Chapter 100: Act 2: Chapter 38

Fourteenth day, Sixth Moon, 260 AC (+16 days)

Ryden POV

The scouts for our army had stumbled across a few of the enemy scouts who had been hiding in the thick jungle as we approached Torturer's Deep from the north, but most, we think, went undetected.

Devilishly hard to spot, their scouts had managed to track our army consistently which allowed for them to ambush us repeatedly with guerilla troops. Since the 'road' we were following cut inland a bit, we were relatively vulnerable and our pace brutally slow.

When we had arrived at Bloodstone, our warships had scared the pirates away after a quick battle, which allowed us to land safely as the pirates slunk back to their den. The march was more arduous than expected, as the road that was supposed to be here was more of a narrow path. Cutting through the jungle was hard, tiring work, but we made progress.

Unfortunately, the pirates that infested these islands were familiar with the land and used it to their advantage. Constant harassment had taken its toll on our strung-out line, and instead of a few hours march to the pirate den, the day was rapidly falling, and we were still hours away. Constantly being on guard, cutting through jungle, and marching while wearing armor was an exhausting task. After the first small ambush, no one wanted to be completely unarmored, though the people cutting usually took the risk anyway.

In a fit of foolishness or a favor from the gods, our enemy decided to make a stand outside the village that straddled the road to Torturer's Deep. Their farmers had hacked back the jungle and formed an open field to farm on, which, evidently, our enemy decided to fight on. The decision to fight was a silly one, but not without merit. While their ambushes had injured and killed some of the army, the numbers were small compared to the full size of our force. If they had weeks to inflict this upon us, it might have had a devasting effect – as it was, we were tired, sweaty, and pissed off.

As word passed down the road, Donovar formed our men into a compact square, while the rest of the army started to do the same and our pace increased so that we could gain a good position before the clash. As we spilled out onto the open field from the cramped and humid jungle road, the sight before me gave me a slight pause. Seeing an army standing against you was a formidable sight.

Contrary to the lessons from White Harbor, there seemed to be little rhyme or reason to our battle formation. I expected the archers to be grouped together, and some sort of order to be imposed, but that was not the case, and I could start to hear the blood pounding in my head. It felt as if I was in a bad dream, but the sight of Arthur calmed me slightly.

We followed the flow of people and made our way to the right of the road and tried to work our way to the front of the army, where we knew Lord Stark wanted the archers. Everyone in the group had already strung their bows as soon as the enemy had first been sighted, but the distance was still too great even as the enemy was moving closer to us, trying to hem us in.

"Ragnar?! House Ragnar?!" a voice shouted from behind us.

Donovar yelled back, "Aye! Over here!"

A harried youth ran up to us. "You are supposed to be over there, beside the Karstark archers!"

"What?! No one told us that!"

"The last messenger was supposed to have said that!"

"You're the first messenger!"

The youth swore and said, "Lord Stark needs you there now! The whole line is a mess! You see them, yes?"

The boy barely waited for our nod before running off again.

Swearing, Donovar got our group jogging over to where the Karstarks banner fluttered in the breeze beside the road.

The ground was soft and squishy from the recent rain but was thankfully not a mud pit – at least not yet. I knew enough to know that can quickly change. As we were making our way over there, the pirates rallied their courage and took advantage of our disorganized state and started to advance quicker using their full formation to advance and close in on us before we could bring our numbers to bear.

A few pirates shot their bows as they marched forward, but the arrows fell short, and they quickly rejoined their brethren. Donovar jogged us over to the rest of the archers in the front and middle of our formation, which was surprisingly forming up.

"Ready 'yer bows!" shouted a fully-plated man near the Karstark banner. By the time I looked back across the field, I was surprised to see how much of the distance the pirates had closed.

Fuck. This was it.

I fingered my arrow, which was already resting in position, visualizing my next actions. Raise, draw, loose. Raise, draw, loose.

My heart started to beat faster still, as these pirates – these men – marched to their deaths. Just as the men behind me would as well.

"Draw!" shouted the same man, as I raised my bow and drew back the string, taking in the distance I would need to shoot. A second's pause, then, "Loose!"

The arrow flew cleanly from my bow, joining the storm of arrows surging forward and sinking into the mass of flesh before us. The low stone fences that marked off the various farms did little to hinder the onslaught, as did the pirates' poor armor.

The pirates' line stumbled, already disorganized, started to crumble but rallied as their fellows in the second and third rows continued forward with nary a glance to their fallen brethren.

Sweat started to burn my eyes as our commander ordered us to loose again. I fumbled my arrow as I went to draw it back and cursed my heavy armor. It was possible to shoot arrows in it, but it was damn difficult.

By the time I grabbed another arrow, our commander was telling us to loose at will as the enemy started to return their shots.

My eyes widened as I heard a clang off my shoulder.

That was an arrow!

I started to feel panic bubble up, but the sight of an arrow narrowly missing Arthur squashed the feeling. This was not the time for childish panic.

Raise, draw, loose.

There was no time to freeze.

Raise, draw, loose.

I would not let my family and friends die.

Raise, draw, loose.

I would gain glory for my House.

Raise, draw, loose.

I would hold Alice again.

Raise, draw, loose.

I was thrown off from my repetitions as an arm shook my shoulder. I quickly went from my knife before I saw that it was Donovar.

"We're falling back! Our infantry is moving up!" he shouted.

Taking stock of the situation, I began to move backwards as our infantry advanced toward us. Again, I was shocked to see how close the enemy was – less than thirty meters. I silently cursed myself; my awareness had fallen again.

We had dropped numerous pirates, but it didn't stop them from clashing with our infantry. I looked around and saw that everyone seemed to still be with us. The two forces clashed in a scream of steel and wood. The spears of the pirates clashed against the poleaxes of the Northern infantry like an inevitable clash of water against rock.

"Bloody hells!" shouted a nearby man, holding up his arm, with an arrow embedded in it. "I don't feel it! I don't feel it! Am I poisoned?! I'm gonna die!" he shouted, waving his arm about.

A well-armored Bolton archer jogged over to the man and yelled for him to stay still as he peeled back the gambeson.

"You idiot! You don't feel anything, 'cause there's nothin' to feel! It got trapped in the gambeson!"

The not-wounded man dropped to his knees and started praying.

"Bloody idiot."

Arthur snorted beside me, even as the battle continued in front of us.

The clash of steel and the screams of men was loud, but curiously, the horrifying sound of dying horses wasn't present. Looking around, I saw that our cavalry was still grouped on the road near the edge of the jungle and wasn't charging.

What surprised me, even more, was that Lord Stark had managed to create order from our initial chaos. The confusion and disorganized mess that faced us at the start was gone – messy now that the battle was joined, but I could still clearly see the different groups and the battle line that they formed. Incredible.

Even as I watched, our infantry continued to force it's way forward, leaving dead bodies, mostly pirates behind. The pirates' spears lacked the reach of the Northern poleaxes, and not every pirate even had a spear – some only had smaller melee weapons like swords and axes.

"Did we do it? Did we win?" I asked.

"Think so," replied Donovar. "We outnumbered them by a lot; I'm surprised they even fought."

"We outnumbered them?" I asked incredulously. "It didn't feel like it."

Donovar chuckled. "Oh, aye. We outnumbered them. 2 to 1 is my guess, maybe 3 to 1 if we could have brought our cavalry in."

"What? Why would they even fight?"

"Probably hoped to hem us in on the road where our numbers wouldn't matter."

I opened my visor and wiped the sweat away from my eyes as we all took a breather.

"Don't get too comfortable," said Donovar. "We still might be called forward again."

"I dunno, I think the battle is over," said Arthur.

A nearby Bolton man, the same one from earlier, snorted. "Battle? This ain't no battle, boy. This here is a skirmish."

"But there were battle lines! And thousands of men!" protested Arthur.

The man snorted through his grotesquely broken nose. "Ain't no one gives a bloody shit about battle lines, boy. That's a thing for maesters, not warriors."

"But look! You can see all of our men standing together in a line! Working together!"

"'Yer eyes are playing tricks on you, lad. Working together? Look, boy! Look! That working together isn't real! Stark man beside Stark man! Bolton by Bolton! But that's it! Aye, the Karstark man sticks close to the Stark man, no sense in exposing yourself, but work together?" He spit. "'Yer young, boy. You'll see soon enough – if you don't die first, that is." He spat again and looked hungrily at the field in front of them. "Enough talk. There's still people who need killin'."

The man stalked off and went after the dying pirates on the ground.

"He's not wrong," said Donovar. "Let's move forward. Careful of anyone just pretending to be dead. Some men just don't want to leave this world without taking one more person with them."

It was nasty work, especially as we kept an eye on the battle that raged in front of us, and Donovar and I had to ensure that no one was looting when they shouldn't be. The battle continued to push forward as the pirates gave up more and more ground and started to collapse in on the road as our forces changed roles with theirs and began to envelop them.

Ten minutes later, a messenger arrived and said, "Lord Stark bids the archers to join in the second line and start volleying against the pirates to break them."

As the man relayed the message, I looked over to Arthur who looked none the worse for wear and was eager to rejoin the fight.

But before we could move, the fighting escalated in front of us, and our side surged forward.

Shouts of, "They're breaking! They're breaking!" Echoed down the line.

As the pirates began to break and run, we ran after them. The press of men surging forward slowed us as our organized lines came apart. Eventually, Donovar appeared and was yelling, "Halt! Halt!" alongside many other commanders trying to get a hold of their men.

"Cavalry! Let the cavalry through!" someone shouted.

I helped Donovar collect our men as we watched the cavalry start to charge down the road after the fleeing pirates.

Our job, for today, was done.

Xxxx

The pirates managed to retreat in good order as the poor, muddy roads hampered the cavalry. The muddy fields and stone fences had also stopped the cavalry from flanking our enemy, so they ended up being rather useless.

Still, estimates put the enemy army at roughly 2,000 men who lost about 200 in the battle before retreating and losing another 400. Compared to our combined force of 4,500, it was a bold strategy to have attacked but futile, and our casualties only came to 50 - a slaughter by any measure.

As we stood outside Torturer's Deep, which sat nestled into a small valley, the hopelessness of the pirates' situation began to sink in.

Our warships sat in the bay, surrounding the docks and had already stopped two attempted breakouts.

The road on the other side of the den was still open as the den sat astride the coastal road, and the ground to the interior was rocky and steep and stopped anything but a few of our scouts from making their way around.

The den itself had wooden, whitewashed walls of about eight feet in height. Only the gates sported any sort of tower, made of noticeably new wood that even from this distance I could see had a number of men atop them and the gates themselves were made of thick wood. The towers were impressive for pirates, as they sported a few arrow slits and even crenellations, though there were no machicolations, at least that I could see, but they were pirates after all.

Lord Stark had us arrayed outside the den in an organized fashion. My group was to continue to act as archers and cover the advance of our ladders and battering ram. I was unsure of how effective ladders would be since if there was nothing on the other side of the wall, it would be a long drop.

My heart was beating like a racehorse, and I'm sure if my visor wasn't down, everyone could see my nerves, but Arthur looked composed beside me. I envied him – in the earlier skirmish he was in control of himself and his mind never wandered, unlike what I was doing now.

Focus.

A loud horn helped me as we began to move forward. The sun beat down on us as we marched, and already I felt like I was drowning in sweat, but I would not falter. Our group was to be positioned to the right of the gate, covering the battering ram and its men as they broke down the gate.

"Draw and loose, lads! Don't wait!" shouted Donovar.

We aimed at the tower in front of us and let loose. The men atop the tower ducked below their wall to avoid the oncoming arrows only to pop up after.

Arthur, being a tricky bastard, delayed his arrow until we all released and ended up lodging his arrow into a pirate's exposed face as he went to loose his own arrow.

We continued to exchange arrows as the men carrying the ram made their way to the gates while praying that the A-frame construction that was built over the ram held.

The ladder carriers had more luck, as they had little in the way of protection, but precious few people targeted them. Only a few houses inside the den overlooked the wall, and although they all had archers atop them, the sheer number of ladders we had overwhelmed them.

When the battering ram finally splintered the gate, there was no great crash or crack that heralded victory – at least not one that I heard, for the screams of the dying, yelling, and the clash of steel drowned out everything else.

Men close to the gate rushed in, and the army that had been waiting outside of bow range surged forward into the breach and poured into the den. The men atop the towers were already fleeing.

As soon as the army entered the town, it started to disintegrate as people went this way and that. The group carrying the Stark banner maintained cohesion and made its way to the largest keep, but they were alone in that. A few saw a chance for wealth and followed them, but others seemed content to go house from house, looting as they went.

I made to follow them, but my group was already disintegrating. Shrugging, I followed Arthur as we followed where a large chunk of our men went into a nearby house. The house looked like a hurricane had gone through it, with everything overturned and spilled out. I flipped open my visor and started to munch on an apple that had been left on the table.

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Are you seriously hungry right now?"

I shook my head. "No, I just need something normal to do."

He just nodded and said no more. We exited the back of the house following the path our men had taken, content to move slowly. Whatever riches lay in this town weren't important to us, so there was no point in lessening what our men could take. The next two homes – shacks, really – were quickly looted as we continued deeper into the pirate den. We had yet to see anyone, but I imagined everyone fled previously. The real riches probably were at the largest keep, where the pirate captains or whatever ruler they had here stored their ill-gotten gains.

A scream echoed from ahead of us, and Arthur and I raced forward. We burst into the house with our swords drawn, only to find one of our men, Ben, holding a woman painfully by the hair, with her shirt torn and chest exposed. He had an ugly leer that I quickly knocked off his face.

"What do you think you are doing!?" I thundered.

He gave me an ugly look before, slightly, calming himself. "What we came t' do."

"We came here to conquer these islands for the King."

"We came here t' get rich and t' get otherthings," he snapped back.

"So, you want to become more a beast than man?"

"I ain't doing nothing different than anyone else!"

"And that makes it any better? Who do you think she is?!"

"Some pirate's whore, no doubt," he replied contemptuously.

"No. She's your sister, you fool," I said. He looked at me like I was mad. "Do you think that if the King decided to attack Redbridge, that the men in your position would do any differently than you are doing now?! This would be your sister, man! She's the same age!"

Ben started to look a little uncertain, so I went in for the killing blow. "Look at yourself, Ben! Look at what you are doing! What would your mother say?"

He started to panic. "Don't tell me, ma!" he pleaded, dropping the woman to the floor. She scrambled away to the corner of the room with a quiet sob.

"Will you act like a man or a beast?" I asked.

"A man! A man!"

"Then act like it! Fall in with us, now!"

Ben straightened up, as I said to the woman, "Stay here and don't leave that corner. Hopefully, no one else comes into this house." I didn't know if she understood the Common Tongue, but we swept out of the house regardless. Screams were starting to fill the air of the village, and I shared a dark look with Arthur. We weren't going to be able to stop this madness.

Arthur's eyes were wide as he took in the horror. "Why?" he asked despondently.

"I don't know. I just don't know."