It had been a little more than three months since William had departed from Lannisport to fulfil Lucas' order. Three months since he had set foot in Essos with two thousand men under his command. Twenty ships. And two chests filled with pure gold.
His men were armed with the best weapons and armours available, and when he had departed, the ships had been loaded with enough weapons to arm another three thousand men.
In these three months, more than half of those three thousand weapons and armour sets had already been used.
William was sitting on a chair, a parchment laid out on the table in front of him. To an onlooker, it would appear to be the rant of a trader to his debtor, complaining about delays in payment.
But hidden within that rant was a message. A message that only a very few select eyes were capable of reading. Such practices of sending information were quite common in both Essos and Westeros, but this was none of the known methods.
It was a unique method developed by Lucas for sending secret messages. The method involved picking out only certain words from the entire letter and forming the true message out of them. The biggest advantage of the method was that it had no standard pattern. You would have to memorize the placements of the word and there was no other way.
And William, using this method, was sending one particular message back to Lannisport. To prepare more weapons. He would need them soon.
The ink dried, and he folded the parchment and sealed it in an envelope. He was about to call for someone when the curtain at the entrance of his tent flapped, and a man of similar age entered inside. He had dark black hair and had a muscular build. A sword was strapped on his waist and the man had a certain presence to himself.
"Commander William," the man bowed his head slightly.
Will nodded in acknowledgement. The man before him was Gilbert, the vice commander of all the forces. Almost equal in age, and similar in skill, the duo were quite close friends.
They had both joined under Lucas around the same time, and both had been contenders for the position of commander. It was only that William had held a slight edge over Gilbert in swordsmanship, and thus had managed to clinch the role.
But this had not created any feud or bad blood between them. They still respected each other immensely, and whenever they could spare a few private moments free from duty, they were like best friends.
"Gilbert," William said, passing the sealed envelope to him. "Send this to Lannisport."
"Weapons?" Gilbert asked as he took the parchment. There was nothing in the planning and the execution part that Gilbert was not aware of.
William nodded in confirmation, and Gilbert tucked it into his breast pocket.
"The formation is ready," Gilbert reported. "You might want to inspect it."
"Yes," William replied, nodding, before exiting the tent with Gilbert in tow.
William emerged into an open stretch of land, the bright sun shining down on his head. He squinted against the light until his vision cleared. His tent had been set up on a slightly raised top and standing at the edge of this top, he could see twenty feet below.
Standing before him were around three thousand five hundred soldiers, arranged in a crisp formation.
When William had first departed from Westeros, he had very specific instructions from Lucas.
The first thing they needed to do after arriving in Essos was to form a sellsword company. Lucas himself had chosen the name.
The Black Iron Company. What did the name mean? William had no idea, and he was not particularly concerned.
Soon after their arrival, a new sellsword company had suddenly appeared in Essos. While it was not impossible for someone to trace their origins back to Lannisport, it was quite difficult and William did not think anyone had tried in the beginning. And now after three months, tracing them back to Lannisport was much more difficult.
The formation and dissolution of sellsword companies was hardly unusual in Essos. And while two thousand men had been a significant number, it was not extraordinary.
Unless a sellsword company's strength reached five thousand, it rarely raised many eyebrows. The strongest sellsword company in Essos was the Golden Company which had around twenty thousand men. Other notable companies had around five thousand to eight thousand men.
And this suited William's plans perfectly. Though this company had been taken note of, not many had paid detailed attention to them.
In the beginning, the Black Iron Company was hired for menial tasks. Acting as guards merchant fleets or protecting caravans. William had even accepted a few bodyguard duties for certain individuals.
These individuals were part of Lucas' plan, and William had to build connections with them. With strength and sheer discipline of his men, the reputation of Black Iron continued to soar considerably and their demand increased.
Although small in number, Black Iron Company had been able to develop a formidable name for themselves.
The second task for William after arriving in Essos was to recruit more men into his sellsword company. And with the gold he had brought, along with the enticement of superior quality weapons and armour, William had been able to recruit more than fifteen hundred men in a single month. After which he had paused the recruitment.
Most of the new recruits were rogue sellswords, and William wanted them to fully assimilate before he expanded his numbers again. Quite a few newbies had joined them too but William was willing to accept even them. All of the new recruits were put through a brutal training regime and though they had improved much in the past two months and joined them in missions, their training was still in continuation phase.
Not everything had been smooth, however. A few sellswords thought that scamming his company would be a good idea.
More than a dozen men had escaped or had tried to escape after receiving their superior weapons and their first payment.
But William had dealt with them ruthlessly. He had them hunted down and executed in front of everyone. While a couple of men were still evading, the executions of the rest served as a strong enough deterrent to stop others from attempting the same.
"They are doing well," Gilbert added from the side.
"Yes," William nodded as he began climbing down from the raised platform. "It is time we implement the next phase of our plans."
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