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Blackfish Out Of Water by jacobk
 Books » A song of Ice and Fire Rated: M, English, Adventure & Fantasy, Brynden T., Words: 96k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Apr 30, 2016 Updated: Sep 15, 2016801Chapter 21
AN: Moving sucks.
ooOoo
I found that Rodrik had been completely truthful about the state of the men. After I resumed command I discovered that the day to day routine had reached a pleasant equilibrium of hard, productive training during the day followed by what certainly sounded like cheerful bullshitting around the fire in the evening. I was a little concerned that the men might enjoy camp life a bit too much and find themselves reluctant to march back out to war, but not overly so. Our recruits were too young to be thinking about settling down to a farm and a family. They still yearned to make a name for themselves in battle.
There wasn't much danger in the other direction either, of men grumbling about inactivity. There might have been, but they knew another thousand men were being trained to join the legion and shared the assumption that they would be hitting the campaign trail again once those reinforcements arrived. Any kind of waiting is made more bearable by knowing when it will end.
For myself, I put in my time on physical training. A man of more than forty years can't afford to slack on that kind of thing if he wants to make his living at war. I had knocked off most of the rust accumulated during my recent travels back at the training camp, but I could always stand to be just a little bit sharper. I didn't anticipate running into anybody else in Essos who wanted to kill me personally, but then I hadn't anticipated running into Willem Darry either.
I also took the time to catch up on my paperwork. Synthesizing all of our after action reports into a coherent narrative was a long term project, but it wasn't going to get any easier if I put off getting started. Petyr's bookkeeping still warranted the occasional audit and there were plenty of miscellaneous bits and pieces of paper that could benefit from my personal attention.
By far the most pleasant of those dispatches was the news that Darla was pregnant once more. She wrote to inform me of the news and ask if I had any suggestions for names. That warranted some thought. She'd been fairly set on Tytos's name from the jump out of gratitude towards the man who had arranged her side of our introduction. I'd been happy to let her have it. I'd done a little research and hadn't managed to find anybody named Jacob on this stupid planet. Apparently it didn't make the cut when Martin was deciding on Westeros's equivalent of biblical names. I figured for a third or fourth kid it might be something I could justify as a name I picked up in Essos somewhere. For now... I wrote back to let her know I'd be happy with any Tully name-bar Hoster, there were enough of those running around the Riverlands already-or Willem.
I kind of hoped we had a boy and Darla went with Willem. Would it lead to an embarrassing conversation with the boy at some point? Perhaps. Would it provide an excuse to retell the anecdote of his (probable) conception to all manner of people? Definitely.
Other than that, things were fairly routine. Petyr even seemed to be keeping honest accounts of the money I'd entrusted to him. I double-checked the petty cash box and every coin he'd claimed was there was in fact there. If he was cheating me subtly enough to get away with it I was willing to call it a fair wage. If he was cheating the men too blatantly I figured the problem would sort itself out on the battlefield soon enough.
All in all, it was an almost idyllic experience. As I was boarding the boat that would take me back to the training camp for the graduation ceremony, it occurred to me that Tyrosh was essentially paying me handsomely to train up my men. It was nice, but it didn't seem like the kind of thing that could last forever.
ooOoo
I stood in the field that had served as the neutral zone between our two armies for almost a year now. Before me our men stood arrayed in ranks facing the enemy camp. The newly expanded Sunset Legion occupied the center of our line. Two thousand men strong, the legion was organized into three columns. The first was fifty men wide by fifteen men deep. The secondary column was of a similar size, positioned to the left of the main column and seven or eight paces behind it. The reserve column was fifteen men wide and about fifty men deep. The Windblown were deployed as skirmishers to either side of the legion, with their cavalry evenly distributed between the right and left hand side.
The Sunset Legion troops were overwhelmingly carrying pikes, of course. Perhaps one out of ten were wielding crossbows while another one out of ten carried halberds. The Windblown were armed according to their personal preferences. The majority seemed to favor swords of one form or another, but I could see men wielding various polearms, battle axes, and even a few war hammers.
I had mixed the newly trained legionnaires in with their more experienced brethren. The new troops made up roughly a third of the primary column, half of the secondary column, and two thirds of the reserve. I was confident in their training but it only made sense to use my veteran forces as the tip of the spear, so to speak.
This was the third day since I had returned to the Disputed Lands with my newly trained troops and the third morning that we had spent standing in this field, offering battle. So far our opposition didn't seem inclined to take us up on it, even though they still outnumbered us by more than a thousand men. I didn't blame them. I wouldn't have wanted to face my boys in open battle either.
This particular morning we had been graced with a light rain shower. It was more pleasant than direct sunshine for men in armor, although things could become unpleasant quickly if the rain picked up enough to really soak us through. At the moment the rain was just making the ground a bit slippery and bringing out the smell of fresh grass and unwashed men.
This morning wasn't just special for the rain. It was also the day we were going to break this standoff. I'd been right that Tyrosh wasn't going to be content to pay us forever just to sit around and passively hold territory. In addition to paying for the expansion of the Sunset Legion, they had also opened up their vaults and shelled out the gold required to send us a platoon of combat engineers.
I smiled as the first wagon rounded the corner of the road leading back to our camp. It was loaded down with enough material that it was leaving visible ruts in the dirt. Windblown men that had been pressed into manual labor soon had the wagon unloaded, then the next, and the next. Then the engineers went to work. It took some time-I had the men stand down and take a snack and water break-but they didn't waste any effort and eventually turned the collection of wooden parts into a massive frame supporting a long lever arm.
Windblown men were again pressed into service to shovel dirt into the counterweight. They finished their work and attached a sling to the lever arm just as another wagon rolled up, this one piled with boulders. Ironically, this was one area where I was learning new things about technology. While I could describe the effects of all sorts of high powered weapons I couldn't actually build any of them. Even now, watching this one go up, I could kind of puzzle out how it worked but I couldn't tell you any specifics. Drawing on Brynden's memories I knew this wasn't the largest trebuchet he'd ever seen but that it should be more than enough for the job.
The really monstrously huge trebuchets could smash down stone walls. Wooden field fortifications should pose much less of an obstacle.
A group of men went to work cranking the windlass attached to the side of the machine. The lever arm gradually lowered as the counterweight rose. Once it touched the ground, several men carried one of the boulders over and loaded up the sling. They quickly scampered out of the way once the boulder was in place. The leader of the engineers looked to the Tattered Prince for approval. His arm rose, then fell.
A firing trebuchet moves with deceptive speed. The firing arm doesn't jump with a sudden snap like a catapult. Instead it accelerates smoothly, whipping through the air completely unhindered by the hundred pounds or more loaded into the sling. In this case, the rock was sent sailing smoothly through the air to come crashing down ten yards short of the wooden palisade guarding the enemy camp. The rock bounced forward once, twice, before hitting the wall and coming to rest. A few seconds later the crack of impact reached us. The wall had rattled a bit but still stood strong.
The head engineer called over the men and had them load more dirt into the counterweight. The next boulder caught the wall in flight, crashing through and leaving a several foot wide gap punched into the palisade.
It was at this point that the enemy soldiers began streaming out of their camp. They must have seen the trebuchet being put together, but I suppose it was natural to want to believe in your fortifications until it was proven that they wouldn't work. The trebuchet kept hammering away at the palisade as the soldiers started to form up. We could have tried to target the soldiers but we had decided ahead of time that denying the enemy a safe place to retreat was more important.
Also, of course, a trebuchet was not exactly a precision targeted weapon. Cool though it was to fling massive boulders through the air, you couldn't dial in a trajectory in the way that a more modern artillery piece would allow. We also weren't using high explosives. A boulder is a rather all or nothing affair. If it hits you, that's pretty much that. If it lands next to you it's terrifying but it won't do you any physical harm. All in all, aiming at a fixed structure was the best use of the thing.
For their part, our enemies could have chosen to shelter in place. Anybody who didn't get squashed by a flying boulder would be fine, and if they were at all smart about things they could make sure that most of them wouldn't get hit. The problem with that approach is the morale factor. Crouching in place for hours as meteor strikes smash up your camp all around is not the kind of thing that leaves an army ready and raring for a fight. If they were going to fend us off their best bet was to beat us in the open field and destroy our artillery or even turn it to their own use.
Apparently the opposing commander agreed with my take on the situation. As I watched the somewhat panicky stream of men formed up into the more disciplined ranks of a proper army, no longer flinching at the periodic crash of falling rocks.
These guys weren't as well drilled on unit tactics as the legion, but they were veteran sellswords who had been working together for over a year. They put the bulk of their men in the center with smaller screening forces out on the wings. The center unit looked to be made up of more heavily armed and armored men. They all seemed to be wearing at least a breast plate and helm and I saw more than a few in full plate. Quite a few of them were wielding two handed swords, although there were also a wide variety of polearms in evidence. Anywhere in Westeros this would be considered a very respectable collection of heavy infantry.
From where we stood the ground sloped up gently towards the enemy forces. Looking up towards them I could see the first few riders from the Long Lances behind them exiting the camp and starting to form up. The infantry forces didn't wait for the cavalry to finish assembling, instead starting their attack as soon as they felt ready. The sound of their war cries reached us a few seconds after we saw them surge forward.
I nodded at Rodrik to signal the advance.
A grin stole its way onto my face almost against my will at the imminent prospect of battle.
ooOoo
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