Capítulo 31: Sidestory 3
Sidestory 3 - Conquest of the Stepstones
A/N: Do pardon the delay; got carried away with writing another chapter before realising I was supposed to cover the Stepstones war and the aftermath first. My apologies.
Anyway, this is more of a historical retelling format of the campaign. Enjoy!
Sidestory III - Conquest of the Stepstones
"The Stepstones were home to countless coves and craigs where pirates could take refuge and turn any military campaign into a blood-soaked bog. Arin was swift to embark on the path of bloodshed in the name of excising a millennia-old tumour in the Narrow Sea." - Excerpt from 'Legend of the Black Fox', by Classical Biographer Obela Toinad [1]
The Stepstones were Arin Rada's target, the young Lord determined to permanently end the threat they posed to his rear and to shipping lanes between Westeros and Essos. To conquer the Stepstones was to control all profitable trade, and thus allow him to charge any merchant convoys passing through for safe harbour.
Another reason was that the Martells had hired the pirates to contest House Rada at sea, and while they had superior numbers they lacked the cohesion, organisation and unity of an organised navy, and against a seasoned, experienced admiral like Elanzo Aresaryn with years of experience under his belt, these pirates were like lambs to the slaughter. Paranoid that the pirates may attempt vengeance against him through his western enemies or other third parties, he requested and obtained permission from House Targaryen to invade and conquer the island archipelago, and annex it as a part of Dorne.
Having secured all of Eastern Dorne, Arin immediately dispatched Elanzo with the Rada navy to invade the Stepstones with ten thousand men, with express permission to use more daring tactics and brutal punishments or whatever he deemed suitable for the pirate menace.
To ensure that no survivors escaped, the entire archipelago was put under a total blockade once the last of the garrisoned pirate ships were sunk beneath the oceans.
In ages past, Dorne never put much stock in a powerful navy, the reason being that much of its resources were focused on growing cash crops for money instead of food and its sparse forests used for land fortifications instead of ships. Only during Nymeria's Conquest and afterwards did Eastern Dorne enjoy lusher forests due to large-scale irrigation of the land, and Princess Nymeria II [2] had plans to build a powerful Dornish navy to contest even the likes of the Braavosi Navy at sea, but her defeat permanently trashed those plans.
By and large, Arin's navy was not that powerful; it was much larger in terms of numbers compared to the Martell navies of old, and made use of larger and more advanced seafaring vessel designs like the carrack and galleon, both models having pioneered the Age of Exploration [3] decades later after Aegon's Conquest. Thanks to securing a large coastline through exterminating neighbouring houses, Arin made significant investments into the shipbuilding and maritime industries, building a long line of massive ports that housed hundreds of ships.
However, it lacked experience in fighting other organised navies like those of the Reach and the Stormlands whose ship numbers also outstripped his navy's, and should Arin's navy try to fight either head-on, they would either attain a pyrrhic victory or suffer total defeat. Arin's alliance with House Targaryen allowed him to fully focus on the land wars, which were easier to fight than sea battles in hindsight.
Why is it that Dorne, traditionally fierce rivals of the Reach and the Stormlands, never sought to build up its naval power as its rivals did, one might ask?
The answer is as simple as it is perhaps embarrassing for Dorne; neither of its rivals saw any value in trying to conquer Dorne, much less take control of its trade. Dorne was never a particularly rich kingdom despite taking part in the spice trade, and their own lands were far wealthier and more bountiful compared to Dorne's barren deserts.
The Martells, being the symbols of sloth and stagnancy they were, opted to use this to their advantage, to prop up the myth of Dorne's independence being their destiny made manifest, a myth that was ruthlessly shattered by both Arin Rada and the Reach under King Mern IX Gardener.
Conquering the Stepstones:
Without any naval might to mount a proper defence, the pirates routed before House Rada's superior navy as they blockaded every single island and prevented any pirates from attempting to escape by boat. The pirates, naturally defiant in the face of foreign authority, attempted many times to do exactly that, only to be sunken beneath the waves in the process.
Logically, the commander would then proceed to land troops on the islands and then claim them through pitched battle, and Arin followed that logic, but it would take several weeks due to the pirates' refusal to engage in open warfare and the coves and craigs denying the use of proper troop formations and negating superiority in numbers.
Though Arin was pressed for time to secure the islands as quickly as possible, and while using the Hydromancers was an option he had, he decided against it; were he to reveal their existence so early, it was entirely possible the Targaryens would blame him for concealing such an important fact under their noses, and thus jeopardise his alliance with them.
As such, the Black Fox had to conquer the islands the old-fashioned way; boats bearing troops landed on the shores by the thousands, both regular infantry and thousands of Hashashins.
The Hashashins proved immensely helpful in shortening the time taken, using all manner of guile and espionage to weaken the pirates' capabilities and dampen their morale; food supplies were burned, important figures assassinated, brother turned against brother through planted evidence, and so on.
In the end, the Stepstones Conquest took only a fortnight to accomplish and the pirates were quick to surrender once they realised victory was a fleeting dream. Their misfortunes, however, did not end there; at least two generations of males were put to the sword in an effort to weed out dissent, while the women and children deemed too problematic to keep under house arrest were deported to Essos, never to return.
Once that bloody business was finished, the troops went about cremating corpses and building bases while the Hashashins combed the islands for any hidden caches of treasures to be looted for House Rada.
Quite a number of weapons were retrieved for later use, though some proved too rusted or worn with age that they had to be remelted in furnaces, but they soon struck literal gold, no doubt looted from countless merchant convoys who tried to escape their clutches or who paid them for safe passage.
Naturally, the unnatural speed with which the Stepstones Conquest [4] occurred would arouse many suspicions, the Targaryens above all, but once the facts were verified the Targaryens were quick to praise Arin's efficiency and brutality against the scum of the earth, even rewarding him with three-fifths of the treasury House Rada looted and governorship of his recent conquest.
In the eyes of the world, it was blatant favouritism by House Targaryen towards their 'errand boy', and many Crownlander lords eyed House Rada's retainers with jealousy. Some believed Arin was just lucky.
The Targaryens, together with the Radas, would visit the neighbouring Free Cities of Tyrosh, Lys and Myr, and to the City of Braavos to officially declare the Stepstones a territory of Westeros. The Targaryens riding atop their dragons, the Radas on horseback and carrying themselves as loyal servants, both escorted by a large entourage of elite knights, soldiers and spies. To the Essosi, they looked like conquerors come to repeat the tyranny of the Valyrian Freehold.
Faced with embodiments of raw power and rage and the infamous Black Fox, the Archons and the Council of Braavos had no choice but to agree to their terms. It is said that they gnashed their teeth with impotent fury, veins building beneath their skin and their eyes so bloodshot one thought they were naturally red-eyed.
With no one left to interfere and his ownership of the archipelago guaranteed by law, Arin went to work establishing a new government, reorganising the Stepstones into the newly-named Dominion of Idosaea [5] and ruling the isles in his name was none other than Elanzo Aresaryn, whom Aegon Targaryen named Governor-General as per Arin's suggestion, with the island of Bloodstone as the provincial capital.
Altogether, the archipelago consisted of 15 islands, which were renamed as listed below:
- Bloodstone - Munsrav (Merchant Haven)
- Grey Gallows - Hal-Omseb (Gold Sunrise)
- Dusthome - Karohe (Rivergate)
- Goldhaven - Omdyun (Sunkiss)
- Duskdown - Tolkalay (Starlight)
- Redshire - Rey-Tahor (Spring of Wine)
- Driftwood - Ny Qoy (Greenwood)
- Fisholm - Ghohenlye (Salt Isle)
- Greywatch - Ghuesnyo (Gift of Rest)
- Rustspear - Hraityet (Beacon of Hope)
- Strongholm - Ifirast (Fortress of the Fox)
- Ebonshire - Iphaunho (Fortress of the Tides)
- Crimson Grave - Rhuhella (Gift of Peace)
- Isle of Vipers - Tahor-Korye (Isle of Flowers)
- Sailor's Sorrow - Maksrav (Sailor's Home)
Relations with Tyrosh:
The Free Cities were displeased with the idea of a foreign power conquering and dominating Idosaea, but the one that outright hated this change in status quo was Tyrosh, which was technically part of the archipelago and thus claimed under the Dominion. Its council of Archons feared that one day, the Targaryens and their lapdogs would come to claim the island for themselves, that their ambitions would never be limited to the 'barbaric' continent of Westeros.
Regardless of their desires, their agendas or their incessant complaints, the Treaty of Idosaea [6] was already signed, and to attempt to break one backed by the power of dragons was the height of idiocy.
For years to come, relations were exceptionally chilly between Tyrosh and Westeros, more particularly between Tyrosh and Dorne; while Dorne was a profitable hub of trade, the Archons unanimously detested its ruler the Black Fox for orchestrating the Conquest of Idosaea, and so wherever possible they exorbitantly taxed any Dornish merchants visiting the city or obstructed their business dealings by any means possible. At times they tried subtly snubbing Dornish diplomats who visited to soothe and mend relations, as if they were children throwing a temper tantrum.
Of course, none of their childish actions did the Archons any good, losing lucrative trade deals with the Kingdom of Westeros and dashing their chances of survival when the Invasion of Tyrosh began.
[1] Obela Toinad - A Dornish biographer who lived in the late 3rd Century AC, she used her wealth of knowledge to author countless historical volumes which granted readers comprehensive records of the time of Aegon's Conquest up to her own.
She wrote the legends of countless great historical figures, but her magnum opus was widely considered the Legend of the Black Fox, which details the deeds and actions of Arin Rada, the new ruler of Dorne.
[2] Nymeria II Martell - Nymeria's daughter, she took the name of the Second when she declared rebellion against her own brother Mors in an attempt to usurp power. Known to be cruel, arrogant, selfish and impetuous, her rash decisions and poor diplomatic skills led to her downfall when she was betrayed by some of her closest allies.
[3] Age of Exploration - An age pioneered by the first sea voyage spanning the world, led by an entrepreneurial sailor named Nymor Torrad, using the new ship designs created at the Arsenal of Keylon. As old dromonds, longships and galleys fell out of favour, caravels, carracks and galleons soon dominated the seas.
[4] Stepstones Conquest - Hardly a true military achievement, but one that signalled an end to constant piracy on the Narrow Sea, and widely considered the start of sour relations between Essos and Westeros.
[5] Idosaea - The new name for the archipelago of the Stepstones. Its name translates in Rhoynish to 'Beautiful Islands'.
[6] Treaty of Idosaea - A treaty which recognised the Stepstones as a part of Dorne and by extension Westeros under House Targaryen, signed by the Free Cities of Braavos, Lys, Myr and Tyrosh and Houses Rada and Targaryen.
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