Chapter 27: The Gilded Peace, The Kraken's Stirring
The reign of King Robert Baratheon settled over the Seven Kingdoms like a heavy, wine-stained cloak – outwardly grand, but frayed at the edges and doing little to conceal the festering wounds beneath. Nearly six years had passed since the Trident, six years during which Darth Vorhax, Lord Ellys Vorant, had meticulously cultivated his own dark garden of power in the southern Stormlands. While King Robert hunted, feasted, and whored his way through the Crown's rapidly dwindling treasury, Vorhax forged an empire in miniature.
His domains were a testament to chilling efficiency. The Stonefang Ironworks were now legendary, its blast furnaces, designed with Vorhax's alien knowledge, producing steel of a quality and quantity that astounded Westerosi smiths. His "Stonefang Steel" – dark, incredibly durable, and holding a peerless edge – was a coveted commodity, traded through his discreet Essosi channels and supplied to his network of indebted minor lords, binding them ever tighter to his influence. Agricultural reforms had transformed his lands into a breadbasket, its vast surpluses ensuring his people were fed and his coffers filled. He had even begun experiments with controlled saltpeter extraction and charcoal grinding, the first nascent steps towards black powder, though its application remained a distant, carefully guarded secret.
Militarily, House Vorant was a black iron fist. The Obsidian Guard had swelled to five hundred elite heavy infantry, their loyalty to Vorhax absolute, their hawk-helmed anonymity a terrifying symbol of his power. Their training was relentless, their discipline inhuman. Brandon Snow's Wolf Brigade, now two hundred strong, remained a core of veteran heavy infantry, their Northman ferocity tempered by years of service under Vorhax's exacting standards. His fleet of black-sailed longships, swift and deadly, had grown from a coastal patrol to a squadron of twenty, capable of dominating the southern Narrow Sea and projecting his power far along the coast. Hidden coves and fortified estuaries along his shoreline served as their secret bases.
In his personal life, the charade of Lord Ellys Vorant continued. His son and heir, Edric Vorant, was now a boy of five, his sister Lyra, three. Vorhax ensured their education was rigorous, overseen by handpicked tutors who instilled discipline, strategic thinking, and an unwavering loyalty to their father and his vision of order. He observed young Edric closely, searching for any spark of Force-sensitivity, any exceptional trait he could mold, but thus far, the boy seemed distressingly ordinary, albeit intelligent and conditioned to obedience. His wife, Lady Anya, performed her duties as Lady of Crow's Nest and Stonefang with quiet, fearful competence. She managed the sprawling households, bore his children, and asked no questions, her life a gilded cage overshadowed by her husband's terrifying, unknowable nature. Vorhax treated her with a distant, formal courtesy, their interactions solely for dynastic necessity and the maintenance of appearances.
While Vorhax built his strength, the realm under King Robert frayed. Jon Arryn, as Hand, struggled valiantly to hold the Seven Kingdoms together, battling courtly intrigue, managing the Crown's spiraling debts, and attempting to curb his foster son's worst excesses. Queen Cersei Lannister's influence grew, her golden-haired twins, Joffrey and Myrcella, doted upon by a largely absent king, her brother Jaime a constant, mocking presence in his white Kingsguard cloak. Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone and Master of Ships, served with grim diligence, his resentment at being denied Storm's End and his suspicion of men like Vorhax festering in his rigid heart. Vorhax's intelligence network, now rivaling that of Varys the Spider in its reach and subtlety (though focused more on military and economic matters than courtly gossip), kept him appraised of every shift in the political winds.
He also kept a close watch on the exiled Targaryens. Will and Anya's agents in the Free Cities tracked the sad, dwindling fortunes of Viserys and Daenerys. After Ser Willem Darry's death, they had fallen on hard times, wandering from one city to another, their pleas for aid increasingly ignored. Vorhax, viewing them as valuable long-term assets for sowing future chaos, occasionally intervened with an unseen hand – an anonymous gift of coin delivered through a cut-out merchant, a whispered rumor that misdirected agents of King Robert who might hunt them too earnestly. He wanted them alive, desperate, and filled with a burning desire for vengeance – perfect tools for his eventual grand designs.
During these years of uneasy peace, Vorhax found an opportunity to further cement his regional dominance. A series of devastating autumn storms, followed by a harsh, prolonged winter, brought famine and despair to several coastal regions north of his own lands, areas nominally under the sway of lesser Crownlands lords who were ill-equipped to handle such a crisis. While King Robert's court remained largely indifferent, preoccupied with its own pleasures, Vorhax acted.
His granaries were opened, not out of charity, but calculated strategy. Stonefang grain was offered to the starving populace – sold at fair prices to those who could pay, provided as "aid" to villages whose headmen swore oaths of fealty and ceded trade monopolies or resource rights to House Vorant. His black-sailed longships, now numbering closer to thirty and including several larger, more seaworthy dromond-like vessels of his own design, delivered these supplies with speed and efficiency, while also ruthlessly hunting down the pirate bands that had sought to exploit the coastal chaos. The Obsidian Guard and Wolf Brigade marched into afflicted territories, not as conquerors, but as "protectors," establishing order, distributing food, and incidentally, mapping the terrain, assessing local defenses, and ensuring the gratitude (and terrified subservience) of the populace. By the time spring returned, Lord Vorant was hailed by many common folk in these regions as a savior, while their own lords had been exposed as inept or indifferent. Jon Arryn sent a sharp inquiry from King's Landing about Vorhax's "unilateral humanitarian actions," but Vorhax replied with impeccably courteous letters detailing the dire need and his humble efforts to alleviate suffering and maintain the King's Peace, all while subtly reminding the Hand of Stonefang's growing resources and capabilities. Stannis, Vorhax knew, would see it as another power grab.
Through his Force visions and his cold analysis of Westerosi history, Vorhax had long anticipated the next major convulsion: the inevitable rebellion of the Ironborn. Balon Greyjoy, proud and wedded to the Old Way, would not long suffer a landlocked king on the Iron Throne. Vorhax began specific preparations years in advance. His shipbuilding program at Stonefang accelerated, focusing on larger, more heavily armed warships capable of challenging Ironborn longships in open waters. He studied every available text on naval warfare, on Ironborn tactics, on the geography of the Iron Islands. He even began training a dedicated marine contingent within the Obsidian Guard, specializing in amphibious assaults, ship-to-ship boarding actions, and coastal raiding – fighting the Ironborn with their own tactics, but backed by Stonefang discipline and steel. His intelligence network was tasked with gathering every scrap of information on Pyke, on Balon Greyjoy and his sons, on the strength and disposition of the Iron Fleet.
In the spring of 289 AC, the expected storm broke. Ravens arrived from the west, their messages frantic and dire: Balon Greyjoy had declared himself King of the Iron Islands, styling himself "The Ninth of His Name Since the Grey King." The Lannister fleet at Lannisport had been burned at anchor in a surprise attack led by Euron and Victarion Greyjoy. Ironborn longships were reaving along the entire western coast, from the Shield Islands to the shores of the North. The Greyjoy Rebellion had begun.
King Robert, his martial spirit ignited, roared for war. The insult to his new peace, the challenge to his authority, could not be borne. He summoned his loyal lords to King's Landing, demanding they contribute ships and men to crush the Kraken.
A raven arrived at Crow's Nest, bearing King Robert's personal summons for Lord Ellys Vorant. He was commanded to bring his new fleet and his formidable soldiers to join the royal host assembling to sail against the Iron Islands.
Vorhax received the summons with a predatory gleam in his eyes. This was the opportunity he had been meticulously preparing for. It was a chance to unveil his new naval power on a grand stage, to earn further accolades and influence with King Robert, to test his marines in real combat, and to strike a decisive blow against a potential rival for maritime dominance. The Ironborn, with their raiding economy and disruptive influence on sea trade, were anathema to his own plans for a well-ordered, economically powerful domain that relied on secure shipping lanes.
"Inform His Grace," Vorhax told Maester Vymar, "that Lord Vorant answers his King's call with all speed and strength. The Hawk flies to meet the Kraken."
He journeyed to Stonefang, his primary naval base. Standing on the deck of his newly constructed flagship – a formidable war dromond, larger and more heavily armed than any other vessel in his fleet, its timbers ebonized, its sails black as night, bearing the silver hawk sigil – he watched his armada prepare for war. Ten large dromonds, twenty swift longships, all crewed by hardened Stonefang sailors and carrying companies of his Obsidian Guard marines, their black iron armor glinting in the harsh coastal light. Brandon Snow and a detachment of the Wolf Brigade, skilled in brutal boarding actions, would also sail with him. He named his flagship Nyx's Shadow, a tribute to his ever-watchful familiar and the dark power that guided him.
Just as the fleet was making final preparations, a message arrived from King's Landing. Lord Stannis Baratheon, as Master of Ships, had been given overall command of the combined royal fleet that would sail against Pyke. Vorhax's lips curved into a humorless smile. Serving under Stannis – his most persistent and suspicious adversary – would be a delicate, dangerous dance. But it also presented opportunities to observe Stannis's capabilities as a fleet commander, to perhaps subtly undermine him if necessary, or to so outshine him in competence and effectiveness that even Robert could not ignore the contrast.
"Prepare to sail," Vorhax commanded his flag captain. "The tide waits for no man, not even a Sith Lord in disguise. And the Iron King has kept us waiting long enough."
With the black hawk banner snapping from the masthead of Nyx's Shadow, Lord Vorant's formidable fleet put out to sea, a dark omen gliding over the grey waters, eager to join the great armada assembling to crush the Greyjoy Rebellion. The gilded peace was over. The stirrings of the Kraken had called forth the Hawk, and Vorhax was ready to demonstrate the reach and sharpness of his talons on a new, unsuspecting foe.
(Word Count: Approx. 4250 words)