The longships closed fast on Alric’s galley, oars cutting hard through the grey water.
He handed the bow back to the young archer without a word and gripped his warhammer in his right hand, shield in his left.
He is ready for whatever is coming.
The first longship rammed alongside with a shudder of splintering wood, grappling hooks flying across the gap, and then the world dissolved into noise and steel and screaming.
Ironborn climbed over the rail, one after another, shouting eagerly.
The first came at him screaming, wild-eyed, too eager for it.
Alric couldn’t tell if the man was brave or just a stupid fool.
Well it didn’t matter to him.
He met the reaver head-on, swinging his hammer into his chest and then came The sound of ribs cracking, too loud even in this chaos — leaving a wet, hollow crack .
The man screamed “ARGHHHH”, breathing heavy leaving him in a red paste.
Alric didn’t stop to watch him fall.
He swung again, catching the reaver’s jaw on the follow-through and sending him backward over the rail, back to the sea and to whatever gods he prays to.
That is the just start of this chaos — his own men against the reavers in every direction, steel ringing against steel, men screaming all the same when they were dying and pissing themselves.
Alric moved to help a sailor pinned against the mast, driving his hammer into the attacker’s leg.
Bone cracked audibly.
“AAAAAHHH—” The ironborn screamed, folding to his knees, clutching at the ruin of his leg.
Alric didn’t hesitate.
He drove the hammer’s head into the man’s skull and slammed the face against the wooden railing, and what had been a face became something else entirely — a crushed skull where bone and blood and matter sprayed across the railing looking like a art peice of a monster.
He moved on.
A reaver came at him swinging a longsword, and Alric caught the blow on his shield, then brought the top flat side of his hammer up and into the man’s chest hard enough to lift him in the air, showing off the brute Baratheon strength they are famous or rather infamous for.
“OURS IS THE FURY!” Alric roared, the old Baratheon words tearing out of him as all of the rage in him comes to play .
These were the men who had taken his father.
Every one of them wore that crime on their back whether they knew it or not.
He let the man drop.
The reaver wasn’t dead — his chest had caved inward but he is still breathing.
He is incapicated and could do nothing now but scream at the pain his chest is feeling.
Alric could have left him.
As there are more fights Waiting him and he could left it his men to kill him as man could do nothing.
But The Rage in him didn’t agree,He crossed back, saw the dying man, and brought the hammer down once more.
Blood scattered across the deck in a wide arc.
The man was already gone, but Alric’s rage was not, and he struck a second time, and a third, until what remained beneath the hammer bore no resemblance to a man at all but a bloody paste.
He was still crouched there, breathing hard, drunk on the violence of it, when instinct screamed a warning down his spine.
He raised his shield on pure reflex, and it was the only thing that saved him.
An axe struck the wood and buried itself deep, splitting the shield clean through and rendering it useless in his hand.
Alric’s sighs his breath .
He abandoned ruined shield fall and noted down his lesson — Always watch your surroundings in a battle, a basic rule but easily forgettable at the verge of violence — and turned to face the man who’d thrown it.
An ironborn stood a few paces off, smiling.
“You’re a Baratheon, aren’t you? I heard you shout the words.” The man’s grin widened.
“You look young, Renly, is it? The King’s youngest brother.” He spat to one side.
“Today I kill you, and avenge our humiliation and send your brother your head as a present.”
He is Elvin, Vice Commander of the fleets of the Ironborn.
Alric smiled back, but there was nothing sane in it but rage and anger.
He looked like a crazy person, A Mad man rather than a Sane Lord
“You are wrong , you bastard.” he said.
“Wrong Baratheon entirely.” And runs towards him.
Neither of them waited for more words.
They closed the distance together, weapons already rising.
Elvin swung his greataxe in a wide, brutal arc, and Alric caught it on the hilt of his hammer, the impact shuddering up through both arms.
They traded blows after that — parry, dodge, swing, each strike carrying enough force to end a lesser man in a single connection.
Both swung at each other hard, parrying, dodging and swinging each other at tremendous strength.
Both of them fought hard.
Alric is swinging his hammer hard making his enemy work for his survival, They were fighting each other for a while and then Alric saw a gap in Elvin defence.
He Swing his hammer hard and pushed Elvin back hard making him lose his balance on the ship and created a opportunity for himself to attack and he won’t let it go waste.
He immediately Swing his hammer to the groin area of Elvin from the ground.
“AAAAAAHH — YOU BASTARD!” Elvin’s scream tore out of him raw and animal as what had made him a man came apart beneath the blow, blood spraying dark across the deck.
With his cock spashled into blood He collapsed to his knees, still screaming, hands scrabbling uselessly at the his groin.
Alric stood over him, eyes burning with something past reason.
“I am Alric Baratheon,” he said, loud and cold enough to cut through even Elvin’s screaming.
“SON OF STANNIS BARATHEON AND THIS IS MY REVENGE.”
He brought the hammer down on Elvin’s skull, and sent him to the Plunder Gods he worships.
The ironborn who saw their vice commander die like that — broken, gelded, and finally silenced — began to break apart themselves.
Without Elvin’s voice cutting through the chaos, they fought like men with no one left to follow, scattered and desperate, easy work for Alric’s crew of knights, sailors, and reformed pirates who had bled through and transformed by Alric.
The fighting dragged on a few minutes more, but the outcome was already written.
One of the smarter reavers, seeing the tide for what it was, screamed the only order that made sense left to give.
“FALL BACK! FALL BACK!”