The canvas tarps were pulled back.
Underneath lay three monsters.
They were squat, black, and ugly. They did not have the elegance of a sword or the grace of a bow. They were thick tubes of cast iron mounted on sturdy oak carriages with iron rimmed wheels.
"What... what are they?" Jory asked, staring at the black beasts.
"These are 12 pound field guns," Andar said, patting the cold metal barrel. "They throw a solid iron ball that weighs twelve pounds. Or..."
He pointed to a stack of strange tin canisters.
"...they throw these. Canister shot. A tin can filled with two hundred musket balls. When it fires the can bursts and turns the air into a wall of lead."
The men of the Iron Squad looked at the canisters and then at the cannons. They shivered. They understood the concept immediately. It was a giant shotgun.
"Hitch the oxen!" Andar ordered. "We march to the sea."
"My Lord," Cullen ran up, wringing his hands. "You are taking the entire defense force? You are leaving the Keep empty? What if they circle around?"
"They are Ironborn Cullen," Andar said, checking his pistol. "They are arrogant. They do not circle. They land. They burn. They loot. They expect peasants with pitchforks. They do not expect artillery."
He climbed onto his horse.
"We catch them on the beach. If we let them into the woods we lose our advantage. We end this today."
The march to the Stony Shore was grueling.
The cannons were heavy. The wheels sank into the mud and snow. The oxen groaned and the men cursed as they pushed and pulled the heavy guns over tree roots and rocks.
But Andar pushed them relentlessy.
"Push!" Andar shouted. "Every minute we waste another house burns! Another woman dies! Push!"
They could smell the smoke before they saw the sea.
The thick black smoke of burning thatch rose into the grey sky. The wind carried the sound of screams and the harsh laughter of raiders.
They reached the ridge overlooking the fishing village of Sea Dragon Point.
Andar signaled for a halt. He pulled out a brass telescope (one of the first prototypes made by his Myrish lens maker) and looked down.
The scene below was a nightmare.
Three longships were beached on the grey pebbles. They had the golden kraken sails of House Greyjoy.
About sixty Ironborn raiders were rampaging through the small village. They were dragging sacks of grain, barrels of ale, and weeping women toward the ships. Bodies of fishermen lay in the surf, their blood staining the white foam red.
The leader of the raiders was a massive man with a bald head and a long red beard. He was sitting on a barrel drinking wine, watching his men torture a village elder.
"Dagmer Cleftjaw," Andar whispered, recognizing the famous reaver by the scar that split his lip. "A legend of the Iron Islands."
Jory crawled up beside Andar. He looked down at the massacre. His face went white, then red with rage.
"My Lord," Jory hissed. "They are killing them. We have to charge."
"No charge," Andar said coldly. "We set up the line."
He pointed to the ridge. It was about three hundred yards from the beach. A perfect killing ground.
"Unlimber the guns here," Andar ordered. "Camouflage them with brush. I want canister shot loaded. Double charges."
"Double charges?" The gunnery sergeant looked nervous. "My Lord the barrel might burst."
"It is cast from high grade pig iron," Andar said. "It will hold. Load it."
The Iron Squad moved quickly. They were angry. They saw what was happening below. They saw their people bleeding. They wanted blood.
The three cannons were wheeled into position. Branches were piled in front of them to hide their silhouettes.
Fifty musketeers formed two lines on either side of the artillery.
"Wait for my signal," Andar said. "Do not fire until I drop my hand."
Down on the beach Dagmer Cleftjaw laughed.
He wiped wine from his beard and kicked the old man lying in the sand.
"Where is the silver?" Dagmer roared. "I know you Northerners hide it under the floorboards!"
"We have no silver," the old man wheezed, coughing blood. "The winter... it has been hard..."
"Hard?" Dagmer grinned. "It is about to get harder."
He turned to his men.
"Burn the rest of the huts! Take the girls to the ships! We sail for Deepwood Keep next! I hear the Stark boy there is playing in the mud!"
The Ironborn cheered. They raised their axes and torches. They felt invincible. They were the wolves of the sea and the North was their prey.
"Captain!"
A raider pointed to the ridge.
"Look! Someone is watching us!"
Dagmer looked up. He squinted.
He saw a single figure on a horse standing on the crest of the hill. A small man in a black coat.
"Is that the Stark boy?" Dagmer laughed. "He came out to watch his people die? How polite of him."
Dagmer grabbed his axe.
"Lads! Form up! Let us go capture a Lordling! The ransom will buy us wine for a year!"
The Ironborn abandoned their loot. They formed a loose shield wall. They banged their axes against their round shields. Clang. Clang. Clang.
They started to run up the hill.
They were screaming their war cries. "What is dead may never die!"
They were fast. They covered the distance quickly. Two hundred yards. One hundred and fifty yards.
On the ridge Andar watched them come.
He sat motionless on his horse. He watched the faces of the raiders. He saw their bloodlust. He saw their teeth.
"Steady," Andar said to his men.
The musketeers were trembling. A charge of sixty screaming Vikings was terrifying. Every instinct screamed at them to run.
"Hold," Andar commanded.
One hundred yards.
The Ironborn were close enough now that Andar could smell their unwashed bodies. Dagmer was in the lead, his eyes locked on Andar.
"I am coming for you boy!" Dagmer screamed.
Seventy yards.
"Now," Andar said.
He dropped his hand.
The brush covering the three cannons was pulled away.
Dagmer stopped running. He blinked.
He saw three black holes staring at him. He did not know what they were. But his instinct, honed by fifty years of war, screamed danger.
"Fire!"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The world ended.
Three cannons fired simultaneously.
Six hundred lead musket balls erupted from the barrels at the speed of sound. The canister casings shredded instantly, turning the projectiles into a spreading cone of death.
It was not a battle. It was an erasure.
The front rank of the Ironborn simply vanished.
Dagmer Cleftjaw, the legendary reaver, the man who had survived a hundred battles, was turned into red mist. His shield, his armor, his axe, his body... they were shredded by a dozen balls before he even heard the sound of the gun.
Behind him the carnage was absolute.
The lead balls tore through flesh and bone and wood. They punched through three men at a time. Arms were severed. Heads exploded. Chests were hollowed out.
In one second forty men were dead or dying.
The charge was broken instantly.
The surviving twenty Ironborn stood in the middle of a slaughterhouse. They were covered in the blood of their captain. They were deafened by the roar. They looked around in confusion, their brains unable to process what had just happened.
Where was the enemy? Where were the arrows?
"Iron Squad!" Andar's voice cut through the ringing silence. "Present!"
The fifty musketeers stepped forward. They leveled their rifles.
"Fire!"
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
A ripple of smoke.
The remaining Ironborn danced as the bullets hit them. They fell one by one, jerking like puppets with their strings cut.
Within ten seconds it was over.
Silence returned to the Stony Shore, broken only by the lapping of the waves and the moans of the dying.
Andar looked down at the field of corpses.
There was no glory here. It was industrial efficiency applied to human life.
"Reload," Andar ordered. "And check the bodies. If they are moving put a ball in their head."
He rode down the hill.
The villagers were coming out of hiding. They looked at the carnage. They looked at the piles of dead raiders. They looked at the smoking black guns on the ridge.
They looked at Andar with fear.
Andar rode past them toward the longships.
"Jory," Andar called out.
"My Lord?" Jory was pale. He had vomited after seeing what the canister shot did to a human body.
"Take the longships," Andar said. "We need the timber. And mount the cannons on the biggest one."
He looked out at the grey sea.
"The Iron Islands will send more. And next time we will not wait for them on the beach. We will meet them in the water."
[Quest Complete: Defense of Stony Shore]
[Enemy Defeated: Dagmer Cleftjaw]
[Reward: Naval Tech Tree Unlocked]
[Reputation: The Butcher of the North (Gained)]
Andar looked at the notification.
The Butcher.
He smiled grimly.
"Better a butcher than a sheep," he whispered.
....
Author Note
Hi guys! Thank you for reading my fanfiction.
I wanted to let you know that I'm releasing bonus chapters for Power Stones. Here are the goals:
25 Power Stones: 1 Bonus Chapters
50 Power Stones: 1 Bonus Chapters
75 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
100 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
Thanks for the support!