Title: The Iron Price Initiative
Title: The Iron Price Initiative
Year and Month: 127 AC, 4th Moon
My kingdom was a marvel of integrated systems. The body politic of Westeros, once a flabby, disjointed creature, was now lean, muscular, and efficient, every limb responding instantly to the commands of its central nervous system—me. The agricultural output of the Reach was predictable to within a percentage point. The financial markets of the Westerlands operated under my charter. The armies of the Stormlands drilled to my standards. The ships of the North were being built with my capital. The lords of the Vale administered my laws. The Riverlands were being reshaped by my engineers. And Dorne, the unconquered, was now a willing, if wary, trading partner, its economy inextricably chained to mine. Every department of the great enterprise was profitable, stable, and secure.
All except one.
The Iron Islands. They were a festering wound on the western coast of my kingdom, a division of the company that refused to adhere to the new corporate policy. They were a department run by pirates and thugs, clinging to an archaic and brutally inefficient business model known as the "Old Way." Their culture was built on raiding, reaving, and taking by force what they could not be bothered to build themselves. They were a persistent, irritating, and unprofitable liability.
For years, I had contained them. My Master of Ships, Lord Corlys, had established a permanent and powerful patrol in the Sunset Sea, his fleets a formidable deterrent that had curtailed the worst of their large-scale raiding. But the Ironborn were like rats in the walls of a castle. They were nibbling at the foundations. Their longships would still slip out, raiding isolated villages in the North, preying on merchant ships from the Westerlands, and, most offensively, engaging in the slave trade with the corsairs of the Basilisk Isles.
They were anathema to my new world order. Their "Iron Price"—the belief that one should only possess what one can take by force—was the antithesis of my own philosophy. I believed true power was the ability to create wealth, to build systems so profitable and efficient that conquest becomes a crude and unnecessary expense. The Ironborn did not listen to ledgers. They did not respond to economic incentives. Their pride was rooted in their defiance. As the user had so astutely noted in my life's briefing, they would only listen to the strongest fist. The time for containment was over. It was time for a final, hostile, and utterly brutal corporate restructuring.
I summoned the Small Council to the Chamber of the Painted Table. This was not a matter for the throne room's public stage. This was a war council. I stood before Aegon the Conqueror's great map of Westeros, a map that now, finally, truly represented a single, unified political entity.
"My lords," I began, my voice cold and flat. "For fourteen years, I have tolerated the ulcer of the Iron Islands. I have contained their raiding, blockaded their slaving operations, and treated them as a regional security problem. This policy has failed."
I looked at Lord Corlys. "Your reports indicate that despite your fleet's presence, at least a dozen reaving incidents have been confirmed in the last year alone."
The Sea Snake nodded, his face grim. "They are like vermin, Your Grace. Their longships are too swift and their coastline too rugged. We can sink them when we find them, but we cannot be everywhere at once. To truly end the threat, we would need to burn them out of their nests."
"Precisely," I agreed. I turned to my nephew, Prince Daemon, Grand Marshal of the Royal Army, who I had summoned specifically for this meeting. His eyes, so like my own, were glittering with a familiar, dangerous light. He had been bored by the long peace. He was hungry for war.
"The Ironborn do not understand the language of commerce or diplomacy," I stated. "Their culture is built on a perverse interpretation of strength. They believe paying the 'Iron Price' makes them strong. We are about to teach them that the price of iron has just experienced a catastrophic hyperinflation. I am hereby authorizing the 'Iron Price Initiative'."
It was a deliberately ironic name for what was to be the single largest military operation of my reign.
"This will not be a punitive expedition," I said, my voice dropping, becoming as hard and cold as Valyrian steel. "This will not be a war of conquest. This will be a surgical, systematic, and permanent dismantling of their entire culture of piracy and rebellion. We will not just defeat them. We will break them. We will remake them. We will leave a lesson so profound, so terrifying, that for a thousand years, the sight of a single dragon on the horizon will be enough to make every kraken in the sea tremble."
Daemon's smile was a thing of beauty and terror. "At last," he whispered. "A proper hunt."
I then laid out the operational plan. It was a three-phased strategy I had been developing for years, a masterpiece of combined arms warfare this world had never seen.
"Phase One: The Decapitation." I pointed to the island of Pyke, the seat of the ruling House Greyjoy. "The head of the snake. Lord Corlys, your fleet will enact a total and absolute blockade of the Iron Islands. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out. But your primary objective will be Pyke itself. You will use your swiftest ships to isolate the island from the others."
I turned to Daemon. "While the fleet blockades, you, nephew, will lead the assault. You will not be landing on the beaches under a hail of arrows. That is inefficient." My gaze went to the sky in my mind's eye.
A deep, rumbling agreement echoed in my soul.
"I will be the siege engine," I announced to the council. "Balerion and I will descend upon the castle of Pyke. We will not level it. That would be a waste of a valuable fortress. We will… dismantle its defenses. We will melt its towers, its walls, its gates, until it is nothing more than a defenseless keep on a series of broken rocks. Then, Daemon, you and your dragon, Caraxes, will land with five thousand elite soldiers of the Royal Army. You will take Lord Vickon Greyjoy and his sons into custody. You will pacify the island. The entire operation, from blockade to capture, will take less than three days."
The council was silent, awed by the sheer, brutal efficiency of the plan. I was proposing a new kind of warfare, one where a single, overwhelming asset could render an entire fortress obsolete in minutes.
"Phase Two: The Culling," I continued, my voice unwavering. "With Pyke fallen and the Greyjoys in chains, we will deliver an ultimatum to the other Ironborn lords—the Harlaws, the Goodbrothers, the Orkmonts. They will be given a choice. They can surrender their longships to be burned, swear an unbreakable oath to abandon the Old Way forever, and accept my peace. Or they can face the consequences."
"And the consequences, Your Grace?" asked Lord Strong.
"The consequences," I said, looking at Daemon, "will be you. You will take the Royal Army, supported by the fleet and your dragon, and you will go from island to island. Any lord who refuses the terms, any captain who does not surrender his ship, will be declared a pirate and an enemy of the Crown. You will not be taking prisoners. You will burn their castles, you will burn their ships, and you will salt their fields. You will hunt them down until not a single man who still clings to the Old Way remains. You will perform a corporate liquidation of all non-compliant assets."
Daemon's grin widened. It was the perfect task for his particular talents.
"Phase Three: The Restructuring." This was the final, most important part of my plan. "Defeating them is not enough. We must change them. Their entire economy is based on theft. We will give them a new one. I have reviewed the surveys of the Iron Islands. They are bleak, yes. But they are rich in one resource: hardy, seafaring people. And their islands are strategically vital."
I laid out my vision. "The Ironborn will become the merchant fleet of the western coast. Their great shipyards will no longer build longships for raiding; they will build cogs and carracks for trade, financed by the Bank of Casterly Rock. The Crown will grant them an exclusive charter for the trade route between Lannisport and the North. Their sailors will no longer be reavers; they will be merchants, captains, and sailors in my growing commercial empire. We will transform them from pirates into partners."
"And who will lead them?" Lord Corlys asked. "The Greyjoys are proud. They will not easily bend."
"Lord Vickon and his direct heirs will be brought to King's Landing," I said. "They will be permanent 'guests' of the court, a constant reminder of the price of defiance. We will choose a new Lord Paramount of the Iron Islands. A man from a house that has shown more… pragmatism. A Harlaw, perhaps. A man who understands that the future lies in commerce, not in pillage. We will elevate a new management team, one whose interests are aligned with our own."
I had just outlined the complete and total destruction and rebirth of an entire culture. I had planned a swift, brutal war, a merciless purge, and a complete economic and political restructuring. It was a plan of breathtaking ambition and terrifying logic.
"This will be a lesson," I said to the silent council. "A lesson for the entire realm. For the past fifteen years, I have ruled with peace and prosperity. I have built, I have negotiated, I have invested. I have shown the realm the rewards of cooperation. Now, I will show them the price of defiance. I want every lord, from the richest Lannister to the poorest Stark, to understand that while my preferred tools are the ledger and the treaty, my hand can also form a fist. And when that fist closes, it will crush stone to dust."
I turned to Daemon, my warrior nephew, my instrument of wrath. "Grand Marshal, prepare your legions. We sail in one month."
"It will be a pleasure, Your Grace," Daemon said, his voice humming with anticipation.
I left the council chamber and went to the high balcony of my solar, looking west, towards the setting sun and the distant, troublesome islands that had for too long been a thorn in the side of my kingdom.
They will see it, old friend, I replied, the cold wind whipping at my cloak. But they will not understand it until it is too late. They believe they will pay the Iron Price. And they will.
But the price would not be paid in gold or glory. It would be paid in fire, in blood, and in the absolute, unconditional surrender of their entire way of life. The audit of the Iron Islands was about to begin. And it would be the final, brutal, and most spectacular entry in the ledger of my reign so far.