One Last War

By: Dirty Reid

Chapter 4: Iron Breaker

Dunstan Drumm, Head of House Drumm, Lord of Old Wyk and captain of the Thunderer sneered as he watched the enormous bonfires burning along the shores of the Reach. The Green Men quailed at the sight of their sloops and longships, squealing like frightened livestock for their lords and knights to come and protect them. Oh a few would put up a fight certainly, but from old Dunstan, they would only be worthy of slightly less contempt as Red Rain, his Valyrian steel blade, tasted their life blood.

As of late, those opportunities had been diminishing, loath as he was to admit it. At four-and-eighty, Dunstan remained as hearty as a man with twenty fewer years behind him, but even that left him somewhat limited. He would fervently deny that the persistent chill of the sea and the Iron Islands left his joints aching, and even short practices with his sons Denys and Donnel left him winded, but in his most private moments he could not refuse to face the facts any more. He had lead only three of the eleven raids he had performed in the past five years, and his sons' Gale and Dread had headed the remaining charges. He strongly suspected that this one would be one of his last sails before he retired to the chair of Old Wyk to reflect on his long life of raping, reaving and plundering before joining the Drowned God's hall for eternity.

"Captain!" Called Dunstan's first mate, rousing the big bald captain from his musings. "The Green Men approach... and they brought friends!" Dunstan frowned as he made for the bow of the Thunderer. He opened his telescope and peered forward, searching for the 'friends' his first mate spoke of. He did not have to look far.

The fleet of Old Wyk was a formidable force. The twelve longships and forty-eight war sloops were not as grand as the hundred longships of the Iron Fleet, but there was a good reason for such: The Iron Fleet was meant for waging war, whereas his fleet was used for hit-and-run tactics. Quickly snatching up treasures and thralls, killing a few men and leaving before reinforcements could arrive was an art he had perfected. He had in the past skirmished with the fleets of Bear Island, Lannisport, the Shield Islands, even the Redwyne, and emerged less worse for wear than his foes. As Dunstan looked upon the unknowns sailing with the fleet of the Shield Islands, he felt a vestige of uncertainty stirring within his heart.

The standard complement of eight war dromonds and thirty-two longships was easily dealt with. The ironborn longships were slightly smaller than the dromonds, but far more manoeuvrable, allowing them to outpace their Shield Island counterparts or dart into range, fire their scorpion siege weapons and retreat. Their war sloops were more or less equal in all aspects, but Dunstan's superior numbers gave him the advantage.

Larger than the ships of the Green Men, Dunstan spied ten unknowns among their challengers. The eight smaller ships bore slight resemblances to the war dromonds of the Green Men, but were smaller by half. They also seemed to be more reliant on three large and billowing sails, the foremost bearing the sigil of a black dragon in flight. That particular standard gave Dunstan pause, flashbacks of skirmishes with Targaryen ships featuring in his mind, but this dragon had only one head. It may have been because his sight was fading, but Dunstan could swear that he saw siege weapons mounted on the bow as well as on the sides like some thorny beast. A second larger ship loomed behind the eight, larger by a half. The key differences lay in its size and the addition of a second weapons deck. There was something else breaking the horizon just behind...

Dunstan Drumm actually lowered his telescope as his mouth fell open in shock. The tenth ship of unknown origins was absolutely tremendous. As he looked through his telescope again, the scale of it became more apparent. The second class of ship could not have been half its size. Its shape made Dunstan think of an overturned dromond, or perhaps a giant blade. The reaver in him salivated a little as the sun caught along the golden plating that must have covered the entire vessel. Something like that ship was exactly what he needed to quell the whispers of the younger captains saying that he was growing too old to lead the fleet of Old Wyk.

"Orders, captain?" Asked the first mate. A good lad, excellent with a blade, if a little cautious. Dunstan grinned as he unsheathed Red Rain.

"Keep true; they may have larger ships, but the wind and numbers favour us. Once we are in range, order all sloops to converge on the largest ship. Break their back, and they will all scatter." He stated, standing a little taller. It was true that the wind favoured the ironborn, granting them speed and manoeuvrability, but what old Dunstan did not say was that he held some small amount of doubt that their numbers would prevail.

"Aye, sir. FULL SPEED AHEAD!" The first mate yelled, his voice bouncing across the water. To the bow and starboard side of the Thunderer, the oars fanning from the Gale and the Dread began to move faster, propelling the two longships up towards the vanguard of the fleet. The anticipation of the upcoming battle was invigorating, and Dunstan felt some of his old energy returning. As minutes passed and the two fleets closed the gap, all of the ironborn began to hear some form of rhythm pulsing like a heartbeat across the water. Once the ships of the Green Men and their friends were nearly in weapon range, the mystery surrounding the beat was lifted: It was a war song, being shouted to the heavens by the sailors aboard the ships of their foes.

"Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin, naal ok zin los vahriin,

Wah dein vokul mahferaak ahst vaal!

Ahrk fin norok paal graan, fod nust hon zindro zaan,

Dovahkiin, fah hin kogaan mu draal!"

As the distance between them grew ever smaller, Dunstan could localize the singing to the foreign boats.

"Huzrah nu, kul do od,

Wah aan bok, lingrah vod

Ahrk fin tey, baziik fun,

Do fi~n ge~in!"

"Wo lost fron wah ney dov

Ahrk fin reyliik do jul,

Voth aan suleyk

Wah ronit faal krei~n!"

Dunstan's heart had begun to race, the song having stirred a primal fear within his very soul. But for the life of him, he could not fathom the reason.

"Ahrk fin zul, rok drey kod, nau tol morokei frod,

Rul lot Taazokaan motaad voth kein!

Sahrot Thu'um, med aan tuz, vey zeim hokoron pah,

Ol fin Dovahkiin komeyt ok rein!"

"Ahrk fin Kel lost prodah, do ved viing ko fin krah,

Tol fod zeymah win kein meyz fundein!

Alduin, feyn do jun, kruziik vokun staadnav,

Voth aan bahhlok wah diivon fin lein!"

With the telescope to his eye, Dunstan spotted something on the prow of the great golden ship. It was a warrior, dressed all in white armour. They became larger and more visible as the smaller ships parted to allow the golden behemoth to head the charge.

"Nuz aan sul, fent alok, fod fin vul dovah nok,

Fen kos nahlot mafaeraak ahrk ru~z!

Paaz Keizaal fen kos stin nol bein Alduin jot,

Dovahkiin kos fin saviik do muz!"

Just when he believed he could be surprised no further, the white warrior had drawn close enough for Dunstan to make out finer details, and come to an unexpected revelation: It was a woman on the prow, with a sword at her belt, a red sash swaying in the wind and a beautiful equally white shield in her left hand. The ship would make a fine prize, and she a fine salt wife.

"Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin, naal ok zin los vahriin,

Wah dein vokul mahfaeraak ahst vaal!

Ahrk fin norok paal graan fod nust hon zindro zaan,

DOVAHKIIN FAH HIN KOGAAN MU DRAAL!"

As the war song ended in a roar, the golden ship had entered weapon range. It was close enough for Dunstan to see the jewels in the circlet upon the woman's head, and the smirk on her face as she pointed her blade, which was composed of some tan-coloured metal, straight at the longship at the centre of the fleet. She was forced to raise her shield as a few arrows from the Dread were loosed, each one clattering harmlessly off the white metal and the deck of the ship. As the archers began to aim once again, Dunstan became curious as the woman inhaled deeply. What does she intend to do, scream us into submission? He wondered with amusement.

How right he was.

Her cry echoed across the roiling waves of the ocean even more so than the war song her people had been singing. "YOL - TOOR - SHUL!"

What happened next was something Dunstan would never have predicted. As she roared the strange words, an orange glow grew from her mouth. As she finished the three words, a gargantuan plume of fire spewed forth. It had to be as wide as her ship, and it barreled forward impossibly fast. A cry of despair escaped Dunstan as the Dread was almost completely incinerated, its sailors not even having time to scream as their armour, flesh and bones melted like candle wax. The pillar of fire roared on, incinerating sloops and collapsing longships as it passed, leaving naught but ash and a few scraps of cloth in its wake. The ships to the rear of the fleet managed to swerve and avoid most of the burning cloud of death, some only suffering burns to their aft quarters or losing a sail. The gout of fire began to wane and eventually died after rushing for over three hundred metres. As the shock stared to wear away, if only by a hair, Dunstan surveyed the carnage wrought by that fire-breathing woman. Those three words had claimed sixteen sloops and five longships. Nine sloops and two longships were on fire, yet still afloat. The Dread and his younger son Donnel numbered among those who perished, but the Gale had escaped with only being licked by the flames. With a ragged breath Dunstan shifted to glare at the golden ship and the woman still standing on the prow, silently vowing to make her beg for death before sending her to the Drowned God.

Yes! Give them a taste of fire! Hippolyta's dragon soul roared in savage glee as the rather pitiful-looking ships withered and died under the inferno that was her Shout.

"Ready on the ballistae!" Shouted Captain Myrra Horatiu, a cry that was echoed across all three weapon decks of the Dream Crusher. Sailors and Praetorians skittered about, winding back the scaled down siege weapons and inserting bolts the size of tree branches into them. The broadhead bolts were as simple as their name implied. They were giant crossbow bolts with wide heads meant to be fired into the body of the ship to cause structural damage. Unlike their counterparts, they could be fired at ranges reaching five hundred metres and still hit their targets. The pitch bolts were small pots of oil fused to the shafts and had been enchanted to emit a burst of flame on impact, spreading the flaming liquid across ship or fortress. The circular pots on their heads left them less aerodynamic and cut back their range to two to three hundred metres. The scattershot bolts were nine smaller projectiles combined into one, and would separate after reaching a certain velocity. Their smaller size made them more easily swayed by the wind and gravity, and required them to be within one hundred metres of their target.

"What in the seven hells was that?!" Exclaimed one of the Florent archers. Hippolyta smirked ferally.

"Just one of my many, many powers, boy!" She boasted as she made to address Captain Horatiu.

"Orders, Your Excellency?" She asked.

"Take us up the centre of their formation. Anything we cannot smash can be shot or captured. Admiral Catranian and the Steel Heart will bring up the rear to mop up any ships still afloat, and the frigates will flank to prevent any escapes. Operators!" Hippolyta barked. "Ready harpoons on the port bow ballistae, I want that longship tethered!" She ordered, pointing at the dull brown-grey ship in the centre of the remaining fleet of ironmen. It was larger than the rest, but one could only tell if they looked carefully. Hippolyta's eagle-like vision had allowed her to identify it as the flagship long before the average sailor could. And on that ship, an older man was looking balefully at her. Unfazed, she picked up a hook as three operators set about loading and aiming two harpoon bolts at the ironmen's flagship. The harpoon bolts were attached to spools of rope to allow rapid ship-to-ship boarding or a quick getaway if the soldiers or sailors needed to evacuate hostile territory.

"On high!" Horatiu warned as arrows began to fly at them. As the iron-tipped rain of death started to fall, something jarred the ship and sent several men and women careening. Hippolyta winced as a handful of arrows impacted her Legionnaires, two fatally so.

"What in Oblivion was that?!" Asked a Legionnaire.

"Enemy siege weapon! Archers, mages, lay down some fire on the starboard! Operators, aim... fire!" With a loud twang, the harpoon bolt flew from its launcher, the operators feeding line so the projectile would not fall short of its target. The harpoon flew true and pierced the body of its target somewhere in the region of the upper decks.

"Good shot, men. Zhaga, Blackfire! To me!" She ordered. The two women, almost comical in their height differences, strutted forward to attend their leader. Unlike most of the Legion, the two Praetorians' armour suits allowed them to stand in the hail of arrows as though it was naught but rain. Only arrowheads of similar make to their armours or harder could pierce the Orsimer and Daedric plate. Hippolyta, who had elected to wear her much lighter creamy white ancient Falmer armour suit, had to rely on the divine shield of Auri-El for protection from arrows.

"Grab a hook and your wits ladies, we're taking this floating hunk of junk the old-fashioned way!" She shouted as she made for the prow of the ship. As the younger women followed her, the archers and battlemages among the sailors, Legionnaires and Praetorians focused a wave of suppressing fire onto the ironmen aboard their speared target.

"You have your opening Excellency, go!" Horatiu shouted, waving her hand and burning up an arrow that had been about to hit her. Hippolyta nodded before turning and sprinting for the ballista which anchored the harpoon. As she ran up the Dwemer metal structure to the surprise of the operators, she took a flying leap. As gravity began to take hold of the Empress, she stuck her hook out and caught the harpoon line, zipping along it at a fast clip. A few arrows flew at her, but she kept her body and legs tucked behind Auri-El's shield, and remained safe. She felt the line vibrate twice as Lena and Zhaga secured their hooks and followed her. As she closed the distance to the timber hull of the ironmen's flagship, she poked her head out.

"Fus - Ro!" She Shouted. The Thu'um, while incomplete, still had enough power to smash a hole in the hull the size of a troll. Pumping her legs, Hippolyta unhooked herself and shot into the breach. Her shoulder roll was less graceful than she would have liked, but she had no time to dwell on her form as she drew Freedom and quickly eyed her surroundings. Hammocks, small chests and various effects held up by nets told her she was in the barracks, which was mercifully empty. She moved forward a few steps as Lena came rushing in, reaching to the small of her back to unsheathe one of her Daedric daggers, and readying a frost spell in her right hand. Zhaga followed closely, with her axe at the ready.

"We are fighting close quarters here, ladies. Mind your space, check your spells and watch each other's backs. Move out!" She commanded quietly, keeping her shield in front of her and Freedom poking out from the side. Lena came second, keeping an eye out for anyone out of sword range and ready to hurl a bolt of lightning. Zhaga brought up the rear. Because the longship was designed to carry raiders and offload them quickly, it had far fewer decks than even a frigate. It was more comparable to a galley, the oldest serving ship in the Imperial Navy. While that meant the three warrior women would have less ground to cover, it also meant they would have more hostiles to deal with.

The first was a man who had come to investigate the hole blown in the hull. He came in from the left and flinched slightly as he beheld them. He wasn't expecting to find people on the ship, much less three hostiles armed to the teeth. His position was a boon to Hippolyta, as she only needed to pivot her body and deliver a single upward thrust. The dragon bone blade cut through his jaw and skull like paper. The Chaos enchantment on Freedom caused him to freeze completely, and when Hippolyta kicked him to the ground, he shattered into hundreds of pieces. Their second challenge came from an ironman waiting in the shadows. From behind a crate he emerged with naught but the faint friction of leather to give him away ready to wedge a dagger in Zhaga's neck. While ordinary men might have missed him and lost one of their numbers, the three women were not (entirely) mannish. Their long and pointed ears were not just for show, after all. As the man raised his dagger to strike, the Orsimer woman's arm shot up to stop his strike dead, and she followed with a knee to his chest. As he stumbled she seized his head with her free hand and proceeded to slam it into the wooden crate he had used as cover multiple times until the wood finally gave way. Hippolyta watched impassively before moving on. Lena continued to stare.

"What?" Zhaga asked somewhat defensively. "He's a pirate. He preys on the weak." She reasoned. The shorter half-breed blinked behind her helmet.

"I suppose," she muttered as unbidden memories of her past surfaced. But she did not waver as she followed her Empress.

Their third opponent was far less of a surprise. He came barreling down the stairs from the weapon deck, sword in hand and charged Hippolyta. He had not made it five steps before a dagger-sized chunk of ice whooshed past Hippolyta and embedded itself in his throat. With a pitiful gurgle, the pirate clutched at the hunk of ice in his throat as blood trickled around it. What vestige of his strength waned quickly as he fell to the deck and ceased to move. Hippolyta did not need to turn around to know that it was Lena's hand crackling with magicka.

"Nicely done, Lena." She said quietly before bounding up the stairs, her Praetorians in hot pursuit. As predicted, the weapon deck was cluttered with soldiers manning the siege weapons and they were spotted immediately. With shouts aplenty, the ironmen charged the three women, all manner of weapons in hand. Their battle cries paled in comparison to Zhaga's roar as the Orsimer practically flew at her foes with Hippolyta and Lena at her side.

Ducking low, Hippolyta bowled a sailor over with her shield and swung Freedom to bat away a sword coming at her. The tempered dragon bone shattered the iron blade and stunned its wielder, leaving him open to be beheaded on her backswing. As a burly man covered in hair and rusty mail raised a battleaxe over his head, Hippolyta used her momentum to lash out and kick him in the upper pelvic region. She would have aimed higher, but her armour and the ten years since her last challenging battle had limited her somewhat. Nonetheless, he lurched forward in pain before Hippolyta smashed the lower rim of her shield into his face, knocking out a handful of yellowed and chipped teeth. Hippolyta counted her blessings as the ship chose the second after she had struck him to lurch, no doubt thanks to the Dream Crusher tugging it along. The three elites kept their balance, but so did the ironmen.

"Iiz!" She Shouted, the icy plume freezing another ironman solid and leaving only one engaging her. She blocked a blow from his mace with her shield and countered with a strike of her own. He parried her thrust and transitioned into a backhand strike which she ducked under. She brought Freedom back as he was about to swing again, her sword's superior reach allowing her to cut his arm off just below the elbow. She drove her own elbow into his face as he screamed in agony, raising Auri-El's shield just in time to stop a mighty hammer blow that brought her to her knees regardless. As her newest challenger pushed down on her shield, she kicked the outward-facing portion of his knee joint, eliciting a yelp and throwing him off balance enough for her to kick his unarmoured chest with a strength uncharacteristic of someone with her willowy frame. She used that same strength to springboard upwards and drive Freedom through her downed foe's chest. She yanked her blade out and rolled forward just as the head of a flail crashed into her previous spot. The attacker swung it again but failed to make contact with the Empress, as the spiked ball bounced off the now-glowing shield of Auri-El. Hippolyta continued her spin and slammed her shield into the man. Even though he himself carried a driftwood shield, the energy that the divine piece of armour had stored was released as Hippolyta bashed him with it, the explosion of energy sending him flying fast and hard enough to crack one of the support beams.

Seeing that she had a moment to recover, Hippolyta quickly looked to see how her Praetorians were faring. Little Lena Blackfire was using both her Bosmeri agility to duck and weave and strafe around her foes, and her thorned and nigh indestructible Daedric armour as a weapon by using her Nordic strength to gore ironmen with her shoulders or slash at them with her wickedly clawed gauntlets. In her left hand, her Daedric dagger parried blows and bit into flesh dozens of times over. In her right, streams of ice froze flesh, shattered iron and steel and immobilized armour joints. Not far away, Zhaga gra-Torz's clunky yet brutal fighting style served her well. Like Lena, she used her strength as a weapon, breaking ribs with powerful punches, disorienting enemies by throwing them about the deck and carving out chunks of flesh with tremendous blows from her axe. Their below decks engagement ended when Lena grabbed and twisted an alarmingly young man's arm, stabbed him in the belly and chest and kicked him in the face. Nearby, Zhaga snapped off a kick to an assailant's groin, grabbing his head as he fell to his knees and violently twisting his head one-hundred-eighty degrees.

For a handful of seconds, the three women slowly breathed deeply. For the Praetorians, such a fight was considered a warm up. Recovery came quickly to them. Hippolyta however, had not been in a no-holds-barred fight for ten years, not since administering the final tests of her newest Praetorians, Altdel Oak-Sky and Volant Caedis. Certainly she had sparred with the Legion and Casiim, but there was always an element of restraint present during those engagements. She took another few seconds to catch her breath before jerking her head at the stairwell. As they ascended the stairs, their hearts buoyed at the sight of the fleet of the Iron Islands crumbling.

At the centre of it all, the Dream Crusher rammed into a sloop, arrows and all manner of Destruction magicks spewing from its upper deck to augment the ballista bolts spewing from its three weapon decks. A couple of dents in the hull as well as the shafts of ballista bolts garnered mixed pride and concern from Hippolyta. Pride for the toughness of her 'baby', and concern for the time it would take to remove the bolts and re-forge the metal into place. Behind the dreadnought, the Steel Heart was side by side with a longship, which had felled its aft-most mast and allowed the ironmen to board her, to Hippolyta's dismay. She could clearly see spikes of ice being thrown about like candy, courtesy of Admiral Fortas Catranian. She consoled herself knowing that so long as the Imperial Admiral drew breath, the Steel Heart would not fall. On the fringes of the engagement, the frigates pummeled the sloops and longships with bolts, both broadhead and pitch. Zhaga snorted and pointed to the Valiant, which was dragging a much smaller sloop behind it via harpoon and using it in the same fashion a warrior would wield a flail: By smashing the smaller vessel into its fellows. Interspersed among the Imperial ships, the dromonds and longships of House Florent and the Shield Islands wreaked their own havoc. But Hippolyta knew she was foolish if she believed there would not be casualties. Flaming and broken hulls of a dromond and three longships littered the water. Had the Imperial Navy not been there, she was certain that the casualties would have been worse. The frigate Piety nursed several large breaches and listed to the side, and the frigate Zealot was afflicted with two burning sails. It was by virtue of the chaos surrounding them that they were not noticed for a few seconds. When they were, and the upper deck of iron men began to advance unto them, a strong voice called out:

"See to the green and black ones! The white one is mine!" Called a man who must have been the captain. He wore a chainmail hauberk over a red doublet, and a brooch in the shape of a skeletal hand secured a fur cloak about his shoulders. His head was bare, his leathery skin was wrinkled and his long beard was white with age. Despite such, he still moved with a certain heartiness. Hippolyta cocked an eyebrow when he drew a blade that shone bright red and held a curiously alluring ripple pattern in it. Hippolyta looked into his muddy brown eyes and blinked at the rage swimming in them. Having learned from the Redguard Grandmaster Sumbaji to "Manipulate one's opponent's emotions in battle, that rage may render them blind," Hippolyta smirked as she adopted a pose of casual arrogance.

"Should you not be drinking a cup of tea by a hearth with a nice warm blanket, old man? The hour grows late, you know." She mocked.

"You will not be laughing for long, wench. Red Rain longs to bite flesh once more, and vengeance for taking my Donnel cannot come swiftly enough." He growled, pointing 'Red Rain' at her. Hippolyta's smirk dropped into a cold mask.

"Your son chose his fate when he dared raise his blade against the Dragonborn." She uttered harshly, pointing Freedom at the captain. "As have you, old man."

With an angry growl, he started forward and opened their fight with an overhead strike quite quick for someone his age. Hippolyta blocked with her shield, and began a rotation in response to the following sideswipe. Swinging Freedom, she expected the blade to break, but he managed to stop her slash cold. With a shove, she pushed Red Rain away and swiped at his head. He ducked and aimed a slash at her legs. The blow glanced off her boot and she tried to divest him of his blade by slamming down Auri-El's shield, but he quickly withdrew. She kept him retreating with a thrust toward his head, which he parried and followed with a slice she blocked with her shield. She attempted an overhead slash and he predictably deflected it, but was unprepared for her to bring Freedom up ring pommel-first and crack him in the nose. The following opening as he staggered back was all she needed. Quickly rotating about, she slammed Auri-El's shield into the old man. While this blow had far less than the energy her shield bash down on the weapon deck had had, it was still enough to knock the captain onto his rear and drop Red Rain. Hippolyta quickly made her way to his side and booted him in the temple, rendering him unconscious to be taken prisoner later.

"REEL US IN!" She bellowed to the Dream Crusher, who answered with two more harpoons embedding in the hull, and slowly winding back the spools of rope they were attached to. Rolling her shield-bearing shoulder, Hippolyta charged back into the fray, unwilling to let Lena and Zhaga have all the fun.

Hours later...

Lord Alester Florent thought that the Imperial camp had been a bewildering experience. Not only had its denizens managed to set up several thousand tents and erect half a handful of driftwood and stone watchtowers in less than a day, but so many odd people roamed the camp as well. The smirking 'Breton' who had greeted them, Specialist Flauvic Merindene, had seemed normal enough, but his partner had had skin as grey as ash and eyes redder than blood. Further in, a man-like brute that Merindene had called an 'Orsimer' lay back on the sand, lifting a small boulder repeatedly. Sweat rolled down his swampy green face, and as he grumbled, his large tusks moved with his mouth. Half-cat and half-lizard men and women went about among men and elves in what he learned were Legion battle dresses as well as a scant few wearing the capes of the Praetorian. Before she had left, Alester had been dumbstruck at the size of Hippolyta's personal ship, which she called a 'dreadnought', but had pushed it aside when she promised to take it, as well as a carrack, eight frigates and ten Praetorians into battle to augment the ships and archers he and the lords of the Shield Islands were sending to battle the ironmen. Privately, he doubted that few ships could truly make so much of a difference, but he reminded himself that she did not have to help him if she did not want to, so he offered her his thanks regardless.

Imagine his surprise when all ten ships that Hippolyta had gone out with came prowling back to their camp. A few had broken masts and all but the Dream Crusher had one or more gaping holes in their hull, but they remained largely intact. As the sailors and soldiers came ashore, many carrying wounded or dead, he could not stop his mouth from dropping open as the Empress, clad in creamy white armour and unharmed save for some gouges and scuff marks, frog-marched none other than Dunstan Drumm, Lord of Old Wyk, bloodied and broken, up to him. As she forced the old man to his knees, Alester noted that she carried Red Rain on her belt in addition to the longsword she had equipped herself with when she shipped out.

"Well, Lord Florent?" Her question brought him out of his stupor. "Would you say a broken fleet and the lord of Old Wyk as a prisoner is a good start to endearing myself to the lords of Westeros?" She asked. As his bannermen murmured excitedly and he stared down at the blood-soaked Captain Drumm, Alester felt a grin grow on his face.

"Well Your Excellency, I cannot speak for my Lord Paramount or the other minor lords... but by putting yourself and your people at risk to help save my own, I, Alester Florent, Lord of Brightwater Keep, do hereby declare you a friend of the Brightwater, and let it be known that whatever may come to pass, you shall always be welcome in my home."

And there you have it, Chapter 4 and the action you all craved! Was it everything you hoped it would be? Let me know in a review as you:

1) Tell me whether or not you liked this chapter

2) Tell me what you SPECIFICALLY liked about this chapter

3) Tell me what you DIDN'T like about this chapter

4) Recommend a suitable improvement

BONUS: OC Submission

Dearest readers, I am in need of your help. As I wrote, Hippolyta Septim is sailing to Westeros with 6 000 Legionnaires, 100 Praetorian Guards and 800 sailors. I may be creative, but even I can't come up with that many new characters for some parts of the story featuring them. That's where you come in. If you wish to see a character of your creation appear in my story, please submit him/her with the following details:

Category of submission (Legionnaire or Praetorian or Sailor)

Character's name

Character's race (And place of birth) (NOTE: Mixed breeds are accepted; beast-folk are needed)

Character's appearance (NOTE: The more creative you are with their appearance, the more likely I am to use them)

Character's Personality and Past (Growing up, previous experience, previous hardships, personality type and quirks, subject(s) of worship, etc.) (NOTE: The more creative you are with their personality, the more likely I am to use them)

Character's Attributes (Fighting style, armour/clothing choice, weapon(s) choice/magical talents. etc.) (Please be as creative as possible; do not simply adhere to the weapons seen in the Elder Scrolls series)

And finally, YOU MUST SUBMIT YOUR REQUESTS IN THE FORM OF A PRIVATE MESSAGE, OR THEY WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED. Submissions will be considered valid until May 1, any submitted afterwards will be rejected.

Until next time,

DR

UPDATE: 4:10 PM, 26/04/2015:

As per a few suggestions by Darksnider05, Teucrian and hornet07, I've cut out some details to use later, broken up a few paragraphs into smaller ones, and changed a few allusions as well as fixed a few grammatical mistakes. I hope you all can enjoy this updated chapter a little more, now.