Lord Roboute Tyrell

- 267 AC - 

The storm brewed slowly in the south. Trade routes once patrolled by Reach ships had grown perilous, as Lyseni pirates, driven out years before by Roboute's conquests, returned to the Stepstones like carrion birds sensing weakness. News of the increased presence had reached Macragge first, then Highgarden. Merchants spoke of red sails and black flags. Smoke drifted from the sea where trade ships once sailed. Something had to be done. Roboute understood the problem right away. This was just the beginning, a way to probe his reaction.

Roboute Tyrell knew the pattern of war when he saw it, and this one bore a familiar hand. Lys and other Free Cities denied involvement, but Roboute understood the message well: lure him out of the Reach.

He answered swiftly. Leaving Randyll Tarly and Mathis Rowan, Garth Crane and Androw Ashford to oversee the Reach's security and final completion of reforms. Was he worried about a rebellion? No. He had expected Lords to speak their minds, but they hadn't. Especially the prominent ones of the Reach, and that was a red flag. So, he instructed his generals to deploy their troops most effectively to defend the Reach and its integrity.

Roboute sailed for Tyrosh with a modest force of 500 Ultramarines and his trusted admiral-in-training, Paxter Redwyne. Their arrival was not met with fanfare but fire. A Lyseni Pirate fleet was in sight and ready to pounce.

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The night before, Roboute had summoned his commanders to a war meeting on the deck of the Aegis. Maps of the surroundings of the Stepstones and around Tyroshi waters lay splayed across the table, with pins marking known pirate routes and coves. Roboute stood over them, calm and commanding.

"We will draw them into a bottleneck," he said. "They believe us few and weak. Let them. We will feign retreat, then close the jaws. Their superior numbers won't help them; instead, we make it their undoing and show them that you can stumble over your own ships."

He pointed at their new weapon, an improved naval scorpion he had personally designed. These ballista-like engines had been mounted on the Aegis and Diligence, with reinforced draw-weight and heavier bolts tipped with iron teeth. They were not meant to kill men, but ships. They were intended to punch clean through the hulls of enemy vessels and sink them with a few well-aimed shots. 

"Strike just below the waterline," Roboute instructed. "A single hit disables their movement and will fill them with water. Two will break their spine. We cripple, then burn."

"Once they take the bait," Roboute said, pointing at the map pinned between them, "you move north-west and cut across their rear. Let the Valiant and Harrower engage their sides. We'll strike from the middle and break their line."

"What if they don't take the bait?" Paxter asked.

Roboute looked him squarely in the eye.

"They will. Greed is predictable."

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At the first light of dawn, the Reach fleet split formation as planned. The sea was calm, but every sail bristled with anticipation. On the Aegis, Roboute stood at the prow, issuing precise orders to his lieutenants. Paxter Redwyne, stationed aboard the Diligence, saluted and broke away with the vanguard to take the flanks.

Then they clashed. 

The first wave of fast skirmishers hoisted torn sails, flew false colours, and approached the enemy from the east. As instructed, they feigned disarray and panic. Their oars rowed at erratic speeds, helmsmen pretended to miscalculate, and flags were flown upside-down. The positions of their ships, however, were well calculated and followed Roboute's orders. The Lyseni pirates, already encouraged by earlier success, took the bait. They surged forward, hungry for what they believed to be an easy rout. But in doing so, they ignored any form of tactic and positioning. 

The formation of the Lyseni fleet collapsed into chaos as each captain tried to outpace the others, trying to catch the 'retreating prey' just as Roboute had predicted.

From behind Split Rock, hidden in the mist and angled between jagged reefs, the second Reach formation emerged. The Diligence and Valiant moved in unison, while the Aegis turned around and released its upgraded scorpions. Their bolts, enormous and iron-barbed, flew with lethal accuracy. The first missile tore through the bow of a Lyseni galley with such force that it speared through the other side. The Pirate ship didn't understand what was happening, only that they were suddenly sinking.

Another shot hit just below the waterline of a corsair, opening the hull like a butcher's knife.

At the same time, Paxter's men prepared their bows and arrows and dipped them in a special concoction that had similar properties to Wildfire. They released their arrows, which caught the panicked rear of the Lyseni formation. One by one, enemy ships caught fire, their hulls splintering as screams were swallowed by smoke and water. The Pirate ships attempted to flee, but the large number of vessels prevented them from doing so, causing collisions among themselves. They were easy pickings and were picked apart with efficiency. 

The plan had worked flawlessly. By the time the main Reach line surged forward, the pirates were boxed in and burning. The scorpions fired continuously, punching holes in ship after ship, while Roboute led a precise boarding assault from the flanks, cutting down those who tried to flee or regroup.

What looked like a gamble became a slaughter. The Reach had turned the enemy's confidence into their coffin. That was their mistake. Another mistake was to think that Roboute would not arrive, since their attacks were 'minor'. The soul that was Roboute Tyrell had fully grown, and with it, the strength of a Primarch and more had arrived. He cut through swathes of pirates with each swing, using the Valyrian sword of House Tyrell and definitely not Targaryen: Gladius Incandor.

Within hours, the water around the isle belonging to one of the Reach's outposts was a boiling grave for over thirty enemy ships. The sea steamed with oil and blood, while the remaining pirates fled in fear. 

With the immediate threat neutralised and the local outposts safe and relieved, Roboute left the rest of the naval theatre to Paxter. 

"Scour every reef, burn every nest, and seal every cove," Roboute said. "We send a message to everyone that the Stepstones are ours and are not vulnerable." 

And so Paxter did, leading the second Reach Fleet through the southern Stepstones with methodical ruthlessness.

.

No sooner had a big part of the pirate threat been extinguished than new reports arrived: the sellsword companies which had been marching from the east, creeping through the Disputed Lands towards Tyrosh, were now within sight. Sellswords, funded, no doubt, by the same cities that had hired the pirates. Their aim was not directly conquest, but chaos, pressure, division and distraction. The Free Cities involved were likely in league with others, and they were trying to wear him down, test the Tyroshi limits, and then prepare for further raids and assaults.

Roboute arrived in Tyrosh the next day. The city had changed since the War of the Ninepenny Kings.

When Roboute first took Tyrosh, the walls, once formidable, had been crumbling at the foundations. Merchants ruled from lavish towers while the slums spilt over with slaves. The pear brandy still flowed, and gilded helms still sparkled in shopfronts, but they masked rot. Slaves outnumbered freemen three to one, and the city's famed Tyroshi sellswords had grown lazy, hired more for show than for actual defence.

Roboute began at the root. Slavery was abolished by decree, enforced by force. Why would he waste precious manpower? By providing them with food, shelter, and the motivation to help, they would become much more productive and loyal. Within days, the slave markets were dismantled, and the slavers executed after thorough interrogation. Freedmen were taken in, assigned temporary barracks and given choices: to learn trades or to train for defence. From the sea snail vats to the dyeworks, skilled instructors, either brought from the Reach or trained by Roboute himself after quickly figuring out the craft, were appointed to train the freedmen in weaving, blacksmithing, carpentry, shipbuilding, and agriculture. The Tyroshi artisans, once proud and idle, were interrogated, their trade secrets revealed and then killed.

The ancient stone walls of Tyrosh were rebuilt, layered, reinforced, and remade in the Reach method, with compacted volcanic rock and steel-reinforced struts.

Watchtowers were built at key coastal points, manned by mixed units of Ultramarines and the growing loyal Tyroshi who had passed basic training. Those who were younger were allowed to sail to the Reach to learn in Macragge. After completing their training, which transformed them into soundly loyal warriors, they could return to Tyrosh to serve Roboute's interests in the colony. The inner city was reorganised. Grain silos, forges, and fish salting houses were expanded. Shipyards along the central canal began to produce not only warships, but fishing vessels, cargo barges, and couriers.

More ambitious still was what Roboute did in the Disputed Lands he had taken during the War of the Ninepenny Kings. Former battlefields were cleared and ploughed, then seeded with grain, root vegetables, and herbs. Farming communities were established around these pockets of fertile land, starting very close to Tyrosh and slowly expanding to the east, protected by Reach-built stone outposts every ten miles.

Each outpost had provisions, barracks, signal towers, and archery platforms. Farmers were trained in emergency defence, creating a minor civil-militia system, but only temporarily until the first batch of Tyroshi-originated Ultramarines arrived.

The speed at which Tyrosh grew more prosperous and powerful was beyond comprehension. It showed what Roboute could truly do when he had free rein. And he worked towards having free rein in the Reach as well. As he grew older, his power, pride, ambition and vision expanded and grew as well. He was no longer interested in the confines that society set for him. So the Civil Service System was created as the first big step. 

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Roboute did not hesitate at all, as he had planned to sail to Tyrosh anyway. He left Paxter in command at sea and marched swiftly inland with 100 Ultramarines, striking hard at a band of 2,000 mercenaries that had overextended near the ruined outpost of Skadion, outside of the Reach lands in the Disputed Lands. The sellswords were flanked and routed within hours. It was not a clash; it was a controlled carnage meant to be brutal and efficient. Roboute's men moved like a single organism, using pincer movements and coordinated volleys from their crossbows to suppress and encircle the enemy.

But they were not alone.

Tyroshi soldiers, trained under Roboute's new doctrine, had joined the flank. These weren't the foppish mercenaries of old Tyrosh, hired more for intimidation than endurance. These were freedmen who had chosen the fight over the craft, who had passed the drills of Macragge, and who now moved like proper infantry. Their blue and silver sashes, symbols of service, shone.

As Roboute led from the front, cutting down the enemy's mounted men, the Tyroshi followed in tandem. He did not need to shout commands; his discipline had become theirs. Their loyalty to their Lord, whom they willingly chose to follow, was incalculable.

One of their company commanders, a former slave named Jorello, was seen coordinating archers with perfect cadence alongside Ultramarine all-rounders. It was a remarkable and perhaps unbelievable trait of the Ultramarines that they excelled in almost everything.

The sellswords had expected an unprepared frontier and planned to raid the surroundings before moving towards Tyrosh. What they found was a wall of trained men, expert traps, and a commander who treated war as a science. Panic spread through their lines when their cavalry failed to break the shield wall. And when Roboute's left flank collapsed inward just slightly, they thought it a breach.

It wasn't.

It was another baited hook. And they bit, of course, they did. 

The Tyroshi infantry at the centre, led by their own and reinforced with Ultramarine veterans, collapsed in step and then surged outward, trapping the sellsword's vanguard inside a funnel. From above the ridge came Roboute's signal, and the archers, stationed since the previous night, let loose. Fire arrows descended in arcs, creating confusion and death.

Roboute, wading through the gore and blood at the front, cut down the enemy like paper, his large form intimidating them and making them shit themselves. It was unlike anything they had seen or heard of. When their captain tried to retreat, Roboute picked up a spear lying on the ground. He looked to the front with his usual expression and then threw the spear. It hurtled through the air and pinned the captain through the back.

The field was theirs.

By midday, over 1'000 mercenaries were dead. The Tyroshi had proven themselves in their first real campaign under Roboute's new order. And they had done so without breaking. Not all of them survived, of course, but the Ultramarines were the hammer that crushed the opposition. 

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Roboute returned to Tyrosh after having positioned the soldiers in key positions. And what awaited him was not pleasant. 

"My Lord, an eagle arrived."

Roboute took the message attached and gently moved his hand over the eagle's feathers. 

"What is it, my Lord?" the man asked. 

"The Ironborn have started to raid our coasts. The Arbor was apparently attacked, and Lord Marqos Redwyne has engaged them, but our fleet suffered heavy casualties."

"That's terrible, my Lord!"

"Hmm. It does seem that way."

In that moment, another eagle flew into the room and settled on Roboute's shoulder. Seeing this, Roboute took the message and went through it. The news was grave.

"Houses Hightower and Florent have declared war. They march on the Roseroad towards Highgarden."

"..."

A Civil War had begun in the Reach.

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Writing about the Civil War will take some time.