Chapter 613

The shockwave from the explosion rippled across the water, and the smoke rising over the bay slowly began to dissipate. The pain in men’s eardrums, split open by the deafening blast, faded bit by bit. Soon, it was as if nothing had happened—aside from the Invincible Ironborn turning into the Invincible Powder Keg and vanishing from existence, the Nightstalker still capsized, and the Tranquility taking on water as it sank.

But time would not turn back.

The saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal used to detonate the Invincible Ironborn could have fueled a hundred volleys from twenty cannons had they been used as gunpowder. Instead, packed into barrels and set alight, they had destroyed two ships and killed a few dozen men—less than one percent of the Iron Fleet’s forces. The cost-effectiveness of this tactic was so abysmal it could only be described as criminally wasteful.

And yet, this single, seemingly meager explosion had changed the course of the battle entirely.

It wasn’t just that Asha Greyjoy had seized the moment to drown the King of the Iron Islands. There was another, far more insidious effect: sheer, unrelenting terror. The Ironborn had no way of knowing that their enemies had only one self-destructing warship.
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More than half of Daenerys’s fleet was locked in combat with Stannis’s royal navy. Barely a hundred ships had been spared to engage the Ironborn, and the disparity in numbers was staggering. The Iron Fleet outnumbered them five to one, with superior tonnage and more experienced crews. Their opponents were mostly fresh recruits. In a straight fight, there should have been no contest.

Before boarding the Invincible Ironborn, Euron had issued one last command to his fleet: full assault. The Ironborn were to surround the queen’s navy from all sides, ram their ships, and board them for close combat.

Had that order been carried out as intended, not a single one of Daenerys’s ships would have left Blackwater Bay alive.

But then, the explosion.

And with it, an insidious thought took root in the minds of every Ironborn captain: How many more of those ships are waiting to blow us to hell?

Like seeds scattered across a spring field, doubt spread through the ranks. Had the Tranquility remained afloat, had Euron Greyjoy still stood on its deck, he might have crushed their hesitation with sheer force of will. But now their king was missing, the fleet had no leader, and their enemy—outnumbered and doomed—had charged at them in a thin, reckless battle line.

How many of those ships were just waiting to detonate?

The captains hesitated. Instead of surging forward to engage, they slackened their oars, adjusted their course, slowed their assault. They continued their bombardment from a distance, wary, watching, waiting for the next explosion.

Daenerys’s fleet was composed of large warships seized from Volantis. And large warships meant superior weaponry. Their ballistae and trebuchets outranged anything the Ironborn longships could field. As the two sides exchanged fire, the Ironborn quickly found themselves at a disadvantage. And with no word from their king, no orders, no sign of leadership—just as Asha had predicted—the Iron Fleet began to unravel.

The Ironborn still held overwhelming strength. But without command, that strength was a blunt, useless blade.

And whether by coincidence or fate, the collapse began from the very ship that had once been Asha Greyjoy’s father’s flagship.
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With the Tranquility sinking, command of the fleet should have fallen to the Great Leviathan, the largest and most prestigious vessel remaining. But it had been too close to the explosion. Though not capsized like the Nightstalker, the shockwave had hurled men from its decks, casting them into the sea.

Among the lost? The ship’s captain.

Damaged, missing key crew, leaderless, and with its king nowhere to be seen, the Great Leviathan was left adrift.

And a leaderless army—especially one composed of raiders and pirates—has a tendency to make the worst possible decision in a crisis.

Fearful of being left behind as the fleet crumbled, the remaining crew reached a hasty agreement: they would turn the ship around. Not to flee. Not yet. But to position themselves in case things turned for the worse—so they could set sail and escape at a moment’s notice.

They were not cowards. They simply had no military training, no strategic awareness, no understanding of the broader battlefield. They lacked discipline, cohesion, and—most of all—any sense of honor.

They did not run. Not yet. They merely turned their prow toward the mouth of the bay, drifting slowly, all while maintaining fire upon the enemy.

But in doing so, they had doomed the battle.

As the fleet’s new de facto flagship, the Great Leviathan should have stood firm, bearing the “command banner” that held the fleet together. Even if it had been crippled, even if it had sunk alongside the Tranquility, leadership would have passed down to the next vessel in the chain of command.

Even if they had sounded the retreat, at least the Ironborn could have withdrawn in an organized fashion, preserving their numbers.

But instead, without a word to their allies, without signaling their intent, the Great Leviathan turned away from the fight.

And in that moment, the fragile cohesion of the Iron Fleet shattered.

Across the battlefield, ship captains who had been locked in hesitation saw the movement and made their decision.

Retreat.

At the last possible moment, when battle lines should have collided in a brutal melee, countless Ironborn ships twisted away from the charge, transforming what should have been a decisive clash into a chaotic, jumbled mess.

And so, Daenerys’s fleet—her pitifully thin battle line—slipped through the Ironborn ranks unscathed, cutting into the enemy formation like a dagger through rotten cloth.
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Then, from the west, a sound echoed across the battlefield.

A deep, triumphant roar.

From the walls of King’s Landing, from the Red Keep, from the camps of her besieging army, all had seen the signal.

And now, Daenerys Targaryen took to the skies.

She circled the capital, a black silhouette against the dying sun, before banking eastward, wings outstretched, descending toward the bay.

The final blow to Ironborn morale.

A dragon was powerful, but its fire had limits. Its breath could only reach twenty paces. That was close enough for even unmodified crossbows and catapults to strike back. In a coordinated fleet, interlocking anti-air fire could have kept the beast at bay.

But the Ironborn fleet was no longer coordinated.

They were scattered, leaderless, divided—some waiting for the next explosion, some fleeing, others locked in confused skirmishes.

And so the dragons came.

They did not dive into the heart of the battle, where bolts and stones filled the air. They circled the edges, picking off the stragglers—longships that had strayed too far, that were too fast or too slow, that had drifted beyond the protection of their fleet.

One by one, isolated ships became floating torches.

The Ironborn recoiled, instinctively tightening their formation—but not too tightly. They still feared another explosion. Instead, they clustered in small, disjointed groups.

And that made them easy targets.

Cannon fire pounded the fragmented fleet, hammering them as they scrambled to reorganize.

A vicious cycle took hold.

The charge had become a chaotic brawl. The stalemate had turned into a retreat.

And now—now the last, fragile thread holding the Iron Fleet together snapped.

Just like that, another Battle of the Blackwater had begun.

Another crushing rout.