Chapter 45: The Unwinnable War
The Grand Army of the Great Order was a river of steel and faith, flowing through the blighted lands between Pentos and Myr. It was a force unlike any that had ever marched. At its head were the Blessed, their eyes glowing with a faint inner light, their steps tireless. Behind them came the disciplined ranks of the Westerosi lords, men of iron and honor, their banners a forest of familiar sigils in a foreign land. And bringing up the rear, a testament to the crusade's strange power, was the newly-formed First Legion of the Freed, their faces a mixture of grim determination and newfound zeal.
Lord Rickon Stark rode beside Prince Jacaerys, his gaze fixed on the endless column of marching zealots. The Northman's sensibilities were offended by the very nature of this army.
"They do not complain, my prince," Stark said, his voice a low rumble. "My men are the hardest in the Seven Kingdoms, but they need rest, they need hot food, they grumble about the heat and the strange insects. But they…" he nodded towards the Blessed, "they march all day and spend their nights in prayer circles, humming like a beehive. It is unnatural."
Jacaerys watched a group of them, led by the old soldier Matthos, effortlessly shift a fallen siege engine that would have required a team of oxen. "The god sustains them, my lord," he replied, his voice flat. "Consider it a logistical advantage. We have an entire corps that requires no morale officer."
"It is an advantage I do not trust," Stark said grimly. "They are loyal to the god, not to the crown. Not to you. Their orders come from a voice in their heads. That is a dangerous thing in a soldier."
"It is the most dangerous thing in the world," Jacaerys agreed, a flicker of his old cynicism showing. "Which is why we are fortunate that, for now, it is on our side. Our task, my lord, is simply to point this divine weapon in the right direction and try not to get trampled in the holy stampede."
In the city of Myr, the council of Magisters was not concerned with honor or logistics, but with simple, desperate survival. The reports from the failed defense of Pentos had stripped them of all military illusions.
"We cannot fight them on the field," Magister Malathen said, his voice trembling with a rage born of fear. "Their 'saints' are demons who cannot be cut. Their new converts fight with the fury of the mad. To meet them with an army is to offer them more soldiers for their cause."
An older, more cunning Magister named Lyso, a man whose family had grown rich on the misery of the salt mines, stroked his perfumed beard. "Then we do not meet them on the field," he said, his voice a silken, venomous whisper. "We do not give them a battle to win. We give them what they claim to want. We give them… freedom."
The other Magisters stared at him. "You are mad," Malathen spat. "You would surrender?"
"Oh no, my dear Malathen," Lyso smiled, a chilling, predatory expression. "I would not surrender. I would gift them a poisoned chalice." He leaned forward, his eyes glittering. "We will 'liberate' our own slaves. All of them. Every man, woman, and child. We will open the city gates, but not to them. We will drive the slaves out, into the arid lands between our city and their army. We will give them nothing. No food, no water, no shelter. We will burn our own northern granaries. The Westerosi army will be met not by a line of spears, but by a humanitarian catastrophe. A river of two hundred thousand starving, thirsty, desperate souls."
The sheer, breathtaking cruelty of the plan settled over the room.
"They are an army," Lyso continued, warming to his theme. "Not a relief agency. They cannot feed that many. If they stop to help them, their own supplies will dwindle, their advance will halt, and disease will ravage their camp. If they march past them, leaving them to die… then their holy crusade becomes a farce. Their saints will be seen as frauds. The faith of their new flock will shatter. We will turn their greatest strength—their righteousness—into their greatest weakness. We will choke their glorious liberation on the realities of logistics."
The Prince of Pentos, who had fled to Myr after his city fell, looked at him with a newfound respect. It was a strategy of pure, nihilistic genius. It was their only hope.
The Grand Army of the Great Order was three days from Myr when they first saw it. A great, dark mass on the horizon, a river of humanity flowing towards them. King Viserys, watching from a rise, felt his heart seize.
"By the Seven…" he whispered. "What is this?"
Scouts rode back, their faces pale. "It is the slaves, Your Grace! All of them! The Myrish have driven them out! They have nothing. They are starving."
Jacaerys rode up beside his brother, his face a mask of cold fury as he took in the sheer scale of the unfolding disaster. "It's a brilliant move," he said, his voice a low growl of professional appreciation. "A masterstroke of asymmetric warfare. They've turned their greatest liability into their most potent weapon."
"This is a nightmare," Viserys said, his voice shaking with horror as the first wave of desperate, skeletal figures reached their lines. "We are an army. We cannot feed this many. We don't have the supplies."
"If we stop, we are bogged down for months. Disease will sweep through our camp and theirs. We will starve alongside them," Jace analyzed, his mind racing. "If we march past them, we are hypocrites and monsters. The very cause we are fighting for becomes a lie. Ellyn's followers will not abide it. The Army of the Freed will mutiny."
He was right. Ellyn and the other Hands of the God were already moving to the front, their faces grim but resolute.
"This is not a military problem, my princes," Ellyn said as she reached them, her voice a beacon of calm in the rising tide of panic. "It is a test of faith. The god knew this would happen. He provides for his flock."
She walked to the front of the army, facing the endless sea of suffering humanity. She and the other Blessed joined hands, forming a great circle. They began to chant, their voices rising in a harmony that seemed to make the very air vibrate. They were not praying for an outcome; they were channeling a power.
Serra the farmer knelt and placed her hands on the dry, cracked earth of a long-dead riverbed that snaked through the plain. The green light that flowed from her was not a gentle glow this time; it was a torrent. The ground began to tremble. Rocks cracked. And from the dead earth, a trickle of water began to well up. The trickle became a stream, the stream a river of clean, fresh water, flowing through the heart of the refugee column. Cries of shock and joy went up from the thirsty masses.
Next, the Blessed turned to the army's supply wagons. They placed their hands upon the sacks of grain and the barrels of salted meat. A great, golden light pulsed from their circle, enveloping the entire supply train. It was a miracle on a scale that dwarfed anything they had done before, a massive expenditure of divine energy. When it was done, the quartermasters reported, their voices trembling with awe, that the food stores had not diminished; they had grown. There was enough to feed both the army and the refugees for a month.
The Sermon of Deeds had been delivered once more, not with a sword, but with water from a stone and bread from an empty sack. The Myrish gambit had failed. They had sought to swamp the crusade with suffering, and had instead triggered its greatest miracle yet.
From his silent throne across the sea, Krosis-Krif felt the result. The psychic explosion of pure, desperate, grateful faith from a quarter of a million saved souls was the most intoxicating wave of energy he had ever experienced. It was a hundred times more potent than the energy of the battle for Pentos. The Myrish Magisters, in their cleverness, had provided him with a feast beyond his wildest imaginings. He was immensely pleased.
When the Grand Army, now a slow-moving city of soldiers and refugees, arrived at the gates of Myr, the city was open. There was no defense. The Magisters who had orchestrated the humanitarian gambit were brought in chains before Jacaerys and Viserys.
"You sought to use the innocent as a weapon against us," Jace said, his voice cold as ice as he looked down upon them. "You created chaos to protect your chains. You are the embodiment of the disorder our god seeks to correct." He turned to Matthos. "There will be no executions. Death is untidy. They will learn the value of labor. They will be the first foremen of the Myr reclamation project. They will spend the rest of their lives building the city they sought to ruin."
As the Westerosi forces secured the city and began the process of liberating the few remaining slaves and establishing a new council of the Freed, a new and unexpected envoy arrived at the camp. It was Tycho Melis, the Braavosi, her expression as cool and unreadable as ever.
She was granted an audience with Jacaerys. "A most impressive solution to the refugee crisis, Prince Jacaerys," she said, her tone one of mild admiration. "The Iron Bank is… impressed by the logistical capabilities of your god. To conjure a river and feed an army from nothing… it upsets all our calculations of supply and demand."
"What do you want, Braavosi?" Jace asked, weary of the games.
"The fall of Pentos, and now Myr, will create a power vacuum and destabilize the trade of the entire southern coast," she stated simply. "Braavos believes that where old, chaotic systems fall, new, orderly ones should be encouraged to rise. Order is, after all, very good for business." She offered him a thin smile. "We are prepared to offer… financial assistance. Lines of credit, logistical support from our fleet, to help establish these new 'Cities of the Freed.' In exchange, of course, for favorable trade agreements and exclusive access to their new markets."
Jacaerys stared at her, stunned. "You want to invest in our holy war?"
"We are bankers, Prince," Tycho Melis replied, her smile not reaching her eyes. "We do not invest in wars. We invest in the future. And the future, it seems, looks a great deal like your god."
The Great Work was no longer just a military and religious crusade. It was now attracting secular, powerful investors. The most powerful financial institution in the world wanted to partner with them, to bankroll their god's new world order. The first domino had not just fallen; it had set off a chain reaction that was reshaping the very foundations of the world.