The Kraken and the Lion
Chapter 33
by Technomad
Tyrion Lannister
Six months later, word arrived in Kings Landing that the Dragon Queen and her fleet had put to sea. Euron, Tyrion and Asha had not been idle in that time. Not all the ships in the royal fleet were suitable for conversion to ballista-carriers, but about half of them were.
A large blue-painted table had been set up, and the captains of the royal fleet, along with Asha, crowded around it. Standing on a stool, Tyrion looked at it curiously. At one end of the table, Euron Crows-eye waited for the murmurs to quiet down. When he had silence, and knew that he had the room's undivided attention, he pointed to the table. Arranged on it were small carved ship models, lined up in two lines, one longer than the other.
"We have word that the Dragon Queen plans to land in Dorne. She apparently has supporters in Sunspear, itching to avenge the death of Elia Martell." His blue lips quirked in a mirthless grin. "Killing her was not the smartest move that your father-in-law ever made, Asha."
Addressed directly, Asha looked at her nuncle, showing none of the unease that Tyrion knew she felt when near him. "That wasn't his order, I don't think. You've met Gregor Clegane. That man's a killing machine if ever I saw one. He'd have killed Elia and her children, with or without orders. That's the sort of man he is."
"While I could always use killers, I prefer killers that I can control." Euron shrugged, visibly dismissing Gregor Clegane and all to do with him. "Observe, captains. I've determined that the most effective way to use these new weapons is by passing by the enemy fleet in single file, since they fire from the sides of the ships."
"We don't grapple and board?" That was one of the older captains, who couldn't quite get his mind around these new-fangled tactics.
"No," Asha answered him. "The idea is to stand off and set fire to the enemy ships." At that statement, many of those present shuddered. They all had a healthy fear of fire. Fire, on a wooden ship, was a terrible enemy.
"That's awful!" A murmur went around the room, telling Asha that there was a lot of agreement with that statement.
"Keep in mind, people, that Daenerys Inbred is said to have dragons. And dragons breathe fire. Unless we're out of dragon range of land, we'll be in danger of burning, ourselves. And that also goes if anybody's careless with these wildfire bolts we've created."
"Why should we fight, then?" A murmur went up; apparently many of the captains were skeptical of all this new-fangled stuff. "We used to live under the Targaryens!"
"Remember the Mad King? He was planning on burning down Kings Landing, toward the end, there. And Daenerys Inbred's his daughter. What do you think will happen, if she gets loose with dragons, in Westeros?" Euron looked around the room. "We ironborn have bitter memories of the Targaryen conquest. We prefer to be free. Even if we can't raid Westeros itself, there are other places where the iron price can still be paid."
"And we've found that trading also brings in rewards. Just because our islands are poor doesn't mean we have to be!" Asha pointed out. Her nuncle gave her a sardonic grin. "The Targaryens kept us poor. I've been poor and I've been rich, and believe me, rich is better."
"I've information that the Inbred Queen is planning to stuff her ships with as many Dothraki and Unsullied as she can get aboard them. For a long voyage, this would be suicide, since there wouldn't be enough drinking water for all those men, but she's planning a short hop. The Dothraki are also used to going short on water, and the Unsullied have discipline far beyond any other group of soldiers I've ever seen." Euron looked very grim. "I honestly think I could order Unsullied, if I had any, to march into a fire and they'd do it. Going a little short of water will be child's play for them."
"The Unsullied may well take over rowing the Dragon Queen's ships. That way, she'll be able to get more fighting men on board. Once she's landed in Westeros, she won't need the ships any more, and she can burn them, or hand them over to whatever allies she has." Everybody turned to look at Tyrion. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "Hey…it's what I would do, in her shoes."
"That's actually a very good idea, if you're pulling an invasion by sea," Euron said, looking very thoughtful. "How'd you come up with that idea, Tyrion?"
"Just thinking. And, remember, the Dothraki are not, to put it mildly, a sea-going people. The only oars they would know what to do with are the kind you find on the Street of Silk." A chuckle ran around the room, lightening the atmosphere, as Tyrion had intended.
"So, that's the plan. Stay in line-ahead, do not let enemy ships get close enough for boarding, use your ballistas, and we should be able to pull this off. Particularly if we allow the enemy fleet to find us far enough out to sea that dragons can't take a hand in things." With that, the meeting broke up, and everybody filed out, heading for the harbor and their ships.
Tyrion knew that they'd kept a lot of their experiments with wildfire secret. He just hoped that they were secret enough. After all, if Euron Greyjoy could have spies that alerted him to Daenerys' plans, the Dragon Queen could well have partisans in Kings Landing who'd be happy to pass along anything they had learned to the woman they still saw as rightful Queen.
Asha Greyjoy Lannister
Asha tucked her babies into their cradle. Straightening up, she took a deep breath, summoning all the composure she could. It would not do for her to be seen crying just before a battle. Men might be able to get away with it, but as a woman, she had to be twice as tough as a man to get the same respect a man got. With a sigh, she walked out of the room, firmly suppressing the thought that this might be the last time she ever saw her babies.
At the quay, she saw her crew lined up, ready to receive their captain. Rather to her surprise, she saw Tyrion standing at the end of the line, wearing a cut-down version of Iron Islands sailors' clothes.
"And what do you think you are doing, my love?" she asked. She noticed that her crew were grinning. By that time, her crew had learned to respect Tyrion for his brains and his courage. Jinjur, her redheaded crew woman, had lamented to her one drunken evening that he was a dwarf and not an ironman. "He'd have been one of our greatest captains!" Jinjur had moaned, just before emptying her horn of its load of Arbor Gold, and sliding under the table.
"Coming with you." Tyrion looked at her quizzically. "We are married, you know. Married people should do things together."
"But we're sailing out to battle!" Asha groped for words, trying to explain why this wasn't a good idea without hurting her husband's feelings. She knew that a lot of people had made sport of him all his life, and while she could do nothing about that, she was always careful to spare his pride. Even at their wedding, she had squatted so that he could put her new Lannister cloak on her with no trouble.
"'Battle' and 'Lannister' go together like 'Ironmen' and 'sailing,' my love. And I can't be less brave than my sweet, darling sister, now can I?" Tyrion pointed to the fleet's flagship. Asha could see her nuncle standing on the quarterdeck…and standing beside him, none other than the Dowager Queen of the Seven Kingdoms herself! "Besides…if you go out and don't come back, I don't think I'll ever be happy again!"
Against her will, Asha was very touched. She could see that her crew all sympathized with her husband. No Iron Islander ever born would turn up his or her nose at someone who wanted to go out and get into a sea battle. And she had to admit, seeing Cersei standing beside her nuncle took a lot of the force of her arguments away. "Very well. Let's board! To battle!" With a shout, her crew ran up the gangplank, with Tyrion and Asha coming along behind them. Once they were in place, they awaited the signal from the flagship to set sail.
Euron Greyjoy's Silence led the fleet, standing out to sea with the Greyjoy emblem proud on her mainsail. Behind her in single file came the royal fleet, stately and dignified as so many court matrons. After the royal fleet was out of the harbor, the Iron Islands longships followed, under oar power since they were too light and small to safely mount ballistas. When they were all out of the harbor, they formed up into two lines, sailing parallel to each other toward the last reported position of the Dragon Queen's fleet. They hoped to intercept Daenerys' ships before they got too close to the Dornish coast, since there was good reason to believe that the Dornish might come out in support of the Targaryen claimant if they got a chance.
Cersei Lannister Baratheon
Cersei had never been to sea before meeting her intended second husband, but she found that she loved the experience. Standing on the quarterdeck, she watched with interest as Euron gave commands and his mute crew obeyed them. The sea breeze blew through her blonde hair, and she smiled, looking up at the sky.
The day was beautiful. In a blue, blue sky, puffy white clouds chased each other. She noticed that all the ships, including the ironborn longships, were proceeding under sail alone. While this was partly from necessity in the case of the converted dromonds, she knew enough to know that the longships still had their oars.
"The more we can go under sail, my love, the more rested the crews will be. I estimate that we'll be sighting the enemy in a few hours." As always, Euron's deep, purring voice sent delicious tingles up and down her spine. If her pestilential, spoilsport father thought that he could keep her away from this man, he had another think or two coming!
The wind freshened, and the Silence forged on through the waves. Cersei was glad that she had a strong stomach; she had heard of how miserable seasickness could be, and didn't want to embarrass herself by sicking up in front of the man she wanted to marry. She watched him, snapping orders as cooly as though this were an ordinary day at sea, and wished that her father had married her off to him, instead of that drunken lout she'd had to wed.
Asha Greyjoy Lannister
Aboard the Black Wind, Asha led the Ironborn line of battle. Their role in the battle was to stay downwind of the main line of battle and cut off escape for any Targaryen ships trying to flee downwind. While the longships did not mount ballistas, they did carry large contigents of archers, and could close in and board any crippled enemy ships.
She strained her eyes to see the Silence. There were small pinnaces out ahead of the fleet, with strict orders to signal or, if signalling was not possible, return to the main fleet the moment the enemy was in sight. Once he knew the enemy was visible, Euron would signal the fleet.
She blessed her forefathers' foresight in inventing the flag code. With it, they could communicate ship-to-ship, much faster than anybody else. That was one of the advantages they had over the Targaryens. At least, she hoped it was an advantage they had. She had to admit, she knew little of the capabilities of the areas the Dragon Queen had been using as a base. For all she knew, they also had ways to send signals between ships.
The Black Wind surged forward. To any Iron Islander, a ship was like a living thing, and she thought that her vessel was as eager for battle as she was. Her time as a married woman and mother seemed to fall away, and once again, she was Asha Greyjoy, an ironborn to her boot-heels and mistress of the seas.
"You look happy, my love!" Asha was startled out of her contemplation by her husband's voice. Tyrion had come up on the quarterdeck, and was standing beside her. "Looking forward to the fight?"
"You look like you're ready for a scrap, too, my love! All the same, I hope the main line takes care of the enemy ships and all we get to do is to pick up lifeboats of terrified survivors and make them prisoner." She smiled down at Tyrion. "I have two very good reasons to want to make it safe back to Kings Landing!"
"As do I, my love. Those same two reasons are why I'm out here now. If the Dragon Queen wins, all of our heads are going to be up on spikes. And knowing that family of madmen and –women, I wouldn't be surprised if our babies' heads were there right alongside ours."
"Drowned God forbid!" Asha made an apotropaic gesture to ward away ill omens. "Rather than that, I'd fight the Inbred Queen's dragons, if she brings them along!" And she meant every word of that. Rather than see her babies come to harm, she'd square off with the biggest Targaryen dragon that had ever flown, naked!
"Me, too." Tyrion agreed with her, and she heard grunts of approval from her crew. Many of them had children of their own, and that gave them excellent reasons to fight and fight hard. Nobody wanted the Targaryens and their dragons back. Nobody sane, at any rate. For a moment, Asha wondered about the Dornish. She knew that quite a few of them resented the Baratheon regime over the brutal, unnecessary death of Elia of Dorne. Elia had been much beloved in Dorne, and the news had hit hard there.
A lookout from atop the mast yelled: "Signal! Signal from the Silence!" Everybody fell silent, and those who were not fully occupied with sailing the Black Wind strained their eyes to see what the signal said.
"It says: Enemy in sight, approximately ten miles ahead." Asha said. More flags fluttered to the top of the Silence's mast, and she continued: "Thirty sail, all galleys. All ships to battle stations." She began to snap orders, and her crew leaped to obey. Some of them went below, bringing up quivers full of arrows and cased bows. Others donned armor; as ironmen and –women, they did not fear drowning as others did, and wore armor in battle even on the sea. Since armor did rust, though, it was kept in waterproof cases until it was needed. Poverty had made the ironborn careful stewards of what they did have.
She could see preparations for battle being made aboard the main body of the fleet. On ship after ship, the muzzles of ballistas peeked out over the gunwales, and she imagined the fiery death they could throw. She had been at enough tests of the new wildfire-missiles to know that they could do terrifying damage to a ship. After this, she thought, warfare at sea will never be the same! One part of her…the traditional ironborn woman who still lived deep in her mind…mourned the loss of the old ways. The rest of her looked forward to giving the Dragon Queen the surprise of her lifetime. Asha hoped it would be the last surprise. With winter coming on apace…the breeze over the sea was noticably cooler than it would have been earlier…they did not need endless wars!
The wind was freshening, and was straight from the north. Since the fleet was sailing east, that put it directly on their port, and all sails were set for maximum speed. Looking ahead, Asha could see tiny specks that she knew were the enemy's topsails. Unlike the sails of her own side, which were brown from sun and salt spray, these were gleaming white. She hoped it was a good omen, and that the enemy's crews were as new to the sea as their ships seemed to be.
Tyrion Lannister
Tyrion had been in battle before, but this was his first fight on the open sea. He was confident; he knew that Euron and Asha, and their captains, knew what to do and how to do it. Even so, though, when he saw the Dragon Queen's topsails appear above the blue horizon, he felt himself tense up.
The Targaryens did not have a reputation as forgiving souls, to put it very mildly, and Tyrion knew that his name put him on Daenerys Targaryen's death list. Even the fact that he'd had no part in the rebellion against the Mad King would not save him. The Dragon Queen would exterminate his family, root and branch. Just as his own father had the Reynes of Castamere, when they had defied him, back before Tyrion was born.
He wondered what Cersei was thinking. While he despised his sister from the bottom of his heart, he knew that she was no coward. She's always envied our brother his glory. Now she has a chance for some glory of her very own! Tyrion had always been rather amused by Cersei's bitter resentment of her role. She looked at Jaime, and at other knights, and saw golden armor, tournament victories, the applause of the crowd, and being the center of attention. What she didn't see was the endless bruising, wearying hours in practice, the broken bones, the injuries, the weary marches on horseback or foot, the rain pouring down with nowhere to shelter, the bad food, and the agony of injuries or sickness. Tyrion privately wished that Cersei could get a full dose of what she thought she wanted. He'd be interested to ask her, afterward, if she had enjoyed it.
"The enemy is hulls-up!" called the lookout. Tyrion went forward, straining to see. Sure enough, tiny in the distance, he could see the Dragon Queen's fleet, or at least its advance elements. He hoped that she hadn't brought enough ships to just swarm his side. Even with wildfire-throwing ballistae, sheer numbers could still tip the odds in her favor.
"Beat to quarters!" called Asha, and a loud drum roll echoed, first from the Black Wind, and then from ship after ship as the fleet prepared to engage.