67 The Argo of Westeros
Mid 289 Summer
My newly enlarged Bronze Fleet took on soldiers of fortune: a thousand from the Vale and from the Riverlands, two thousand from the Crownlands, another two thousand from The North with Greatjon at the head, three thousand from the Stormlands come to support their King, and five thousand from Dorne led by my great friend Oberyn Martell. A fairly weak muster from Westeros, but quite bloodthirsty and profit seeking.
I collected a great horde of treasures on The Great Sea Bear after Skjor returned with my kraken earned money. Most of it was spent in Lys after Oberyn and I introduced Robert and my friends to the greatest city in the world, and not all of it on whores and wine. We also purchased supplies for sailing around the broken Valyria without stopping in Volantis, who for some reason felt threatened by a bunch of cut throat Westerosi warlords sailing their way on two hundred of the fastest warships in the world.
The magical sickness around Valyria made my body ache terribly, so I didn't even consider the possibility of raiding the ruins for the lost wealth and power. While I felt like death, Robert found himself renewed sailing on The Great Sea Bear with us, my flagships becoming something of an Argo in this world, the vessel of heroes. His iron body returned, the fat melting off him from long hours at the oar. At night the man shot dice and arm wrestled with a drunken grin on his face that persisted even as he slept.
We covered roughly three hundred fifty knots a day through beautiful weather, and finished the six thousand mile trip in fifteen days of sailing. My ships landed on the coast near the Red City, Astapor. The crumbling red brick towers and walls were manned for the first time in a lifetime as our Westerosi host stepped onto the beach. The Unsullied, the infantry unit with the highest Leadership score in the setting, and due to the unique biology of the humans in this world, not the unit with shortest shelf life. Fully castrated before puberty, the Unsullied should lack the muscular strength and joint thickness of men, and once the growth hormone finally dries up in their early twenties, their physical strength should quickly fade. A unique quirk of this world is the capacity for men to retain great strength and muscularity even without the testicles pumping hormones into the body.
"There is no way in hell this works." Robert laughed as our men unloaded chests full of gold, silver, gems, and silks in front of the main gate of the city with its large bronze bat winged harpy statue hunched over it.
I'd take the head of that statue and flatten it across the prow of the Great Sea Bear, it and the Harpies over the gates of Yunkai and Meereen to create a trinitarian relief of goddess faces on the front of my noble vessel. I'll take the wings too, and one day my ship will fly across both sky and heavens.
The treasure we brought and the negotiations were just a bit of theater for my Westerosi pals as I piloted the Good Masters into assembling all of the Unsullied in the city into the Plaza of Punishment and handing me the ceremonial whip of command after we descended to inspect the troops we came to 'purchase'. The whole smoke and mirrors show went down over an exotic lunch atop the largest of the garden terraced red pyramids, and Oberyn barely maintained his patience during the con. The one sided tension growing from the outraged Westerosi lords rolled right over the oblivious Good Masters, something that didn't even require much control from me as they really are that far up their own asses. For Robert and the boys, our descent to the Plaza couldn't come sooner and they looked obviously fit for murder when the gilded harpy bearing whip entered my meaty paw.
"Unsullied!" I called out in Valyrian to the ten thousand uniformed teenagers who's lives the sick fucks in charge of this decrepit city ruined, "Slay the Good Masters! Slay their soldiers! Free every slave in the city!"
When the Unsullied began stabbing the working Good Masters walking between their ranks, Robert screamed, "It's about fucking time!" and smashed the head of the nearest Good Master with his heavy steel warhammer.
Our party quickly opened the city gate and allowed our army in while the Unsullied put down the little resistance to be found. We hauled away the luxuries and wealth of an ancient city pretty much by just showing up, and it took us longer to gather up and take stock of our new fortune than to earn it. As for the Unsullied, they happily swore to continue following me after I 'freed' them. Eager to put more slaver cities to the sword.
It took us a week after the sack to settle the city and its outlying mines, quarries, and plantations, though it would take far longer for the Westerosi liberators to understand the eighty thousand souls they delivered from captivity. Freed slaves do not magically transition into small folk, the largely independent labor class of home. The free people of Astapor had no idea how to operate without someone telling them what to do, and even the idea of picking what to eat and when to eat filled most of them with great anxiety and decision paralysis. Only a select few embraced their newfound independence with passionate acceptance and excitement to steer their own course in life. Those ones are typically evil bastards imagining taking their place as the new masters.
Fortunately, I understood this phenomena and how to organize this new society long enough to survive until we can ship the ones worth taking to Westeros. The citizens of Bear Island and to a lesser extent the members of the North Western Trade Federation knew how to command thralls, and we had large expanses of land to set up a new labor class on. I happened to have a bunch of new islands freshly depopulated and ready for resettlement.
Funny how things like that line up.
After leaving the minimum number of overseers to keep the city functioning behind we sailed on to Yunkai, our ships pushing those of the city back into their port. We quickly set up a blockade as many of our forces landed on the beach outside the city walls. The Wise Masters assembled a five thousand man slave army outside its main gate, the men put in front of the yellow brick fortifications, crumbling away much like those of Astapor. On the walls, soldiers of the Wise Masters held crossbows and slings.
The city sent an emissary out to our camp, with carts laden with treasure and accompanied by scores of the city's famed sex slaves, women trained in the arts of the Seven Sighs and Sixteen Seats of Pleasure, whores so potent as to drive a man to social ruin. Just a taste of what the city offered for us to simply leave Slaver's Bay.
"My King and I sailed six thousand miles to kill slavers." I informed the Wise Master who's face twisted in disgust, "The riches, the wine, the women. All of that is just a happy little bonus. We are here for your lives, not your coin."
"When your bodies break beneath the glorious walls of Yunkai, remember that the Wise Masters offered you peace!" the man shouted and led his party back to the city.
"God's, different city, same arrogant arseholes." Bobby B spat as he pawed two of the sex slaves the Emissary left behind when we refused to return his sampler.
"Never has their ever been an enemy more worthy of destruction than these." Oberyn agreed as a dark skinned woman bled away the tension in his shoulders with her skilled hands.
"I'll pick off the enemy commanders atop the city walls and shoot down the best of their men." I told my assembly of prestigious homies, "Remember to keep your visor down when you're fighting their infantry. Their slingers fling lead weights fast as arrows. Lucky for us they need a lot of space between them, and a fair bit of time between shots. The archers will keep their heads down, and walls won't last an afternoon once we bring up the ram."
"Aye. A proper fight this time." Robert smirked under his heavy black beard, a dark fire behind his eyes, one shared by the other lord in our company.
That night Greatjon came to my tent wearing nothing but a silk curtain taken from a Pyramid in Astapor knotted around his waist as he sweated profusely.
"Fucking hells, it's even hot at night!" he complained as he sat down near me as I held the Fell Axe tightly, "I thought deserts were supposed to get cold at night!"
"Some do." I told him.
Jon's face scrunched and he wiggled his mouth as he tried to find the words, "I noticed… that you are looking a bit worse off than the rest of us."
I took some time quietly before answering, "I'm dying, Jon. Painfully."
"Couldn't have happened to a more deserving bastard." he nodded with a sad frown twisting his beard.
"Aye." I agreed, "I make no excuses or apologies."
"Of course not." Jon chuckled then grit his teeth, "How long?"
"I will endure as long as I must." I informed him, "Until I reach the time and place of my choosing."
"We'll get you there, no matter where it is." The corner of Jon's mouth turned up.
"Aye." I nodded, "It'll be a spectacle. Till then, we'll sail the world. Fight who we wish, fuck who we wish, and carve our names into the cornerstone of history."
"I'll drink to that!" Jon waived to the sex slaves atop my sheets, "Wenches, bring the wine!"
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