A Clash of Kings (105 page)

A flight of flickering orange birds took wing from the castle, twenty or thirty of them; pots of burning pitch, arcing out over the river trailing threads of flame. The waters ate most, but a few found the decks of galleys in the first line of battle, spreading flame when they shattered. Men-at-arms were scrambling on
Queen Alysanne
’s deck, and he could see smoke rising from three different spots on
Dragonsbane
, nearest the bank. By then a second flight was on its way, and arrows were falling as well, hissing down from the archers’ nests that studded the towers above. A soldier tumbled over
Cat
’s gunwale, crashed off the oars, and sank.
The first man to die today
, Davos thought,
but he will not be the last
.

Atop the Red Keep’s battlements streamed the boy king’s banners: the crowned stag of Baratheon on its gold field, the lion of Lannister on crimson. More pots of pitch came flying. Davos heard men shriek as fire spread across
Courageous
. Her oarsmen were safe below, protected from mi1ssiles by the half deck that sheltered them, but the men-at-arms crowded topside were not so fortunate. The starboard wing was taking all the damage, as he had feared.
It will be our turn soon
, he reminded himself, uneasy.
Black Betha
was well in range of the firepots, being the sixth ship out from the north bank. To starboard, she had only Allard’s
Lady Marya
, the ungainly
Swordfish
—so far behind now that she was nearer the third line than the second—and
Piety, Prayer, and Devotion
, who would need all the godly intervention they could get, placed as vulnerably as they were.

As the second line swept past the twin towers, Davos took a closer look. He could see three links of a huge chain snaking out from a hole no bigger than a man’s head and disappearing under the water. The towers had a single door, set a good twenty feet off the ground. Bowmen on the roof of the northern tower were firing down at
Prayer
and
Devotion
. The archers on
Devotion
fired back, and Davos heard a man scream as the arrows found him.

“Captain ser.” His son Matthos was at his elbow. “Your helm.” Davos took it with both hands and slid it over his head. The pothelm was visorless; he hated having his vision impeded.

By then the pitch pots were raining down around them. He saw one shatter on the deck of
Lady Marya
, but Allard’s crew quickly beat it out. To port, warhorns sounded from the
Pride of Driftmark
. The oars flung up sprays of water with every stroke. The yard-long shaft of a scorpion came down not two feet from Matthos and sank into the wood of the deck, thrumming. Ahead, the first line was within bowshot of the enemy; flights of arrows flew between the ships, hissing like striking snakes.

South of the Blackwater, Davos saw men dragging crude rafts toward the water while ranks and columns formed up beneath a thousand streaming banners. The fiery heart was everywhere, though the tiny black stag imprisoned in the flames was too small to make out.
We should be flying the crowned stag
, he thought.
The stag was King Robert’s sigil, the city would rejoice to see it. This stranger’s standard serves only to set men against us
.

He could not behold the fiery heart without thinking of the shadow Melisandre had birthed in the gloom beneath Storm’s End.
At least we fight this battle in the light, with the weapons of honest men
, he told himself. The red woman and her dark children would have no part of it. Stannis had shipped her back to Dragonstone with his bastard nephew Edric Storm. His captains and bannermen had insisted that a battlefield was no place for a woman. Only the queen’s men had dissented, and then not loudly. All the same, the king had been on the point of refusing them until Lord Bryce Caron said, “Your Grace, if the sorceress is with us, afterward men will say it was her victory, not yours. They will say you owe your crown to her spells.” That had turned the tide. Davos himself had held his tongue during the arguments, but if truth be told, he had not been sad to see the back of her. He wanted no part of Melisandre or her god.

To starboard,
Devotion
drove toward shore, sliding out a plank. Archers scrambled into the shallows, holding their bows high over their heads to keep the strings dry. They splashed ashore on the narrow strand beneath the bluffs. Rocks came bouncing down from the castle to crash among them, and arrows and spears as well, but the angle was steep and the missiles seemed to do little damage.

Prayer
landed two dozen yards upstream and
Piety
was slanting toward the bank when the defenders came pounding down the riverside, the hooves of their warhorses sending u1p gouts of water from the shallows. The knights fell among the archers like wolves among chickens, driving them back toward the ships and into the river before most could notch an arrow. Men-at-arms rushed to defend them with spear and axe, and in three heartbeats the scene had turned to blood-soaked chaos. Davos recognized the dog’s-head helm of the Hound. A white cloak streamed from his shoulders as he rode his horse up the plank onto the deck of
Prayer
, hacking down anyone who blundered within reach.

Beyond the castle, King’s Landing rose on its hills behind the encircling walls. The riverfront was a blackened desolation; the Lannisters had burned everything and pulled back within the Mud Gate. The charred spars of sunken hulks sat in the shallows, forbidding access to the long stone quays.
We shall have no landing there
. He could see the tops of three huge trebuchets behind the Mud Gate. High on Visenya’s Hill, sunlight blazed off the seven crystal towers of the Great Sept of Baelor.

Davos never saw the battle joined, but he heard it; a great rending crash as two galleys came together. He could not say which two. Another impact echoed over the water an instant later, and then a third. Beneath the screech of splintering wood, he heard the deep
thrum-thump
of the
Fury
’s fore catapult.
Stag of the Sea
split one of Joffrey’s galleys clean in two, but
Dog’s Nose
was afire and
Queen Alysanne
was locked between
Lady of Silk
and
Lady’s Shame
, her crew fighting the boarders rail-to-rail.

Directly ahead, Davos saw the enemy’s
Kingslander
drive between
Faithful
and
Sceptre
. The former slid her starboard oars out of the way before impact, but
Sceptre
’s portside oars snapped like so much kindling as
Kingslander
raked along her side. “Loose,” Davos commanded, and his bowmen sent a withering rain of shafts across the water. He saw
Kingslander
’s captain fall, and tried to recall the man’s name.

Ashore, the arms of the great trebuchets rose one, two, three, and a hundred stones climbed high into the yellow sky. Each one was as large as a man’s head; when they fell they sent up great gouts of water, smashed through oak planking, and turned living men into bone and pulp and gristle. All across the river the first line was engaged. Grappling hooks were flung out, iron rams crashed through wooden hulls, boarders swarmed, flights of arrows whispered through each other in the drifting smoke, and men died . . . but so far, none of his.

Black Betha
swept upriver, the sound of her oarmaster’s drum thundering in her captain’s head as he looked for a likely victim for her ram. The beleaguered
Queen Alysanne
was trapped between two Lannister warships, the three made fast by hooks and lines.

“
Ramming speed!
” Davos shouted.

The drumbeats blurred into a long fevered hammering, and
Black Betha
flew, the water turning white as milk as it parted for her prow. Allard had seen the same chance;
Lady Marya
ran beside them. The first line had been transformed into a confusion of separate struggles. The three tangled ships loomed ahead, turning, their decks a red chaos as men hacked at each other with sword and axe.
A little more
, Davos Seaworth beseeched the Warrior,
bring her around a little more, show me her broadside
.

The Warrior must have been listening.
Black Betha
and
Lady Marya
slammed into the side of
Lady’s Shame
within an instant of each other, ramming her fore and aft with such force that men were thrown off the deck of
Lady of Silk
three boats away. Davos 1almost bit his tongue off when his teeth jarred together. He spat out blood.
Next time close your mouth, you fool
. Forty years at sea, and yet this was the first time he’d rammed another ship. His archers were loosing arrows at will.

“Back water,” he commanded. When
Black Betha
reversed her oars, the river rushed into the splintered hole she left, and
Lady’s Shame
fell to pieces before his eyes, spilling dozens of men into the river. Some of the living swam; some of the dead floated; the ones in heavy mail and plate sank to the bottom, the quick and the dead alike. The pleas of drowning men echoed in his ears.

A flash of green caught his eye, ahead and off to port, and a nest of writhing emerald serpents rose burning and hissing from the stern of
Queen Alysanne
. An instant later Davos heard the dread cry of “
Wildfire!
”

He grimaced. Burning pitch was one thing, wildfire quite another. Evil stuff, and well-nigh unquenchable. Smother it under a cloak and the cloak took fire; slap at a fleck of it with your palm and your hand was aflame. “Piss on wildfire and your cock burns off,” old seamen liked to say. Still, Ser Imry had warned them to expect a taste of the alchemists’ vile
substance
. Fortunately, there were few true pyromancers left.
They will soon run out
, Ser Imry had assured them.

Davos reeled off commands; one bank of oars pushed off while the other backed water, and the galley came about.
Lady Marya
had won clear too, and a good thing; the fire was spreading over
Queen Alysanne
and her foes faster than he would have believed possible. Men wreathed in green flame leapt into the water, shrieking like nothing human. On the walls of King’s Landing, spitfires were belching death, and the great trebuchets behind the Mud Gate were throwing boulders. One the size of an ox crashed down between
Black Betha
and
Wraith
, rocking both ships and soaking every man on deck. Another, not much smaller, found
Bold Laughter
. The Velaryon galley exploded like a child’s toy dropped from a tower, spraying splinters as long as a man’s arm.

Through black smoke and swirling green fire, Davos glimpsed a swarm of small boats bearing downriver: a confusion of ferries and wherries, barges, skiffs, rowboats, and hulks that looked too rotten to float. It stank of desperation; such driftwood could not turn the tide of a fight, only get in the way. The lines of battle were hopelessly ensnarled, he saw. Off to port,
Lord Steffon
,
Ragged Jenna
, and
Swift Sword
had broken through and were sweeping upriver. The starboard wing was heavily engaged, however, and the center had shattered under the stones of those trebuchets, some captains turning downstream, others veering to port, anything to escape that crushing rain.
Fury
had swung her aft catapult to fire back at the city, but she lacked the range; the barrels of pitch were shattering under the walls.
Sceptre
had lost most of her oars, and
Faithful
had been rammed and was starting to list. He took
Black Betha
between them, and struck a glancing blow at Queen Cersei’s ornate carved-and-gilded pleasure barge, laden with soldiers instead of sweetmeats now. The collision spilled a dozen of them into the river, where
Betha
’s archers picked them off as they tried to stay afloat.

Matthos’s shout alerted him to the danger from port; one of the Lannister galleys was coming about to ram. “Hard to starboard,” Davos shouted. His men used their oars to push free of the barge, while others turned the galley so her prow faced the onrushing
White Hart
. For a moment he feared he’d been too slow, that he was about to be sunk, but the current helped swing
Black B1etha
, and when the impact came it was only a glancing blow, the two hulls scraping against each other, both ships snapping oars. A jagged piece of wood flew past his head, sharp as any spear. Davos flinched. “Board her!” he shouted. Grappling lines were flung. He drew his sword and led them over the rail himself.

The crew of the
White Hart
met them at the rail, but
Black Betha
’s men-at-arms swept over them in a screaming steel tide. Davos fought through the press, looking for the other captain, but the man was dead before he reached him. As he stood over the body, someone caught him from behind with an axe, but his helm turned the blow, and his skull was left ringing when it might have been split. Dazed, it was all he could do to roll. His attacker charged screaming. Davos grasped his sword in both hands and drove it up point first into the man’s belly.

One of his crewmen pulled him back to his feet. “Captain ser, the
Hart
is ours.” It was true, Davos saw. Most of the enemy were dead, dying, or yielded. He took off his helm, wiped blood from his face, and made his way back to his own ship, trodding carefully on boards slimy with men’s guts. Matthos lent him a hand to help him back over the rail.

For those few instants,
Black Betha
and
White Hart
were the calm eye in the midst of the storm.
Queen Alysanne
and
Lady of Silk
, still locked together, were a ranging green inferno, drifting downriver and dragging pieces of
Lady’s Shame
. One of the Myrish galleys had slammed into them and was now afire as well.
Cat
was taking on men from the fast-sinking
Courageous
. The captain of
Dragonsbane
had driven her between two quays, ripping out her bottom; her crew poured ashore with the archers and men-at-arms to join the assault on the walls.
Red Raven
, rammed, was slowly listing.
Stag of the Sea
was fighting fires and boarders both, but the fiery heart had been raised over Joffrey’s
Loyal Man
.
Fury
, her proud bow smashed in by a boulder, was engaged with
Godsgrace
. He saw Lord Velaryon’s
Pride of Driftmark
crash between two Lannister river runners, overturning one and lighting the other up with fire arrows. On the south bank, knights were leading their mounts aboard the cogs, and some of the smaller galleys were already making their way across, laden with men-at-arms. They had to thread cautiously between sinking ships and patches of drifting wildfire. The whole of King Stannis’s fleet was in the river now, save for Salladhor Saan’s Lyseni. Soon enough they would control the Blackwater.
Ser Imry will have his victory
, Davos thought,
and Stannis will bring his host across, but gods be good, the cost of this
. . .