Chapter 27: The Kraken's Wake
Chapter 27: The Kraken's Wake
289 AC, Month of the Green Grass
The declaration of Balon Greyjoy's rebellion rippled through the Seven Kingdoms not as a shock, but as an insult. It was a brutish, ill-conceived grasp for power by a man who mistook the King's love of peace for weakness. To the great lords, it was a nuisance, a messy war to be fought and won. To King Robert, it was a personal affront and a glorious excuse to once again pick up his hammer.
To Alaric Blackwood, it was the ringing of a cash register. It was the maturation of a seven-year investment, the culmination of a strategy so patient and so prescient that its architect could only be him. The chaos that sent the rest of the realm scrambling was, for him, a perfectly anticipated market condition.
The emergency meeting of the Small Council was a scene of controlled fury. Lord Jon Arryn's face was a stony mask of grim resignation. A new war, so soon. King Robert, however, was alive with a savage energy Alaric had not seen since the Trident. War was his natural element.
"He burned my brother's fleet!" Robert roared, slamming a gauntleted fist on the table, making the wine cups dance. "Burned the Lannister ships at anchor! That squid-fucker Balon thinks he can spit in my eye and name himself king? I'll hammer his island fortress so flat it'll be a stain on the sunset sea!"
Lords from the Westerlands and the Reach clamoured, reporting reaving attacks along their coasts. They spoke of the need to call the banners, the time it would take to build new ships, the difficulty of launching a counter-attack.
Into this maelstrom of reactive panic, Alaric stepped with the unnerving calm of a man who had already solved the equation. When Jon Arryn turned to him, a silent question in his weary eyes, Alaric was ready. He had Nervo, who had accompanied him to the capital, bring forth not a sword, but a ledger.
"Your Grace," Alaric began, his voice cutting cleanly through the din. "The Ironborn have made a grave error. Their strength is in swift, unexpected raids. They are unprepared for a sustained, total war against the unified resources of the Iron Throne. Lord Tywin has lost a fleet, a tragedy. But a fleet is merely wood and iron. Assets that can be replaced."
He opened the ledger. "For the past three years, my commercial agents have been acquiring timber rights in the North and iron contracts in the Westerlands, anticipating a future need for naval expansion. As a loyal servant of the crown, I am, of course, placing these resources at your disposal." He named a price, a figure that was easily double what he had paid but framed as a "modest fee for procurement and transport," a price the crown, in its desperation, had no choice but to accept. He was price-gouging his own king while being lauded as a patriot.
"Building a new fleet will take time," Jon Arryn noted, his eyes narrowing as he processed the sheer scale of Alaric's foresight.
"Which is why the transportation of our armies cannot wait," Alaric continued smoothly. "My own trade fleet, a body of some forty vessels, is currently at anchor in Blackport. It is at the King's disposal for charter, to transport men and material to the west coast. At the standard wartime rates, of course."
Robert let out a great laugh. "By the gods, Alaric! You think of everything! You see? This is how a kingdom should be run! While we were all sleeping, you were building the damn ships we need to win!"
"A wise lord prepares for winter, even in the height of summer, Your Grace," Alaric said with a slight, deferential bow.
His final move was a masterstroke of political maneuvering. "The Iron Fleet is the greatest threat. It must be smashed before we can land an army on Pyke. Lord Stannis will command our royal fleet, but he is at Dragonstone, and his position is vulnerable. I have already taken the liberty of dispatching a squadron of my own warships, the three lead galleys of the Onyx Fleet, to patrol the waters around Dragonstone and escort Lord Stannis to the main fleet anchorage. The Master of Ships must be protected."
It was an act of profound, proactive loyalty. But it was also a power play. He was demonstrating that his own forces were more efficient and forward-thinking than the crown's. And, most importantly, it gave him the perfect pretext to have his own warships, under his own commanders, operating near his true, secret target: Dragonstone.
His performance in the council cemented his status. He was no longer just the boy hero of the Trident. He was the indispensable logistician of the realm, the man whose foresight was the bedrock of the entire war effort.
While the public face of his domain was one of patriotic fervour, his private life continued with its own cold, efficient rhythm. Back at Serpent's Head, Lynesse played her part as the great lady perfectly. Frightened by the news of war, she sought his reassurance.
"Will the Ironborn come here, my lord?" she asked one evening, her beautiful face pale with worry as she looked out at the dark sea from their balcony.
"The Krakens are a nuisance, my love, not a true threat," Alaric reassured her, placing a comforting, yet passionless, hand on her shoulder. "Their reach is long, but it does not extend past the arm of the Onyx Legion. You and our son are safer here than even the Queen is in the Red Keep." He projected an aura of absolute confidence, not to comfort her heart, but to manage her anxiety. An anxious asset was a distraction.
He would spend an hour each day with his son, Tyber. The boy was two now, a strong, willful toddler with his mother's startling blue eyes. Alaric did not play with him. He observed him. He set small problems before him—blocks to be stacked, a puzzle to be solved—and noted the boy's intelligence, his frustration, his determination. He was assessing the development of his heir, the future leader of his dynasty, with the same detached scrutiny he would give to a promising young officer in his legion.
But his true work, the work that fueled his soul, was done in the darkness of his sanctum. The war with the Greyjoys was a gift, a perfect cloak of chaos for his escalating magical experiments.
His "geological survey team" had returned from Dragonstone months ago. Their reports were a treasure trove. They had provided him with detailed maps of the island's defenses, the routines of Stannis's garrison, and, most importantly, the precise locations and estimated depths of the vast, deep veins of obsidian that ran beneath the Dragonmont. They had also brought back a dozen core samples, cylinders of pure, black dragonglass that now resided in his laboratory.
The war provided him with the final, crucial component: worthy sacrifices.
The Ironborn, in their arrogance, had begun reaving along the coast, even into the Blackwater Bay. Alaric had dispatched a cohort of the Onyx Legion on a "coastal security" mission. Their orders were public: capture any reavers and turn them over to the King's justice. Their secret orders, known only to the cohort's Tribune—Alaric's own brother, Torrhen—were different. Most prisoners were to be sent to King's Landing in chains. But any who were priests of the Drowned God, or those who showed particular strength or esoteric knowledge, were to be reported as "killed while resisting capture" and brought, alive and hooded, to a secret postern gate at Serpent's Head.
Torrhen followed the orders without question. He was a simple man, and his brilliant, terrifying younger brother had given him purpose, glory, and wealth. If the Lord Paramount required a few savage pirates for his "interrogations," who was he to argue?
One night, two such prisoners were brought to the sanctum. They were Drowned Men, priests of their savage god, their hair matted with seaweed, their eyes burning with a fanatic's fire. They were strong, powerful men, their life-force thrumming with the energy of their dark faith. Alaric believed their connection to their elemental god made their blood a more potent fuel.
He stood before the black granite altar, the two priests bound and gagged upon it. He wore not lordly silks, but the simple, dark robes of a scholar. The air was cold, the only light coming from a single, fat candle whose flame did not flicker.
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He began the ritual, the words from the Gessos Fragments feeling heavy and powerful on his tongue. He did not use a simple scalpel this time. He used a shard of dragonglass, honed to a razor's edge. At the proscribed moment in the chant, he made a swift, deep cut across the throat of the first priest.
The blood did not just flow; it seemed to leap from the wound, a dark, steaming river that he channelled through a series of runes carved into the altar, directing it onto a large, flawless obsidian sphere he had taken from the Dragonstone core samples.
The sanctum, which had hummed during his previous experiment, now roared. The obsidian sphere did not just glow; it blazed with a violet-black fire, an energy so intense it seemed to suck the very light from the room. The air grew thick and cold, and shadows seemed to writhe in the corners of his vision.
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But Alaric did not pull back. He pushed forward. This was the power he craved. He poured his own will into the blazing sphere, using the sacrificed priest's life force as a battering ram to smash open the doors of perception. He did not seek a simple image this time. He sought a specific place. Pyke. The heart of his enemy.
The world dissolved into a vortex of screaming, violet chaos. For a terrifying moment, he felt his own consciousness begin to shred. But then, through the storm, an image resolved. It was not a hazy vision; it was as real and solid as the stone floor beneath his feet.
He was high in the air, looking down upon a grim, jagged island constantly battered by a grey, angry sea. He saw the castle of Pyke, a collection of bleak towers perched on stone stacks, connected by precarious rope bridges. He saw the Iron Fleet at anchor in the harbour, great, black longships with single, ominous sails. He could count them. He could assess their readiness.
He pushed his focus tighter, a lance of pure will. He passed through the stone walls of the Great Keep as if they were smoke. He saw Balon Greyjoy, a hard, gaunt man, arguing with his brothers, Euron and Victarion, over a map. He could hear their words, their plans, their dispositions for the defense of the islands.
He was not just scrying. He was conducting live, undetectable, military espionage from a thousand leagues away. This was a weapon that made armies irrelevant.
He held the vision for as long as he could, his mind and Prometheus's systems absorbing every detail, before the energy from the sacrifice began to wane. With a final, wrenching effort, he pulled his consciousness back, collapsing to his knees on the floor of his sanctum, his body drenched in sweat, his heart hammering against his ribs. The second priest remained untouched on the altar, his life spared. One had been enough. For now.
He had done it. He possessed a power that no maester, no king, no priest in this world could comprehend. He had the ultimate strategic advantage.
A week later, a royal decree arrived. King Robert Baratheon, at the advice of his Hand, had finalized the command structure for the war. Lord Stannis was to command the Royal Fleet. Eddard Stark was to lead the main army for the invasion of the islands. And Lord Alaric Blackwood, in recognition of his logistical mastery and the proven prowess of his men, was given a dual command. He was to act as Lord Stannis's second-in-command at sea, his own Onyx Fleet serving as the vanguard. And the Onyx Legion was to be part of the first wave of the invasion of Pyke itself.
He stood in his solar, holding the decree. On his desk lay a meticulously drawn map of the defenses of Pyke, intelligence that no other man in the world possessed. He knew where every scuttled ship blocked the harbour, where every archer was posted, the precise weakness in the foundation of the main keep's sea-stack.
He looked at the royal decree, then at his own secret map. The King was sending him to war, believing him to be a brilliant logistician and commander. Robert had no idea. He was not sending a lord to battle. He was unleashing a god of information, a serpent who could see all, and who would use this war not just to serve the realm, but to tighten his own, inescapable coils around its very foundations.