Chapter 20: Interlude - Come and Go
"Unstep and stow mast!" said Lord Jon Wells of Evendim Ridge.
His grandfather—who'd won his southron lordship by saving a Velaryon's life at sea—had brought him to foster with their kin when he was a wee lad of nine. The waters were choppier up north, where the narrow sea neared the shivering sea, and the wind was cold enough to freeze your hands if you weren't careful. Those lessons in his youth came back to him now.
"Master Clyde, keep our stern to the wind," Jon said.
"Aye, m'lord!"
The man he trusted more than anyone else on the ship. He was an old hand and had a firm grip on the steering oar. They'd faced storms at sea before.
The dark clouds overhead were illuminated for a brief moment, before the boom of thunder reached his ears. Though never quite anything like a winter storm, Jon thought. He'd been honored by the Young Seahorse when he'd been commanded to lead ten ships to meet the now rapidly approaching Tyroshi fleet, and did not regret it.
The rest of Driftmark's ships had been tied up and anchored at the pier, with wooden fenders thrown over the side in case the high cliffs of Pryr did not keep out all of the stormwinds. Their masts were unstepped and rolled up as well so the winds could not break them. Those measures wouldn't prevent all harm to those ships—a severe blow could snap the anchor cable and mooring line, capsize the ship, or throw it against the rocks and smash the hull—but the good men ashore would not lose their lives.
Good men were harder to find than good wood these days, as Myr had proven.
As for Jon's Maidenhull and the nine other ships he led, they would drown today in service to the Old Gods and the New: killing some slaving fucks.
Visorless halfhelm tucked beneath his arm, he watched Tyroshi approach from the east this time. He'd been there besides his lord when a hundred of these same ships had come at Bloodstone from the north. They had been smashed then by fire, and it was fitting in a way they'd be smashed now by water and wind.
"My lord has a sense for poetry," Jon murmured with a smile before he turned to face his marines. They all wore gambesons instead of brigandine as he commanded. They weren't Iron Islanders. He'd rather they die in battle than let the Drowned God take them. As for him, he wore a sturdy chainmail hauberk for his place was at the front, leading like the Stark would.
Jon heard the low, deep sounds of his lordship's drum beating, building in pace. Bam-bam BAM-bam BAM-BAM.
Off to his starboard, the Wolfwind surged forward.
"Forward!" Jon cried. Master Clyde repeated his orders to the oarsmen and their oars bit into the dark depths, catching and then driving her to spring forward, as though she were eager for the coming fight too.
Beside him, Bryce, the serjeant of the Maidenhull's marines, spat into the sea and banged the butt of his halberd against the wood, following after the beat of the drums.
Gods Old and New, preserve my men. May they serve the lordling Velaryon well. The prayer came easily and Jon capped it by quaffing a mouthful of mead from the silver wine cup he was holding. Then, he let his honey wine spill out into the churning water, losing themselves to where dark things dwelt in anticipation of the coming slaughter. When the last drop went overboard, the cup followed.
Jon loosened his bastard sword from its scabbard, but didn't draw it, and peered over the taffrails. "Here, old man sea! Take it, and soon the blood of the slaving scum will be yours to savor too!"
The winds howled even louder, pleased by his offering and the floodgate of the heavens opened wide. The gap between them and the Tyroshi was closing fast.
But not fast enough they'll find refuge in time, not if they have to go through us, Jon thought with satisfaction. Twenty marines formed up with shields and polearms, banging the same beat Bryce was. Behind them, a baker's dozen of archers loosed their first shafts.
He secured his helmet snugly over his head and tightened the leather ties underneath his chin. Bryce handed him his polearm.
"Fight well, men! Many of you have heard of Hughes Truespear, who lost a hand for knighthood. The Young Seahorse has promised that and riches to all of you who do him honor today! If you fall today, it won't be for naught. Your sons and daughters will be well-provided for," Jon said. There was still hesitation in their eyes, and fear, but there was nowhere for them to go save forward.
Jon left it at that. He was no great speaker like the Young Seahorse was. Instead he bellowed his house words: "Deep wells, deep deeds!"
"Driftmark!" Bryce screamed.
"Deep wells!" Jon said.
"DEEP DEEDS!" his men chorused, the resolve behind their eyes hardening into something almost tangible.
Many would die today, but for those that lived: Immortality. Their stories would live on in the songs and in their children. Lelouch Velaryon had specifically ordered the green boys of Driftmark who'd not yet felt a woman's touch to remain ashore, and all present had volunteered for this. At least half of the fighting men were born and raised in Driftmark, and Lelouch Velaryon had proven beyond doubt that he'd take care of his men.
The boy had fed the children all throughout the winter after all.
"More courage than sense. I'll not have men die for something they'll lose in battle," the Young Seahorse had said. Jon didn't question him. He'd proven wise beyond his years time and again.
He turned his eyes aftwards.
Now! and he leapt.
Lightning crackled, the waves roared, and the Maidenhull rammed into a foe-ship. Clyde had done his job, and done it well. Maidenhull drove home the foe's hull a point to the port of his prow, and the ships locked together with a huge crash of wood and bronze.
Jon had misjudged the leap, and landed heavily on a red bearded Tyroshi trying to back away. For a moment, the man struggled underneath him, but Jon drove the spikes on the knuckles of his gauntlet into the man's face once, twice, and then you could not tell whether his beard was reddened by blood or dye.
A sword bounced into the back of his chainmail—not a clean hit though it knocked the breath out of him. That was all the chance the man got before Bryce was there, clearing the man off Jon's back while he stood.
"Velaryon and Driftmark!" The roar came from his marines as they swept onto the deck behind him, the first four men with poleaxes like his, and then Wells was standing.
Jon parried a spear thrust deftly with the shaft of his poleaxe, then drove his own into the open space between the fool's legs. The man looked surprised for half a heart-beat before Jon twisted the shaft in his hand and brought the blade up with a swing.
He kicked the corpse to the side as he pulled back his weapon.
In rough winds and rolling waves, the deck was tricky to work with even for sure-footed old men. It made the fighting less a clash of two armies and more a hundred brawls taking place at the same time.
Jon thrust again, in and out faster than a man running from a scorned woman's father. The man—boy he corrected, clutched at his torn neck and tried in vain to keep himself from bleeding to death.
With a roar, Jon powered forward, stepping on the boy's face with enough force to end his misery as he passed. The spike and spear-head on his poleaxe became slick and dark with blood. He took an unlucky cut on the underside of his vambrace from a Westerosi longsword, and the forearm piece of his harness came loose, flapping against his gauntlet and rerebrace.
Jon snarled inside his helmet, but found the offender in a pool of his own blood before he could get the satisfaction.
The ship shuddered beneath him, and he turned his head. A galley filled with flamboyantly colored beards had come to try to cut this ship free, and it started disgorging men onto the deck to try to drive back Wells and his marines. Screams from further a-sea caught his ears, and Jon grinned.
"Come on, you sons of whores! Bryce of Ridgeville knew your mothers with his cock!"
Driftmark men, old, brave, and true, swept the deck again. Blood ran out of the scuppers as wine from a drunk's mouth, slippery and dark.
"The cowards are going 'round us," Bryce said as he wiped his sword clean on the chest of a corpse. Ten ships were never going to be enough to stop the entire Tyroshi fleet, but it was enough to slow down the greatest portion of the host. At the edges though, galleys had decided to sail past them instead of flanking, heading straight for "safety" in Pryr.
"Aye. they dread us, run from us, but they'll find death waiting for them all the same," Jon said as they returned to their ship, their numbers now halved. If all was going according to plan, the beachhead would be filled with lines upon lines of crossbows, archers, ballistas, and javelins ready to skewer any fool who'd gamble against Driftmark arms.
Maidenhull reared its oars, pulling away from the breached galley gently, like a lover backing away. Jon's gaze swept across the battle beneath the storm, and turned to his sailing master. "Clyde, that cog with the red sail, do you see it?"
"Aye, sir," he said, and broke off their conversation to bellow at the rowers. When he'd finished, the man looked at Jon and grinned. "Rake his oars?" The vessel was headed to a fight close to them, a Driftmark war galley flying high the Velaryon seahorse busy ramming a Tyroshi ship like a Lyseni tavern whore.
"Aye." Jon nodded. Someone handed him a canteen with watered wine in it, and he drank off the whole thing. Running low on arrows, the archers had gone from volley fire to picking their targets, exchanging bets on the difficulty of called shots. "We'll keep him from joining our friends, and then let's find a nice broad-side target and sink a ship."
Clyde grinned, no doubt cheered by the wealth coming his way soon. Jon paid handsomely for skilled sailors, and one of the hardest feats at sea was a successful oar-rake. It required timing, judgement, and an almost prophetic ability to guess what an enemy ship was going to do.
But if it worked?
The entire side of a ship's oars was more ruined than a highborn girl who'd sired a bastard. She'd be dead in the water, leaving her vulnerable to any other ship that happened by, and even if they had spare oars, it would be some minutes before they could move again. In a battle like this, minutes of idle time was a death sentence.
Jon watched Clyde of Hull judge the distance, judge the ships, and judge the man at the other steering oar, though how he could guess so much from the way a ship moved Jon didn't know.
Maidenhull carved through blood-stained water, her marines panting and her archers growing tired as their arrows ran low.
In the distance, a Driftmark ship was sunk when it suffered two broad-side rams to either side.
"Now!" Clyde called, and the rowers on the port side pulled in their oars. The enemy had mis-timed it, and their oars splintered in a great crackling sound, like a child breaking twigs. Splinters flew, and Jon felt sorry for the foe's rowers, likely to be slaves.
Maidenhull carried through, and nearly sunk herself when a Driftmark galley had to back oars to keep from ramming her. Wells cursed her captain, but had to turn his attention back, and fast, to the cog his ship was fast approaching. The sea reached up and gripped its side for a moment, turning the deck slick.
The rowers have to be tiring, fighting waves this high, Jon thought. The wind had picked up, slapping his face, howling so loudly he could barely hear. He saw a ship capsize, though he did not glimpse whether it was friend or foe. Jon pulled aside the man in charge of the archers. "See you get some bread and beer into my rowers as soon as you're out of arrows! Then pick up a sword and be ready to help my marines, aye?"
"Aye, ser!" The archer tipped his cap. "And a fine rare fight this is, by the gods!"
By the gods indeed, Jon thought. It was a fine sight to see, watching dyed ships dying all around them.
A cry from his sailing master caught his attention, and Jon turned in time to see a vessel too close to broad side ramming Maidenhull to do anything to save his faithful vessel.
"Brace!" Then the Maidenhull's keel was broken, and he was falling.
Jon's legs got tangled in a rower bench, and so he was kept from drowning. His hand reached for a poleaxe but found air instead of comfort in its sturdy oaken shaft. No time, he thought, forcing himself to his feet and ignoring the splinters falling off his armor. He drew his longsword, belted high and under his armpit so the sheath wouldn't tangle in his legs.
Then he ran, ran across the length of the ship, willing his feet onward, onward, onward!
Jon leapt, managing to clasp the prow of the ship that was trying to back its oars from his dying ship. He pulled himself over the side with a heave, and more on instinct than conscious thought, blocked a sword with the back of his good gauntlet. It was finely made steel to keep his hand from bleeding, but damned if it didn't sting like buggery.
Sparing his hand no further sympathy, he thrust his sword and took the man's eye, feeling the blade's tip shudder against bone. An axe caught him vambrace, and he headbutted the man for his troubles, followed by a cut that took the axeman's fingers clean.
"Deep deeds!" Jon screamed, as he hacked and hacked and hacked. "Deep wells! Deep deeds!" He chanted in a roar, in challenge.
Three marines charged him, axes high. Jon danced to the side so that the men would be lined up, parrying the closest swing at his head before using the spikes of his gauntlet to break a nose and take an eye.
This was what the gods had whispered the secret of armor to metalsmiths for: getting in close among the enemy and using every limb, every motion, as a weapon and attack.
Jon kicked, driving the spiked tip of his sabaton into another man's lower leg with an ungodly din.
"Morghulis!" one of the bearded men screamed in a high-pitched tone that made Jon think he was a eunuch. His foes had learned their lesson and charged him from three sides, hemming him in against the taffrails of their ship—the wind howled.
Then the cold came.
It seeped into his veins, into every crack and crevice of his clothes, soaking him, turning his blood to ice—he was falling, falling deeper and his eyes stung. When Jon opened his mouth to scream, salt filled the void and Jon Wells knew he was drowning.
He kicked out desperately, kicking, kicking, kicking while his hauberk anchored him, reeling him closer to the Drowned God. Jon opened his eyes one last time, and saw he was not alone.
The Drowned God embraced thousands, never to let go.
-ZeroRequiem-
When Maz Aleximar was hired at Selhorys two weeks ago, the war with the sunsetlanders was well in hand. An hour ago, he arrived at Alequo Adarys' war chambers—opulent enough to fund the whole war if they stripped it bare, he reckoned—to see a disturbing amount of panic for a war "well in hand".
As a captain of a Free Company, Maz was used to reversals of fortune. That was simply the nature of war. But reversals of this magnitude were as rare as merciful khals.
It seemed to Maz the change in seasons coincided with the change in the war's direction.
Two weeks ago, the City of Wine had just been made an example of by the three horned man standing across Maz. The slaves of Averillys were too valuable to butcher wholesale of course, but four hundred men, their wives, and children, were publicly mutilated, crucified, and fed to the wild dogs.
"A hundred for every magister was a merciful price to pay," Aemiddon Aelarr had said afterwards.
Such cruelty was to be expected from a citizen of Mantarys, the hellish city of monsters and twisted men. Even their Free Company embraced the sinister repute of their home, taking up the cognomen Mandevils. The Westerosi and their Myrish pets had fled soon after, refusing to face a host on the field after the "Humbling at Naqes", as the Tyroshi called it.
There were many gods of the world, but they all hated hubris Maz knew. The Valyrian dragonlords were proud people, and where were all the dragons now? Buried in Valyria under ash and fire, where once it was they who covered others in ash and fire. And the Tagaez Fen whose great kings thought so highly of themselves, now all of them and their lines exterminated by the Dothraki.
All save one: within the spotless white walls of enduring Saath, the blood of tall men still flowed true.
"Captain Aleximar," Adarys said, having to tilt his head back to look him in the eye even at a distance, "perhaps you'd care to share your thoughts on the situation? You have been silent all this time."
"I did not think it my place, Archon," Maz said, both palms flat against his chest as he bowed from the waist, in the way of his people. "The Last Sons number the fewest of all the men you pay."
"It is your place if I say it is, and I do," Adarys said, before glaring at his colorfully bearded admirals. "What could your words hurt? I'm already surrounded by overconfident fools."
"We cannot bide our time," Maz said. "If all that your men say is true, the longer we wait, the more certain our defeat."
"You speak of cowardice so easily," spat Aelarr. "I expected no less from a man whose people the horselords overran."
Maz narrowed his eyes. "My people fought, while your gold fills the coffers of khals, or do you think the slaves you buy from Slaver's Bay come elsewhere?"
"You insolent—"
"This," interjected Alequo, "is not what I pay either of you for. Expound on your thoughts, Aleximar. I would hear it over the empty boasts."
"As you wish, Archon. This King Seafyre—"
"Lord Velaryon," Alequo corrected.
"—Lord Seafyre Velaryon, thank you," Maz said with a nod, "he has brought great ruin to your island. This Pryr, yes? And he did it with but ten ships. I have heard your men whisper as well of the defeat he inflicted on you earlier this year at Bloodstone where you sent a hundred ships and lost four in ten. Time and time again, the Seafyre proves himself our master in matters of sea. Would you say this is accurate?"
Alequo nodded.
"He has used but a fraction of the ships your enemies have," Maz said. "And look at what he has achieved already! When the sunsetlanders are done with the pirates, and it should be soon I suspect, what ruin he might inflict on you when his army is bolstered. The walls of Tyrosh are high and mighty, but even the mighty can be brought low if the gods will it."
And the gods often do, he said in his mind.
"So you propose surrender?" Alequo said.
"No, Archon. I would never propose peace when I make my living through war," Maz said earnestly. "I say what I do merely to impress on the men and others—" he glanced pointedly at Aelarr, "here the urgency with which we need to act. This Pryr must be taken back quickly to stop the gold from bleeding, and unlike a normal wound, this is one that will only worsen with time."
"The last fleet we sent was destroyed!" a pink-bearded admiral shouted. "It's been a week and we're still finding survivors from that battle clinging to rocks and living off rain like animals."
"It should be safe from winter storms by now with spring upon us," another man, this one with yellow stripes coloring his beard, said. "The last one was a big one, and we won't see another of it's size for some time. Maybe just one smaller one left before the storms stop altogether."
"And you still have a hundred ships, yes?" Maz asked.
"A hundred and twenty as of last count," Yellow Stripes said, "though we suspect the enemy have captured a similar number of cogs and galleys we've recovered."
Alequo banged his fist against the table. "Are you telling me that on top of the grievous injuries he inflicted on us, Velaryon actually increased the size of his fleet?"
"Ships are of no use without fighting men, and fighting men are of no use without ships," Maz said. "So he has a few more, but it does not change that he had to sacrifice ten boats worth of oarsmen and soldiers to win that victory. Losses he cannot replace while his friends are still busy. We should take this opportunity to force him from Pryr while we can with the whole might of Tyrosh."
"And leave the city defenseless?" Pink Beard asked in an incredulous tone.
"Tyrosh is a walled island. Leave a garrison here and laugh at them if they spend their strength on rocks," Maz said. "If you do not take Pryr now, you might never take it back until the war ends and who knows when that might be?"
Hopefully not for a very long time. Tyrosh paid double the rates of Volantis to endure half the contempt.
In the end, the Archon of Tyrosh willed Pryr be taken back, and so the fleet tried again, two weeks after the Battle Beneath the Storm.
Seafyre must have seen them coming days away for Pryr fell to them without a fight—what was left of it anyway. The harbor was slighted, the wells stuffed with rotting men, the warehouses burned… it would be the work of many weeks to make it more than a damp, miserable ruin reeking of death and decay.
It had put a stop to the raids on Tyroshi shipping, but the damage was done. The merchants from Pentos and beyond who'd trade with Tyrosh had lost ships and the means to trade with them. Those merchants who weren't trading with them had no reason to now that the integrity of the sealanes was in doubt. Oh, in time things would return to normal, but in the weeks that followed this victory, an atmosphere of defeat plagued the city's inhabitants.
The Mandevils and the Company of Gentlemen were both ordered to keep an eye on the shorelines in case Seafyre (or Stormcaller, as the marines deep in their cups now called him on dark nights) tried his old tricks, but he seemed to have other ideas.
The first day, Seafyre sailed his ships just out of ballista distance from Tyrosh and smashed a patrolling ship. The next day, he did it again but off the coast of Essos. Then again at Pryr, and Pryr again the day after. The man seemed to know their thoughts before they thought it, appearing wherever he was least expected.
It has to be magic, Maz thought.
It didn't take long for their ships to huddle together for safety, but that meant no patrols could be sent out. What other option did they have though? Have their ships whittled down day after day? They'd already lost ten ships to his advances.
So it was entirely unforeseen when a ship of Seafyre's entered within spitting distance of Tyrosh, flying a white flag beneath the proud seahorse.
What surprised Maz more was that the Archon did not order his men to ram it.
-ZeroRequiem-
As an officer of the Iron Bank, Alequo had to hone a keen sense for opportunity. It was, more than anything else, what he treasured most from his time with them. But opportunity had to be in balance with risk. Ignore the former, and you would never amount to anything; ignore the latter, and you would rush headlong into your undoing.
There had been an opportunity with Maelys Blackfyre, and so he'd bet on the man and so rose from apparatchik to Archon virtually overnight.
But the times had changed. The pulse of war was a quicker beat than business, but it was a pulse he had a feel for all the same. Suddenly, he risked everything he'd gained continuing to side with Maelys, so when Velaryon requested to parley, Alequo sensed opportunity.
His bodyguard, an adept of Lorath's school of the sixteen scythes, slammed his steel pole on the marble flooring once, twice. The sound did not reverberate so much given the many open windows through which spears of natural light entered. "Presenting, the emissary of Lord Lelouch Velaryon, Heir of Driftmark and the Driftwood Throne, Mayor Cici of the Free Myrish."
The "emissary" walked past the double doors of steel and crossed the hall of tall marble columns, each painted a different color.
What in all the gods was a mayor? And a woman? Not even that, a girl? That changes things. Alequo frowned, sending away most of the serving girls clad in red lace that left nothing to the imagination. Well, if women won't work, wine will.
Alequo leaned into his chair, an elegant high-backed thing carved from a now extinct blackwood variant. "The former Archon," he began, "told me this chair was shipped from Asshai's shadowlands, centuries ago when things still grew in those places."
He spotted a glimmer of amusement in her eye. "It's aged better than him," the green-haired woman said in a tongue pleasantly familiar to him.
Was she Tyroshi or just well-taught? "The man liked his pear brandy too much. The drink does terrible things to your skin," he said, slapping the arms of his chair shaped like dragonheads and gesturing for her to sit. "Have you ever tried it?"
A servant approached on cue with a bottle, aged since the bumper harvest half a century prior. She set down two cups of pure gold, heavy enough to cave a man's skull in if you threw it right, before pouring the strong-smelling, off-white liquor.
"Yes, but not a bottling of this quality," she said.
"A toast then," Alequo said, raising the impractical cup with some effort, though he hid it well, "to opportunity."
"To opportunity," Cici said, taking the cup like it weighed nothing and sipping from it. She didn't grimace to her credit, though he did see her assess the serving girl's assets for a brief moment before averting her eyes.
Something there I can use perhaps? "So you are emissary to the Velaryons," Alequo said. "A well-respected family in Westeros, and not a name unknown to me, but Tyrosh is at war with the Iron Throne. What right does your lord have to bargain with me? What assurances have I he can even keep to any terms discussed here."
"The talks will take place within the week, face-to-face," Cici said.
He'd expected anger, as was often the case when one pricked at the all too sensitive pride of the sunsetlanders. He'd expected amusement perhaps, or threats to walk out. Alequo had not expected his question would be ignored. "Will it now? I don't recall agreeing to anything."
"Oh, forgive my rudeness, Archon," Cici said. "Allow me to present my gift first."
Alequo blinked. "What?"
"My gift," she repeated, slowly enunciating the words this time, like he was a particularly dull child. "It is customary among the sunsetlanders to exchange them for talks between friends."
"Friends?" he repeated incredulously. "I wasn't aware your lord held me in such high regard after he savaged my ships."
"Savaged your ships? No such thing happened, though I hear pirates have been a menace since the war started," Cici lied. "And of course my lord sees you as his friend. Why else would he be keeping his ships so close to your island, if not to protect it from armed bands of marauding sea thieves?"
She dropped a bag she was holding on the table, and slid it towards him. It was damp to the touch. Alequo peeked at it, and suppressed his grimace. A human head—not Tyroshi, too clean shaven—wrapped in a dozen layers of Tyroshi purple flags taken from captured ships. "I've never tried this delicacy," Alequo said. "Is it common among your people?"
"Oh quite, but not for eating," Cici said, folding her hands on her lap.
Alequo pushed the head to the side with a finger, and wiped his hand on a cotton cloth sitting on the table. "So, whose head does this belong to, and why should I care?"
Her eyes hardened into something fierce and she showed him teeth; predatory and domineering and dangerous. "Are we done with the foreplay already? The man's name, well, it honestly doesn't matter. He's dead. All you need to know is that the pirate was found guilty by his peers."
"A pirate tried by pirates," Alequo said drily. "What was he guilty of?"
"Officially? Greed," Cici said.
"And unofficially?"
"He overreached, and he had the wrong parents," Cici said.
Alequo laughed. "I suppose if greed alone was worth murdering people over, all the lords of Westeros would be dead."
"Lelouch has called for a stop to the raids on Tyroshi shipping," she said.
Ah, and our headless friend did not comply, Alequo thought. An end to the raids… that would be one of many boons they were willing to offer him for peace. It would not hurt to hear them out. "The talks will take place within the week, face-to-face, you said. It will have to be on neutral ground."
"There is no neutral ground," she said. "Unless you want to hold these talks in land Blackfyre controls, though I doubt you would. If you're caught in the act, the danger he poses to you outstrips anything else."
"It should be in Tyrosh then," he countered, knowing well they'd never agree. "Maelys will never be able to reach us here." Not that he could unless he sprouted wings suddenly. The Lyseni hinterlands Maelys was subjugating were too far for him to reach Tyrosh in time, but she didn't know that.
"Maelys would never be able to reach you at Bloodstone or any other island for that matter," Cici said.
"Tyrosh has high walls to hide behind," Alequo said.
"Tyrosh also has magisters who'd sell you out to Maelys with a smile, and offer their own wives as consorts to boot. We are not entirely unfamiliar with your current predicament. It will have to be in the countryside of Averillys," Cici said, counting with her fingers. "It's far enough from Blackfyre's lands, still within Tyrosh's sphere but not too much, and close enough to the shore for Lelouch to reach."
Averillys made a lot of sense, but… "If your lord's victories are anything to go by, each man of his must be worth twice that of Tyrosh. I should be allowed twice the guards to feel safe."
"The fault lies not in your fighting men, but in their commanders," she retorted.
...he couldn't call himself a merchant if he didn't haggle. That's where all the fun was.