The siege of Bloodstone had turned the island into a prison.
On the surrounding waters, the combined fleets of the Iron Throne, the Reach, and the Royal Navy formed an iron ring. Rhaegar's "Shipburner" strategy had left the pirates with no way out. Their ships were ash, their harbors choked with wreckage.
Bloodstone was larger than Gallows Grey, a maze of hills and caves that had served as a pirate stronghold for centuries. But now, it was a trap.
Rhaegar had ordered the construction of the Palisades—a series of fortified lines that encircled the pirate positions. Day by day, the Westerosi soldiers pushed these wooden walls forward, tightening the noose. Fifty yards yesterday. Twenty yards today.
It was a slow, suffocating death.
Inside the perimeter, the pirates were desperate. They had watched Gallows Grey fall. They had seen the dragons patrolling the sky, unchallenged. Hunger gnawed at their bellies, and fear gnawed at their minds.
A roar rose from the pirate camp, a sound like a storm breaking.
"They are coming!" a lookout shouted from the Westerosi lines.
Driven by madness and starvation, the defenders of Bloodstone launched a final, suicidal charge. They poured out of their caves and forts, a ragged tide of humanity rushing toward the wooden stakes of the Palisades.
They had no strategy. They had no hope. They only had the desire to die fighting rather than rot.
But the Westerosi were ready.
Rhaegar had deployed his forces with precision. The black-armored Targaryen men-at-arms held the center. Kevan Lannister's red-cloaked lions held the right. Steffon Baratheon's stag-helmed stormlanders held the left. Mace Tyrell's green-clad knights and Prince Lewyn's yellow-robed spearmen filled the gaps.
It was a wall of steel against a wave of flesh.
Archers lined the earthworks, their bows singing. Crossbowmen fired into the mass of charging pirates.
Then, the dragons descended.
"Dracarys!"
Rhaegar, mounted on the Silver Emperor, led the strafing run. Balerion and Belaerys flanked him.
Three rivers of fire—silver, purple, and black—crashed into the pirate charge.
The result was carnage. The pirates, packed tight in their desperation, had nowhere to run. They burned where they stood, their screams drowned out by the roar of the flames.
Those who made it through the fire ran onto the spears of the Dornish or were cut down by the heavy axes of the stormlanders.
The "Battle of the Palisades" was short, brutal, and decisive.
When the smoke cleared, the ground was carpeted with bodies. The surviving pirates retreated back into their holes, broken and defeated.
Rhaegar landed the Silver Emperor on a rocky outcrop overlooking the pirate fortress.
"Klarl Rhaen!" Rhaegar's voice, amplified by his dragon helm, boomed across the valley. "Coward! Beggar! Come out and face me!"
"You call yourself the King of the Narrow Sea? Come out, Klarl! Or are you just a skull in a cave?"
Silence answered him.
The Pirate King did not emerge. He cowered in the dark, stripped of his fleet, his army, and his dignity.
Rhaegar sneered. A king without courage is just a man with a hat.
He flew back to the flagship, where the war council was gathering.
The mood on the deck was jubilant. Prince Aerys sat at the head of the table, flanked by Tywin Lannister and Steffon Baratheon. Mace Tyrell was practically glowing, recounting his "heroic" command of the reserve lines.
"We have them," Rhaegar announced, removing his helm. "The pirate army is broken. They are starving and leaderless."
"Excellent!" Aerys clapped his hands. "Burn them all, Rhaegar! Every last one of them!"
"There is a complication," Tywin said, his voice cutting through the celebration. "My spies in Lys report that the Magisters are assembling a fleet. They claim they want to 'restore order' to the Stepstones. In reality, they want to stop us from keeping them."
"Let them come!" Aerys shouted, his face reddening. "I have three dragons! I will burn Lys to the ground if I have to!"
Rhaegar watched his father. Aerys was already losing his grip on reality, seeing enemies everywhere and believing himself invincible.
He is a pufferfish, Rhaegar thought, glancing at Mace Tyrell. All air and poison.
"We don't need to fight Lys," Rhaegar said calmly. "We just need to finish this before they arrive. If Bloodstone falls, there is no war to intervene in."
He looked at the gathered lords.
"I propose a final assault. Tomorrow at dawn. We storm the caves. We drag Klarl Rhaen out by his beard. And we end this."
"Agreed," Tywin said.
"For the King!" Steffon cheered.
"For glory!" Mace added, raising his cup.
Rhaegar looked out at the smoking island.
"For the realm," he whispered.