The Icefyre Conquest 38 (Patreon)

By noon the wind shifted southwest and brought a smell of fish rot and wet hemp. The fleets stirred like big animals rolling to stand. Men cursed the weight of mail, then cursed the weight of no mail when the wind cut. The few horses that they had brought stumbled on planks laid over mud. The royal standard snapped and cracked like a threat as everyone ran whichever way, some eager to return home, some eager to get their hands on some more plunder in transit.

“Quarter only,” Ned told the North, and men who weren’t used to telling him no protested, but they listened anyway when his voice got flatter than a sword’s fuller. Two thousand spears and swords, that was what they were taking South with them, and even then, only fifteen hundred of them were fighters. The rest turned home in columns with wagons creaking and ships groaning, the newly rich men walking beside them like dogs who’d caught and killed their own meat for the first time.

Which was true in a way, I guess, as the force being South comprised mostly of veteran soldiers, who had seen the Reach and knew how to travel light in the heated fields.

Every Lord save for Maege, Galbart, and Greatjon was returning North, and they had been directed to divide the plunder according to the accounting done the last night. Winderfell’s cut, and that directly earned by the Stark banners was to be taken to our home under Karstark’s direction.

Right now, Visenya and I were standing by the docks, watching Maege discuss something with Father. To our side, her daughter’s stood—Alyssane’s axe had a notch in it shaped like a jaw. Dacey had a split lip and a grin that was as much snarl as anything, fierce and beautiful. 

“Where are the wolves,” a Riverland serjeant had asked her in the morning, when the Northern section had been empty even before the others had started to wake up, his half-sneer, half-doubt.

“Eating more honest meat than you ever saw,” Lyanna had said, and walked past him like he hadn’t opened his mouth. As his eyes had somehow met mine, I just shrugged and followed after my sister, whistling a merry tune while Robb just shook his head.

Clearly, Visenya’s tongue had grown snappier than her bowstrings.

A bugle sounded to our left, and I turned along with others as the golden lion flew high on crimson backgrounds, the Westerlands too beginning to funnel into their ships and those of the crown. Tywin’s columns were all angles and patience, missing that little roughhousing and raucous talk prevalent amongst ours. Armor flared bright in the sun more from polish than from any decoration, even though the pomp and ceremony exhausted me, I had to admire the diligence of the commanding officers in ensuring every armor was cleaned from the filth and blood in a single night. 

Ser Addam Marbrand had the bulk already a ridge away, flags wheeling, a long tail of wagons carrying coin and cup and whatever the Lannisters hadn’t burned. Tywin himself looked like a bar of yellow metal laid over horse and man, his menacing helm at his side as he talked with his brother.

Time passed, and as the Royal Fleet docked where the Mallister and a few Northern cogs had been, Oberyn Martell quickly sent half his men onboard with all of Dorne’s share. The man had brought only a thousand spears anyway, so it didn't matter whether he kept the men or sent them back. The Ironborn were broken anyways…dead men walking, as Greatjon had called them a few minutes ago.

Redwyne ships hove into view by late afternoon, fat-bellied and vicious under their pretty paint, flying vibrant sails with their Lord’s seal painted over the cloth. Messages went back and forth like arrows that knew where to fly, and the Reachmen boarded on, carrying what little they had managed to pilfer from the Ironborn keeps and settlements.

“Come,” their father had said as dusk had approached, and the Mallister flagship docked at the jetty. To their right, Robert Bratheon to boarded his royal flagship, Jon Arryn at his heels, while Stannis commandeered the western flank of the fleet, the one meant to travel to the Shield Islands first, while the rest stayed back a little until it was deemed safe to approach.

Bugles sounded throughout the fleet, and the Ironborn ships that were captured raised sails adn flags under the colors of the mainland houses. As the sun began to shift to red and the brightness in the sky began to dim, they finally set sail southwards towards the Shield Islands.

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Four days passed before the Shields rose out of haze. For half that run the wind came true out of the north, cold and clean, pushing the hulls south like a hand at our backs. Then it died, and the south-western wind came creeping, fat with the smell of warm weed and far fields. It slowed us, but along the coast, that only meant a few lost hours. By the time dusk began to creep in and the sun began to bleed red into the sky, the Islands stood ahead, green stones sunk in grey water.

The ship lurched hard, and the mast groaned as the captain, a Mallister knight, maneuvered the craft amongst the hard rocks jutting out of the sea floor. Ahead of us, on the brow, three men stood with lamps with silver on their backs, focusing light on the sea and letting the captain where the ship needed to go. Honestly, it felt like ramming a wall of wet stone. Channels narrow and shoals meaner than a northern winter. Without a lighthouse, sailing these waters at night was suicide. 

Ahead of us, Northshield loomed. On their own, the Islands weren’t that big of a threat, but their natural placements, adn the harsh currents drifting between them in these waters made them a good chokepoint. Especially with how these jagged spires threatened to cut apart ships from below like sharks sinking teeth into seals. 

As we neared the Island, one of the carracks ahead of us suddenly split at the head, and the first man who had jumped into the water gurgled, stuck by his chest on a pike. Whoever Balon had left behind hadn’t been fool enough to wait on an open beach and die noble. They’d made the landing points into mouths meant for killing. Stakes in the shallows. Slits in the rock. Kill-boxes in the scrub, catching men in the chest and knees when they jumped from the boats. Every wave pulled at the stakes, and men slipped on the sand and the stones, the weeds pulling them under the water.

Ahead of us, a narrow throat in the fencing ringed the island’s heart, giant stakes pointing seaward. In that gap—no wider than two men—Kenning stood laughing, sword raised, his reavers shouting with him, the sound riding the wind like gulls.

Two thousand Ironborn could hold a neck that narrow for a long time if they were ready to die. Unfortunately, these were.

As I hit the surf behind the first line of shields and felt arrows hammering the planks, I couldn’t help thinking: did they know there would be no pardon at the end of this? That the Iron Islands were already graveyards being picked apart by gulls? That they were fighting for ashes and dead bodies?

Kenning had the Northshield scorpions on the low bluff—two finished, one half built—cables greased, winches wound. The bolts looked like masts cut short and sharpened mean. Each thump was a god’s fist on wood. The first bolt smashed a Mallister galley under the bow; the next swept the beach and carved five men in halves. I hissed under my breath and somehow, another passed a couple of feet to my left and broke into the ship I had arrived on, piercing through a Mallister man and carrying him along as if a needle stuck on cloth. Past the stakes, Kenning laughed again at that, until an arrow found his eye. 

He toppled like a felled post the very next second.

I turned at once as cheers rang through the combined forces of the North and what men Jason Mallister had sent along, and they pushed with renewed vigor. Behind me, I saw Dacey and Visenya lowering their bows, faces equally confused. Half the line had loosed at the same instant; none could say whose shaft had done it.

The gap broke open fast after that. Robb went first, greatsword flashing dull red, the blue of Ice covered completely in fresh blood. I followed, and Ice and Knightfall worked together through flesh and noise. Greatjon came after, roaring loud enough to make the tide stumble. The scorpion crews fought with mallets and bare hands until arrows quieted them one by one, but not before five ships went down under their bolts.

“Think Father’s done with the keep?” Robb asked between breaths.

“Only if he’s stopped pretending to be twenty,” I said, breaking the arrows from my shield.

He gave a short laugh. “He won’t rest.”

“He’s not the sort to watch his men die from a chair. Maege’s with him. Glover too. That’s as much luck as he needs.”

We paused, the camp around us folding into silence except for the moans. Father had split the force—his half looping round to the keep with Glover and Mormont men, following a gap Redwyne scouts found in the cliffs. It left our backs open to Oakenshield and Greenshield for a while, but His Majesty the Pig had taken that burden himself. 

Typical.

Robb wiped his blade on a torn banner. “Think he’s through yet?”

“He should be. That keep’s barely a hall.”

As if hearing us, the Kenning colors slid from the parapet and Stark grey rose in their place, black against a bleeding sun.

“Well,” Robb said, sheathing steel. “Here’s to hoping the rest of the Islands are done too.”

“I’d rather we start for the mainland before dawn.” I wiped Knightfall on a dead horse’s hide. The blood steamed in the cooling air, and Robb wrinkled his nose. 

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Oakenshield burned first. Robert’s flagship hit the beach hard, oars still rising, and he was already over the side, hammer in hand. Oberyn went with him, spear low, eyes bright in the firelight. They didn’t wait for ladders or orders. The reavers met them knee-deep in the surf, axes flashing. The first wave went down screaming; the second broke before they reached the stakes. Robert’s hammer crushed a helm, split a shield, and turned the tide by strength alone. Men saw him fight like a bear, and chanted his name as they got inspired. 

Oberyn’s spear flicked past him, neat, fast, precise. When the barricade gave, the Ironborn folded. Their scorpions were lethal, yes, but the Ironborn left behind had no mastery of them. Beyond four ships belonging to the Royal Fleet, none were harmed, as Stannis had decided to bring in the vessels in two columns, letting the lightly manned, frontal ships take the brunt of the attack. By the time the moon cleared the horizon, Oakenshield belonged to the crown again. 

Across the channel, Tywin hit Greenshield. Orkwood had positioned himself well enough, but the high tide made his stakes and nets useless. Archers tried, but the Ironborn arrows and skill, both fell short of breaching the armor Tywin’s columns wore as they marched onwards. Spears flashed as his own archers returned the volley—no wasted noise, no shouting. Bottles and lanterns filled with rum and lighted with burning wicks were thrown inside the barriers, setting everything on fire—and causing enough confusion that within moments, ladders went up, bolts tightened down, and men in mail climbed without looking at the dead under them. As the first block was secured with a line of shieldmen and spears, the entrance was broken through and the Lannister forces broke inside cleanly.

By the time dawn could even think of approaching, Lannister banners hung from the small stone keep, Orkwood’s and his sons’ heads placed on pikes, and every Ironborn was put to the sword.

Southshield was slower. The Reachmen had drawn the worst landing: mud, shoals, and smoke thick enough to choke on. Redwyne had positioned his fleet well, but Twney had made good work of what scorpions and ballista he had. Redwyne’s archers cleared the bank by inches; his infantry waded through black water to reach the fort. The fighting there lasted till the stars thinned. When it was done, the last Ironborn died tangled in their own nets. Garlan and Mace Tyrell raised the Tyrell flag there, and everyone sent a raven to let the King onow of the success in recapturing the Islands.

Instantly, the reply came.

Take stock of the wounded and the dead, gather any intelligence, and meet at Oakenshield at dawn.

Hours later, the Great Lords and their commanders stood before Robert. Stannis was absent, taking stock of the damages the fleet and the sailors had incurred over the day, inspecting the surviving vessels and making sure there wre no surprises from the Mander. Mace had taken a leave from the council, the injury in his shoulder worsening in the attack, and thus, Garlan stood before them, proxy to the Warden of the South. Similarly, Galbart Glover had taken an axe to his hand, leaving him without three of his fingers and a nasty wound on his arm. Thus, Ned’s children too stood in attendance. His bastards were a step behind their trueborn brother, but the statement was as plain as it had been since they had first met them all those months ago in Winterfell.

Ned didn’t discriminate between his children, neither personally nor martially.

“These were what few captives we could find on Oakenshield,” Robert grunted, pointing his thumb at the whipped, bandaged men sitting a few feet away, all of whom were gorging themselves on freshly cooked fish and entire barrels of water. Banging his fist down on the makeshift table, Robert grunted and looked them all in the eyes, “They tell that Drumm and the younger Greyjoy were ordered to attack Old Oak, and hte last they heard, every wagon and caravan travelling up or down that road had been butchered down to the last man, hanging them from the trees and taking the loot towards the Keep.”

“The Northern army will take care of them,” Ned proposed, drawing all eyes upon himself, and Tywin…scoffed, for all that it was disguised behind his politeness and civility.

“Your leg bleeds when you so much as walk faster than a boy,” the Old Lion spoke, and for once, he was right, as everyone looked down at the leg that had taken an arrow on Old Wyk, “I respect your bravery and zeal, Lord Stark…but this is a task better left to the Westerland forces. I shall have Drumm and his reavers dead and gone within days, Your Majesty.”

“He speaks true, Ned,” and Robert raised a hand before any protest could leave the Stark Lord, “I know you shall have the job done, but your injury is not healed.”

“I thank you for your concern, My liege,” the response came firm and controlled, enough that even the soldiers at the edge of the circle seemed to snap straighter, as Ned pointed his finger at the map they had been able to procure, “but my leg does not hinder my blade, nor my mind. I have fought Drumm before, in the last rebellion before the Pyke surrendered. I know how he and his men battle. The Westerland forces are formidable, aye, but their heavy plate and infamilarity with the marshes might cost them against Drumm’s men who have been raiding these coastlines for years.”

“What do you mean?” Robert frowned, crossing his massive arms over his chest, “Speak plainly.”

Ned let the map lie flat on the table and tapped the line of road with the tip of his finger until the men watched the point and not his mouth.

“Listen to the facts,” he said. His voice was low. “Drumm is not sitting inside a stone tower waiting for a knock. He moves like smoke and chooses when he shows himself. The road from Old Oak to the sea is a strip of trees and marsh. It narrows. It funnels men into places where a spear and a rope beat plate every time if you don’t know the ground.”

He pointed at a loop of river, a thin ribbon. “That bend is where the mills sit. The mills feed a hundred men for a week and he’s taken them. He also has boats. If we let him keep that, Balon holds a string from which to pull the rest of the Reach like beads. We cut that string now, he cannot feed his men, he cannot hold any ground.”

Tywin’s hand rested on his pommel. He opened his mouth. Ned cut him with a look that left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

“The North moves light,” Ned went on. “We leave nothing we cannot carry. We do not need wagons, not for a strike. Your men need rations and wagons. They need roads to move in plate. That road is a trap for them. Tell me the last time Lannister heavy cavalry hunted through reeds and alder. I’ll wait.”

“Neither has the North,” Garlan spoke up, and ned looked him square in the eye before shaking his head.

“Some of us have, and those that have not…they travel through snow as high their chests in Winters.”

He turned then, and for the first time, the men could see it was not only pride or memory that drove him. “Galbart knows coastlines and terrain like this by heart. Robb and Jon both have fought enough reavers and wildlings to survive a disordered force and rabid dogs like these. Howland’s men are the best at moving through marches and spotting traps. Maege’s women are small, quick, and do better cutting wood paths than any courier in a heavy helm. I have sons and bannermen who know how to move without leaving a road.”

Ned set his palm on the map and spread his fingers. “Speed is the only thing Drumm fears. He takes men in the night because you cannot bring a column quickly enough to meet him. The Westerland horses—what few we have anyway—can’t move fast enough through the rock and wood that outline that road, where Drumm would lurk in teh dark. But, If we move fast and hit strong, we force him into a choice: stand and die, or run into Balon, where he is less useful. Either one is what we want.”

He let silence press a bone of weight into the circle. Then he added the truth that would make a lord think: “If Tywin takes this, the credit will be his. He will win honors, and the tongues will say how the Lannisters slew the reavers. We do not need that. We need him broken and the road open. The North can do that faster and with fewer men at risk.”

Oberyn and Garlan both nodded at once, the former turning towards the Stark Lord, “He is right about speed.”

Robert’s face did not change at first. He looked at the two men first, as if measuring their words, and then he turned towards Ned again.  “What do you ask for?” he said.

Ned did not waste any moment more, as he instantly outlined his thoughts for them all, nodding in the direction of his men.

“Give me the company I brought south,” he said. “Give me Robb, Maege, Galbart and three hundred picked men from your levies—light spears, archers who can move, not a wheel between their boots. The Dornish are quick on their feet, and their spears will come in handy. Let Redwyne keep a pair of light barges at the river mouth to cut any retreat by water. Let Tywin take the fleet upriver to Dunstenbury and cut off Balon if he tries to run for the river. And keep a hundred men on the Shields. If Drumm is stronger than we expect, Tywin will have ships to push him between two fires.”

He named no more, and he did not promise a parade. He promised only speed, a route, and a check. “If I fail,” he said, “I fail with the men who chose to ride with me. That is on me, and on any man who fought at my side. But I will not let the chance pass because some lord likes the idea of a siege. Balon holds a quarter of the Reach and most of the mander; we need that advantage gone as soon as possible.”

Robert looked at him for a long time. The waves rolled in and out like a counting hand. The king’s jaw moved once. “You will have your force,” he said. “You go at first light. Tywin, you push upriver. Lord Redwyne, your barges at the mouth. All others hold as orde-”

“There is a problem,” Jon Arryn stepped forwards, placing a parchment down between them all, the ink smudged with alcohol and the edges charred, his voice barely leaving hsi throat as his eyes flicked over all of them, an urgency, a disbelief in his voice that stopped all of them, “this was found in the hall of the keep.”

“What is it, Jon?” Robert asked, and for the first time since their explosive argument right before they had struck Iron Islands, Ned heard that concern in his friend's voice. Rightly so, for Jon Arryn seemed to have aged twenty years within moments that he had been gone, his color paler than it had ever been, and sweat beaded his weathered face like he had taken a bath. His eyes were wide, and Ned could see the slight tremble in the man’s shoulders as he grasped the table’s edge and slowly sat down on the provided chairs.

“The…The city,” he whispered, meeting Robert’s eyes, and looking as if all blood had left his body, “King’s Land-”

“Impossible,” Tywin exclaimed, his voice raging and loud in a way that stopped whatever Jon had been saying, adn they all watched him lower the parchment back to the table, his eyes narrowed and fists clenched tight, “This has to be a joke.”

“What are you talking about?” Robert grunted, eyes snapping to Tywin as he laid his palm out, taking the parchment gruffly from teh stone-faced Lannister. Ned watched Robert read the words furiously, his eyes narrowing with each word as color began to flood his face. Barely a dozen moments later, Robert tore the parchment into two pieces as he clenched his fists, and closed his eyes.

Perhaps it was all the years he had known Robert, or maybe it was his instinct, but Ned took a step back all the same at that moment. Something that turned out to be wise, as Robert roared and slammed his hammer like hands down on the table, shattering it completely to splinters and misshapen pieces of wood.

“Jon,” Ned hedged, turning towards his foster-father, who still looked to be shock, almost hyperventilati-”Get some water, now!”

As the serving girl brought a jar of water towards him, Ned took it and placed it below Jon’s lips, and thankfully, the man had enough sense left to slowly sip at it, some color returning to his face as Robert strode away and picked his hammer, before beginning to smash every bit of furniture he could find. As soldiers and women all looked at them in silently growing fear, Ned looked at Jon and shook him softly.

“Jon..what has happened? What about King’s Landing?”

Trembling, wide blue eyes met his, and in the back of his mind, Ned noticed that whiteness had begun to set inside Jon’s eyes, a mark of his age. “Euron Greyjoy,” the man whispered, and instantly, silence descended on them all as the whispers between Oberyn and Garlan ceased, while Tywin too seemed to barely control his rage at the name.

“What of him?” Ned asked, looking at the remains of the parchment amongst the pieces of wood at his right, before he met Jon’s eyes again, “Has he attacked King’s Landing?”

“There is no King’s Landing now,” Tywin growled, a lapse of emotion that shocked them all, before the words themselves registered in his brain. Confusion rose inside him like a tide, but Tywin continued before he could voice it, “Euron Greyjoy attacked the city and burned it all with wildfire. The whole city has been destroyed, with no word of the council or the royal family yet.”

“Wilfire?!” he exclaimed, a moment before Oberyn and Garlan, and as their voices echoed in the silence, whispers began to spread through the people around them. Everyone shuffled forwards, as if it was some market mummer’s show…and yet, Ned could only look between Tywin and Jon, wishing for someone to make sense and explain just what in the name of the Old Gods had transpired up north.

“How did Euron get Wildfire?”

“He couldn’t have brought it all the way from the seas he has been plaguing,” Oberyn muttered, turning his head to look South-East, before looking at them, serious and grave, “He had to have found it here in Westeros itse—the Pyromancers from Aerys’ time?”

“No…it is not the Pyromancers, it's Aerys.” A voice broke through their ears, and Ned turned to watch the Kingslayer, who was looking up at the sky, his helm dropping from his arm as he stumbled back. Robert stopped instantly, dropping his hammer where he was to walk back towards them, the Mad King’s name breaking through his anger and waking up something else entirely. Barristan took a step towards the Lannister, only for the blond Kingsguard to raise an arm and stop the knight’s approach, “It is okay, Ser Barristan…I am fine, I think.”

“Ser Jaime, what do you know of this?” Garlan asked, as Robert turned around at his brother-in-law’s voice and slowly walked back, that famed Baratheon fury still seeming to suffuse his features as all of them looked at the Kingsguard.

He stared down at the wrecked table, voice dull and uneven, as if pulled out of him piece by piece.

“It was never gone,” Jaime said. “The fire. He meant for it to wait.”

He swallowed once, and when he spoke again, the words came slow, almost careful.

“That day, the throne room stank of pitch. The pyromancers were already there, six of them, hands stained green to the wrists. They were smiling—smiling, gods help me—like boys about to watch fireworks. Aerys paced before them, his cloak dragging through the oil they’d spilled. He was muttering to himself, scratching his arms bloody through the silk, ” Jaime’s eyes were distant now, stuck in a day more than a decade and a half ago, “He kept saying the same words, over and over. Burn them all. Burn them all. Every breath louder. When one of the pyromancers echoed him, he laughed and clapped, like a child who’d heard a song he loved.”

He looked toward Tywin without seeing him. “He talked about you. About Lord Stark. He said he’d let the rebels have their victory—let them walk through the gates, smell the smoke, and find nothing left to rule. He said he’d take your pride from you and feed it to his dragons when they woke from the fire.”

His voice thinned. “He wanted the whole city to burn—the people, the septs, the keep, even the river. He said the wildfire would turn to wind and carry him to the sky. That he’d be reborn in it, and burn Casterly Rock to the ground like Balerion did to Harrenhal.”

Jaime’s jaw worked once. “I told him it was madness. He laughed at me, said even my father would kneel when the flames reached the Rock. Then he shouted again—Burn them all—and waved his hand at the pyromancer beside him. The man was already reaching for his torch, meaning to burn the wicks that had been laid out, reaching from the castle to the tunnels beneath.”

He stopped, breathing shallow as his voice turned into something that sounded like a mad chuckle, shoulders shaking under mirth that none of them could feel. “So I cut him down. First the pyromancer, then the others when they tried to run. Aerys screamed at me, clawed at me, still shouting those words, and I killed him where he stood, cutting through his back. Then I killed the rest of them, every man in green. The whole hall stank of blood and pitch, but I thought it was over. I thought I’d stopped it.”

He pressed a hand to his face, as if trying to wipe something off, as a laugh finally escaped him, and Robert looked down at the man, all of them listening intently to the tale that the man had somehow buried inside himself for seventeen years. “But the wildfire never died out…and I forced myself to forget about it soon enough.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “All I bought was time.”

Then he laughed again. It started small, a dry rasp, then louder, until the sound scraped at the walls. “Half a million people dead to finish his wish,” he said through the laughter. “The mad king got his kingdom of ash after all.”

The sound broke apart, turning into coughing, then nothing. Jaime sank to one knee among the splinters, shoulders shaking, head bowed as the sound of his armor and sword clinking together echoed in the silence. Robert stood breathing like a man after battle, his hands cut from the table’s splinters. Tywin’s eyes were fixed on the floor. Jon Arryn sat hollow, staring at the torn parchment.

Ned could not speak. The words burn them all rang in his ears like a curse.

The boy he had despised had saved them all once, and no one had known.

Now King’s Landing was gone, the city and its people burned by ghosts who had waited twenty years for air.

Outside, the sea kept beating the shore and yet here, amongst the people who had heard the Kingslay-nay, Jaime lanmnister’s words? No one moved.