river, Stannis had all of his leading lords and knights assembled once more in a war council. That was sans Lord Estermont, who had perished with his men.

Lord Alester Florent was inclined to waste no time in expressing his disgust at the enemy's tactic. "A foul trickery. Without that intervention, the days would have been ours."

Lord Caron loudly scoffed. "How can that possibly matter? They did it, and they won. Victory is all that matters. You would know that if you knew the slightest thing about warfare."

Lord Alester flushed red with embarrassment and anger. "As I recall, you were among those voices that called for the King to leave Lady Melisandre behind. Perhaps if she had been with us, the Lord of Light would have better favoured us this day."

Davos knew it would be wiser to remain silent, but he simply could not hold his tongue. "The lady's powers of divination are well known to us all, so how is it she saw no vision of the disaster that was to transpire here today?"

He watched Lord Alester flounder for some response to that. He knew he'd hit the mark. The Red Woman had been odd recently, even by her standards of bizarre sorcery. She occupied herself staring into her flames, muttering in confusion about coming treacheries.

The Lord of Brightwater Keep was spared the need to risk his lordly dignity, for Stannis chose to interject.

"How easily you all fall into disarray at the slightest setback. Most of the army is still intact, so I can only assume they sprung their trap too early. The false King is still plagued now by the same hungry and angry folk he was yesterday, and this will still be so tomorrow."

Lord Velaryon was barely containing his sullenness, he looked a veritable seahorse out of water. "You intend to try and force the river again, Your Grace?"

Stannis drew himself up straight, his eyes sweeping across the assembly. "I do not. The river in these parts is burning, and the enemy position is too strong. There are other ways. We will form up and march west, and attempt to ford the river in its more gentle upstream parts. Thereafter, we shall assault the city along its landward facing walls."

They all fell silent. It was as good as plan as they might hope for, he supposed. The only alternative was to sit and wait as victory slipped away from them, and Robb Stark rallied the realm to his side.