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The Wizard of Fury Chapter 5
🕑 Added 2024-07-20 15:59:00 +0000 UTCThe golden kraken on a sea of black flapped wildly in the heavy winds. Along the Straits of Fair Isle, hundreds of flags could be seen. Most depicted House Greyjoy, but there were others representing the various other noble houses of the Iron Islands. The bony hand of House Drumm, the black leviathan of House Volmark, the silver scythe of House Harlaw, the black longship of House Farwynd. All of them standing tall and proud atop a mighty fleet.
Stannis eyed them warily. His own fleet vastly outmatched the Greyjoys in the number of war galleys, but the Greyjoys numerous longships posed a dire threat. They were faster and more manoeuvrable than war galleys, albeit more easily destroyed, and even Stannis’ cogs would struggle to outmanoeuvre them. The Greyjoys even had peasants in fishing boats fighting for them. All it would take is one of those sea-weathered old men to sneak aboard one of Stannis’ vessels and stab a captain in the back with a jagged fishing knife to cause a tremendous amount of disarray in his fleet.
They were outmatched at sea. Despite being called the Royal Fleet, Stannis knew perfectly well that they weren’t the most dangerous force on the open waters. The ironborn lived and breathed the salty spray of the sea. They knew how to handle themselves better than any other sailors alive today. Even if their fleet was smaller than Stannis’, this was, at best, an even fight. At worst, Stannis was at a disadvantage.
Fair Isle sat to the west. House Farman ruled it from their seat at Faircastle, but Stannis’ ravens to them had not been returned. He feared that the ironborn had already taken the castle, or perhaps merely put it to the torch after slaughtering its inhabitants. They wouldn’t linger there though. The ironborn were of the sea, not the land. Perhaps he could find some brief respite there after the battle was over. At the very least, Lord Tywin Lannister would want to know the state of his bannermen.
To the east, the mainland coastline was dotted with small fishing villages. There were no large settlements that he could call upon for aid in this upcoming fight.
Stannis was alone here with his fleet, the Greyjoy fleet, and the Redwyne fleet. Two enemies ahead of him.
Lord Redwyne seemed keen on challenging every one of Stannis’ decisions. When he’d made it clear that he was taking up the vanguard, Lord Redwyne had argued that it was he who should lead the charge. When Stannis rebuked him, he’d taken umbrage at the suggestion that his forces be used to flank the ironborn from the other side of the straits. Stannis felt that stabbing the enemy in the back was the perfect tactic for a man as cowardly as Lord Redwyne. The man was surely wont to disagree.
He was surely by the opposite end of Fair Isle by now. Stannis had given the man the day to sail around the island with the knowledge that the attack would begin at dusk, unless the ironborn attacked him first.
Thankfully, it appeared as though he’d caught the ironborn fleet off guard. They were unprepared to face a host as large as the Royal Fleet, but they adapted rather quickly. Within an hour of Stannis’ ships coming into sight, they marshalled together a wide formation with a cluster of ships in the centre, surrounding a trio of ships captained by Lord Balon Greyjoy’s own brothers, Euron, Victarion, and Aeron.
Stannis wondered if Balon despised his own brothers as much as Stannis did his. Balon had sent them to war while he hid behind in his castle. Surely he had to know that retribution would come his way eventually, and he put his brothers up to face the brunt of it.
Well, Stannis cared neither which way, he supposed. He didn’t need to know Balon’s reasoning. What had been done had been done, and now it was merely time for him to carry out his duty.
Stannis scanned the deck of his ship to find his son staring out to sea again. He was still in his nice clothes, but a bag had been set next to him that carried a set of chain mail and some tightly-fitted clothes more fit for battle. He was pleased to see that, for once, his son had been prompt in following his commands.
“Ser Benethon,” Stannis called out down to the man who was busy helping to scrub the deck with the other sailors in order to keep the wood of the ship in good condition. The tall man looked up, and Stannis waved him up to the captain’s wheel.
“My lord,” Ser Benethon said as he climbed the steps to the upper deck, wiping his hands clean on his wet trousers.
Stannis eyed the man who’d served his family so faithfully for so many years. House Scales was an important house who’d lived on Dragonstone for generations. Once, they’d served the Targaryens, but they’d been nothing but honest and duty-bound to Stannis since he’d taken over the island.
Ser Benethon was a fine knight. A little rough around the edges in terms of finesse perhaps, but big and strong and capable of defending himself from anything that came his way.
“You’ll be escorting my son ashore,” Stannis informed him. “You’re to take him and two sailors to Fair Isle and wait out the coming battle. Should the worst befall us in the fight to come, you are to sail back along the coast to Kayce and travel to Casterly Rock from there. Lord Tywin will see to it that the king’s nephew be safely sent back to Dragonstone. You are to be his sworn shield until such a time as the Greyjoy Rebellion is put down. Am I understood?”
Ser Benethon looked stunned and properly honoured. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “My lord, this is a kindness I cannot begin to repay—”
“You can repay it by keeping my son, my heir, safe from harm,” Stannis informed him seriously. “You’ve served me well and done your duty to me and my house admirably. Besides, you’re one of the few who seems to manage to keep my son in line. I expect you to continue that pattern as you keep him safe from harm.”
Stannis didn’t need to explain what would happen if Ser Benethon failed in his duties. A knight who failed to protect their liege lord was no true knight at all. They would be shunned and expected to give up their holdings less their lord find another knight who’d be happy to take their holdings by force. He’d be left to wander the Seven Kingdoms as a hedge knight, searching for a new lord who’d take pity on him and bring him into their service. He would bring dishonour onto his house, and Stannis had no doubt that Lord Scales would strike Ser Benethon from the family over a failure such as this.
“I will do as you command, my lord,” Ser Benethon said solemnly.
“Then make haste and see him to Fair Isle. Take a pair of sailors with you and a small fishing boat you can use to sail along the coastline,” Stannis instructed him.
“Yes, my lord,” Ser Benethon acknowledged.
Stannis turned away then, and Ser Benethon waited just a moment before returning to his feet and hurrying to follow his lord’s command. He didn’t expect the Fury to go down in this fight, but if it did, he wouldn’t be forced to watch his son drown like he watched his parents drown.
Twenty minutes passed before Harry was safely aboard the fishing boat in the water next to the Fury. Stannis resisted the urge to look down over the edge to check on his son. He didn’t want him to think Stannis worried about the battle. Besides, he needed his mind sharp and focused on the path ahead.
“The wind is with us,” Stannis murmured to himself. The tailwind would carry them sharply forward, crashing into the ironborn’s lines.
The men readied themselves above and below deck as the sun continued to set lower and lower. There was a jitteriness in the air among them, but Stannis remained cool, calm, and collected.
He turned to one of the young men aboard the Fury. The young ones manned the war drums and war horns to help direct the flow of combat under their captain’s demands.
“Let our men know to get ready,” Stannis ordered him.
A billowing blast left the young man’s horn a second later, and all throughout the fleet, the call was returned. Stannis hoped the ironborn could hear it. It was the call of their impending deaths.
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“Be careful, my lord,” Ser Benethon said as he offered a hand out to help Harry navigate over the treacherous stones on the shore of Fair Isle. “Wouldn’t want you to slip and take a nasty blow to the head or to accidentally twist an ankle.”
“Thanks for putting those thoughts into my head,” Harry replied sarcastically, ignoring the offered hand. “But I think I can manage to cross a few—”
He stumbled forward, catching himself at the last moment before he actually fell. Ser Benethon had a charming smirk on his lips.
“What was that?” He asked with simpering politeness.
“Shut up,” Harry grumbled, taking more care as he navigated over the last few jagged rocks before they reached solid land.
Fair Isle was overgrown with dense vegetation. Enormous trees littered the hilly landscape as far as the eye could see. The shore was made up of stone beaches. A handful of old fishing boats with gaping holes in them had washed ashore here, taken over by crabs and sea moss.
Nearby, a pair of sailors raised the small fishing boat they’d used to take Harry and Ser Benethon ashore above their heads and carried it into the tree line. They set it inside of a bush that’d be hard to spot and left a pair of noticeable cuts in the tree with their daggers to mark the location.
“We should find a hill to wait upon,” Ser Benethon suggested. “The battle’s likely to begin soon, and should any ironborn be washed ashore in the carnage that’s soon to follow, I’d feel much better waiting for them in a defensible position.”
Battle. Finally.
The last time Harry had seen true battle had been at the graveyard. Though, perhaps calling it a true battle was a bit of an overstatement; Harry had spent most of his time dodging back and forth rather than truly fighting back against Voldemort. But even still, the anticipation of witnessing something as violent and dangerous as that night was making his adrenaline course through his body.
“I should hope that none come ashore,” Harry admitted.
“I’ll be there to keep you safe if any do,” Ser Benethon replied. “And should the worse come to pass, you have a blade of your own to defend yourself with.”
Aye, he did. It was a steel longsword, freshly made out of Dragonstone’s forge a mere two months before they had set sail from the island. His father insisted that he train with all manner of weapons with the Master-at-Arms, and so he always had new weapons made for Harry to train with. They were smaller and lighter than a normal man’s weapon, but that was only due to the fact that Harry was still a boy of ten in this world. His body wasn’t yet strong enough to handle those heavier weapons, but he would be able to one day.
“I fancy your chances better than any ironborn slop that comes out of those waters,” Ser Benethon added, trying to perk Harry up a bit. “You’ve at least been trained by a proper Master-at-Arms, and you’ve had practice fighting against proper knights.”
“Only with blunted blades,” Harry pointed out.
“Better than no training at all,” Ser Benethon countered. “But I wouldn’t worry so much about needing to use it. I’ll be the first line of defence, and none shall pass by me.”
They made their way into the tree line then. The two sailors, Toman and Dantis, cleaved their way through the dense foliage with their sharp daggers. Luckily, they managed to find some narrow trails forged by whatever animals were native to this island, giving them a bit of an easier time as they pushed slightly inland.
There were countless hills from which they could sit atop to choose from, but Ser Benethon insisted on finding one close to the coast so that they could watch the battle as it unfolded. Already, they could hear the war drums pounding relentlessly across the open waters. As nervous as Harry felt, he knew that Ser Benethon felt just as nervous. Those ships were filled with men he considered as true brothers as his own flesh and blood ones were. He wanted to know that they would make it through the fight.
As warhorns began to boom out, they came upon an ideal hillside. An old logging camp must have been set up nearby because a large swath of stumps littered the ground. They climbed up the hill until they reached its apex, granting them a perfect view of the waters beyond and the two fleets who were moving to confront one another. They could still see them for now, but it was starting to get dark, and soon all they’d be left with were the sounds of war.
“Should we start a fire?” Dantis suggested.
“No,” Ser Benethon replied quickly. “We’re too exposed here for a fire.”
There was some quiet grumbling over that, and Harry was almost keen to agree with them. As darkness fell, it’d start to grow colder, and their clothes were already a little bit damp from the salty spray of the sea.
“We’ll need to take turns keeping watch,” Ser Benethon continued. “At the very least, we know that animals travel nearby, so we must be wary. My lord, I’d ask that you please wear your chain mail until the battle’s done.”
It was going to be heavy and uncomfortable, but Harry supposed that it was better than getting a sword through the belly or a bear’s sharp teeth shredding the flesh from his arm.
He donned his armour, feeling uncomfortable to be the only one wearing any. Ser Benethon normally wore full plate, but it was much too impractical to bring ashore with them. Besides, wearing armour at sea was a danger itself. If you fell into the water, you were more likely to drown from all of the excess weight dragging you to the bottom of the sea.
“Look,” Toman said, standing atop a broken stump and staring out to sea. “They’re about to clash.”
“They have the wind,” Ser Benethon commented.
Harry was too short to see much without standing atop one of the stumps. As he climbed up, he bore witness to his father’s fleet racing towards the ironborn’s.
The wide arms of the ironborn fleet began to converge around the ball-like mass of the advancing Royal Fleet. The nimble longships lowered their sails and allowed their oarsmen to propel them wherever they wanted without need of the wind. They encircled the Royal Fleet quickly, and then they struck.
Hundreds of ironmen, wielding hooks and ropes, started attempting to board the heavy war galleys that flanked the charging fleet. Catapults aboard the war galleys’ upper decks fired heavy boulders that crashed into distant men and longships alike, softening up the bulk of the Greyjoy fleet. Meanwhile, men armed with bows fired arrows down at the ironborn attempting to scale the sides of the taller ships, but that left them vulnerable to the ironborn’s own arrows.
The tall, powerful war galleys at the front of the Royal Fleet were outfitted with heavy bronze rams on the bows of the ships. The ironborn’s short, sleek longships had no such rams—although they did have enough force behind them to tear through oars.
The sounds of wood splintering as the fleets crashed against each other carried well across the waters as the vanguard of the Royal Fleet met the Greyjoy ships, making it sound as though trees were snapping all around Harry. He could easily make out the Fury leading the charge with her golden sails and the proud black Baratheon stag on it. Black Bertha, Piety, Red Raven, Wraith, Old Lord, Crabfeeder, Lancer, and Dashing Wind flanked Fury, following her charge into the heart of the ironborn’s fleet.
“There goes one Greyjoy ship.” Ser Benethon pointed towards Black Bertha, Ser Davos’ ship. Its bow was nestled straight through the middle of one of the larger longships that bore the proud flag of House Greyjoy. The sailors diving out to see looked even smaller than ants from this distance; Harry had to squint his eyes to even make them out.
“The battle’s going well,” Toman commented.
“Aye, it is,” Ser Benethon replied proudly, puffing out his chest.
And yet, Harry couldn’t stop the icy-cold hand from gripping his heart. The screams of dying men mostly faded before they reached them, but they reminded Harry of the sounds of his true mother screaming whenever the Dementors had been around him during his third year.
It hurt more when he saw one of his father’s ships go down. Some ironmen must have made it aboard because the vessel turned sharply and suddenly crashed into Robert’s Hammer. The vessel rocked, cracked, and then capsized, sending dozens of men fleeing for their lives in the water.
More and more ships went down in the ensuing minutes, most of them Greyjoy ships. The catapults mounted aboard the Royal Fleet had done wonders to shred through the ironborn. Men died and needed replacing, or if there was no one to replace them then the remaining men had to be shuffled around on deck to balance the vessel. Other longships were left with gaping holes that made them take on water and begin to sink.
No matter how many ships the ironborn raided, they weren’t fast enough. The most powerful ships, those captained by Lord Balon Greyjoy’s brothers, struggled against the overwhelming might of the Royal Fleet.
And then the Redwyne Fleet appeared.
Cheers went up throughout his father’s forces as the Redwyne’s took the Greyjoy’s from behind. They fired volleys of arrows and charged in with their own rams.
The situation grew dire enough that the ironborn resorted to fire.
Fire was a dangerous thing aboard a ship, Harry knew. Though some fancy tales spoke of men lighting pitch of fire and hurling it from one ship to the next, such a thing would be ridiculous in practice. Men made mistakes all the time, it was an undeniable fact, and all it took was one single mistake to make a barrel of pitch meant for the enemy suddenly explode aboard your own vessel.
It was a desperate, dangerous gamble, and the ironborn went for it.
A devilish war horn blew, and suddenly Lady Selyse was lit ablaze in a fiery inferno. Old Lord went up next, and then so did Home Port. Seasmoke followed, and by then, the Royal Fleet sounded a horn of their own to charge forward.
They were going to smash through the Greyjoy lines, Harry recognised, and find safety amongst the Redwyne Fleet. Retreat would’ve been nigh impossible with the wind blowing at their backs and over a third of the Greyjoy fleet back there. Forward was the only reasonable path they could take.
There were several quiet minutes as none of the four men on the hillside spoke. They watched as the Fury pushed through the Greyjoy lines first, and only then did they begin to breathe a sigh of relief. Other ships from the Royal Fleet followed, some alight, others heavily damaged from arrows and other projectiles.
The Greyjoys hadn’t been ready for a fleet of this size. They were used to raiding fishing villages and harrying the occasional trade vessel and a handful of smaller galleys. Stannis had been on the other side of Westeros; they hadn’t realised just how quickly Harry’s father would muster his forces and set forth to do his duty.
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Stannis fought the urge to cough as smoke billowed up towards the Fury from one of his own cogs. The poor vessel was burning uncontrollably in the water, and the men who’d been aboard had abandoned it and climbed aboard the closest vessels to them.
The waters were littered with dead. Bodies crumpled into unnatural shapes from the heavy boulders that rained down upon them. The Greyjoy forces hadn’t been ready to face a fleet yet, and it was their undoing. And yet, Stannis couldn’t help but wonder how things had gone so smoothly. The ironborn were natural fighters at sea. Had they diverted all of their artillery north? Or were they already spent after destroying the Lannister fleet and anything else the westerlands were able to muster?
Regardless, Stannis was grateful for the easy battle. There were more fights to come, and he needed his men in top form for it.
The Arbor Queen, Lord Redwyne’s ship, drew up alongside the Fury. Lord Redwyne almost looked bored as he walked to the edge of his deck and called across to Stannis.
“The ironborn are in retreat!” Lord Redwyne shouted. “Should we pursue?”
Stannis turned around to see the state of the battlefield. The stragglers in his fleet were still fighting past the remaining Greyjoy longships to reunite with the bulk of the Royal Fleet, not that the Greyjoys were putting up much of a fight. Several longships were already fleeing the battle, some headed to Fair Isle, the rest further down the straits.
The ironborn were a scourge on the seas. If Stannis allowed them to flee now, he knew that countless villages along the coastline would suffer for it. They would rape and pillage and bring destruction anywhere they went, all in the name of vengeance for a war they started.
“Yes!” Stannis shouted back to them. “Kill or capture any ironborn you can find!”
Lord Redwyne didn’t deign to speak to Stannis any further. He was already barking out orders to his men, who hurried to fulfil them.
Stannis looked back to his men, who were rushing about the ship in an effective manner. Sailors dangled over the bow, checking on the state of the damage to the front of the galley after they’d rammed through three longships. Others were busy plucking arrows out of the sides of the ship and patching the small holes with bits of wood and tar hammered into the gaps. The rest were restocking the quivers of the archers on the top deck and bringing food and water to those who needed it.
His men had done well thus far, but there was more to come. It was especially concerning to know that the ironborn were now closer to his son than he was. Darkness continued to fall upon the land, making it difficult to spot any of them swimming in the water. Now was the time to act before they could slip away.
“Men!” Stannis roared, drawing their attention over to him. “We’re going to clean up this ironborn scum that’s polluting our seas! Turn the ship around and get to your stations! The battle isn’t over yet!”
A cheer went up at his words, but Stannis ignored it. His eyes were already busy scanning for where their next target was.
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By the time the moon was hung high in the skies above, the cries of dying men had faded. Atop the hill overlooking the sea, Harry sagged with relief that the nightmarish sounds were gone. It didn’t seem to be any easier hearing such horrific noises again.
“The battle’s over,” Ser Benethon announced with a sigh of relief. In truth, it’d been over for some time, but he didn’t seem keen on admitting it until the last Greyjoy longship had either sunk or fled out of sight.
“Does that mean we can go back to the Fury now?” Toman asked.
“We could take our boat up the coast,” Dantis suggested.
“No. We’ll wait here until Lord Stannis sends someone for us,” Ser Benethon decided. “Who knows what manner of ironborn lurks on the shoreline after the battle. I’ll not risk Harry’s safety for a little bit more comfort tonight. We’ll take turns on watch.”
The night passed by slowly. Despite Harry’s insistence, Ser Benethon’s will was stronger in convincing Harry to wear his chain mail throughout the night just in case of an unexpected attack. And yet, none ever came. The three older men took turns standing watch, allowing Harry a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.
By the early hours of the morning, the four of them were all stiff backed and famished. Harry shared the meagre remains of his bread, cheese, and dried meat they’d bought at their last resupply in Feastfires with the others. They seemed grateful for at least something to fill their bellies. Without lighting a fire, it was pointless to hunt, and they didn’t know the plants of this land well enough to recognise any berries or tubers that were safe to eat.
Stannis still had ships out scouting through the Straits of Fair Isle for any ironborn still lingering around. Small cogs passed nearby, and Ser Benethon attempted to flag one down, but it didn’t seem as though anyone spotted them up on the hill.
At least not until the Fury came into view. The massive war galley carved through the water cleanly, and this time Ser Benethon was successful in flagging down the vessel. Some sailors aboard her noticed him, and they quickly began deploying a fishing boat to come collect them.
“Come,” Ser Benethon said. “Let’s get to the shoreline to meet with them there.”
They followed the animal trails they took the night before, high in spirits. Harry was hopeful that his father had made it through the night’s battle. A stray arrow could kill any man, but Stannis wasn’t likely to die until his duty was done. It was an amusing yet macabre thought, imagining his father barking out orders with an arrow sticking out of his side.
When they finally broke free from the tree line and stepped foot onto the rocky shore, Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He could see his father standing atop the Fury’s highest deck. He didn’t wave to Harry, nor was there a look of relief on his face. Stannis expected Harry to be fine, and he was. Still, Harry liked to think that Stannis held some form of relief of his own at seeing his son and heir alive.
But then Stannis’ face shifted. It wasn’t into happiness or excitement.
No, his visage morphed into a look of pure dread.
“Gah!”
A wet sound gurgled up past Toman’s lips as a dagger slid right between his ribs. Another one stabbed into his throat, and blood started draining out from his mouth.
Harry turned too quickly. The uneven, wet stones weren’t meant for such quick movements. One of his legs gave out, his ankle twisting.
Ser Benethon drew his steel and slashed at one of the haggard-looking ironmen who’d ambushed them. All seven of them were covered in moss, having disguised themselves just within the tree line.
“Get to the water!” Ser Benethon shouted to Harry as he carved through the chest of another man.
Dantis had his own dagger out and charged forward recklessly. He managed to stab a man, but not before being stabbed himself. The two of them dropped to the ground as Harry started to scramble backwards. His ankle throbbed in pain and wouldn’t take his full weight on it, but he couldn’t just stay here.
Three ironmen approached him, daggers in their hands and violence in their eyes. Harry fumbled for the longsword he had sheathed on his hip. He only managed to get the blade out halfway before they were upon him.
“You’re coming with us, little lord,” a dark-haired man laughed. His breath was sour and stank of ale. He grappled Harry’s arm and wrenched his hand away from the hilt of his blade as another man came up behind him.
Harry barely felt the blow that knocked him unconscious, but he remembered hearing his father’s furious shouts as he was dragged away back into the tree line.
