Roads to Power

288AC

The winds screamed through the Straits of Fair Isle, carrying the bitter tang of salt and blood. Waves crashed against the hulls of longships, their ironbound prows carving through the roiling waters. To the west loomed the rugged cliffs of Fair Isle, their edges jagged like a wolf's fangs, and to the east stretched the shadowed coastline of the Westerlands. The straits were a narrow throat, and the Ironborn fleet, once so proud, now found itself caught within it.

The battle had raged since dawn. The sky overhead was a chaotic swirl of storm clouds, flashes of lightning illuminating the carnage below. Stannis Baratheon's royal fleet, bolstered by the might of the Arbor and Oldtown, pressed from the north and south, their larger warships hemming in the Iron Fleet like wolves encircling their prey. Each crash of steel on steel, each explosion of splintering wood, sent echoes over the waves, mingling with the cries of the dying and the roar of the sea.

Victarion Greyjoy stood on the deck of the Iron Victory, his axe clutched tightly in one hand, his other gripping the railing as the ship rocked violently beneath him. His face was a mask of fury, the salt spray mingling with the blood splattered across his weathered features. Around him, his men fought with the ferocity of cornered animals, their voices raised in guttural war cries.

"Hold the line!" Victarion bellowed, his voice cutting through the chaos. His eyes scanned the horizon, seeking an opening, a path to escape the noose tightening around his fleet. Instead, he saw the Fury, Stannis's flagship, bearing down on them like a leviathan of old. Its prow, carved into the shape of a stag, split the waves with relentless determination.

Nearby, Aeron Greyjoy clung to the mast of the Golden Storm, his youngest brother's ship. The deck was a slaughterhouse, strewn with the bodies of Ironborn sailors and their enemies alike. Aeron's hair was plastered to his face, his lips moving in fervent prayer.

"The Drowned God will deliver us!" he cried, though his voice trembled with doubt. The words were swallowed by the cacophony around him as a fiery projectile from the Fury arced through the air. It struck the Golden Storm's hull with devastating precision, the explosion of fire and splinters engulfing the ship in a hellish blaze.

Victarion roared in rage as he watched the ship burn, its crew's screams mingling with the roar of the flames. His knuckles turned white as he gripped his axe tighter. Aeron was gone. His youngest brother was consumed by fire. The grief was a distant, cold weight; there was no time to mourn. Only the fight remained.

Stannis Pov

Stannis stood at the helm of his flagship, his face a granite mask in the flickering light of battle. His dark blue eyes were fixed on the Iron Victory, the ship's black sails and Kraken sigils defiant even as the tide of battle turned against it. Beside him, Ser Davos Seaworth, the Onion Knight, clutched the hilt of his sword, his expression grim.

"The Ironborn fight like madmen," Davos said, his voice low but steady. "They'll not surrender, my lord."

"Good," Stannis replied, his tone as cold as the wind whipping through the rigging. "Surrender is weakness. Let them die with their pride. It will save us the trouble of rooting them out later."

"And what of their commander?" Davos pressed, nodding toward the distant figure of Victarion Greyjoy. "He won't go down easily."

Stannis's gaze remained fixed on the battle. "Victarion is a brute. Brutes are predictable. He will charge. When he does, we will break him."

The battle below seemed to confirm Stannis's prediction. The Ironborn's longships darted between the larger royal warships, their agility making them difficult to pin down. But the royal fleet's discipline and superior firepower began to tell. Each fiery barrage from the Fury and its sister ships chipped away at the Iron Fleet's numbers, turning the once-proud armada into scattered fragments.

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Power Stones!!!!!!!!