The winch towers are a pair of towers raised for the defense of King's Landing during the War of the Five Kings.
Layout
[edit]The winch towers are squat buildings of raw new stone built at the mouth of the Blackwater Rush. The tower on the northern shore is against a bluff when the Red Keep above, and its southern counterpart is based in the water, making it difficult to attack. Each tower has a single tower raised twenty feed off the ground. They are too small to hold a sizable garrison, but do have archers for defense.[1] The steel boom connecting the towers can be raised and lowered by winches pulled by oxen within.[2]
Bronn, captain of Tyrion Lannister's personal guard,[3] leads the men assigned to the winch towers.[4]
Recent Events
[edit]A Clash of Kings
[edit]Tyrion Lannister, acting Hand of the King, prepares the defense of King's Landing before the Battle of the Blackwater. Tyrion conceives a plan to raise a great chain boom across the Blackwater Rush which would prevent the fleet of Stannis Baratheon from escaping to Blackwater Bay, and then destroying the trapped ships with wildfire.[1][2]
Tyrion has every forge in the city work on creating immense steel links for his chain.[5] Meanwhile, two winch towers made of heavy blocks of stone are constructed on opposite shores of the Blackwater.[6]
As the battle begins, Ser Davos Seaworth, a captain in Stannis's fleet, is concerned when he sees the newly-built structures. He sees the links in the water below and wonders why the boom was not raised to block the attacking fleet from entering the Blackwater Rush.[1] When Fury, Stannis's flagship, passes the Red Keep, Bronn has the oxen within the winch towers whipped to raise the boom.[2] Later in the battle, the Swordfish rams a Lannister barge filled with pots of wildfire, causing a huge explosion which spreads wildfire through the rival fleets. The boom prevents any of the galleys from reaching the safety of the bay, with many galleys crashing into the steel links.[1] The forces of Joffrey Baratheon are ultimately victorious in the battle, with Stannis retreating to fight another day.[7]
A Storm of Swords
[edit]The defenders of the winch towers who survived the battle are knighted by the High Septon and the Kingsguard. Bronn, knighted as Ser Bronn of the Blackwater by command of Lord Tywin Lannister, takes as his sigil a flaming chain, green, on a smoke-grey field.[4]
Quotes
[edit]
In his smuggling days, Davos had often jested that he knew the waterfront at King's Landing a deal better than the back of his hand, since he had not spent a good part of his life sneaking in and out of the back of his hand. The squat towers of raw new stone that stood opposite one another at the mouth of the Blackwater might mean nothing to Ser Imry Florent, but to him it was as if two extra fingers had sprouted from his knuckles.[1]
—thoughts of Davos Seaworth
Where the river broadened out into Blackwater Bay, the boom stretched taut, a bare two or three feet above the water. Already a dozen galleys had crashed into it, and the current was pushing others against them. Almost all were aflame, and the rest soon would be. Davos could make out the striped hulls of Salladhor Saan's ships beyond, but he knew he would never reach them. A wall of red-hot steel, blazing wood, and swirling green flame stretched before him. The mouth of the Blackwater Rush had turned into the mouth of hell.[1]
—thoughts of Davos Seaworth
Even from atop the merlon—he had been too short to see over the ramparts, so he'd had them boost him up—the flames and smoke and chaos of battle made it impossible for Tyrion to see what was happening downriver under the castle, but he had seen it a thousand times in his mind's eye. Bronn would have whipped the oxen into motion the moment Stannis's flagship passed under the Red Keep; the chain was ponderous heavy, and the great winches turned but slowly, creaking and rumbling. The whole of the usurper's fleet would have passed by the time the first glimmer of metal could be seen beneath the water. The links would emerge dripping wet, some glistening with mud, link by link by link, until the whole great chain stretched taut. King Stannis had rowed his fleet up the Blackwater, but he would not row out again.[2]
—thoughts of Tyrion Lannister
References
[edit]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 A Clash of Kings, Chapter 58, Davos III.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 A Clash of Kings, Chapter 59, Tyrion XIII.
- ↑ A Clash of Kings, Chapter 17, Tyrion IV.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 A Storm of Swords, Chapter 4, Tyrion I.
- ↑ A Clash of Kings, Chapter 15, Tyrion III.
- ↑ A Clash of Kings, Chapter 41, Tyrion IX.
- ↑ A Clash of Kings, Chapter 62, Sansa VII.