Title: The Closing Statement of Pyke
Title: The Closing Statement of Pyke
Year and Month: 127 AC, 5th Moon
The armada that descended upon the Iron Islands was not a fleet of war in the traditional sense. It was the physical manifestation of a royal audit reaching its final, inescapable conclusion. It was the fist I had spoken of in my council, a mailed fist of over two hundred warships and ten thousand professional soldiers, forged in the furnaces of my new, efficient Westeros. At its heart, sailing on the flagship King's Justice, was the ultimate expression of my will, the living embodiment of the Iron Throne's final answer to defiance: me. And high above, a shadow in the clouds, my oldest and most terrible partner waited for my command.
Our arrival off the coast of Pyke was timed with the precision of a maester's clock. Lord Corlys's Royal Fleet, a magnificent and terrifying sight, emerged from the sea mist at dawn, a crescent of black hulls and Targaryen sails that sealed the island off from the rest of the world. His swiftest ships, the Velaryon galleys, immediately blockaded the channels between Pyke, Harlaw, and Great Wyk. The Ironborn, waking to find the horizon filled with enemy ships, were caught completely by surprise. Their famous longships, designed for raiding, were trapped in their harbors.
The response from the castle of Pyke was exactly as I had predicted. Arrogance, defiance, and a fatal underestimation of the situation. Lord Vickon Greyjoy, a man whose entire worldview was shaped by the "Old Way," saw not an insurmountable force, but the largest and most tempting prize in history. He believed this would be a glorious battle, a saga to be sung for a thousand years.
Through Balerion's senses, I watched the chaos unfold on the island. I saw the great warhorns being blown from the towers of Pyke. I saw the Ironborn warriors, with their kraken-crested helms and heavy axes, pouring onto the battlements, screaming challenges and insults across the water. They were brave. They were foolish. They were an outdated business model about to be rendered insolvent.
I stood on the deck of my flagship, the sea wind whipping my black cloak around me. My nephew, Prince Daemon, stood beside me, clad in his black and red armor, his hand resting on the hilt of Dark Sister. His face was alive with a joyful, predatory hunger.
"They sing loudly for men about to die," Daemon commented, a smirk on his face.
"Their song is a liability on their balance sheet," I replied, my eyes fixed on the distant, defiant castle. "They believe we have come to lay a traditional siege. They think they can outlast us, that their stone is stronger than our patience. They are operating on flawed data."
Lord Corlys approached, his silver hair blowing in the wind. "The blockade is absolute, Your Grace. Nothing can get in or out of Pyke. We await your command."
"There will be no siege, Lord Corlys," I said. "Sieges are costly and time-consuming. We are not here to negotiate. We are here to deliver a closing statement." I turned to Daemon. "Ready your men. The landing will commence in one hour."
Daemon looked at the towering cliffs and fortified towers of Pyke. "We will lose many men taking those walls, Uncle."
"You will lose no men taking the walls," I said. "Because there will be no walls left to take."
I left them on the deck and retired to the quiet of my cabin. I closed my eyes, and the world of rocking ships and salty air vanished. My consciousness soared, merging completely with the ancient, immense being that waited for me in the high, cold clouds.
The link was perfect, a seamless fusion of my modern, strategic mind and his ancient, fiery soul. The serum had not just revitalized his body; it had sharpened his focus, made his immense power more pliable to my will. He was not just a beast I commanded; he was an extension of my own body.
They are a lesson, old friend, I projected back. A lesson to the rest of the realm. And the lesson must be clear, concise, and unforgettable. Phase One will now commence. The objective is the systematic dismantling of the fortress of Pyke. Not its destruction. Its surgical disassembly. Begin with the outer defenses.
From a height of five thousand feet, we began our descent. We did not plummet like a meteor, as we had on Tarth. This was not about annihilation. This was a demonstration of terrifying, methodical precision. We descended in a slow, deliberate spiral, a black vortex of shadow descending from the heavens.
The Ironborn on the battlements saw us. Their defiant roars faltered, replaced by screams of disbelief and primal terror. They had heard the legends of the Black Dread, but to see him, a living mountain of night blotting out the sun, was a sight that shattered the sanity of men.
Our first target was the main gatehouse and the great stone bridge that connected the main keep to the rest of the island. The Ironborn archers let fly a volley of arrows. They pattered against Balerion's obsidian scales like harmless rain. He did not even notice.
The bridge supports, I commanded. A controlled, continuous stream. Temperature: 3,000 degrees. We are not blasting. We are melting.
Balerion's great throat opened, and a lance of pure, black-and-silver fire, as precise as a maester's tool, shot forth. It did not explode against the bridge. It touched the base of the massive stone pylons and simply… stayed there. The stone, which had stood for a thousand years, began to glow cherry-red. Then it began to weep, to run like hot wax. The great bridge, with a groan that seemed to tear the island apart, sagged, twisted, and then collapsed into the churning sea below, taking a hundred screaming men with it. The main keep was now completely isolated.
Next, the towers. There were three great towers on the main island: the Sea Tower, the Kitchen Keep, and the Bloody Keep.
The Sea Tower, I directed. Target the battlements and the siege engines upon them. A quick, sweeping pass.
We swept by, a hurricane of shadow and heat. The fire was a brief, incandescent scythe. The catapults and scorpions on the tower's roof vanished, their wood turning instantly to ash, their iron parts melting into slag. The stone of the battlements blackened and cracked, chunks of it falling into the sea.
The Ironborn warriors were in a panic, running, screaming, their defiance utterly broken. They had no defense against this. Their axes were useless. Their stone walls were as fragile as parchment.
The Kitchen Keep. Sever the connection.
Another precise blast of fire, this time at the covered bridge that connected the Kitchen Keep to the main fortress. The bridge vaporized. The keep was now an isolated island of stone.
Now, the Bloody Keep, I thought, a cold satisfaction flowing through me. This one requires a more delicate touch. We will not destroy it. We will… un-build it. Level by level.
We hovered before the great, ancient tower, the oldest part of the castle. I directed Balerion's fire with the precision of a sculptor's chisel. A blast here, melting a buttress. A sustained stream there, turning a crenellation to liquid stone. I worked my way down the tower, methodically, logically, erasing its defenses. I could feel the terror of the men inside, the heat from my fire baking them alive in their stone tomb.
The entire process took less than twenty minutes. The legendary, impregnable fortress of Pyke, the heart of the Ironborn, was now a collection of broken, isolated stumps, its defenses annihilated, its pride shattered. The main keep, where Lord Vickon Greyjoy and his sons were now trapped, was completely cut off, a helpless target.
I had Balerion circle the broken fortress once, a slow, triumphal pass. The message had been delivered. I had proven that their stone was meaningless, their walls a fiction. I had shown them that their greatest strength was nothing before my power.
Phase One complete, I sent to Balerion. Return to the sky and observe. The ground team is moving in.
My consciousness returned to my body in my cabin. I was calm, my breathing even. I walked out onto the deck. The sounds of my work could be heard even miles away—the distant roar of melting stone, the faint screams carried on the wind. My commanders stood in stunned, silent awe.
"Prince Daemon," I said, my voice cutting through their shock. "The landing zone is clear. The target is isolated and defenseless. Take your men. Secure the asset."
Daemon looked at the smoking ruins in the distance, then at me. The arrogant smirk was gone, replaced by a look of profound, almost religious, awe. He had just witnessed a new kind of war, a war of overwhelming, god-like power.
"Yes, Your Grace," he breathed. He turned and bellowed his orders.
The landing was a work of art. The royal barges, no longer facing any defensive fire, rowed to the base of the main keep. The elite soldiers of the Royal Army, my disciplined professionals, swarmed up the cliffs with grappling hooks, their movements swift and certain. Caraxes, Daemon's dragon, provided air cover, his own fiery presence a terrifying deterrent to any last vestiges of resistance.
They met no opposition. The Ironborn inside the main keep were utterly broken, their minds shattered by the horror they had witnessed. Daemon and his men stormed the halls of Pyke and found Lord Vickon Greyjoy and his sons in the throne room, not fighting, but on their knees, weeping amidst the dust of their fallen kingdom.
By midday, the Kraken banner had been torn down from the last standing tower of Pyke, and the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen flew in its place.
The first phase, the Decapitation, was over. The head of the snake had been severed with a single, surgical, and terrifyingly efficient blow. Now came the time for the rest of the body to learn the lesson.
I sent a raven to every major castle in the Iron Islands. The message was simple.
"Your Lord, Vickon Greyjoy, is my prisoner. His castle is a ruin. Your fleet is a memory. This is what happens when you choose to pay the Iron Price against the Iron Throne. You now have a choice. Surrender your longships to be burned. Swear fealty to me, your King, and abandon the Old Way forever. Or I will visit upon your castle the same lesson I have taught Pyke. You have until the next full moon to send your reply."
The audit of the Iron Islands was proceeding ahead of schedule. The closing statement on Pyke had been delivered, and its terms were non-negotiable. The age of the reaver was over. The age of the King's absolute, unquestionable, and profitable peace had come to the Iron Islands, delivered on wings of shadow and in a torrent of black fire.