Bogs 1

293AC

The town of Redcrest shook with an unnatural thunder, it's rickety old wooden walls shattering under the bolts of death and fire that were even now raining into it.

Their passing started fires, set geese and dogs to screaming, and seemed to shake the very world.

"Give them a few minutes to surrender before the next volley."

"Yes, Captain."

Ser Robert Boggs tapped his fingers along the railing of the "Dragonstone Dagger." The thin cutter that he had been given for his command. The fourth sub-fleet of the Stepstones expeditionary forces, assigned with the capture of Red Mountain and the surrounding islands.

The titular mountain dominated the center of the island, like a small version of the Dragonmont of his Lord's home, cast in red stone that ascended to we'll above the thick grey clouds overhead. The rest of the island spread out from it. Like a woman's breast, he thought, rounded and high in the area around the enormous peak, but gradually rolling down to craggy cliffs and occasional bays at the coast.

Unfortunately, the island was giving him entirely more trouble than he would like, the residents putting up some considerable fight, rather than capitulation at his first demand. Ballistas had begun firing on his ships, and he had ordered his men to open fire shortly after.

'Best to demonstrate for the mongrels what insubordination means.'

Of course, this had been expected by the Prince, who had apparently been researching the Stepstones for a great length of time. The town was a part of the Tyroshi slave trading routes, since it was south of the city, and on their way to Sothoryos, Lys, the Summer Islands, and, most importantly of all for the purposes of this campaign, Myr, as solid a justification for its conquest as any.

That is to say that it was full of slaves, slave owners, and people who made their wealth off of catering to those two groups.

"The abominable Industry", the prince called it, and made no secret of his intention to end it, something Robert thought was perhaps a tad optimistic, but regardless of any of that, the people here seemed to have decided they would rather not see it go.

He grimaced, raising an eyebrow as a Ballista bolt dug into the deck a few feet to his right.

He turned towards the bosun, one Taelin, a small Essosi man who nonetheless shouted quite well.

"It appears these insects require further demonstration of their inferiority." Robert placed his hands behind his back. "Fire… three volleys, I should think, that ought to do it. And see if you can hit that ballista."

As the orders were relayed, Robert found himself smiling involuntarily.

This was why he had joined the Prince's navy after all.

House Boggs was minor, though most crownlands houses were, and was tied in directly to the royal court. Naturally, this meant their heir would be a courtier. A man in the house of royalty in King's landing.

He had hated it. Venom, daggers, poison in honeyed words. These were all that there was too find in King's Landing, at least under Robert's rule, his father told him it had been better under the Dragons. Well, until Aerys started burning people.

But that had all changed when he had seen that ship.

That lovely, lovely ship, sailing into Harbor. The Great Stag it was called, a Galleon of Dragonstone.

It had taken him a month to convince his father of the value of joining the Prince's navy, and another to join as an officer. Both surprisingly easy, the Prince was recruiting quickly for such roles, hoping to fill his merchant company with noble sons, wherever he could. It was rather counterintuitive until he saw the army as well.

It was clear then that the Prince had never been the merchantmen called him to begin with.

He made captain swiftly, owing to his stature as a future lord, and that he did not lack sailing knowledge, though some mocked his lack of command experience he knew.

Still, nonetheless, he understood how to be a courtier, how to appeal to authority and to rise in stature within the hierarchy of the young Prince's fleet.

And there was quite far to rise, unlike King's landing, a few successful voyages, a disciplined crew, and he had found himself in command of this small fleet, a part of the Prince's grand design.

As the third volley went out, knocking more holes into the now ruined waterfront, he drew himself from his thoughts, scanning the shore, and smiling at the broken remains of the watchtower that the ballista had been firing from.

Still, the town did not seem to have surrendered at least not precisely. Though it seemed that it's defenders had abandoned the waterfront wall entirely.

'Damn.' He cursed internally, his orders precluded using his guns against targets not clearly occupied by enemy soldiers. Much as he would like to simply flatten the town, to do so would breed disloyalty in the Prince's future subjects.

"It seems we will need to make a landing." The words were like poison on his tongue, landings were bloody, deadly affairs in most wars according to his studies. Even when executed against glorified bandits.

"Prepare the men."