The Kraken and the Lion
Chapter 35
by Technomad
Tyrion Lannister
Tyrion had been in battles before. He thought that he knew what the aftermath of war was like. It didn't end with one side victorious and the other side defeated. In many ways, that was when the real work began, what with gathering up wounded, guarding prisoners, salvaging armor and arms that could be re-used, and a million other chores.
At sea, it was not terribly different overall, but all the details were wildly strange. The captured enemy ships had to be taken under control, with prize-crews put aboard. That depleted the crews of their own ships, and they finally had to scuttle several captured prizes that were too badly damaged to be worth taking home, after removing enemy prisoners and salvaging anything salvagable.
That was just one job. They also had men swimming in the ocean that had to be picked up. The Ironborn didn't understand why: "The Drowned God has them! Why do you try to save them from him?" they asked.
Asha looked slightly nonplussed, and glanced at Tyrion. Tyrion grinned wickedly and said: "If you want to share your bench in the Drowned God's feast hall with a bunch of soft green landsmen, that's certainly your prerogative!" The Ironborn looked at each other quizzically, then turned to and helped rescue the swimmers. Very few Ironborn needed rescuing; they'd been mostly wearing armor, and if they went overboard, they went down before any rescue was possible.
And there was battle damage to be repaired, as much as possible. Nearly every ship that still floated bristled with arrows, often as thick as a porcupine's quills, and they had to be pulled out of the decks so that the barefoot sailors could move about without tripping or cutting themselves. The arrows that could be reused were bundled up neatly and stowed below, while the others were just thrown overboard to join the rest of the flotsam that bobbed on the surface of the water.
Many ships had broken oars, and some had broken masts or badly-damaged sails, all of which needed repairing. While most ships carried spare spars, if the mast itself was broken, there wasn't a lot that could be done other than to jury-rig a spar on what was left, if possible. The spare ropes and cables that both sides carried were soon out of the holds and being put into use to replace torn and broken rigging.
Finally, the fleet and the prizes came about, to head to Kings Landing. Aboard the Black Wind, Tyrion wanted to do nothing more than collapse. While he was no sailor, and his dwarfism hampered him, he'd been working as hard as anybody to help repair the damage the ship had sustained. Asha looked at him sympathetically.
"Oh, Tyrion. You've got enough warrior spirit for ten men, but your body betrays you. Sit down over here, by the rail, and let us do what's left to be done. This'll be sailors' work now," Asha said. Nothing loath, Tyrion sat on the upturned bucket she pointed out, and rested his arm on the railing. It felt good to finally relax. The Black Wind's sail filled, and she started back to Kings Landing. Up on the quarterdeck, Asha stood by the helm, looking out over the water.
"I don't like the look of those clouds, off in the distance," she said, nodding off toward the horizon. "Let's hope we make harbor before they get here. A lot of these ships are in no shape to weather a storm."
"We're just a few hours out from Kings Landing, ma'am," said one of the crew, an Ironborn Tyrion hadn't met before.
Everything seemed to be in order, and Tyrion had never felt so tired in his life. Before he quite knew it, he'd closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Asha Greyjoy Lannister
From her vantage point on the quarterdeck, Asha smiled down at her husband. She hadn't been exaggerating when she praised his warrior spirit. By that time, her crew all knew that while Tyrion may have looked freakish to them, he had enough heart and courage to stand as an equal with any Ironborn. She knew how tired he was, because she was nearly as tired. But a captain's…or, now, an acting admiral's…work was never done while her ships were at sea.
She looked out across the water. The fleet was keeping fairly good formation, although some of them were visibly struggling; under-manned and damaged from the fighting. Off on the far horizon, some of Daenerys' hired ships were heading for their home ports. Asha shrugged. She couldn't have cared much less about snapping up a few stragglers.
She let herself think about what they had done. She, her husband, and her uncle had won one of the greatest naval victories in the history of Westeros. While she was no great scholar, her husband was, and under his guidance, she had delved into the history of sea fighting, both at Kings Landing and Lannisport. Tyrion's libraries were among the best-appointed in the Seven Kingdoms, and she privately thought that he was the equal of any maester on that subject.
And Cersei and Euron were both dead. She shook her head, trying to get her mind around that concept. Euron…Euron Greyjoy was a force of nature. She sometimes had wondered if he were the Storm God, or an avatar of the Storm God, come to earth to wreak havoc and destruction for his own amusement. It hadn't been surprising that he'd apparently fallen in love, or as close as he could come to falling in love, with Cersei. But now they were both dead.
She wondered what the reaction would be in Kings Landing. On the one hand, they had won a crushing victory, and ended the last threat from House Targaryen. That, she figured, would be worth something…more than just "something." Could she parlay that into advantages for the Iron Islands as a whole? Her people were poor, which was a large part of why so many of them wanted to go back to the Old Ways of the islands. At least with reaving, they could make a decent living.
On the other hand, the Queen Mother was dead. Admittedly, she had had no hand in Cersei's decision to accompany "King" Euron to battle, but that might not matter much to Tywin Lannister. While she'd always been on good terms with her good-father, particularly since she'd borne her babies, she knew that Tywin Lannister valued all his relations. How would he react to his daughter's death?
Asha consciously decided to put those worries aside. She had enough to worry about, just getting their fleet back to Kings Landing. She peered up into the sky. Far, far above, the Dragon Queen's dragons were flying, but they did not seem to want to come down. They had apparently learned the lesson that they, too, could be hurt.
While she didn't like the look of the distant clouds, the weather they were dealing with was clear, and there was a nice steady breeze. At the head of the victorious Baratheon fleet, Asha set a course for Kings Landing, and home.
Daenerys Targaryen
Daenerys was trying to process what had happened. She had set sail to reclaim her rightful throne, and had thought that with her innovation of the "crow," the other side's fleet would be easy meat for her. Instead, the enemy had sprung a surprise of their own, and now half of what had been her fleet was either burning wreckage or heading over the horizon at top speed, desperate to get away. Her loyal Unsullied and Dothraki were either dead or prisoners; her ships were being manned as best they could be by scratch crews of enemy sailors, rounded out by the mercenaries who hadn't been able to get away and had surrendered rather than die.
And her dragons were gone. She couldn't feel them, for the first time since they'd been hatched. She had been horrified to find out that wildfire would hurt them, and apparently, they had no appetite for a repeat of that experience. Who'd have thought that dragons could feel fear, much less show cowardice?
She thought that part of the problem was that nothing had ever been able to hurt them before, and they had no experience dealing with such a thing. All she could do was hope they'd come back.
At least her captors were treating her decently! She had feared being captured by a rival khalasar, where the best she could hope for was sexual slavery to the Khal and his favored men until they tired of her, at which point she'd be a drudge for the rest of her life. In contrast to that, while her captors had her under guard in the great cabin of the Aegon the Conqueror, they weren't offering her any violence.
She could tell that the ships were still sailing west. She wondered what awaited her, in Kings Landing. Would it be the headsman? While she was apprehensive, one small part of her was curious. She had never seen her soi-disant homeland, having been born at sea while her family fled the Baratheon usurpation. She had pictured it in her mind many times, but knew that reality would be different.
With the patience she had learned since marrying her sun-and-stars, she composed herself, waiting events. What would come, would come. And she would face up to it with all the courage of a member of her ancient, royal house.
Tywin Lannister
While he wasn't showing it on the outside, Tywin Lannister was worried. The Royal fleet, augmented with Iron Isles reinforcements, had sailed out two days previously, and there'd been no word at all about what might have happened.
He was under no illusions about what would happen to him, and his whole family, should the Dragon Queen triumph. He'd betrayed King Aerys, and his man had killed Aerys' grandchildren. The best he could expect would be a swift beheading, followed by his head on a spike along with his son's, his daughter's, and his grandchildrens'. Even Tyrion, although he'd had no hand in the rebellion, would likely be eliminated. It would be the end of House Lannister.
He fretted that he wasn't in command of the fleet. He had always been a lead-from-in-front commander, and to be relegated to rear duties ate at him. Even though he knew he had no skill in naval matters, it still rankled. The more so because he had only learned once the fleet had put to sea that his daughter had slipped aboard the Silence. He shook his head in bewilderment. What could she possibly want, going out to battle like a man?
To be sure, his good-daughter was in command of a portion of the fleet, and she and Cersei had been at daggers-drawn ever since they had met. Cersei probably wanted a meed of the glory that she thought Asha was going to get, Tywin decided. And she was a Lannister. No Lannister had ever been a coward.
Standing on the seaward battlements of the Red Keep, he stared out to sea, straining his eyes at the distant horizon. At the limit of his vision, he saw a flicker of movement, which gradually resolved into a sail, on a small vessel heading into the harbor. As the vessel grew closer, he was able to make out more and more details. On its mainmast, the small ship bore the Baratheon flag, which reassured him that she was probably friendly. Below that, she was flying a bunch of colorful flags, of the sort he'd seen the Ironborn using among themselves to signal.
"Pass the word for Asbiorn, please," Tyrion told the servant who attended him. Very soon after that, Asbiorn One-Leg, an old Ironborn who'd been detailed as the King's Hand's liaison with the Ironborn, stumped up to the battlement. "Asbiorn, could you tell me what those flags mean?"
Asbiorn peered out to sea. He narrowed his eyes, the better to see across the brightly lit waters, then his face lit up in a huge smile. "My lord…those flags say 'Rejoice, we conquer!' They're announcing a victory!" Then he looked puzzled. "But…they're also flying mourning flags!" He turned to Tywin, puzzlement all over his weathered face. "Why?"
By the time the little ship had tied up at the quay, Tywin was waiting in the throne room, beside his grandson, who sat the Iron Throne as befit the King of the Seven Kingdoms. By Tywin's command, the captain of the ship was escorted directly to the throne room as soon as his feet touched dry land.
The captain came in. He was an Ironborn, dressed in sea clothes. His arm was in a sling, and his face was bruised, which told Tywin that he'd been in the fighting, for all that his ship was so small. He stepped forward, unafraid, and bent his knee to the King on the Iron Throne. "Your Majesty. I am Penrod, captain of the Sea Unicorn. I bring greetings from Asha Lannister, in command of the combined fleet. By the grace of the gods…" Tywin noticed that he did not specify which gods, which was quite tactful, given the religious differences between the Iron Islands and the mainland of Westeros… "we have won a great victory. The Dragon Queen's fleet is either sunk, burnt, captured or fleeing."
"That is wonderful news," Tywin responded. "But why are you flying mourning flags? And why do you speak of my good-daughter as 'in command of the combined fleet?' That role was supposed to go to King Euron Greyjoy of the Iron Isles." Tywin knew that Asha distrusted and feared her uncle. She had told him on several occasions to watch his back every second he was in the presence of the self-proclaimed King, and to never trust anything he said without independent confirmation.
Could Asha have taken the opportunity of the battle to rid herself of a relative whom she not only saw as a threat to herself and her babies, but as an obstacle to the Driftwood Throne? Tywin shelved that thought for the moment. Right then, he needed to concentrate on the concrete news this man brought.
Penrod's face fell. "Alas, the King of the Iron Islands and the Dowager Queen of the Seven Kingdoms both fell in battle." At this news, a gasp went around the throne room; many of the courtiers and smallfolk had crowded in, eager to hear what had happened at sea. "The Lady Asha, as next-highest in rank, took command. We have taken many valuable ships as prizes, and the fleet is proceeding in good order back to Kings Landing."
"How did the Queen Dowager 'fall in battle?' Had she forgotten she is a woman, and a noblewoman at that? Had she forgotten that she is a mother of children?"
"So is the Lady Asha, and the Lady Asha played a valiant part in the fighting. Her men were the ones who captured the Dragon Queen. It was by the hand of the Dragon Queen that the Queen Mother was struck down." Penrod shook his head. "Please understand, m'lord, I was not present at that fight. My role in the battle was rather small." He smiled ruefully. "Just like my ship."
"We shall await the fleet and prepare a proper welcome. In the meantime, we thank you for your news. You shall be lodged in the castle and fed, along with your crew." And if this is some sort of trick, thought Tywin, we have you right where we want you.
Penrod bowed, then let a servant lead him away. On the Iron Throne, Tommen leaned over. "Grandfather…does this mean Mother is dead?"
"It may, Your Majesty. However, we shall await further word before doing anything decisive. She may yet live. This Penrod said himself that he was not present at that fight." Privately, Tywin could not really believe the news that Cersei was dead, much less that she'd fallen in battle. While his daughter was not a coward, she had never shown any inclination to put on mail and swing a sword.
Asha Lannister
For all that she was tired down to her very bones, Asha straightened up and felt a huge smile creep across her face as she led the victorious, battered Baratheon fleet and its prizes into the Kings Landing harbor. Other than the moment she had introduced her twin babies to their father, this was the proudest, biggest moment of her life! They'll make songs of this on the Iron Islands when word gets there! she thought exultantly.
The breeze had died down, forcing many of the ships whose sails had been more damaged than average to proceed under oar power. The other ships furled sail to keep pace with their comrades and the prizes, as the fleet proceeded into the Blackwater in line ahead. The fact that they were flying Baratheon colors, with the prizes marked by their Baratheon colors flying above the Targaryens' black three-headed dragon on red, assured the watchers that they were victorious. Cheering sounded, echoing and reechoing as more and more people got the news that the fleet was back.
The families of the men who'd embarked on the fleet were down at quayside, shouting and cheering, and sometimes screaming in joy when they spotted their crewman on his ship, alive and well. Bands of music had formed, and were playing triumphant music as the ships swept in to their anchorages.
The Baratheons' ships, and the Ironborn longships, were warped in to the quays, and made fast. The prizes had to anchor out in the river for the moment; there wasn't enough room for them as well as their captors. That also ensured that the prisoners on board didn't get bright ideas about overpowering their captors and turning the tables. While it was unlikely, given the heavy casualties among the enemy and their well-earned fear of the Baratheon fleet's flame-darts, it was possible.
As commander, Asha watched as her crew, and the other Baratheon crews, came down the gangplanks. They were swarmed with their relatives, while the unfortunate kin of those who hadn't come back waited until the ships were empty before giving up hope. Wounded men were tenderly brought ashore in stretchers, to be seen to by maesters and healers.
When the last of the crews had landed, leaving only caretaker cadres on board to tend the ships, Asha felt free to disembark herself. Waking her husband, she let him go on ahead of her, making sure that she was the last to leave her ship.
On the quay, she and Tyrion were met by a group of the Kingsguard. "Lady Asha? Lord Tyrion? By the command of the King, you are requested and required to come to audience with the King and King's Hand. They wish to hear from your own lips an account of how the battle went." The Kingsguard formed up around them, and they were escorted up into the Red Keep.
Tyrion Lannister
When his wife gently awoke him, Tyrion was surprised. They were coming into the harbor at Kings Landing, and it looked like they were getting a heroes' welcome. "Was I asleep?"
"Yes, my love. You just sat down on that bucket and soon you were out. Quite a few of the crew, the ones not on duty, were asleep, too." All over the Black Wind, men were stirring back to life, yawning and rubbing sleep from their eyes.
As they came in to harbor, Tyrion relished the cheering and applause. He'd been starved for praise all his life, and he drank in the plaudits greedily. He watched as the crew disembarked and the wounded were gently put ashore, and with his wife behind him, walked ashore himself to find himself facing the Kingsguard. He had expected no different, and willingly allowed himself to be herded up to the Red Keep, for all that he would have much preferred a hot bath, a good meal and a long sleep in a real bed. He ached in places he hadn't known he had.