Alyn Oakenfist's surprise attack on the Braavosi fleet

Alyn Velaryon’s surprise attack on the Braavosi fleet in the Stepstones turned a royal expedition delayed by divided command into a celebrated naval victory—and a political crisis. Acting without the royal fleet, Alyn struck while Braavosi commanders were gathered on Bloodstone. He returned with ships, hostages, supplies, and an elephant, but not the island stronghold the expedition had been meant to secure. The victory won him the name Oakenfist and popular acclaim; its failure to achieve the campaign’s objective left the realm facing the prospect of war with Braavos.

Strategic background and divided command

When the royal expedition sailed, control of the Stepstones was unsettled. Racallio Ryndoon still held Bloodstone, the largest island, and several smaller rocks, though most of his ships had been swept from the sea. A shifting set of alliances had reshaped the contest: Lys and Myr had made peace and attacked Tyrosh, drawing the Tyroshi fleet away, while Pentoshi sellswords occupied the islands not held by Racallio’s forces. Braavosi warships controlled the waters between them. Lord Unwin Peake, the Hand, recognized that Westeros could not win a sea war against Braavos. His stated aim was narrower: end Racallio’s pirate kingdom and establish a presence on Bloodstone so the narrow sea could not again be closed.

The royal fleet alone was inadequate to that purpose. It consisted of eight new warships and about twenty older cogs and galleys, so Peake ordered the Lord of the Tides to assemble the Velaryon fleets and place them under Gedmund Great-Axe. Alyn, however, bristled at the instruction. He regarded the fleets as his and thought Gedmund, whom he disparagingly called Nuncle Gedmund, a poor choice to command them. Nevertheless, he brought together sixty war galleys, thirty longships, and more than a hundred cogs and great cogs to join the royal ships as they left King’s Landing.

The disagreement became concrete as the fleet passed through the Gullet. Gedmund sent Blackbean to Alyn’s flagship, Queen Rhaenys, with authorization for Alyn to take command of the Velaryon squadrons. Alyn rejected the appointment and sent Blackbean back. The exchange established the strain between the commanders before the fleet even reached the Stepstones: Alyn had supplied most of its strength, but the royal command structure still treated the operation as one directed from above.

The delay at Tarth and Alyn’s departure

Strong north winds helped the fleet make good time south. Off Tarth, a dozen more longships joined under Lord Bryndemere the Evenstar, whose news altered the expedition’s strategic situation. The Sealord of Braavos, the Archon of Tyrosh, and Racallio had now allied with one another and agreed to rule the Stepstones jointly. Passage would be restricted to ships licensed by Braavos or Tyrosh; Pentos, previously a major force in the islands, had been excluded from the arrangement.

Gedmund Great-Axe, known to the sailors as Gedmund Green-Sick after suffering seasickness on the voyage, decided that the Hand should be told of the new alignment. Since the Evenstar had already sent a raven to King’s Landing, Peake ordered the fleet to wait at Tarth for a reply. Alyn objected that the pause would sacrifice any chance of surprising Racallio, but Gedmund held to the order, and the two commanders parted angrily.

At sunrise the following day, Blackbean told Gedmund that the Lord of the Tides had disappeared. Gedmund assumed Alyn had turned north and gone back to Driftmark; Ned Bean likewise dismissed him as frightened. Both were wrong. Alyn had taken the Velaryon ships south. Three days later, while Gedmund and the royal fleet were still waiting off Tarth for a raven, Alyn’s attack began among the Stepstones’ rocks, sea stacks, and narrow, tangled waterways. The contrast between the two forces was decisive: the royal expedition remained stationary under orders, while Alyn used the delay to strike without it.

The attack and the destruction of the Grand Defiance

The surprise caught the Braavosi fleet unprepared. Its grand admiral and forty captains were feasting on Bloodstone with Racallio and the Tyroshi envoys. Alyn’s ships attacked the Braavosi vessels at anchor or tied to docks, and continued against others as they tried to raise sail and escape. Half the Braavosi ships were taken, burned, or sunk in the opening assault. The attack was not without loss, but the circumstances gave Alyn a substantial advantage before the enemy could organize a response.

The Grand Defiance, a Braavosi dromond propelled by four hundred oars, fought through a group of smaller Velaryon warships and reached open water. Alyn himself then bore down on her aboard Queen Rhaenys. The Braavosi ship attempted to turn toward its attacker, but its great size made it slow to answer. Queen Rhaenys struck its broadside with her oars churning the water. The collision smashed into the dromond’s side, splintered oars, broke through its hull, and brought down its masts, leaving the ship almost cut in two. When Alyn ordered his rowers to back away, water poured through the breach and the Grand Defiance sank within moments. The destruction of the towering flagship made the defeat more than a rout of ships at anchor: the Braavosi had also lost a conspicuous emblem of their naval power.

Victory, losses, and acclaim

Alyn’s victory was extensive. He lost three ships; one was the True Heart, captained by his cousin Daeron, who died when it sank. Against that cost, the Velaryons sank more than thirty enemy ships and captured six galleys, eleven cogs, and eighty-nine hostages. They also took large quantities of food, drink, arms, and coin, together with an elephant intended for the Sealord’s menagerie. Alyn brought these spoils back to Westeros. The operation thus yielded material gains and a striking public trophy, even as it cost the life of a member of his family.

The return turned Alyn into a popular hero. Sailing Queen Rhaenys up the Blackwater Rush, he rode through the River Gate on the Sealord’s elephant. Tens of thousands lined the streets to cheer him and catch sight of the victor. King Aegon III appeared at the Red Keep’s gates to welcome him. Alyn’s new name, Oakenfist, became the lasting mark of the victory, while the elephant made his triumph visible to the city that celebrated it.

The victory’s political reversal

The welcome did not last into the throne room. By the time Alyn arrived there, the young king had vanished; Unwin Peake instead confronted him from the Iron Throne and condemned his conduct. The Hand’s anger reflected the gap between the expedition’s original purpose and what Alyn had accomplished. He had struck the fleet, but had not taken Bloodstone or any other Stepstone. The knights and men-at-arms needed for such a conquest had remained aboard the larger royal ships, which Alyn had left behind off Tarth.

Nor had the attack eliminated the enemy Peake meant to remove. Racallio’s pirate kingdom was supposed to be the expedition’s target, but after the assault he appeared stronger than before. Alyn had captured ships and dealt a severe blow to Braavosi prestige, yet left the island position unresolved and helped turn a contest over the Stepstones into a confrontation with Braavos, the richest and most powerful of the Nine Free Cities. Thus the acclaim in the streets and Peake’s fury in the hall describe two sides of the same outcome: a spectacular tactical success that failed to secure its strategic objective and placed the realm in an untenable position.