Opening Everyone's Eyes
Ten Towers is the castle of the House Harlaw. The ten spires look very tall, but they are actually built on more than a dozen coastal hills.
The port, which is closely connected to the castle, is where the armies and fleets of the Iron Islands gather like dark clouds. Rodrik Harlaw, who arrived earlier, greets Balon's arrival here.
Balon's Sea Bitch drew nearer, and Rodrik and his eldest son waited respectfully.
"Hmph, Greyjoy only gained control of the Iron Islands by submitting to the Dragon King. If he hadn't become king, we wouldn't have suffered such a great loss," Rodrik's eldest son, Derman, muttered to himself.
His two younger brothers died on the battlefield besieging Jon's army, and in addition to the earlier Battle of the Bay of Severed Heads, Boremund Harlaw, one of the branch families of Ten Towers, was directly attacked and destroyed.
The House Harlaw and the entire Harlaw Island have been severely weakened, and the losses of the vassals have been particularly severe. The House Kenning and House Myre have even become extinct. It can be said that it will take at least a decade or more for the entire Harlaw Island to recover.
"Alright! His Majesty will personally command this battle, so you'd better not let a second person hear what you said."
Rodrik warned.
In fact, he had already advised Balon against it when he last became king, and he still held reservations this time.
Stannis doesn't have the same charisma as his brother Robert this time, so the possibility of the Iron Islands becoming independent again is quite high, except for the variable of Jon.
Not long after, Balon appeared, surrounded by Aeron, Euron, and some guards. They were like tentacles reaching out from the dark cloud army behind them, and no matter what Harlaw and his son were thinking, they had to respectfully come to the "tentacles".
After exchanging greetings, Balon spoke up, "We all underestimated this Stark. I've brought almost the entire Iron Islands force with me this time. Since he's willing to come, then we'll keep them here permanently!"
"Thank you, Your Majesty. The House Harlaw will always be your most loyal subjects." Rodrik bowed his head, deliberately making his voice reveal obvious gratitude.
However, his son, Mande, did not agree with his father's attitude.
Since I can't express my dissatisfaction to Balon, it shouldn't be a problem to cause trouble for Euron.
So he approached Euron, who was wearing an eyepatch, and asked, "Euron, I've heard that your magic can destroy enemy fleets. I know I've been a bit presumptuous, but my brother and Harlaw of Grey Garden both perished in the battle against that bastard. The Iron Islands don't have any spare lives for you to squander. Since you can destroy an entire fleet, could you demonstrate your magic here, so that we can have some peace of mind?"
"Derman!" Rodrik's son had barely finished speaking when he interrupted him, though he didn't move an inch.
It was clear that he also couldn't understand why Balon would trust Euron time and time again.
Most of the Iron Islands ' forces are going to besiege Jon. If their United Fleet takes the opportunity to attack, and the attack is launched from within and without, they will all be wiped out.
The other families who came with him, such as the House Goodbrother, Walter, and House Stonehouse, were all eager to let Euron show off his skills.
Euron knew that if he wanted these people to fight honestly, he had to eliminate their worries.
So he stood on a high place and chanted incantations in Valyrian and Asshai'i.
Everyone watched with amusement, especially Rodrik's son, Derman, who stood with his arms crossed, one foot on a stone, looking completely disdainful.
However, the next second, Euron suddenly pulled out a gleaming dagger and slashed his own hand.
The force was so great that blood was even spilled on the ground.
The next second, everyone felt the wind suddenly become stronger, and the hems of their clothes and cloaks were blown up.
The horses became restless, and the flags fluttered in the wind.
However, the suddenly intensified evil wind quickly disappeared.
"That's it?" Derman said with a hint of provocation.
Euron quickly explained, "I merely sacrificed some blood. If the Iron Throne's fleet dares to attack, I will cut off my own arm to summon a storm!"
At this moment, Balon stepped forward and said, "I believe in Euron, and I will fight alongside you!"
Seeing that their emperor had said so, Derman could only endure it no matter how unwilling he was, and at his father's request, he apologized to Euron.
Euron gave Derman a deep look, indicating that he wouldn't blame him, but instead of ending his performance, he waved his hand.
A flock of crows flew in from afar, circling Euron, a sight that intimidated many.
"I will entrust these crows to you all. They will help us locate the enemy, and His Majesty will also use them to issue orders."
Euron waved his hand, and the crows scattered, landing on the shoulders of the lords.
Having witnessed the wonders of these crows, everyone, including Derman, reaffirmed their respect for Euron.
However, what puzzles some people is that if such a valuable resource existed, why were all eight thousand people killed?
They didn't dare ask Euron about this now, and Euron wouldn't answer their questions either; he simply returned to Balon's side.
In fact, he felt as if his internal organs had been fried in oil, and the word "useless" seemed to be engraved on his forehead.
I've died once, I've conquered fate, I don't even respect the gods.
However, the fact that one or two people came to provoke him repeatedly drove him almost insane.
Rodrik noticed that Aeron seemed to be deliberately avoiding Euron. When Euron spoke to Aeron, Aeron would always point her toes to the other side and her body would almost be turned away from Euron, as if she were trying to run away.
At the same time, she couldn't help but move closer to Balon, seemingly wanting to gain some sense of security from this older brother.
However, Rodrik didn't want to know what had happened between the brothers; perhaps Euron's displayed magic had frightened him. He just wanted to get Jon away as soon as possible and restore peace to Harlaw Island.
After a quick deployment, more than 30,000 troops from the Iron Islands had assembled near Ten Towers and began marching toward their target area.
The journey will pass some plantations where serfs are still clearing the farmland destroyed by Jon's army.
As far as the eye could see, there was only scorched earth. Every time Rodrik saw such a scene, he felt his heart bleeding.
As their army passed by, the serfs on the scorched fields rose and turned their heads. When they saw the army that stretched as far as the eye could see, they quickly bent down and hurried to work.
On the way, Rodrik reported the specific details of the losses to Balon, but Balon seemed distracted.
"We should kill a few more people," Balon suddenly said from horseback, giving Rodrik a feeling that his words were incoherent and came without warning.
"What?" Rodrik rushed forward.
"The fear of the Ironborn is gone from their eyes." Balon pointed to a few serfs in the distance who, even with their heads bowed, were still stealing glances.
"Your Majesty is right." Rodrik seemed to have made up his mind, turned to his eldest son behind him, and gave the order to deter the killing.
In fact, this was Euron's order; he needed blood to make himself feel better.
For these serfs, this period was indeed a rare time of rest since they were captured, as the henchmen who managed the plantations were wiped out by Jon's army.
Although Rodrik sent reinforcements, it was simply impossible for one person to manage hundreds or even more serfs.
In particular, many of these serfs had personally witnessed or even killed those managers, so they were no longer so afraid of them.
"They can even slack off a bit," after all, there isn't much work to do on the burned-down plantations.
Derman nodded, then led a guard toward the serfs on the ridges of the field. The serfs immediately knelt down when they saw them.
They thought to themselves that they hadn't been lazy or resisted, and that at most they would be questioned or whipped a few times.
But to their utter surprise, steel knives ended up falling on them.
Screams echoed across the plantation, and not just at one plantation; along the way, Euron would use Balon's words to instruct Rodrik to kill people randomly.
He intended to intimidate these restless serfs with a large army and bloodshed.
But they didn't expect Jon to have hidden a portion of his army on their only route, where they were suddenly attacked by stray arrows, flames, or cavalry charging out.
Whenever Euron tried to use his ravens to pursue Jon's sidekicks, they were always intercepted by Jon's Raven, and because of the rugged terrain, these soldiers, who were used to fighting on deck, could hardly catch up.
The sporadic ambushes along the way had a significant impact on their morale.
Whenever the Iron Islands army left the plantation, the serf soldiers who had been ordered by Jon to return to the plantation would become active.
A brown-skinned man with a tangled black beard saw his guards leave and went among a group of serfs who looked like him.
"Hey! Hey!" he whispered, trying to get the others' attention.
He was a serf who had recently Jon Snow's army, and his return was to incite others to prepare to take up arms and harass and attack Jon's army after they went to war with the Iron Islands.
Seeing that there were no guards nearby and no strange crows around, he addressed the surrounding serfs. "The lord who attacked the plantation has said that if we want to live, we must fight for ourselves! Gentlemen, let's take up arms and show those damned pirates what we're made of!"
With its brown skin and black hair, it undoubtedly looks like Dornishmen.
The Dornishmen were most familiar with their fellow countrymen, so the first group to be mobilized was the Dornishmen- dominated community.
"Really? How many troops does that lord have?!"
"Many! Countless, definitely far more than those damned pirates! At least tens of thousands!" The serf who Jon Jon's army and then returned to the plantation lied.
There was no other way; otherwise, these people, who had been oppressed and exploited to the point of numbness, might not dare to confront those brutal pirates head-on.
"Tens of thousands! Is this for real?" The serfs were still skeptical.
However, among the thousand people in Westeros, perhaps not one had received military training. They knew nothing about troop deployment, logistics, or even how to visually estimate the number of enemy troops. In the end, they were simply misled by others.
"Of course, our lord said he wants to eliminate this threat completely, so that Sunset Sea will never have to worry about pirates again!" In Jon's army, almost everyone knew the objective of this operation.
Even the serf soldiers who were recruited were no exception.
"Gods, may Nymeria bless him! I join!" In the eyes of the Dornishmen, Nymeria was their ancestor and a goddess.
The operation went very smoothly. Because of their history of fighting against dragons, the Dornishmen had a sense of superiority over the other six nations.
They are naturally more rebellious.
However, not every serf's initiation was so smooth. For example, serfs from the Riverlands were often indoctrinated by the Iron Islands pirates with ideas such as, "We ruled you three hundred years ago, and that will remain true three hundred years later."
The most difficult to mobilize were those Beyond the Wall -called Free Folk from beyond the Wall who had been captured by Iron Islands pirates.
The word "freedom" only applies to the leaders of Free Folk, while for these Free Folk, it often comes with cruel exploitation.
The tribespeople of the Mountain Clans only faced the barrenness of the mountains, while the Free Folk Beyond the Wall faced not only even more barren land, but also the cold of the icy snow and the strangulation of their Night's Watch brothers on the Wall.
For some of them, being abducted and enslaved was an incredible stroke of luck.
They didn't believe there wasn't a better place in the world than the Iron Islands; they figured being beaten was better than being lashed by the cold wind.
With 30,000 troops rampaging through the plantations, they didn't believe Jon and his men alone could win.
So when they are mobilized, they always make excuses, and some even try to persuade their comrades who mobilized them to stay and work obediently so as not to harm themselves.
In the end, however, the majority of people still yearn for freedom, and not many are truly tamed and become "complete slaves."
Even after being abducted to the Iron Islands, they still had concerns, such as their pregnant wives, their parents who longed for their return, and their infant children.
"Think of your family" is also one of the most common and effective phrases they use when launching an attack.
Similar uprisings were rampant across the hundreds of plantations on Harlaw Island, some even taking place right under the noses of the so-called administrators.