novelnext Chapter 410 – Pyke 03.
Chapter 410 – Pyke 03.
[Chapter Size: 4200 Words.]
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Third Person POV
Pyke, 300 AC.
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The arrival at the port was not difficult after that. The large number of archers with fire arrows simply collapsed the enemy lines, who gave up after seeing the explosion and witnessing the fortress falling into the sea, with the waves reaching the port and making the ships sway like never before, with several of them falling due to the imbalance.
Despair took hold of the ironborn, fear was shown in their eyes, especially when those same ships, which used long-range weapons to simply bring down the fortress, were now aiming exactly at them, gaining speed.
For them, it was clear that to destroy the port would only require a command, and they proved that when some harpoons were fired, not hitting the port structure or the houses of the city, but rather some corners of that part of the island, making the explosions burn some trees.
This made everyone retreat. They had to climb to Pyke, being the safest alternative, even though the fortress was no longer there. There was still a gate with a wall, with the natural defense protecting them from anyone climbing up there, and it was a much higher terrain.
It was an ascent from the port to the former fortress.
The harpoons stopped being launched by the scorpions, but Arctican rangers began to position themselves at the front of the ships with bows made of Weirwood wood, firing arrows at any threat that had a torch or a strip of fire in hand, while the barrels on the deck were all removed. After that, they would need to use more to reach the port, and they did not want to leave any chance that some flask of fire could fall on them and simply blow up the ships.
It was easy to identify each of the archers still hidden who tried to stop the advance of the ships, inside the ships at the port, the wargs were identifying them with the birds in the sky, informing right after, while the archers did the rest of the work.
As soon as the ships reached the others, and struck with the prow behind the ships of the raiders docked at the port, the Arcticans began to jump onto the ships, to strike down their first enemies, while other ships managed to get a spot in some space at the port.
The port quickly began to fill with Arcticans, while the people of the city were frightened. Families of ironborn occupied this place, while the slaves remained in the middle of the island.
Most of the families, women and children, were left aside, having no chance to run to the gate, while the ironborn who were also left behind, since the gate was closed at that moment, tried to create resistance there, sealing it.
"They are hiding, cowards!", Jorelle shouted at the gate.
"It is better this way", Arya said, watching the barrels being carefully taken back into the ship. "We are also in danger if any of that liquid ignites", she said, with more ironborn left behind, more chance for them to manage to send a fire arrow.
Arya turned her attention back to Jon, who was standing there with his arms crossed, watching his first ranks of warriors move to take control of the port in search of any enemy.
Any adult man with the kraken symbol on his armor was killed. Even those who dropped their swords and declared surrender or begged were killed.
It was not honorable, but this war would be known that way. The king's order was clear, to kill without mercy. And the ironborn saw the horror, being struck down like animals. There was no mercy. There were no prisoners. Not even they expected something like this.
Screams and groans of pain echoed, while the others who saw that scene fled. With the gate closed, they ran to other parts of the island immediately.
Jon waited for the port to stabilize. About fifteen minutes later, all had either been struck down without mercy or fled in all directions across the island.
"Let's go, be careful not to get too close to those rocks", Jon pointed upward, while inside the gate there were certain rock formations impossible to climb. The real problem with that was that the range the enemy's arrows could reach was quite high from there, even being able to advance through the city and hit the sea waters.
After transmitting the order to the ships, they repositioned, not allowing entry into certain areas, or even moving a bit farther away, taking great care with the wildfire still being stored.
Even with the alchemical liquid being in a chamber reinforced with metal covering it completely, with doors like vault doors, with no air even entering, since if it ignited, only the oxygen inside would be consumed before the fire went out and even if the ship caught fire, the flames should never reach the liquid with the room being armored in metal.
It was more of an iron vault than a storage. After all, if one of those ships exploded, the others could create a chain explosion.
Wildfire had its advantages, but it was also dangerous. It could destroy the entire fleet with just one mistake. But this had already been more dangerous, at least in the beginning, when the first ships went out to sea. Now, they did not even use flames as light inside the ships.
In any case, Jon followed with his group out of the ship. He could see women and children looking at them in terror, while they were restrained, unable to flee the conquered city, and they were extremely terrified after seeing the ironborn being killed without mercy, even while begging for mercy. There was no mercy. It was cruel and terrifying.
"Gather the women and children in a corner outside the city. We must prepare for a siege and bring down that gate", Jon gave the order, while his men nodded, beginning to shout commands to the others.
"Jon! Jon!", a desperate voice came from among the line of women being led away. Most were crying and looking at the soldiers with fear, dreading what they would do. But among them, someone called for Jon while being prevented from approaching.
He stared, as did the others around him. It was a woman a little over 30 namedays old. Jon widened his eyes as he realized who she was.
"You… Mari? Greg's wife?", the woman was afraid, but at the same time she looked at Jon with a certain hope and nostalgia upon hearing that from him.
"Who is she? You seem to recognize her", Arya noted with a curious look.
"She is an old acquaintance..." Jon pressed his lips. "Let her pass", he finally said to the men who were preventing her from approaching.
She was Mari, from Icehill, wife of the man who negotiated the farm's goods for the brothers Lucas and Dult... When Jon met her, her husband was returning from Torrhen's Square after negotiating the taxes for Lord Tallhart.
His men stepped back and opened a path for her. She approached and fell to her knees before him, with tears falling from her eyes.
"It's really you… boy?", she said, looking into the eyes she had not seen for more than 10 years...
Jon sighed. "It's been a long time… Mari... from Icehill...", he said, looking carefully at the woman. She had been kidnapped and forced to live like most of the young women, she was also pregnant, just as the women of the North had been, being abused in the last moons by the ironborn and, unsurprisingly, carrying their seed...
Arya looked at the woman, surprised to hear him say the origin. That farm was the place Jon had known after all the chaos that happened with that mysterious storm, which had taken him somewhere in the North at his 8 namedays...
"Jon…", the woman broke down, beginning to cry harder at his feet. "They attacked us… killed almost everyone… They killed my husband, took my daughters... I don't even know if anyone else survived. They brought me here, separated me from my daughters… I don't know where they are now…", she began to sob endlessly.
Somehow, the Arctican men felt uncomfortable with someone calling the king simply "Jon". Even in Arctica, where people did not kneel, titles were still important, especially when speaking to the king. But Jon's look of pity toward the woman made it clear that he did not care. Not there. Not at that moment. And no one said anything.
"They… they…", the woman instinctively touched her growing belly. She had been abused, forced, and now carried a child of some ironborn or murderer of her children or husband... who forced her to live there, in the city, while her new 'husband' — whoever he might be — should be looting the continent or dead now, among the countless victims the Arcticans had been making since their arrival at Bear Island.
"Hey…", Jon raised his hand, touching the woman's head. She felt the touch of the Valyrian steel resting with a certain tenderness. "I'm sorry for what happened… I truly am. I should have stopped this", Jon murmured, even knowing how impossible that would have been, with him being in the middle of a war against the dead when the North was attacked.
"No… you have nothing to do with this…", the woman said, shaking her head. She did not blame him.
Jon thought about it, he had a certain suspicion that the farm had been one of the first places attacked, drawn by the wealth it had accumulated over the years of prosperity — prosperity that Jon himself had created when he used magic to transform the land into something fertile or rather, magical.
Leaving the land itself doing the work of eliminating pests and ignoring the climate problems of the North. The grain production was faster, and the sprouts that rose from the ground were much stronger and more abundant. It was no wonder that, when he arrived, the farm had transformed, with several barns and even guards protecting the families.
Jon sighed. "Not everyone is dead. Your youngest son, Greg. He is alive." When he said that, the woman stared at him in shock...
"My boy? He is alive?" Hope and relief reflected in her eyes, unable to stop the tears.
"Yes... He is with Mike, Mikaela, Lorenzo, Mari de Lucas...." Jon made the woman tremble with those words... There were survivors from Icehill. "I found them at the farm a few moons ago. They were hiding, creating a resistance to survive, while the ironborn were in the region looting everything... They were taken to Arctica and are well there..."
"That is wonderful, my boy is alive!" she exclaimed in sobs... "I'm happy they survived..." she said, sounding like a relief amid all the terror she had lived through in the last moons, wondering if she should keep living or kill herself, now being a kind of breeding sow for the people who destroyed her family...
"Yes. It is difficult to explain now, but know that you will go there. I believe you will meet them soon."
She nodded, emotional, bringing her hand to her belly again, thinking about the baby growing inside her.
"And my… my womb…?", she asked, looking at Jon with fear.
Certainly, she expected disgust from Jon. It was a child born of rape. To them, she was nothing more than a tool to bear children for the ironborn or to serve as pleasure for her captor whenever he wished.
Jon sighed. He did not know very well what to say about that, but he said what he believed was right.
"You will have the same option as all the pregnant women I found along the way, forced to lie down and become salt wives", Jon paused. "If you want to have this baby, you can have it. The child is innocent regarding the crimes of the father, and you may keep it. But if you do not want to, as many women I found cannot bear the idea of looking at a child conceived this way... with some even trying to abort in the middle of the pregnancy by force, but I forbade it and they can take them to orphanages in White Harbor."
Jon explained, he had no intention of raising these children within Arctica. Thinking it was better to leave them further south, he chose White Harbor and had already sent a raven to Lord Manderly, that he would finance the construction of new orphanages, with these children being able to serve the port as they grew. Without the influence of the ironborn culture, these children could be useful to the city in one or two decades after birth. He hoped that Lord Manderly would already begin doing this with his own funds and Jon would reimburse him.
She looked at him, nodding carefully and timidly.
"Look… I know things have not been easy, but now we will take care of everything. You will have my personal protection", Jon said at last, stepping away from the woman.
How could he not want to take care of that woman? He had helped that family, but they had been kind to him — one of the first people, after a long time living in Winterfell as a bastard... They treated him well back then.
Jon was a complete stranger, a child who came out of the middle of a forest, and found kindness outside of Winterfell thanks to those families, after the old gods chose him as their champion.
"But… and the others? We saw how the soldiers killed the men…", she did not stop trembling.
Jon sighed. "This cruelty is only for the ironborn. I may even be called a monster at the end of this war, but I made the decision to simply cleanse this people — or leave them marked in history as the result of their two rebellions", Jon explained.
Never, in history, had there been massacres with the intention of exterminating an entire group like that. Not even in Robert's Rebellion were there so many deaths in such a relentless way, nor in the conquest of Aegon the Conqueror, or in other conflicts throughout history involving the ironborn.
That was, simply, a purge. An event that would mark those people forever along with the removal of slaves.
The next time they tried to rise, they would be faced with a choice: take the risk for vengeance or fear and restrain their own rebellions by remembering that moment in history.
They had killed more than twelve or thirteen thousand men without mercy, since there was still a large number of men spread across the islands who had not gone raiding with the ships.
The history books would speak of that. Of Jon's cruel act or of the result of that people's choices.
One thing was to win a war by killing men in battle. Another was to invade cities where men knelt, asking for redemption, and the only answer was blades piercing their bodies while they screamed in pain and fear. But that was a response to the way of life of those people...
It was a chapter of history where the ironborn's surrender was not an option. They had to fight desperately to survive.
"Take care of her", Jon said a moment later. "Take her to the ship and tend to her wounds… give her clothes, hygiene… whatever she needs. And feed her."
Jon said, separating her from the rest of the women, who were still being placed in a corner of the island, being pulled by the Arcticans. Some were resisting, as the presence of the Arcticans frightened them so much that they fell into hysteria. He could do nothing but wait for his men to deal with it.
Later, Jon would see what he could do to find the rest of the girls from Icehill who had been captured. Jon would send a raven to Lancelot to search among the captured slaves.
While the ships were being unloaded again, and new barrels of wildfire, which had not been fully stored in the internal vaults, were brought out, passing through the port and being carried toward the inclined area where the gate stood.
There were ironborn watching from the rock and the gate. Jon raised his gaze, able to see the fear in them. He simply set that aside and advanced.
"Come on, my men. Let's end this once and for all." With those words, they followed him as they advanced with the siege machines.
"Can I go take care of things?", Lackov, a very important member of the royal guard, a commander by nature who takes on some of Lancelot's functions, approached. He had the features of Tormund and Ygritte.
Jon looked at her and nodded. "All right. Go ahead."
Jon turned his attention back. "Where is Jorelle?", he asked, before shifting his focus through the eyes of his two eagles flying over the island at that moment, searching for someone who was always by his side.
"She went to check on the women. There are women from Bear Island among the salt wives… young ones who ended up trapped here as well", Arya replied, with a certain disgust.
"I see… well, let her take care of the women. Let's handle our work here", Jon said with a serious look, turning his attention back to the siege machines being positioned.
"Take care of all the archers first. We don't want the wildfire to explode from a fire arrow", Lackov said in a firm tone, while the machines were brought forward, already knowing what they should use.
Crossbows with new mechanisms had been created by Jon during the war, due to the undead birds attacking the city over the last year. So, he created special crossbows with a cylinder that moved with each shot, lifting and automatically loading another bolt as soon as the last one was fired. The pulleys also launched with much more force and were much easier to load, with the string being pulled by just a lever moving back and forth. The crossbow was already automatically reloaded, able to fire its projectiles rapidly.
Jon had made this design to deal with multiple birds, and the royal guard always kept these weapons on hand when escorting any member of the royal family to the battlefields, keeping the crossbows raised to the sky against any undead birds that attacked them.
So, Jon ended up advancing that idea. He created a type of siege machine similar to it, but instead of bolts, it used full arrows, calling it the Rotating Siege Arbalest, due to being much larger to the point of being carried almost like a scorpion, but still smaller. They used the same system: a cylinder with about 60 arrows that loaded automatically and, with a crank, the crossbow was easily reloaded and prepared with the steel string at full tension as the crank was turned.
While one person aimed and fired, another turned the crank, taking only a second for a new arrow to be ready to fire.
The power of these Rotating Siege Arbalests did not compare to that of a scorpion, but even so they were much stronger and faster than what a common archer could launch with Weirwood bows. Jon took this into consideration to compensate for the disadvantage of the terrain, since they were in a lower position.
Of course, the ironborn were not fools. They immediately did what was expected: they began to position themselves at the highest points, preparing their bows, which had greater range than any weapon down there. Not knowing what those machines being loaded and aimed at them were, they did not expect something like that. Their strategy was to wait for the Arcticans to approach the gate and then try to use the very wildfire they were preparing against them, making them destroy themselves. After all, there was no more surrender after what they had seen in the city. Either they killed as many as they could, or they died like slaughter animals.
However, as they were preparing, there were already six Rotating Siege Arbalests aimed at them.
The moment they were fired, the steel string snapped like a whip echoing with force, while the arrows advanced in a straight line. The first man did not even have a chance to react, being pierced and thrown backward by the force of the impact and fell 3 meters from where he stood with the arrow halfway through his back. Other crossbows also began to hit the men. Some missed, passing like bolts beside them and immediately frightening them. The men at the gate were also attacked.
This erased any defense they still had. The arrows were fired every two seconds, at a terrifying speed. They did not even begin to fall — they traveled practically in a straight line, piercing everything in their path for how strong they were.
The sound of the strings snapping and the cranks being turned by the Arcticans echoed rapidly, driving away any archer who still tried to resist.
"Well… now let's bring down that gate", Lackov said, as the barrels were finally placed in the catapults.
Anyone who tried to expose themselves to attack or check was quickly struck by the arrows. More than twenty Rotating Siege Arbalests were firing against the rocks and the gate.
The blue liquid spread as soon as it was launched, hitting the gate. In the next moment, a fire arrow, fired by the very device as it burned the tip of the arrow, struck it.
The wildfire ignited.
The explosion came.
The gate was destroyed, along with part of the structure above it, which collapsed in green flames. Screams echoed from above — terrified men realizing that death was approaching.
"My lord, they are forming defensive lines with arrows… many of them!", an archer approached the commander, who observed it and nodded.
"Well… let's move closer and launch catapults on top of them as well...", he said.
As a few more barrels were prepared, above the rocks they already saw three men with fire arrows running to try to attack them.
"They will appear there!", a warg shouted, pointing to the rocks after seeing through his bird.
As soon as their eyes focused, the men with the devices quickly aimed at that line. They waited for the exact moment they emerged. The ironborn had no idea they were already targets, barely having time to react before being pierced.
Other archers began to report anyone who appeared, while the sky was filled with birds.
Jon did not stop himself from letting out a low laugh behind the army, as he watched everything unfold without his command this time. He passed the command because he knew that now it was an easy task to deal with the remnants.
Pyke no longer had any morale.
Balon was dying at the rear of the main ship. The fortress, the great pride of the ironborn, had been destroyed in a way no one expected. Those who survived were consumed by the krakens themselves — the most legendary creatures that everyone on the islands feared and revered… and which were now on the side of the Arcticans, not theirs. After all that, they were being mercilessly slaughtered, even when dropping their swords and begging for mercy...
What kind of morale would remain after all that chaos?
Only fear and terror.
Jon could feel it in the air.
In any case, new barrels began to be launched over the natural rock defenses. The Arcticans knew exactly where to shoot with the help of the wargs who kept entering and leaving the animals in the sky, aiming where there was fire so they would not need to ignite it with an arrow afterward.
Some wargs even used birds, making them pick up torches and drop them exactly where the wildfire had been launched.
The explosions came from where they could not see. They only saw the flames rising into the sky before stabilizing, burning high above.
"Formation! Giants!", Lackov shouted. It was time to advance!
The group of giants formed up and quickly raised large shields, advancing at the front, carrying protections larger than their own bodies. They began to march, climbing the hill, while the Arctican infantry soldiers came right behind, also marching with shields and swords.
The despair of the ironborn up there had reached its peak.
Some began to jump directly into the sea where the fortress of Pyke had collapsed. Others tried to escape through the other side of the island, clinging to the rocks, trying to descend to reach the forests in search of shelter.
While the flames still burned throughout the place, the sound of the Arcticans' footsteps crossing the wildfire began to echo.
They were approaching.
And that… was an extermination.
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