It is not often that such minds and such leaders come together for a common cause.
And whilst General Ryndoon and the Martell Prince hadn't exactly started off well... they eventually came to terms with many matters.
Especially on the occupation and fortification of the Stepstones.
They decided that the Stepstones were to be held, not merely taken, and held in such a way that no Westerosi fleet might pass unchallenged.
The first landings were made along the Broken Arm of Dorne, upon the lesser islands nearest the sands.
These were not grand conquests. The rocks were bare, the soil thin, but they were useful.
Camps were raised upon each in turn, laid out with care by handy men.
Some served as supply stations, stocked with grain, water, and pitch. Others were mustering grounds, where oarsmen slept close to their ships and sailors drilled daily.
No camp was left unguarded and no shore was to be unmarked.
Accordingly, higher ground was claimed for outposts and lookouts.
From these stone crowns, storied sailors watched the Narrow Sea day and night. Fires were prepared for signaling, and horns for warning. Any sail approaching the straits would be seen long before it drew near.
Upon the longer islands, the Triarchy set their weapons of war. Catapults and the rocks to load upon each of them were hauled ashore in pieces and assembled with practiced speed.
The men of the seafaring Three Kingdoms took pride in them, swearing that no Westerosi ship will survive from warfare that they lived and breathed.
Be it Cog, Junk, or even those great floating monstrosities whispered of in the west, the Santa Ma-Rheas...
None should survive a crossing under their gaze.
Adding to that are the archers stationed alongside, their arrows tipped for fire, ordered to burn sails before hulls.
For a vessel without means to harness the wind... was already half sunk.
And while the collusion of natives from Essos were mostly working on the abovementioned... the Dornish brought heavier tools.
Great scorpions, broader in arm and thicker in bolt, were mounted where stone allowed. For the dragons that are bound to breathe fires of defiance.
All the while Prince Qoren's men spoke openly of Hellholt... of Meraxes brought low... and Queen Rhaenys slain.
There was pride in those words, and hunger too. Many hoped to see such a feat repeated.
With their Prince aiming to become a true dragonslayer... unlike some icing fake he detested.
Consequently... for all their considerable differences, the hosts worked well together.
Orders were obeyed. Coin was paid. Each did what they knew best.
And at the most... they gathered upon Bloodstone. The largest in this archipelago.
Whilst settling there... Prince Qoren dismissed the island's tales of haunted caves as lies... meant to frighten children and fools.
Though General Ryndoon points out that dried blood still paints the walls... so maybe there was truth to the tales...
With those dark stains still clinging to the walls... even if the supposed ghosts did not.
Either way, it was then and there that the both of them agreed upon their final measure.
Like the Crabfeeder before them, they would use these caves. To use the tactic of the predecessing prince-admiral...
But not as mere refuge alone, but as a tactic for attack.
Scorpions were dragged into shadowed mouths, engines angled toward narrow skies.
In the case that a dragon came to perch or close in... it would meet steel at arm's length.
A trap hidden amongst the many they already had.
And so... with the islands secured and their encampments laid, both leaders would eventually look seaward with open eagerness.
For what followed would be the culmination of all they've worked on...
The step forward in this war that they both very much welcomed.
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Unfortunately... as a cruel spite to their high expectations... what unceremoniously greeted them was utter devastation.
Before Racallio Ryndoon's very sharp eyes... the fleet of war vessels that was headed to strike terror upon the Narrow Sea... was counterstruck by literal nightmares of the depth.
It started with one...
One ship that was suddenly sunk to the bottom... by giant tentacles that were hard to miss...
And from there... it was unstoppable... it was continuing…
To the second ship...
The third ship...
The fourth ship...
The fifth ship...
One by one... all wrapped by humongous limbs that dragged crying men to the bottom of the sea.
And sent the shocked rest into a screaming panic!
And before long... the perfect formation of their very fleet was thrown into disarray...
With many crashing against each other and upon others.
It was utter chaos.
But the horrors did not relent.
If anything, it got worse...
The sixth ship, the seventh ship, the eighth ship, the ninth ship, and the tenth. Were simultaneously gone.
And as much as the onlooking Ryndoon rationalized that it was just one big Kraken doing the deed... it didn't take long for him to realize that there were multiple of them.
One, he was already struggling to accept. There being more than one just sent him into literal despair.
No amount of kittens, pregnant women, and even whore-dressing could fix him back to anything normal... as a set of these huge tentacles actually breached the sides of the flagship... and submerged it all to the dark waters below.
Including himself.
With Racallio not even bothering to save said self...
Only laughing maniacally under the surface of the sea... to hasten the process of salty waters filling up his insides.
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The Martell Prince reacted differently, however.
How quick he was to abandon his own prized ship as a man of Rhoynar descent.
How quick he was to swim to the stony shore... his poisoned spear was lost as it must be.
And how quick he was to realize his grievous faults.
Especially as his wet form gazed upon the carnage that ensued.
Be it from the Triarchy or from his own kingdom... the Krakens didn't discriminate...
They just hooked onto everything that floated and made sure that it floated no more.
There were lies in those bronze-themed stories, indeed.
A lie that he had a Kraken at his behest... when the legendary Bronze of the Deep clearly had a dozen of them.
And from that point on... Prince Qoren had his outlook renewed.
As he and the remainders were whittled away whilst they were stranded at the Stepstones.
For in the following days... it was made clear that it was not only the waters that were infested.
The skies were as well.
Camps? Supply stations? Lookouts? Catapults? Fire-tipped arrows?
All of those were of no use... against the methods that the riderless dragons used.
Slowly but surely... all of what was built was burnt...
And their Triarchal and Dornish desperation amounted to nothing.
Against a couple of dragons that literally caught scorpion bolts... and even passed it amongst themselves as amusement.
Against a dragon that did not even bother to fly... just gorging on the supplies until they dwindled to nothing.
Against a dragon that hid amongst the clouds of the day. Striking the supposed reinforcements and incoming aids when they least expect it.
Alternated by a dragon that blended in the dark of the night. A menace that did not let the leftovers sleep.
Not that Prince Qoren or any of his cohorts tried to do so.... when even the caves of Bloodstone were actually no solace.
Even the trap they prepared there was not much. Against those beasts that just directly melted the openings... and made those armed caverns just obsolete and inaccessible from henceforth.
Making it so that slumber in these islands might as well just be eternal...
Especially when there's still the true threat of that one man who can massacre an army in the middle of the night.
That man that didn't even bother to send himself to these broken lands this time around.
For it would seem that just his pets were more than enough.
A fact that made the Prince of Dorne lament...
How foolish he had been...