Over the next weeks, the warships of the joint royalist fleet – by now numbering over three hundred, and accompanied by a corresponding number of freighters and transports and other such support craft – moseyed towards the Iron Islands at something around two to three knots, occasionally four in especially favorable weather.
Suppose a parade's only as fast as its slowest float.
Because the Westerosi, after some ten thousand years of continuous civilization, somehow had yet to invent the compass, the pilots navigated by the sun and stars, standing atop the poop with their charts and astrolabes, and, for good measure, making sure to stick well within viewing range of the coastline.
They did a good enough job, I like to think, managing to keep us more or less on course: the ships traveled west around the Feastfires Peninsula, then tacked north against the southerly winds, all those poor little oarsmen hunched below deck getting quite the workout. Along the way, between Fair Isle and the mainland, the armada was joined by (relatively) small, hundred-oar galleys and repurposed merchanters from the Westerland's coastal houses. These reinforcements numbered, in total, around forty, House Farman's contribution making up nearly half of that.
It was as we passed the half-ruined towers of the Crag, sandy beaches giving way to granite cliffsides, that the waves grew rougher and the skies stormier and the morning fog thicker, and we encountered the first Ironborn resistance.
The Islands' eminent houses, Harlaw and Drumm and Blacktyde and the like (the Greyjoy fleet, remember, no longer existed as a viable force, reduced to some ragtag second-rates that had been held in reserve), tried their damnedest to whittle down our strength. They'd batter specific sections of our line, creating openings for some of their longships to reach the supply vessels clustered in the middle, and buying enough time for them to sink a few before we could muster a response. Any stragglers lagging at the rear or overachievers blazing at the fore were picked off piecemeal, their crews taken captive and captains brutally, publicly executed – the Ironborn, I'd learned, were particularly fond of blood eagles, but now and again took the time for a proper keelhaul. And every night, with the moon concealed behind the clouds, their squadrons would come out in force, ramming and boarding and on the whole assailing with their swords and mail glimmering in the firelight.
Suffice it to say, this constant skirmishing inflicted a heavy toll on both sides, though the royalists came off comparatively lightly. With our fleet as concentrated as it was, damaged vessels usually received at least some small amount of assistance – repairs and tugs, for the most part, or pickups for survivors if well and truly sunk – and many attacks were simply repelled by our force's sheer weight. The Ironborn, conversely, hadn't exactly the industry or the population to quickly replace their own losses, and every longship sunk meant one less source of much-needed plunder.
None of this, mind, seemed to bother Robert all too much. Indeed, his flagship's cabin had, within the first day of our voyage, turned into something of a saloon (hardly enough wenches for it to be a brothel). The King and his entourage happily indulged in drink, sitting around joking and reminiscing. While their unwashed clothes soon ripened from sweat and grease, and their hair stiffened from the salt air and sea spray, their revelry only grew more spirited.
How much of that, I wondered, was genuine enthusiasm, and how much was a distraction from the oncoming bloodshed?
Seeing as most of the lords had elected to supervise their men in person, the floating court, as it were, comprised largely of second sons and household knights – or, in Ned's case, old friends who'd been all but ordered to tag along. Mind, that didn't stop word of the shindig from spreading, and some of the more gregarious nobles from puttering over on little dinghies and, hours later, stumbling drunkenly back to their own ships. Coming as they did from across the Seven Kingdoms, they all got along fairly well, though there existed a certain amount of tension along the usual lines of politics and culture and religion, and an implicit understanding that Robert, no matter how affable, still outranked them all.
Meanwhile, of the Kingsguard, only three had come with us to protect their liege, Selmy busy commanding a large chunk of the army from the war galley Stormbringer, and Lannister, Blount, and Trant keeping the Queen and Prince company at Casterly Rock. For the most part, they just stood there stiffly in their full plate, hands resting on their swords; Moore, with those dead fish eyes of his, lurked in the shadows like a bloody vampire, and the other two, faces hidden by their helms, were so unremarkable that even their names elude me.
Most noteworthy, I think, was Robert's small collection of exotics – I wondered if I myself counted as one. He'd a dwarf, of course, and a simpleton or two, and they hopped about dressed in motley, farting and juggling and generally playing the fool for the rest's entertainment. There was Jalabhar Xho, an exiled prince from the Summer Isles, who spent most of his time flouncing around all self-important, looking down his nose at the 'milk-skinned savages' and their 'giant whore' – probably wouldn't have been quite so outspoken if he knew I could understand the Summer Tongue. With his golden piercings and feathered capes and other bits of ethnic costume, he made for a colorful sight, and once or twice contributed some entertaining (if clearly embellished) anecdotes from his homeland. And let's not forget the bloated, bedraggled Priest of Red R'hllor – Thoros of Myr – who, despite his clerical vows, spent his every waking moment (and most of his sleeping ones, too, for that matter) completely, emphatically, impressively sloshed. When he wasn't focused on the bottom of his cup, he was staring fixedly at me, that strange, vast presence grafted to his soul exuding a sort of rapt intrigue.
Neither, it seems, really knew what to make of me, though whatever they saw apparently enthralled them.
Robert didn't notice this, or perhaps just couldn't bring himself to care. "Do that trick," he bid Thoros one night, "the one with the fire and the wine," and the priest, after peeling his gaze from me, nodded his head and staggered towards a candle. He raised his goblet to his lips, the candle held slightly ahead of it, and took the deepest swig of wine he could before spraying it up at the ceiling; the resulting jet of flame scorched the wooden ceiling tiles, and only a miracle (not one of mine) kept them from igniting.
Thoros wiped his mouth, then looked down at his cup, shaking it around a bit.
"It appears, my friends, I am in need of a refill."
With that, the crowd broke into applause – frankly, you'd think the Hammer wasn't a warship, but a pleasure barge.
Most of the day-to-day command of the fleet, therefore, fell to Stannis, hunkered aboard his own flagship, the Fury. After all, as the Master of Ships, the navy was his responsibility – his duty – and as a surly, bitter younger brother, he didn't trust Robert not to bugger things up.
So as the conflict slowly, but steadily, intensified, Stannis made quite a name for himself. He sailed from crisis to crisis, putting out fires right in the thick of it, and ordering, among other things, that the distance between each of the ships be halved and the number of lookouts and watches be doubled. However much a bother the crews found these measures, they proved undoubtedly effective, casualties markedly declining as time went on, and we crept ever closer to our destination.
The Ironborn, naturally, caught on fairly quickly, and only a few days before we reached the Islands, reckoned it was time for a change in tactics.
I had just woken up, padded into the main cabin, and planted myself in the corner when the bells of the neighboring ships began to peal, our own ship's joining them not long after. Shouts, I'd learned, meant enemy vessels on the horizon, horns a skirmish or raid – I could only assume that bells meant something decidedly more severe.
A hush descended on the room, laughter died and conversations ceased, and pausing mid-sip of some dreadful medieval hangover cure (diced eel in vinegar, I think), Robert narrowed his eyes at one of the portholes. "Damn fog," he grumbled, rising to his feet, and buckled his swordbelt before marching up the stairs, followed by the rest of his retinue. Boots squeaking on the soggy deck boards, they buttoned their cloaks to guard against the morning chill – shooting jealous frowns at my bare arms and sandals – and lined themselves about the edge of the ship to try and find the source of the disturbance.
Given the clouds and fog, visibility only extended fifty yards (if that) in any direction – all we could see was a hazy, muddled grey, dappled with vague blobs that, if we squinted, might've resembled warships. The sounds of battle, however, men screaming and wood splintering and steel clashing, carried across the water just fine; faces grim, the noblemen clustered around me straightened and sobered, calling for their squires to fetch them their armor.
"You've got to admire their tenacity."
Dismissing my quip with a snort, Robert turned his head towards Wyllard. "Any word from Stannis?"
"No, Your Grace." For such a puffed-up ponce, Wyllard came off as remarkably composed. "Too overcast for signals."
Robert scowled, lifting his arms as his squire fastened the straps of his cuirass. "So we're on our own."
"At least until the weather clears."
The king grunted and nodded, and fiddling with a gauntlet, shot me a raised eyebrow. "I don't suppose – "
One of the noblemen, a balding, bearded fellow in a beige surcoat embroidered with white feather quills (a solid contender for the most boring heraldry yet devised), recoiled away from the handrail with a gasp, pointing towards the fog. "Your Grace, look!"
Robert snapped his mouth shut, and knit his brow at a tall smear in the mist; it swelled and distended as it drew near, spewing rabid war cries and the thunderous banging of shields.
"Ballistae, beam to port!" Wyllard barked, subordinates passing it along. "Ready for boarders!"
Hell-for-leather, a massive longship – sails blood-red and prow carved into a screaming skull – burst from the fog, streaking right towards us; bolts slashed through its crew and punched through its hull, but that barely slowed it, and the crew of the Hammer dived to the floor as Wyllard cried "BRACE!"
But instead of ramming into us, splitting the hold open and dumping reavers out onto the deck, the longship banged against one of my golden barriers. Its bow crumpled, masts snapped and sails torn, and the remaining crew toppled into the sea – then, just as it began to slump and list, the barrier suddenly, violently pressed forward, and with a raucous crash, the ship disintegrated.
"You were saying?"
Robert's train of thought, it seems, had slipped from the rails, and then promptly exploded. As the lickspittles swore under their breaths, clutching their seven-pointed pendants and weirwood beads and other assorted fetishes, he blinked and gaped, slowly propping himself onto his elbows. He offered me a glance, then turned back towards the spot where, mere moments before, the longship had been, and gave a vacant nod. "Yes, the, um … "
I quite admirably resisted the urge to slap him over the head – the locals' stupefaction had grown more than a little stale. They had good enough reason to be fearful, that much I could concede, even discounting all their talk of heresy and 'hiltless swords,' but it really was monotonous watching them, for the hundredth time, duck and tremble like cavemen first discovering fire.
Thankfully, it wasn't too long before the hamster wheel between his ears started spinning again, and running his fingers through his hair, the king shakily regained his footing. "The fog." An exhale, matched with a sort of uneasy half-grin. "Can you do something about it?"
Looking around, I surveyed the mist, then studied the dense blanket of clouds. "Well, if you insist."
The Fundamentalists back in Leyndell – aside from embodying the worst traits of both zealots and academics – had set out with the lofty ambition of codifying the Golden Order's fundamental, underlying logic. Most of the resulting corpus was nonsense, of course (believe me, I'd know), but a couple hypotheses actually hit pretty close to the mark, chief among them the so-called "Law of Causality." Radagon, in his thesis on the subject, summarized it thus: "Every deed, every condition, is informed by the pull between meanings, whereby all things are linked in a chain of relation. Naught arises from naught, and action produces reaction" – Newton's Third, essentially.
My divinity, being in large part centered around this principle, was therefore somewhat limited – even my dominion over the Lands Between, rather than derived from my godhood in and of itself, was more a product of my metaphorical admin access to the Elden Ring. Being neither omnipotent, omniscient, nor omnipresent, I couldn't, in other words, just say "Let there be light," impose my will upon the world, and hope to effect some sort of change.
I actually had to do something.
Mind you, tossing a bit of magic around more often than not sufficed, so practically speaking, my powers were hardly limited – especially considering that the stuff is essentially just intent and imagination made physically manifest – but sometimes circumstances necessitated a certain amount of creativity.
So thrusting my hand to the sky, the air above began to twist and broil, searing currents drilling through the cloud cover and strangling the hanging fog. The mist sizzled and evaporated while the clouds were torn to shreds, wisps of vapor dissipating into the atmosphere. Shafts of sunlight then charged through the gaps, and soon, save for some scattered cirrus and patches of steam, the weather had cleared, and the whole of the battlefield was made visible.
The royalist fleet, as ordered by Stannis, had arranged itself 'on the march' into a dense, thick column, bulging at the middle and tapered at the tips. The Ironborn, in turn, had divided their own fleet – some two hundred and fifty longships, with a smattering of captured galleys and carracks – into two separate lines, and sailed perpendicular through either end of the bulge. Their strategy, I could only assume, was to divide our formation into three smaller sections, and pray that their numerically inferior force could then defeat each disparate clump in detail.
Simply put, they'd tried to Trafalgar us – but Stannis was no Villeneuve, and whoever the hell those knockoff Norsemen had made their admiral was certainly no Nelson.
In the erstwhile fog, any semblance of coordination quickly disappeared, and the Ironborn attack had stalled. Many of their ships were now crowded along the edge of our line, where resistance was far stronger than expected, or meandered aimlessly outside the fighting. while those that succeeded in breaking through found themselves isolated and surrounded. And seeing as the average longship, designed for maneuver, was both leaner and lighter than the average galley, with a smaller crew and fewer catapults, they fared rather poorly bogged down in the melee.
Stannis soon realized that we'd the advantage, so he wheeled the Fury about to meet the enemy head-on, wrangled back control of the fleet, and raised his signal flags – press the advance, he enjoined, envelop and annihilate. The ships jammed closer, grappled together with hooks and ropes, and their decks soon filled with ranks of marines, spears and axes blushing red, and planks slick with blood; one unfortunate, having fallen into the water, was crushed between the beaks of two warships, and his trunk flattened as his innards spouted from his mouth. Drums pounding and horns blasting, those galleys not already caught in the brawl then rammed the longships from the sides and rear, and pelted them with arrows and bolts and stones.
At Robert's enthusiastic urging, we cruised straight towards the point where the bulk of their first line had piled up against our van: where, in other words, the fighting was thickest. Though friendly vessels cluttered the sea, dromonds sallying to the front and transports ferrying reinforcements, they cleared a path as they spotted the king's flagship, cheering and waving as we lumbered by, our pace gradually quickening.
"Ramming speed!" some nameless officer shouted, and blazing through a gap in the battle line, we pounded into one of the longships (quartering slightly away from us, fifty or so oars, white sails emblazoned with a bundle of black nooses). The respective crews buckled, tremors rocking up their spines, and our ram raked a yawning gash into its starboard side before embedding itself amidships: a crippling blow, by any metric, and seawater gushed into the enemy's hull.
Whether desperate or confident or overcome with some queer battle frenzy, howling and biting their shields, the Ironborn, to a man, abandoned their stricken craft and clambered aboard the Hammer; the sopping, shivering, disjoined mob then hurtled towards the quarterdeck, and threw themselves at the tight, sturdy shield wall planted in front of the mizzenmast. Neither side seemed to have the advantage, their ferocity a match for our cohesion.
Robert chuckled, before starting down the stairs. "Right then, let's greet the visitors." Closing the visor on his antlered bascinet, the king then hefted his warhammer over his shoulder. "Aye, send them our kindest regards!" His retinue, accordingly, erupted into hoots and hollers, and drawing their swords and grasping their maces, charged from the aftercastle down into the fray.
Smashing into the enemy throng, the heavily armed and armored noblemen, trained for war since childhood, severed limbs and slit throats, pierced chests and pulverized skulls, the foe's shattered helmets and split rings of mail clattering onto the deck boards. With a snarl, Robert – the tip of the proverbial spear – swung his hammer into some poor sod's jaw, spraying chunks of bone and gristle, then gouged out another's intestines with the spike; Ned finished that one off, running him through with Ice, before a dirk, sparks flying, skidded across the surface of his breastplate. The Lord of Winterfell jerked backward, eyes narrowing, and dodged the next swipe before cleaving the offender's head in two.
As the king and his companions carved away at the center, the Ironborn began to give ground, steadily pushed back towards the prow. It was only when their captain – a large, hairy man in grungy half-plate, hefting a two-handed axe – took a spearpoint through the eye that they started to waver, and then finally break. Some, praying for mercy, threw down their arms, only to be butchered on the spot, while some bravely stood their ground, a few even taking one or two with them; others still resolved to meet their god, or at least deny the mainlanders the privilege of killing them, and leapt into the sea, drowning in their armor.
I myself, save for sending some intermittent potshots at the occasional longship, refused an encore of my Lannisport performance. With how well the fleet, on the whole, acquitted itself, I figured my help just wasn't needed – and, in the tight-pressed melee, ran an intolerable risk of friendly fire besides. Instead, I had one of the sailors fetch me a chair, and enjoyed the show from atop the quarterdeck.
Come afternoon, the Ironborn formations had been encircled, trapped, and gradually squeezed, and oars overlapping and lines entangling, the ever-shrinking presses were assailed from all sides. A number, of course, managed breakouts, exploiting cracks between the royalist galleys and sailing away at speed, but by far the majority were boarded and rammed, their crews slaughtered and their sundered hulls cast down into the depths.
By the time the battle was over, the water was choked with blood and debris, and the air with the screams of the dying and wounded. At the cost of around a hundred vessels, we'd sunk nearly two hundred of theirs, with a couple dozen more captured as trophies, and the rest having fled. A hard-won victory, none can deny, but nevertheless a decisive one.
And so, that night, Robert celebrated, and drank himself under the table.