Chapter 8: Bowed, Bent, and Broken

112 AC

Amos looked through his far-eye at the tall and pale castle on the western banks of the slow-moving Vaith river, there was a town of hovels and mud-brick inns, shops, septs, and houses. Further west to the castle were the infamous dunes of the Dornish desert. On the other side of the river were overgrown orchards and vineyards.

The town looked dead but Amos was certain that Dornish rebels were hiding the houses waiting for unsuspecting soldiers to walk in. The castle on the other hand was bristling with scorpions, catapults, and spitfires, there were at least three men inside the castle every one of his.

He didn't have any siege engines, nor did he even have a ladder to assault. Any misguided attack on the castle would lead to a massive loss for Amos which is why he wisely held back his men until the fleet and the Prince arrived.

Vaith was one of the last remaining Dornish castles yet left unconquered, while in the Red Mountains, Starfall alone stood for the Dornish resistance while most of the other castles either surrendered immediately for they were too exhausted by their civil war to deal with a war with the dragonlords. While a few rebels were hiding in caves in the mountains most of them were subdued. Nearly forty of the most prominent and powerful families in Dorne were now extinct. The Vaiths and the Daynes were the last two alongside the last Yronwood alive, the High King of Drone himself.

The supposed High King of Dorne Edmund Yronwood and his wife Loreza Dayne have gone into hiding but it was only a matter of time before they were caught, nearly anyone who would aid them was killed by Prince Daemon in a campaign similar to the one undertaken by them at the Greenblood.

His warband of around three hundred horsemen that he led was at least half a league from the castle. the lookouts on the watchtowers must have certainly seen his men and the horses resting by the hillock and they must have surely known what it meant.

Surprisingly enough they didn't run into the desert as Amos had expected them to. They decided to stay and fight. Not that any decision they took would be helpful for them. There was no mercy given to the nobility of Dorne.

He was charged with riding ahead of the fleet and to cut off all retreat for the enemy castles keeping them cornered until the Prince arrived. Along with cutting off the retreat for the rebels, he was also charged with destroying every single defiant village along the rivers to deny the rebels any supplies or any sort of a safe haven. Fields, orchards, and vineyards were burnt, wells were poisoned, livestock were killed, canals were buried, and entire villages with their people were wiped out.

Amos did not have much mercy for them for he knew full well that if these people were left alone, they would become the backbone of any resistance to the Iron Throne.

"How long do you think it will take for the fleet to arrive?" Byron asked him as he rode up to him.

Instead of wearing the plate and mail armor that they would usually wear, most of them including Amos and Byron opted to use the same armor as the Dornish to deal with the heat, a simple jerkin, and a conical steel helmet. While some of the officers wore mail coifs the others wore a lamellar cuirass over it.

"It will take less than an hour, I presume," Amos answered squinting his eyes at the river, the heat of Dorne was starting to wear him down. His men had it worse especially when hunting down the escaping rebels into the desert, there were times when some of them would ride further into the desert thinking that they saw water in the sand. Fortunately, they always returned to the river where the fleet was waiting for them.

"One more thing, Amos, your idiot brother is grating on my nerves. I won't be surprised if he ends up dead in the desert tomorrow morning," Byron angrily answered.

Amos sighed, "What did he do now?" When his father asked him to take both his brothers along with him for the campaign, Amos did not know that it would be such a burden. Raylon for the most part behaved himself and wanted to join the Royal Army upon learning that a man's birth held no standing while Jerrel was more difficult.

Byron began with a snarl, "Well for starters, he began mocking me for my short height, and in front of all the other men, he said that I wasn't Prince Maekar's squire but rather his hostage. Which is why I still haven't earned my spurs. I had half a mind to gut him then and there and I would have if he wasn't your brother."

Amos closed his eyes in frustration and hissed, he couldn't believe how idiotic Jerrel could be. Then again this was the fool who drew out a dagger against a boy with a sword. If it hadn't been for Lord Boremund interfering with the duel there was a good chance that his father would have lost a son that day in Storm's End.

"That's not the end of it," Byron continued, "He has been harassing our Dornish collaborators to the point that I won't be surprised if they decide to betray us simply because of him. He is going out of his way to be disrespectful to the common-born officers because he is still upset that more experienced soldiers are ranked higher than him."

Amos pinched the bridge of his nose in anger and shock, the Dornish collaborators were in a way the greatest boon they could have had in the desert, they were the ones who helped them hunt down the Dornish rebels and storm their hideouts.

"You know full well what happened to the last lordling that tried to pull his rank, that too in front of the Prince," Byron warned.

Amos shuddered in memory of that, Martyn Lefford went straight up to Prince Maekar and expected it was his due to be given command of a scouting mission to which he was assigned. When refused, he tried to pull his rank against the other members of the scouting group and mentioned his father's influence. That was a huge mistake.

Prince Maekar wordlessly got up while the Dragon's Teeth grabbed Martyn and tied him to a whipping post. Prince Maekar personally whipped him thirty times till he passed out in front of everyone in the camp and then had him sent home in disgrace for insubordination.

That incident also set the prick Jason Lannister straight in front of Prince Maekar. Jerrel was not present on the day of the whipping, and apparently, he still didn't understand how serious it was when Amos told him about how little Prince Maekar cared about people's rank and status outside the army.

Byron warned, "You better set your brother straight, or else the men are going straight to Prince Maekar."

Amos closed his eyes and thought, if he didn't do anything now then Jerrel would find the Prince's fist in his mouth or worse his whip on his back. It would be for the best if Amos dealt with Jerrel right now before Prince Maekar arrived.

"Alright I will deal with it," Amos assured Byron before dismounting from his horse and he went about looking around in search of Jerrel.

He found Jerrel annoying their main Dornish collaborators Cletus and Yorwick, before he could say more, Jerrel saw Amos coming toward, "Ah brother, I was worried that you forgot about me, I was merely talking with these Dornish dogs about-"

He didn't get to finish it before Amos swung a vicious punch at his face, he went down immediately while Amos barked at the men around them, "FORM A CIRCLE AROUND US, AT SEVEN PACES, AND TURN AROUND."

The well-drilled and disciplined soldiers knew what Amos wanted and formed the circle while Jerrel was still on the ground.

"Get up," Amos grunted as he grabbed Jerrel up only to knee him in the chest.

"What did I do?" Jerrel whimpered as he fell to his knees.

"What did you do? The better question would be what the fuck didn't you do?" Amos hissed.

Amos grabbed him up, "You have been nothing but disrespectful to the other officers who are far better than you in every single manner. You have been insulting our Dornish friends who coincidentally happen to be the ones helping us the most. I have told you this many times before but I will tell you this one last time now. Here in the Royal Army, a man gets what he earns when he earns it, not by his fucking birth but by his fucking actions, do you understand, do you? Because I don't think you do."

"I was just joking around, it was harmless fun," Jerrel weakly answered. Amos took a deep breath before continuing.

"Who the fuck do you think you are that you can joke around like that? Huh, you haven't the right to joke around in the army, you haven't earned their respect and you sure as hell haven't earned their friendship that you have a right to joke around like this. Because as far as anyone in this unit or the entire army for that matter is concerned, the only reason you are here is because you are my fucking brother and nothing else."

Amos grabbed Jerrel by the face, "Listen and listen carefully, you will be on your best behavior for the rest of the damn war. You will now go around and apologize to every single man whom you have disrespected and apologize sincerely. If I hear a single squeak out of you trust me when I tell you this, Prince Maekar will be flogging you till you pass out and I will be the one to tie you to the damn fucking flogging pole."

Amos dropped his brother and walked out to the riverbed while the others made sure to give him a wide berth.

"Here, have some of this, Dornish Red, it will make you feel better," Byron said as he walked toward him, extending out his arm with the wineskin.

Amos gratefully took the wineskin and asked before drinking, "Did he apologize to you?"

Byron nodded, "He did. Don't feel bad about what you did, if you didn't yell at him and beat him up in front of everyone, then Prince Maekar would have whipped him back to Stone Hedge in front of the realm and I doubt anyone in your family wants that."

Amos nodded, "Bringing your siblings to war is a bad idea."

Byron rolled his eyes, "Tell me about it. My father demanded that I get my older brother a commission as an officer in the Royal Army as I was Prince Maekar's aide. I told him that I would rather chew off my own foot than give my idiot of a brother a direct commission as an officer. Not that I can do it in the first place, the only person who can do that is Prince Maekar and unless your last name is Targaryen, I doubt that is happening."

"What did your father do when you said no?" Amos asked. Byron merely shrugged, "There is only one person that my father fears especially after he visited Stonehelm."

"You remember back when Jason was a prick," Amos brought up to which Byron chuckled.

"I will never forget his face when Lefford was flogged. He never thought that a lordling would be punished. After that, we tricked Jason by saying that if he ever annoyed us again we would tell Prince Maekar who would flog him. The poor sod couldn't sleep for weeks."

"He was jealous of us, and in a way so is Jerrel," Amos noted after they laughed.

"Aye, they are jealous that we are Prince Maekar's confidants and perhaps his only friends," Byron nodded.

"We have earned his friendship which is more than what Daemon's sycophants can say," Amos replied. The rivalry between Prince Maekar and Daemon seeped down to them and Daemon's sycophants in the City Watch and then it began to spread to House Velaryon.

"Do you think Lady Shiera might have given birth by now?" Byron then asked as the wineskin was finished.

"She might have," Amos remarked, before they left for the invasion, Lady Shiera revealed that she was once more with child. Amos could only hope that the new babe would not be like the little hellion that was Gaemon Targaryen. Somehow only in front of his father would the brat behave, else he and his cousins, the Queen Alicent's children would run around causing chaos and mayhem across the Red Keep. Amos felt bad for the nursemaids dealing with the Royal babies.

"As long I am there for the next adventure we have I have no complaints. I still haven't forgiven myself for going home while the three of you went about as bandits in Tyrosh," Amos said as he took a new wineskin and opened it before drinking deeply. Dornish red was a new taste for him and he was growing to like it.

"Don't blame yourself for that, none of us thought that the Tyroshi Prince was being real with us which is why Prince Maekar asked him to abolish slavery to put an end to what we considered as mummer's farce, and he agreed which stunned us all," Byron reassured him.

"In the end, you and the others have Valyrian steel blades and I don't. The next time we invade a Free City I am taking something out of that city that will shut up those wretched Blackwoods for good," Amos promised looking at Byron's Valyrian steel sword with a little bit of envy.

Byron informed, "Well, that might happen sooner than you think, word around the docks is that Lys, Myr, and Pentos are not very happy with the arrangement in Tyrosh, it is only a matter of time before one of them ticks off Prince Maekar the wrong way and finds Vermithor flying over their city."

"That would be nice," Amos said hoping that some wretched city would be foolish enough to poke the dragon once more.

Then a horn was sounded, and Amos and Byron turned to see the Royal fleet finally arriving.

"You lot took your sweet time," Amos said to Tyland and Robert as they disembarked from the river galleys.

Tyland replied as he and Robert stretched "We were about to leave Godsgrace when messengers from King's Landing carrying official news arrived that held up Prince Maekar. There were a lot of news that just kept coming, really a whole month's worth of news."

"What news?" Byron asked.

"Well for starters, Lady Shiera has given birth to a healthy baby girl named Maegelle Targaryen," Tyland announced.

"That's wonderful," Amos said with a smile.

"Wonderful indeed, but that's not all," Robert continued as the ships began to disgorge the men along with their armor and supplies.

"Prince Maekar has been named Prince of the Greenblood and the Lord Protector of the Stepstones," Tyland revealed.

"Wait, did you just say Prince of the Greenblood?" Byron asked puzzled and so was Amos.

"You mean the same place where for the past nine months we have been destroying. The place where our army has left a trail of the Stranger," Amos asked to which both of them nodded, "We have buried irrigation canals, poisoned wells, and killed the livestock. If Prince Maekar was to rule these lands then why did we poison the land."

"I thought the entire point of keeping that boy Harmen Uller alive was to have puppet Dornishman in charge of Dorne," Byron asked bemused.

"That's true but it seems that there has been a change in plans from King's Landing, so I garroted him," Tyland replied.

"Which is why special orders have been dispatched to our forces in the Scourge river and along the coast, to cease all search and destroy sorties effective immediately. New orders have been issued, kill the people but spare the land and the animals."

"Shiploads of people from the Reach, the Westerland, the Riverlands, and the Vale have begun to arrive. Orders have also been issued to spare all the unmarried women, it seems like many of the soldiers have expressed interest in settling down in Dorne, ever since Prince Maekar announced that there would be no serfdom and every freeman would be given a hide of land and a mule."

"Already plans for the reconstruction of Dorne has been put forward and in some places like Sunspear, it has begun," Robert informed them, it was then that Jason Lannister descended from the galley, he made sure to give the four of them a wide berth.

"Alright then, I guess that Prince Maekar will be arriving soon, we better prepare the men," Amos said with a nod to Bryon.

Just like the day when Prince Maekar destroyed Planky Town, Vermithor and Prince Maekar arrived in a rather silent manner, instead of flapping his wings, Vermithor glided through the air as he descended toward Vaith.

As soon as the dragon came within range, the scorpions began to shoot at them. The air was filled with scorpions and crossbow bolts but they didn't harm Vermithor, if anything all they did was anger him. None of the bolts pierced the dragon's hardened scales and then Vermithor opened his mouth and spewed forth the brass flames of death that Amos had seen many a time before.

First at the Stepstones, then at Planky Town, and every other castle, holdfast, and keep in the Greenblood and by the coasts of Dorne. Nearly all the noble families of Dorne had been wiped out except for the ones in Red Mountains though Amos wasn't sure about what was happening there.

The first fire blast hit the pale castle walls which destroyed the scorpions and left many screaming and shouting in pain, burning men began to jump from the castle walls to their deaths. Vermithor circled the castle walls in flames before focusing his flames on the main gate.

He could hear the sound of the steel portcullis getting bent and melting due to the heat.

Then a few scorpions atop the towers within the castle began to lose their bolts at Vermithor which caused the dragon to turn his attention to them. The dragon went on to bathe the towers and the keep inside the castle at least twice in its brass flames before burning the inner and outer wards that may have escaped the flames.

And throughout it all were the screams of the dead and the dying, Amos had long since grown accustomed to it. The pale castle began to darken as the smell of burning hair and flesh filled the air while the screams of the dying began to ebb.

The town outside the castle walls was left alone for the men to take care of. At first, Prince Maekar used to destroy everything from the castle to the towns and villages outside it in dragon fire but then the men asked the Prince for a chance to engage in the killing themselves, so the Prince obliged them and left the towns to the mercy of the army waiting.

This was Harrenhal writ small.

As the castle still burned and Vermithor flew to the camp set up on the other side of the Vaith river, Amos and his men began to march into the town, ever since they began to cut off any possible retreat for the rebels into the desert, the men of fighting age began to stay and die inside the castle while the women, children, the aged and the infirm were in the town outside the castle.

Then as they walked into the town, a gaggle of crying women came out of a house, and upon seeing them, the women began to pelt them with stones.

"DIE DOGS, DIE."

"DORNE WILL HAVE ITS REVENGE."

Amos gripped his mace and calmly walked to the disheveled woman in the front while dodging a few of the stones before smashing her face in with his mace.

During the chaos and shock following that, the men surrounded the women and grabbed them, and were ready to rape them, "Can we Commander?" One of them, Pate of Oldtown eagerly asked as he began to untie his breeches while holding the struggling woman close to him.

"Go ahead boys, just be sure to kill them once you are done with them. We don't want any spurned lovers coming after you," He said with a chuckle that made the others laugh.

The men began to smash down doors and search for any people or loot. Soon screams began as the sound of steel meeting flesh was heard. Most of them must have expected Prince Maekar to destroy the town along with the castle.

Then Amos came upon an old man walking to him with a cane and feebly tried to attack him with it, Amos took the cane out of his arms and threw it away before grabbing the old man sweeping him off his legs, and throwing him to the dusty ground.

He then placed his foot on the old man's chest, "Where are the rest of the people? Where are the rebels hiding?"

The old man mockingly replied, "Dorne is all around you, the vengeance of Dorne shall fall upon you and your Prince."

"Ten dogs of the dragon shall die for every Dornishman," he defiantly replied before Amos raised his mace.

Then a boy of no more than five came out of a mud-brick house and rushed at him shouting, "LEAVE MY GRANDFATHER ALONE."

Byron's axe caught the boy's face before he could come any further. Chuckling at the boy's dead body as he removed his axe, Byron went about searching the houses. While Amos killed the old man.

Soon enough the screams of the dying slowly faded away while the screams of the women were replaced with their death rattles while Amos rode back to camp.

As Amos entered the main tent, he found Prince Maekar and the others except for Byron looking over a map. Once Amos reached the High Table, he saw the map, it was the map showing the division of Dorne between Prince Maekar and whoever else would get the Red Mountains and most of the sands of Dorne.

In a way, it seemed that Prince Maekar had it easy, with most of the Greenblood and its more hospitable coasts along with the Stepstones, though most of the Greenblood was a burning ruin.

As they sat down to eat, Prince Maekar informed them, "I have asked my brother the King to give me a city charter for Sunspear that I have decided to rename as Targaryenople."

"The harbor of Sunspear cannot sustain a port meant for a city," Tyland pointed out as they began to eat.

"True, which is why I will have to make a harbor," Prince Maekar revealed.

"How?" Amos asked puzzled. He had never before heard of making a harbor, making a port was one thing but an entire harbor.

"There are ways to do so, back in King's Landing, a few builders from Braavos did approach me with the idea of building an entirely separate harbor in Dragon's Deep when the main harbor began to get crowded due to all the warships and the trade ships having only one harbor to dock in, we will be doing something like that but much larger."

"By the way, Amos, I will be leaving Dorne by the end of the week for as you know my wife has given birth to our daughter, as such I am placing you in charge of keeping the peace while Tyland is in charge of the reconstruction of Dorne while Robert you are in charge of the Stepstones, try not to burn anything to the ground while you are at it."

They chuckled as they nodded, "Yes, your grace."

Then a messenger entered the main tent, Amos took one look at him and knew that he was from King's Landing.

"What is it this time?" Prince Maekar tiredly asked.

"Prince Maekar, the City Charter for the new city of Targaryenople that you have requested has been approved," The messenger said as he opened his bag and brought forth the charter.

"So quick, I am surprised, maybe my brother knew that I would ask for this," Prince Maekar said bemused while he read the charter before turning to the messenger, "Anything else?"

"Yes, there is more news," He nodded before placing two more missives on the table.

Prince Maekar took them both and opened them before reading one after the other before placing the missives on the table and then wordlessly getting up and walking around the table to the messenger.

"How old are these messages?" Prince Maekar asked him.

"Around a week since the last messenger left for Dorne," He replied. Prince Maekar then walked out of the tent without saying anything. That was by far the most surprising behavior of Prince Maekar that Amos had ever seen.

Tyland took one of the missives placed on the table while Robert took the other.

"What does it say?" Amos asked.

Robert replied first, "It seems that Prince Daemon's marriage to the Lady Rhea Royce has been annulled on account of her infertility and Prince Daemon is now betrothed to the Lady Laena Velaryon."

Prince Maekar's two main rivals teaming up together, no wonder he was upset.

"What does that one say?" Amos then asked Tyland who just finished reading that missive.

"Ser Benedict Dayne of High Hermitage is now the Lord Paramount of the Red Mountains and the Warden of the Sands," Tyland revealed.

They were all shocked but Byron was the most shocked, "What? Lord Paramount of the Red Mountains!!"

"Just the Dornish part of the Red Mountains along with the sands of Hellholt, it has been specified in there," Tyland said thoughtfully.

"What happened to Starfall? Yronwood and Lady Dayne went into hiding did they not?" Robert then asked.

"It seems that Ser Benedict Dayne has turned cloak and betrayed both of them to Prince Daemon. Edmund Yronwood and Loreza Dayne are in chains and are now Prince Daemon's hands and it seems that he intends to have them paraded in a triumph in King's Landing. As for Starfall, it seems that Benedict Dayne made the garrison surrender as he was the next Dayne in line to inherit after Lady Dayne and apparently, he is now the new Sword of the Morning."

For a while, they didn't say anything before Robert asked, "With both Vaith and Starfall in our hands, isn't the war over?"

Then Prince Maekar entered the tent and he answered Robert, "It is, the war is over. All that is left is a few brigands and broken men who haven't accepted the new order."

Prince Maekar turned to the messenger who was still inside the tent, "Send to King's Landing. Dorne is bowed, bent, and broken."