Chapter 40: The Unfair Advantage
The fields south of King's Landing, where the dragon yards now stood as a monument to a terrible bargain, became the staging ground for the Great Work. An army, the likes of which Westeros had not seen since the days of Aegon's Conquest, gathered under the shadow of the god on the hill. It was a host of two distinct parts, a river formed of two separate, mistrustful currents.
The first was the professional heart of the army: the proud knights of the Vale, the grim men-at-arms of the Westerlands, the hard infantry of the North, and the disciplined soldiers sworn to the great lords. They were the iron of the realm, clad in steel, answering the call of their liege lords as they had for a thousand years. They looked upon the second part of the army with open contempt.
This second current was a swelling tide of common-born zealots, men and women who had flocked to the banner of the Hands of the God. They were farmers, weavers, blacksmiths, and fishermen, armed with simple spears and faith-fueled courage. Their armor was boiled leather and piety. They did not march for a king or a lord; they marched for the Great Order, for the god who had healed their children and filled their bellies.
In the sprawling tent city, the two halves eyed each other warily. A veteran knight in Lannister crimson watched a group of the god's faithful listening intently to a sermon from Matthos, the healed soldier.
"Look at them, lads," the knight, a man named Ser Tytos Hill, grumbled to his squires. "Farmers and fishwives, playing at war. They've never seen a shield wall, never held a line against a cavalry charge. They'll break and run at the first taste of real steel."
One of the zealots, a young man from the Riverlands whose village had been saved by Ellyn's miracles, overheard him. He turned, his eyes holding a strange, unnerving calm. "We do not fight with steel alone, ser knight," he said, his voice quiet but firm. "We fight with the strength of the god that remade our world. You fight for a lord. We fight for a purpose."
The knight scoffed and turned away, but the young man's certainty was unsettling. This was the state of the Grand Army of the Great Work: a body of professional soldiers yoked to a soul of pure, fanatical belief.
Krosis-Krif observed this vast assembly, this tool he had created. He felt the disciplined loyalty of the soldiers, a useful but mundane energy. And he felt the fervent, powerful faith of his chosen, a river of pure, high-quality power flowing towards him. The professional soldiers were the body of his sword, but the faithful were its edge. And it was time, he decided, to sharpen that edge.
He commanded a great assembly. The entire army, nearly a hundred thousand strong, gathered at the foot of the Hill of Rhaenys. Queen Rhaenyra, King Viserys II, and the entire court watched from a specially constructed dais. At the forefront of the army stood Ellyn the Weaver and the other Hands of the God.
The voice of Krosis-Krif entered every mind, a wave of power that washed over the field, silencing the rustle of a hundred thousand souls.
"YOU ARE THE SWORD OF MY ORDER. YOU ARE THE INSTRUMENTS OF MY WILL. BUT A SWORD MUST BE SHARPENED. A SHIELD MUST BE HARDENED."
A ripple of anticipation went through the crowd.
"THE GREAT WORK REQUIRES MORE THAN MORTAL STRENGTH. IT REQUIRES A DEVOTION THAT TRANSCENDS FEAR. THOSE AMONG YOU WHO CARRY TRUE FAITH IN MY PURPOSE, WHOSE HEARTS ARE ALIGNED WITH THE TIDYING OF THE WORLD… YOU WILL BE GRANTED A PORTION OF MY STRENGTH. YOU WILL BECOME AVATARS OF MY ORDER IN THE COMING CHAOS."
He did not command it. He offered it. And then he let his power flow.
It was not a wave of fire or a physical force. It was a wave of pure, divine energy that washed over the assembled host, a tide of starlight and shadow. But it was a selective tide. It flowed over the armies of the great lords, leaving them untouched, a strange, cold tingling in the air the only sign of its passing. But when it touched the thousands of common-born faithful, the followers of the Hands, it sank into them like water into dry earth.
The zealots gasped as one. A warmth spread through their limbs. They felt their senses sharpen, the world coming into a new, brilliant focus. They felt a strength they had never known surge in their muscles, a resilience hardening their skin, and a complete, utter absence of fear settle into their hearts. Their eyes began to glow with a faint, internal light, the same cosmic luminescence as their god.
Ser Tytos Hill and his squires stared as the young zealot he had mocked now stood straighter, his simple leather jerkin seeming to ripple with a power that was not of this world. The farmer had become a giant. The weaver had become a queen.
That evening, the mood in the camp was one of awe and terror. The divide between the two armies had become a chasm. Ser Tytos, his pride wounded and his curiosity piqued, found the young zealot, whose name was Jon, and challenged him to a sparring match. "Let's see what your god's 'strength' looks like up close, boy," the knight said, drawing his fine castle-forged steel.
Jon simply picked up a wooden training spear. "As you wish, ser."
The fight was over in seconds. Ser Tytos was a veteran of a dozen tourneys, a man of skill and strength. He lunged, his movements a practiced blur. But Jon moved with an unnatural grace. He did not seem to anticipate the knight's moves; he seemed to know them before they were made. He sidestepped the lunge with impossible ease, the knight's sword slicing through empty air. He brought the butt of his spear up in a short, simple arc, and it connected with the knight's helmet with a dull thud. The force of the blow, delivered by a simple farmer, sent the heavily armored knight stumbling back, his head ringing, his vision swimming.
Before Ser Tytos could recover, Jon had the point of the spear at his throat. He had not broken a sweat.
"What… what was that?" the knight stammered, his sword arm trembling. "No man learns to move like that. No farmer has a grip like that."
Jon's eyes glowed faintly in the firelight. "It is the god's strength, ser," he said, his voice calm and devoid of pride. "It guides my hand. It hardens my will. I did not defeat you. The Great Order did."
He lowered his spear and helped the knight to his feet. The crowd of soldiers who had gathered to watch, both professional and faithful, were utterly silent. They had just witnessed the birth of a new kind of soldier. An army of saints.
The war council that followed was a tense affair. The lords of Westeros were now faced with a strategic reality for which there was no precedent.
"This changes everything," Lord Tyland Lannister said, his mind racing with the tactical possibilities. "The Blessed, as the men are calling them, could be used as a spearhead. A force to break any line. They seem… tireless. Fearless."
"Or they will breed resentment and chaos in the ranks," Lord Rickon Stark argued, his face grim. "My men are sworn to House Stark. They follow me. How do I command a man who believes his orders come from a higher power than his own lord? What if the god whispers a different strategy to them in the heat of battle?"
King Viserys II looked to his brother, the appointed commander of the host. Jacaerys, for his part, looked at the map of Essos, a strange, cold light in his eyes. He finally understood the full, terrible genius of their master.
"We do not command them in the old way, Lord Stark," Jace said, his voice quiet and certain. "You are right. They are not our soldiers. They are his. They are a living sermon, and their battlefield will be their pulpit." He looked around the table at the worried lords. "We will use them as he intends: as a holy terror. They will be the first wave in every assault. They will march where we tell them to march, but their victories will be their own. And every victory, every impossible feat of arms, will be the greatest recruiting tool our god could have ever devised. We are not just freeing slaves. We are harvesting believers. The two goals are one and the same."
The lords fell silent, comprehending the chilling logic. They were not generals of a united army. They were managers, tasked with facilitating a divine, self-replicating recruitment drive.
The news of this new development trickled across the Narrow Sea, carried by terrified spies and merchant captains. In Pentos, a secret council had formed, a desperate alliance of magisters from Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh, all of them grown fat on the slave trade. They listened to the report from their most trusted agent in King's Landing.
"Magisters," the spy said, his face pale with a fear that went beyond the dread of his masters. "It is worse than we imagined. Their army is vast, yes. But it is not one army. It is two. One is of men. The other… the other is of saints."
"Saints?" sneered a Magister from Myr. "You speak in foolish Westerosi metaphors."
"No, my lord," the spy insisted, his voice trembling. "I saw it with my own eyes. A simple man-at-arms, a farmer from the mud of the Trident, defeated one of their finest knights in a duel. The knight's sword could not cut him. They say he did not bleed. They say they do not feel fear. They march as one, their eyes glowing. They say they are the Hands of their God."
"This is magic?" asked the Prince of Pentos. "Like the blood sorcery of old Valyria?"
"Not magic, my lord," the spy whispered, his voice cracking. "It is faith. A faith more powerful than any I have ever seen. They are not coming here to conquer us. They are not coming for our gold or our land." He looked at the assembled masters of the slave trade. "They are coming to save us. And I do not think we can be saved."
Magister Illyrio Mopatis, his face grim, turned to the others. "Then we are not facing an army of men," he said gravely. "We are facing a plague of righteousness. How do you fight an army that cannot be broken, cannot be bribed, and believes it is on a mission from God himself?"
The great fleet, the Grand Armada of the Great Work, set sail on the morning tide. It was a forest of masts and sails, the largest naval force assembled in the history of the known world. On the decks of the ships, the two armies kept a wary distance. The soldiers of the lords sharpened their steel and oiled their mail, their faces grim and professional. The Blessed of the God stood in quiet, unnerving prayer circles, their hands clasped, their eyes closed, a faint light seeming to emanate from their very skin.
On the flagship, the Queen Rhaenyra's Vengeance, King Viserys II stood on the forecastle with his brother, Jacaerys. They watched the coast of Westeros recede, the great, dark shape of their god on the hill the last thing to disappear from view.
"Look at them, Jace," Viserys said, his voice a low murmur. "A holy army. An army of crusaders. Could Aegon the Conqueror, with his three great dragons, have ever imagined such a thing?"
Jacaerys did not take his eyes off the eastern horizon. A cold, hard resolve had settled in his heart. He finally understood his role, and the role of everyone in this great, terrible play.
"Aegon brought fire and blood," he replied, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "He conquered their bodies. Our god is far more clever." He turned to his brother, his king. "He is sending faith and miracles. He is not coming to conquer their bodies. He is coming to conquer their souls."
The fleet sailed east, a great wave of divinely-sanctioned order about to crash upon the chaotic, unsuspecting shores of Essos. The Great Work had begun.