Rewriting Targaryen History

Chapter 92: Chapter 92: The Coves

At first light, fifteen hundred Unsullied began loading onto ships.

They moved without song, trumpet, or blessing. Men who had survived Bloodstone’s defence had no need for noise to prove they were willing. Spears were checked, shields were stacked, water skins were counted twice, and each boarding group passed beneath the eyes of officers who knew that one missing bundle of arrows could become ten dead men before noon.

The sea was calm enough to make me distrust it.

Corlys had brought the lighter ships close beneath the harbour’s shelter. They waited with gangplanks lowered, crews quiet, hulls scarred from the last weeks of fighting. The heavier Velaryon vessels held farther out, ready to seal exits once the coves were entered. Caraxes watched from the ridge above us, red body stretched along the stone, head lifted toward the south like he could smell the enemy’s fear through salt and smoke.

Bloodstone was not being stripped bare. I had repeated it to myself often enough that repetition had become part of the plan. Captain Marq remained with the garrison, a strong Unsullied reserve, and enough archers to make any sudden return a costly idea. Grey Gallows stayed under Black Rat’s command. He had sent a brief reply before dawn.

Grey Gallows holds. Eastern watch strengthened. Guides sent for known paths. No pursuit without order. That was all he needed to say.

Daemon came down from Caraxes’s ridge as the last boarding lists were checked. He wore riding leathers darkened by old smoke, and Dark Sister hung at his hip as if offended not to be used.

"Fifteen hundred," he said, watching the Unsullied board. "Enough to clear coves. Not enough to indulge disaster."

"That was the intention."

"You are becoming less boring."

"I will treasure the compliment until it proves useful."

"It will not."

Corlys approached before Daemon could continue. The Sea Snake carried a rolled chart beneath one arm, and the look on his face belonged to the deck rather than the court. "The wind favours us for the southern coves. If it turns after midday, the eastern approach beyond Grey Gallows becomes slower, but not impossible."

"Then we begin south," I said.

He nodded. "My ships will seal the outer water once you land. No enemy craft leaves unless I choose to chase it."

Daemon looked toward the waiting vessels. "Caraxes will keep them from choosing bravely."

"You will strike ships trying to escape," I said. "You will not burn blindly into coves before my men are clear of them."

"I know the plan."

"I am enjoying the sound of it aloud."

Daemon’s smile was thin. "You enjoy survival too much."

"Only because dying would make Rhaenyra angry."

"That is reason enough."

The first ships pulled from Bloodstone soon after.

I stood near the prow of the lead transport while the harbour receded behind us. The southern beach still bore scars from the assaults. Dark patches marked where fires had burned. Fresh timber stood where barricades had been rebuilt. Men along the ridge watched us go without cheering. Cheers would have felt false. They had seen too much of the price.

The fleet did not move as one grand armada.

It broke into assigned parts, each with purpose. My transports carried the fifteen hundred Unsullied. Corlys’s light galleys ran ahead and to the sides, watching for hidden boats, false signals, or men waiting with fire jars behind rocks. Heavier ships remained farther out, ready to cut off exits once the enemy was found. Above us, Caraxes circled wide, not low enough to scatter every shadow before we understood it, not far enough for the enemy to forget him.

The first cove lay south-east of the shoals.

It was a poor shelter, exactly as Marq had described. The entrance narrowed between two rocks that looked too close together for comfort. Inside, shallow water curved around a strip of broken beach and a slope leading toward black stone shelves. Smoke from dead cookfires lay in the low ground. Three boats had been dragged above the tide line. Two more waited half-hidden under sailcloth dyed to resemble rock and old weed.

Corlys’s forward ship signalled movement. Not many men. Enough to make care necessary.

The landing went in under shields.

The first Unsullied files stepped into knee-deep water and formed before advancing. Arrows came from the slope almost immediately. The first volley struck shields. The second took one man through the thigh and another through the throat where his chin guard had lifted as he climbed. Neither sound changed the pace of the line.

"Left shelf," I called in High Valyrian. "Crossbows above the broken mast."

The order passed. Spears angled, shields turned, and a detachment moved toward the shelf while archers from a Velaryon boat shot over them. The enemy had perhaps sixty men in that cove, most wounded or exhausted from the failed assaults. They fought like men who understood capture might not improve their future. That made them dangerous for several minutes.

Then discipline closed around them.

The Unsullied took the slope in measured steps. A raider with a Myrish helm tried to rally a charge near the boats, shouting that dragonfire could not reach men beneath stone. He was right for half a sentence.

Then Daemon passed overhead, and Caraxes’s shadow rolled across the cove without flame. The raiders looked up despite themselves. The Unsullied line reached them while their courage was looking elsewhere.

The fight ended before midmorning. Twenty-seven enemy dead. Eighteen prisoners. Five boats seized or burned. Three Unsullied dead, seven wounded.

The numbers were not grand enough for songs. They were enough for the men whose names would be written later.

We did not linger. Corlys left two ships to secure the prisoners and destroy whatever stores could not be carried. The rest of us moved east.

The second engagement came at the Twin Teeth.

Two narrow rocks framed a channel that opened into a wider hollow beyond. From above, it might have looked like a mouth. From below, it felt like asking the sea for permission to enter a trap. Corlys refused to send the transports in first. He ordered two shallow-draft boats ahead with shields raised along their sides, and the caution saved us men.

Fire jars came down from both rocks.

One boat caught along the bow, but the crew had wet hides ready. The second jar shattered against stone and spilt flame uselessly into the water. Velaryon archers answered from the outer ships.

Caraxes descended a moment later, not with a broad sweep of flame, but with a focused burst across the right-hand rock where the jars had been stacked. The explosion that followed threw men, smoke, and burning cloth into the channel.

Daemon did not chase the survivors down the far side. He circled once and climbed. That restraint had become part of the campaign’s language. I did not praise it aloud. Daemon would have made that unpleasant for everyone.

The landing at Twin Teeth was harder.

The enemy had prepared this one properly. Barricades blocked the upper path. Crossbowmen hid behind stone lips. A small group tried to roll rocks down onto the first ranks while another waited below to strike at men forced out of formation. It was a clever defence made by tired captains with too few reliable men left.

We cleared it in pieces.

A forward group pinned the barricade with shields while another climbed a left-hand crack guided by a Velaryon sailor who had fished these waters before war made every rock a name.

I went with the second group because the path was narrow and needed a commander’s decision before caution froze it. Twice we had to stop while crossbows snapped from above. Once, a stone rolled past close enough to tear the cloak from the man before me.

At the top, the fight lasted less than five minutes and felt much longer.

A Tyroshi captain in a dented helm held the upper turn with a dozen men. He knew the ground well. We could not surround him quickly, and he made each step costly. When an Unsullied officer fell with a spear through his chest, the line pressed forward too fast for one breath. I caught the shoulder of the next man and forced the pace back into discipline.

"Not anger," I said in High Valyrian. "Formation."

The word did more than shouting would have. We took the turn with shields first, then spears, then short blades where the ground became too tight. The Tyroshi captain died standing against the rock, and his men broke only after he fell.

By noon, Twin Teeth was ours.

Enemy dead numbered over one hundred across both rocks and the hollow beyond. Thirty-three surrendered when they realised the outer ships had closed the channel and Caraxes waited above the only climb worth attempting. We lost nineteen Unsullied and six Velaryon men. More were wounded, mostly by crossbows and stone.

Corlys came ashore after the fighting ended and looked at the seized stores without pleasure. "Grain, water skins, fire jars, spare bowstrings," he said. "Enough for weeks of pestering if left alone."

"They meant to keep bleeding us from here."

"They did."

Daemon stepped over a broken shield and looked toward the smoke rising from the right-hand rock. "Now they do not."

That was the truth, simple and useful.

We burned what could not be moved. We took what could. The prisoners were bound and placed under guard. Those too wounded to walk were treated enough to survive the journey if they were going to survive at all. I would not let my men butcher prisoners because the Stepstones made mercy inconvenient. The charter had held through easier wars. It would hold here too.

The third strike belonged more to Corlys than to me.

A group of enemy ships tried to escape south while our transports were still reorganising after Twin Teeth. They had waited behind a rock shelf, hoping the smoke from the burned stores would cover their movement. Three light craft and one broader vessel, perhaps carrying officers or pay chests, slipped toward open water.

Corlys saw them before I did.

His signal flags rose. Two Velaryon galleys moved to cut the angle. Another held back, denying a turn into the reef. The enemy tried to split, and that was when Daemon finally found something close to clean prey.

Caraxes came down on the broader vessel.

Flame took its sail first. Men cut at ropes, trying to drop the burning canvas before it spread, but the fire had already found the deck. The ship lurched toward the reef, oars thrashing unevenly.

One of the light craft tried to turn back and was rammed by a Velaryon galley. The other two scattered. One escaped into bad water where pursuit would have been foolish. The last surrendered after arrows killed the steersman and left the craft turning in circles.

It was not a battle anyone would paint. It ended with smoke, shouting, and a ship burning down to its ribs against a reef while Corlys watched in silence.

"Those men were leaving the Stepstones," I said.

"Some were," he replied. "The one carrying officers was not leaving empty."

The captured vessel proved him right. Coin. Letters. Three charts marked with supply routes. Names of captains who had been paid to return after the next moon with fresh men from Lys and Myr.

Daemon read one of the letters and handed it back with disgust. "They were already planning to turn defeat into delay."

"That is why this offensive matters," Corlys said.

I looked toward the prisoners being pulled from the surrendered craft. They looked less like raiders now and more like men who had discovered their employers had misjudged the price of ambition.

"We keep the letters," I said. "The King will want copies."

Daemon’s mouth curved. "Otto will want to explain why written proof still requires caution."

"Then we will give him enough parchment to choke politely."

That drew a short laugh from Corlys, gone almost as soon as it came.

The final movement of the day took us toward the coves east of Grey Gallows.

Black Rat had sent guides as promised. Two Unsullied from his command met us at a narrow landing beneath a weathered rock shaped like a bent finger. One had a bandaged scalp. The other carried a map scratched onto treated hide. They greeted me in High Valyrian and gave their report without ornament.

Enemy movement reduced after Bloodstone assaults. Three coves occupied yesterday. One abandoned before dawn. One held by wounded men. One held by mixed force with boats concealed under cliff shadow. Grey Gallows secure. Black Rat advises caution near the cliff cove. Ground narrows after landing.

I translated for Corlys and Daemon, then studied the marks. "The cliff cove will be the last hard point," I said.

Daemon looked pleased in a way that made Captain Marq’s absence feel suddenly unfortunate. "Then let us avoid wasting daylight."

The approach to the cliff cove was narrow enough that Corlys refused to risk more than two transports at first. The water darkened beneath overhanging stone. The cliff blocked the sun and made the cove feel later in the day than it was. Two boats sat beneath netting near the back. Another had already been dragged higher, damaged and patched. Men moved along the upper ledge.

They knew we were coming. There was no attempt at pretending otherwise.

Crossbow bolts struck as the first transport entered. Shields rose. One sailor fell backwards into the arms of the man behind him. A fire jar shattered against the water beside the hull and burned briefly across the surface before breaking apart. The shipmaster kept his nerve and brought us in close enough to land.

The first files stepped down under pressure. This time, I went ashore with them from the beginning. Not because I believed my sword would decide the day. It would not. But the ground narrowed after landing, just as Black Rat had warned, and I needed to see where to commit the second group before the first became pinned.

The cove forced us into a shallow crescent of beach with stone rising on both sides. The enemy had placed shields and timbers at the back, with crossbowmen above. Perhaps two hundred men held it. Some wore Tyroshi colours. Some had no colours. A few looked wounded already, wrapped in dirty cloth and still holding weapons.

They were trapped, and trapped men often fought with the honesty of despair. "Shields overhead," I ordered in High Valyrian. "Advance to the left stone, then hold."

The first ranks moved. Bolts struck shields with hard, flat sounds. One found a gap and took a man through the eye. He dropped without a cry. The line moved around him.

Caraxes could not burn the cove clean without risking us. Daemon knew it. He took the dragon high and burned the concealed boats instead. Flame filled the back of the cove, not where our men advanced, but where the enemy’s escape waited. The heat rolled across the beach and made the air shimmer.

That broke some of them. Not all.

The strongest group pushed forward before our formation fully settled. They came in a wedge, shields tight, axes ready to hook and drag. The impact shoved our first rank back three steps. On that ground, three steps mattered.

I ordered the second group left instead of centre.

The officer hesitated only long enough to understand, then moved. The left stone gave enough height for spears to angle down into the wedge’s side. At the same time, Velaryon archers from the transport began shooting at the upper crossbowmen. Corlys’s men could not silence them completely, but they forced enough heads down for our line to breathe.

The wedge slowed. Then stopped. Then began to die.

The fight became close and ugly after that. Not confused, but compressed. Men pushed against shields with no room to swing properly. Spears shortened into thrusts at faces and thighs.

My sword was useful only when the line buckled, and men came through one at a time. I killed two near the left stone and shoved a third back into an Unsullied spear. More surrendered when the burning boats collapsed and sent sparks into the cliff shadow behind them.

Their captain did not.

He was Myrish, older than most of the men around him, with a grey beard braided beneath his chin and a long knife in each hand. He shouted for his men to die with pay owed rather than kneel with throats exposed. Some listened. Most did not.

When he charged, he came for me. That was either courage or poor eyesight.

He moved well for a tired man. The first knife came low. The second came toward my throat as I turned the first aside. I stepped back, caught the second on my guard, and let an Unsullied spear force him off angle. He spat something in Myrish, likely personal and deserved by someone, then tried to cut under my arm.

I ended it with a thrust through the chest. His men saw him fall. A few kept fighting. The rest dropped weapons.

The cliff cove was taken by late afternoon.

When the final count came, the day had done what we needed it to do. The southern cove destroyed. Twin Teeth cleared. Enemy ships attempting escape burned, captured, or scattered. Cliff cove taken. Stores seized or denied. Letters captured. Coves beyond Grey Gallows secured. No organised Triarchy force remained within striking distance of Bloodstone or Grey Gallows by sunset.

There were still raiders in the Stepstones. There would always be raiders in the Stepstones as long as there were desperate men, greedy captains, and rocks sharp enough to hide behind.

But the host that had descended upon Bloodstone was broken. Its supply points were gone. Its captains were dead, captured, fleeing, or arguing aboard ships that had chosen survival over loyalty.

The day was not bloodless.

By the time the last reports were gathered, we had lost fifty-four Unsullied and seventeen Velaryon men. More were wounded. The enemy dead across the coves and ships were several hundred, almost a thousand, with more taken prisoner than I expected. Many surrendered once they understood there was no pay chest left to defend and no easy boat waiting behind them.

I stood on the cliff above the final cove as evening gathered.

Below, Caraxes crouched near the burned boats, smoke curling around him like a cloak. Daemon stood nearby, speaking with one of Corlys’s captains and looking almost satisfied. Corlys watched his men secure prisoners and salvage what could be used. The Unsullied formed in tired ranks, fewer than when they had boarded that morning, but still ordered, still steady.

An officer brought me the last report in High Valyrian.

"All assigned positions are cleared, my prince. Prisoners secured. Boats destroyed or taken. No enemy groups larger than twenty sighted beyond the eastern rocks. Black Rat signals Grey Gallows remains secure."

I nodded. "Send to Bloodstone. Captain Marq is to know the offensive succeeded, and the island is not to lower its watch."

"It will be done."

He left.

Daemon approached a few moments later, boots crunching over burned wood and stone. "You relented," he said. "It was the correct decision."

"You could try sounding less pleased with yourself."

"I could, but victory deserves some honesty."

"It was not victory alone. It was work done properly."

His smile softened into something sharper and less mocking. "That is why it succeeded."

Corlys joined us before I had to answer. He looked out across the water, where captured ships were being gathered under Velaryon guard.

"The Triarchy has lost the day completely," he said. "More than the day, perhaps. Without the coves, they cannot keep pressure on Bloodstone. Without those stores, their scattered captains must flee, raid blindly, or starve on rocks that never loved them."

"Some have already left the Stepstones," I said.

"More will follow once word spreads."

Daemon looked south, where the last enemy sails had vanished. "Let them carry the story. Bloodstone held. Grey Gallows held. Their coves burned. Their captains failed."

"That story may do more than another chase tonight," Corlys said.

Daemon looked as if he wanted to disagree, then decided against wasting the effort. We did not pursue into darkness. That was the final discipline of the day.

The fleet gathered before sunset. Prisoners were secured. Wounded were carried aboard first. The dead followed. Then the living. The fifteen hundred who had left Bloodstone that morning returned as fewer men, but they returned after breaking the organised enemy presence that had bled us for months.

As our ships turned back toward Bloodstone, the Stepstones seemed quieter than they had at dawn. Not safe. Never safe. But quieter.

The scattered rocks passed in the evening light, and for the first time in months, the smoke behind us belonged mostly to enemy shelters, enemy stores, and enemy ships.

Corlys stood at the rail beside me. "They will call this a rout," he said.

"Some will."

"What will you call it?"

I watched Caraxes fly ahead of the fleet, red against the dimming sky, and thought of every report written in Black Rat’s steady hand, every name copied after lamplight, every man who had died holding a rock so this day could become possible.

"A necessary defeat," I said. "Theirs, not ours."

Corlys accepted that.

Bloodstone came into view near dusk. Signal fires answered us from the ridge. Captain Marq had not lowered his watch. Good. The island had learned too much to trust success before it docked.

By the time we entered the harbour, word had already spread among the defenders. Men did not cheer wildly. They were too tired and too familiar with grief for that. But they stood straighter.

Some touched the shoulders of the returning Unsullied. Others looked toward the captured ships with expressions that were not joy, not quite, but something near enough to relief that I did not begrudge them.

Captain Marq met me at the quay. "The island held while you were away," he said.

"The coves are cleared."

He looked past me toward the prisoners, the wounded, and the smoke-dark fleet. "All of them?"

"All that mattered to the host that attacked us."

For the first time in many weeks, his face loosened. Not into happiness. That would have asked too much. Into the expression of a man who had been carrying a weight and found it had shifted, even if it had not vanished.

"Then tonight," he said, "I will let some men sleep without lying to them about why."

"That may be the best victory we have earned."

Above Bloodstone, Caraxes landed on the ridge with a cry that rolled across the harbour and out over the darkening sea.

The Stepstones did not answer.

For once, they only listened.