Chapter 9
The Dying Storm
Lord Tremaron Manwoody
As his horse passed the last dune between him and the oasis, Lord Manwoody shivered. The sun had set several turns of hourglasses ago, and the night was placing its cold embrace on the desert. His cloak was readjusted as the ride continued and a quick thanks was muttered for his wife who had convinced him to take the warm gloves and the warm cloak. The nights were cold in the dunes, but the last moons had seen a record of freezing times rarely seen in the last twenty years. As much as the smallfolk prayed in front of the altars, those having an easy access to a maester knew beyond doubt winter was coming.
The hooves of the horses behind him screeched on the sand. The three men mounting the light coursers were some of his most trusted sworn swords, the few he could leave his home with and not fear for his security. They knew their way across the shifting mass of sands...and they carried the torches, providing the only source of light in this obscurity. The sky was covered in dark clouds presaging nothing good, preventing anyone from tracing a course with the stars. This was a weather few Dornish were used to. Then again, it was a weather few of the humans living south of the Neck saw outside the bad season. A season which unfortunately was near for Dorne. White ravens had already been sent to several holdfasts of the Northern Reach; it was only a matter of days before it was the turn of Yronwood, Sunspear and the rest of the Dornish castles. In a way, this was why Tremaron was on a horse in the middle of nowhere.
The oasis becoming more precise in the distance was far removed from the sand caravans and the patrols ordered by the Great Lords of the Princedom. In happier times, it had been known as the Oasis of the Pale Dreams; a name given by the young Yronwood knight who had discovered it. A small village had grown around the dwells and the modest verdure growing around the water. An inn and one or two meeting places had been built. House Yronwood had been careful not to kill the settlement with high taxes, and one or two merchants had established regular outposts, selling the principal necessities a human required to survive in the desert. If Manwoody remembered correctly the tales, there had been a charmer of snakes or two attracting the crowds.
All this activity had ended when the Targaryens declared war to Dorne over a century ago. The Oasis of the Pale Dreams and the village of Pale Dwell had been a place of refuge for the routed Dornish troops, who had hoped the tens of thousands Reachers and Stormlanders pursuing them would not find them here surrounded by the dunes.
Unfortunately, the Reachers could not discover them but the dragons had no such limitations. In one passage, the dragon Vhagar had set aflame nearly everything in the defenceless oasis. Hundreds inhabitants and the refugee had tried to escape. Some of them had succeeded. Those who had stayed died. A dragon was not a foe humans could best with mere long spears and fragile bows. The defenders had died...and with them the oasis and all the bright future it represented had perished. When Aegon the Tyrant recalled back his hordes of sellswords and butchers, only ruins remained and House Yronwood was severely lacking the money to rebuild. Besides, none of the survivors wanted to go back. The place was now a centre of sorrow and it was not long before rumours of ghosts and haunted oasis circulated.
The Oasis of the Pale Dreams was swallowed back by the desert, with only occasional travellers in mission for House Yronwood or House Uller stopping there. It was simply too far away from the towns, castles or the shore to be visited on a mere whim.
But it had water, a smaller pool compared to the one which had been rendered into steam by the flying reptile. It had some trees. For a reunion like the one he had been appointed to, the place was perfect.
The halt order was finally given. Several horses tied to the score of palm trees told the Lord of Kingsgrave he wasn't the first to reach the ruined village. Not that there was much left apart the pool and the trees. The rest had been recovered by the fury of the desert winds decades ago. A sign to his guards and his trusted warriors went to take positions with the other sentinels in the few constructions which were still visible atop the sands.
Waling at a calm and dignified pace, Lord Tremaron Manwoody approached the gathering at the water's edge. No bonfire was lighting the little group of men. Wood burned left traces, and in case someone talked or an outsider came here it was better not to leave any clues they had been present in the first place.
There was only a single torch lighted, and Tremaron recognised him as Lord Veron Wyl, the very man who had sent him the invitation. On his right was Ser Deziel of the Red Blade, one of the fiercest warriors of the Princedom...and one of the most bloodthirsty too. On his left playing with an empty waterskin was Lucifer Sand, the Bastard of Starfall, nicknamed the Sword of Disgrace when he wasn't close enough to hear and provoke the loudmouth in duel. The rest of the men were of higher standing: Lord Amor Fowler of Skyreach and Lord Azel Uller of the Hellholt.
Small talk was made here and there, but it wasn't before the red-clad Ser Merar Varan and his guards came into view that the real discussion began. No doubt the former Captain of the sellsword company the Bloody Spears had wanted to impress them with his own importance.
"Now we're all here, we can begin." Said Azel Uller, glaring fiercely at the late newcomer.
"Yes, yes, let's begin..."
Varan's tone was dismissive and accompanied with an insulting sign of the hand which made his interlocutor redden under the feeble light. The men tightened their holds around their weapons. Ullers were not known for their sanity, their patience of their ability to receive insults without striking back. But this time was apparently one of the few exceptions to the rule. Exhaling large breaths, the muscled warrior managed to control himself.
"Despite our demands, Prince Qoren has refused to march to war." Declared the angry Lord of Hellholt. "He has refused us the right to shed the blood of our Marcher enemies!"
"Quite right!" Added rapidly Lucifer Sand. "Their fortresses are empty and defenceless! Their castles are ripe for the picking! What is Qoren waiting for?"
"He is a coward, this is what he is!" Veron Wyl spitted on the ground and each participant could feel the viperine-eyed Lord burnt to insult far more his liege. "Hiding behind the walls of Sunspear is the act of a craven, not a true warrior!"
"He denied us glory!"
"He raised the taxes on my citrus plantations!"
"Qoren has refused the hand of my son for his daughter!"
"The loan of five hundred gold suns has never been repaid!"
The Master of Kingsgrave heard his voice join the litany of complaints. It might be petty of him he figured as the litany of grievances they had spoken against Qoren Martell went lengthier after each sentence. But the Prince of Dorne was far away from his seat and the two occasions he had travelled to Sunspear had been distant and formal affairs. Qoren was not a warrior, he was a bookworm!
"We have all reasons to hate Qoren." Resumed Lord Amor Fowler. "The question is how we deal with him."
There was an instant of silence and then-
"I say we ignore him and go to war anyway!" Barked Lord Wyl, with the dangerous look hundreds of men, women and children had learnt to run away from. "Qoren may say he doesn't want war, but let's see how he's singing when tens of thousands flock to our banners in the Boneway and the Prince's Pass!"
"And what if they don't come?" Retorted Ser Deziel. "If we don't have armies behind us, the Marches fortresses will be tough to crack!"
Much as he hated to admit it, Tremaron knew the Red Blade had a point. Nightsong and Blackhaven were fortresses easy to defend for a small number of warriors. They did not defend the totality of the Marches; they were too many goat roads and mountain trails a light group of men could use to launch raids. But if they wanted to take the war to the heart of the Stormlands and the Reach, these citadels had to fall.
"We have our own spears and friends at Sunspear who should be able to...convince Qoren if he proves too difficult." Reminded him Lord Wyl, striking his armour atop the place where non-Wyl kept their hearts. "I can arm five hundred men in a fortnight and storm Blackhaven by myself."
"House Uller can muster seven hundred."
"And House Fowler will bring eight hundred."
"I can assault House Caron with five hundred men" Declared the Lord of Kingsgrave. He could have proposed more; the villages and his holdfast usually gave him in times of war between seven and eight hundred men and several scores could be recruited from the villages and the nomadic clans moving through the western Marches. But taking so many warriors with him when the Prince and many Houses had cravenly refused to go to war with the crumbling Targaryen kingdom was too risky.
The lords had spoken their commitment; four pair of eyes turned to see what the last three men proposed. Unlike their highborn conspirators, they had no castles, no settlements to draw on troops. They had to prove their commitment by other means.
"I was in contact with several banks on the other side of the Narrow Sea." Revealed Ser Deziel. "Not everyone believes the dragonlords have been sufficiently weakened...and there are plenty of extremely angry widows wanting their revenge for the deaths of their sons and their husbands."
Heads nodded here and there; the fleet of the Three Daughters may have sacked Driftmark and several other ports, but their losses had been particularly heavy. Not that it was a surprise, the island was too close from Dragonstone and young dragons could still ravage wooden hulls before falling...
"Contingencies have been put in place for a first payment of roughly two hundred thousands honors." Veron Wyl smiled widely at that; the gold dragons of the Targaryens were worth less and less these days, it was better to be paid with true money and not with monkey coins.
"I have six hundred and four thousand men waiting at the agreed place on the Stepstones." Ser Merar's voice tried to be posed, but it was clear the man had been touched in his pride at the congratulations the Red Blade was receiving for finding the monetary support. "And they're not your rabble of scum and traitors! True men trained in the noble art of the phalanx and the ancient war tactics."
The Uller lord seemed to take this affirmation like a divine sermon but the rest of the conspirators were far from convinced. Every bannersman, sellsword commander and commander of men since the Age of Heroes swore his holy vows that his men would fight until their last breath for the Great Cause. Too often, the troops disbanded as they saw a few horsemen charge them. Given Merar's past in the sellsword companies of the Disputed Lands, Lord Tremaron Manwoody was ready to bet the most intelligent captains had not answered the call.
"And you Lucifer?" Called the former officer of the Bloody Spears. "What sort of forces have you mustered for the war?" Ah, well. Lord Manwoody had almost forgotten how deep the hate between the Bastard of Starfall and the Red Blade was. The key word was 'almost'. "The sword you broke against the Sword of the Morning? The three eunuchs of High Hermitage and their cortege of mules? The ghosts of the desert?"
A sinister smile came to the lips of the bastard child of Lord Dayne.
"Nothing. Your death is my dearest wish."
Before any of the six men had the time to assimilate this astonishing affirmation, it was too late. Lucifer drew the longsword on his back with the agility of a cobra and plunged it in the eye of the disarmed Merar Varan. The corpse of the sellsword stood immobile for a few seconds like it wasn't able to acknowledge its own demise. Red blood tainted the superb red armour. Then the Sand bastard kicked him in the chest and finished to decapitate him. Varan's head rolled in a bloody trail at the edge of the water, followed a moment later by his headless body.
The lords and their associates did not believe their eyes. What in the Seven Hells?
"Traitor!" Roared Ser Deziel, drawing his spear and blocking the attempt of the Sword of Disgrace to murder him the same way Varan had left this world. "Traitor!"
The five highborn drew their weapons and were about to jump to help the Red Blade when the familiar noise of incoming arrows arrived to their ears. Tremaron took cover behind a palm tree, followed by Lord Fowler. Ser Deziel, feinting and striking against the treacherous Sand did not seem to have noticed the arrows. Lord Veron Wyl had used his famous shield to block the projectiles. Only Lord Uller had tried to join the battle...an ill-advised choice as two black arrows were now puncturing his arm and shoulder.
An execution strike from the Disgraced Blade as Deziel was forced to step back was largely enough to kill him. A second warrior fell upon the grass of the oasis.
Where are our guards? How is it possible we haven't been warned of incoming enemies?
These were the questions the Master of Kingsgrave was asking himself. Of course to continue asking them, he had to survive. The rare torches which had been lightened all over the oasis were now extinguished or swiftly losing their lights on the cold sands, but one was still providing fire allowing to see a shadow rush at him. Shouting a loud battle-cry, Tremaron ran and stabbed his opponent in one great sweep of his bastard sword. His instincts suddenly screamed 'danger!' and he was forced to use a parade to block a dagger thrown from the shadows. Two new enemies came into view and all his swordsmanship talent was soon needed to stay alive.
From the edge of his meagre vision – the night was more and more oppressing as he saw scores of enemies coming at him – the Lord of Kingsgrave watched powerlessly Ser Deziel be disarmed by the simplest expedient of having his hand removed. The Red Blade had lost his last duel, being immediately cut down by the Bastard of Starfall.
"Come and meet your death, bastard!" Screamed Tremaron. "Come and fight me traitor!"
It was really the only way he was going to fight Lucifer Sand by now. Lord Fowler was sleeping forever on the sand, his empty eyes fixing the dark sky. The light area was now encircled with spearmen pointing expertly their weapons at him. It was the end.
"You have no right to speak of treason, Tremaron Manwoody."
A thin silhouette on horseback came out of the obscurity, with a voice he had heard three times before today. It was almost drowned in the noise the attackers made but Tremaron Manwoody recognised it nonetheless.
"My Prince..."
Qoren Martell pushed back slightly his hood, revealing grey hairs and a forehead resenting the weight of the years...but his eyes shone with anger and his mouth was not the benevolent one they had mocked previously.
"Four of my lords and two of my knights meeting the same night in a far-away oasis. Did you really think I wouldn't find out?"
The Dornish lord kept his mouth wisely shut. As it was, he had really been convinced that whenever Qoren Martell heard of this conspiracy, it wouldn't do him any good. Evidently he had been completely wrong. And how he regretted it now.
"When I was speaking about scorpions, I hadn't in mind my bannersmen to play that role!" The Prince of Dorne watched with loath and angst the corpses of the aborted conspiracy. In the end, the Lord of Sunspear turned around and disappeared once more in the night. Only his tired voice echoed, far, far away.
"Bring me his head..."
"Any last words? Traitor?" Lucifer Sand looked like he was experiencing the funniest moment of his entire life. His sword, the infamous Perfidy, was covered in the blood of Deziel and Merar.
"Tell to my wife I love her."
He never saw the spear which impaled him in the back.
Lord Sargon Orkwood
One by one the longships limped back in the small bay sheltered from the violent winds and the rain. One by one the sails were lowered and the agitation aboard the crews diminished. Not for all though. There were hulls which had too suffered from the last battles and now only continuous scooping was preventing them from joining the Drowned God in the cold embrace of the abyss.
The Master of House Orkwood fixed these battered hulls with despair, counting and re-counting them, hoping somehow it would change the flotilla in front of his eyes back in the powerful fleet it had belonged.
It didn't. A score and a half of longships was all he had with him and not all were answering to him.
Awful if one knew the Lord Captain had given him three times that number a fortnight ago when the campaign to make these Reach bastards submit started. Sargon had been one of the most trusted captains of the greatest reaver of this age. He had been an axe shattering the greenlander fleets, coming ashore to plunder and make them realise why it was the Ironborn who would soon dominate Westeros.
Until three days ago. Until the moment the Red Kraken died on Southshield and everything which by the cursed tempests of the Storm God could be disastrous had come to pass. Until their destiny had trapped them between the damaged shield of their own islanders and the vengeful hammer of the Redwyne Navy.
And now I have lost my pride, the best part of my squadron and hundreds of my reavers.
The cold gusts of winds and the mocking bird shrills he heard were like further humiliations against his reputation. Never had he drunk to the poisoned cup of defeat in his life. Never.
The worst part was being unaware of the full extent of his losses. But knowing the bloody defeat they had just been handed, Lord Sargon Orkwood was unfortunately sure they were going to be terrible. While it was easy to blame it on the confusion following the death of King Dalton, he was forced to bitterly admit the successful storming of Oakenshield before this defeat had been a bloodbath – and not one in the Ironborn's favour. Close to six hundred men had been rendered to the Drowned God after Lord Hewett received an axe in his skull for having the temerity to resist his true masters...but for what? All the smallfolk and the Lord's family had long ago taken refuge to Highgarden. There had been no gold, no jewels and most of the fine clothes had been burnt by the Reachers to make incendiary projectiles –or to warm themselves during the cold nights, Sargon wasn't sure on that point.
As dreadful as these losses had been, the reavers lost in the failed assaults against Southshield had been far, far more numerous than the Oakenshield casualties. Before the King died, several fine captains and good sailors were shredded by the arrows or burnt by boiling tar. After the Red Kraken was admitted to the Halls of the Drowned God, this already big number had quadrupled at a frightening speed.
The Redwyne navy had had all the advantages: the Ironborn were leaderless and had the wind against them, the longships crews had been terribly hammered by these sieges and the endless raids all over the Sunset Coast, the men who were jumping aboard were in most cases not aboard their own ship and the hulls had never been conceived to fight big war-galleys head-on. No, as galling as the thought was, fleeing was their best bet. Tired and unmotivated as they were, they stood no chance against ships bristling with scorpions and murderous siege engines.
Unfortunately, many captains had not realised that. Or maybe they had and they didn't want to survive their beloved King.
Or the Drowned Priests ordered them to fight to the last. There weren't any of these zealots aboard the ships accompanying me but I'm not sure where they went when the King fell.
Those Ironborn who had tried their chance in the naval battle had been crushed mercilessly. But in their death they had allowed a good part of the Iron fleet to escape the steel thorns of the trap. At least Sargon hoped so. With the senior captains unable to coordinate the slightest formation, the longships had been dispersed and each captain reacted like a lone prey pursued by a kraken: save your skin first and then ask about your brethren when you're in security.
The loud steps of his cadet Torgon came to his ears and he ceased the contemplation of the battered ship he had to take back home.
"Brother, there is a problem."
"Only one?" Chuckled the Lord of Orkmont, before taking a more concerned face as he noticed the grave expression of his young brother. Aside from being an Orkwood, Torgon was also the second of the Sea Ravager and Sargon had trained him not to run back at a minor problem.
"It's Wex." Murmured Torgon. "It looks like he's ill but he's whispering things...the men don't know what to do with him."
"This old mule has tried to hide a wound, I bet." Wex was the oldest sailor serving aboard by a fair margin and the Drowned God only knew how he had lived so long because it wasn't the aged reaver knew to care about his own health. The Captain of the Sea Ravager sighed. "What good is it to have a healer on our ship if nobody goes to him?"
Walking down the wooden stairs, Sargon moved in long strides towards the longship's prow where a third of the crew had gathered in a small mob.
"Let him breath, sea rascals!" Growled the Captain, delivering slaps and walking over the feet of those who didn't get out of his path quickly enough. When he had his first glance at the old sailor, he could not avoid a gasp. Wex had been old, somewhere around five and sixty name days, with a respectable grey beard and almost silver-like hairs. One thing he had not however, was the skin of a fresh corpse and terrible wrinkles disfiguring his visage. It was like he had aged of several decades since the moment Sargon had last seen him – and that was the day before.
"Wex? Do you hear me? Wex?"
One of the closest sailors chose to cut the ugly green-blue tunic to let him breath...unleashing gasps and exclamations of horrors when a dark bleeding wound was revealed.
"Red was the shroud of the Kraken, black will be his tomb." Croaked the old sailor. This was not his habitual voice; in fact it looked like an animal was trying to use a human mouth.
"Rex, come on you aren't a Drowned Priest!" Shouted a reaver who thankfully for him retained his anonymity in the crowd.
"Blue wings, blue wings and the Kraken dies..."
The veins around the wound seemed to darken with every wound.
"What has the old idiot done?" Grumbled the single healer of the ship as he advanced to reach Sargon's position before swearing when he saw the crewman. "Oh by the bloody mist..."
"Under Nagga's bones the shadow of winter falls..."
The eyes of Wex were growing sombre. Yet Sargon remembered the man had had blue eyes, not this colour of black.
"By the putrid breath of the Storm god!" Swore someone when more black blood began to drip from the large gash.
"The kingsmoot..." Rasped the agonising Ironborn. "Beware...the...kingsmoot..."
His eyes closed and his breath fell in quick burst before ceasing completely. Wex was dead.
"What was he saying Captain?" Asked Maron, the Sea Ravager's quartermaster. "All this talk of kraken, wings and kingsmoot...was it a-?"
"It was nothing!" Interrupted him Sargon, maintaining an iron facade even as he himself wasn't sure what to believe. But if he began to doubt in front of his crew and say that the old reaver had given them a prophecy, he would lose control of his crew and the other ships in short order.
By the very nature of their risky profession, sailors no matter the sea they navigated were superstitious. Ironborn weren't escaping this rule, and the circumstances of Wex's death could only be considered as a bad omen.
The less said about the black blood covering half of the dead man's chest, the better.
"My lord, these weren't just the ramblings of a dying man!"
"And what exactly makes you believe that, Balon?"
The Pyke bastard had been one of the many Ironborn 'orphans' his ship had taken with them in the desperate boarding of Southshield. For a Pyke, Balon wasn't that bad...though Sargon felt sure to keep an eye – and one of his men – on him. One never knew what sort of ambitions the youngster might have if left to his own oars.
The rebuke at least succeeded in shutting his mouth and convincing the other superstitious on board not to scream everywhere doom was upon them. Good, because the Ironborn lord had no idea what sort of force was in the vicinity and they kind of needed fresh water for their return to the Iron Islands.
"Go back to your duties."
Ironborn being Ironborn, his crew obeyed grudgingly and bitching the whole way about their captain being either a tyrant or an unbeliever. Or both.
"What are we going to do, brother?" Asked Torgon as four crewmen took Wex's body and brought him away for the funerary preparations.
"We will sail for the Iron Islands as soon as we're ready and Wex has been properly honoured." Sargon Orkwood' voice should have been joyful at the idea of returning home but it was not. They had screamed so high that their conquest of the western coast was ineluctable that he feared the welcome they were going to receive. A King dead, a fleet splintered and no loot to show for it: there were revolts which had started for far less. But he could not say this out loud where any superstitious and fearful sailor could hear him and thus bombastically added one little encouragement.
"Woe to anyone who dares standing against us."
Queen Baela Targaryen
The young Targaryen Queen felt a new wave of despair as she looked on the new piece of parchment she had read. If the messenger could be trusted – and she had no reason to think the Blackwood castellan was a liar - a splendid mill, built six years ago west of Harrenhal had been torched in a bloody skirmish with bandits. So had been the village, its one hundred souls massacred and their corpses left to rot on the fields. Aemond the Kinslayer had bypassed this unimportant settlement in his fire madness, but evidently it had not saved the smallfolk.
Sighing, Baela Targaryen took aside the parchment and placed it on the left of her desk, joining a growing pile of messages half her height. All were announcing bad news or ill-tidings of some sort. Dwells poisoned, smallfolk murdered, their heads decapitated and brought on spikes. Knight forts ruined, granaries vandalised or looted, highborn women raped and entire families annihilated. All sorts of death and madness a good Queen was supposed to prevent or stop by the force of arms when it got too far.
Atrocities she had done nothing to stop.
What a Queen I am. I control nothing and I rule over razed villages, starving smallfolk and funeral pyres.
Her eyes turned to the sole window of the modest quarters she had been given inside Maidenpool's dungeon. Despite it being close to the day's zenith, the visibility was poor as large snowfalls poured their white content over the Riverlands plains, forests and hills.
At the other end of her link, she felt the amusement of her bonded. Moondancer loved the snow, though her young dragon was tiring rapidly in the cold conditions. The Northerners welcomed it with the usual celebrations of men having endured blizzards half of their lives. The Riverlords and Valemen were far less enthusiastic, some knights and men-at-arms considering it an unnatural thing. Things had not gone better when many had been forced to dismount and help their horses pass the snowdrifts.
Sighing again, Baela returned to the unread pile of parchments, reports and messages she hadn't read and yet somehow should have to be before the end of the day. Queen was supposed to be fun, but in this year of war and winter, there was only the endless and boring duty of paperwork.
If only there was one good new in the middle of this! By the love of her twin sister, she couldn't remember any message in the last moons having brought a smile to her lips. The Black offensive in the Reach had been stalemated with crippling losses on both sides. The Ironborn had suffered a heavy defeat on the Shield Islands after their fool of a lord proclaimed himself Iron King. No, there surely had been no good news of any sort waiting for her at Maidenpool when she and the army had finally ended their withdrawal after Bosworth Bridge.
Or rather 'the Bloody Bridge', that's how the soldiers are calling it now.
Honestly she wasn't sure anyone had won anything on this rainy and stormy day. Except maybe the crows?
A grimace came to her face. The Battle, no matter its name, had been a slaughter able to disgust even the most bloodthirsty fanatic of the necessity of conflict.
The Black Army mustered at Bosworth Bridge had been four and twenty thousand strong. Once the carnage of the day was counted along with the desertions, the diseases and the men crippled for the rest of their short lives, barely eleven thousand able men had withdrawn to Maidenpool.
Size for size, Baela was well-aware the losses suffered were far less horrible than the ones the Greens have suffered – Lord Bolton's estimates were of at least twenty-six thousand Green casualties. Riding Moondancer, she had seen the river in fury hauling so many corpses that for a moment one could be mistaken water was not the main substance transported to the swamps. But 'less horrible' was a cold consolation when the enemy had lost close to an entire army.
Thanks to the idiocy of Lord Baratheon, we destroyed their horse. If only I had been able to kill Daeron and Tessarion...
But she hadn't been able to. Her kingly cousin was more intelligent than his two eldest brothers – not that it was very difficult – and her deeds at Dragonstone had deprived her of any surprise effect. Moreover, shooting accurately with arrows in the middle of a storm the eye of a dragon would have been downright impossible.
She placed a new message in front of her. This one was coming from Old Anchor; the supplies coming from Pentos were several days late. The author was placing this delay on bad weather, but reading between the lines it was easy to read that the Essossi were becoming more and more reluctant to supply them as the Black gold coffers emptied themselves.
I suppose it wouldn't be very diplomatic to say it's the Braavosi's fault...half of the Royal Treasury is in their vaults, no?
One more message for the events she couldn't control, then. At least this time it wasn't one of the Arryn bannersmen sending a raven to complain about the losses or protesting their loyalty.
The last battle had been, all things considered, a complete disaster for the Vale. Of course they had scarcely been alone in that regard but among the Black forces, they had stood in a particularly unimpressive way.
Lord Lynderly and Lord Corbray were dead, like many of their cousins and relatives. If most of the latter had had enough honour or sense to die on the battlefield, the two lords had been executed as traitors by her hand wielding Lady Forlorn. House Corbray was now extinct, explaining the presence of the Valyrian sword on her right side.
I would say I wished the two of them no ill will...but they tried to betray me and the entire army, the Seven damn them! And they forced me to execute them myself!
The majority of her surviving army were following the old custom that a man or a woman who passed the sentence had to be the executioner. It was...unsettling. Bloody. Barbaric. But in the fairness of her mind, Baela recognised she wouldn't have had the courage to remove the head of a man if she hadn't been absolutely persuaded of his guilt.
Ser Jon Hersy was dead. According to the rumours, he had been killed trying to claim the head of Borros Baratheon for himself and instead was slain by a Swann knight. Lord Elesham was dead too, his troops had been so sure of their victory they had been the first in pursuit...and the first to fall against the Volantene sellswords. Lord Pryor had been unconscious since that day, and the Gods only knew if he would wake up from the inhuman blow he had received to his head. Lord Allard Donniger was missing. A few lowborn soldiers thought they had seen him drown in the river but there had been no confirmation from any trusted spy.
In fact, the single important Vale lord to have survived the butchery with his wits and titles intact was Lord Eon Tollett. The Dark Omen had emerged from the clash of steel without a scar, and this while being engaged in fierce fighting for the better part of the day.
His prophecies of doom weren't very accurate, the young sovereign thought with amusement. An emotion which rapidly faded when she remembered all the dead men. The ones who had not left Bosworth Bridge with her.
Two of her Kingsguards were gone: Ser Harrold Darke had been murdered in the final moments of the withdrawal and Ser Jared Paege had received a Marcher arrow through the eye. Lord Whitehill had been beaten to death by enraged Stormlanders when he had tried to beg for mercy. Lord Overton had been trampled by a horse. Lord Reed had been torn apart by hundreds of enemies, fighting alone and dismounted. Lord Karstark had bled to death inside his armour, never having the time to mend his wounds before returning to the frontline. Lord Ryger, Lord Keath, Lord Lychester and Lord Mallister had perished on the field of battle. Lord Darry had lost an arm and deep wounds to his legs; the maesters were uncertain if he was going to pass the next seven days.
Lord Kermit Tully, Lord Paramount of the Riverlands, was prisoner of the Greens. Undoubtedly the biggest loss of the River forces, as their unity was breaking and they were passing their days bickering and quarrelling.
No wonder Harren the Black wanted to die when the Conqueror came, the Kingslayer dragonrider wondered inside her head. He couldn't handle all their plots and complaints.
Baela herself had been tempted more than once to abandon them. Unfortunately, the oaths she had sworn them upon her coronation were binding her to them. That she often thought they behaved like children was not important.
It was that moment knocked at the door.
"Lord Cleyan Moss is requesting an audience, your Grace!" Announced the voice of Lord Commander Adrian Redfort.
"Let him enter." The silver-haired young woman said quietly, dearly hoping the Northerner noble had not more parchments and books for her to study.
The heavy door of dark wood opened, revealing first the commander of her white knights then the dark-haired man next to him.
"Your Grace." Said the vassal of House Dustin, bowing largely. In a swift gesture, Baela ordered him wordlessly to stand anew, restraining herself not to show her irritation. For all her years living at Dragonstone, she had never realised how much bows, salutes and formal customs the court had taken for granted. On the volcanic island, there had been plenty of Royal Blood present and everyone knew everyone. Here at Maidenpool, the knights and the Masterly Houses passed their time to bow, bow and re-bow. There was not a protocol to shine the shoes of someone...but the bootlickers weren't far from it. How many turns of hourglasses were lost each day respecting all the niceties of customs and court must be staggering. "You look resplendent today."
"I suppose you haven't walked all these corridors to flatter me?"
Compliments and dulcet words were all well and good, but the young Black sovereign was beginning to develop a lassitude towards them. Hearing once your purple eyes are a treasure thousands of souls could lose themselves into is fine; hearing it a hundred times per day provokes a huge headache.
"No, your Grace. Lord Stark has asked me to convey unexpected news. Yesterday, three Green knights carrying a peace banner rode to the camp of Lady Blackwood. They proclaim being sent on the order of the Green King...they told Lady Alysanne they wanted to establish a truce."
"Daeron want a truce?"
There was some incredulity in her voice, but she doubted anyone could blame her for that. For the first assassinations and massacres, the war the Blacks and the Greens had been marked by a total absence of honour. Oaths had been violated so many times that many of the soldiers were killing their enemies the moment they tried to lay down their weapons.
Baela and the Northern lords had had the worst difficulties following Bosworth Bridge to convince the River lords and the Crown lords not to butcher their highborn prisoners. Over twenty highborn were thus enjoying the hospitality of Maidenpool's cells...but she was fairly sure three or four times that number had been killed before they were released in her custody.
Which is really funny when one thinks about it. I lost the battle, but I have a lot of prisoners. If Daeron had not captured Lord Tully, he wouldn't have anything to negotiate the return of his lords.
"A truce and an exchange of prisoners." Confirmed Lord Moss before adding another piece of information. "The Green emissaries hinted their monarch wouldn't be averse to the idea of negotiations."
The young Queen readjusted slightly the gold tiara she carried on her head, looking at the pale-skinned man in front of her. A lord respectful, helping her to handle the monumental duties of ruling the realm and knowing the limitations of ambition and greed. If only all the Northerners were like this...for all the rumours and calumnious remarks on the Northerners, Lord Stark and his bannersmen weren't exactly shy to form their own power bases in the South.
We let the wolves enter sheepfold and winter is here.
"Well, if he's willing to negotiate..." Affirmed sarcastically Baela Targaryen. The last 'negotiations' between Queen Rhaenyra and her half-brother after the death of Viserys II had been so poorly-handled they were forced to live with the disastrous consequences years after. "I should better hear what he wants, no?"
And perhaps one of us will have an idea how to survive until spring.