A Clash of Kings – Fleet

In today's A Clash of Kings illustration, Davos frets the fleet may be sailing into a trap. seaworth galleys blackwater bay ships sea asoiaf a song of ice and fire pen and ink

A Clash of Kings – Fleet

Swordfish had joined the line at last, though she still had her sail raised. “Fast cruise,” Davos barked. The drum began to beat more quickly, and the stroke picked up, the blades of the oars cutting water, splash-swoosh, splash-swoosh, splash-swoosh. On deck, soldiers banged sword against shield, while archers quietly strung their bows and pulled the first arrow from the quivers at their belts. The galleys of the first line of battle obscured his vision, so Davos paced the deck searching for a better view. He saw no sign of any boom; the mouth of the river was open, as if to swallow them all. Except . . .

A Clash of Kings Chapter 59 – Davos

Davos sails to King’s Landing as part of Stannis’s fleet. His professional smuggler’s eye senses a trap. Unfortunately, he’s not the one leading the fleet.

It was hard to choose what to draw for the first half of this chapter. This was because I had a choice between Davos’s internal dialogue and establishing shots of the huge fleet of ships, all of them named, and the coastline of King’s landing. I was reluctant to draw the establishing shots mainly because I thought they’d be too similar to a scene from a previous chapter and galleys are hard to draw.

Besides, there are a lot of scenes that while extremely cool in film or a comic, are pretty boring in a single image.

So I drew the closest thing to an action sequence which was Davos pacing the deck of Black Betha.