To the rest of the known world, the Isle of Cedars was a desolate, long-abandoned graveyard.
When the Doom had claimed Valyria almost two centuries ago, a wall of water hundreds of feet high had roared across the Gulf of Grief, swallowing the island's port cities of Velos and Ghozai. Since that day, it had been a place of ruin, ghosts, and profound superstition. Most Merchants navigated far around its rocky shores, and sailors swore the coastal waters were cursed with the lingering dread of the ruined Valyria.
It was, in short, one of the most isolated and ignored places in the world.
The only exception was Slaver's Bay to the north. The Good Masters of Astapor and the Wise Masters of Yunkai knew the Dragon Tide Consortium had claimed the ruins of the island. But to the slavers, the foreigners were half-mad to live atop the cursed Valyrian soil. But more importantly, they were highly lucrative neighbours.
The outpost regularly supplied them with precious stones and rare gems, quietly funnelled from the Consortium's eastern trade routes, at a fraction of their true market value, in exchange for metals and tools. And above all, the Consortium was a venture backed by the Iron Throne. The slaver cities knew better than to provoke the ire of the dragonriders in vain. So, they took the cheap gems, mocked the madmen of the West behind their backs, and willfully ignored their existence until the next shipment of valuable stones arrived.
It was the perfect place to hide exactly what they were building.
Moredo wiped a thick bead of sweat from his brow, his boots crunching over fragments of the ruined ancient marble of the island as he made his way up the steep jungle path. The heat of the island was oppressive, the air thick with humidity and the smell of the dense forest and sea salt carried by the wind. In the canopy above, a troop of feral monkeys shrieked and scattered. A massive, tusked pig, one of the thousands that had overrun the island after the original inhabitants died out, snorted from the underbrush before vanishing into the ferns.
Moredo was a Volantene, a senior bookkeeper and facilitator for the Dragon Tide Consortium. Officially, he was here to inspect the remote 'maritime security outpost'. He had arrived a few days ago, bringing three hundred fresh recruits from the slums of Volantis and Lys, alongside unmarked chests of gold laundered through places he was not privy to.
Moredo climbed the ridge and descended onto a man-made stone platform, looking down into the vast valley just north of the ruins of Velos. He gazed upon the supposedly insignificant merchant outpost.
He unrolled one of the many heavy parchments in his hands, his eyes scanning the sight below him. As the bookkeeper for the operation, he knew the figures intimately, but seeing them made flesh still sent a cold bead of sweat rolling down his spine.
It was a masterpiece of military engineering, but more than that, it was a masterpiece of deception.
The Dragon Tide Consortium had grown gargantuan in a shockingly short period of time. Its fleets spanned from the sunset kingdoms to the edges of the Jade Sea, bringing in obscene amounts of gold, and its operational control rested firmly in the hands of the Velaryons. Lord Corlys, the legendary Sea Snake, commanded the grand fleets and reviewed the towering ledgers of the company.
To Lord Corlys, to the Targaryen Crown, and to the rest of the world, the Isle of Cedars was a footnote. It was a minor, economically sound but geographically poor outpost established in the Consortium's infancy, deemed too useless to develop but just significant enough not to completely abandon. Shipments of grain, steel, and timber were sent to the island frequently, carefully buried under the guise of 'routine outpost maintenance'. In the face of the millions of dragons flowing through, these expenses were insignificant. Corlys Velaryon or for that matter, anyone from the Consortium, barely cared that they had an outpost on the isle at all.
Save for one person.
Moredo did not know his true name, but he could guess. The man had to be someone of incredibly high standing within either House Targaryen or House Velaryon. Exactly who it was, he was none the wiser. So, he and the handful of men aware of the island's true nature simply called the mystery man 'The Patron'.
All Moredo knew for sure was that whoever this patron was, he was incredibly smart and very dangerous. He was using his own family's massive trade empire as a smokescreen, embezzling gold and hiding an entire army in plain sight as maintenance and development expenses in the ledgers. Moredo was one of the few tasked with making sure the ledgers maintained the lie.
The valley below was the culmination of a nearly three year effort. Moredo recalled the early days, late in the year 94 AC, when they had deployed the first men here after the establishment of the base. Two thousand elite specialists. Volantene architects, smuggled Myrish siege engineers, and discarded veteran Ghiscari military men quietly bought from Astapor under the guise of the marble trade. They had spent months clearing the ruins, establishing freshwater sources, and culling the feral pigs and monkeys to secure a sustainable food supply.
Then, in the following years, a few massive cargo galleys disguised as the Consortium's eastern trade fleet, ships specifically reserved for inter-city Essosi trade, had quietly ferried eight hundred to a thousand men a month to the island. Thousands of desperate men, pulled from the gutters of Volantis and Lys. Following them, another haul of Myrish and Tyroshi engineers had been funnelled into the camps.
Nineteen thousand men had crossed the sea to this island. But the patron demanded perfection, which meant all of them were held to a strict, unrelenting standard.
Moredo looked to the southern ridge and the sprawling camps. The gruelling physical standards and the discipline of the lockstep formations necessitated the selection of only the absolute best. But failure here did not mean death or the whip, as it did in the Slaver's Bay. A failed prospect who couldn't hold the line was simply reassigned.
Those with strong backs hauled stone from the quarries or worked the lumber camps, earning a fair and steady wage. Those who showed a quick mind were funnelled into logistics, smithing, or the siege engineering cohorts, treated with respect and recognized as vital parts in a massive mechanism. The Consortium paid them all handsomely to do their jobs and keep their mouths shut.
That left the true strength. Fifteen thousand, four hundred and fifty combat-ready men, with another two thousand still in training. Three full legions, supported by their auxiliary cohorts. Each legion being made up of five thousand, one hundred and fifty men.
In the center of the valley, upon the flattened earth, the First Legion was running its morning drills. Only the heavy infantry appeared to be on the field today. The archers, light infantry, and cavalry were assigned their own separate training regimens
A low echo rumbled through the valley as the sound of thousands of sandaled boots striking the dirt in perfect unison rolled over the place. There were no battle cries as of yet. Only the rhythmic beat of the legion's footsteps and the sharp commands of the drillmasters.
"Qintiro Qogron!" a voice roared in High Valyrian. Turtle Line
In but a few moments, the massive block of men collapsed into a shell of iron. The men on the outer edges slammed heavy, curved tower shields into the dirt, while the men inside raised theirs overhead, overlapping them like dragon scales. A split second later, a massive barrage of blunt training arrows rained down on their formation, clattering harmlessly off the shields.
Moredo felt a chill despite the stifling heat. This was the unbreakable discipline of the New Ghiscari legions and the Unsullied of Astapor married to a strange fluidity. As the shield wall dissolved, the front rank fluidly stepped back through precise gaps in the second rank, cycling fresh men to the front without breaking the line. Each man in the heavy infantry, regardless of rank, was armed with a heavy, shanked iron javelin, a short sword and a dagger.
The men themselves were a striking sight. Because they had heavily targeted the underclasses of Volantis and Lys, two of the most populous cities on the continent, the recruitment had gone entirely unnoticed. Pulling a few hundred men a month from the underbelly of cities with millions barely registered to the authorities. Being that the recruits were mostly of Valyrian descent, in the harsh midday sun, their silver-gold hair, pale eyes, and dirt-streaked faces gave them the eerie resemblance of the ancient Freehold's armies told in old tales.
As far as any of those men knew, they were employed by the Dragon Tide Consortium. They knew their pay was always on time. They knew they were supposed to be 'convoy guards'. But looking at the brutal, highly synchronized formations they were drilling, Moredo knew that even the thickest-headed recruit down there realized you did not teach simple convoy guards to fight in centuries and cohorts.
Moredo made his way down the marble steps toward the edge of the training grounds, approaching the man responsible for orchestrating the drills.
Vaelor stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He was a Volantene of the Old Blood, a former commander of the Tiger Cloaks who had been disgraced and exiled after a political coup. He was imposing, utterly ruthless, and possessed a military mind that bordered on the terrifying.
When the men of the Consortium's shadowed master had found him, Vaelor had been a drunk in a Pentoshi gutter, drinking away his life and waiting for an inglorious death. But now, he was the master of this island, one of the very few who truly understood the motives of the patron.
"A new shipment has arrived," Moredo said, stopping a respectful distance away. "Three hundred men and five chests of gold."
Vaelor did not look away from the drills. His eyes were fixed on the rotation of the cohorts. "Did the voyage go unnoticed?"
"Entirely. We flew Volantene colours, then struck them for the Consortium sails once we entered the Gulf of Grief." Moredo reached into his tunic and handed over the small, black-waxed scroll.
"A letter has arrived from our friends in Pentos. Words from the patron."
Vaelor took it, breaking the seal and reading the words written inside in silence.
"The men are in good spirits," Moredo said, looking at the parchment in his hands. "But the camp is nearing capacity. With the food stores and the fresh recruits, the facilities will soon be heavily burdened."
Vaelor smoothly rolled the parchment back up and tucked it into his belt. "The war between the Triarchy and the Iron Throne has begun," he stated quietly, his eyes never leaving the soldiers. "The Triarchy has blockaded the Stepstones. The Westerosi lords are outraged. Their fleets are preparing to sail."
Moredo hummed. "War. It was inevitable, I suppose. This means that the Consortium will have to halt all trade between Westeros and Essos." He looked back at the sprawling camp. If they loaded these men onto galleys right now, they could probably take the Stepstones in a matter of days to weeks. "Does the patron want us to prepare the ships?"
"No," Vaelor said. "The Westerosi lords will handle the Triarchy for now. We are to stay exactly where we are."
Moredo blinked, momentarily confused by the restraint. A war was erupting across the Narrow Sea, and this devastating army was simply going to sit in the ruins of the Gulf of Grief.
"Then what are my orders for the mainland?" Moredo asked.
"You are to return to Volantis," Vaelor instructed, finally turning his gaze to the bookkeeper. "Send word to our men in Lys and Pentos. Order them to stop all recruitment and operations. From now on, Volantis will be the sole target."
Moredo frowned slightly. "Only Volantis?"
"They have just been defeated in the Battle of the Borderland and driven out of the Disputed Lands," Vaelor explained, his voice cold and calculating. "The whole city is in disarray. Target the men ruined by the war. They will be desperate for any lifeline, and an increase in our recruitment will go entirely unnoticed in all the chaos. Do not worry if the camp reaches capacity. We will expand to the eastern ridge."
Moredo looked at the Volantene commander, then back out over the legion. He didn't truly know why they were here, and who they were waiting for. But he could tell that things were going to get bloody very soon.
"Understood," Moredo said quietly, rolling up his parchments.
Vaelor gave a sharp nod, his attention already returning to the perfection of the drills, leaving Moredo to begin the long walk back to his ship.