"You'd better hope these chains can hold them," Arthur replied irritably.
Clement was loyal and deeply devoted to his friends, but he simply lacked courage, and Arthur had never liked that about him.
The children from Crackclaw Point were the complete opposite.
Whether in training or on the battlefield, they fought with fearless determination.
Over the past ten years, more than two thousand children from Crackclaw Point had joined the Targaryen cause.
Nearly a third of the junior and mid-ranking officers in the army now came from there.
As a result, almost half the soldiers defending the chain towers were men from Crackclaw Point.
Everyone knew that the fiercest fighting would erupt around the towers, so the preparations there were exceptionally generous.
Wine flowed freely.
Dried meat, fruit, and every sort of snack were available without limit.
Each longbowman had been issued two thousand arrows.
Even their armor had been prepared in duplicate, allowing them to replace damaged suits at any time.
The defenders of the four chain towers simply waited.
Prime Minister Clinton had given them only one order.
Hold the towers at all costs.
To keep the men alert, the maesters had even prepared invigorating herbal tonics.
Soon, dawn arrived.
The sun had yet to rise above the horizon, but a faint glow had already begun to brighten the eastern sky.
Then the enormous fleet emerged from the morning mist.
"Enemy ships!"
"The enemy fleet is here!"
The sentries called out in hushed voices, warning the soldiers beside them.
Men concealed among the grass, inside houses, and beneath the trees instantly became alert.
Peering out from their hiding places, they watched as the armada slowly approached.
When the dense mass of ships reached the fork in the river, it split into two great columns.
One turned toward the Little Rhoyne.
The other entered the Upper Rhoyne.
The Upper Rhoyne was both wider and longer, so more than a thousand warships and support vessels sailed into its waters.
About fifteen minutes later...
The sun finally crested the eastern horizon.
With the low morning light casting long shadows, the countless sails darkened the riverbanks as though the fleet itself had swallowed the land.
"So many ships..."
"If only we could capture all of them."
As Clement grew older, he increasingly resembled his uncle, the Old Crab.
Of course...
It was only wishful thinking.
Even if not every enemy vessel was destroyed, salvaging one or two hundred would already be an incredible success.
Arthur studied the massive fleet and quickly recognized the ships from Slaver's Bay.
Their warships all bore the distinctive harpy ram.
A woman's head joined to the body of an eagle gave the figure an unsettling appearance.
As the morning mist continued to thin, Arthur noticed something else.
The slavers had hung naked slaves from the masts of their ships.
It was one of Slaver's Bay's bloody rituals.
A sacrifice offered in exchange for victory.
By the time the sun stood fully above the horizon and daylight filled the sky, the Volantene coalition fleet had completely entered the two tributaries.
Even the defenders atop the Wall of Vhagar could now see the endless ranks of enemy ships.
The Targaryen fleet, meanwhile, had withdrawn far upstream.
"Lord Grazdan."
"Do you see those pitiful Targaryen ships?"
Tormo and Grazdan of Slaver's Bay had come together to the Upper Rhoyne.
Lifting their spyglasses, they soon spotted the black-sailed fleet waiting upstream.
"It seems we'll have one small task to finish before we assault Gohor," Grazdan said cheerfully.
With nearly ten times as many ships as the Targaryens, defeat seemed impossible.
On the Little Rhoyne, Malaqo thought exactly the same.
"Signal the advance!"
"I want every Targaryen ship captured!"
Even after all these years, he still dreamed of the day Viserys had escaped Volantis with his fleet.
That defeat had cost Volantis control of the middle Rhoyne forever.
Today...
He intended to wash away that humiliation once and for all.
Just then, Malaqo spotted a silver dragon circling high above the Targaryen fleet.
"Meraxes..." he murmured before turning to the Tiger Cloaks beside him.
"Prepare the dragon-killing ballista!"
Volantis had developed its own anti-dragon weapons.
One was called the Dragon Crossbow.
The other...
The Dragon Slayer Ballista.
The names were as grand as they were intimidating.
Even so, Viserys had no intention of sending his dragons directly against the enemy fleet.
For now, their role was only to relay signals.
Through the dragons' flight patterns, he would tell his soldiers exactly when to release the fireships and when to raise the chains.
The silver dragon Meraxes watched over the Little Rhoyne.
The green dragon Vhagar circled above the Upper Rhoyne.
The black dragon Balerion remained where the defenders of all four chain towers could clearly see him.
Malaqo ordered the fleet to increase speed.
But sailing against both the current and the wind made that impossible.
The Tiger Cloaks, little better than slave soldiers themselves, lashed the rowing slaves mercilessly with their whips.
.....
Defending the Upper Rhoyne was Alliser, the man Viserys had once recruited away from the Wall.
His eyes never left the silver dragon overhead.
After a while, the dragon, which had been flying in seemingly random circles, suddenly began tracing a figure-eight in the sky.
According to the signals agreed upon before the battle...
That meant it was time.
"Prepare the wildfire!"
Alliser shouted.
Building a true warship took time. Converting fishing boats into fireships did not.
More than a hundred small boats had been packed with wildfire.
Each carried two sailors.
Their task was to guide the blazing craft into the enemy fleet.
It was, of course, an extraordinarily dangerous mission.
But thanks to Viserys's generous rewards, there had been no shortage of volunteers.
The gold promised by the king would be enough to support their families for generations.
.....
At the chain tower, Arthur stared intently at Balerion.
The black dragon, which had been circling overhead, also began tracing a giant figure-eight.
Arthur immediately shouted,
"Raise the chains!"
The soldiers hurried to harness the waiting mules.
As the animals strained forward, the great capstans slowly began to turn.
The rotating mechanisms hauled the immense iron chains upward from the riverbed.
Mud and bundles of dried grass that had concealed them were shaken free.
Like venomous serpents rising toward unsuspecting prey...
The chains slowly emerged from the water.
At the same moment, the flight patterns of Meraxes and Vhagar changed.
The figure-eight disappeared.
Instead, the dragons began tracing triangles across the sky.
It was the signal to attack.
Seeing the command, Alliser drew a deep breath and roared with every ounce of strength he possessed,
"Release the fireships!"
___________
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