“A call to arms, hm?” Rickard Stark uttered under his breath, looking down at the slip of paper that seemed entirely too small to contain the enormity of the message. For the first time in living memory, the full might of the Seven Kingdoms was being brought to bear. The War of Ninepenny Kings couldn't even begin to compare, as while it was a good and proper war, it hadn’t asked the Seven Kingdoms to provide the full breadth of their military might.
What would such a sight look like?
Then he snorted, “This is going to be a real and proper mess.” Wardens and Lord Paramounts strutting around like peacocks, competing for glory and protesting command. Fool lords and knights that looked to the other kingdoms and saw rivals rather than allies. The logistics of the war was almost enough to drive him to tears -- the sheer amount of long-term planning to transport at least twenty thousand men across the Seven Kingdoms and halfway around the world.
Only that would be magnified several times over as each kingdom would provide tens of thousands of men. Odds were that the North would provide the fewest. How many men would land on Essos and settle upon the Stepstones?
A hundred thousand? Too few. The Reach alone could field a hundred thousand men if it wanted to.
Two hundred thousand? Closer to the mark but still fell short and assumed half strength.
Three hundred thousand? That could be it under normal circumstances, but these weren't. He had expected the call months in advance, nearly a year, so when it rang out for the very first time? His keen ears had found the first muttering of it in Kingslanding. And then again in Old Town.
The New Gods have made their will clear -- slavery was to be expunged from Essos. The idea swept through the South like wildfire. Men and women who never once spared a thought about the folk in Essos suddenly had the strongest of opinions about the subject of slavery. Opinions strong enough that they barely needed prompting to grab their pikes and whatever they had that passed for armor, chomping at the bit to get across the Narrow Sea.
Though their motivation wasn't entirely fueled by the blight of slavery. There were few things that smallfolk loved more than a war, as war offered the greatest chance to enrich themselves by taking plunder from the defeated.
It was a perfect storm of greed and religious passion that would sweep across the Seven kingdoms until every lowborn smallfolk, every lowly hedge knight, and every lord from petty holdings barely more than a farm and a barn to the highest lords in the realm would be swept up in that flame.
“Five hundred thousand men,” Rickard voiced his guess. Half a million men would pour out of the Seven Kingdoms like a bucket with a hole in it. And he genuinely had no idea if it would be enough. For the Daughters? It absolutely would be. Rickard expected their resistance to crumble in the opening year of the war. They just didn’t have the raw numbers or the will to resist the tidal wave of men coming to storm their gates.
But Pentos was a different story. Volantis. The Free Cities of Slaver's Bay? Would have a million men be enough to resist them? They, and the hordes of Dothraki that would undoubtedly pounce when they smelled the blood on both sides of the war? Half of them would likely be bribed into attacking their forces in Essos.
No matter how he looked at it, the long war was going to be a long and messy war. Momentum bled off. All it would take is a few key defeats, and then the plight if slavery would become a distinct concern again. Which left the holdings taken in Essos exposed, and in time, maybe in Brandon's reign or his grandsons, they would be chipped away until nothing remained.
Meaning the only land worth taking were the islands -- Lys, Tyrosh, and the Stepstones. Those could be held so long as the Seven Kingdoms controlled the Stepstones. And that was precisely why they were the extent of his ambitions.
Lys, Tyrosh, and the Bloodstone.
The North wasn't likely to receive all of them. If the North only received one island, then he hoped it would be Tyrosh. But, to claim it, it would need to be taken and if it was taken with a joint force? Then who received the claim would be a battle of influence, and that was a battle that Rickard knew that he would lose.
Which made the solution simple.
The North would take Tyrosh alone.
There was a knock at the door, breaking him from his thoughts. “Enter,” he commanded, and was unsurprised to see Brandon on the other side of the door. There was a pang of bitterness to see the coldness of his son's gaze, but Rickard had grown used to it after a year and a half. And he doubted that that coldness would ever melt into the warmth there had been between them. “What do you have for me?”
“Thirty thousand men and eighty ships,” Brandon answered, standing stiffly in the room before passing over a satchel of reports from the various houses that answered to House Stark. “Thirty sellsails, but the rest are merchant vessels or seized pirate ships. Good for troop transport, but if we run into a notable enemy fleet, we'd break like cracked glass.”
Over a year and a half, sixty pirate ships had been seized off the Eastern Coast, the pirates knowing that the trade route to Braavos was a ripe one. And with every attack, the North gained a new vessel as each merchant convoy was loaded with soldiers rather than trade goods, allowing them to repel the pirates and take their ship. The pirates were all quietly granted an execution at sea and the ships gathered at three points to avoid detection.
Whiteharbor, Skagos, and the Karstark shipyard.
“How long until everything is in position? Any delays?” He asked, flipping through the reports. The ships had been hidden in the Karstark lands and Skagos for over a year, and now they were gathering at Whiteharbor. As well as the army that Rickard had begun mobilizing months in advance.
“No delays. We're on schedule,” Brandon assured. “By this time next month, I'll be in Tyrosh.”
The North's size was as much of a detriment as it was a strength. The vastness of the North made mobilization difficult, often taking month, or sometimes the better part of a year for an army to travel from the Umbers to the Riverlands. After all, an army only moves as fast as the slowest mule. Which meant that the North was at a significant disadvantage when it came to the race to secure islands in the Stepstones and Essos. Dorne, the Reach, and even the Stormlands were far closer, so it wouldn't be vastly easier for them to mobilize and start securing territory.
If all of the Seven Kingdoms began mustering their men at the same time, then it was obvious that the North would arrive last. It would be a repeat of the Dance of Dragons, with the Northern host arriving when the fighting was done.
The solution was obvious. Paul's predictions were unnervingly accurate, and by now, Rickard had decided to take them on faith. Enough so that immediately following Ned's departure, he began the slow muster of the North. Over months, men gathered in the Karstark lands and Whiteharbor, ready to depart for Essos months before the rest of the kingdoms had a chance to gather their men.
Rickard was certain that the Crown knew by now. He had mustered the North slowly and quietly, but it was impossible to hide that many men once they really started to gather. Rickard was also sure that Steffon had guessed his intentions by now, but knowing what he was doing was very different from being able to stop him.
“Good. Good,” Rickard breathed a little easier. With this, they would take Tyrosh uncontested. It would be theirs by right. “And the other order of business?"
Brandon's jaw clenched reflexively before he answered. “She's with child. The Maester confirmed it.”
It would be better if the child had been born before Brandon left. He had hoped that to be the case, but Brandon and his wife had a frigid marriage, with them sleeping on different ends of the castle. Rickard doubted that they ever would have a child unless he made it a condition of Brandon's departure.
Still, Rickard nodded. There was a clenching in his chest at the thought of becoming a grandfather. And, maybe, at the thought that Brandon would start to understand when he had a child of his own of the pride and frustrations that came with being a father.
“Is that it, then?” Brandon asked, and Rickard hesitated just a moment. A congratulations on his tongue. A display of affection of some kind. To just tell Brandon that he was happy for him. But none would be accepted by his eldest.
“Aye,” Rickard said instead, and Brandon bowed his head just a touch and left his office without another word being said. He watched him go, closing the door behind him with a thump that felt strangely final. And only then did Rickard let a long sigh escape him.
Things were simply too far gone with Brandon. But that didn't need to be true for his other children. Lyanna and Benjen were still young. Ned wasn't. Not in the ways that mattered. He had taken lives, he had fallen in love, and once Tyrosh was settled, Rickard intended to recall his second son back to the North so he could marry his betrothed.
Which gave him a year at most.
A hand drifted down to a drawer in his desk, and he pulled out the plans that Ned had given him for Moat Cailin. Plans that had undoubtedly inspired by what he saw in Skagos, and likely with Paul's unseen hand. But not unnoticed. Should the plan hold true, Moat Cailin wouldn't just be unassailable from the south. It would be impregnable from the western coast as well.
The towers that secured the Neck each becoming its own fortresses, while the keep itself would be reborn. Stone would be salvaged and repurposed to save on costs, but it would be no small labor. The cost in gold, labor, and time revealed why Moat Cailin had been left to rot for centuries. To say nothing of the idea to dredge a canal to the western sea and build a harbor town outside of the fortress -- a project that would take at least a decade, likely more, and wouldn't pay itself off for at least a century.
“It's a poor time for it,” Rickard knew. Mobilizing thirty thousand men was an enormous cost. Not to mention the lost labor from so many smallfolk setting down their hoes to pick up pikes. Yet, he recalled the look in Ned's eye when he presented the plans to him. A spark of ambition that was wholly absent in his older brother.
A spark that didn't enter his eye because he coveted what his brother had, or any desire for influence or power. He wanted to make Moat Cailin a seat worthy of his wife.
“Love-struck fool,” Rickard muttered with fondness. He had expected that from his brother, but Ned had suffered the same malady. But… unlike his brother…
What Ned wanted would strengthen the North.
“A year won't be enough,” Rickard continued, grabbing parchment, an inkwell, and a quill. “But I suppose it'll be a start.”
…
Growing up in Kingslanding had given Rhaegar a very strange relationship with the truth. To call the capital a den of snakes was an often deadly understatement. No one said what they meant, no one meant what they said, and their expressions and actions never reflected their intentions. There was always a game being played, lords wagering power and influence like smallfolk wagered coppers, and no one ever truly knew if they were a player or a pawn on another's board.
As a younger man, he hated it. Detested it. Raged against it. He had declared more than once he wouldn't be party to the corruption and lies or play their games. Rhaegar had thought himself above it all and above those who played the game of thrones. More the fool he was. It hadn’t taken him long to become a hypocrite. Good intentions couldn't save lives. They couldn't grant him the power needed for when the Long Night came.
So, he participated with reluctance and bitter regret. Resentful that a Prince couldn't afford to be honest. He crafted a mask, and he only let a precious few see beneath it, with all others held at a distance.
But now the truth would damn him and lies were his salvation.
That lie was that he was a hero. That the lords taken on that useless unnamed island had rallied and sallied out when all hope was lost. That, Rhaegar Targaryen, had fought tooth and nail to be part of that glorious final charge, but his wounds had weakened him and he had to be restrained by his kingsguard, who stole him away in the dead of night.
Upon realizing what had transpired, he valiantly sought to rescue his fallen comrades by attacking Lys with the help of Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark. And there, what he saw in the den of depravity called Lys had motivated him to call a personal crusade against slavery. To strike down every good master and break every chain.
That was the story that spread across Lys. That spread to the Seven Kingdoms. Lies that painted him as the hero and not an incompetent fool making a desperate gamble that he still didn't know if it had paid off. And all he could do now was stick to the lie. To follow through and hope that he was right about his father.
“Your Grace? There is movement,” Arthur informed him, making Rhaegar stand.
“An assault?" He asked quickly, pushing back his hair as he strode out of the room that had once been the quarters of one of the leaders of the city. He was already in his armor. He didn't dare take it off these days. Try as they might, they couldn't get every master in the city and there had been a dozen attempts on his life already.
“It is too early to tell,” Arthur answered as they quickly left the palace behind them, and climbed on top of a horse. A carriage would be safer, but it was important that he was seen.
Lys had undergone a rapid change in the months since their arrival. The slaves had been freed, and they took their violence upon their masters. For every one that Rhaegar had killed, the freeman had killed a dozen. The streets ran red with blood, and not just with the blood of masters, but collaborators. Slaves that rose high in households until the difference between them and a common slave was the difference between a lord and a smallfolk. The wealthy had similarly been slaughtered, as even if they hadn't owned slaves, they profited from slavery all the same.
He had allowed the blood letting despite knowing the cost that would come later. He allowed it because if they had a hope of survival, then the freemen couldn't have any reason to disparage them. They needed to be liberators that took the city, broke their chains, and helped them to keep their freedom. Because if they didn't, and the freemen felt they were trading one master for another, Rhaegar was under no delusion that it wouldn't be their blood flowing through the streets.
“Kepa! Kepa!” Rhaegar heard the calls as soon as he was seen amongst the populace. The freed men and women stopped whatever they were doing, cheering for him as he trotted by as if there was no need for urgency. As if he felt safe among them. They called him Father in Valyrian now, but he truly wondered how long that would last.
‘A city with more than a million people,’ Rhaegar thought to himself, smiling as he waved at the people who gathered to watch him pass. ‘And enough food to last three months, with rationing.’
The bloodletting had helped a bit, but it had also hobbled them. Three masters and the head slaves had been vital to administering the city. They knew what was where, how much, and so on. Critically important answers to questions that Rhaegar had to discover the hard way with all the seized assets. And it was a month after they took the city that he had his answer.
Lys was completely dependent on food imports. Every merchant ship could be converted into a fishing vessel, and it still wouldn't be enough to feed the population for a day. The disputed lands, rich farmland that the Daughters fought over endlessly for were fought over because they were necessary for one of the cities to sustain itself. They produced enough grain that they could export it to the other two at a high mark up that they had to pay because otherwise they would starve.
While they seized the island, the territory on Essos was lost to them. There were no imports of food of any kind. The only reason why things hadn't descended into complete anarchy already was that the masters of Lys suspected some treachery from their temporary allies but longstanding enemies. They filled their granaries in case one of the other Free Cities made a move to take control of the disputed lands, which left Lys with three months of food. One of which had been wasted figuring out how much food they had.
‘If something doesn't change soon, that gratitude will turn to rage with a few missed meals.’ The concern sat on his shoulders like a physical weight as they continued through the city. Their calls of praise would be cries of outrage, looking back upon their enslavement, and they would think, ‘at least we had something to eat.’
But, for now, the city was blissfully unaware that it was teetering on the brink. And Rhaegar hoped that they would stay that way.
They arrived at the walls overlooking the harbor, and there he saw the source of their issues. Just as they expected, the pirate armada had fractured, splitting apart as their masters called them back, fearing another attack. Likewise, they had also sent a considerable force to Lys with the intention of keeping them pinned down.
Nearly eighty ships blocked off the harbors of Lys. They arrived not long after they took the city, and in the weeks and months since, they bobbed in the water. They offered no demands and refused any delegation, which told Rhaegar that they were well aware of their food situation. The mercenaries knew that they only needed to wait long enough and odds were they would simply be welcomed back into the city by the starving inhabitants, and then their bodies would be hung from the walls.
They remained perfectly still… until now.
“They see something,” Rhaegar voiced, watching how the ships seemed to slowly turn around, their sails catching the wind as they lifted the anchors. They were moving in the wrong direction for an assault. Had they been recalled?
Or…?
“Ships, Your Grace,” Arthur said, pointing out to something beyond the ships that had guarded the harbor. It proved that his friend had keener eyes than himself, because Rhaegar didn’t see what he was talking about until someone brought him a far-eye. Bringing it up to his, it was only then that he saw the small blips of sails heading towards them.
And the flag that they bore.
A three-headed dragon, red on black.
Rhaegar struggled to feel any relief, realizing that the royal navy had at long last decided to make a move. That they were being reinforced. That they weren’t being abandoned and cast aside. Yet, even with the knowledge that this just removed one problem from a long road, that wasn’t why he smiled sadly as he lowered the far-eye.
‘You truly hate me that much, father?’