The King

Chapter Twenty

--- Edited September 20 ---

At last, the Greyjoys rose in rebellion, attacking important points all over Westeros: Lannisport in the west, Shield Island, an archipelago located west of Highgarden, the Planky town, a commercial port city in Dorne, and Gulltown in the Vale. Four important ports of the Seven Kingdoms were successfully attacked by the Greyjoys.

However, they made one mistake: they failed to kidnap Elia Martell and Ashara Stark. The ten ships that pursued these women never reached the Iron Islands; all were destroyed.

But one man managed to survive and arrived severely wounded at the island. His face showed nothing but terror.

The king of the Iron Islands rushed to find out what had happened. How could they fail to kidnap two women? How did the North manage to thwart the abduction?

They knew the North had created a naval force, but they did not believe it could compare to the powerful and largest naval force anyone could have in the world. A thousand ships were built for this day, and they failed to execute one of the most important pieces of the puzzle: kidnapping those two women. The North and the Martells were not supposed to lift a finger.

But they failed. Now they had to expend energy dealing with the pathetic Northerners who, because of one victory, would surely believe themselves superior at sea. Balon looked at his brother Victarion, who only nodded.

He wanted to know what the Northerners' ships were like, as they managed to destroy ten of theirs. It was curiosity, but he was completely confident that with a naval commander like his brother, the Northerners' small victory would be erased with a crushing victory by the Iron Islanders. The man himself was about to die, but that didn't matter.

Balon only wanted to know what he saw and nothing more. He could die peacefully afterward. The doctors were only there to give him the necessary minutes of life to tell his story.

When Balon reached the place where the man was, he was exhausted and had very little time left to live. Two doctors were pressing hard on a wound in his stomach to prevent him from bleeding to death. It was a miracle he was still alive, something to be admired. He was going to die with his head held high like an Iron Islander should.

- "My king... their ships... are... monstrous." - The man spat blood, about to die. The wound in his stomach was very deep, and he didn't understand how he was still alive. He couldn't have made it here alive. Of course, he didn't know about magic. That was what had brought him here, with the sole purpose of saying only those words, because he couldn't say anything else.

Balon was furious because he didn't get much information, just six insignificant words that were useless to him. But it didn't matter. His fleet would defeat the Northerners, and his fleets would conquer Westeros. That was their mission. He had many more ships. He would show the Northerners that their victory was only a stroke of luck.

Victarion left the place. He would be in charge of intercepting and destroying any Northern ship. Victarion would take 100 ships, which would surely be enough to intimidate the Northerners into staying in their caves and not venturing out to sea, as it would be their downfall.

After this small and insignificant failure, everything was going well. Euron had properly immobilized Lannisport, so the Lannisters wouldn't be able to use their fleet. They would have to go to the Riverlands to use the Tully fleet, which was not large and would be easy to destroy.

Then Aeron attacked the Shields, an important point in the Reach as a significant portion of their fleet was concentrated there. His brother had captured it, meaning they now had even more ships. The number of ships his brother had taken would be enough to prevent the Tyrells from moving a large number of soldiers, forcing them to divide their forces.