The moon was a sliver of bone behind the clouds as the Manderly galleys drifted into the harbor of Lordsport with their oars muffled in grease and cloth. No drums beat. No war horns sounded. The only noise was the rhythmic slap of the grey waves against the hulls.
On the lead deck, Karlon checked the straps of his blackened breastplate. Behind him, five hundred men stood in absolute, eerie silence, a stark contrast to the drunken revelry echoing from the town's alehouses. The Ironborn, convinced the royal fleet was days away and still anchored at Lannisport, hadn't even lit the watch-beacons.
"Pikes at the ready," Karlon whispered, his voice carrying through the disciplined ranks. "No shouting. No mercy for those who don't drop their steel. We take the docks, then we take the bridge to Pyke."
As the prows crunched into the shingle, the "New Model" army poured out like a shadow.
The first Ironborn sentry didn't even have time to scream; a Northern crossbow bolt took him in the throat before he could reach his horn. By the time the town realized it was under attack, Karlon's pikes had already formed a lethal hedgehog in the center of the main thoroughfare.
"RAIDERS!" an Ironborn captain finally bellowed, stumbling out of a longhall with a bearded axe. "TO THE SHIPS! THE WOLVES ARE..."
His words were cut short as a wall of steel surged forward. Unlike a traditional Northman charge, which was a wild rush of fur and claymores, this was a machine. The front rank knelt with pikes braced; the second rank thrust over their shoulders. It was a meat-grinder of First Men discipline.
Karlon moved at the center of the formation, his eyes scanning for the Lordsport commander. He saw a cluster of veteran reavers rallying near the harbor-master's tower.
"Forward! Level pikes!" Karlon commanded.
The legion moved as one. The Ironborn, accustomed to individual glory and chaotic brawling, found themselves stabbing at air while the Northern pikes impaled them from three feet away. In the narrow streets of the port, numbers meant nothing, geometry meant everything.
By the time the sun began to bleed over the horizon, the Merman's banner and the Stark Direwolf were flying over the burning docks. The path to the Great Keep of Pyke was open, and the town was a tomb of silent Ironborn.
In the distance, the sails of the Royal Fleet appeared on the skyline. King Robert would arrive to find the port already secured, the bridgeheads held, and the "boy" he had mocked standing over the ruins of Balon Greyjoy's primary harbor.
Karlon wiped a spray of salt and blood from his cheek, looking up at the twisted towers of Pyke. "Signal the King," he told his herald. "Tell him the gates are ready for his hammer."
The smoke from the burning warehouses of Lordsport swirled in the salty gale, masking the true danger. Karlon stood near the base of the great stone bridge leading to Pyke, his pikes transitioning from a march to a defensive perimeter.
Suddenly, a roar of pure, brine-soaked fury erupted from a collapsed tavern.
Rodrik Greyjoy, Balon's eldest son and heir, burst through the embers. He wasn't a scholarly "Reader" like Harlaw; he was a mountain of muscle and madness, wielding a massive bearded axe that had already tasted Northern blood. He didn't aim for the pikes—he leaped over them, his momentum carrying him directly at Karlon.
"WOLF-PUP!" Rodrik screamed, his axe whistling through the air.
Karlon barely brought his sword up in time. The impact was like a falling smithy's hammer. The force vibrated through Karlon's bones, dropping him to one knee. He was ten years old, his "New Model" discipline was perfect, but his biology was still that of a child.
Rodrik didn't give him a second to breathe. The axe swung again, a horizontal reaper's stroke. Karlon rolled, the blade shattering the stone where his head had been a heartbeat before. As Karlon scrambled up, Rodrik's backhand blow caught him in the shoulder.
The sound of plate-steel buckling was sickening. Karlon felt his left arm go numb, the mail biting deep into his flesh, nearly severing the limb at the joint. White-hot agony flared in his vision. He stumbled back, his left arm dangling uselessly, his fingers slick with his own blood.
Rodrik grinned, a gap-toothed snarl of victory. "I'll send your head back to Ned in a crab-basket!"
He raised the axe for the killing blow. Karlon, grounded in the cold clarity of his past life's knowledge, didn't retreat. He stepped in.
As Rodrik swung down, Karlon dropped flat, letting the axe pass inches above his hair. In one fluid, desperate motion, he pivoted on his good arm and swung his longsword in a low, vicious arc. The steel bit through boiled leather and bone just above the knees.
Rodrik's scream was cut short as his legs went out from under him. He hit the cobbles with a wet thud, the heir to the Iron Islands suddenly half the man he had been.
Karlon didn't stop. He crawled toward the screaming Greyjoy, his face a mask of pale, sweating determination. He grabbed a nearby torch from a wall-bracket.
"You don't get to die yet, Rodrik," Karlon hissed through gritted teeth.
With a brutal, stomach-turning hiss, Karlon pressed the white-hot brand against the jagged stumps of Rodrik's legs. The smell of charred meat filled the air, mingling with the salt. Rodrik's eyes rolled back in his head as he drifted into a shock-induced unconsciousness.
An hour later, the sun broke fully over the horizon. The Royal Fleet had docked, and the main host was pouring into the secured port.
King Robert strode through the ruins, his warhammer dripping, flanked by Ned Stark and a wary Tywin Lannister. They stopped dead at the entrance to the bridge.
Karlon was sitting on a jagged piece of fallen masonry. His left arm was bound tightly in a blood-soaked sling, his face ghostly white from blood loss. He was staring, unblinking, at the legless, cauterized form of Rodrik Greyjoy, who lay bound in iron chains at his feet.
Robert looked at the boy, then at the heir of Pyke, then back at the boy. The King's usual boisterous laughter died in his throat, replaced by a look of genuine awe—and perhaps a flicker of fear.
"Gods, Ned," Robert whispered, the wind whipping his black beard. "He didn't just beat him. He dismantled him."
Ned rushed forward, his stoic mask breaking as he knelt by his nephew. "Karlon! Your arm..."
"The port is ours, Uncle," Karlon said, his voice a hoarse whisper, his violet eyes finally turning to meet the King's. "And I have the Prince of Pyke. I believe he'll make a fine hostage for the North's security."
Tywin Lannister looked at the cauterized stumps, his mind already recalculating everything he knew about House Stark. The North hadn't just sent a commander; they had sent a monster in a boy's skin.