Brandon didn't know a damned thing about ships, so he was more than happy to foist the responsibility onto someone who actually knew what they were doing, and that was Lord Manderly. He wasn't a warrior by any means, though he was fat enough that it could serve as armor, but the man knew ships. He knew their strengths, their weaknesses, and how to read the weather like it was a book. He also happened to have most of the experienced sailors in the North under his banner on account that he was the only one with sailors in the North for centuries.
The Karstarks weren't happy about it, but their wounded pride was more than sated by the shipyards constructed on their lands. A deliberate division of power by Rickard -- Lord Manderly was a loyal man. More loyal than one would expect based on appearances alone. But that might not be true for his son. Or his great grandson. Or even his great-great-great-great grandson. With the budding trade lane on the Eastern coast, all the houses located on it were going to see a sharp rise in their fortunes.
Rickard wanted to divide their powerbase instead of concentrating it just in the Manderly's hands. A smart call, Brandon would admit. Rickard was good at looking at the far future. Less so at seeing the consequences of his own actions.
The departure from Winterfell was a demure thing. He said goodbye to his wife, who wished him well in the battles to come with all of the politeness that would be expected from her. Rickard gave him a crisp nod, and without further ado, Brandon began to march his host of some five thousand men to White Harbor. Their, they languished for a day, joining the greater host outside of the merchant town and waited for the other half of the fleet to sail down from the Atreides and Karstark lands.
Once they arrived, so began a genuinely torturous experience of loading up tens of thousands of men onto more than a hundred ships. Brandon never could have imagined that it'd take the better part of three days just to get everyone on board just because of how slow the whole process was. And as tedious as that had been, it had nothing on the long trip down the coast of Westeros.
They barely had enough ships to fit so many men, and only by cramming so many into each ship that it was an honest wonder that they didn't just sink under the weight. Brandon had to share his cabin with five other lords, and that was the height of luxury so great that he felt guilty comparing it to the Northern warriors below deck that couldn't so much as roll over on the floor that served as their bed without touching three other people. It certainly didn't help that half the men got sea sickness, which made the other half sick.
As the days went by, the sailing smooth and untroubled, Brandoned wondered if he would even have an army by the time they reached Essos. They were practically laying a trail behind them with the number of soldiers that were clutching the railing and emptying their stomachs over the side. The smell was horrendous, especially when the floorboards creaked just the wrong way, letting the stench from below rise up. But as days turned into a week, and then two, they made their way past the Eyrie, then the Riverlands. They sailed by King's Landing, and when they entered to Stormlands, Brandon had expected trouble.
Trouble that never arrived, and they were cast off like an arrow straight for Tyrosh on a hairbrained scheme of his father who seemed to have more ambition than good sense these days. But it was a chance to win glory, and to hopefully wash out some of the stain he placed on his own reputation in the days leading up to his wedding.
But, as their destination drew closer, the days seemed longer. The tension thicker. All of them bracing themselves for what felt like an absolutely mad gamble that no sane man would make. Some days it felt like Rickard was every bit as mad as the king, only instead of dragons, Rickard had unwavering faith in Paul Atreides and his promises.
“Do you think there will be a fight at sea?” Brandon's asked, standing on the deck and gazing in the direction of Tyrosh, expecting to see the famed city emerge over the horizon at any moment. His question wasn't directed at anyone in particular, but the one who answered was the one he hoped would hold his tongue.
“Doubtful, my lord,” Roose Bolton replied without inflection. The leech lord had always unsettled Brandon, but spending the better part of two weeks trapped on the same ship with him was a distinctly uncomfortable experience.
Thankfully, Wyman Manderly continued the thought. “Their pirate armada has shattered, Lord Stark. Their pretense of unity fell along with Lys. While I'm sure a token force maintains the blockade at Lys, most have turtled up to stop the very thing we're attempting.” There was a note of hesitance in Wyman's voice. Doubt of some kind, but it could just as easily be his words as it could be about the whole venture.
“So it depends on if they managed to salvage enough of their fleet, hm?” Brandon summarized. Their fleet was a collection of boats, but an even half hearted attack would likely see them off.
“You have the right of it, my lord,” Wyman agreed. “That being said, we'll have to fight them all the same… and we'll have a harder time with them on the walls than on the deck of a ship.”
Brandon offered a tight lipped smile, “A plan is in play, Lord Manderly. My father wouldn't send us off on a doomed venture.” That was the hope, at least. Rickard had told him what the plan was before he left Winterfell, but Brandon was preparing himself for that plan to fail to materialize.
Wyman seemed to take solace in that, while Roose just watched Brandon as if he were a cat that was debating if he was hungry. Evidently not, as he didn't ask for an elaboration.
And as Tyrosh appeared over the horizon not long after, barely more than a white blimp in the distance, Brandon knew it was far too late to call the attack off. They would take Tyrosh, no matter how much blood was spilled to open the gates.
But it would seem that they wouldn't need to spill as much blood as Brandon had prepared himself for. As they drew closer, turning Tyrosh from a mere blip in the distance, Brandon saw it -- smoke. Thick pillars of it rising up from the city that was far too big to come from a simple bonfire. It was smoke that seemed to thicken and spring up from multiple points.
Tyrosh was burning.
“I suppose that's a lesson of the dangers of trusting pirates to defend the city,” Brandon mused to himself as their fleet sailed ever closer. With the help of a far eye, Brandon could watch a number of ships setting out from the harbors, but there was no unity to be found amongst them.
“Or of the dangers of hopeful smallfolk,” Roose remarked and it was a fair one.
Pirates or slaves m, it didn't matter because the results were the same. Tyrosh was in a state of absolute chaos long before they arrived, and because of it, there was nothing stopping them. The harbors went unchained, allowing them easy access from a now empty port and the first wave of ships drew themselves up to begin the disembarking. The men threw down the gangplanks, securing the docks, before securing the harbor itself.
More ships piled into the harbor, and they were swiftly connected to one another with planks, letting sure-footed soldiers move up and reinforce the first wav e. The disembarkment was slow. Clumsy. The planned day or two of regaining their land legs was tossed away to pounce on the opportunity that was before them.
Their arrival wasn’t uncontested, but whatever resistance they did encounter was disorganized and quick to falter. With their foothold secure, Brandon and the other lords were part of the second wave, and as he entered the great city of Tyrosh, he saw nothing but panic and fear.
“Approach in groups! Street by street! Building by building!” Brandon shouted from atop a horse, one found within the city. “Don’t engage unless they attack first! We don’t know who is a pirate and who is a slave!” He roared over the chaos, urging his steed forward as they plunged into Tyrosh. Smoke drifted in the air alongside embers and panicked screams.
The people of Tryosh barely seemed to register their presence -- Brandon thought he was well acquainted with chaos. He got a taste of it back in the Melee, and he felt like he had prepared himself for what he would face in true battle. Only to find that he hadn’t even started.
People dressed in rags were forming lines to the nearest well, carrying buckets full of water towards a burning building. The water barely dampened the leaping flames that consumed it in an inferno, but all the same, the empty bucket was handed back and the cycle continued.
Yet, in the street beyond them, it would be nothing less than utter chaos. Men fighting each other in the streets -- Brandon couldn’t tell if they were pirates fighting mercenaries, house guards fighting slaves, or slaves fighting pirates. Or any mixture above. Most of them didn’t even stop when they entered the fray, their shields locked together with their spears pointed forward.
The only way that they could hope to sort who was friend from foe was by shouting ‘Death to the Masters!’ in Valyrian. That helped filter some, but it wasn’t exactly reliable as men would echo the call, luring their men close, before attacking. Buildings that they walked beneath could have men and women cheering for them, going to them for safety, but pots, pans, or whatever they had on hand could be thrown from open windows. That was if they lacked bows and arrows.
It made advancing into the city a treacherous slog. Especially when those behind the front were forced to help contain the fire, either by creating fire breaks or forming chains of water buckets to combat the flames. Brandon and his lords bounced from street to street, sometimes through alleys, to keep a firm grip on the men. They couldn't afford to turn those into a sack- at least not one greater than it already was.
But they made progress. It felt small at first when they stopped the looting and the frenzied bloodletting against those that Brandon still wasn't sure were friend or foe. It got easier when the citizens, the ones who were just trying to survive the day or stop their homes from burning around their ears, saw them as a stabilizing force. They tried to help, and even if every fifth time, they turned out to lead their men into an ambush, they helped secure four streets faster than they otherwise might.
Because of that, as the hours drew long, Brandon and his host were able to push deep into the city of Tryosh. The outskirts of the city were quickly quelled, but the fiercest of the fighting started when they entered the noble districts -- there, the house guards of the nobility mounted clear resistance that had to be overcome.
Estates were essentially besieged, if not by the North, then by pirates or slaves that were casting off their chains. What Rhaegar did in Lys had echoed out across Essos, especially in the other Daughters, so the masters within didn’t even entertain the thought of surrender. It wasn’t enough to take the estates; every room needed to be breached and cleared, and that was much easier said than done.
The day wore on, the sun steadily making its descent, and Brandon knew without a shadow of a doubt in his heart that it would likely be weeks before the fighting in the city truly ended. For his part, all he could really do was go to the biggest pocket of resistance and be the tip of the spear to crush it.
And it was there that he saw a familiar face through the smoke and the flickering shadows from a city that still burned, casting long shadows across her face. Even before Brandon saw her face, he knew exactly who she was when she effortlessly slipped between the guard of a household soldier in a courtyard, slipping her knife into his neck with an almost casual ease, before stepping forward to dodge an arrow that would have struck her in the chest.
Gertrud. The wildling that had escorted him and a few others to meet Paul beyond the Wall.
He couldn't imagine why she was here, in Tyrosh of all places. Or why she had traded out her furs for a pair of tight fitting trousers, knee high boots, and a white bodice that was splattered with blood and spit.
“Shields!” Brandon barked out, gathering his wits as he and his squadron of men moved to secure the courtyard of an estate. Men shot arrows from above that landed with heavy thunks in their raised shields, but Gertrud seemed to dance between them, each arrow missing her by the barest of margins while she cut her way through the guards that formed up around the estate doors.
She fought like Paul. Brandon noted that immediately -- they both favored shortswords and daggers, using both with the same fluid grace, and wielding them with aggressive ferocity. He saw it in the Melee and he was seeing it again now. They threw themselves at the enemy, their weapons finding the slightest gap and punishing them with death. They slid from unrelenting offense and impenetrable defense seamlessly if they weren't using both in conjunction.
The effect that it had on the already shaken guards couldn't be understated. Morale was the single most important thing in battle -- it mattered more than the number of men, it mattered more than their arms and armor, and it mattered more than the food in their belly. It mattered more because all of those things funneled into having good morale in the hopes that you would have better morale than the enemy.
Brandon could imagine that they were already shaken. They were under attack, they were out manned, and there was no hope of reinforcements. Then a blonde haired woman threw herself at them and started cutting them down like a farmer did wheat.
It was entirely expected that some at the fringes decided to cut their losses, breaking from formation to run away. That made others lose their nerve, tempting them to follow. Others turned to the door, attempting to retreat, only to learn that the doors had been barred behind them. Realizing that, they either surrendered or made a last ditch charge to drive them off, only to be quickly dispatched.
“What in the name of the gods are you doing here?” Brandon blurted out, his blood still up, looking to Gertrud while a pair of strong men started hacking at the door with breach axes.
“Oh, my, so the lording does remember me?” Gertrud replied, a teasing smile at her lips that contrasted harshly with the blood spatter on her cheek.
“You're a difficult woman to forget. Especially when you made such an impression," he retorted, recalling how she had smacked the hells right out of him. Brandon had been smitten then and there. “But seriously now, what are you doing here?”
Gertrud tilted her head, “Did your lordly father not tell you that we were here?”
“He said that we had people in the city, but no more than that,” Brandon confirmed with a nod of his head. “He didn't say who. And from the looks of things, you've been here for some time.”
“Aye,” Gertrud agreed with a casual shrug. “Muad'Dib sent a few dozen of us here after that little talk we had. Some posed as pirates, others mercenaries or merchants. He wanted us in place when today came.”
Brandon kept his expression free of his thoughts, but his guts twisted at that. “That was years ago.” Before the war began. Before the pirates started raiding the coast, prompting King Aerys to stick his cock into a beehive. Before the Melee. Before Paul had even been inducted into the North as a vassal.
Paul had looked that far ahead? Some of it was easy to predict. Of course Skagos becoming a trade center was going to have a knock on effect with Essos. And maybe Paul sent them here for another aim. After all, the Free Cities were natural rivals for what he was turning Skagos into.
But it didn't feel that way. Brandon felt like he had just done his part in a plan years in the making without ever being aware of it. And that was a deeply unnerving sensation.
“So you know how this mess started, then?” Brandon asked, covering his surprise and unease.
“Not much to it. The Masters heard that you were coming, so they repressed the slaves to avoid an ill timed rebellion. That caused a rebellion, with the pirates and mercenaries realizing which way the wind was blowing. Not sure who exactly set the city on fire, but my bet are the pirates. They're the type to burn what they can't carry off. Then again, the mercenaries aren't much better,” Gertrud answered.
That sounded more or less in mind with his thinking, but it didn't exactly answer his question. “And you had nothing to do with it?” He prompted, but he was only answered by a sly smile from the woman, saved from having to answer by the doors toppling inward.
Brandon put the question to the back of his mind, focusing on the task at hand, and that was to clear the estate. He wasn't at the forefront of every room, but he placed himself at the front of many. It was a risk, but a mitigated one -- he was well armored and armed, with several men acting as his bodyguards. Half the time they breached a room, the occupants surrendered with little fan fare.
But that changed when they reached the cellar.
A door splintered once more, only this time there were no war cries to greet them. Brandon and another took the lead slowly, but even before he took the first step down a set of stairs, he smelled death. Gritting his teeth, Brandon continued his descent, bracing himself for what he was about to see, but he couldn't have managed that even if he had a hundred years.
His shield dropped and his axe felt like it was made of lead when he reached the final step, gazing out at the cellar -- and what he saw was death. A dozen or so people huddled in a corner, all of them gazing out with unseen eyes. A single vial and a cup was the only hint what had killed them.
“Poison,” Gertrud observed without a care. She had the right of it.
It was the consequence of Rhaegar's slaughter in Lys. It was why the Masters fought so desperately. That slaughter had echoed out across Essos and now every single Master on the continent no longer believed that surrender was an option. So, they fought to the death…
Or they killed themselves to avoid falling into enemy hands. The men, the women…
And the children.
Brandon's gaze lingered on the face of a dead child in the arms of his mother. A child no older than three or four. His throat felt like it was closing up, guilt twisting his guts into knots, even though he knew he had nothing to feel guilty for. “I…”
He shook his head and turned away, “I need a damn drink.”