"Bloodbeard is dead! The Company of the Cat is finished!"
"The Second Sons have surrendered! The Long Lances have surrendered!"
The fall of the Company of the Cat tolled like a funeral bell for Myr, ringing for its Magisters and slaveholders. Inspired by the collapse of Myr's army, slaves in Tyrosh and Lys were stirred as well. The cities simmered with unrest and noise.
In this war, the Wolf Pack and the Free Company won a sweeping victory.
The Company of the Cat: its commander Bloodbeard slain in battle, the Company utterly crushed.
The Second Sons: their commander, "The Titan's Bastard" Mero, killed in combat. The remaining members surrendered to the Wolf Pack under their newly chosen captain, Brown Ben. Later, Brown Ben claimed he could not endure the Wolf Pack's oppression and "defected" back to Myr.
The Long Lances turned their cloaks midwar and joined the Wolf Pack.
Of the three Myr Magisters who had commanded two thousand Free Sellswords and numerous slave guards in the rear, one died in a slave uprising, one was captured by the Wolf Pack, and the last fled back to Myr in disgrace to deliver the news.
The Myr warships that had supported the land assault retreated swiftly to Myr's harbor once word arrived that the army had collapsed.
Leaving aside the Golden Company, whose involvement remained ambiguous and was rumored to have aided the Wolf Pack during the war, no major armed force in the Disputed Lands was now capable of standing against the Wolf Pack and the Free Company.
"Long live freedom!"
Across the Disputed Lands, slave revolts at the Three Daughters' manors intensified. In many estates, the slave masters had already fled back to the cities in panic before the Free Company even arrived. Apart from the most chaotic Free Sellsword hub, Crown Town, and several vassal towns and estates near the Three Daughters, the Disputed Lands had fallen into the hands of the Wolf Pack and the Free Company.
The Wolf Pack did not stop there. They pushed beyond the Disputed Lands, launching attacks into Myr's vassal territories.
Their onslaught swept across the region, rivaling the wars of the Ninepenny Kings in scale. Yet their approach was different. The Ninepenny Kings had relied on the Golden Company, pirates, and sellswords to seize control of the Disputed Lands by force, and their grip had been loose. The Free Company, by contrast, took the manors and transformed the slaves, turning them into an ever-renewing source of soldiers.
Three massive Myr catapults had been hauled by Gendry to the outskirts of Myr. Now the city was left with little more than its walls and its harbor, surrounded on land by Gendry's forces. The sight of the towering siege engines was enough to chill the heart. The Free Company arrayed themselves as if ready to attack Myr, yet held their hand.
The three catapults had been renamed "Wolf Pack," "Breaker," and "Freedom."
Their looming shadows seemed to press down upon the hearts of Myr's Magisters, leaving them restless and fearful day and night.
"Lord Commander, you clearly have the strength to take Myr. Why not attack?" asked a burly, middle-aged man standing beside Gendry.
Jorah Mormont, an exiled knight of the North. Thick-bodied and dark-skinned, with heavy hair and a touch of baldness, he was still powerfully built. As a northern knight in exile, Jorah was a rare man who understood the situation in Westeros, and he had joined the ranks of the Wolf Pack.
"No need to rush, Jorah," Gendry said. "War isn't a game. I don't wish to see lovely Myr, the city of artisans, smashed to pieces."
He looked toward the city walls of Myr, so close at hand. He had to restrain himself if he wanted to take Myr properly. In his eyes, Myr held far greater value than Lys or Tyrosh. It was a paradise for craftsmen, and that could be turned into enduring wealth.
Unlucky Jorah had cast his lot with Gendry, eager to prove himself before the Wolf King. Even if the North would no longer have him, earning a position in the Disputed Lands would be a new path.
Gendry continued to bleed Myr dry. After their defeat, the Myr Magisters had paid him a large sum in gold. From the family of the captured Magister, he had also extracted several warships.
"Our next focus isn't here," Gendry said to the men at his side—Handsome Man, Longspear, Steel Fist, and Big Bear Jorah.
"And where is that, then?" Jorah asked.
Gendry merely smiled.
Though he maintained an aggressive posture toward Myr, his true next target was the islands of the Stepstones. A feint to the east while striking elsewhere. Taking Myr alone was not enough. Tyrosh had to be considered as well.
Once Gendry's fleet seized the Stepstones, Myr and Tyrosh would be completely encircled, by land and by sea. And he had not forgotten the last time the Tyrosh fleet sailed in support of Myr. That debt was still unpaid.
"Inside Myr, I've planted the Second Sons as my spies. Outside the city, I've taken Myr's estates and granaries, and I've set three catapults in place. Once my final move is complete, we'll see how long Myr can truly endure."
Politics and war went hand in hand. Military victory was the foundation of lasting success.
"Against the Three Daughters, a head-on clash of central armies isn't the best approach. After all, their world belongs to cheese sellers and butter merchants." A straight battlefield collision was rare in the Free Cities. Unlike Westeros, fleets mattered far more here.
"Will our actions in the Disputed Lands alarm King Robert?" Handsome Man asked. When it came to direct dealings with King Robert, Ser Jorah knew the most. The shifting tides across the Narrow Sea might well draw Westeros' attention.
"Robert isn't the king he used to be. Most affairs of the realm are left to Great Lord Jon," Jorah said. "I only saw the king during the Ironborn rebellion, when he knighted me. Back then he was a bold and handsome warrior. Now I hear he's nothing but a whoremonger and a great fat drunk."
"Other than whoring, drinking, and hunting, the king likely only cares about hunting down the last remnants of House Targaryen. He hates Prince Rhaegar's kin above all. The new situation in the Free Cities won't seem urgent to him," Jorah added. In his view, the Iron Throne would not interfere with the Wolf Pack's actions.
"Even if King Robert has grown fat, he still has men like Eddard Stark, the Kingslayer, Stannis, and Randyll at his command," Longspear said. "We must carefully weigh the powers around us."
"Better not to dwell on the Iron Throne's attitude," Gendry replied. "They've never shown much interest in meddling across the Narrow Sea. A drunkard's realm is a slack one. The more immediate danger is that Myr's envoys are traveling to several Free Cities—Tyrosh, Lys, and Volantis. I've heard they even went to Slaver's Bay, though that's far off."
"Volantis! Volantis once invaded Myr!"
"That was then. This is now. Slavery is the root of Volantis. Even though the Elephant Party still governs the city, they won't stand idle while the Disputed Lands fall and the abolitionist tide rises."
The Elephant Party was made up mostly of merchants and moneylenders who believed in conquering the world through trade. In its early days, it had included several influential women who helped overthrow the Tiger Party. For three centuries after the wars of the Century of Blood, the Elephant Party had dominated Volantis' government, consistently holding at least two of the triarch seats.
"No need to worry," Gendry said calmly. "The Elephant Party is far too cautious when it comes to war. Even if they wanted to send troops, they would have to wait for the next triarch election and for the Tiger Party to return to power."
He had more than one source of intelligence. Aside from Qyburn's network, the Golden Company had also shared certain information with him.
"Besides Volantis, Lord Commander, we must also consider the threat from the ironborn," Jorah added.
"The ironborn have likely recovered from their last war. They're greedy raiders by nature. They often plunder the Disputed Lands and the Stepstones. It's not impossible they'll join in an attack against us."