The Warg Lord (ASOIAF)(SI)

[LazyWizard]

The city of Volantis was often called the First Daughter by the people in Essos and was the oldest and the proudest of the Nine Free Cities. Located at the mouth of the river Rhoyne on the Summer Sea(Sea south of Essos), it is the greatest, richest and most powerful of the City-States, only recently rivalled by Braavos.


Volantis was also the most populous city in Essos and with its humid and hot climate, it was hard even for the locals during the mid-day when the sun is at its hottest... not to mention people from a part of the World where it snows even in summer.


The Four Northerners, with swords at their waist, stood out like a sore thumb on the busy streets of Volantis. They were outside the gate of a luxurious mansion in the heart of the city, and even though all of them were wearing thin and airy clothes popular among the locals, it was starkly noticeable that they weren't local at all.


"Ugh! This heat is fucking killing me!!" Gill panted while pulling his collar as far away as he could. They were standing in the little shade they could find by the wall of the mansion beside the gate. Their exhausted and huddled bodies made a stark contrast with the straight backs of the unsullied guards standing guard at the gate a few meters away from them.


"You should be thankful boy that you're not old enough to have a beard like me," chuckled the oldest one of the four Northerners, "I swear it feels as a fucking bear is sitting on my face," he cursed while scratching his shaggy beard ferociously. The air was hot and heavy here and it almost felt like he was swimming in his sweat


"Then you should have listened to the boss when he told everyone on the ship to get a shave and haircut," teased the tallest one among them who was also the assistant of the Merchant Sam.


"Humph! I'd rather die of heatstroke than look a dandy like this boy," he scoffed while pointing towards Gill, "I don't how he survived in the North with a clean face like this... I bet even the brothel girls laugh their ass off when he enters the door," he chortled and all of three of them burst out laughing.


"Shut Up! You Brute" Gill protested but before they could tease the young boy any further, the man they were waiting for came out of the mansion door and walked towards them.


"We're done here," Merchant Sam said barely stopping in his stride, "Onto to the ships now,"


"Finally!!" the sailor's cum guards grumbled before surrounding the Merchant and his assistant and moving towards the ship in a group so as to fend off the pickpockets.


"We get the full payment, Sam?" The assistant asked as they slowly moved through the crowded streets filled to the brim with people going to and fro.


"We did," Sam grunted absentmindedly.


The hardest part for all of them on these trips was neither the long journey nor the pirates along the way...instead, it was walking through these crowded cities.


The slavery blatantly on show all around them was more than a simple culture shock for these Westerosi, from 10-year-old half-naked boys being made to carry sacks twice their weight on their backs to men and women, with haunted eyes, being sold naked on streets like vegetables. The despair in the eyes of the slaves and the apathy in the eyes of the slaver was alarming, it was as if they didn't even consider the slaves to be of the same species.


Slavery is something that has been outlawed in Westeros for more than a thousand years. It is one of the only things loathed by both the Faith of the Seven and the Old gods. While some people say that smallfolk in Westeros don't live much better than the slaves here... It's not the truth, after all, at least they have the freedom to get up and leave for better pastures whenever they want, unlike the shackled slaves with dead eyes all around them.


All the Northerners had grim and uncomfortable looks on their faces, but the most disturbed was Gill, the youngest one among them. It was his first trip to Volantis, so seeing all that was happening around him was too much for his young mind.


"Fucking slavers," spat the old one with the beard, while glaring at the fat pig who was almost breaking the backs of skinny old men carrying him on a palanquin.


"Stop it! Do you want to get us killed?" the assistant whispered anxiously.


"Why? It's not like these bastards can even understand us..."


"They may understand our tongue but they can surely understand your eyes—"


As the assistant was trying to calm them down something happened in a merchant shop in front of them. A woman slave, with a toddler swaddled behind her, was cleaning a vase when it accidentally dropped from her fingers breaking it into a thousand pieces.


"Ah—"


"You useless wretch!! I told you to be careful with that!" the Merchant shouted and almost immediately the nearby guard handed over a whip to his master who didn't hesitate to lash out at the woman not even caring if he hurt the babe. Thankfully the woman reacted instantly and took the babe from her back into her arms and took the lashes on her back.


"Fucking useless bitch!!" the merchant growled almost tearing the skin of the helplessly crying woman. None of the people walking by so much as stopped...


"Don't!" Sam said firmly without looking back and Gill, the only guard whose hand had instinctively gone towards his sword, froze, "Don't look! Don't hear! Don't Speak! Just Walk!" the Merchant said firmly, his eyes staring straight ahead.


Gill looked helplessly towards his senior who only shook his head silently. Gill gritted his teeth but ultimately didn't disobey Sam's order and walked away with the rest. He knew that the moment he pulled his sword out they would get surrounded by the guards and be killed.


As someone who had grown up an orphan in the streets of White Harbour he knew that life could be unfair but seeing a mother getting lashed while trying to save her son and not being able to do anything made him feel as if someone was twisting his insides.


"Now I understand why the boss never leaves the ship in these slaver cities," Gill murmured to himself after taking a deep breath and letting go of his sword, "I envy him... At least he doesn't have to watch all this..."


'He is always watching,' Sam wanted to retort but held it inside of him.


After all, Jon hadn't behaved any differently from the young boy when he had first entered a Slaver city and laid his eyes on the atrocities happening everywhere. In fact, Jon had reacted even more extremely than what the boy had been thinking of doing with his sword... after all, at least five cruel slavers ended up dying mysteriously because of him which almost caused a riot in the city centre.


If Sam hadn't known better and somehow managed to calm Jon down from his wrath and bring him back to the ship...who knows what would have happened?


Both of them had decided after that trip that it would be better for Jon to remain away from these cities for a while.


"Don't hold up now! Move!" The assistant said patting their shoulders, "We need to hurry back to the ships... Or they'll leave without us, Haha..." he said trying to uplift the gloomy mood.


Volantis is divided in the middle by the river Rhoyne into two parts Eastern Bank and Western Bank. The city spreads widely across the mouth of the Rhoyne and the hills and marshes on both sides of the river. And, at that moment, they were inside the Western Bank, where most of the 'newer' districts resided which was mostly filled with slaves, merchants and foreigners.


The Eastern Bank, also called Old Volantis, is where the so-called Old Blood resides protected by Black Walls made during the Valyrian era. The nobility there considered walking to be something that peasants did which meant that most of them only left their homes on either palanquins or used various kinds of animals like elephant rides.


Thankfully there were very few nobles on this side otherwise the traffic would have been unimaginable with elephants clogging the streets.


Even though they hurried along it still took them about two hours to reach the fishmonger square. The square was filled with a swathe of human bodies suffocating against each other as they rushed along and even though the streets widened as they approached the port, the amount of people increased proportionally with it.


It took them quite a while to cross the fish food market but finally, the buildings gave away and the view in front of them widened until they were at the dock which stretched on both sides as far as their eyes could see.


The Volantis harbour was large and very deep, in fact, they even have a saying that Braavos and all of its more than a hundred isles could sink in here and disappear. While it's not known if it was just the pride of the so-called "Old Blood" speaking here or if it's the truth, one thing no one can deny is that the port was absurdly huge.


But as massive as the port was, it was still filled to the brim with all kinds of ships, some from the nearby cities such as Lys, and Tyrosh, while others from the cities of Slaver's Bay. Finding a ship in this clustered port would be a nightmare even for a Captain who had docked the ship. But thankfully ships from Westeros rarely ever come this far so it didn't take them long to reach the place where their fleet is docked.


The ships seemed to have just been waiting for them to arrive as the moment the sailors onboard caught sight of them, they started pulling up the anchors to prepare for departure.


Merchant Sam made sure that everything was in order and that every sailor was on board and accounted for before giving the order to depart one after the other.


...


A few minutes after they left the port of Volantis, Sam found Jon at the deck watching the city as it disappeared on the horizon.


"We got all the payments from the Merchants belonging to Big Mario and the others and all the ships have also been filled with the local goods..." Sam slowly reported everything while Jon simply nodded.


Jon waited for Sam to finish with his report before asking, "How is Gill?"


"Sullen. But I relieved the boy of his duty and sent him to his room so he should be fine after a good night's rest." Sam replied with a sigh, "They all need to grow up and realise that Slavery is an undeniable truth of this side of the world which wouldn't change no matter how they feel about it," he finished firmly.


"The world will be a very grim place if young people easily accept these kinds of things from the get-go, Sam," Jon said with a wry smile.


"Slavery has been a part of these cities for more than just a few centuries, it is something that has long seeped into the very being of the people here..." Sam said while looking at the melancholy young boy meaningfully, "No Man, no matter how powerful, would be able to abolish it... So the sooner one accepts it the better."


Jon remained silent and thoughtful for a few minutes before he suddenly turned around his face with a thoughtful look "Hmm...Perhaps not a man, but maybe a woman could..."


Jon had begun searching for the traces of the Last Targyreans from the moment he had set foot in Essos but sadly he hadn't had much luck in that yet.


While he was someone who could find anyone's secret given enough time with the use of his abilities. He didn't quite possess the spread-out spy network to find two teenagers amongst the millions on this continent. Especially when they were being meticulously hidden with the help of the infamous whisperer. And he didn't want to make any straightforward enquiries and spook the spider so the only viable option he had at the moment was to wait for them to appear.


"Eh? H-How would a woman do anything about slavery?" Sam asked in a bewildered tone.


"With three very powerful friends," Jon said with a mysterious smile before going away towards his room leaving behind a very confused Merchant.


...


About five peaceful days had passed since they left the City of Volantis, and the previous day they also passed by the little paradise island of Lys, but they didn't make a stop at Lys on this trip (which was quite disappointing for all the young sailors) as their ships were already full with the goods.


The Sun had barely set about an hour ago and the all-consuming darkness had already claimed the night, but the sailors on the ships were still as busy as during the day, trying to work using the light of the stars and the flickering torches.


While the Northern fleet had a habit of always travelling during the night, the number of sailors awake was quite different, as usually, only a few people would remain awake to make sure that they were going on the right path while the rest would go to sleep.


"How long till we reach the Stepstones?" Merchant Sam asked Jon, a hint of dread in his voice.


They had already passed this treacherous part of the sea more than a few times in the last couple of months but no matter how many times he did it, it would still be anxiety-inducing passing through these island dens filled to the brim with bloodthirsty pirates. This was also why most of the sailors were awake and alert so that they could react instantly if anything happened.


"About two hours," Jon replied with a shrug.


He was standing in his favourite position on the deck looking out at the brilliant night sky with innumerable stars that were even more visible at the sea.


He broke out of his fascination when he saw the anxious expression of his merchant friend from the corner of his eye.


"Don't worry my friend, we'll easily pass through—" Jon abruptly stopped mid-sentence as his eyes widened and his head swirled towards the sky as if something had called him.


"W-What's wrong?" Sam asked uneasily, after seeing the frown on Jon's face.


Jon glared at the night sky for a few minutes before he took a deep breath, and turned towards the merchant with a serious expression and said, "Tell the ships to lower the Sails!"


"B-But—"


"Now!"


Sam swallowed his questions and nodded before running towards the first mate to follow the instructions. "Lower the Sails immediately! Slow down the ships!!". His shouts immediately sent the sailors on all the ships into a flurry of activities as they hurried to follow the orders.


"Quickly pull the ropes!!"


"Hurry"


"Tighten the rope!!"


A few minutes later the order had been followed through until the last ship had slowed down to crawl and only then did Sam come back to Jon.


"What happened? Why did we slow down?" Sam asked, his eyes frantically looking out into the darkness.


"Some rats are snooping around," Jon replied faintly. His eyes were closed to avoid any distractions and he was focused fully on looking through Frost's eyes. At that moment, the blue-feathered mystical bird was high up in the sky right above the archipelago of Stepstones, looking at small candle-like lights which were faintly visible intermittently between the pebble-like islands.


Jon lowered Frost's altitude and slowly zoomed in using her eyes while focusing on the little lights until he could finally make out what they were...


The islands of Stepstones were like massive steps situated haphazardly in the middle of the sea in such a way that a humongous giant would be able to move from Westeros to Essos using them as a bridge. Some islands were close enough that only several ships could pass between them at a time while others were far enough that the other islands wouldn't seem more than a dot.


Right now each of those passages between islands was being occupied by small boats with people in them. The bigger passages had more than five boats while the smallest one only had a single boat.


It was clear for Jon to see that these boats weren't acting as a barrier to stop ships from passing through instead they were there to scout and identify and to raise the... alarm.


It was obvious to see how exhausting and resource-consuming this method of scouting was and normally no pirate captain no matter how rich would partake in it, especially during the night, unless... unless they knew that someone was sneaking past them and they were lying in wait to catch them.


"It seems someone figured us out..." Jon sighed with a wry smile.


He had known for quite a while that some pirate scouts were snooping around his fleets every now and then when they docked at Braavos, but they were too numerous and belonged to too many different groups, for him to do anything so he had left them alone as he knew that their normal methods of ambushing wouldn't work on someone like him. But it seems like he had underestimated their intelligence and persistence as one or more pirate captains seem to have made him a target and are determined enough to set up such an elaborate trap.


"Jon! JON!" Sam's anxious shout pulled Jon out of his musings.


"Hmm?"


"W-What are going to do about these... rats? Do we turn back towards the Lys?"


'That's the question, isn't it...' Jon could think of two solutions to this problem in front of him.


One was to follow Sam's suggestion and go back to Lys to hide for a while but... the problem with that method was that he wasn't quite sure how long these scouts had snooping around here and how much longer could they hold on. He didn't quite adore the idea of fighting a blind battle of attrition with these unknown pirates. Plus this was only his third trip and it would hurt his bludgeoning reputation a lot if he didn't deliver in time.


The second solution... was simply to force his way through.


The boats didn't have any capability to battle so it would be very easy for Jon to just destroy them and pass through. However, the risk of an accident happening and alerting the pirates in the surrounding islands was quite high. He could almost imagine the scene of innumerable pirates swarming towards his trade ships which would never be able to outrun the sleek pirate ships and he would be left with no choice but to use his secret weapon... which he didn't want to.


The best choice for him is to...


"Blow out all the torches and order the ships to sail forward slowly in a single line... we'll sneak past them." Jon ordered, his eyes focusing on the smallest passage between the islands with only a single boat between them.


...


"Ugh... Why don't we just run away, Uncle Frank," the man whined while trying to not sit on one of the aching bruises all over his body but it was hard for him to find a comfortable position on the small boat which was already cramped with the two of them, the torch and the rations.


They were in the middle of the sea on a small fishing boat with just the flickering light of a small torch and the stars above them to keep away the darkness. Their bodies were still very thin and weak due to what they had suffered when they were put into the cage by their captain. And that bastard Jack hadn't given them much ration either so they weren't able to eat their fill since they didn't know how long they would have to be here for.


"And how do we do that, boy? Because if you forgot, we are right in the middle of Stepstones at the moment," Frank replied absentmindedly, his eyes alertly looking out into the darkness to search for the elusive fleet because of which he had suffered so horribly, "You may as well try your luck in swimming to Westeros from here instead of trying to sneak past Captain Jack in Stepstones."


"Fuck Captain Jack! And what the fuck are you looking so hard for, Uncle?" The man asked looking disgustingly at his uncle who was diligently following the advisor's order to scout, "You're such a fool, Uncle. It's not like that bastard Jack will ever reward us even if we find them. We always get in situations such as this exactly because you're such a stupid halfwit... I bet that bastard will chuck us right back into those cages as a reward," he said darkly.


"You're right, Boy, Captain Jack may not reward us but... the advisor just might."


"Huh, What? What are you talking about?"


"The advisor gave me a promise that night that if we succeded in finding that fleet t-then...we won't have to stay on Captain Jack's ships anymore," Frank said with an excited gleam in his eyes, "H-He said that he would give us the chance to join the pirate king Ravager's fleet."


"Ravager? The Captain's father?" The man replied, hurriedly sitting up to look at the ugly mug of his shitty uncle in the light of the torch. "I-Is that true?"


"It is," Frank said smugly as he saw respect in his nephew's eyes for the first time.


"I-Is that Ravager's fleet really as great as they say? Are they really that rich?"


"Of course they are." Frank replied in a tone of surety, "The Ravager is one of the three most powerful pirates in Stepstones, and the ships in his fleet are second only to Salladhor Saan. If we join his fleet... We can become as rich as the nobles in Volantis, we can loot merchants left and right all over the Essos, and fuck as many fair maidens as we want and their ships are filled with never-ending booze and..." he chattered fanatically as if describing a paradise.


"Truly?!!" The nephew asked, panting in excitement as he thought of those noble girls squirming under him, "Then can we—" Suddenly out of nowhere the excited gleam in the youngster's eyes was replaced by alarm and terror.


Frank looked on with confused eyes as his nephew slowly raised a shaky finger towards something behind with eyes widened in alarm, "B-Behind—"


But before the perplexed Frank could so much as turn his head a swaying tentacle cut through the air like lightning and grabbed Frank up before pulling him down into the sea, and all of this happened without the man letting out so much as a squeak.


The nephew started shivering and hyperventilating in terror at what he had just witnessed. His heart thumping like a horse, the man tried to resist the urge to scream to not alert the monster when the man's eyes suddenly widened as every single hair on his body stood up in alarm. Realisation dawned on his face as he slowly turned his head. There, swaying eerily behind him was a massive tower-like shadowy tentacle.


"AH—" That was the only sound the man could let out before he too was gobbled up by the tentacle and followed his uncle towards the bottom of the sea.


A few seconds later the swaying boat suddenly overturned, snuffing out the lone torch, letting the darkness reclaim the night.


A moment later, a fleet of ships started passing through the area one after another silently without anyone abroad letting a single sound out. They passed through this small stretch of pass between the islands slowly but surely, without alerting anyone to their presence and about half an hour later they were out.


"Set off. Lower the sails! Go Full throttle!" Jon shouted, his body sagging a little in relief at having passed the situation safely.


...


But what Jon didn't know was that he didn't, in fact, pass the situation safely, a lone sentry had been waiting on one of the two islands where they had just passed. And the moment the torch on the small boat had been snuffed out he had been alerted, and almost immediately the sentry ran like a rabbit straight for a nearby tent.


"Advisor! Advisor! Wake UP!!" he shouted anxiously while standing outside the tent.


"Hmm... What's wrong?" the man yawned while coming out of the tent.


"T-The Torch! The light just disappeared, just like you said it would."


The sleepy eyes of the advisor instantly opened up fully and took on a delighted gleam, "We got him!!"


///

 

[LazyWizard]

'Huu...I am tired,' Jon sighed as he fell onto the small bed in his cabin like a piece of dead tree.


It had only been about an hour since they passed the Stepstones so it was still dark outside and while he wasn't sure, he knew that if he had a mechanical watch then it would show something around 3 or 4 a.m. It wouldn't amount much to a normal modern person to be staying awake this late but at the moment his head was pounding like a drum and his body craved sleep like nothing else.


Usually, he wouldn't be bothered by just this much with his robust mind, but various things had happened one after because of which he had to keep his mind alert, and connected to his wargs for far too long, which eventually made him more mentally exhausted than usual.


A few hours before they had even reached the pirate-infested islands, Jon had been on a long distance, warg call with his brother. Robb had been catching him up to everything that had been happening in Winterfell as well as in the North, as a whole, while he was away. Things like how Sansa was getting better at handling weapons, or how Arya and Bran bickered again over something or how Rickon was growing up.


Then after they were done with the mundane stuff, he talked about important things like how their road project was off to a good start and that their father was getting hammered daily by letters from his Lords, first congratulating him on his good decision and then demanding their region be the next to get the improved roads.


He also told him about how LittleTom had gathered something like a community with a lot of excellent Blacksmiths around him and was even in talks with Robb to set up a dedicated street for just them in Wintertown, just like the street of steel in Kings Landing.


So a few hours of straining his mind with that Warg call (It was something like a Zoom call, with him warging into Tiger, the Shadowcat so that he could talk with Robb, though it was mostly Robb talking) and the exhaustive hours staying alert and connected to Frost and Inky(his pet Kraken) during their escape from Stepstones meant that he was completely and utterly spent and wanted nothing more than to sleep as much as his body demanded.


...


..


.


But fate it seems had different plans for Jon...


"Jon! Jon!!" After just a few hours (which didn't feel like more than a few minutes) of sleep, he was abruptly jolted awake by an urgent knocking on the door to his small cabin. He looked disgustedly towards Gan and Tweety on the nearby table, and both of them simultaneously shrugged at his silent question.


Jon groaned as he slowly got up from his bed to open the door to find Merchant Sam standing there with his hair dishevelled and panic in his eyes.


"What happened?" he asked groggily, trying to keep irritation out of his voice. His cabin was the only room above the deck so he was able to see that it was almost morning and the sun was just about to rise behind Sam's back.


"Two ships were just sighted," Sam said grimly, "And I think they could be Pirates!!"


"What?" Jon asked with a sceptical look while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.


He had obviously told Frost and Inky to keep a lookout a few leagues ahead of the fleet, for anything outwardly and a quick peek into their minds instantly let him know that they weren't slacking and that both the seas and skies were completely calm and clear of any adversities. "Are you pulling my leg, Uncle Sam?" Jon said irritatedly while walking past the Merchant, "I saw nothing in front of us—"


"Not in Front!" The Merchant cut him off with a frown on his face, "They are behind us."


"Oh..." Jon froze in his steps as his mind slowly caught up to what the Merchant was implying and almost immediately he was jolted awake.


Jon didn't waste any more time and promptly turned around to circle the cabin towards the rear part of the ship. All of the ships in his fleet always sailed in a V-shaped formation with his ship in the lead, this meant that he was instantly able to see the two barely visible ships just at the edge of his vision.


Without taking his eye off Jon opened up his palm in front of Sam who immediately understood and handed him a far eye and without further ado he put it in front of his right eye.


Through its lenses, Jon was able to make out the similar shark flags on the two ships and what seemed to be the whole crew awake, and running up and about the ship, in addition, all of them were armed as if they were ready for battle at any moment.


"We only found out about them by chance," Sam supplied gloomily, while watching the ships, "Gill, who was part of the watch, was fiddling with my Far-eye when he accidentally caught sight of them and hurried to wake me up. I shudder to imagine what would have happened if he hadn't... And these pirates sure are lucky that they just happened to come across a ripe target like ours at the open sea—"


"I don't think it was luck..." Jon sighed while putting away the Far-eye. He had sent a signal to Frost to come back as fast as she could so that he could get a better understanding of these pirates and their strength. The possibility of these pirates just happening across them was too little, which could only mean that "...they've been onto us for a while now... probably since last night," Jon admitted in an annoyed tone.


He had known about this obvious loophole in his scouting net, but the possibility of someone coming to attack his fleet from behind them in the open sea had always been so minuscule that he ignored it as inconsequential, but now... it seemed the possibility wasn't so minuscule after all.


Sam was having a hard time wrapping his head around with what Jon was implying "B-But that's impossible. How could they find us out of nowhere—"


"They didn't "find us", per se," Jon said slowly as he started to get the whole picture of the situation he was in, "They had been waiting for us..." Jon said with a tinge of comprehension in his voice as it dawned on him that he had been played by a pirate, which definitely wasn't a good feeling.


It was so obvious now that he looked at it in hindsight... The lone ship waiting between the small islands wasn't a weak link, instead, it had been a trap all along, a trap laid down to force them to come into the open... It was an intricate trap made just for them.


"What? What do you mean?"


"I'll explain to you later," Jon said while massaging his forehead, "Right now you just need to know that they are pirates and that they've been following us since we passed through Stepstones—"


"But if that were the case they could have easily caught up to us with their speed by now," Sam asked while scratching his head, "It would been a lot easier for them if they ambushed just before sunrise while we were all asleep."


"That is indeed strange, " Jon said with a frown on his face, "It's as if... they are not here to attack us but to keep an eye on us so we don't disappear or run away..."


Sam was looking at Jon murmuring to himself when he suddenly remembered something, "Er... Jon, I didn't mention it before because I thought that he made a mistake because of darkness... but well, when Gill came to wake me up, he reported sighting not two but three ships—"


"What?! Three Ships—" Jon asked loudly as his eyes suddenly widened and he realised what that meant. Thankfully Frost arrived above the ships at exactly that moment so Jon didn't waste a single moment and immediately had her fly up high above the clouds.


Only a few seconds later, Jon caught sight of the third ship in the distance through Frost's eyes, it was frantically rowing towards the nearby coast... A coast that was almost deserted except for the five very conspicuous pirate ships lying in wait there. With the third ship's speed, it would only take less than half a for it to reach the ships at the coast.


By now it was quite obvious that the third ship was a messenger sent to bring the rest of their ships for a simultaneous attack. If it all went according to their plan, it would take them less than two hours to completely surround Jon's fleet on all sides without leaving them anywhere to run.


Jon conceded that he had underestimated these pirates... underestimated them a lot. The amount of elaborate planning involved in not only finding out that he was sneaking past them during the night but then going on to lay out this trap for him... it involved a lot of calculation that he frankly never even thought a pirate was capable of.


"J-Jon! Look, the ships are moving," Sam suddenly exclaimed while pointing towards the pirate ships. And just like he said the ships that had been quietly following them from a distance so far suddenly accelerated but instead of approaching them, they circled them on the right side. One quickly overtook them while the other stayed some distance behind their fleet... those two ships had now blocked the fleet's only escape route away from the coast.


"It seems they too have a far-eye with them..." Jon said, his eyes twitching at the quickness with which the ships had reacted to being discovered.


Jon took a deep breath to let out the annoyance he was feeling at the situation he found himself in. After all, he had never fallen into a trap like this... at least not since he became a warg and Frost started to fly.


'Ah! What to do with them...' Jon thought while rubbing his eyes. He was more irritated than scared of these pirates... it's just that his lack of sleep made him a bit short-tempered. He wanted nothing more than just to feed all of them to Inky, his pet Kraken. And for a glorious few moments, he was almost tempted to follow through with that impulse of his... before the damned rational part of his mind spoke up and stopped him.


After all, this wasn't beyond the wall and these people weren't Wildlings isolated from the rest of the world. If Inky made an appearance here then not only would he have to be afraid of accidentally letting some of the pirates escape, but he would also have to make sure that the sailors in his fleet kept quiet about it. It would be over for him if even one of them was stupid enough to start spreading tales about seeing a ship demolishing Kraken.


Here in Essos, people weren't as sceptical of magic, they knew that magic was a real force in the world. He could almost imagine the massive target the rumours would paint on his back and the type of people it would attract. He was sure that the likes of Euron Grejoy, the Warlocks from House of Undying, and the Preist and Priestess of R'hllor, would be ecstatic to get a hand on him and dissect him.


Jon knew better than anyone that this wasn't the North and that he wasn't quite invincible here so he had to be careful to not bite more than he could chew.


Jon contemplated the situation for a few more minutes before he finally turned to face the anxious Merchant, "Uncle Sam, I want you to go wake up every sailor on the four longships and tell them to prepare their bows for a battle. The Galleons will stay on their course at their current speed while the four longships will split up to simultaneously attack the two pirate ships,"


"But... Would that really work?" Sam asked with a hesitant look, "I mean, I know that we outnumber them... but from the looks of it, these pirates don't seem to have any intention of tangling with us when they could easily just run away from us with their lighter ships."


"Oh! Don't worry," Jon smirked while thinking about the new ability of Frost that he had recently discovered, "I'll make sure that they don't run away."


...


"Ah! When the hell is he goin' to come..." Captain Jack sighed listlessly. He was once again on a deserted coast, lying on a hammock in the shade of some trees to hide from the sun, doing nothing but... waiting.


All around him, pirates were scattered here and there doing something to pass the time, some were in groups while others sat alone, some were drinking and laughing at crude jokes, while others were letting off some heat with barehanded wrestling.


They had already been here for more than a week now, and Jack felt his patience running thin with each passing day, if that Advisor didn't arrive soon enough, he would have to start killing something to stave off his boredom.


"Ah! I should have just ignored that Advisor and just bought along a few slave girls to screw around," the Captain morosely said to himself, "Hmm... perhaps there's a village nearby that I could raid..." he was desperate enough that he wouldn't even mind plain and ugly village girls at that moment, and maybe their screams and squeals would make it a bit interesting for him.


Just when the pirate captain was entertaining some dangerous thoughts, one of the lookouts abruptly stood up and pointed towards the sea while screaming at the top of his lungs, "A-A Ship! I see a SHIP!!"


The Captain almost fell down in his haste to get up from the hammock, thankfully no one was paying him any attention as they were all gawking excitedly towards the approaching familiar ship with anticipation.


"Are they finally here?"


"I was so bored waiting for them, now we can finally kill people and loot some gold."


"Fuck! I hope they have some girls onboard, Hehe,"


The pirates were leisurely talking with each other when the Captain abruptly came from behind and harshly slapped the nearest one, "What the fuck are you looking at?! Go get the ships ready, you Fuckers! If I find even one ship not ready to sail by the time that ship gets here, I'll roast all of you alive," he barked angrily, lighting a fire on every pirate's ass as they began running towards the ship to get them ready.


Thanks to Jack the scared pirates were very efficient and the five pirate ships simultaneously set off a few minutes later, with Jack joining the Advisor on the lead ship.


The advisor was standing on the deck with an hourglass in his hand. He was commanding the first mate and was controlling the speed and direction of their ships so that they stay on course towards the Northern fleet when the Captain came up to him with a giddy look on his face.


"Tell me, Did it work just like you thought?" Jack asked him excitedly, "Did they really fall for it?"


"Like a fish to a hook," The advisor replied smugly while turning around, "Sadly, though Frank and his nephew didn't survive the night..."


"Yes! Yes! It is very unfortunate," Jack said with a smirk, "But I am sure they would have been very happy that their sacrifice was useful, Haha," he burst out laughing at his own joke before taking a look at the open ocean with a gleam of excitement in his eyes, "Argh! I can't wait to get my hands on those bastards... I had to wait for so many days because of them, I won't feel alive unless I torture a few of them to death."


The Advisor skilfully ignored the perverted smile on Jack's smile while commanding the first mate to pick up some speed.


About half an hour later they were finally able to catch a glimpse of ships on the horizon but the condition in which they found the ships was completely different from what they had accepted and it left all of the pirates onboard stunned.


"W-What the fuck is going on out there?" Jack swore with a bewildered look on his face. He was on the deck looking through his far-eye towards the distance. His ships, which were just supposed to keep a lookout for the trade fleet, were surrounded by the longships of the Northern fleet and were fighting a fierce battle.


No, it shouldn't even be called a fight but a massacre, the four longships had surrounded the two pirates in their middle and then using their height advantage the archers on the Northern Fleet were just leisurely shooting arrows at the helpless pirates who had nowhere to hide. What was even more confusing was that the pirates didn't even seem to be trying to get away as if all of them had forgotten that they were on ships and that they could easily sail away from just two ships.


"Why the fuck are they not running away?!" Jack growled in a frustrated voice while looking at the fight that was almost entering its last leg and soon enough there wouldn't be any survivors left on the ships.


"Let me take a look," The Advisor said with a frown while unceremoniously snatching the Far-eye from Jack. He looked through it towards the ships, that were still about an hour away from them. It only took him a few seconds to get a complete grasp of the situation and when he found out the reason behind their ships becoming sitting ducks it even made him gasp.


"What? What did you see?" Jack asked urgently, "Why are they staying in one place to get massacred like that?"


"T-Their sails!" The advisor said with a flustered tone, "There are about a dozen holes in the sails on both ships...but..." he was confused and disoriented, and was completely out of his depth here and his mind was unable to come up with a way to make sense of this unfathomable scene in front of him.


"What? Are you fucking kidding me? How the fuck did they get holes in their—" The Captain's furious rant was abruptly cut short by a loud and piercing screech from above them. Every single pirate on board suddenly looked up to find a massive flock of seagulls flying towards their ships in a bizarre formation.


And then suddenly out of nowhere every single one of those birds dived straight down making every one of them duck but none of them were hurt as the target of the birds wasn't the humans but the sails of the ships. Those Seagulls ran through the cloth with their sharp pointed beaks and easily managed to tear through them as if they were made of paper.


"I-I think I know what happened to those ships now," The advisor suddenly spoke in a stunned voice, as their ships were left completely useless in the middle of the ocean.


"Hah...Huu..." Jack started breathing deeply as he slowly got out of the stupor he had been after seeing what just happened. His face became ever so red as anger overcame his speechlessness and he suddenly started screaming, "Argh! What the fuck are you standing around for?!! Kill those FUCKING BIRDS!!"


"A-AYE!!!"


"Shoot those Birds!!"


"Grab the bows,"


"Ah! Sorry, I forgot to bring arrows,"


The pirates scrambled to follow their captain's order but it was all futile as birds were done with their job and were already flying away out of the range of the archers, leaving behind nothing but torn sails and their poop.


The Captain could do nothing but stare at them impotently as they flew away unharmed.


"Looks like they are finished..." The Advisor suddenly said faintly, and Jack turned around to look at what he was talking about. The Northern longships were slowly moving away from the pirate ships, which seemed to be completely devoid of life, towards the distant trade fleets.


"Bring out the Oars!! We can still catch them," Jack shouted, desperately hanging on to straws. But the advisor knew that they were beaten, the wind was fast and in the ship's favour so they couldn't catch up to them even if their ships were lighter. But he didn't interrupt and let the Captain try anyway, knowing that it would help him calm down.


The Advisor shook his head and once again picked up the Far-eye, to look at the longships moving away. He slowly looked at every individual sailor onboard the Northern longships and before long he found his target.


It was a charismatic young man with an intricate longbow on his back, he was standing with a straight back giving orders to a somewhat fat older man nearby.


'The Seagulls couldn't have been just a coincidence,' he thought while observing the young man, 'There must have been some kind of a trick involved in—Argh" the Advisor suddenly stumbled backwards as if stung while taking the Far-eye off his face. He started breathing heavily and had a stunned look on his face as if he had seen a ghost.


"What's wrong with you?" Jack asked with a peculiar look on his face as he looked at the usually unflustered man looking so shaken.


"N-Nothing!" The advisor replied while shaking his head, 'He couldn't have seen me... it's impossible. It must have been a trick of the eye,' he thought while involuntarily gulping. He could still vividly remember how that man had abruptly turned his head to look straight towards him as if he could... see him, all the way from his ship, as if he knew that he was being watched...which was impossible.


"Shit!! They are getting away!!" The Captain groaned as the fleets easily shook them off and disappeared on the horizon, "Argh! Fuck!" he cursed as kicked a nearby bucket in frustration, at once again letting them slip from his fingers.


"Captain, I think it's time for us to bring your father in..." The advisor said while gently putting his hand on Jack's shoulder but the man just angrily shook it off and left with an ugly sneer on his face.


The advisor didn't mind the rudeness as he knew that it would only take torturing some girls for the Captain's mood to improve. Instead, he stared into the distance where the ships had disappeared, "You managed to get away this time, but let's see if you're quite as lucky the next time..."


But what the man didn't know was that his flustered expressions and his monologue had all been heard by a sneaky little colourful silently flying just above his head.


///

 

[LazyWizard]

"So you don't want to give up, huh," Jon murmured to himself with an amused look on his face. He shook his head while taking his eyes off the pirate after giving him a small scare. Jon wouldn't even call him a pirate as he looked too... refined to be one, and almost seemed more like a scholar.

Anyway coming back to this pesky problem at hand, Jon wasn't quite sure how to handle this bunch.

Now, if he were really determined to, it wouldn't be that hard for him to straight up annihilate them, even without using Inky. There were other more convenient methods such as poison available to him.

Plus there was that cool new ability that he recently realised Frost possessed which allowed her to give simple orders to birds below her in the food chain (which was most of them) otherwise he wouldn't have been able to warg into so many seagulls at once because, after all, he was not the three-eyed raven.

But he was unsure if just killing all of them was really the most ideal solution to this problem. Not because of any moral dilemma, of course, since he knew that these pirates were almost all pieces of shit who wouldn't hesitate to sell him off to the next slaver.

No, it was because these pirates were like mosquitos, no matter how many of them you kill, it wouldn't stop them. Same as mosquitos, a few dead bodies of their brethren wouldn't scare off the next one from trying for himself.

They were a bunch who already lived on the edge every day, with their lives constantly on the line. They were the kind of people who would eagerly jump into all kinds of dangerous messy situations, as long as there was even a small chance for profits to be made without thinking too much.

So, no, mysterious deaths weren't the way to go when dealing with them. If you want to deal with them permanently, then you need to make a show of force; you need to show them that death isn't just a possibility but a surety if they ever entangled with you. You need to not only brutally destroy them at their strongest head-on but to also leave a few of them alive to serve as witnesses and to spread tales of your infamy.

This was also the method used by the Braavossi fleet.

During their first few trips, they went out of their way to ruthlessly destroy any pirate ships that dared to obstruct their path. This meant that after about a dozen such trips, no pirate ever dared to face them, at least not head-on, which made their future trips a lot cheaper and more peaceful.

Of course, there were still some foolish adventurous ones who would follow their warships from afar but they only ever dared to try to attack them on the fringes or take advantage of any merchant ships who got left behind and accidentally got out of the warships' protection.

So Jon knew that he needed to do something similar to have hassle-free trips in the future.

To achieve that he would need a well-coordinated force of warriors who would be able to systematically follow his orders. Just like the one he had back in Bear Islands, if he didn't have that batch of battle-hardened warriors at his beck and call, he would never have been able to achieve as much as he did, at least not without losing too many people.

He was too lucky that the population of Bear Island was so battle-oriented. While they couldn't be called the best fighters in the realm, he would confidently call them the best average fighters he had ever seen only after, maybe the Dothraki.

The constant Wildling raids as well as the harassment from the Ironborn ships meant that every single man and woman alive on that Island had a massive wreath of experience in life-and-death battles, which made them efficient enough that Jon didn't have much of a problem creating a quick counter force after picking them up from their homes.

'Sadly the same couldn't be said of these sailors from White Harbour,' Jon thought as he looked at all the men aboard his fleet diligently going about their work. Even though Jon could easily take the average person from White Harbour and make them a good sailor with a few years of training. He couldn't accomplish the same with their fighting skills, as that was something which needed a life filled with strife and needed you constantly survive in a brutal environment to make you sufficiently competent.

So Jon couldn't depend on these sailors to fight his battles here in Essos, he would need to get people from somewhere else. Unfortunately, there was no such convenient force nearby with well-organised veteran fighters who would follow his orders—

'Wait! Maybe there is...' Jon's eyes suddenly lit up as a brilliant idea appeared in his mind.

There was indeed one such force nearby, that exactly matched his requirements. They were all battle-hardened with skills forged from constant life and death battles, they would follow his orders and most importantly, he wouldn't have to go too far to reach them. And the name of one such force, which not only matched his demands but was also somewhat related to him, kept jumping in his mind, as if saying, 'Pick Me' 'Pick Me', and Jon was too tempted to deny the voice in his head.

"It seems I need to go on a trip..." Jon said with an excited smile on his face as his brain went over all the possible difficulties he could encounter on the journey as well as all the things he would need to do to achieve his objective.

...

The days were very calm after their close brush with the pirates and a few days later they docked into the always busy port of Braavos. It was noon and their fleet was welcomed with quite a lot of fanfare.

All kinds of small and big merchants were either present at the port or quickly arrived after hearing the news; if the merchants themselves couldn't be there, they didn't forget to send a proxy in their place. Then they all looked towards the Northern fleet with unhidden anticipation in their eyes as the sailors started putting down planks to start disembarking the goods.

No more than an hour later, everything had been unloaded from the ship and by now the anticipation in the eyes of the onlookers had turned to abject jealousy.

They had seen with their own eyes as every single merchant who had been waiting had gleefully gotten hold of all goods on their list (the list that their partners sent from Volantis via raven) with not a single thing missing. This Northern fleet had fully delivered on their promise of a hundred-percent safety guarantee.

Ugly envy reared its head inside the onlookers, all of them felt their insides twist with agony at imagining the profits those Merchants, whom they had made fun of for being reckless in believing the Northern Fleet, were soon going to make after selling these popular expensive goods.

By now even the most sceptical of them had started to believe in the Northern fleet's ability and knew that it was no scam. After all, once could be up to chance, twice could be a coincidence, but when something happens thrice... well there's a reason people say the third time's a charm.

While most of them were dismayed at having missed this wonderful chance to make some money, the quick thinkers among the onlookers were already sneaking away. And it didn't take too long before even the stupidest of merchants started to realise what was happening and began to make a run for it... but not towards the ships, no, they were all racing towards the shops at the port, more particularly the flashiest one in the market.

Their merchant's senses were tingling that the shipping company was surely going to experience a boom in their business, in the near future. After this third successful trip, they knew better than anyone else that there would definitely be a massive price jump for the tickets. So they wanted to be the first ones to book the next ship before the others caught up and the prices increased.

But the scene which greeted them at the shop was completely different from their imagination. Instead of a shop happily selling them the tickets for their next journey they were greeted with the closed door of the shop with a sign hanging outside that said, "No Tickets"

"I-I apologize, everyone for the inconvenience, but there will not be another trip for a few weeks." a young boy was saying to the disgruntled group gathered outside. He was a little chubby in the face, but the burgeoning muscles in his arms as well as the axe on his back let them know that he wasn't a complete pushover, "So please, leave everyone. We will post a notice a week before our next trip so you don't have to worry about missing out—"

"You can't do that!!"

"We are your customers!! How can you just turn us away!!"

"Don't tell me!! Did you make too many losses and that there's actually not going to be another trip after all,"

"Is this true? Are you broke?!!"

The people were slowly starting to get agitated after hearing the disappointing news and as they say, the more people in a horde the less their intelligence and Sam was having quite a hard time managing them, "N-No, we didn't make any losses. We just need some time to do some adjustments to our ships—"

"Then just give us the damn tickets!!"

"I won't believe you unless you book me a place on your next trip!!"

"Yes! We don't care when the next one, you just need to give us some!!"

Sam was sweating more than he did during his exercises, as he tried to come up with a way to handle the aggressive merchants but it was slowly becoming too much for the lad. 'Damn it, when are you going to be here, Jon, please hurry, they are going to eat me alive,' he sent a desperate plea in his thoughts hoping that his friend would catch it and hurry up before he end up taking a beating.

...

What poor Sam didn't know was that his friend, Jon was somewhat dealing with the same thing that he was.

He too had been surrounded by a group of eager Merchants who after getting hold of their goods wanted to quickly jump on the bandwagon and buy a slot for the next trip. And safe to say they were also very disappointed after learning that there would not be another trip for a while.

Thankfully, Jon wasn't the least bit intimidated by the crowd and easily handled the merchants with a calm but firm attitude, without giving them any opening to be aggressive. Still, it was a while before he was able to extricate himself from their midst after refusing all their invitation and requests.

By the time he got back to his ships, they were almost empty, both of the goods as well as the sailors. Only a few men remained abroad and could be seen here and there, either guarding or doing an inspection of the ships to see if they needed any repairs, the rest seemed to have taken off.

Jon took a quick look around and found his target sitting at his usual table in the shade of ships going over some records. Merchant Sam immediately looked up after hearing Jon's footsteps and asked him with a smile on his face, "They finally let you go, eh?"

"They didn't want to but I told them that I need to use the privy urgently..." Jon replied with a mischievous smile, "That cleared them up real fast,"

"Haha, That would definitely work. I'll remember that the next time I am in a pinch" Sam said as he burst out laughing.

"Our sailors also ran away pretty quickly, huh?" Jon asked while waving his hand towards the almost empty ships. He didn't need to think too much to know where all the men had run off to after staying pent up amongst each other on a ship for so many weeks.

"Ah! Don't remind me," Sam said in a grumpy tone, "Once I told them that they'll get the day off after we finish unloading, those scoundrels worked faster than a horse. I've never seen a ship clear up that fast—Ah! That reminds me," he suddenly exclaimed while bending down to take a very heavy red coloured pouch about the size size of a head from the table, "This is all the profit we made from this trip," he said while handing over the bag to Jon, "I took the liberty of converting them all to gold to make it easier,"

"Thank you for doing that. This is definitely lighter than the last time," Jon said while putting the bag in a satchel at his side, "It'll be a lot easier going to the bank now,"

"You're going straight to the bank then," Sam asked and Jon just nodded his head, "A lot of gold must have accumulated in your account by now, what with all the profits we made, not to mention the hefty sum Lord Manderly sent for that Starkhorse business," he mused before shaking his head with a puzzled expression, "I just can't wrap my head around the thought of how you could be so unbothered with leaving that much gold in the hands of this foreign bank, no matter how famous they are."

"Well it's not good to keep this kind of gold in your hands, is it?" Jon replied with a shrug, "Besides the one thing these bankers can be trusted with is to keep your gold secure. They know very well that trust is the only thing that keeps a bank in business, and besides a lot of this gold is going to disappear soon,"

"Huh? Why?"

"For buying new ships for our fleet, of course," Jon said in a matter-of-fact tone, "With the demand we are seeing now and what we will see in the future, we need to add as many ships as we can to the fleet. Speaking of which, on your trip to White Harbour, don't bother bringing any of the local goods from there, since there are already a lot of ships sailing between White Harbor and Braavos, instead try to stuff as many sailors as are willing to come here, because I don't think we would have the leisure for a trip to home like this in the future,"

"Oh! Don't worry about it," Sam said patting his chest confidently, "My son assured me that he was training the boys with all his might, day and night. He boasted so many times in his letter that he's got enough recruits now that he's worried we won't be able to find work for all of them."

"Tell him not to worry about that. With the way things are going, I don't think we'll be out of work for quite a while, especially with all the plans I have for our fleet," He said with a mysterious smile before he suddenly remembered about the warg call with Robb, "And before I forget, you need to pick up two very 'special' people from White harbour. Robb would have already sent them there by the time you reach so you should easily find them at the castle."

"Special people, huh..." Sam said with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah. After all, I can't handle all the workload by myself, especially when the number of ships increases, so I thought why not call in some helpers, and Robb had just the people in mind for the task ready." Jon said with a shrug before his eyes once again went towards the ships, "Do you think you can fit all the goods we have accumulated in the warehouse onto the ships or would we need to make another trip?"

"We have enough space. It should suffice."

During his trips to various Essosi cities, outside of his usual shipping business, he had pilfered little by little all the valuable things he felt would be in great demand back home in Westeros. They were all brought with his own money so he couldn't take too much at once but by now a lot of it had accumulated in the warehouse and it was finally time for him to cash it in.

"We may need to make more of such trips if this one is profitable enough," Jon said with a contemplative look on his face.

It was a well-known story, that the legendary Sea Snake got wealthier than the Lannister during his time all due to the Nine Great Voyages he made from Westeros to Essos, to places as far as Qarth, Yi-Ti, and Leng. That man had garnered a great amount of wealth from Essos and Jon wanted to see if he could do the same in the future.

"Are you jesting with me? If we manage to sell all the goods you've got stacked away in that warehouse, it would be more profitable than all three of our previous trips combined." Sam said wildly gesticulating in excitement before he abruptly stopped and started scratching his head, "Ah! But it would take too long if we need to find the best people to sell the goods..."

"Oh! You don't need to worry about it. I already sent Lord Manderly a letter and he assured me that he'll make the best use of his ability and call all his connections to get me the best price he can." Jon had also told the man to send all the earnings from the deal to Winterfell, as he knew that Lord Stark could use it for all the infrastructure work going over there. "Anyway, when do you plan to sail?"

"Tomorrow."

"What? Tomorrow?" Jon asked with a frown on his face, "But don't you want to take a break for a few days rest? I am sure the boys must have been sick of the sea by now because I know I am! I was delighted that I didn't have to look at anything blue for a while."

"In fact, it's the boys themselves who insisted on not taking a break and leaving the very next day," Merchant Sam said with a helpless smile, "It seems they miss their home and can't wait to get back to the North and to be honest—And I never thought I would say this—even I have started to miss the cold," he finished with a sheepish smile.

"Ah! You're not the only one," Jon said with a little envy in his tone, "There's nothing quite like the Essosi heat to make you long for a little summer snow,"

"That's true, though I've seen that the heat doesn't bother you as much as it does us normal folks," Sam asked with a curious look on his face. It's not just once or twice that he had seen everyone else sweating buckets under the Sun while Jon leisurely roamed the streets just like a local.

"Perhaps it's in my blood," Jon shrugged with a mysterious smile before he said his farewell and left towards the bank.

...

It was almost evening by the time Jon was finished with his business with the bank and was able to find the time to visit the store.

There was nothing outwardly different about the store other than a lot of footsteps on the outside and the fact that the small closed sign outside was a little lopsided. He opened the door to find Sam buried in his books sitting at the counter as usual, though he looked a little dishevelled for some reason.

The former fat boy flinched at the sound of the door opening and slowly looked up with dread on his face, but the fear immediately cleared up from his expression when he saw who had entered.

"JON!! You're finally here!" He exclaimed with a delighted look on his face but before Jon could ask anything, the happy look on the boy's crumbled like a piece of paper and he looked a second away from crying, "Aah!! W-Where were you Jon? I-I thought I was about to die!!"

"Huh? What's wrong? You look as if you've been..." 'Harrassed' Jon wanted to say but didn't, to spare the already very low self-esteem of the boy, "Calm down first. Take a deep breath and tell me what happened?"

"I-I did just like you told me to in the l-letter. I told the merchants that we would not be able to book any ships for a while," Sam started after taking a few breaths, "B-But they would not take no for an answer no matter what I said... A-And there were so many of them, and I-I was very scared that they were going to beat me up..."

"But didn't you explain to them about the upcoming trip that the Iron Bank is sponsoring..." Jon asked with a puzzled look on his face. He hadn't decided to just halt their trips out of the blue, in fact, even if he didn't have to be somewhere else, he would have still stopped the trips for a while because it was time for the Braavos's usual trip with its mighty warships, and Jon didn't want to 'accidentally' cut into the banker's profits...at least not yet.

"I-I did," Sam nodded hastily, his eyes wide and teary, "But they said that they liked ours a lot better... And they were really forcefully, said that they wouldn't leave unless I booked their tickets and they kept shoving their gold pouches into my face, so I..."

"So you..."

"You have to believe me, Jon. They were very scary... I had no choice," Sam explained in a wronged tone, almost on the verge of crying, "I-I gave them the tickets... I am really sorry, Jon, I tried..."

"It's fine," Jon said with a sigh while patting the boy's shoulder.

He knew that there was nothing the boy could do about it... after all, he was still almost a child. A child who had been bullied all his childhood and that too by his own father. Even though he looked completely different now with all his muscles and the sudden jump in height, he was still a scared little boy inside, "What's happened has happened, so there's nothing we can do about it, besides you told them that the next trip wouldn't be for a while, Right?"

"I did. But they didn't care but none of them cared how long it took us... in fact, some of them even left twice and thrice the amount of gold to book trips even more in the future..."

"It's fine," Jon said with a sigh, before he looked at the tomes on the counter and tried to change the subject, "Are you finished with the books here?"

The tomes Jon was pointing towards looked simple enough just a bit worn out and well-read. But there was something out of the ordinary about them; all of the tomes had a seal of Citadel on them. But anyone with even an iota of knowledge about Citadel would know how paranoid they were about keeping their knowledge to themselves and how their books could never leave the Citadel library. Which either implied that they were fake or that they were all... stolen.

"Y-Yes, I am already done with this batch, " Sam's eyes immediately lit up at the mention of the books. "They were really great Jon. I learned so much about all kinds of herbs and potions used in healing and I've read all of them front to back now and I remember almost everything about them," he bragged shyly and the dark circles under his eyes were proof enough for Jon to believe him, "You can send them back now, and if it's alright with you, can you get me some of the more advanced books. I think I am good with the basics now and a-am ready for more complicated ones now..."

"I am sorry, Sam," Jon said somewhat apologetically to the bright-eyed boy, "But you may not be able to read any new books for a while..."

"Why? Is Frost busy somewhere else? Because I can wait—"

"No, it's not that. It's because we are going on a trip..."

"A trip? Where?"

"To the Disputed Lands."

"WHAT?!!"

 

[LazyWizard]

The summer was at its peak and the citizens of Kings Landing felt that no one could feel the heat more than them (Humph! Who cares about Dorne...). The scorching light of the sun shimmered off the streets to create a hazy atmosphere and made the already unbreathable shitty air even more noxious, to the point of being life-threatening. But the small folk in this city weren't bothered by it like the visitors were, (probably because most of their noses had gotten numb by now) so they went about their jobs as usual.

When the Sun reached its utmost peak exactly above the city, all the people in the city stopped working simultaneously. The Merchants, the inn-keepers, the tailors, the blacksmiths, the cobblers, everyone halted whatever they were doing and opened up their lunches to eat. It was as if the city came to a halt and fell silent for just a few moments to let it breathe in peace.

After all, most of the people here woke up well before sunrise and had been working continuously till now and it was finally time for them to take a little rest, eat, and gossip. It was a small bright spot in the otherwise gloomy lives of small folks.

But high up above on the other side of the city in the Red Keep, it was a completely different sight. The council chamber where the Kingdom's biggest decisions were supposed to be taken was still devoid of its occupants. Of course, the nobles-the higher-ups couldn't be expected to wake up this early, because, unlike insignificant small folk, they needed their beauty sleep.

And it was only at noon, that the members of the small council began to filter in slowly. The first to enter was the Hand of the King, Lord Jon Arryn, who didn't quite look as old as he was, and except for fewer teeth and fewer hair, he was almost as spry as a... middle-aged man.

Anyway, the man came into the empty room and didn't waste a single moment and immediately started shuffling and arranging the papers in order of their agenda for the day's meeting.

Soon after Hand came the brother of the King and the Master of his ships, Lord Stannis, who while not being a regular member of the Small council, because of his periodic trips to Dragonstone, still performed his related duties quite diligently. The hollow-cheeked man sent a respectful nod towards the older man before taking a seat right beside him.

Then the two men began talking to each other in a low voice about one topic or the other, but their whispers came to an abrupt stop when the third member, Maester Pycelle, entered —or rather slowly crawled into the room, wheezing every few steps as if he could die at any moment.

After the three bald men in the room came the fourth bald man bringing with him a sweet smile and a hint of perfume. And soon after Lord Varys, a Lord with no land, came Lord Baelish, a man with little land. Both schemers entered the room within minutes of each other and with them, all of the members were present, and since Lord Renly was back in Stormsland at the moment for one reason or the other, the meeting finally began.

Oh, of course, no one forgot about the empty seat at the head of the table, but who said that you needed a king to decide the fate of the kingdom, his very wise council was competent enough to take any decision on his behalf. King Robert was a more progressive hands-off King, he liked to leave the ruling to his betters while he busied himself with...er...more important things.

The meeting went on with a lot of simpering laughs, sly smiles, underhanded barbs, gritted teeth and a lot of snark. But about an hour later an unusual guest joined them...

The door to the room was suddenly slammed open and in came the illustrious King of the seven kingdoms, Robert Baratheon, and following behind him like loyal dogs were two of his Kingsguards, Ser Jamie Lannister and Ser Barristan the Bold.

"Your Grace," echoed most of the small council members standing up, some more shocked than the others.

"Yes! Yes! Sit Down, damn it. I don't need your fake courtesies so early in the morning," he grouched while striding straight towards the empty seat at the head of the table. "Get on with it, Jon. Why did you call me?" he groaned while taking a seat. His hands were already filling up a cup from the jar of wine on the table.

"Do you have to drink during—"

"Yes." Robert cut off his foster father, before guzzling wine from the cup like a man parched with thirst, "Now go on."

Jon sighed but let it rest as he knew to pick his battles, "A letter arrived a few days ago with a proposal which could help us reduce our current loans significantly—"

"What? That's what you called me here for? Some copper counting!!" Robert grunted, his face was puffed from last night's hangover and he was sweating through his silks because of the long walk to the council chambers, which he was regretting very much, "Ugh! Can't believe I missed hunting for this..."

The members had varied expressions on their faces at their king's behaviour, some gritted their teeth in annoyance, some simpered, some maintained their enigmatic smile while one even looked to be dozing off. Jon was disappointed but he had expected something like this so he immediately said the magic words, "The letter was from Lord Stark,"

And like magic, the words had an immediate effect on the King, the disgruntled look, as he was about to get up, instantly disappeared and his giant body shook the chair as he slammed back down.

"What? From Ned?" Robert's face lit up and even the haze of alcohol somewhat disappeared from his face, "Did his frozen heart finally thaw? What did he write about? Is he coming here? Or did he call me North—"

"Nothing of the sort, Your Grace," Jon cut off his King before he could spiral any further with a hint of reproach in his eyes at losing his composure like that, "He starts the letter by greeting you and me cordially and asking after the health of our children and our family, before getting to the point of the letter..."

"Point? What point?"

"Lord Stark mentions that he heard from somewhere about the massive debt the crown is in. He was shocked and saddened to learn about it. So to help with that, he wanted to ask the crown's permission to deposit his part of the taxes directly into the Bank of Braavos in your name so as to help with a part of the loan."

"Is that it?" Robert asked with a disappointed look, "Give me that!" before snatching the letter from Jon to read it himself.

While Robert squinted his eyes and used the rarely used part of his brain to slowly read the letter, the rest of them had time to digest the information presented before them and the first one to respond was Petyr Baelish.

"This is a bit strange, My lord," the Master of Coin said in a conversational tone, "I did not hear of this before today," It didn't show on his face but it irked him to know that something like this could get past him... it seems his spies were slacking.

"I too don't remember that particular letter, My lord," Pycelle suddenly raised his head from where he had looked like he was napping, after all, letters were supposed to be under his purview, and it alarmed to know that a letter had arrived and gotten past his hands without him having read it.

"Ah! That was just a coincidence," The hand replied unconcernedly to the questioning looks from council members, "It seems that the raven was exhausted from the long stretch of flight and mistook the Tower of Hand for rookery... It was only by chance that an aide of mine managed to catch the raven and after seeing that the letter was addressed to me, he brought it straight to me," Jon explained, "Anyhow, I want to hear all of your thoughts on this, should we comply with this?"

"But Why would Lord Stark want to do this?" Stannis asked with a frown on his stern face, "He would need to go all the way from Winterfell to Braavos to deposit the money in the bank. And this is not a small amount of money so the trip wouldn't be cheap considering all the methods of transport needed in between..."

"I may be able to answer that question, My lord," Vays bowed as he suddenly intervened with his tittering voice, "It seems Lord Stark's sons have been mighty successful in their ventures, and one of his sons is somewhat of a Merchant. He is also the one behind those strange Starkhorse and now has established a new shipping company all the way in Braavos, so it indeed should be easier for him to deposit the money than for us to send it from here,"

"His son? Which one?" Robert asked while looking up after finally having finished reading the small piece of paper. "The one named after me?"

"No, the one named after me." Jon Arryn answered proudly before Varys could, "The boy is said to be somewhat of a genius, he should not be older than twelve or thirteen by now but has already travelled half the world on his own and even runs a successful business abroad,"

"The bastard?" Robert asked without any malice in his tone and when he received a nod he continued, "Good for Ned," he was genuinely happy for his brother, "We had always wanted to travel the world in our youth, now it seems his son is fulfilling both of our dreams," he said with a hint of envy in his voice, "While my own can't even get out of his mother's skirt..." the last words were muttered in a low voice but most of the people in the room heard them.

Baelish suddenly cleared his throat and began, "I do not think this is a good idea for the realm, My lord," he said while looking at the frowning Lord Arryn, "The money from the tax would be more useful in paying the more interest heavy loan than the ones from Braavos which I had managed to procure with a relatively low interest..."

Of course what the Lord of Fingers didn't mention was that while the interest of the Braavosi Loan may be less than the others, the principal amount was such a big figure that its monthly instalments would exceed the others by a large margin. After all, it was much better for him if the realm focused on paying the smaller loans whose debtors were... more friendly to him.

"Is that so," Jon said with a frown on his face, he had wanted this to succeed more than anything. For one thing, it would help a lot with the crushing debt that realm was in and more importantly, it would reduce the income in their hands which may just help curb the King's extravagant expenses.

"Ah! I suddenly remember something about that, Lord Baelish," Varys suddenly spoke up with an innocent smile on his face, "The last time the small council got the tax report from North, did you not say something along the lines of, 'They send so little that they may as well not bother with it since it is so costly to transfer it all the way here',"

"Did I?" Petyr asked back stiffly with one of his eyes twitching, "I must have been jesting..."

"I think it is a good solution," Stannis grunted with his usual grim tone, "It may finally put some dent in the debt the crown is in... And for the news to reach all the way to the North is humiliating and embarrassing for—"

"Oh Shut up, Stannis," Robbert snorted making Stannis grit his teeth at being dismissed like that, "As if Ned would care for this copper counting, Bah!" he waved before standing up from his seat.

"But Your Grace, what should we do with this—"

"Let Ned do as he wants," Robert said before walking out of the room, leaving the members with varied expressions on their faces, some were grinning slyly, some had stiff smiles, and some had relieved ones.

...

In a prime location near the ever-crowded port of Braavos where people fought with their lives for even the smallest parcel of land, there lay a sanctuary, a luxurious villa with a massive open space filled with a garden of foreign flowers. In the middle of congested shops, residences and inns this symbol of pure vanity stood out like a sore thumb.

Everything in this house, from the expensive carpets laid on every inch of the floor to the numerous silk drapes hanging all over and the windows made of intricate Myrish glass, as well as the numerous oil paintings of naked ladies, everything screamed wealth.

Inside the top-most room of this villa, which also serves as the study, stood two men. One was a young man in his mid-twenties reading a thin piece of white paper in his hands while the other was a well-groomed middle-aged man, with white hairs growing out of his temples, standing in front of the young man with his head bowed silently.

"What is this?" Nyrio asked quietly with an indifferent look on his face.

"That is the list of all the merchants who want our protection during the voyage—" The servant began but was immediately cut off.

"Do you think I can't read?" Nyrio asked with a smile that was almost a sneer but not quite, "What I want to know is why there are so few of them this time. And why is Big Mario's company not on this list? Did the old pervert go bankrupt or something?" The man scoffed, "He was always pestering us to increase the number of trips..."

"I am not completely sure of the cause, Master," The old man replied in an even tone, "But as far as I know the main reason is because of the recent trips of the new shipping company called the Northern Wolf Shipping. Many of the merchants seem to have completed their orders during this company's recent trips."

"Northern Wolf Shipping?" The young Master asked with a puzzled look on his face, "They're still operating?"

"You were in Pentos, so you may not be aware, Master." The servant replied cautiously, his master was the grandson of a member of the Secret Council and had many rich tastes that couldn't be fulfilled in Braavos so he was a frequent visitor of Pentos, "But this fleet has been very successful in its ventures so far. All three of the voyages that it had partaken in had been safe and successful and mighty profitable for everyone who was a part of it—"

"Yes! Yes! Enough with the praises already," Nyrio interrupted while waving his hand impatiently, "What I want to know is why their ships have not sunk beneath the sea yet. Have all the pirates gone soft or are they on some kind of a collective family vacation?"

"I don't think that is the reason—"

"Of course, that's not the reason. I was being sarcastic, you idiot." The man rolled his eyes at his idiot servant before he began thinking about this thorny problem with a calculative look in his eyes, "Hmm... Tell me, when is their next voyage going to be?" It wouldn't be very hard for him to make this competition disappear into the open sea without making it too complicated.

"As far as I know, there are no new voyages for a while..."

"No new trips?" Nyrio asked as his eyes narrowed, "And when was their last voyage?"

"Just a week ago,"

"...It seems they are smart enough to know that they can't face us head-on so they halted their operations for a while so as not to appear as a direct competition..." Nyrio murmured with a frown on his face, 'It seems we won't be able to deal with it the simple way...' He thought for a while before raising his head, "Call the owners of this shipping company. Let's see if we can buy them out..."

"That would be difficult, Master. One of the owners is from Westeros and is not in Braavos at the moment, and the other one..." The servant shook his head, "I don't think it would be possible to buy them out, Master."

"Why?"

"While it is not well-known, I managed to find out that Darrio Zalyne is a part owner of this company."

"What? Darrio Zalyne? The nephew of that new upstart who got lucky enough to snatch a seat at the secret council?"

"The very same."

"Ugh! That makes it even more tricky. That Zalyne is a bother even for Grandfather." Nyrio groaned with a grimace as he pondered on the issue for a while before raising his head, "No matter! We'll still give the one from Westeros the option to switch. If he's smart enough to make the right choice then fine otherwise... while we may not be able to touch Darrio, it won't be very hard to deal with a nobody from Westeros."

"If I may, Master. That may not be the best course of action—"

*SMACK*

A harsh slap cut the servant's advice short, "Do I need to remind you that my Grandfather sent you as a servant and a servant's only job is to listen to his master and execute his orders, not to give him advice."

"I apologize, master," the servant bowed without a change in his expression, "I spoke out of turn,"

"See that it doesn't happen again," Nyrio said before tuning his head away in disgust, "And while you're at it tell the Captain that I will not be joining him on this voyage this time and don't bother sending all the warships either. Half of them should suffice for this number of merchants."

The servant didn't speak his mind this time and just bowed and went away silently to execute his orders... no matter how stupid they may be.

....

"We should make a camp here," Jon suddenly said while looking at the sun that was almost in his line of sight and was about to set.

They had entered a clearing that was surrounded on all sides by tall yellow grasses almost the height of men. Flatlands like this consisted of most of the land that surrounded the western Essosi cities such as Pentos, Myr and others.

Jon could vividly remember the scene from the second episode of the first season of that series where the Dothraki made camp after leaving Pentos... this landscape looked exactly the same. There were sparsely any trees around here so even normal horses like the one that Sam was using could easily traverse the wilderness.

"Finally," Sam groaned in relief as he disembarked from his horse with an exhausted look on his face. He quickly dragged his feet towards a comfortable shade under a nearby tree before falling on the barren ground like a slab of rock.

Jon shook his head at Sam before leisurely taking out some feed from the bags to feed Peggy and the other horse. He didn't need to tie the horses as they wouldn't run away with him here so he left them to roam before taking a seat on a nearby rock while taking out a book. It was a diary of a famous captain about his journey to the smoking sea.

"That's enough rest, Sam," Jon said about five minutes later while taking a sip from a small pouch of water, "You should begin preparing for food before your muscles freeze up..."

"Do we have to... I think I can skip dinner," Sam said stalling lazily, "I am still quite full from the apple we ate in the afternoon," He had never even thought that there would come a time when he would even refuse food, but now...

"Tut! Tut! Tut!" Jon clicked his tongue with an amused look on his face, "We had a deal, Sam. If you lose a bout in the morning, then you prepare the dinner in the evening."

"Ugh! I hate that deal," Sam groaned before slowly staggering to his feat. He trudged over to take out pots, ladles, and other things from their luggage.

"If you hate the deal, then you just need to win the bout to change it,"

"As if that is possible," Sam grumbled to himself in a low voice, "Ah! I wish we had taken some dry ration with us when we passed through Pentos."

Both of them had left Braavos on a merchant ship going to Pentos. And after they reached their destination they spent a night there before taking a small fishing vessel the next morning which had deposited them on a nearby shore from where they began their journey on horses.

From the very beginning of their trip Sam didn't have a moment of rest, he was either training or fighting mock battles or riding the horse. This was also the reason his body felt like lead and he felt so sore.

"I don't like eating cold hard ration," Jon shrugged while turning a page of his book, "Besides you sleep much better after having a fulfilling meal,"

"You're just too spoiled," Sam grunted while lighting a small fire and placing the pot of water on the makeshift stove, "When is the game going to be here," he said while taking out the salt, spices and the few vegetables that he had to put in the pot, "I am almost done here,"

"Don't worry, she'll be here any minute now," Jon said without lifting his head from his book

And sure enough, exactly a minute later, Sam felt a huge gust of wind above his head and looked up to see a blue flash pass above him. He quickly turned his head to see the strikingly beautiful bird standing on a rock that could barely contain its claws.

Sam looked towards Jon with an imploring look on his face but received no reaction even after a while so he mustered up his courage and got up to go towards the mighty bird Frost.

"Thank you for the meal," he bowed solemnly towards the magnificent creature before taking the fat rabbit from its grasp. The creature nodded magnanimously towards the boy before taking back to the sky to go who knows where.

Sam skillfully prepared the delicious rabbit stew and a few minutes later both of them were sitting beside the fire with steaming hot bowls in their hands and gulping the contents heartily.

"Aren't you glad that you prepared the food now, Sam," Jon asked with a smirk on his face.

"Hmm..." Sam just grunted his assent as he was too busy gorging himself on the feast to respond.

"This may be the last good meal we have since we will reach the Disputed lands in less than a day, so you may have to—" Jon abruptly stopped mid-sentence and raised his head towards the sky as if someone had called him. "Sam." he called out in serious voice a few seconds later, "I think you should wear your armour."

Sam didn't question the order and after hastily gulping the remaining food in his bowl, he quickly got up to go towards his luggage to wear all the parts of the leather armour that he had carried all the way from Winterfell, "Is it a wild animal again?" This wasn't the first time they had come across the local predators on this trip and Sam had already killed a few of them on his own so he wasn't scared at all.

"No... It's humans."

///

 

[LazyWizard]

"No...It's humans." Jon replied nonchalantly while slurping the soup remaining in his bowl, but his words had the immediate effect of freezing Sam as all the excitement drained from his body.


Sam gathered himself a few seconds later and then hastened to tie the knots on his armour as fast as he could. He fumbled a few times but a minute later he was strapped and secure in the sturdy armour he had carried all the way from Winterfell.


His sweaty hands curled around the handle of the axe and the small shield as his eyes anxiously turned left and right to scout for the unknown assailants. While Sam had somewhat gotten used to fighting other people, that was only when he was in bouts with known friendly faces.


This would be the first time he could potentially have a life-and-death battle. Safe to say he was just an inch away from crapping his pants.


"Don't worry so much, Sam," Jon suddenly comforted after seeing Sam fidgeting like a deer, "We may not necessarily have to fight them... they could just be some friendly strangers coming for a talk."


But Sam wasn't naive enough to believe that...


They were in the middle of nowhere surrounded on all sides by tall yellow grass and Disputed Lands, one of the most dangerous places in Essos was just a day's ride away. The only way someone could stumble on them here would be if they were intentionally seeking them out after noticing the smoke from their fire... and people rarely seek strangers in the Essosi wilderness with good intentions.


But the false consolation nonetheless did its job of calming him and steadying his shaky grip. He just needed to remind himself that he would be safe as long Jon was here.


"H-How many are there?"


"Hmm... Four and a half," Jon answered after thinking for a few seconds.


"Four and a half?"


"You'll see," Jon shrugged but didn't explain any further, so Sam took a deep breath and stopped looking around. He knew that Jon would let him know as soon as they were close enough so he stilled his eyes and began counting in his head to pass the time and soothe his psyche.


On the other hand, having finished his meal, Jon too began to prepare. He put away all the utensils back into the luggage, so that they don't break, and began taking out his weapons to place them by the side of the rock he was sitting on. Now usually, he only carried a bastard sword and a bow as his main weapon but this time he had one extra thing prepared.


Since Jon didn't have any armour other than the sturdy leather jacket he was wearing, that was the only preparation he needed. So he took a small pointed dagger and a whetstone and began to sharpen it while sitting on the rock in front of the fire.


Sam had counted to about 200 when he finally heard the expected footsteps he was waiting for.


They were light enough that he wouldn't have heard them over the wind if he wasn't paying such close attention. The steps stopped just at the edge of the clearing out of their sight and then there was complete silence for a few seconds... before they suddenly heard a whisper.


"I... I think they already know about us..."


"Of course, they do," a voice replied snarkily and loudly, "Can't you see the fat boy sweating under his armour,"


Sam would have been normally offended at that if he wasn't so scared since he had really put in a lot of work and was now a lot skinnier than before.


"No point hiding then..." an aged voice calmly replied and the grass in front of them rustled and swayed as four adult men came out into the clearing carrying various arrays of smirks on their faces.


Of the four of them, two were middle-aged men in their forties, one was an old man pushing sixties and the last one seemed to be in his twenties. All of them carried a long sword at their waists except for the oldest one who had a spear in his hand and a bow on his back.


Their eyes and hair colourings were varied but all of them had sunburnt skin, unwashed hair, beat-up armour and well-worn weapons. All in all their appearance simply screamed sellswords. And each one of them had a similar marking of a helmet and a shield on their breasts.


"How may we help you, my friends," Jon calmly asked while looking up but he didn't get up from his seat nor did he stop sharpening the dagger in his hands, as if he was meeting them in an inn instead of in the wilderness.


The sellswords exchanged amused glances with each other at coming across such a young, stupid and naive target, before the youngest one of them replied arrogantly, "You can help us by leaving all your stuff behind and Fucking off!!" the man had a thick local accent but even Sam who wasn't so proficient in High Valariyan could clearly understand his intentions.


"Salov!" the oldest one with a smattering of white hair on his head rebuked gently while leaning on his spear, "You can't be so rude," he shook his head disappointedly at him before turning to Jon with a very fake smile, "I apologize for my friend here, you see he's a bit cranky because of his hunger since we haven't had a good meal in days... I am sure you understand..."


"Of course," Jon nodded with an understanding expression, "I would be ashamed to call myself Westerosi if I don't show you proper hospitality. Please, take a seat, I am sure we still have enough food for you to fill your stomach..."


But none of the sellswords moved to accept the offer and neither did they take their hands off their weapons, "Ah so you're from Westeros," the guy with the spear said in a surprised tone, "That's perfect. I have heard many times how people in Westeros are all very rich... and we just happen to be in somewhat of a pinch money-wise... You wouldn't mind also giving us your gold, would you?" he finished with an insincere smile.


"And... I want that sword of his," one of the middle-aged sellswords piped while pointing at the sword lying beside Jon.


"Fine. Then I want that fatso's axe and his armour too. God knows, I would make much better use of it considering how clean it is, I bet the boy's never even been in a fight." the youngest scoffed while adding in his two bits.


The sellswords wanted to loot them without putting in the work.


"My friends are very demanding," The oldest one continued with a fake apologetic smile when he saw an impassive expression on Jon's face, "But I am sure it shouldn't be much of a problem with your... generosity,"


Sam was nervously watching, hoping that it wouldn't end up in a disaster, but from the greed in the sellsword's eyes and the look on Jon's face, it was a hope in vain. As Sam was waiting for the stone to drop into the puddle, he suddenly heard a faint rustle of the grass behind the sellswords and looked up to find a head peeking out.


He was almost in despair at finding another enemy when Sam actually looked closely and realised that the new individual was maybe not a part of this group, at least not willingly.


First of all, he was too young, the boy barely looked sixteen or seventeen years old. He had blonde hair and striking blue eyes and he would have even looked pretty if not for the... condition he was in.


The boy was in bad shape, he had bruises all over his face and his body, his clothes were muddy and were torn here and there, and most importantly his hands were tied behind his back and he was completely barefoot, which was almost a death sentence in this wilderness unless you were a Dothraki. But even with the state he was in, there was still a defiant look on the boy's face as he looked into the clearing to see the exchange between Jon and his captors.


"I didn't know beggars were so brazen in Essos," Jon finally shot back with an amused smile on his face which froze the expression on the old man's face, "You're quite bad at begging, my friends. I think you should hit the city streets, you'll have much better luck there than out here."


"Ha ha, that is a very funny joke," the old man, who seemed to be the leader, said with a stiff smile, "But I could easily get offended by this... and you don't want that, do you?"


"Oh, I am sure I'll manage,"


"Argh! Enough of this farce, Uncle!" The youngest named Salov interrupted impatiently, "Let's just gut the pretty boy right here and be done with this."


The old man sighed, "You're too reckless, Salov. I was just hoping to make it simpler before we do..."


Jon ignored the sellswords for a moment and turned his head towards the teen prisoner with a curious look on his face, "And what about you, boy? Who are you?"


The boy was shocked to be suddenly called out and replied unconsciously, "I-I am Bran!"


"Are you with them?" Jon asked and suddenly he didn't know why but he got an urge to spread his mind to scout the mind of the boy and he was very thankful that he followed the urge because what he found in the boy shocked him.


"You're from the North!!" Jon stated rather than asking as while the boy had none of the typical looks of a Northerner, the makeup of his mind was telling him a completely different story.


The boy's eyes widened in shock, "H-How did you know—" Bran's question was interrupted with a harsh slap from Salov, the young sellsword, who was irritated at being ignored.


"Who gave you the fucking permission to come out and run your mouth, boy!" Salov asked, and then gave another slap, "Didn't I tell you to stay put, Huh?"


"Enough, Salov," The leader intervened half-heartedly when it looked like Salov would go on, "You already vented your anger on the boy's face earlier. If you slap him more, even his father wouldn't be able to recognise him. Who would we ransom him to then?"


"Who cares," Salov scoffed flippantly, "If not his father, then we can just find a slaver to sell him. The brat's pretty enough to still fetch us a good price," he mocked with a hint of envy.


"You're hopeless, boy," The old man shook his head helplessly, "But then again you're not wrong. But if we're going to sell him to a slaver anyway, then we may as well capture these two alive. We'll get a far better deal with all three in a package,"


"Oh! I can promise to leave them alive," Salov said with a malicious grin as all of them put their hands on their weapon while spreading out, "But they may lose a finger or two... you know I just can't stop myself when I get going."


"Just... don't ruin this one's face," the uncle advised while jerking his head towards Jon, "I think they'll pay a premium for him in Lys—"


"That's enough out of you," Jon abruptly cut him off, "Him! Him! And Him!" he said pointing towards the older three sellswords with the dagger in his hand, "Sam, I'll take the three of them so can you take care of the loudmouth one."


"I-I guess, but—"


"Excellent then—"


"HAHAHA!!" All four of the sellswords burst out laughing simultaneously at that. It took a while before the oldest one controlled his chuckles and was able to speak, "H-How are you so delusional boy? You think—"


That was the last thing the man said as he was abruptly cut off by a simple jerk of Jon's right hand. One moment the dagger was in Jon's right hand and in the next, it was buried deep into the left eye of the man who had been cackling just a moment ago.


"Hmm... seems the target training was useful..." Jon commented casually as he finally stood up from his seat while picking a sword with his left hand, but instead of the usual bastard sword, he decided to use another weapon this time. This new weapon was also technically a sword but it was much thinner with a pointed tip making it much more suited for stabbing rather than slashing.


The sellswords were still shell-shocked by the sudden death of their leader and it was only when he fell, headfirst into the ground like a puppet without his strings, did they managed to come out of their shock and react.


"Y-You Bastard!!"


"How dare you!!"


"I'll kill you!!"


Jon smoothly shifted his stance sideways making his body as small of a target as possible with his head facing the sellswords, he then beckoned the incensed mercenaries mockingly, "Come then, let us get this over with..."


"Argh!!"


All three of them attacked Jon simultaneously in their anger and instead of backing away like a normal person, he plunged straight into their midst giving them very little room to attack. Jon was weaving between the slashes of the sellswords, like a fish in water, he was constantly making them run into each other and leaving them disoriented as they tried not to attack their comrades.


And while Jon could easily handle the three of them on his own and even kill them. That wasn't his intention, otherwise, he would have bought out the bow instead of this new weapon.


"Sam! What are you waiting for!!"


"Y-Yes!!" Sam stammered a reply and after taking a deep breath, rushed straight for the youngest sellswords Jon had pointed towards with his axe raised to strike, "Ahh!!"


"Tsk!" Salov clicked his tongue irritatedly at the disruption but nonetheless backed away from Jon to take on Sam, "It doesn't matter I'll deal with you after I kill the fatso... if you're still alive by then—"


"I AM NOT FAT!!!" Sam roared as he attacked the young sellsword with a surprising amount of ferocity that almost took Salov off-guard before he managed to gather himself and started taking the boy seriously.


The initial exchanges were somewhat dangerous but before long Sam began to fall into the familiar rhythm that he had practised countless times every single day since he met Jon. His combat instincts took over and he began to attack and defend against the sellswords' attacks like a well-oiled machine, much to Salov's frustration.


"Argh! Just die already!"


On the other side, Jon was having a much easier time handling his opponents than Sam even though he was dealing with two much more older and experienced sellswords. Mostly because, while the two sellswords had good battle instincts and were overall good at coordinating with each other, their attack reeked of someone who's never had any kind of systematic training.


Their stances were all over the place and their attacks had a lack of intricacy and forethought put into them. Every single slash of theirs was straightforward and aimed to either kill or maim and while it could take down most amateurs, anyone who had trained under a good master at arms could easily neutralise them.


That is also why he decided to try the newest addition to his arsenal, the Braavosi sword in this fight. He wanted to try out the new techniques of water dance, that he had been trying to learn (steal) ever since he had set foot in Braavos, in a real battle. And what better place to practise a new technique than in front of two sellswords


Jon already considered himself quite a fast hand with the sword, of course, he was not quite yet at the level of the likes of Ser Barristan and Jamie Lannister, but he could definitely call his speed first tier. But it was only now, when he actually used the light thin sword of Braavos, that he comprehended how fast he could be.


He was swaying in and out of the attacks like a lithe cat. His right hand was always primed like a coiled snake and when he found an opening his sword sprung like a snake to poke holes in the bodies of his enemies. Only a few seconds into the battle, Jon could say with absolute certainty that the water dance was a far better style for him when dealing with lightly armed enemies than his usual Westersoi style of hacking and slashing.


Now, normally he wouldn't have been able to easily learn the water dance as it requires you not only to spend countless hours practising it like the other styles, but it also has very stringent requirements for the user's body.


Their body needs to be thin but strong, they need to be able to wield their sword as though it is part of the arm and to see with all their senses. And instead of the usual power muscles, they need an entirely different set that focuses more on speed, balance and grace, muscles that would improve their flexibility and allow them to move and react like a cat.


Jon's body was filled with a set of perfectly sculpted muscles rippling with power, they were the result of almost a decade of hard exercise and a regulated diet to compress the maximum power and speed possible. It would be astronomically foolish of him to discard all that to train anew for this water dance.


Thankfully even without a compatible body, Jon was still able to find a workaround and adequately use the Water Dance by relying on the one skill that he had been perfecting since he was three years old. The skill to use his mind to predict, to have foresight into the opponent's attack before they execute them.


The water dance required you to be as fast as the wind and intuitively move your body unnaturally to dodge enemy weapons and poke holes in your opponent's vulnerabilities. Jon could simply circumvent this by shifting his body preemptively into a proper stance before the opponent even makes a move.


The benefits of the Water Dance were clearly visible only a minute into the battle as the two sellswords were already bleeding all over from small holes made by the slender sword. Jon specially targeted joints like their elbows and their hands, making them all the more sluggish and close to death.


The sellswords were deeply regretting their decision to fight and were cursing their now-dead leader for getting them into this decision. They were not even trying to put on a fight now and were just looking for a chance to back off and run away. But, unfortunately for them, Jon didn't have any intention to let them run away and was forcefully keeping them locked in a battle with him.


From the very beginning of the fight, Jon had kept more than half of his attention on Sam's side of the battle to make sure that nothing went wrong there. And while he himself may not be quick enough to help him in case Sam is in any kind of danger. His friend, Forst, flying up in the sky could easily help him in a pinch with her swiftness.


But what really surprised Jon was how well Sam was actually holding on, in fact, he was doing more than just holding on, he was defending when he needed to and even attacking whenever there was a chance.


The young sellsword named Salov was sporting an ugly look on his face and already had a few deep gashes over his body courtesy of the axe in Sam's hand. And it wasn't like the sellsword didn't have a chance to cut the boy back, because he did but it's just that unlike him, the boy had armour and a shield in his hands, which was too unfair.


And while Jon could see that Sam was doing good, he could also notice that he wasn't landing a decisive strike even though he already had few chances to. Which was annoying but understandable considering his age and inexperience.


Jon knew that Sam would eventually win the bout, either due to the stamina or the injuries, but he wasn't satisfied with a pyrrhic victory like that as it would make this unnecessarily prolonged fight useless. So Jon decided to...meddle.


The next time Jon saw Sam about to falter and waste an opening to end the battle, he immediately intervened.


"Sam!! Downwards Slash! NOW!!" Jon's thunderous voice was like an unquestionable command and Sam whose body had been heavily conditioned to follow Jon's voice during their bouts, executed it instinctively.


His hand didn't even hesitate and the axe flicked across the familiar trajectory to deposit itself straight into the jugular of the surprised sellsword. Both the sellsword and Sam had an equal amount of disbelief in their eyes at the sudden end of their fight before Salov gurgled something like, "M-My Father—Ugh" and fell to the ground with deep regrets in his eyes.


Seeing Salov getting killed, the two sellswords knew that they were next and tried to plead.


"Wait!! Don't—"


But Jon didn't care to listen to their begging and killed both of them without wasting any more time. A simple quick stab to an eye and the neck did the trick. Jon was sheathing his sword and moving towards Sam before their bodies even fell.


"Are you fine, Sam,"


"Hoooh, Hoooh..." Sam nodded and then shook his head as an answer. He was kneeling on the ground and breathing and heaving as if he was about to vomit. His eyes were wide with panic as they stared towards the face of the sellsword he killed. It was easy to see that he was in shock over the first human life he had taken.


"It's fine, Sam. He wasn't a good person. You did nothing wrong..." Jon murmured while obstructing the boy's view of the body so that it wouldn't give him nightmares. Jon knew it was a cruel and unpleasant thing to do especially considering his age but it was an unpleasant world so it would have happened sooner or later. And it was far better for it to have happened in a controlled environment with him nearby than with him alone during a dangerous battle.


A few minutes later, after Sam had calmed down enough to drink some water, Jon finally stood up and turned towards the last member of the group who was still alive.


The blond teen was slowly trying to sneak away when Jon called him with a smile, "Now, Now. don't be scared. I just want to know, who you are and Where you are from?"

 

[LazyWizard]

"...I just want to know who you are and where you're from?"


Jon's voice immediately made the boy freeze in his tracks. He gulped while slowly turning his head with a look of dread on his face as if he was about to be punished for trying to sneak away. Bran had hoped to get away from here while the two of them were distracted but it seemed that he was just too unlucky and the boy named Jon had spotted him.


"Don't worry, Bran. We are not going to hurt you," Jon said soothingly with his hands raised away from his sword. He also stopped some distance away from him to not scare the already terrified boy even more, "I just want to know where you're from, Bran,"


"I-I don't have a fixed home..." The boy answered hesitatingly, his eyes going from Jon to Sam, ready to sprint at any hint of violence, "B-But I used to live in Pentos when I was little..."


"Pentos? Really..." Jon asked with a hint of confusion in his tone, "But 'Bran' doesn't seem like a Pentosi name, does it... Are you sure, you're not from the North?"


"Er... Why do you keep asking that, Jon?" Sam suddenly intervened while getting up and walking over to stand beside Jon. The boy from Reach was still a little less queasy but felt much better after drinking some water, but he made sure not to look directly towards the dead bodies, nonetheless, for his stomach's sake. "The boy doesn't look like a Northerner to me?" Sam had spent quite many a months in the North so he could say with certainty that he could recognise a Northerner anywhere with their distinct accent, their constant gruffiness and their pale looks, and as far as he knew blond hair and blue eyes weren't Northern traits.


"He may not look like it..." Jon replied quietly while looking at the boy with an intense look in his eyes, "But he's definitely got the blood of the first men in him..."


While there were still some people with the First Men's blood alive in the other six kingdoms, like the Dayne's, the Blackwoods or the Mountain Men of the Vale, statistically speaking, if you find one here all the way in Essos, then most probably he is a Northerner instead of originating from those small pockets of people.


But Jon's scrutinizing gaze was making the boy shiver, which Sam noticed and he decided to intervene before his friend made the boy piss in his pants. "You may be right, Jon... But I think it would be better if we release his binds and get him warm before asking him any more questions..."


Jon was startled out of his thoughts before he looked at the boy and nodded his head, "Of course, You're right, Sam," he said before looking toward the boy with an apologetic look, "I am sorry, Bran. I was being too hasty," The boy just mutely shook his head at his apology, "Right, then! Sam, you take care of his binds and give him some water while I take care of the...er...bodies..."


"Sure," Sam replied quickly. He was happy as long as he wasn't the one who would have to deal with the bodies.


....


A few minutes later, Jon arrived back into the clearing with Peggy after taking care of the corpses. He had deposited them somewhere far enough that the smell wouldn't lure any wild animals to their camp. He didn't find anything worth taking off the Sellswords but he still brought back some miscellaneous things that may help Bran, things like a sword, a bow, some clothes, a pair of shoes and some local currency, among other things.


The boy looked a lot calmer now, as Sam seemed to have fed him the last remaining soup in the pot and some jerky. He was now seated on a rock on the other side of the fire and was gurgling water from their water pouch like a man who had been parched for days(which he probably was).


Only when the pouch was almost empty of water did Bran lower it with a distinct look of relief on his face, "Ah! That hit the spot—" he stopped midsentence and fell silent when he noticed that Jon had arrived back from his excursion. Unlike Sam, whom he had gotten familiar with in the last half hour, he was still a bit scared of Jon. After all, he had seen him demolish three skilled sellswords like it was nothing, and what was scarier was that he looked even younger than him.


"Was it good?" Jon asked amusedly while raising his eyebrow towards the pouch after seeing the boy suddenly going quiet from embarrassment.


"Oh... yes, it was the sweetest water I have ever tasted..." The boy answered with a shy smile on his face before his eyes suddenly widened as he looked down at the almost empty pouch in his hands, "Shit! I finished all your water," he burst out with a stricken look of guilt on his face. Water was a very precious commodity around these parts, and he knew how stupid it was for him to chug so much of it as he did.


"It's fine," Jon waved away Bran's worries with an unbothered smile while taking a seat beside Sam, "You can drink as much as you want, after all, we can always get some more..."


"But how..." Bran mumbled the question with a confused look on his face because as far as he knew there was no source of clean water nearby and the closest river was at least two days distance away by horse.


"Don't worry about it," echoed Jon and Sam simultaneously with identical smiles on their faces at his curious look, and Bran let it go.


There was a few minutes of awkward silence after that but before long Bran became uncomfortable with the curiosity in Jon's eyes and decided to speak up, "Um... When you were talking about North earlier... asking if I hail from there..." He began while receiving encouraging nods from Jon, "Well... were you talking about the North of Westeros... The one with Starks and the Hornwoods—"


"Yes! That's exactly the one I was talking about," Jon confirmed with a pleased look on his face, "In fact, I myself am the son of a Stark..." he said pointing at himself.


"You are?" Bran echoed with a look of shocked awe on his face, "B-But I thought the Starks were the Lords of Winterfell... If you are a Stark then why are you out here all alone with just the two of you..." Bran's mind couldn't comprehend why someone so important would roam this dangerous wilderness with no guards with him.


"Oh! You misunderstood... I have the blood of the Starks but I am not the heir. You see, I am a bastard so I don't carry the Stark name and am not really important enough to have guards—" Sam scoffed at that, "—so I don't have too many restrictions on where I can go." He finished with a shrug.


"Is that so..." Bran nodded with a confused look towards Sam wondering why he scoffed at Jon calling himself unimportant. He kept feeling that these two helpful strangers he was lucky enough to meet in the wilderness were just too mysterious.


"So you really are from North?" Sam asked curiously, bringing the conversation back to the main topic. He was still a bit sceptical and kept looking at Bran with a scrutinising gaze trying to find any hint of Northerness in the boy.


"I-I think so..." Bran answered hesitatingly, "Or at least that is what my father told me... He always told me that we are Northerners by blood..."


"I remember those sellswords mentioning something about ransoming you to your father for money," Jon said with a frown on his face, "If you tell us the name of your father and where he is, maybe we can help—"


"No! They were wrong!" The boy suddenly shouted startling Jon and Sam, "I repeatedly told them that m-my father is not rich at all but they didn't believe me and just beat me up," he rambled anxiously, "I am not lying! you would really not make much gold from ransoming me, so please—"


"Calm down, Bran," Jon interrupted the worried boy calmly but firmly, "You are mistaken. I just wanted to know your father's name and where he is to see if we can find him and help you reach him... that's all." Jon explained with a shrug, "Besides, we are rich enough that I don't think we need to ransom kids to earn money." Sam snorted at the massive understatement about how rich they were.


"Oh..." Bran said, his eyes jumping from Jon to Sam, looking closely at the young faces in front of him and only after seeing the clear eyes with no lies did he breathe a sigh of relief, "That's good, then... Umm, I am sorry for doubting you... It's just..."


"No, I understand," Jon said nodding thoughtfully, "After what you've been through... you're bound to be a little wary..."


"T-Thank you..." Bran replied gratefully, "I have heard many tales of how Northerners all simple folks," he continued scratching his cheek shyly, "I guess there was some truth to them..." Of course, he had also heard that they are all barbaric and brute-minded people who fight at the drop of a coin... but he wasn't about to say that.


"Tales? From whom?"


"My Father," Bran said while looking into the fire with a nostalgic smile, "He used to tell me all kinds of stories of the North... And even though he himself has never been there, he still proudly considers himself a Northerner and even introduces himself with a family name..."


'Never been to North,' Jon mouthed while exchanging confused glances with Sam, 'How could anyone have a Northern family name if he's never been to North,'


"Wait? What was this Family name again?"


"Huh? Oh! It's Hornwood!" Bran replied with a tilt of his head making Jon and Sam's eyes widen in surprise.


...


Bran could still remember how his Father always lectured him when he was just a 5-year-old lad, about how he should always introduce himself as a Northerner and how he should take pride in his heritage and that he came from a Noble family of Hornwood.


But Bran never understood what it meant... About what it meant to be a 'Hornwood'.


Did his ancestors have some kind of horns on their heads? Or did they live in an area where there were a lot of trees with horns? Did they cut wood for a living? Were they lords? Were they rich? Do they have an army? Do they even know about him?


He knew nothing at all...


The only thing he was aware of was that dastard 'story' that had been fed to him countless times since he was a child. The story of Torrhen Stark, the last king in the North... the King who knelt.


The story of how the King in the North, three hundred years ago, kneeled in front of the Dragons to save his kingdom and its people from being burned to ashes. Which was an absolutely sane decision from his perspective, but alas... his 'very brave' ancestors didn't think so and didn't like their King's decision very much.


His ancestors abhorred the very thought of surrendering to the Targaryens. In fact, they hated it so much that they decided that they would abandon their family, abandon their land and leave the North rather than stay under the dragons. They gathered all the 'brave' like-minded people they could find from all the nearby strongholds in North and then went on a voluntary exile from Westeros... forever. (Idiots!)


And that was the beginning of their journey...


While he didn't know the exact path they took, he knew that a few years down the line almost all of them ended up in Essos.


Obviously being the brute-minded people that they were, the only thing they knew how to do was drink, fight, fuck, kill and drink again. And the only way to make money off of doing that is to set up a sellswords company. So, The Company of the Rose, was established, named after the winter rose, a unique species of flower only found in the North.


And now about three hundred years later they were still a small sellswords company living, killing and dying, for a few pieces of gold. Over the years they've fought in countless wars and skirmishes, some times they were on this side while other times they were on that side. From guarding goods and mansions to looting caravans, they had taken all kinds of jobs and travelled all across the Essos.


There were a few times when the company came really close to extinction or being disbanded but somehow they always held on and still existed to this day. Maybe it was something about the Northern blood that made them especially hardy and stubborn.


But even though the name of the company may have remained unchanged, the same can't be said about the people inside it.


At present, less than half of the five hundred-something warriors in it are Northerners and even fewer actually look like they are from the North. It was something bound to happen after years of people dying, settling down, marrying locals, and other such things.


In fact, the number would have been a lot lower if not for the occasional infusion of new blood from the bastards and other low-born from the North who came to Essos to make a name for themselves and found out that the Company was the only place who would take them.


Another thing that changed a lot over the years, was the leadership. Bran didn't know who the first leader of the Company was, he assumed it was a second son of a Stark or some other family. But after a lot of fighting, shuffling, coups, deaths and other things, not a lot of the original families survived and now a Hornwood had come out on the top to become the leader of the present-day Company of the Rose, and he just so happen to be Bran's father.


"Wait! Wait! Wait!" Jon interrupted Bran's story with an incredulous look on his face, "So you mean to tell me that not only do you belong to the Company of the Rose, you are also the son of its leader," he asked to which Bran nodded, "Then why did you say that you came from Pentos?"


"Oh! Well, that's because It's only been five months since I joined the company, before that I lived in Pentos along with the children and the families of the other members of the Company..."


"B-But how did you get captured if you were the son of the company's leader?" Sam asked with a look of incomprehension on his face. After all, it should be almost impossible for a few men to capture the son of the leader of a sellswords company from their midst.


"Um... It was mostly my own fault..." he said with a flushed look on his face, "I-I was angry at my father for something and ran out of the camp in the middle of the night without telling anyone, and unfortunately I was unlucky enough to get caught soon after that..."


"Oh... And why did you run away?"


Bran hesitated for a while before he answered, "Well, there's this girl... Lea..."


'Of course there is' thought Jon and Sam simultaneously while nodding their heads.


Bran couldn't remember the first time he saw Lea... it was probably when they were just toddlers. He just knew that he had been friends with her since he could remember.


They lived in the same house and were of the same age, his father was the leader and her father was the second in command of the company so they had grown up spending almost every single day with each other.


Whether it was eating, training, or playing, they were always together. In fact, they even joined the Company of the Rose at the same time, him as a fighter and her as a cook... even though she could fight almost as well as him.


Lea was the most cheerful person he had ever known, she could brighten up any room just by being in there, there was not a single evil bone in her body and she was a rare kind soul in this World...


And now she was dying...


He didn't know why. He didn't know how. He didn't even know when...


All he knew was that he had never seen a person look so pale and lifeless, it was as if someone had sucked all the life out of her. And it had all happened so abruptly. One day she was there laughing, gossiping, and cooking dinner for the camp with the other cooks. And the very next day she had suddenly fallen gravely sick. She couldn't even get up from her bed and was constantly coughing, sometimes so harshly that she even spat blood...


The useless camp healer couldn't even determine the cause of her sudden sickness, all he could diagnose was that she had some kind of fever and that only a city healer would be able to cure her.


As if it was so easy to get a city healer...


First of all, you needed an absurd amount of money to even get in through the door to have a chance to see a city healer. And even if you were able to collect the money he may as well not help you for some absurd reasons such as he didn't like the way you look or that you smell funny.


Only rich Merchants and powerful Magister had the power to move them. For mercenaries or smallfolks like them, he may as well have the power of a god... and the healer knew that fact very well...


But even if it didn't work out in the end, even if it was all fruitless, Bran still wanted to give it a try in a bid to save Lea. And the first hurdle to do that was to get money as he didn't have any.


So he immediately went for his father to demand that he give him the money to help him. But his father said there was no money to give, as they barely had enough to run the Company and that they would only get more money when their current job was completed.


He knew that it was very unreasonable and that his father was helpless in this situation but it didn't matter to Bran at that time, he raged and cursed at his father for his denial to help him before storming out of his tent.


He drank himself into a stupor for the first time that night. He had lost all hope by that point and was drowning himself in his sorrows... when he heard something that filled him with hope once again.


A guard was telling another guard that the son of a magister was going to have a name day celebration in a few days in Pentos and that the only gift the son demanded was to have a lion as a pet. And now there was a bounty of about a thousand gold out for anyone who could get them a lion cub.


Being in the haze of alcohol that he was, he didn't think too much and immediately set off during the night on a hunt without telling anyone, only taking a horse and some ration with him. He had no concrete plan in his mind on how he would accomplish it, he just knew that it was his last hope.


"So you set out alone... hoping to somehow stumble on a lion, kill it and then capture its cub..." Sam asked with an incredulous look on his face, trying to decide if he was stupid or brave.


"Y-Yes..." Bran answered while looking down in embarrassment since he knew how foolish his decision was in retrospect.


"So did you find it?" Jon asked curiously, "Did you find a lion?"


"No. I didn't even get a chance to search for them..." Bran shook his head disappointedly, "I don't know if I was just unlucky or something but somehow the very next day I found my camp surrounded by those sellswords from the Gallant men..." He shivered as he thought back to the cruel torture he had to endure under their care and how close he came to being sold as a slave... if it wasn't for these Northerners.


'That seems all too convenient...' Jon thought with a frown on his face. He could smell something fishy in this situation, even though he couldn't put his finger on what it was.


"I just hope I don't run into any more problems on the way back..." He said with a depressed look on his face.


"You don't need to worry about that," Jon said with a smile, "We'll bring you back to the Company of Rose safely..."


"You will?" Bran asked as his eyes went wide from surprise, "But... why?"


"Because we have the same destination."

 

[LazyWizard]

The Company of the Rose had set up their camps on a small hill in one of the regions of the Disputed Lands that was occupied by Myr. Long lines of trenches and latrines had been dug in an orderly manner and even a wooden fence had been built to mark the perimeter, turning the campsite into a semi-permanent one, where they had been stationed for a considerable amount of time.


The dilapidated tents and battered armour of the wandering sellswords were a clear indication that the company was not doing well financially.


In the centre of the encampment stood the commander's tent, which was just as worn out as the rest of the tents, with only its slightly bigger size setting it apart.


Three vigilant sellswords stood guard a few meters away from the commander's tent making sure that no one was eavesdropping.


The atmosphere inside the tent was a little tense even though there were only two men inside the massive tent at the moment, the commander and the second in command.


The Commander, Gared Hornwood, was a giant man, standing about six and a half feet tall, with muscles of steel rippling all over his body. He had dark hair and grey eyes and with his bushy beard, he wouldn't look out of place on a table full of Umbers.


The other man, the second in command, Rickard, was a much smaller and thinner man and didn't have much muscles on him, and didn't look to be much of a fighter. He had narrow eyes and long hair and had the typical Braavosi looks.


Both of these men had grim looks on their faces and were staring at the thin strip of parchment on the table in front of them.


"Is this true?" Gared growled while gripping the table so hard that it almost splintered, "Is this letter real?"


"It would take some to verify it but... I think it is real." Rickard nodded grimly, "I don't think they would lie about something like this moreover... nobody has seen Bran in more than four days, so most probably—"


"How did they even get this letter to us? Was there a messenger..." Gared asked with a glint in his eyes, as he wondered if it was possible to torture the messenger to get confirmation out of him.


"No! No messenger, our usual merchant delivered this letter with the supplies," Rickard replied with a frown on his face, "He said that one of the merchants who supply The Gallant Men paid him to deliver the letter..."


The Gallant men were one of the dozens of Sellswords company who were currently active in the Disputed Lands. They were currently in a contract with Tyrosh at the moment and since the Company of the Rose was defending the territory of Myr, both of them were at odds with each other.


Gared closed his eyes to think for a few moments before he replied with a frown on his face, "It is just too fast... It doesn't make sense that in a matter of days, they not only caught my son, but they also had the time to send us this ransom letter demanding five thousand gold... The only way for this to be possible is if we had spies in our midst sending them information," he turned to Rickard with an accusing glare, "I did tell you to take care of them after the last time we were ambushed did I not?"


"You know that I've worked very hard to sniff out as many of them as I can," Rickard replied in a surly tone, with his eye twitching. Their company wasn't as big or as rich as the Golden Company so they didn't have an individual post for all the tasks. Most of the important tasks were handled by these two on their own. Tasks such as training their men and commanding them during battles came under Gared's purview while handling their contracts, gathering information and spy work came under Rickard as the second in command, "And even if I missed some there's nothing we can do about it now. The most important thing at the moment is to focus on what we are going to do about this ransom letter?"


"What can we even do about it?" Gared asked with gritted teeth and a vulnerable look in his eyes, "They are too strong and too far away for us to attack them effectively and... even if I sell all my belongings, I wouldn't be able to get this amount in a short time..." he shook his head with a frustrated look. While not completely dirt-poor, their company was quite close to it. They lived from contract to contract and barely broke even each time, with most of their gold immediately going towards supplies, salaries and the maintenance of their weapons, "...and the other option is not even an option."


The ransom letter had given Gared two choices if he wanted to get his son back in one piece, either cough up the absurd sum of five thousand gold or betray their current contract with Myr and give up the land that they were defending to the Gallant Men without putting a fight.


Choosing the second option would mean betraying their contract and going back on their word and it would be the same as killing the Company of the Rose with his own hands and Gared would die before doing that.


"So you mean to give up on your only son? Can you even do that?" Rickard asked while narrowing his eyes.


"What other choice do I have..." Gared sighed helplessly as he fell back onto his chair with a thud, "I can't ask my men to fight a losing battle just for the sake of my son..."


"You know that there's a very simple and easy solution for your problem..." Rickard said with a gleam in his eyes.


"What are you—Ugh! Not again!!" Gared groaned as he looked away from Rickard while massaging his forehead.


"No, listen to me," Rickard beseeched in a hurried tone, "You just need to nod your head and I will take care of everything. I already know a merchant who has contacts who are willing to pay as much gold as we want in advance, we just need to promise to regularly send them all the prisoners we take in our battles." he started to get an excited smile on his face, "This would not only solve the problem of your son but also solve all our money problem and maybe even help my sick daughter get a healer, and we can also get all kinds of good weapons for—"


"Enough!!" Gared interrupted without looking up with his head in his hands, "I've told you again and again, that I will not resort to slavery no matter the circumstances..."


"Argh! Why do you have to be so stubborn, Gared? These people we are going to sell are not innocent... They are cunts who would have been happy to kill us in battle, so why do you care so much about them," he asked with a frustrated look on his face, "Every single sellsword company already does this practice openly or sneakily, we are the only ones foolishly suffering from poverty because of your stubbornness..." he said in an annoyed tone before sighing while shaking his head, "I knew you were heartless when you denied me the chance to help get my dying daughter a healer from the city but... I didn't think that you wouldn't even care for your own son—"


"Rickard!! You go too far," Gared roared as he abruptly stood up, sending the chair flying with such force that it made the second in command flinch and almost shit his pants.


Rickard almost wanted to bolt for a second after seeing the fierce look on Gared's face but ultimately held his ground with false bravado as he knew that his commander was unlikely to resort to violence with his brother-in-law, "Don't forget that your daughter is also my niece, the only piece of my dead sister left in this world. You think I would have hesitated if there was a way I could help her. She's as much of a family to me as my son Bran is, I would've done anything for them—"


"But—"


"Anything but Slavery," He said firmly while looking straight into his eyes, "The blood of the North still runs in my veins, and I will not sully my ancestor's name by resorting to slavery no matter the circumstances."


There was silence for a few moments before Rickard gulped and tried once again, "You keep forgetting Gared, that we are not in the North.... this is Essos, not Westeros, slavery runs in people's blood here. Here you are either a slaver or a slave... you need to realise that if you don't want the company dying..."


"You dare—" Gared shouted as his eyes bulged with rage, but before he could rip into his second in command, a guard abruptly barged into the tent without announcing himself, scattering the intense atmosphere.


"What are you doing? Didn't I tell you to—" Gared turned to the guard with a glare but was surprisingly interrupted by his subordinate.


"C-Commander!!! It's your, son!! B-Bran! he's back..." the guard hurriedly said, wildly waving his hands towards the exit with a shocked look in his eyes.


"What?!" Both of the men inside barked while turning to look at the guard with an incredulous look on their faces as if he had just told them that the sun was falling from the sky.


"Y-Yes, Bran!! He is standing right outside the tent with—"


"Are you drunk, Karr? How can Bran—" But Gared didn't wait for Rickard's sceptical interrogation and immediately dashed outside, almost ripping the tent's flap in his haste.


The moment he came out, Gared was caught off guard by a not-so-small crowd of sellswords gathered in a circle right outside his tent.


Even with his height, Gared could not make out much of what they were encircling. But after a few seconds, he could vaguely make out two horses and two unfamiliar faces in the middle of the crowd. One was a handsome man curiously looking at someone talking to the sellswords, while the other one was a boy in half-plate armour clutching his axe nervously.


Abruptly he caught sight of the last member of the group who was laughingly talking to a few sellswords and almost immediately Gared recognised who it was even though he could only see the back from his position.


"Bran!! Bran! Argh! Get out of my way!! Let me through!!' Gared thundered as he half-pushed and half-trampled the crowd in his rush to get to the middle. It only took a few flying men for the rest of them to understand that their commander was coming through and to open a path for him.


"Father!!" Bran turned around with a delighted grin on his face after hearing the familiar booming sound.


"Bran!!" Gared finally pushed and immediately jumped on Bran, almost crushing the boy in his hug. The crowd looked on with warm smiles and chuckles on their faces as they saw the father and son reunite after the short but painful separation.


"Bran?! You really are my Bran!!"


"Yes, Father! I am," Bran replied with a stupid grin, "I know that I've got a lot of bruises on my face, but I am really your son,"


While the father and son were having their moment, most of the sellswords left them alone as they were much more interested in the unfamiliar newcomers.


"That man looks like he's a Northerner, doesn't he?"


"He really does...Do you think he's another one who came here to join our company all the way from the North?"


"Humph! I don't think that's likely. Can't you see how pretty he is? I bet he's like one those man whore from Lys," another replied with a bit of jealousy in his tone.


"Are you really this stupid? Don't you see the horse by his side? Do you think someone other than a warrior could have a horse like that? I can say with certainty that I've never seen a more majestic war horse in my life."


"Yes! Yes, he's definitely a Northerner, I can guarantee it because the wolf insignia on his breast means that he may even be related to the Starks!!" someone said in an excited whisper, sending waves through the crowd.


"S-Starks?! Really!!"


"N-No! You're wrong! I've only left North less than three years ago and as far as I know, the Stark family's symbol is a brown wolf, not a white one... Though this one looks eerily similar."


While the sellswords gossiped about Jon's identity, the father and son finally separated from their hug.


"You—What happened to you, Bran? I thought you were captured—" Gared choked a few times before he took a deep breath and asked the question in his mind, "How did you escape? I-I thought I had lost you..."


"I did get captured, father." Bran nodded his head solemnly, "But luckily Jon and Sam happened to pass by and managed to save me, otherwise..."


"Jon? Sam? Are you talking about them?" Gared asked as he looked up at the two unfamiliar faces patiently waiting a bit away from the two, "I am in their debt then, if they were the ones to save you—Wait! Why does that Northerner have a wolf on his chest? I-Is he a Stark? Is he here to join the Company?" he asked the same question in everyone's mind, while incredulously looking down at his son.


"Yes, No! I mean he is almost a...Stark." Bran explained while scratching his head but after seeing the confused expression on his father's face sighed, "It is very complicated, Father and will take a while to explain so why don't we get inside first and then I'll tell you everything..." he said while looking around at the crowd.


"Right! You're right!" Gared quickly nodded his head before turning towards the gathering of Sellsworeds with a stern expression on his face, "What the fuck are you lazing around for?!! Get the fuck back to training before I beat the shit out of all of you!!" He thundered furiously, immediately sending the sellswords scurrying away like rats.


"Let's go, Bran,"


"Yes, Father," Bran nodded before turning to Jon and Sam and beckoning them, "Jon! Sam! Come one, both of you, follow me,"


While the crowd dispersed and the father and son duo went inside Gared's personal tent, there was one person who looked very disappointed and angry at seeing Bran return back safe and sound.


...


"...So you mean to tell me that... the reason you ran away was because you thought that you could earn the bounty by capturing a lion cub... all on your own..." Gared asked as he gawked at his son with an incredulous look on his face.


All four of them were inside Gared's personal tent at the moment. While it seemed a little cramped with all of them, especially with the size of Gared, it was still manageable.


Jon and Sam were sitting at a table nearby eating soup and bread that Gared had ordered his cook to bring, while watching Bran explain what had happened to him to his father.


"Y-Yes..." Bran answered with a flushed look, "I know that it was stupid and irresponsible—"


"Stupid?! You Idiot!!" Gared bellowed angrily while slamming his knuckle on his son's head, "Ow!!" hard enough to make his eyes water, "That wasn't just stupid!! That was suicidal!!"


"B-But I could have done it—NO! Don't hit me!!" Bran immediately cowered when Gared raised his hand once again. His father's massive fist felt like a hammer on his head and only once was enough for him to see stars.


"How could you be this stupid!!" Gared continued berating uncaring about the watching audience, "Did you really think that if there was such a bounty out there, you would even have a chance to win it? Huh? You didn't think that an amount like that would attract the attention of all the money-hungry sellswords of Essos?"


"W-What? Y-You mean it was false news?"


"Of course it was!! There's no name day celebration of any son of Pentosi Magister and even if he was celebrating it and his son wanted a lion cub, did you not think that he would send his own unsullied and other soldiers before putting up a bounty for sellswords?" Gared said in a frustrated tone before he closed his eyes and sighed, "Ah... How could I have such a stupid son... Why did you only take after your mother in your looks and not your mind..." he said in a lamenting voice.


"B-But I heard that guard talking about this with his friend clearly..."


"A guard? Can you remember who it was? Do you know him?"


"N-No... I was very drunk and I didn't clearly see, but—"


"Then it was probably a spy," Gared sighed while shaking his head, "It was probably a trap especially set for you or it could even be just some boasting of a drunk sellsword... there's no way to tell since you already killed your assailants..."


"B-But..." Bran stuttered while having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that he had fallen for something so stupid, "But w-who—why would someone do something like that?"


"It doesn't matter," Gared said, losing most of his anger at seeing his son looking down, "Bran, I know that you care for Lea and did all this for her... But you can't lose your cool like this..."


"I-I am sorry, Father. I j-just really thought that if I just got the gold Lea would become better." Bran said without looking up, "I just can't see her like that knowing that I could have done something...But it was all for nought anyway and now she's going to die and I couldn't do anything..."


"Bran—"


"Ahem!" Jon suddenly cleared his throat interrupting the Father and Son duo and stood up after getting their attention, "I know that I shouldn't interrupt you but I just wanted to say that my friend here—" he pointed towards Sam who abruptly stopped and looked up wide-eyed with his mouth stuffed with food, "—is a healer and maybe he could take a look at Lea..."


///

 

[LazyWizard]

A few minutes later, Jon and Sam were finished with their food and then all of them quickly went towards the healer's tent.

The only company healer, a 50-something-year-old man was not inside the tent at the moment so they were the only ones there.

The tent wasn't too fancy with only three beds laid on the ground, and a small wooden worktable nearby stocked with about a half-dozen various-sized pots filled with all kinds of herb mixtures.

Bran, Jon and Gared watched from a few feet away as Sam diagnosed the thin young girl, Lea, who was the only patient inside the tent at the moment. The girl looked unusually pale and bloodless, and she couldn't seem to be able to keep her eyes open for very long. Her breathing was heavy and laboured and her frequent coughs sounded dry and painful.

"I didn't know Sam was a Maester, Jon," Bran asked in a soft tone, trying to distract himself from getting anxious after seeing the miserable state Lea was in.

"Oh, he is not." Jon said with a shrug while watching the boy nervously taking Lea's pulse, "Though he always wanted to be one, he never really took the training..."

"What? B-But didn't you say that he was a healer?"

"And he is. He's probably got more knowledge about the healing arts than most Maesters out there and has read dozens of books about it, so you don't need to worry about his skills," Jon said confidently, "Plus he paid special attention to the Essosi diseases, herbs and healing books before coming here so he may be even better than your company's healer."

"I-If you say so..." Bran replied with a confused look on his face but didn't ask any more questions because he was already at the end of his rope regarding Lea and as long as Sam could give him some hope that Lea could survive he didn't care whether he was a Maester or a hedge witch.

There was silence for a few minutes after that before Jon suddenly felt a big hand on his shoulder and turned around to find Bran's father, Gared gesturing to him with his head to move towards the corner, "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Sure." Jon nodded and both of them left behind Bran, who was too preoccupied with Sam and Lea to pay them any mind, and went a few feet away.

"Er... Jon Snow right?" Gared asked in a low tone which seemed out of character on a big man like him.

"Yes and you're called Gared Hornwood," Jon said with a smile as both of them shook hands, "Your son told me a lot about you."

"What? What did he tell you?" he asked with narrowed eyes, "Don't tell me he whined to you about how I am a big brute who is too violent and that I take advantage of my big size to bully him and that he would take his revenge and beat the shit out of me when he grows larger..."

"Umm, no, nothing like that..." Jon replied while looking at Gared with a weird look on his face, "He only told me that you're a good father and an even better commander and that you've always kept to your roots and still consider yourself a Northerner..."

"Oh...That's fine then," Gared said with a sigh of relief before shaking his head, "Anyway, the reason I called you out here was to express my gratitude to you for going out of your way and saving my son. I'll always be in your debt because of that and as long as it is in my hands, I will try to help you in any way that I can to repay this debt. And while Bran told me that you're the son of the Lord Stark—"

"Yes, the one who has the blood but not the name," Jon clarified just for the sake of it.

"Doesn't matter. Out here, a son is a son," Gared said seriously while shaking his head, "Anyway, while I know that you probably grew up in a castle and that you may not be lacking in anything, but still, if there's anything I can help you with, anything at all, then don't hesitate—"

"Actually, there is something that you can help me with."

"Really? What is it," Gared asked with an interested expression on his face before his eyes suddenly widened, "Wait, don't tell me, do you and your friend want to join the company? Is that why you came here? Because if that's the thing then it's no problem at all." he said thumping his chest with his fist, "While most people who come here from the North, to earn money, fame or battle experience, start from the very bottom, I can make sure that you won't have to do that and can even get you good positions—"

"Umm, there's a misunderstanding here," Jon interrupted with an amused smile, "We didn't come here to get hired.... we came here to hire you."

"What? You want to hire...me?" Gared asked dumbfoundedly while pointing at himself.

"Well, not you especially, but your whole company. I want to hire your company for a long-term job of protecting my shipping company and some other things,"

"Oh..." Gared said with a blank look on his face as he was having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that the young man in front of him, who couldn't have been older than his own son, not only wanted to hire a whole sellswords company, he also wanted it for a long term contract.

While he knew that one shouldn't judge a client by how they look... Gared felt that he was quite justified in being sceptical here even if the man in front of him was the son of Lord Stark. "W-Who do you mean 'I' here, is it actually you or your..."

"No, just me and no one else," Jon shrugged with a calm smile on his face as if there was nothing absurd about what he just said.

"Er... I don't mean to be rude but do you know how much it costs to hire us for the—"

"Of course I do, I already scouted the costs of hiring all the sellsword companies in the area before coming here. While yours was not the cheapest, it was definitely the most compatible with my requirements and what's even better is that you're from the North so it would be a lot more comfortable for my sailors, than if I hired another Essosi sellswords company. In fact, if you agree to terminate your current contract and set off with me immediately, I can even agree to pay you one and a half times your usual rates." Jon said with an eager gleam in his eyes, "So what do you think? Shall we write a contract immediately..."

"Um..." Gared just blinked stupidly as he was quite overwhelmed by the sudden offer and his instinct was to immediately accept the delightful proposal which couldn't have come at a better time considering their financial condition. But he controlled himself at the last moment, because for one thing, it felt too good to be true, especially considering how young the client was and secondly..."I am sorry, Jon, while I am very tempted, it would be against my principles to terminate my contract just because I got a better offer."

"But what if—"

"Are you done, Sam? What did you find? Is Lea going to be fine?" Bran's anxious voice interrupted Jon and Gared's conversation and after a quick look both of them decided to shelve their conversation for later and went towards Sam who appeared to be quite overwhelmed with Bran's barrage of questions.

"Let him breathe, Bran," Gared rebuked gently, "I am sure whatever happens, Sam here tried his best so you shouldn't pressure him like that,"

"Yes, Sorry, Father," Bran said before taking a deep breath, "So what did you find?" he repeated, making Gared shake his head helplessly.

"Well...after diagnosing Lea and recording all her symptoms, I tried to remember if any of the normal Essosi diseases that I've read about resembled her symptoms... but no matter how I tried to recall, there was no disease that came to mind... that either means that she's got a very rare disease which would make it almost impossible to save her or..."

"Oh..." Bran and Gared said as their faces fell simultaneously at the familiar answer that they had already heard from their own healer. While they had been prepared for it, it still hurt to have their hopes dashed like that, "D-Don't worry Sam, I am sure you tried your best and—"

"Or maybe... it's not really a disease," Sam suddenly interrupted Gared's consolation with an uncertain look on his face.

"W-What? What do you mean?"

"Well... I am not completely sure about it, but there was a book that details the exact symptoms that Lea is sporting almost word to word but it's just that..." Sam said while scratching his head, "It's just that, that book was completely unrelated to healing,"

"What book are you talking about, Sam? Where did you read about Lea's symptoms?" Bran asked hurriedly, his hopes igniting once again as he knew that knowing the disease was more than half the battle.

"I-In a book about poisons."

"What?!" Bran and Gared cried simultaneously with a shocked look on their face, as they wouldn't have thought of poison in a hundred years, but there was someone there who sported a completely unchanged look as if he had expected it.

"From the book we got from Oberyn, right." Jon stated, rather than asking, and when Sam nodded his head in confirmation, his eyes narrowed as he murmured, "I was afraid of that..."

"W-What do you mean, Jon?"

"Yes, What do you mean by that? Did you know that Lea was poisoned?"

"No. I didn't know...at least not for sure, but I suspected something like this when you told me that she had suddenly fallen sick..."

"What? Why?!"

"Well... because there were too many coincidences involved in him leaving the camp," Jon said while jerking his head towards Bran who still had a wide-eyed look on his face, "Lea suddenly getting ill, you falling for that lion cub scam, and then being immediately getting caught by those Gallant Men sellswords the very next day...it all felt like someone's plot— as if someone was deliberately trying to lure you out of the camp to capture you..."

"B-But why would—"

"Argh! Fuck! It must be those same cunts again," Gared suddenly cursed while scratching his head fiercely with a frustrated look on his face, "That must be how they were able to send the ransom letter so quickly, it must have all been pre-planned..."

"Ransom letter? What are you talking about, father?"

"The one I got just before you arrived..." Gared explained everything before shaking his head, "Before, I had assumed that it was just a coincidence that it arrived so quickly, but now... now it seems to be the work of those damn spies once again," he said before he gritted his teeth angrily, "They are getting on my damn nerves now,"

Jon involuntarily raised an eyebrow at the overzealous response before saying, "It doesn't seem like a rare occurrence from the way you reacted..."

"Yes, it isn't," Gared replied in a frustrated tone, "There have been more than a few times where my company has been ambushed or lost a good opportunity because of these spies leaking the news... but to think that they've become so brazen as to poison someone and even try to abduct my son. If only I could somehow get my hands on them... then I'll show them the consequences of crossing me," he said ferociously while twisting his hands in the air as if he were squishing someone's head, before sighing, "But the thing is that no matter what method you use, there's really no way to root them all out. In a company like ours with almost 500 fighters, it is almost impossible to find who is a spy and who is not,"

"Hmm, Maybe... Maybe I could help you out with your spy problem..." Jon said slowly, a distracted expression on his face.

"You could? How?"

"Well... I would need your cooperation and a few days to scout all your fighters before I can say for sure... But it shouldn't be too much of a problem to root out most of the rats... but I think that is a discussion for later, for now, let's get back to the patient," Jon nodded to Gared before turning back towards Sam, "So tell us Sam, can you cure her, now that we know what she's suffering from..."

"Er... I guess, I mean it's not like it's a rare poison so the antidote should be quite easy to make and... I think that I can find most of the required ingredients right here," he said pointing towards the pots of different herbs on the healer's workstation, "And if any herb is missing, I am sure that Frost can easily find them in the nearby forests..."

"Frost? Who's Frost?"

"Well... she's just a very helpful friend," Jon shrugged with a mysterious smile, "Maybe you'll get to meet her someday..."

...

About a week later, the atmosphere of the Company of Rose had completely changed, all the lethargy and laziness seemed to have simply evaporated from the air, and everywhere you looked you would only see alert and vigilant sellswords, who were either going about their training or clearing their worn equipment and weapons religiously. The company appeared as if they were preparing for a war... which they were, in a way.

The Company commander had passed down an urgent order about a week ago, that they were going to launch a full-force attack on the Gallant Men campsite very soon, so all of them had to prepare to the best of their abilities as they could set off at any time.

The order had left almost everyone bewildered and confused, and all of them agreed that this order didn't make any sense... mostly because of two reasons.

Firstly, it came completely out of the blue, without any indications whatsoever which meant that they didn't have enough preparation, and secondly, the Gallant Men were not some small-sized sellswords that they could attack and destroy at any time, no, they had almost the same amount of fighters as them, and were even considered better off than them with higher quality weapons and armour.

Most importantly, large-scale rarely happened in the Disputed Lands, especially between similar-sized companies... as anything more than skirmishes almost always meant huge losses for both sides, which no one wants.

So whenever a battle occurs, the losing side is usually very quick to disengage and retreat (run away) to minimize their losses. After all, they were sellswords and not a peasant army of Westeros.

So even with more than a few dozen companies active in the Disputed Lands at all times, battles rarely happened here, which might seem a bit ironic but it was the truth. Everyone here followed an unspoken rule of never participating in decisive fights and just quietly leeching off of the three free cities safely by offering protection to their occupied lands for the long term.

But even though the order was unusual no one objected or hesitated to follow it... which spoke quite well of the Commander's prestige and reputation.

Anyway, the atmosphere inside the healer's tent was a lot more peaceful, unlike the excitement outside.

"S-Sam, you are a fucking genius," Bran cried while shaking Sam's hands enthusiastically.

He had seen Lea's complexion improve with every passing day due to the cure that Sam had brewed. While before she had been constantly suffering from dry painful coughs, now she was sleeping almost peacefully. Looking at her now it was almost impossible to believe that she'd been so close to death before, "I don't know how I'll ever repay you, my friend. No matter what happens, I'll forever remain in your debt."

"I-It's fine. I didn't help that much, I just made the antidote so..." Sam replied while rubbing the back of his head embarrassingly, before turning away from Bran's genuine adoration towards Lea who had fallen asleep after taking some milk of poppy, "A-Anyway, while she might be out of mortal danger, Lea still needs plenty of rest for her body to recuperate from the damage the poison had done on her body, so you need to let her have a lot of rest and take good care of her, and..."

While Sam was giving Bran some basic instructions, Jon was standing with Gared a few feet away watching the scene with a smile on his face.

"I should beat the shit out of our fucking healer," Gared cursed abruptly in a low voice, "That bastard kept telling me that there's nothing we can do about Lea and that any new medicine is useless and... that we'll only kill her faster with this antidote. Thankfully I chose to believe you, otherwise..." Gared shook his head with an angry look on his face, "Where the hell is he anyway, I haven't seen his ugly mug in two days, is he hiding in embarrassment from his failure..." he scoffed before looking towards the entrance with narrowed eyes as if contemplating immediately running out to find the company healer to give him a piece of his mind.

"Don't bother," Jon said calmly with a distracted gaze, "The healer is long gone by now, in fact, he is just about to reach the river halfway through Pentos at the moment..."

"W-What? He ran away!!" Gared asked in a bewildered tone, "But why? There was no need for him to take such drastic measures if it was just a mistake. He should know that I wouldn't blame him too much..."

"Maybe because it wasn't a mistake..."

"What?! What do you—" Gared's eyes abruptly widened with comprehension as he realised what Jon was insinuating, "You mean he was a FUCKING SPY!!"

"No." Jon shook his head calmly, "But he probably worked for one..." he continued in a low voice in contrast to Gared's agitated one, "I think he was probably also the one who administered the poison so that it only harmed Lea but not killed her..."

"Who is it? Who was the one that ordered him? Just tell me their fucking names?!" Gared growled with his eyes spitting fire.

"No, can't do that," Jon shook his head indifferently, "I've only caught two rats till now and we still need to wait for the Merchant's supply run tomorrow to lure out the rest of them, and I don't want you to spook the nest before that happens so you'll just have to wait..."

"Ugh! You're killing me, Jon," Gared said in a frustrated tone, "I've already staked my reputation by giving that absurd order on your behalf. So you should at least tell me their names, a-and I promise that I will control myself..."

"Hmm..." Jon looked scrutinizingly towards Gared for a few moments before simply shaking his head, "No. I don't believe you're the kind of person who would be able to control yourself after finding out the spies' name... especially since one of them is quite a big fish..."

"Argh!! I just want to kill those fuckers with my own hands as soon as possible!!"



"Oh! Don't worry, you'll get your chance in two days... Just have patience my friend...just a little patience..."

///

 

[LazyWizard]

It was the time just before evening... when the bright red sun was almost horizontal to the eyes and was slowly sinking into the sea of earth.


Normally this would be the time when all the sellswords would finish up with their evening training and wind down their muscles before dragging their heavily exhausted bodies towards dinner.


But today it was different...


Today, not only had the commander called off their usual evening training, but he had also commanded the cooks to give the men their dinner very early, and even though the food was the usual spread, it still felt like a feast to sellswords as it was perhaps the first time in forever that the men didn't have to work so hard for their food and they even had the spare energy to taste their food and talk to each other.


So safe to say that the atmosphere inside the camp at the moment was almost... festive.


This meant that when the commander ordered about a hundred-something sellswords to gather in the training grounds for a meeting... none complained and all of them were very happy to oblige.


"H-Hey, Terrek, do you know why the commander called all of us here for..." one of the new recruits asked his only friend nervously as they, along with all the sellswords who had been called by the commander, began slowly converging towards the huge bonfire in the middle of the training ground.


"Don't know, lad. But if I had to guess... then I think it's probably to talk about that attack on the Gallant Men..."


"You think so..."


"Of course, otherwise why would he only call the important people of the company..."


"Important people?"


"Yes, look around you. Almost everyone you see around here has some kind of a position or a responsibility of some kind in addition to being a fighter..."


"Really..."


"Yes. Look! See them! They are the only five blacksmiths in our company—and them! They are all the unit leader who leads our fighters in battle, and that man—he is the one in charge of our supplies and he..."


"But then... why am I here? I-I am just a new recruit who joined just a month ago... I am not one of the higher-ups..." asked the young boy, with distinct Essosi looks, nervously.


"So what if you're new? Aren't you the one who is in charge of our horses, so of course, you would—"


"What in charge of the horses!! Don't fill the kid's head, Terrek," an unpleasant voice suddenly interrupted them from behind, "He is just a guy our commander took pity on and just gave him the duty of washing the horses, that's all. Humph!!"


"Oh, Daryn... the commander called you too, huh," said Terrek with a disappointed look on his face.


"Of course, he did," Daryn replied pompously, "Because, unlike some people," he said while giving a nasty glare towards the young Essosi boy, "I am someone who has got the noble blood of—"


"Yes, Yes, you have the blood of the Ryswells of North in you. You should just write it on your forehead, instead of telling it to every person you see," Terrek scoffed at Daryn before turning back to the timid boy, "Karr, he is Daryn, the one in charge of handing out our salaries or as everyone calls him, The Sleeping Piggy... you know because you can always find him either pigging out or sleeping," he ridiculed to the immediate burst of laughter from the surrounding sellswords.


"You!!" Daryn immediately went red at the dastard name that he hated more than anything in the world. But just when an angry Daryn was about to lunge and a fight was about to start, they were interrupted.


"Enough!!" barked one of the grim older sellswords with white hair and white beard making everyone there flinch, "Get going now, Don't make the commander wait," he said in a low gravely tone and the sellswords immediately nodded like docile puppies.


"Y-Yes!!"


Except for that short conflict, nothing else happened and everyone slowly gravitated towards the centre where the almost hundred-something sellswords huddled against each other with a huge bonfire in the middle.


Standing close to the fire were five people, two of them were the most well-known people in the company, the Commander and the Second in Command, and standing right behind the commander was his son, Bran, who had recently gone missing. And the last two were newcomers, who had joined them a week ago. No one knew anything about them except for the gossip circulating that one of them was the son of a Stark from the North.


"Is it time, Jon?" Gared asked in a low tone that disappeared under the chatter of the sellswords.


"Hmm..." Jon took a cursory look around at the gathered sellswords, and after checking with the thin list in his hands replied with a nod, "...Yes, all of them are here so you can begin now."


Gared grunted his assent before taking a few steps forward to stand in front of the fire.


"MEN!!" he bellowed with the full might of his lungs, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!" the effect was almost immediate as the whole crowd of gossiping sellswords came to complete silence instantly.


Gared took a slow methodical look around the crowd, and only when he saw that every single eye was on him was he satisfied and began to speak up.


"My friends, most of you know that I am not one for long speeches and that If I try using flowery words, it would make your skin crawl..." a smattering of laughter burst out from here and there, "so I'll get straight to the point. I have gathered all of you out here today for one thing and one thing only... to clean all the filth out of our company," Gared said, his abruptly turning so dark that it sent a shiver through the crowd, "once and for all,"


The atmosphere in the training ground instantly changed at those words as the mood of the gathering went from light and festive to anxious and tense as the sellswords began to wonder what their commander was talking about.


"Some of you are newcomers who have only been with the company for a few months, while others have been with us since before they could swing a sword, some of you I have watched grow up, while others have watched me grow up," he said while looking at the few of the older looking sellswords, "But no matter who you are I have always placed my complete trust in you, in my company... and I would leave my back to any one of you in a battle without hesitation... and I know that you would do the same, WON'T YOU?!"


"WE WILL!!" came the collective shout from the crowd.


"Well, I thought so too...But sadly some of you don't agree with that sentiment..." Gared shook his head with a disappointed look on his face, "There are a few among those standing here today, who think that when their comrades present their back to them, it is an opportunity... an opportunity to stab them in the back to earn a few more coppers..." he said as his mouth curled up in disgust.


"They don't care that we've been through thick and thin, they don't care that we've been through so many life and death battles, they don't care if the information they are sharing with the enemies is going to betray everyone in our company, that it is going to result in their brothers being ambushed, they don't care... as long as they can make some money. After all, what is a brother's life worth compared to a few pieces of that shiny yellow metal..."


A hush immediately fell up the crowd as the commander finished his speech and all of them began to wonder about whom the commander was talking about.


"W-Who is it, Commander?!!"


"Y-Yes! Tell us their names, Commander!! We'll take care of these bastards!!"


"Traitors should just go die!!!"


"Yes!! We'll kill them for you, Commander!!! Kill them all!!"


"Kill!!" "Kill!!" "Kill!!" "Kill!!"


As the crowd began to get slowly riled up and started chanting together, swearing to kill these imaginary backstabbers. There were a few hidden faces in the crowd who became very uncomfortable with the hate coming from the sellswords surrounding them.


"Very Well," Gared shouted, the moment the chants died down a bit, "I hope all of you remember this hate you feel a few moments later when the names of these rats are being called out..." he said before taking one final look at the crowd with a complicated look on his face, before going back towards Jon, "It's time for your part, Jon..."


"Yes, Of course, Gared," Jon nodded his head before going to stand in the spot that Gared emptied in front of the fire. He looked at the crowd of waiting sellswords and began, "Not many among you know me, but my name is Jon Snow... and I am the one who was tasked with finding the rats amidst you by the commander but... I hope you don't hate me too much if the ones I am calling out are your friends..." he said with a smile but sadly was only treated with silent treatment from the crowd, "Ahem! Anyway, let's begin."


"The first name is..." He looked down at the list in his hand just for the sake of theatrics since he had already memorised it, "...Ros!!"


There was silence for a few moments before some of the eyes in the crowd turned towards a young naive-looking boy.


"W-What?! M-Me!!" the boy said while pointing at himself with horror-filled eyes.


"Hmm... No, Not you, the other one... Where's the other Ros?" Jon asked loudly after a short look at the young boy who almost peed his pants from relief, "Look around people! Find out where Ros is—"


"Here!! He's here!!" shouted someone, as he ratted out a short mousy-faced man in front of him trying to duck his head and hide amidst the crowd.


"Aha! There you are," Jon said as his face lit up with a smile, "Come on now! Come to the front, don't be so shy..."


Though the man seemed to be unwilling, the surrounding crowd wasn't so he was ultimately pushed towards the front by the friendly sellswords.


"Now, my friend, do you wish to confess to your—"


"W-What confess!! I didn't do anything. You are clearly lying!! I am not a spy," he screamed at Jon in a panicked tone, before turning to the second in command with a pleading face, "C-Commander Rickard! You have to believe me, You knew my uncle, right!! You know that I am not a spy, Help me!!"


The second in command contemplated in silence for a few moments before turning towards Jon, "He is right. Your word alone should not be enough to declare the man a spy, so unless you have some solid proof—"


"Of course, I have proof," Jon interrupted with a bright smile, "Why else would I accuse him like that..." he said before turning towards his friend with an outstretched hand, "Sam give me the one named Ros..."


"Y-Yes," Sam nodded hurriedly before lowering himself towards the half dozen brown sacks beside his feet and after searching for a few seconds he picked up the one with Ros written on it and placed it in Jon's eager hands.


"Hmm... Let's see," Jon said while putting his right hand inside the sack as if searching for something inside a magic bag before pulling out a single piece of parchment, "Aha! here it is. Tell me, Ros, do you remember what this is..." Jon asked in a gentle tone while waving the open parchment in front of Ros's eyes so that he could somewhat make out its content.


"How did you— I-I mean no, I don't know what that is," Ros almost gave himself away in his shock but stopped at the last moment and hurriedly shook his head to deny any involvement with the letter, "I-I've never seen it before in my life!!"


"You haven't? Really... Then shall I read it aloud, to jog your memory?" The question was completely rhetorical as Jon didn't wait for Ros's answer and immediately began reading the letter, "My dear friend, Ramos, How are you—Blah! Blah! Blah! Ugh! You say too many useless things, Ros—Aha! here comes the best part, 'This month's news is quite precious my friend so I hope you aren't stingy with the gold, unlike the last time... Our commander is soon going to launch an attack on the Gallant Men, completely unprovoked...which I think is quite stupid but then again what else can you expect from a brute like him—"


"No! Stop it!!" Ros hurriedly interrupted with a horrified look on his face. "Stop reading it!!"


"Why? Do you suddenly recall the parchment now, Ros?"


"N-No! No, I-I didn't... I just don't want you uh insult the C-Commander like that..."


"Still denying it, Huh? Then... What about this?" Jon asked while suddenly pulling out a small but heavy yellow sack from the big brown one, "Do you know what this is?"


"Why do you have—That's mine! You thief!!"


"Ah! So you do remember this one, Huh," Jon said with a mischievous grin on his face, "But when I opened it and counted the gold in it... there were something like 200 gold in it—" loud gasps abruptly came from the crowd at the big amount, "—That's right, that much," Jon nodded to the crowd's gasps before turning back to Ros, "So tell us... how did you come by this fortune, my dear friend?"


"I-I-I... s-saved it, Yes, I saved it!"


"You did?" Jon exclaimed with a very fake shocked look on his face before turning towards Gared, "I didn't know you were so generous with your salary, Commander..."


Gared didn't bother replying to Jon instead he just looked at Ros with a sullen expression and growled, "Explain yourself! Now!!"


"I-I H-He's lying, Comm—"


"THE TRUTH!!" he bellowed with such a fierce expression that it almost made the mousy man wet his pants and he immediately confessed.


"I am sorry!! I lied!!" Ros cowered as he cried out loudly, "I-I messed up, I made a m-mistake, Commander. It was a-an accident. B-But I only wrote that one letter, so p-please forgive me," he cried before immediately kneeling on the ground to beg for forgiveness, but sadly for him, Jon wasn't in the mood to be merciful that day and pulled out the last piece of evidence from the pouch.


"Then what about these, Ros?" Jon asked gently while waving a whole bunch of parchments in his hands, "These are all reply letters sent by your dear friend Ramos... why are there so many of them if you've only done this once, huh?"


"No, No, No! NO!!!" Despair filled the eyes of Ros as he realised at that moment that there was no way out for him after those parchments came out in front of everyone.


"Not burning these letters wasn't very smart of you, Ros..."


"No, No! Please, Commander! You have to forgive me! Give me one more chance! I'll do anything—"


"Men! Take him away!!" Gared interrupted with a disgusted look on his face.


Almost immediately two sellswords appeared from behind Gared and dragged the unwilling rat away to the Camp's temporary prison where he will remain until Gared announces his punishment.


"Phew! That took quite a while..." Jon said with a refreshed smile on his face before once again raising the list in his hand, "Ahem! Moving on, the next name on the list is... Jared. Where are you, Jared—"


Before Jon could pretend to look for this one, his next victim who seemed to have already been standing at the very edge of the crowd, abruptly broke away and took off towards the exit with all his might.


"Oho! Looks like we have a runner..." Jon said with an amused smile on his face as he watched the man run as if his life depended on it, "Don't worry men, no need to chase him..." Jon said when some sellswords looked ready to sprint after the escapee, "Because... we were prepared for this..."


The runaway man was very delighted to find that there were no pursuers behind him but just as he was about to reach the exit of the training grounds, five guards suddenly appeared out of nowhere and tackled him onto the ground and successfully nabbed him.


"No!! Let me go!! I didn't do anything!! NO!! The Golden Company will not let you off!!!"


The crowd watched with trepidation as the man was forcefully dragged back towards the centre, and it was only at that moment, did the sellswords there looked around them and noticed that the training ground they were in was completely surrounded by the lower-ranking foot soldiers of the company.


"It looks like this one doesn't even need me to bring out the evidence..." Jon said with a somewhat disappointed look on his face, "What do you think, Commander?"


"NO!! Commander, you can't do this to me!! The Golden company will not let you off if you harm me—"


"Take him away," Gared grunted without looking at the snivelling man even once.


It took a while before the unwilling man was dragged away and for the ground to fall silent once again.


"Hmm... Shall we get on with it then," Jon asked with an innocent smile which made everyone there shiver whether they were a spy or not.


"And the next one is...Caron,"


"NO!!"


And so it went on and on and on... as Jon kept calmly calling out the names of the spies on the list, and obviously most of them denied it vehemently, but the evidence he had prepared was so ironclad that none of them were able to maintain their composure for long and began resorting to begging and negotiating... saying things like how they had been with the company for a long time or that they had been forced or that they didn't know... but none of it worked on the Commander as he sent away every single one of them without exception.


The festive air half an hour ago now seemed like years in the past, as everyone there looked at Jon with anxious gazes hoping that their name wouldn't get called, even if they had never betrayed the company, the tense atmosphere around them still made them instinctively feel afraid.


"Hai... that was exhausting," Jon said while wiping imaginary sweat from his forehead with a smile on his face as the guards took away another spy crying and screaming profanities at everyone, "Now, for the last small fish... Daryn, will you please come out,"


Every single person in the training ground immediately turned to the next target, who was somewhat of a famous personality in the Company but... not for good reasons.


"M-Me?! Are you out of your fucking mind?! Commander! There's something wrong with this bastard, I've never written a single letter to anyone outside of this company, you have to believe me, Commander!!" he urged but none seemed to believe him.


By now everyone had already become familiar with the pattern here, so no one came to the fatso's defence instead they waited patiently for the scary man to present them with evidence of his wrongdoing and then derive some sadistic pleasure in watching Daryn's eyes cloud in despair...


"You know, I have to commend you, Daryn... for you are quite a cunning man," Jon began in a somewhat impressed tone, "You were actually the second hardest one to catch out of all of the rats... because unlike the others you were smart enough to never leave any evidence... you burnt all your letters and didn't keep any direct contact with anyone from the other sellswords companies and didn't even keep much gold on you... it was almost like you were not a spy at all..."


"T-That's right, I am not! T-This means you've got no proof and that you're making false accusations!! C-Commander, I urge you to kill this outsider right this instant so that he doesn't cause any more mayhem—"


"But—" Jon's clear-cut tone abruptly sliced through Daryn's chatter making the fat man flinch, "But you made one mistake my friend... you were just too hasty in sending that letter to your beloved son..." Jon finished with a smile on his face while raising a piece of parchment in the air which immediately made Daryn's eyes widen in horror.


"T-That's—"


"Oh, yes!" Jon nodded with an amused grin, "Quire the successful son you have, don't you... With two inns under his name, a modest house in Pentos and he's even got three pretty wives, all to himself... he's living the dream life isn't he?"


"T-That doesn't prove anything—


"You're right, it doesn't... After all, he could just be a very successful merchant and not be involved in any shady business, right," Jon said and Daryn unconsciously nodded along, "But... sadly unlike you, your son doesn't quite believe in burning all his letters... Maybe, because he adores you so much, he keeps every single letter you've sent him in a big beautiful box..." Jon said pulling an intricate box out of the sack Sam handed to him, he then opened the box to show a whole bunch of letters folded neatly inside, "Quite the method you have, don't you? Slipping in valuable information, amidst mundane things... and then your son makes easy gold by selling that information to whoever is buying... It's ingenious."


"I-I-I—" Daryn stuttered as his eyes rapidly rotated in his head while trying to come up with an appropriate answer but Jon didn't give him any time.


"And your son was kind enough to confess immediately when my men cornered him... so there's no reason to deny it any further, Daryn..."


"Y-You-You" About a dozen different emotions flashed through Daryn's face before it ultimately settled on anger as his eyes turned and he immediately lunged at the man whom he perceived to be the reason for his tragic fate, "Let go of my son, YOU BASTARD!!"


"Oho!!" Jon smiled as he simply sidestepped the bull-like charge from the fat man while at the same tripping him into falling face-first onto the floor with a loud thump.


"Uh, Uh, Uh," Jon tutted while placing his right leg squarely on the man's back when he tried to get back up, "You should stay down, my friend, if you don't want to get hurt..."


"L-Let me go!!" Daryn struggled with all his might but it was futile as the leg on his back was like a mountain, not letting him move a single inch, "C-Commander, you have to save me," he screamed, turning towards the only person he felt could help him, "I-I have the blood of Rsyswell in me! My ancestors have fought for the company for decades—Please, Commander, you need to help me!!" he screamed with all the power in his lungs.


There was a hesitant look in Gared's eyes for a few moments before he noticed the eagerly awaiting eyes of sellswords surrounding him and realised what would happen if he made an exception for this man, so his eyes immediately firmed up and he gave the expected command, "Men! Take him away!!"


"NO!! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!! I AM A RYSWELL..."


Daryn turned out to be the most deranged one and it took quite a while and a few more guards to drag him away and for the fields to fall silent once again.


By now the sellswords had become somewhat addicted to the quick charges and swift judgments... the drama unfolding before them was almost like a modern crime series for the medieval world and they just couldn't get enough of it.


So they eagerly looked at Sam's legs to figure out whose name was written on the sack at his feet but unfortunately, they were disappointed to find that there were no more sacks left which meant that...


"That was the last of it, right." The second in command asked in an inquisitive tone that hid a small bit of relief in it, "I think this has been a very exhausting night for everyone so we should give the warriors—"


"What's the rush, Commander Rickard," Jon said with a raised eyebrow while looking directly into the eyes of the second in command, "While you're right in that all the small fishes have been dealt with... but there's still one very big fish left," he said while giving Rickard a meaningful smile, "Am I right, Commander Rickard...so should I call you Rattlesnake!"


///


If you want to read a few chapters ahead, you can go to: patreon.com/lazywizard

 

[LazyWizard]

Rickard has always hated his name more than anything...


Because it had been given to him not by his parents... but by their killer.


So his name was a constant reminder that he was a prisoner... even though there was no jailer.


He had been born to a slaver father and a slave mother, which wasn't too uncommon in most parts of Essos. His father was a cruel heartless man who didn't care for him much since he was a slave's get and his mother also didn't care for him because he was her slaver's gift.


So from the very beginning of his life, Rickard had the odds stacked against him and had always had to fend for himself. But he never hated that part of his childhood, because that was what made him stronger and smarter than the rest, and it was through these hardships that he understood the most fundamental rule of life...


That the Strong always preys on the Weak... That the Strong will forever remain on top and The weak will always crawl underneath...


This was also why he respected his Father as he was strong, and hated his mother as she was weak...


He had always admired the way his father commanded his slaves, the way he whipped them, cursed them, starved them... without them being able to do anything to retaliate. That in his young mind was... the ultimate power. And he wanted that more than anything.


And since his father was the only powerful man he saw during his younger years, he had always assumed him to be the strongest, and wanted to emulate him when he grew up... but that delusion of his got destroyed very soon after...


He was only seven years old when his father decided to raid the caravan of a Pentosi merchant, who had short-charged him.


The raid went very successfully... he had ambushed them during the night, and instead of indulging in killing them, he had looted all the valuables that he could and fled from there before reinforcements could arrive.


But... while his father was smart about the raid, he had made one simple mistake.


The mistake of revelling in his victory instead of preparing for retaliation... and that mistake cost him his life.


The furious Merchant had immediately hired the nearest sellswords company, to get his revenge, after hearing about the misfortune of his caravan, and his father, drowning in his arrogance, didn't even get a chance to pick up his sword before being killed along with all his men.


And that was the last day he admired his father...


Usually, when a sellswords company finds any children with their targets, they do one of two things, either they immediately take care of them to pull out all the roots... or they leave them to die on their own...


But fortunately for him, the previous commander of the Company of the Rose was too much of a hypocrite to do that. The previous commander could kill the father but he couldn't stomach killing his son... so he was spared, and not only that he was also given the 'mercy' of joining his company.


And so his name was changed to Rickard, to show that he was now a part of them... whether he wanted to or not...


A naive child would have been grateful for the Commander's mercy, but Rickard knew better than that...


He knew that even if a butcher spares a lamb for a day, it didn't mean that the lamb should be thankful, because, after all, the butcher could still decide to change its mind the next day and kill it...


So, he decided that he would bide for time, he would sheathe his fangs, hide his ambitions, hide his hatred, until... he was ready to take his revenge.


Even though he was not the best in Martial might, Rickard shot through the rankings very quickly using his charisma and his cunning, which stood even more amongst the brutes surrounding him.


He was making significant and insignificant achievements in every single battle and was quickly climbing the ladder towards the top... but sadly all of it went down the drain when... before he could get his petty revenge... the previous commander got crippled during an insignificant battle, as sellswords frequently do in Essos, and got retired to Pentos.


But neither his anger nor his ambition went away with him... no, his departure only made them burn even more fiercely.


He decided that the next best thing to killing the commander would be to take over the Company he had worked his whole life for...


But that was easier said than done... especially for someone like him who was an outsider without any of the Northern Blood. But that didn't mean he gave up...


No, to achieve what he desired, he went to extreme lengths, not sparing any method no matter how vile it may seem, whether it be bribery, intimidation, blackmail or even poisoning, he did everything, not leaving a single stone unturned, until finally... he became the Second in Command of the Company.


And now the last obstacle in front of him was the new commander... Gared Hornwood.


Gared was the type of person that Rickard hated the most. He was stubborn, he was headstrong and had more muscle than brain in his body, and not to mention his self-righteous talks and tall tales of his Barbarian ancestors from the North that made Rickard want to puke.


But... Unfortunately, those exact same things are what made him immensely popular amongst the warriors of the Company.


They admired his straightforward nature, and they adored his martial might even more... Even if his so-called honourable decision led the company into financial ruin, they would still happily(foolishly) follow behind him.


But Rickard knew that his greatest strength, his 'honour', was also his most glaring weakness...


The one and only reason why so many young newcomers from Westeros and even from Essos, joined the Company of Rose despite its meagre salary, was... its absolute abhorrence of Slavery.


The Company of Rose had a very impressive record of never in its centuries-old existence, directly or indirectly dabbling in Slavery. This meant that it was somewhat of a safe haven for people who hated slavery to the bone, which was surprisingly... quite a lot.


So, Rickard's goal became very simple... he just had to somehow associate the Commander with someone who was selling people into slavery and profiting from it, and the moment he did he knew for sure no matter the reasons behind it, the Commander's reputation would crumble like a sand castle and everyone would abandon him.


And Rickard was willing to sacrifice anything to achieve his goals, whether it be the Commander's kin or his own... anything...


But now at the most crucial moment, this up-jumped bastard had appeared out of nowhere and was going to ruin all his intricate plans.


"...Or should I call you Rattlesnake."


But Rickard wouldn't let him get his way, "What are you insinuating here?" he asked Jon with an unchanged expression in a calm tone, "Are you saying that I am a spy too?"


"I-Is he mad? Is he really calling the second in command a spy?"


"Yes, how can the second in command be a spy?"


"It must be a mistake, right? Right?"


Almost immediately a series of murmurs ran through the crowd as everyone stared at the centre in disbelief over the new revelation, which was the most shocking one of the evening. This news even shook awake those who were getting sleepy because it was getting past the bedtime of medieval people.


"Oh, no, no. I'm not insinuating that you're a spy, " Jon quickly shook his head with a smile on his face, "Because that would be completely absurd. After all, why would someone of your stature do something as low-level as spying,"


Almost immediately sighs filled the ground at that, some were relieved while others were disappointed at missing out on potential drama.


"So I am not calling you a spy, but... I AM calling you a Traitor!"


Startled gasps rang through the crowd at the unexpected reversal by Jon.


This whole evening had been filled with more ups and downs than these people had seen in their lives, but this one... this one took the crown as even people who were anticipating something like this were shocked.


"A-Are you insane, you bastard!" shouted someone from the crowd with an indignant look on his face, "How can you just call our commander a traitor?"


"Yes! He has been with us for so many years. How could he be a traitor?"


"B-But everyone else he had called out as spies already confessed, didn't they?" came a retort from one of the smarter ones in the crowd, earning a lot of nods and agreements from his neighbours, "So maybe he could also be..."


"Yes, Yes, we should wait for him to present the evidence before deciding—"


"You cunt!! Are you calling Commander Rickard a traitor!!" shouted the first man angrily.


Rickard had been in the company for many long years, and during these years there have obviously been those he had favoured and who had profited due to him. And now was the perfect opportunity for these people to show their loyalty.


"T-Then, are you saying that everyone else from before was also not spies, huh," his opponents were also not backing down, "Are you saying that the man Commander Gared called is a liar? Are you calling our Commander a liar?!"


"Y-You— You bastard!! Do you wanna have a go?!"


"Do you?!"


"ENOUGH!!" Gared bellowed silencing the crowd before the commotion could grow any further. He glared fiercely at the rowdier people in the crowd making them back down before finally turning towards Rickard.


Gared took a long hard scrutinising look at his second in command who stared back with a completely unchanged expression, before he finally turned towards Jon and asked, "What proof do you have, Jon?" Gared's eyes were like chips of ice by now, not giving away any hint of emotion in them.


"The same ones that got everyone before him to confess... letters," Jon said while taking out the final bunch of parchments, that had been carefully tucked in his breast pocket, "The proof is in these letters..." he said waving them in front of the crowd.


"What is in them?" Gared asked with a frown on his face.


"Well... these letters are the sole reason that your son was kidnapped," Jon said calmly, making Gared's eyes widen in wrath, and without wasting a single second he snatched those letters from Jon's hand to read.


"They were written to the sellswords company, Gallant Men... Telling them when and where they could find the commander's son, to easily capture him for ransom," he supplied helpfully for the sake of the anxiously waiting curious crowd.


"But...why are all of them addressed with the name Rattlesnake?" asked Gared without looking up from the letters.


"Oh...Because that is the nickname he chose..." he said while pointing his thumb towards Rickard whose eyebrow twitched irritatedly at the rude gesture, "he probably wanted to remain hidden in case these letters ever got into the wrong hands... very smart and cautious of you, Commander Rickard,"


"Rickard! You—"


"Is that all the evidence you've got," Rickard scoffed at Jon while interrupting Gared before he could jump at Rickard with his question, "A few vague letters written not by me but some imaginary person... Is that all the evidence you've prepared to accuse me?"


"Of course—"


"And even if we assume that these letters or any more of them that you produce are the real deal. How did you even get your hands on them," Rickard had kept a calm expression on his face from the very start unlike the others and while there was a little sweat on his forehead indicating the pressure he was under, he was still the most composed out of all the accused today, "Because I don't think that the people in Gallant Men were kind enough to just hand them over to you on a silver platter when you asked them... So how did you them?"


That was also the burning question on everyone's mind.


From the very start, Jon had been producing evidence after evidence as if he were a magician. He knew things about people that no one knew about, he knew secrets about spies that no one was supposed to know.


And now that they finally got the chance, the crowd was just dying to know the how behind it all...


"Oh... That is something that shall remain a secret," Jon said with a shrug, unbothered by all the curious stares on him, "But there—"


"Do you know that I think?" Rickard once again loudly interrupted Jon, not letting him take even a little bit of the lead, "I think... that you have been sent here by one of our enemies to sow discord in my company... Maybe all the ones before were really not spies, maybe... some of them were just your pawns... pawns that you planted to get to me, they were just your ruse to destroy an important pillar of this Company, so tell us, who paid you to do these things or do you have proof that you're not a spy?"


Almost instantly the atmosphere had completely changed, from people being doubtful of Rickard being a spy, they were now becoming sceptical of whether Jon had been telling the truth all along. Making it so that it was now on Jon to prove that he was not a spy instead of the other way around.


The way Rickard had handled the situation and turned the tables on him had impressed even Jon, but... in his haste, Rickard had forgotten to take one thing into consideration. He forgot who Jon was.


"My name is Jon Snow. My father's name is Eddard Stark, the Lord of Winterfell, Warden in the North. My very blood is enough proof that I would never stoop so low as to anyone's bidding," He said in an eerily calm tone while looking down at Rickard with the air of someone whose very gaze commanded respect. It made everyone in the crowd suddenly feel very uncomfortable and forced them to look away from his eyes.


"But... we are not here to discuss me, are we?" Jon suddenly smiled and with that, the atmosphere abruptly vanished as if it had never been there, making everyone breathe a sigh of relief, "We are here for you... and I knew that you would be the hardest one to crack, so I prepared something very special just for you," he said with a meaningful look at that Rickard that filled his stomach with dread, "Men!! Bring them out!" Jon shouted while turning half of his head towards the fire that was still going strong.


Almost immediately as if they were just waiting for it, two men clad in decent quality armour, that some people recognised as Commander Gared's personal guards, came from behind the fire while herding amidst them two male prisoners with their hands tied and heads bowed down in shame.


They came to stand in front of the fire and roughly shoved the prisoners back to make them kneel.


"Tell me, Rickard, do you recognise—"


"Him!! Him!" Bran's sudden exclamation interrupted Jon's question, "I-I remember him, Father, he was the one who told me about that bounty on the lion cubs," he told Gared while jumping and pointing towards one of the caught prisoners.


"Oho! That is indeed a very pleasant surprise," Jon said with an amused expression on his face before turning towards the scowling second in command, "So tell them, Rickard, do you remember them—"


"I've never seen them in my life," Rickard said indifferently. He was sweating profusely by now but was still trying to maintain a nonchalant expression on his face.


"Commander?!" the prisoners shouted in shock simultaneously with betrayed expressions on their faces.


"Oh don't worry too much," Jon said sympathetically to the two regretful prisoners, "Even if he doesn't recognise you, he will surely recognise the one he sent you to kill... won't you, Rickard?" he asked while turning towards the second in command, who for the first time had pure horror on his face, "Men! Bring out the healer!"


And finally, the last surprise of the evening was brought from behind the fire in the form of the missing healer.


The healer looked as if he had seen better days, his face was badly bruised and he had a long wound on his face that looked as if someone had tried to cut him.


The moment the ageing healer came out and saw Rickard's face, he immediately went nuts, his eyes turned red in anger and he began screaming, "Y-YOU—YOU FUCKING CUNT!! After all that I did for you—All the things you made me do! You paid me back by sending these wretches to kill me, You Ungrateful Vermin!! I will kill—"


"ENOUGH!!" growled Gared finally looking up from the crumpled letters with a chilling look in his eyes that immediately killed all the words in the healer's throat and made him shrink in terror, "I will deal with you later," he said to the healer in calm tone making him shiver before abruptly turning towards Rickard.


Gared abruptly took a slow and heavy step towards Rickard making him flinch back in fear. As the commander walked towards him, Rickard's mind was working furiously trying to come up with any way to get out of this situation but no matter how hard he tried he was coming up empty, "I-I can exp—"


*SMACK*


The slap from Gared was so powerful that it immediately sent Rickard flying straight into the ground and made everyone there, including Jon flinch at the sheer force it contained and the loud clap it produced.


Half of Rickard's face was red because of the massive handprint from Gared's hand on his face while the other half was red from the humiliation of being slapped in front of all the soldiers... soldiers who, before today wouldn't even dare to look in his eyes.


"My father spared your life, he took you in, he clothed you, taught you how to fight," Gared said with a forced look of calm that concealed boiling wrath just underneath the surface, "He took you into the company, gave you a place at our hearth. And I... I honoured you like my brother, gave you a place by my side, trusted your counsel, and gave—"


"OH! SHUT THE FUCK UP!! YOU GAVE ME SHIT!! YOU DID NOTHING FOR ME!! IT WAS ME!! IT WAS ME WHO HELD THIS COMPANY TOGETHER!! YOU WOULD BE NOWHERE WITHOUT ME!! YOU FUCKING BRUTE—"


It was only when he was done did Rickard realise what he had done... his eyes slowly widened in horror as he looked around and realised that, it was all... It was all over.


///

 

[LazyWizard]

"—IT WAS ME!! IT WAS ME WHO HELD THIS COMPANY TOGETHER!! YOU WOULD BE NOWHERE WITHOUT ME!! YOU FUCKING BRUTE—"


The infuriated screams of their second in command echoed in the training ground, reaching every single person present there and leaving them shell-shocked as they finally saw the true face of Rickard for the first time.


There was a tense silence for a few moments during which Jon realised, after seeing the infuriated eyes of Gared, that the following conversation didn't need to be a spectacle for the viewing pleasure of the crowd, as it could seriously hurt the commander's prestige in the long run.


So, Jon immediately turned to Bran who was standing nearby and whispered in his ears, "Make the crowd leave... Now!"


"Huh? Ah, Y-Yes!" Bran only took a second to understand what Jon was implying and immediately took action, "G-Guards! Come with me!" he ordered his father's personal guards, who only hesitated for a few seconds before following after him.


"Men! It's time to leave now," Bran shouted as he went to stand in front of the crowd along with the guards and began gesturing for them to empty the grounds. He tried to emulate his father's tone and posture as much as he could while confronting the crowd, "Go on! Go to your camp! It's time to sleep, now. We have a busy day tomorrow, so don't dawdle anymore. Move!"


The crowd grumbled a bit but didn't resist too much and slowly began to move towards the exit all the while chattering with each other.


"Ah! I wanted to see more of that..."


"What?! Are you serious? How could you want more of that?"


"He's right. I was so relieved when it was finally over..."


"Relieved?"


"Y-Yes. I was scared the whole time that my name was going to be called in next and—"


"What? Why? Did you do something—"


"N-No, of course not. It's just I have a brother in the Company of the Cat, so I thought... Anyway, who would have thought that the commander Rickard was a traitor, huh?"


"I don't think anyone did. He was always such a smart man."


"I did! I knew from the start that the man was a cunning snake, who shouldn't be trusted—"


"Oh! Shut up, Carl, everyone knows how you licked his ass when you accidentally lost your sword..."


"I did not!"


It took a while but the training grounds were almost empty a few minutes later. And only when all the irrelevant people had left or were out of their earshot, did Gared finally break his silence and ask, "Why... Why did you betray me?"


"Betray you?! Don't make it sound like I was your subordinate. Because I was not." The red handprint on his face still stung something fierce, and the humiliation Rickard was feeling was making him lose all control over himself, "I was I, who was your superior before, and It was I who was supposed to be the commander, the only reason you even became one was just because of your cunt of a father—"


"Just for that? Just because of that, you wanted to throw it all away? Just because of a fucking title, you wanted to have my son killed!!"


"If your son was stupid enough to fall for a simple ruse like that, then I only did you a favour by removing his stupidity from this world," Rickard had lost all semblance of his usual calm by now and didn't even seem to care about it. He knew that there was little chance that he was going to be left alive after today, so he thought that he may well let out all the vitriol he had been bottling up until now.


"But you didn't just go after my son, did you? You also went after your own daughter, your own blood? You sick monster! She is the last piece of my sister left in this world and you decided to poison her—"


"Who the fuck cares!! I wanted a son from her! A Son! And you whore of a sister couldn't even do that! It's good that she died while giving birth to the second one, otherwise, I would have killed her myself—"


*Smack*


Gared angrily slammed down his fist and in his wrath he didn't hold back in the slightest, making Rickard's head jerk sideways with a crack so loud that everyone assumed him dead.


But a quick pulse check confirmed that he was just unconscious, and not dead... which didn't mean much as Jon only needed a single look at the fury blazing in Gared's eyes to predict that none of the accused were going to have a good end...


...


Jon's prediction turned out to be correct two days later, as every single spy and traitor was executed in front of the whole company. And in keeping with his roots, Gared himself was the one to execute them... including his own brother-in-law, Rickard.

Jon had been especially worried, that there would be some drama involving Lea, the girl Sam had saved when she found out about her father being executed.


But it seems that he was overthinking, as it turns out that she didn't feel too much about her absentee father, whom she had only conversed a handful of times with in all her life, being a traitor. '


So that matter was resolved quite peacefully...

About two hours after the executions, Jon entered Gared's tent to find him drinking all by himself with a huge jug by his side.


"I am not disturbing, Am I?" Jon asked with a raised eyebrow while remaining at the entrance.


"No, No, Come on in," Gared said eagerly waving Jon in, "I was craving some company anyway. After all, alcohol tastes far better with a friend than all alone," he jested while pouring another mug for Jon.


Jon wasn't too fond of alcohol, especially the cheap variety this world had to offer, but considering the current situation he felt that it would be too much of a hassle to reject it so he just silently took the offered mug and began drinking.


Only the sound of slurping and pouring drinks rang in the tent for the next few minutes as they both silently drank. Before finally, Jon decided to break the awkward silence... with an awkward question, "How do you feel?"


"Argh! I feel fine," Gared grunted while slamming his mug on the wooden table before he looked up and noticed Jon's sceptical look, "No, I really do. It was unpleasant business, no doubt, but it had to be done... and I am very relieved that it was done so quickly and so cleanly. It feels like I've cut off a rotten piece of me and can now finally walk unburdened..."


"That's good then because I was afraid that you were going to be depressed and that I was going to have to cheer you up..." Jon said the last part in a teasing tone.


"Depressed? Ha! I don't even know what that word means!" Gared guffawed loudly while filling up his mug once again.


"Ah! That makes sense..." Jon said nodding his head sagely as if he understood what he was talking about.


Gared burped a little before a reflective look appeared on his face, "Aah! Jon, my friend, I don't know how I'll ever repay you... I didn't even repay you for helping my son previously and now you've gone and done such a huge favour for this company... The debts are piling up and becoming too heavy my friend,"


"Oh, don't worry about it so much. It's only debt if you don't consider me a friend," Jon replied nonchalantly while waving his hand, "Besides, you know what to do if you want to repay the favour so much..."


"What are—Ah! Are you talking about that contract you offered?" Gared asked with a startled expression, "Because if you are then you don't need to worry about it... the moment I am done with my current contract with Myr, I will gladly join you on your ships, and heck I'll even throw in friends and family discount..."


"Oh! I am not too worried about the money, it's just that..." Jon trailed off with a frown on his face, "I'm in a bit of a hurry here, so It would be perfect if there's a clause in your contract that allows you to cancel it in advance with some monetary penalty..."


"I am afraid there's no such thing in the contract, but.." Gared hesitated for a few seconds before his eyes firmed up, "But if you really are in such a hurry then I could forcibly cancel the contract unilaterally without caring about those nobles in Myr..."


"But...that would ruin your reputation wouldn't it?"


"A little bit," Gared answered with a shrug downplaying it. He also didn't mention the fact that he would probably be blacklisted by most of the Magisters and Nobles in the free cities after the news about his breach of contract got out.


"Then that would leave a bad taste in my mouth..." Jon murmured with an annoyed expression on his face, "...How long did you say your contract was going to last, again?"


"About five more months, I think..." Gared answered with a scrunched-up face, "Ah! Unless of course, we somehow manage to achieve the primary objective for which we were hired, then the contract would be over immediately," he added as an afterthought with a chuckle as if the very notion of it was ridiculous.


"Primary objective? What's that?" Jon asked with a gleam in his eyes as his back straightened and he gave Gared his full attention.


"The same one that every company here got— To conquer more land..." Gared replied as if it were obvious.


"To Conquer land?"


"Yes, That's what we're all here for, Aren't we? To steal land from the opposite side," Gared explained before he noticed that Jon still had a frown on his face so he decided to elaborate.


"Here, Imagine that all of the Disputed Lands is an apple pie," He cleared a portion of the table and then drew an invisible circle using his finger, "Now if we divide the pie into three, they could all be the three portions of this land that are occupied simultaneously by the three cities of Myr, Tyrosh and Lys," he drew three lines in the circle, separating it into three triangular pies, "Now, we—are here at this border on Myr's side," He pointed his finger along the line separating Myr and Tyrosh.


"I knew all that. I just want to know about the primary objective part... because as far as I know, your main task was supposed to guard the lands occupied by the three cities..."


"You're not wrong but the guarding is just our secondary objective, and the main reason Myr hired us or any other sellswords company for that matter is to steal the land from the opposite side," Gared explained before shrugging, "But of course, that doesn't happen too much because none of the sellswords company wants to take too many risks for a little more gold when they could just compromise and earn a little less for a long time..."


"Hmm..." Jon thought about what Gared said for a moment before he looked up and asked the most important question, "Who are the ones on the other side? I mean the sellsword's company guarding the opposite border of Tyrosh?"


"Hmm... There are about five companies out there, I think," Gared said after contemplating for a while, "But most of them are little-known smaller ones, and don't have anything more than hundred to one-fifty warriors, and the only big one among them is the very famous company, Company of the Cat, with almost three thousand personnel."


"...And what about on our side?"


"Well, the big ones on our side are the Windblown led by the Tattered Prince, with about 2500 members and oh, of course, our own...."


Jon fell silent for quite a while after that. In fact, he was silent for so long that Gared assumed that the conversation was over but just when he was about to get up to get another jug of alcohol, Jon abruptly jolted awake from his deep-thinking expression and said in a determined voice, "Let's do it!"


"Huh? Do what?" Gared asked with a bewildered expression on his face.


"Your men are still training for that non-existent battle against the Gallant Men right?" Jon asked instead of answering.


"Yes..."


"Then let's give them the fight they are waiting for..." Jon said while standing with a bright smile on his face.


...
A Week Later


It was the time of evening, just an hour before the sun was about to set.


A cool breeze ruffled the flaps of hundreds upon hundreds of tents lying on a large hill in the Disputed lands. This hill came under the land occupied by Tyrosh and on it laid the camp of the sellswords company, Company of the Cat.


The company of the cat, also known as Cats, was one of the more famous companies active in Essos. It was led by a captain known as Bloodbeard, a red-bearded savage commander, who has a ferocious appetite for slaughter and enjoys both wine and women abundantly.


Five great pots were standing on big fires in the middle of the tents and behind each of the pots stood a cook with ladles in their hands.


One of the cooks looked into the pots and after seeing that it was almost cooked he nodded towards a nearby young aide who immediately ran towards a small hanging bell and began striking it with a tiny hammer in quick succession making a loud ringing noise resound throughout the camp.


The moment sound reached their ears, all the sellswords quickly stopped whatever they were doing and eagerly left their tents in groups with wooden plates and bowls in their hands.


They quickly began to line up in front of the pots, impatiently waiting for their turn to get their food. The cooks were not slow either, they filled the bowls with soup with their right hand and handed over a piece of bread with their left hand, making the line move very quickly.


Some distance from the big pots stood a smaller pot, it seemed to be filled with a much more aromatic soup with a higher quantity of meat in it. It was a pot that was placed there exclusively to serve only a limited number of higher-ranked people in the company and the normal sellswords could only look at it enviously from afar.


A fit slender man with lustrous black hair took his food from the smaller pot but instead of going towards the only wooden table there where the higher-ups sat, he roamed among the foot soldiers sitting on the ground. His eyes roved left and right as if searching for something before he finally found what he was looking for and began walking towards an isolated spot at the end of the hill.


There was only a single person sitting on the edge with a half-finished plate of soup and bread forsaken beside him. The man with rat-brown hair seemed to be lost in his thoughts and was watching the sun slowly sink over at the horizon.


"So there you are..." Oberyn greeted the short-haired man with a smile while taking a seat beside him.


"You found me..." replied Obara, Oberyn's eldest, with a sigh.


She already had the manliest of faces amongst all her sisters, so it didn't take more than a haircut to make her look like a man to fit in among the sellswords. When her father had expressed his desire to roam the Essosi wilderness, Obara had immediately expressed her wish to accompany him and Oberyn, who rarely stopped his daughters from doing anything, agreed with a few conditions.


"I did..." Oberyn nodded his head before raising his eyebrow at the half-finished food plate and asked, "You didn't finish your food today either..."


"This is not worthy of being called food!" she snorted as her mouth curled up in disgust, "This soup is just salt water with not a single piece of meat in it and this bread is even harder and drier than a piece of rock. Not even dogs would eat this shit..."


"My dear daughter, didn't I teach you that life is all about compromises..."


"Ugh! I don't want to hear about it, especially from you," she said while glaring enviously at the plate in his hands, "Why do I get to eat such repulsive fare while you can indulge in that meat-filled soup."


"That is of course, because I am the best fighter in this company and they know it," her father replied with an arrogant smirk. "So you can get the same fare if you can somehow beat me..."


"Che!" Obara clicked her tongue and turned her head away with a disgruntled look on her face, "Why are we even here, anyway."


"To have fun... and get some battle experience, along the way," he replied while taking a piece of bread and dipping it into the soup.


"What experience?! We have been here in this trash company for more than three months now, and have only been in two battles, and they too were nothing more than skirmishes. All we ever do is eat, train and guard... I would have gotten a lot more experience fighting bandits back home than here..."


"Why, Obara, do I hear a hint of defeat in your tone? Don't tell me you want to go back so soon. Because I clearly seem to remember someone insisting that they could handle all the hardships that would come their way without complaining a single time, and now you want to give up just because the food is bad..."


"I am not giving up!" Obara retorted angrily, "I just don't want to fucking waste my time lazing away with these excuses of warriors who are too afraid to get into an actual battle."


"Fine..." Oberyn sighed before taking a long sip of his soup, "If it bothers you so much, I guess we can leave this company and move to another one... The Second Sons, perhaps, I hear they regularly get into battles—" midway through his sentence, Oberyn abruptly stopped with his eyes widened in shock before he suddenly turned to the side and spit out everything that was in his mouth.


"What? What happened?" she asked in an alarmed tone as she saw her father coughing and spitting as much of his food as he could.


Oberyn didn't immediately reply, instead, he once again picked up the bowl of soup and placed it under his nose.


He closed his eyes and smelled the soup for a whole minute before his eyes opened with a grim look. He threw his bowl away and did the same with his daughter's abandoned bowl but got the same result.


"W-What are you doing father?"


Oberyn still didn't reply, he just silently turned his head towards the camps and took a long pondering look at the huge pots that were almost empty by now after having served most of the company.


Oberyn stayed in that position and thought for quite a while before he shook his head with a sigh and stood up. "We need to go, Obara!" he said and immediately began walking towards the camps.


"Wha—Wait!" Obara quickly jumped up and followed after her father and tried to match his brisk pace, "What happened exactly? Why are you in such a hurry?"


"There's no time to explain," Oberyn said in a low tone, his eyes scanning left to right as if expecting enemies to jump out of the shadows at any moment, "I need you to go get your things from camp, and meet me at the stables as soon as you can,"


"But—"


"Now!" he growled with a scary look before leaving her behind without waiting for her answer.


"Ugh!" Obara grunted in frustration but didn't dare disobey her father, and immediately began running towards her tent.


She shared a tent with three more men but they were all out eating their dinner at the moment so she thankfully didn't meet anyone when she entered.


She didn't have too much to pack as most of the money and other valuables usually stayed with Oberyn in his much bigger personal tent, so she just took the essentials such as her main weapon, a dagger, and a small bundle filled with clothes and some meat jerky before moving towards the exit.


After leaving her tent she immediately made for the stables at a quick pace. Along the way, she got many weird looks, but no one came up to her to ask why she was carrying her clothes with her.


A few minutes later she caught sight of her father standing against the fenced stables, tapping his foot impatiently, "What took you so long?" Oberyn asked in a hushed tone, before immediately jumping over the fence straight into the midst of the horses.


"I was as fast as—wait, where are the rest of your things," she exclaimed in bewilderment while following him, as she knew that he had more than a chest filled with expensive things in his tent and not just the small bundle he carried on his back.


"No time," Oberyn replied shortly while moving purposefully towards his personal horse, "You can take that one," he pointed towards a nearby horse that was a bit more robust than its neighbours.


"Y-Yes!"


"Let's go then," he said the moment Obara had mounted her horse.


They slowly cantered on their horses towards the only exit in the stables, but just as they were about to exit, a shabby smelly man suddenly jumped in front of them out of nowhere.


"Oi! Oi! When did you get in—and where the hell are you taking the horses?!" he asked angrily while spreading his arms wide to stop them from leaving.


"We are on urgent business for the commander," Oberyn replied in a stern voice while glaring at the stable hand, "Move!"


"N-No!" the man flinched a little but stood his ground, "No, the last time someone stole a horse, the commander almost castrated me, I-I won't let you go unless you can get the commander here—" his eye widened and his words abruptly stopped, courtesy of a spear that entered his neck faster than he could blink.


"Let's go," Oberyn repeated while pulling his spear out of the gurgling man, and placing it back horizontally on the horse.


Obara didn't ask any questions and just quietly followed after her father as they galloped towards the exit. She knew that if her father was ruthless enough to kill a bystander, then surely something was very wrong here.


"Who goes there!!" shouted the guard standing in front of the wooden barricades that acted as the camp's entry and exit.


"Urgent business, Commander Order!" her father repeated the same excuse, but Obara was afraid that they wouldn't be able to reply with the same method if they got caught again.


Because unlike the unarmed stable hand, there were almost five guards here, each of them armed with swords, and even if she and her father, somehow managed to deal with them, they would create enough clamour to alert the other sellswords and then they would be done for.


"I didn't get such orders," The guard answered with a confused look on his face.


"Because it's urgent, you idiot!" Oberyn barked loudly, making the guard flinch, "Here, the commander's personal letter," he said while taking a letter from his pocket and throwing it at the man.


"Um..." the guard hurriedly picked up the letter and opened it, but he was barely literate and could only read the first line with some difficulty when Oberyn shouted once again.


"Read enough?! Now, open the gates... Quickly!" He glared impatiently at the guard with his infamous viper gaze that he kept only for his enemies, making the guard flinch.


"O-Open it!" the leader ordered the other guards after a bit of hesitation, as he was quite scared of the Westerosi man and didn't want to interrupt the Commander's business now that he had gotten the letter as proof.


The moment the guards raised the wooden plank, the two horses galloped out through with their fastest speed and a few minutes later, they were no more than a small dust cloud in the distance.


"Y-You had the commander's letter?" Obara asked in a confused tone after they had gotten far enough from the camp and slowed the horses to a normal pace.


"Of course not," Oberyn replied with a scoff, "That was just your uncle's latest letter urging me to come back,"


"Oh..." Obara let out simply, trying not to show how impressed she was with her face, as her father was already quite arrogant and didn't need any big of a head, "Well... can you tell me now, what the rush was all about?"


"There was poison in the food," Oberyn said in a grim tone.


"I gathered that much," Obara replied impatiently, "But why did we have to leave immediately? We could have just found the bastards who did it and taken care of them, why did we have to run away like—"


"The poison wasn't just in my food," Oberyn interrupted his daughter calmly, "Yours was also poisoned... and so was probably everyone else's..."


"Wha—my food was poisoned?! B-But I ate almost half of that!" she burst out with a pale face.


"Don't worry. The poison wasn't fatal, just some harmless laxatives... It would just leave you powerless and with a belly ache for the next few hours, that's all..."


Obara immediately slumped on her horse in relief at the information before looking up and asking, "But then that means..."


"Yes! There's probably going to be a large-scale battle tonight," he said with a quick glance back at the calm camp in the distance.


"B-But couldn't we have alerted the others, and prepared for the enemy," she still didn't feel too good about running away like cowards. She could almost imagine getting laughed at by her sisters when they heard about it.


"It was too late by the time I found out, most of the sellswords were already halfway through their food," Oberyn shook his head, "And besides if someone went through all this trouble to poison everyone, then they most definitely had some form of surveillance over the camp to make sure nothing goes wrong, and I didn't want to spook them into attacking earlier..."


"W-Who could it have been?"


"Probably one of the other sellswords company—" Oberyn began to say but halfway through his words, he was distracted by a massive fire back in the camp, "Oh! looks like it has already started..."


"That's the food storage right..." Obara asked in a stunned voice.


"Yes, it is," Oberyn nodded grimly, "It's going to be a long and bloody night for the Cats..."


///

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[LazyWizard]

The hill on top of which the Company of Cats had lain their camp was chosen after a lot of thought.


Three sides of the hill were completely barren while the tall grasses on the fourth side had been regularly culled for about 200 meters away from camp so that anyone approaching them could easily be spotted from afar.


And even though the hill wasn't too high, it was still steep enough that anyone thinking of attacking them would have to climb an uphill battle while the defenders would have the advantage of downward momentum.


Jon and Sam were crouched and hiding among the tall yellow grass on the fourth side. They were at the very end just before the grass stopped, so they were easily able to watch the camp from their position while the sellswords up there couldn't notice them.


"She's back," Jon suddenly whispered, and Sam immediately looked up with searching eyes and sure enough not even a second later he caught sight of a colourful little critter flying towards them from the direction of the camp.


When Tweety reached above their heads, Jon extended his right hand and a moment later he caught a thin earthen bottle in his palm thrown by the bird before she perched on his shoulder.


Jon silently handed the bottle to Sam, who immediately placed it on the ground alongside five other empty ones, before putting his hand inside his armour to take out a new bottle.


"I think that should be enough bottles for now, Sam," Jon said stopping Sam from pulling out another bottle of poison, "I don't think Tweety needs to make another trip,"


"Are you sure? I mean what if she missed or spilled a little outside the pots? Shouldn't we pour a little more just to be sure..." Sam asked fidgeting with the bottle in his hand.


*Chirp* *Chirp*


Tweety answered Sam before Jon could even open his mouth. She squeaked out in an indignant melody while puffing up her chest and ruffling her feathers angrily.


Usually, Jon left most of the heavy work and long-distance things under the purview of Frost, so Tweety rarely gets the chance to shine. But when it comes to sneaky things like this, she was the only expert he had among his wargs as because of her insane speed and small size, she could go in and out of most places without anyone noticing, so the little birdy was quite proud and defensive of her work.


"Fine, Fine, I believe you," Sam apologized hastily while raising his hands in surrender towards the fuming hummingbird.


Jon suppressed his chuckles to save Sam the embarrassment before he cleared his throat, "Sam, I don't think I'll need you for the next part, so you should—Oh!" Jon abruptly stopped mid-sentence and raised his head towards the sky as if someone had called him.


"W-What happened, Jon? D-Did someone find out?" Sam asked nervously as his eyes involuntarily went towards the camp to see if he could make out any commotion.


"Hmm...Maybe..." Jon murmured with a frown on his face.


"Huh? What do you mean?"


"Well, two people just left the camp on horses and they are moving away at quite a fast speed as if they were running away from—Oh!" Jon stopped midsentence once again as he finally caught sight of the faces on the horses.


"What? Why did you stop? Did they really notice us? Should we run away? What should—Wait! Why are you smiling like that?" Sam asked in a bewildered tone as he saw a wide smile appear on the young northerner.


"No, Nothing," Jon quickly shook his head while trying to suppress his grin, "We don't need to worry about them."


"Are you sure?"


"Yes. Even if those runaways found out about the poison, they probably decided to not share their findings with their friends and run away alone since most of the sellswords in the camp are still laughing around and happily eating their food."


"But why would they—"


"Don't worry about them," Jon repeated in a firm tone, "Now, as I was saying before, the next part only needs me so you should go join the others," he pointed his thumb towards the back where they had come from.


Jon and Sam hadn't ventured on this adventure all alone, three more from the Company of the Rose had joined them, namely, Bran, an experienced guard and a young stable hand. Jon didn't want to answer too many questions so he made them stop some distance back giving the excuse that more people would mean less stealth, which wasn't false.


"Yes, I understand," Sam finally nodded his head before raising himself from his crouched position but still making sure to remain hidden in the grass. But just before leaving Sam turned to Jon and asked something he was really curious about, "But how are you going to get past them, Jon," he pointed his finger towards the camp where two sellswords acting as look-outs were standing right at the edge.


While even Sam could see from afar that the guards weren't particularly alert or diligent about their jobs, he was sure that even those slackers would notice if Jon ran straight towards the camp through the open ground ahead of them.


"Using a simple magic trick... Why, Do you want to see it?"


"Yes."


"Well, then Tweety, show him your magic," he turned to his friend with a mischievous smile, who chirped happily and immediately took off.


...


The two guards on the lookout were barely looking out as most of their attention was back towards the camp where they could see the fires from the dinner rising high up in the sky.


"Sss! I can already smell the soup all the way here," one of the guards groaned as his stomach growled loudly.


"Don't do that, you idiot. The more you think about it, the harder it is going to be to endure the wait."


"Argh! But why! Why do we have to wait..." the guard replied in a disgruntled and envious tone, "I just hate those lucky bastards. While we are stuck here guarding this barren land where nobody has stepped a foot in years, they are out there happily enjoying their food..."


"But what can we do about it? We can only get our food after they have had their fill and the next shift arrives to relieve us. So you should suck up and—Argh!!" the guard abruptly covered his eyes and screamed before bending down.


"W-What? What happened?"


"A b-bird! A fucking bird just shit on me, argh!"


"What?" he barked trying to suppress his laughter while pulling his friend's hand away from his face only to see that both of his eyes were completely covered in white goo which immediately made him lose his control, "Pfft! Haha!!"


"Don't laugh you bastard!!"


"But h-how can you be so unlucky as to—Argh! Fuck!" halfway through mocking his friend, the guard screamed as he got served the same dish as his friend.


"Hahaha! Serves you right for laughing at me!!"


"Shit! Fuck this! I am going back to my camp to clean this filth!" he cursed and then made for the camp without looking back.


"But the captain—Ah! Curse you!" he screamed before immediately chasing after his friend.


...


"T-That was brilliant, Jon. Jon?!" Sam exclaimed in awe before he turned around but he got no answer as Jon had left his place and was already halfway towards the hill.


"Good luck, Jon," Sam mumbled to himself while looking at Jon before he turned and ran back through the grass to join the others.


...


The Camp of Cats had long wooden fences surrounding it on all sides like any other long-term sellword camp in Essos. But while these fences were usually supposed to keep the enemies out, in this instance they were mighty helpful in keeping Jon hidden.


Jon ran silently along the border of the camp while making sure to remain crouched at all times so that unless someone was looking directly at him through the fences, they wouldn't be able to spot him through the crisscrossing fence.


He ran past the empty ground where most of the sellswords were eating their dinner and then past the big tent that he knew was the food storage, and then past a few smaller tents before he finally reached his destination—the stables.


The fences surrounding the stable were a bit higher and had spiky sharp ends sticking out of either side so that horses didn't vault over it and run away. But Jon didn't have much of a problem jumping over the fence with his athletic body.


He landed on his hand and then rolled to stop his forward momentum before standing up and the moment he did, he was hit by the pungent smell of horse shit.


Jon was surrounded on all sides by horses of all kinds, some were brown, some were black, some were standing in their place and chewing hay while others were looking curiously towards him and others still had their eyes closed and were taking a nap.


It only took a single glance for him to see that there were something like 40 horses here and all of them were of excellent breed and in battle-ready condition, "This is quite the haul..." Jon murmured with a satisfied expression on his face.


"Now where is your caretaker, my friends," he asked distractedly to a nearby horse while taking out a dagger from his waist. The horse looked confused for a moment before jerking his head towards the entrance of the stable.


Jon nodded his head and began to move sneakily towards the entrance but it didn't take him more than a few steps to find that someone else had gotten to his target before him.


"Oho! Looks like someone ran afoul of the red viper..." Jon only needed a single look at the clear spear wound in the stablehand's throat to see who had done him in, "Well all the better for me," he shrugged while sheathing his dagger.


Jon knew that the time was tight so he immediately went to work on his next task... which was to get all these horses to agree to run away with him.


He went towards the nearest horse and after looking it in the eye for a few seconds, he created a faint rudimentary connection. Only a few moments later, he was done with his task as they came to an agreement, so he didn't waste any time in cutting open its rope and moving on to the next one.


One after the other, Jon freed the horses after spending a few seconds bonding with each of them. And not a single horse tried to create a clamour or escape from the stable using their new-found freedom, instead, they all patiently stood in their place while waiting for Jon to finish with the others.


A few minutes later, Jon was finally done communicating with the last of the horses and had gotten an agreement from every single horse in there to come with him.


And unlike what it looked from the outside, Jon wasn't actually trying to control all these horses, because even he with his robust mental strength would not have been able to control more than a few horses at the same time, but if it was just a short-term agreement to follow his orders then it was a bit more doable given enough time.


"Phew! That's finally taken care of." Jon sighed while wiping a bit of sweat from his forehead, "Now, for the last part..."


He took out a thin wooden makeshift torch he had prepared beforehand from his waistband, before pulling out a small bottle of alcohol from his pocket. He then proceeded to pour all the alcohol slowly over the torch end, to make sure that the fire wasn't doused by the wind.


A small stove near the stable entrance took care of the fire part, as with Jon's years of outdoor camping experience it only took him a few tries with the nearby tools to get the fire running.


He quickly lit the torch using the small fire in the stove before hurriedly dousing it just to be safe. A few seconds later when the fire was completely stable on the torch, Jon stood up and went towards the side of the fence he had entered the stable from before looking towards the sky, "It's your turn next, my friend..."


'I'm ready,' came the immediate reply from Frost, so Jon didn't waste any more time before chucking the burning torch straight into the sky as high as he could. Not even a second later a blue flash of light passed by and the torch disappeared from his view as if it had never been there, "Let's get the heat up, Frost,"


....


"Is it time?"


The gruff voice shook Gared out of his concentration, so he lowered the far-eye from his face and turned towards the Tattered Prince, before replying, "No, but it will be soon..."


The Tattered Prince was the first and only commander of the sellswords company, Windblown. He was a fifty-something-year-old man, with silver grey hair and an appearance so ordinary that he could easily disappear in a crowd the moment he took off his silver mail and his colourful tattered cloak.


They were both standing on a steep mountain a few leagues away from the Camp of Company of the Cats and from their location, Gared was able to get a clear view of the camp and what was happening in there using the Far-eye Jon had given him.


"The sun is going to set in about an hour," murmured the old commander while looking at the horizon, "So I hope that whatever plan you've cooked up occurs soon because I don't fancy having a night battle."


"Oh! Don't worry too much, Old Man," Gared said with a mysterious gleam in his eyes, "This battle is going to be the easiest and most fortuitous one of your life. You can trust me on that."


"Don't call me an Old Man, I'm only twenty years older than you, boy," snapped the white-haired old man, "And besides I wouldn't have brought all my warriors here if I didn't trust you," he said waving his hand behind him, where stood lines and lines of warrior readying their weapons and waiting for the order from their commander to set off towards their target.


Almost two thousand of these fighters belonged to the Windblown, while the other five hundred belonged to the Company of Roses. And even though they hadn't been allowed to set up camp so there were no tents signifying their different allegiance, anyone would have been able to pick the sellswords from the two companies apart.


The sellswords from one company had good quality weapons and armour while the other had shabby equipment, they were well-maintained but they were old. While one company boasted over two hundred horses ready to charge into battle, the other only had foot soldiers.


"Really? Because I thought that you only came because the ones we're about to attack are the Cats..." Gared chuckled with a sly smile on his face. It was an open secret that the Company of Cats and the Windblown had bad blood between them, both companies had fought in battle with each other on more than a few occasions, and both wanted nothing more than to tear the other to pieces.


"Even if I wanted to wipe these currs from the face of Essos," he said while looking at the far-away camp with distaste before shaking his head, "I would not be so stupid as to attack them in their well-fortified camp when they are ready... So I hope that what you had promised me comes true... for your own sake..."


It hadn't been too hard for Gared to persuade the old sellsword to join him in his crusade. Of course, he had to give away a few concessions including, leaving most of the loot they would get if they managed to defeat the Cats. But Jon had repeated many times that as long as the company came under him, they would never have any problem with money or weapons so Gared didn't feel that it was too much of a loss.


"What have you got to worry about?" Gared snorted at the not-so-hidden threat, "After all, I already said that we would be in the vanguard."


"Well, then I hope you live up to your honourable reputation and keep your promise, because—" halfway through his words, the Tattered Prince stopped and looked towards the enemy camp with narrowed eyes, "Is that the signal we are waiting for?"


"Wha—Oh!" Gared exclaimed as he followed the old man's finger and caught sight of a sky-reaching fire that was burning the biggest tent in the camp.


"I'll sound the horn," the commander of Windblown said resolutely while turning away.


"No, wait!" Gared had the far-eye back on his eye and was moving it left and right along the camp as if searching for something, "Not yet!"


"What?! What are you talking about?" the Tattered prince asked in a bewildered tone, "If I am not wrong then that is the food storage burning out there. What else could you be waiting for?"


Gared didn't answer his fellow commander instead he just focused more closely on the camp.


He saw the mayhem and panic that the sudden fire had caused as the sellswords ran hither tither frantically trying to douse the fire using pails of water and the nearby sand but it wasn't helping too much.


It was as he was focusing on the fire that Gared abruptly caught sight of the first victim of their scheme.


A man in the midst of carrying a pail of water towards the raging fire suddenly sported an uncomfortable look on his face before he suddenly fell down to his knees while holding onto his stomach.


Not many paid him any attention at first as they were too busy with the fire but when the second one and then the third one followed soon after, people began noticing that something worse than fire was happening to them. But it was too late by then as people began falling left and right complaining of weakness, nausea and the unbearable urge to... shit.


"Your plan really worked!" the old sellsword exclaimed in a surprised but delighted tone, "We need to go, now. It's the perfect time to strike. We should hit them before they get a chance to regather."


"No! Just wait a few more—Ah! There it is!" Gared said in an excited tone as he finally caught sight of the scene he was searching for.


While most of the company was focused on controlling the fire and helping their poisoned comrades, a third problem suddenly presented itself as the horses abruptly broke free from their stables and ran out towards the exit all on their own.


If there were just a few of them coming towards them, then the guards at the exit might have even put up a modicum of effort to try and stop them from leaving, but the herd of horses galloping furiously towards them was so scary that they all willingly jumped out their path and let them run away scott-free.


"How did you get the horses—"


"It's time!" Gared said as he cut off his fellow commander's curious question while placing the far-eye back in his pocket, "Let's go," and then without wasting any more time he picked up the horn by his side and turned towards the waiting warrior before breathing into it with all his might.


*POOOOO*


"MEN!! LET'S GO KILL SOME CATS!!"


"YYYEESSSS!!!!"


...


The moment the herd cleared enough distance from the camp, Jon pulled the reins and raised himself to be in an upright position once again.


To not raise any suspicion or attract the attention of any archer Jon had been riding the horse sideways while escaping. A difficult task even for the most trained knight but Jon had been riding on horses since he could walk and talk so it wasn't that hard for him, in addition being a warg helped a lot.


"Ha!" he shouted, urging his horse to run faster before he escaped his position in the middle of the herd and went to the front.


He slowly began steering the horses away from the camp while changing the direction so that they began heading straight for the rendezvous point he had agreed upon with Sam.


The thunderous sound of a war horn made him perk his head up towards the distant mountain and not even a minute later he was greeted by the sight of his allied sellswords charging down at their maximum speed towards the Camp of the Cats.


From their speed, it shouldn't take them more than a few minutes to reach the camp which would usually be enough time for a well-prepared company to prepare their defences but today... that was just a pipe dream for the Cats.


Other than a few looks to make sure that nothing outwardly was happening, Jon didn't bother with the attacking force too much, as he had already done all he could to help in the battle and now it was the turn for Gared, his company and his allies to make contributions and deal with the rest, so Jon focused on leading the prized horses.


He reached close to his destination about ten minutes later, by which the battle was raging ferociously all over at the camp behind him.


"Jon!" Sam exclaimed as he finally caught sight of him, and eagerly began pushing his horse as he and his three companions began riding along sideways with the herd. Along with Sam came his own horse, Peggy and Jon didn't waste a single moment jumping and changing from one horse to another without breaking their stride.


"Are we going back to the base, Jon?" Sam asked ignoring the superhuman feat Jon had performed as if it was mundane.


"No, we need to do something first," Jon said before he turned towards the commander's son and shouted, "Bran! You and the young lad will lead the horses from here on out," he said while nodding towards the young stable hand beside him, "Don't worry too much, these horses are quite tame and shouldn't give you too much trouble. You just need to ride in front of them and they will follow you all the way towards the camp."


...


A few minutes later Jon and Sam broke off from the group and set off in a completely different direction.


"Where are we going, Jon?"


"To meet with a dear acquaintance of ours..." Jon said with a wolfish smile on his face.


///

 

[LazyWizard]

"Should we make a stop and pitch our tent now, Father," Obara asked while glancing towards the slowly darkening sky as they rode their horses through a rough rocky path amidst flatland filled with grasses.


They had left the Camp of Cats about an hour and a half ago, and while they weren't galloping at their fastest speed at the moment like they were earlier, they were still moving away from the camp at a constant pace, so Obara was sure that they should be out of the crosshairs of the battle by now and can take a rest without worrying, and besides... "It'll be night soon, Father, and I don't want to move blindly in these unfamiliar mountains."


"Just a bit more... and we'll reach a narrow gorge between valleys,"


The path that Oberyn was taking them through was somewhat of a shortcut to Myr, the nearest free city. But the path was still a relatively unknown one because the natural gorge they were about to cross was very unsuitable for an army to pass through... as it was the perfect sight for an ambush. But they could take this path without much fear as no one would bother to ambush them out here in Essos.


"So we shall camp at that canyon's entrance..." Oberyn continued distractedly as most of his mind was still back on the poison he had tasted in the camp.


The poison had just been too familiar for him to easily forget... the moment he had tasted it Oberyn had felt as if someone had taken a poison straight out of his own cabinet and then tried to feed it to him...


"Is that the Gorge you were talking about, Father," Obara asked about ten minutes later while excitedly pointing towards the rocky canyon in the distance.


She hadn't exactly had a filling dinner that day, and even though the poison had run its course through her body by now, it had still left her very weakened. So she was very relieved that they were soon going to set up camp as she wanted nothing more at that moment than to eat her fill and sleep the night off.


"Let's go then—"


"No! Wait!" Oberyn suddenly hissed while stopping his excited daughter from galloping towards their destination.


"Whoa!! What happened?"


"Look at that," he calmly replied while pointing towards a thin black cloud of smoke that was almost invisible in the impending night, "There's a fire at the entrance... someone's here before us..."


...


The shadows danced wildly behind Jon as he warmed his hands around the fire. He was sitting on a rock located at the entrance to the gorge, while Sam was a few feet behind him, humming as he fed hay to Peggy and his own horse.


Jon had made the horses use their full speed to reach this location before their target so Sam's horse was completely exhausted, but Peggy looked as if it had been nothing more than a warm-up and was still good to go.


"They are here," Jon's abrupt announcement broke the silence of the night, startling Sam out of his zone. But it only took the young Tarly a second to gather himself and he immediately dropped the feed in his hand and jogged towards his luggage.


After taking out his axe and his shield from the luggage, he strapped them in before quickly running to stand behind Jon in an alert stance. After taking a few deep breaths, he began looking vigilantly at the tall grasses surrounding the entrance, waiting for their quarry to come out.


But they didn't...come out.


A minute passed... then two... and even when five minutes passed and his hands began aching from holding the same position, not a single came out of the foliage. But just as Sam was about to open up his mouth to ask Jon about it... he spoke up.


"Why not join me, if you're already here," he shouted while casually looking towards a point in the darkness where Sam could see nothing but tall withering grasses.


But once again, no one came forward... it was as if there was no one out there and that Jon had just made an embarrassing mistake, but Sam knew that that wasn't possible, so he didn't lose his vigilance in the slightest.


"Come now, I thought we already became familiar enough with each other after the last time we met... So do we need to be so vigilant of each other once again... Prince Oberyn."


A loud snort came from the darkness before two tall silhouettes on horses came out from amidst the grasses one after the other.


Both of them had the typical Dornish looks, one was a tall fit man with snake-like eyes who was looking at Jon with a not-so-amused smile, while the other was a similarly slender but muscular "man" with rat-brown hair and was looking quite irritated. Both of them carried their spear in their hands and neither of them bothered to get off of their horses as they came into the clearing in front of Jon and Sam.


"You know them, Father?" Obara asked abruptly in a hostile tone before Oberyn could answer Jon. The Dornishwoman was quite irate at the moment that just when a good night of sleep looked so close at hand, these people appeared and ruined it for her.


"Just some acquaintances I met during my visit to Citadel," Oberyn replied without looking away from the two lads, who had grown up quite a lot since the last time he had seen them.


The fat child who couldn't stop shaking due to fear last time, was now standing tall and fit, with an axe in his while looking at Oberyn with a nervous but determined gaze. And the other one, the one who had held a dagger to his daughter's throat right in front of him and had even dared to steal from him, seemed to have grown up to become even more calm and brazen... considering that he was still casually sitting on his rock uncaring about the spears in their hands.


Of course, unlike before, he now knew who they were.


There were not many 12-year-old fat runaway nobles in the world so he only needed a few days after their encounter to find out that one of the rats was named Samwell Tarly. The other one had been an enigma to him for a while... until he got that letter from his friend Willas Tyrell asking him to find out about a young northerner bastard named Jon Snow.... and the pieces had quickly fallen into place after that.


"I am quite hurt, Prince Oberyn that you only think of us as mere acquaintances. I thought we had moved past that," Jon said with an amused smile on his face, "And besides we are now fellow Westerosi in a foreign land... so shouldn't we sit around the fire, share some stories and eat food with each—"


"I would have been delighted to do that boy if we had met on the road by a coincidence... but this is not a coincidence is it?" Oberyn looked quite calm on the surface but the tight grip he had on his spear could tell anyone that he was taking Jon a lot more seriously than the last time they met. "Because from here I stand, you two look as if you were waiting for us here... so can you tell me how that came to be?"


"Oh, that... Well, let's just say that the camp, you were part of a few hours ago, was on the opposite side of the one we were part of—"


"Ah! So you were the one behind that stunt back at the camp..." Oberyn's expression suddenly cleared as a lot of his doubts from earlier immediately went away, "It seems that you're putting that little book you stole from me to quite the use..."


"Oh, you have no idea," Jon said with a wide smile on his face, "Speaking of which, you wouldn't happen to have any more of those books would you, because it would really help me a lot," Oberyn's eyebrow wildly twitched at the brazen request, "and don't worry, I will adequately compensate you this time—"


"Ugh! Can you move this along, Father!" Obara abruptly interrupted with an impatient expression while shifting uncomfortably on her horse. She had grown quite tired of this back-and-forth between her father and this arrogant boy, "Are we killing him or are we passing him by? You just need to choose one of them..."


Oberyn had no reply to his daughter's question, as he was contemplating that very same thing all along.


If the boys in front of him were just some runts of nobles from back home, then he wouldn't have hesitated so much about it... but one of them had the potential to have a very mysterious identity, which was leaving him undecided at the moment, as he couldn't be sure that this fellow wouldn't be useful in the future when the shit hit the fan... so he felt that it would be quite a waste to kill him at the moment...


"She's Obara, right? The oldest one among your daughters," Jon suddenly asked Oberyn, while turning towards the woman cosplaying as a man, "It is quite an honour to meet you—"


"How do you know who I am," Obara cut off his greeting as her eyes narrowed and her fingers tightened around the spear at the casual way the man in front of her had recognised her despite her disguise, "I don't think we've met before..."


"Well, all the prince's daughters are quite famous, aren't they?" Jon replied with a shrug, "And I have heard that the eldest daughter is the—Er—most martially inclined one among them all..."


"You wanted to say the ugliest, didn't you?" Obara asked in a menacing tone while barely fighting the impulse to just charge and skewer the wretch in front of her.


He actually was, but Jon would be quite stupid if he admitted that, "No, I wasn't." so he denied it before immediately turning towards Oberyn to get back to his goal, "What say you, Prince Oberyn? Will you care to join me at the fire and share some food... I've got a freshly caught rabbit behind me... so we can eat, talk and get to—"


"Why?" Oberyn scoffed with a sarcastic smile on his face, "So that you can try and poison me for the second time in a day?"


"That is quite the ugly accusation, Prince," Jon replied with a raised eyebrow, "I take the guest rights very seriously, so I would never even think of doing something like that. After all, I am a Northerner... not a Dornishmen who are infamous for their killing of someone under a peace banner—"


"Argh! That does it!" Obara snapped, as the last taunt finally managed to breach her patience and she abruptly pulled the reins on her horse and charged towards Jon like an arrow, her spear raised and ready to stab the annoying scoundrel.


"Obara! No!" Oberyn cried only a moment after he saw his daughter's horse take off, but it was too late... and by then all he could do was hope that she only injure and not kill him...


But what actually happened was so wildly out of his imagination that it left him shocked.


The second that Obara's horse kicked off towards him, Jon was on his feet with his sword in his hand.


But even though he could, with his reaction speed, Jon decided neither to use his sword to kill the horse nor to roll out of the way and dodge. Instead what he did was just simply look into the eyes of the horse with an intense expression.


"Die! You Cunt—Argh!" At the last moment, just before she was about to skewer the unmoving arrogant Northerner in front of her, Obara's horse betrayed her and jerked to an abrupt halt, flinging her off of it, and sending her flying straight into the ground.


"Ugh!!" Everything hurt for the woman, she felt as if she had fallen from a two-story building straight onto a rocky floor. There was a constant ringing in her ear and she couldn't even muster any strength in her arms to get up.


But thankfully, she could feel that nothing had been broken and she also didn't get stabbed with her own spear as he had thrown it away at the last moment... Now, she just needs to gather her bearings and somehow get up before...


"Bind her, Sam," Jon calmly ordered his friend, while coming to stand over the stunned and disoriented Dornishwomen with his sword pointed at her shocked father.


While keeping his eyes on Oberyn, Jon warmly patted the head of Obara's horse in praise before sending it to join their own horses behind him.


"Y-Yes!" Sam replied after a few seconds and ran over with a rope in his hands to tie the slowly coming about Dornishwoman.


The second he came out of his shock, Oberyn's first impulse was to immediately attack the Northerner to save his daughter... but he managed to stop himself at the last moment as he didn't want to go the same way as his daughter.


He didn't know how the boy managed to stop a war horse, that had been specifically trained not to hesitate even at the sign of a sword... but he did not want to take any risk so he immediately jumped off of his own horse.


"You know this would make it the second time that I have taken a daughter of yours hostage," Jon commented idly while moving away from Obara after Sam had finished binding her, "You should really teach them a little more patience..."


"Don't worry, boy. I intend to do the very same thing when we get home," Oberyn replied nonchalantly while ever so slowly circling around and making the Northerner move away from Obara.


"But you really don't need to be this tense, you know, as I am not going to hold your daughter's life against you... because from the very beginning, all I have been asking from you was for us to have a talk..."


"Well, then... Talk!"


"Uh-Uh, not like that," Jon said while shaking his head, "First you need to put down your spear and take a seat—"


"You want me to willingly give up my own weapon in a situation such as this?" he asked incredulously while looking at Jon as if he were a fool, "Are you out of your mind?"


"Well, we won't be able to have a constructive talk if you have your weapon with you... because then your mind will constantly be on the many different ways that you can kill me and save your daughter... which would make it all fruitless..."


While speaking, Jon had slowly begun moving his feet towards his luggage that was placed beside his rock seat.


He knew that it would be very messy if both of them got into a melee fight, and it would be hard for them to stop without one of them dying or getting seriously injured, and Jon didn't desire that... so he wanted to switch to his primary weapon so that he could conclude the fight without any bloodshed.


"Well we can also have a constructive talk if you're the one to give up your weapon," Oberyn replied snarkily while keeping his complete focus on the Northerner. He had already scouted Sam and concluded that even though the boy had improved compared to before, he would still be completely inconsequential in a life-and-death fight with him.


Jon sighed and shook his head as he knew that they wouldn't get anywhere like this so he abruptly bent down to pull out his bow.


The instant Oberyn saw Jon go for his bow, he took his chance and lunged at him with his spear.


But what he didn't expect was the speed at which the Northern bastard moved.


Jon had discarded the sword in his hand, picked up his bow, primed an arrow on it and then shot it towards Oberyn, all before he could take more than a few steps.


Thankfully, Oberyn instinctively flinched at the last moment and the arrow missed his face by a hair's breadth, leaving his back filled with cold sweats.


But even with the close shave with death, Oberyn didn't miss the chance he got and immediately stabbed his spear towards the half-kneeling boy, but alas once again the dastard Northerner demonstrated his speed and nimbleness as he dodged and rolled away at the last moment leaving Oberyn cursing as his spear got stuck in the ground.


"You missed, boy," Oberyn grunted while calmly pulling out his spear from the ground, "And now I am close enough to you, that you wouldn't be able to take another shot... so why don't you tell the Tarly boy to let Obara go before I am forced to gut you..."


"You know, I would have seriously considered your proposal if I had missed my shot... but did I really miss it?" Jon asked with a meaningful smile on his face.


"What do you mean—" Oberyn's words abruptly cut off and his eyes widened as he felt a sharp sting at his cheek.


He hurriedly raised his hand to touch his face and sure enough, his worst fear was realised when he saw a thin line of blood on his hand courtesy of a scratch on his cheek.


"Not to brag, but you see, I haven't missed my shot since I was ten, so you should be really thankful that I wasn't shooting to kill you..."


"What have you done—" Oberyn suddenly faltered amidst his rage as his surroundings suddenly shook as if there was an earthquake and his eyes began to grow blurry.


"Oh! Has it started already... That was quite fast," Jon commented in a mildly surprised tone as if commenting on the weather, "I guess, the wound being so close to your head helped the poison spread faster... what a novel thing to learn—Oh!" Jon abruptly stopped his narration and jumped back to dodge the spear.


"I'll Kill You!!" Oberyn growled in anger as he lunged at the bastard disregarding everything else.


Even poisoned, his spear was accurate and fast as a viper's bite but Jon wasn't even playing the same game anymore as he kept jumping backwards not allowing Oberyn to pull him into a fight with his myriad jabs.


"You know, I would have loved to have a proper bout with you any other day... but it would be too unfair considering your situation at the moment... so why don't you give it a rest—"


"Argh! Fuck You!!" Oberyn grunted out furiously but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't even touch his enemy.


And to make matters worse, all this exertion had only made his blood pump faster making the poison spread through his body even more quickly.... and sure enough not even a few seconds later, he fell to his knees and began breathing heavily as if he was an old man.


Honestly, Oberyn felt less scared for his life and more humiliated at the fact that he had been almost poisoned twice by a boy third his age. He didn't think he would be able to live this down as a Dornishman...


"Don't worry, Prince... you and your daughter will be completely safe with me... so you can sleep soundly..." Oberyn heard Jon's fading voice as he fell on his face, "... and then when you wake up... maybe we can have our talk..."


And that was the last thing the Prince of Dorne heard before he lost consciousness.


...


The stretch of sea between the Free City of Tyrosh and the islands of Stepstones was considered the most dangerous place in the world for merchant ships.


Everyone knew that and it was something of common knowledge... But there were always exceptions in this world.


While some Merchants saw danger and loss of life in this place... other, more greedy, more ambitious Merchants only saw the massive untapped potential of this place and the piles of gold that they could make from here.


And it was somewhat of a cardinal rule that if there's big money to be made, then there would be merchants somewhere who will somehow find a way through... regardless of the risks.


Now, the method the merchants take to pass through completely depends on the kind of merchant they are...


If they are small-time merchants, the kind who aren't afraid of adventures, then they could take the path of maximum risk and maximum profits...


Where they completely rely on their luck to dodge the pirate ships. They hope and pray that their gods will help them and that the pirates will be on vacation or that they will all be drunk and asleep for the few hours that they need to pass the Stepstones.


And funnily enough, some of these pirates do get lucky and complete their voyages safe and sound. But most of them, who aren't so lucky... well, they get caught, their merchandise gets stolen, their women get taken, and then they themselves become someone's slaves for life... unless, of course, if they know someone who can buy them out for a hefty sum.


But on the other side of this are the big-time Merchants, the wealthy ones who have been in this game for a long time, who are too old and experienced to fall for short-term gains. These merchants like to go for the least amount of risk that they can take by hiring the toughest protectors that they can find in this part of the sea— The Braavosi Warships.


And while their profits may decrease substantially because of this... at least they can sleep soundly knowing that they have reduced the uncertainty factor from this situation as much as they could and that they could have small but stable profits for a long time... which is the most important thing for these big merchants.


The pirates too usually leave these kinds of big fleets alone as they also like to attack the easier, less protected smaller fleets where they could make quick profits... as it would be too much of a hassle for them to try and fight off a dozen Braavosi Warships at the same time.


After all, even if they somehow managed to win, they would still incur too many losses for it to be worth it.


But that doesn't mean that the pirates were afraid of these warships... Oh, no, no, no, thinking these pirates as scared cowards would be a wrong assumption.


Because the second these pirates felt that the risks justified the rewards, they would immediately launch their attack on the target, no matter who the protector was. And anyone who thought otherwise or underestimated them, thinking that the pirates would just run if they flew a Braavosi flag or that they would be fine if they just hired one or two warships... were either already sunk under the sea, or would soon reach there.


And at this very moment, someone was paying the price for making that very same mistake...


During their Biannual trip to protect the fleet of Merchant ships across this treacherous but immensely profitable stretch, the Master in Braavos decided to reduce their protection from twelve warships to just half of them.


Because due to some unforeseen circumstances (Norther Wolf Shipping,), the number of merchants patronising them had decreased by a third so they decided to similarly reduce their numbers so that they could decrease the cost of manning the warships and keep their profits the same... but this turned out to be a very fatal mistake.


Because, while fighting off twelve warships for a few dozen Merchant ships could be considered a massive loss... the same couldn't be said when there are only six warships, as then... then the risk decreases exponentially.


The merchants and their protectors had grown too complacent due to long years of safe and easy trips where the pirates let them go unharassed... they began to think that the pirates just wouldn't dare to attack ships protected by Braavos, even if the protection was a bit inadequate.


But they forgot that the pirates were an unpredictable bunch and that they could do anything and attack anyone once their greed overwhelmed them.. and at this very moment the Braavosi Warships were being reminded of that fact.


Six Braavosi Warships were surrounding big bulky merchant ships in their middle while trying to fend off the relentless attacks from a Pirate fleet commanded by one of the three Pirate Kings, The Ravager.


The fleet was on their way back after a fruitful trip to the other free cities of the Essos, their decks were filled with crates upon crates of high-value goods, and their chest were filled with coins, and they had almost begun counting their profits in their head... when they had been suddenly set upon by these pirate a few hours away from the Stepstones.


"Argh!!"


"Kill Them!!"


"Shoot the arrows!!"


"Kill the Pirates!!!"


"Raise your shields higher! YOU CUNTS!!!"


And the naval attack that the warships were under wasn't a haphazard one that you would expect from Pirates, no, the battle that was happening here was a surprisingly intricate one.


Each of the six warships had been first separated from each other and then three pirate ships had attached themselves to each of them, constantly harassing them, peppering them with arrows, and overwhelming them with the sheer numbers of pirates coming abroad.

And if the Braavosi warships tried to use their prized scorpions to target the pirate's ships, then these wretches would immediately scatter away and dodge the massive bolts using the higher mobility of their lighter ships.

But even if a scorpion managed to get a lucky shot and hit one of the Pirate ships, they would just calmly call a retreat before the warships could sink them, and almost immediately another pirate ship from the reserve would take its place and the attack would start anew.

And in this way, the smaller, older, shoddier pirate ships with paper-thin, defences were slowly harassing, and whittling down the mighty warships of Braavos.

And the one behind this attack, the commander of this pirate fleet, the Ravager King, was watching the battle while sitting on his wooden throne on the deck of his galleon and calmly sipping expensive wine safe behind the reserve pirate ships.


///

 

[LazyWizard]

Behind the ten reserve ships of the pirate fleet stood a massive Galleon. And unlike the other pirate's ships which were all different varieties of thin sleek galleys, the Galleon was bigger, fancier and much better equipped, because, after all, it was the Ravager's personal ship, as such, it had to have the corresponding dignity.


In fact, if it wanted, then this ship could even go toe to toe with two Braavosi warships on its own.


Not that the pirate king Ravager would ever take such risks with his own life.


Standing on the deck of this ship, were all the cruelest, strongest, smartest and most useful pirates in this fleet. Along with their Master Ravager, the only person sitting on the deck, they were silently keeping watch on the battle from afar.


"How much longer now?" calmly asked the Ravager in a low gravelly voice while signalling his aide, a 13-year-old young lad to refill his wine, "You can throw a few more ships at them if this battle can end faster..." he continued callously as if the lives of the pirates weren't worth waiting a few minutes, "...Things could become complicated the longer the battle goes on."


"Don't worry, Master," came the smooth answer from the most well-dressed man on the deck, "We don't to use more pirates... the battle should be over soon enough." The advisor replied while bowing his head.


"Fine, then." The Pirate King nodded waving his hand indifferently and the advisor turned back to command the battle.


The advisor placed the far-eye back on his eye and peeked closely at the battle in the distance. He was the one who actually controlled the whole attack from his position on this ship.


He was the one who decided when it was time for which ship to retreat and for which ship to take its place.


And he was doing all that using just a few different coloured flags and a few capable subordinates.


The signals he used were so complicated that they completely went above almost every pirate's head, except for the ones he had specially trained to follow his orders.


If someone asked any pirate in this fleet what was the secret behind Ravager's rise to become a Pirate King of Essos in just a decade, then most of them would attribute it to his cruelty, his ambition, his connections, or maybe even the huge number of ships under his command.


But if they asked this question to Ravager himself, then he would unhesitatingly point towards this scholar-like man commanding the battle and looking absurdly out of place in this gathering of fierce pirates.


Ravager was quite grateful for the day when he managed to snag this man from right under the nose of one of Volantis' most prominent Noble families.


Because, if it were not for his man, then Ravager wouldn't have so many ships under his command, if it were not for this man then he wouldn't have a record of winning 9 out of every ten battles his fleet was in, and if it wasn't for this man's ability command a naval battle, then Ravager didn't think that he could have ever become a Pirate King.


And Ravager always made sure that this treasure of a man would never be able to leave his side... 'even if he wanted to,' he thought as his eyes involuntarily went towards his young aide who immediately shivered at his gaze. This young one hadn't left his side since before he was a toddler, as he was the key to keeping this treasure of a man locked under him.


'But it's still not enough...' he thought as his eyes turned back to the battle in the distance. He didn't want to be just a pirate king, he wanted to be the Pirate King.


He didn't want his name to be taken along the likes of Salladhar Saan and Crow's eye, he wanted to be above them, he wanted to crush them underneath him, he wanted to be the only Emperor of the Sea, of all Seas.


He wanted the name Ravager to resound across all the continents, to strike fear in his enemies... from the Nobles of Westeros to the Sealords of Braavos, from the Magister of Pentos to the Great Masters of Slaver's Bay.


The mere mention of his name should be enough for them to piss their pants and offer him all their riches and their wives to him...


And now he had finally learned a valuable piece of information from his worthless, that could give him a chance to achieve this ambition of his. And he wouldn't let go of that chance... at any cost.


Ravager thought while involuntarily making a tight fist with his left hand before turning to the side, "Rulk! What happened to that task I asked you to do?"


A huge black man with his upper body naked and full of scars bowed from behind him and replied, "I sent three of my best men, Master. They should have reached the coast of Braavos by now and should soon send us the location of that Westerosi..."


"Good, that is good," Ravager nodded with a cruel smile on his face, "We not only need to thank that shipping company for this gift of Braavosi merchants but... also show him what happens when someone crosses one of us... Isn't that right, little Jack," he towards his son with clear disdain in his eyes.


"Y-Yes," Even though Jack was as large as his father, he turned into a nervous cat in front of his father, "But didn't the Advisor say that it would be hard to catch them at sea and that we should negotiate with them and buy from them their method of seafaring—"


"Che! He may be a very smart man but... sometimes he makes things too complicated." Ravager snorted with an uncaring look on his face, "I am Pirate King, boy. When I want something, I just simply... take it." He said confidently before turning back to his son with a look of disgust, "Not that a halfwit like you, who was made a fool of by that Westerosi not once but twice, would understand something like this..."


"Haha," The nearby pirates all burst out laughing at that.


Jack gritted his teeth at the humiliation as the surrounding pirates openly laughed at him, uncaring that he was their captain's son, "B-But it wasn't my fault father, it was that cunning Northern Shipping—"


"Don't give me excuses, boy. You whore of a mother gave me enough of them before I killed her," he turned to Jack with a menacing look on his face, "And what have I told you about calling me your father before you have earned the right to it, boy?!"


"T-To not do it."


"So what am I, then?"


"M-Master."


"Good, at least you can learn..."


"B-But, Master," Jack said as he hurriedly tried to change the subject, "Do you think it wise to openly provoke Braavos like this," he asked while gesturing towards the battle in the distance, "Wouldn't they just send their full might after us because of this..."


"And, so what if they did?" Ravager scoffed while comfortably leaning back in his chair, "Where are they going to attack? We're pirates, Boy. I have no home that they can ravage, I have no castle that they can loot, and I have no people that they can capture. The sky is my roof and the sea is my floor... If they attack me in Stepstones, I'll go to Slaver's Bay. And if they still follow me there, I'll just go and reave the shore of Westeros... Their mighty strength has no meaning if they can't attack me..." he scoffed.


"Besides it's their own fault for dangling this ripe fruit in front of me... they can't really expect a shark to spare its prey now, can they?" Ravager finished with a fierce smile and Jack reluctantly nodded his head.


"It seems they are giving up, Captain," The first mate announced while pointing towards the Naval battle in the distance that was finally reaching its conclusion.


None of the Braavosi warships had actually started sinking yet but they had taken enough of a beating to know that it was only a matter of time... So the Captain in charge of the Braavosi fleet decided to cut their losses and run away with all his ships while abandoning all the bulky merchant ships as bait because, after all, their lives were worth much more than the goods and people on those merchant ships.


"Signal them not to pursue the warships anymore and to surround the merchant ships," The Ravager ordered and the Advisor immediately nodded his head before making his subordinate wave a couple of green and blue colours from left and right.


"That took long enough..." Ravager grunted, standing up from his throne before ordering the pirates around him, "Board the ships. Kill every man who resists and shackle everyone who surrenders. If there are women on board then the captains get their first pick and they can use them for three days before they are sold but remember... if anyone wastes a valuable young virgin product once again, I'll string their naked bodies on ships without caring about who they are." he ordered and the pirates around him hurriedly nodded their heads


He then turned to Advisor, "Count all the loot and make sure that no one steals anything, and if you find a thief, just hang them." The advisor nodded as the Pirate King left towards his cabin to rest after giving his last order.


...


The camp of the Company of Rose which had been mostly empty for the past few days was bustling once again, as the victorious soldiers began ambling in.


Every single returning warrior had a wide smile on his face, and even the injured ones were laughing and joking.


The atmosphere didn't feel at all as if the sellswords were coming back after a battle, instead, it felt as if they had just gone for a peaceful walk and were now coming back after a picnic.


And why wouldn't they be happy... after all, a head-on battle between three big sellswords companies, consisting of more than four thousand warriors had occurred, and to think that their side had emerged victorious without taking any more than a handful of casualties and injuries... it was almost magical.


"Oi! Tark! Karl!" A guard loudly called his friends while waving his hands, "Come here, You fuckers!!"


"Ah! Darren, my friend, it's so good to see you again—"


"What the fuck are you talking about, you idiot! We saw each other just two days ago."


"Did we? Ah! I thought more than a week had passed since we left the camp... Aren't I right, Tarl?"


"Yes. I mean, we marched for our destination, we reached our destination, we fought the battle, we killed our enemies, and then marched back to our camp... It's hard to believe that it all happened in a matter of days... it honestly still feels like a dream.


"Was the battle really that easy?" The guard knew that the battle was a successful one from the smiles on their faces but he couldn't understand why they were exaggerating it so much...


"Easy? Easy?! It was fucking massacre, my friend, we absolutely slaughtered them... our usual training is more exhausting than this battle..."


"Really?"


"He's not lying Darren. The Company of Cats actually felt like just a gathering of wild cats... Their food storage was on fire, their horses were running away, and all of them were stumbling around like headless chickens... I don't think they even noticed us when until we actually hit their camps..."


"And even then they could barely put up any fight... They didn't mount any defence, they had no sembling of any formation, half of them had no weapon or armour on them, and even the ones who had them... the swings of their swords felt so weak, it was as if they had never held a sword before that day..."


"Yes, In fact, quite a few of them were just holding onto their stomach and kneeling on the ground, waiting for their deaths..." the man explained excitedly while waving his hands, "I wonder if they had eaten something bad before the battle..."


"You're right. I even saw one of them with his pants halfway down, shitting on the side..."


"Yes, Yes, I saw one too... but I felt so bad about him that I left him alone..."


"I didn't. I killed quite a few of those squatters. In fact, I was specifically searching for those shitting idiots because they were so easy to kill, HaHa!!"


"Ugh! I always knew that you were an evil bastard, Tarl... but to think you would kill a man going about his business... that is just wrong."


"Who cares! Those bastards from the Company of Cats were always so arrogant whenever we met them in the cities and they always looked at us as if we were just roadside beggars... this will show those cunts their place..."


"Argh! Now I wish that I hadn't been left behind to guard this empty camp..." The guard said enviously. "You all must have gotten plenty of loot too, right..."


"That... we didn't..."


"You didn't? Why?"


"Well... it seems that the commander had an agreement with the Windblown, that all the loot from the battle would go to them... so we had to leave the camp of Cats immediately after the battle was over..."


"What?! That's not fair!"


"Oh! don't worry, we are all going to be rewarded and get a big prize when we start our next contract with that young Northerner called Jon... The commander made a big speech about it and everything..."


"Bah! Who cares about that far-away thing... Hehe, let me tell you a secret, I sneakily stole a lot of gold from the enemy bodies before leaving..."


While the sellswords all around the camp were bragging and having a lively discussion about the recent fight, Jon was having his own conversation with Bran, the commander's son, who had been the one to lead all of these soldiers back to the camp.


"... And about three to four hundred of them scattered and managed to escape but the rest of them were annihilated, and their captain was also slain, so I don't think the Cats will be a sellswords company after today," Bran explained with a satisfied expression on his face, "and even if they regrouped, they wouldn't dare to show their faces in the Disputed Lands for a long long time..."


"Hmm..." Jon simply nodded his head while listening to Bran's report even though he already knew about most of these things because of his friends in the sky, "By the way, where's Gared? I didn't see him come with you..."


"Oh! Father and the commander of the Windblown, the Tattered Prince, went straight to the city of Myr. He wanted to meet with the nobles of the city as soon as he could because they couldn't be sure when Tyrosh would hire other sellswords company to take back their base and their lost land... so they wanted to take care of their rewards and complete their contract before any unfortunate complications arise..."


"That's good then," Jon nodded his head before he took out a few pieces of parchments and a piece of charcoal from his vest, "Here take these,"


"Huh? What's this for?"


"You know how to read and write, right?"


"Y-Yes." It was necessary as the son of the commander for him to know his numbers and how to read a letter, so he learned all that in his childhood.


"Perfect," Jon said with a satisfied expression on his face before waving his hands at the sellswords all around the camp, "I want you to gather all sellswords warriors in our company and do a simple survey on them... I want you to write their names, their measurements, and their preferred choice of weapons. Can you do that?"


"I can.... but, Why are you—Wait! Don't tell me, you're really going to—"


"I am," Jon simply nodded his head with a smile on his face, "So I need that information soon... and the ones whose names are on the top would get their gifts much sooner so If I were you I'd write Bran at the top..." He winked before patting his shoulder, "So get on with it, my friend." Jon said as he left the ecstatic boy behind him and began moving in the direction of the biggest tent in the middle.


"Did he say anything? Or try to leave?" Jon asked the two guards stationed a few meters away from the entrance keeping watch on the guest inside the Tent.


"No," one of the guards answered with a shrug, "Other than the cook delivering food, no one has gone in or out of this tent."


"Good." Jon nodded before removing the flap and entering the tent.\


But the next moment he froze and a weird look appeared on his face as Jon saw a completely different scene than the one he had been expecting.


Instead of an angry prisoner refusing to eat food, he found the Dornish prince calmly sitting on the table in the middle and heartily enjoying the meat and soup that had been prepared for him.


"I see that you've made yourself comfortable," Jon commented with an amused look on his face as he came to a stop in front of the table.


"Hmm..." Oberyn just hummed in reply without looking up as if he was more interested in the delicious rabbit meat in front of him than Jon.


"You're eating quite well for a man who was almost poisoned twice," Jon said after a while when it seemed like Oberyn wouldn't be the one initiating the conversation. It had been quite the sore spot for the man, so Jon was hoping for it to be a good way to begin their talk.


"For your information," Oberyn didn't quite grit his teeth but from the looks of it he was quite close to it, "I wasn't actually poisoned by your trick back in the camp, and the second time was nothing more than a fluke, so don't expect me to fall for that again..." he warned with his signature viper smile before he abruptly leaned back and wiped his hands with a cloth before picking up the cup of ale, "And since I easily can tell that this food isn't poisoned, I figured that it would be better for me eat it to retain my strength for... when I want to escape from this place..."


"You aren't really my prisoner, you know," Jon said while taking a seat in front of the table as Oberyn was finally done with his food, "You can leave anytime you want. After all, I wouldn't be so stupid as to capture a Noble of Westeros... especially one as beloved as you..."


"You've taken my weapon, you've placed guards outside this shabby tent, and you've placed my daughter away from me so that I don't... misbehave." Oberyn drawled in a thick Dornish accent, "I don't know what a prisoner means in that frozen wasteland of yours but from what I see this place is the exact definition of what a prison is..."


"You know who I am?" Jon asked with a raised eyebrow and for the time since Oberyn had met the boy, he saw surprise in his eyes.


"You thought I wouldn't investigate the boys who had robbed me in the centre of the Citadel." Oberyn said with a sarcastic smile on his face, "You're quite bold for a bastard, Jon Snow, aren't you?"


"Bastards need to be bold to survive in this world, don't we?" Jon replied after silently scrutinising Oberyn for a while, "Anyhow, you knowing my identity makes it much easier since you know about my father's honour and—"


"Tell me, then. What would your honourable father think when he finds out that you've forcefully seized a prince of Dorne and made him your prisoner? Which one could even go as far as to say is enough cause for war..."


"You have no shackles on your hands, you are eating the best food that this company can offer, you are staying in the Commander's own tent, and the only reason you don't have your weapon with you is so that you don't immediately try to fight your way out of this camp full of sellswords and injure yourself, and your daughter is already out and about..." Jon replied in a single breath, "So from where I am standing, I am giving you the best treatment I can give to a noble guest in the middle of nowhere. So no, I don't think my father would be too unhappy with me."


Oberyn was silent for a while before abruptly asking, "Where is Obara? Tell me where my daughter is, and maybe I won't try to kill you the next time I have a weapon in my hands."


"Well, when she woke up... her approach was as violent as you would expect from a daughter of yours, so I had to subdue and bind her. But even then she wouldn't stop trying to escape even at the cost of causing herself harm, so seeing that my assurance of not wanting to hurt either of you was not working, I had to take a more forceful approach..."


"What did you do?" Oberyn asked in a dangerously low tone.


"I just told her that if she can beat my young friend Sam twenty times in a training bout, then I would let the both of you leave unharmed and she..." Jon said with a small smirk on his face, "jumped on my offer quite happily."


'Ah that stupid girl,' Oberyn thought while shaking his head as most of his tension left his shoulders, "Aren't you worried that my daughter will kill the little Tarly?" he asked curiously after a few seconds.


"They are both fighting with blunted weapons in the middle of an open training ground, so no." Jon shook his head with a shrug, "Besides, Sam is a resilient boy and learns very quickly. In fact, after three quick losses, he even managed to clinch a lucky victory... so I am not too worried about him."


Oberyn was silent for a while before he nodded and smirked, "This is the commander's tent? Really? How poor is this company?"


"Don't worry, it won't be poor for long, now that it has come under me," Jon replied with absolute confidence, "But we're getting off-topic here, so let us get back to the reason I went to all this effort to talk to you."


"Very well, tell me, boy. What did you want to talk about?"


"I want to talk to you about my plan... to kill the person you hate the most in this world."


///

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[LazyWizard]

"...to kill the person you hate the most in the world,"

The effects of Jon's words were almost immediate as Oberyn's eyes widened in red-hot anger at the mere mention of his most hated enemy and for a moment it almost seemed as if he was going to lunge at Jon and get into melee right there and then.

But at the last moment, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and somehow managed to calm himself.

When he next opened his eyes he was calm once again and was looking at Jon with a deep scrutinising gaze.

He picked up the cup of ale on the table in between and took a big gulp from it before slamming it down and replying to Jon in a dark voice, "If this was your idea of a joke, then it was not very funny, Snow."

"But that was not a joke, my prince." Jon replied in a serious tone unbothered by the stormy anger in Oberyn's eyes, "I fully intend to follow through with what I just said and rid this world of Mountain and his band of filth."

Oberyn's grip on the cup tightened a bit more, almost crushing it, "And pray tell, why do you want to kill them? What did they do to you?"

"No particular reason," Jon shrugged without a change in his expression, "I just think that they are a scrouge on the face of Westeros and that they shouldn't be allowed to breathe the same air as us..."

"What kind of stupid reason is—" Oberyn's indignant reply abruptly halted as he realised just who he was talking to making his eyes suddenly widen in comprehension, "Oh..."

"What? What happened?" Jon asked with a confused tilt of his head as he was quite bewildered at seeing the sudden epiphany on the Viper's face.

"No, Nothing," Oberyn replied as a mysterious smile suddenly replaced all the previously intense emotions on his face.

All this time Oberyn had been thinking that 'the secret' he had inadvertently stumbled upon in the past was a very big one and that very few people in Westeros knew about it.

He had expected that the frozen-hearted lord of the North wouldn't have even bothered to tell his 'bastard' about it... but it seems he had been wrong about it, and this bastard seems to have some knowledge of his parentage.

It probably means that his fantasy of using this information to create a hidden weapon against the North and the Stark family was going to be a bust... because, after all, if what he suspected was true then the boy in front of him already knew that he was related to the almost extinct old royal family.

'But does he have the intention to use his bloodline to strive for the throne or does he want to live the rest of his life just as a 'bastard'...' Oberyn mused because the answer to this question would decide whether he was an enemy, a friend, or just another pawn that his brother could use (his brother who still ignorant about the big secret that Oberyn had unearthed because of his good friend Willas's mundane letter.)

"So, what do you think?" Jon finally asked after a while when he saw that Oberyn was just sitting there lost in his thoughts, "Are you going to join me on this crusade or not..."

"Answer me this first..." Oberyn asked suddenly while looking up with an intense expression on his face, "Are you doing this of your own volition or is Lord Stark behind this..."

"No, I already told you it's all my wish and my father has nothing to do with this. In fact, he doesn't even know that I have such plans," Jon replied shaking his head, "You're one of the first people I've told about this. This whole thing is going to be planned and executed by me using the funds I've earned from my shipping company so there will be no connection between this and the North..."

"You know, I've heard about that shipping company of yours. The Northern Wolf Shipping, right? You have made quite a name in Braavos because of that... But what you need to understand, boy. Is that no matter how much money you've earned from it, or how many ships and sailors you have under you... You just can't win against the Lannister's might and their influence. The moment you step a single foot in Westerlands and anyone even catches a whiff of your intentions, you are going to have a whole army after you and no one's going to be able to help you...not even your father."

"You are of course, completely right about all of those things," Jon said nodding his head in agreement, "But then again all of those things only apply if they ever find out about us..."

"You think that you are going to be able to get into the heart of Westerlands along with me and kill or capture the Mountain and his band, and then safely leave the kingdom without the Lannisters knowing about it," The sheer scepticism on the Dornish's princes spoke volume about what he thought of Jon's idea. "I don't know if you know about it but let me enlighten you to the fact that there is hardly any direct trade between Dorne and Westerlands so every single person coming in from my land with a Dornish look is looked at with intense scrutiny, so it would only be a matter before someone manages to recognise me in one port or the other... And once I am caught... well, I don't need to tell you the rest, do I?"

"We are not going to use any of the ports or travel through any big city at all, so you don't need to worry about any of that. Besides getting you into the Westerlands, finding where the Mountain and his men are, taking care of them as well as getting out of that place... It all comes under my purview. So you just need to... trust me."

"Haha!!" Oberyn immediately burst into laughter at that, "Trust you?! Boy! I hardly know you. And after meeting you just twice you suddenly want me to place my life in your hands?"

"Well, that is on you, because whether you agree with me or not, I am going to do it. I just wanted to give you a chance to join me because I didn't want you to suddenly hear about it in the future and then come after me in rage because I somehow stole your chance to get revenge..."

'That sounds like something I would do...' Oberyn mused with a raised eyebrow before he fell into a contemplative silence while seriously considering Jon's offer for the first time.

On one hand, the mere thought of the Mountain and his Men continuing to live and thrive had always sent his blood boiling. He couldn't even remember the number of times his brother had to stop him from going on a foolhardy mission to the Westerlands to quench his revenge. He had only stopped later when his brother offered him an alternative that, while slow, still was one that was far more likely to be successful...

But now that a much faster method had appeared in front of him, it was almost painful for him to resist the temptation to immediately jump on the offer... even if the one offering was the 'bastard' of a person he had always considered to be the usurper's dog until of course he found the big secret the loyal dog was hiding from his 'best friend'.

But that was the crutch, wasn't it?

The boy in front of him was from the enemy faction and even if he had a thin familial connection to his dead niece and nephew, it was still too vague for him to place his complete trust in him and for him to believe that he just wanted to take vengeance and did not have any other ulterior motive...

Oberyn thought for a long long time before he finally looked up at Jon who was patiently waiting for him and replied, "My answer is..."

...

Gill was bored...

He was alone in a foreign land sitting inside an absurdly expensive shop that was empty and had no merchandise to sell at the moment.

His only job at the moment was to sit on a chair behind the counter and answer the same query about when their shipping company was going to go on their next excursion.

During the first few days after Merchant Sam and the rest had left for the North, the shop had been crammed with Merchants from all over Braavos for the whole day, and Gill hadn't even been able to catch a break.

But now, after weeks of hearing the same answer, the visits from the various merchants or their retainers had become a lot less frequent, but it didn't mean that they had given up...

Oh, no, no, it just meant that most of them wizened up and decided to go the smart way and use the strongest hidden weapon in a Merchant's arsenal... bribery.

They came up with all kinds of ways to give him different kinds of under-the-table incentives so that he would be inclined to inform them earliest when they decided on their next excursion...

Gill, being a commoner from the North, was obviously quite scared at first to accept money for doing something that was essentially his Job. But then, Jon's letter arrived answering his hesitant question with a nonchalant approval saying that 'it' was his just reward for staying behind alone in Braavos while the rest got to go home, so he could take the money without any hesitation.

But it wasn't like Gill had any family back home who was waiting for him so he didn't really feel like he was sacrificing much by staying back here in Braavos so he still didn't feel too comfortable taking the money.

Regardless, after a few persuasions, Gill had given in and begun accepting the little 'bribes' that the Merchants liked to give... but even after accepting it he didn't spend a single copper from it instead he had just decided to keep it all safe inside a secure pouch.

He had decided after some thought that when all of his friends came back, he was going to use all of this money to throw them a big feast at the nearby tavern...

'That should put a smile on their grim faces...' He thought with a satisfied smile on his face.

He knew that some people would call him naive and stupid for this decision but Gill didn't care as he had never been one to put much worth in gold and didn't mind not saving the money for himself.

Besides, before he left, Merchant Sam had given him more than enough funds to live here comfortably so it wasn't like he needed the money anyway.

Especially since with time, the amount had become big enough to the point of making him uncomfortable.

Even though each merchant only gave him a small amount, when added together it became quite a sum, and that sum had almost doubled following the week when the disastrous news spread of what had happened with the Merchant fleet that Braavosi warships were protecting during their recent bi-yearly excursion.

A lot of people began to get disillusioned by the Braavosi warship's capability after that and they began to think that if they could get killed even under the warship's protection then wasn't it much better for them to contract the Northern Wolf Company that not only had good track but were also a lot cheaper and their trips were frequent too... before they took their break.

So safe to say that, Gill couldn't have even imagined a few years ago that he could in the future one day be able to sit on such a sum of gold under him...

A few years ago, he was just an orphan runt in the only orphanage in White Harbour. An orphan who wandered the streets of White Harbour day and night in search of work.

He had no prospect for the future and the most he could have achieved with his life was to become a labourer at the Port and live a life of hand-to-mouth while sleeping hungry on days when there was no work.

But then it all changed on the day that that bulky sailor came into the orphanage with an offer to the Septa in charge. He wanted to take all the orphans who were willing to train them to become sailors in a Shipping company.

The caretaker was obviously a bit sceptical about it all especially when she was told that all the orphans would get a place to sleep and be able to eat good food three times a day until they managed to pass the training.

But all her worries were put to rest when she found out that Lord Manderly was backing this endeavour and that the owner of the company was none other the son of Lord Stark.

But unlike his other friends, Gill hadn't been too enthusiastic about the prospect of becoming a sailor in the beginning...

He knew of course, that it was a privilege in the North to have someone not only give you filling meals every single day but also give you training in a valuable skill. But what could he do when his heart set on something else... when his childhood dream had been to become someone else...

Like every other child in the orphanage in White Harbor, Gill had also grown up hearing a lot of Knightly tales... of their grandeur, their bravery, their adventures and their romances.

Not only the caretaker but even the Manderly Grandaughters during their occasional visits to the Orphanage spun a lot of those wonderous tales filling their heads with fantasies.

Like all the others Gill had also been very fascinated with all of the stories about how brave the knights were and how they travelled the world and how they always honourably managed to save the damsel in distress.

And he wanted that life for himself so much...

But then he grew up and realised that they were just fictional tales and that the reality was a lot different.

Not only were the real knights not as honourable as the tales made them out to be, but in most cases you needed to be a noble first before you could even get the chance to become a knight.

So he could only bury his desires, give up his dream and join the training to become a sailor, no matter his disappointment.

And that turned out to be the best decision in his life.

At first, he had been a bit scared because, after all, there were a lot of scary stories out there of how most sailors die young either because of storms, or pirates or even of starvation.

But then he found out that they would also be trained in the way of swords and he couldn't contain his excitement.

Even when the training got harsh, and the other kids cried and began giving up, Gill never did... because he realised halfway through that this could also be a good alternative as he could become a warrior, travel the world, kill evil pirates, fight in war, and do all the things he had ever wanted...

So in a way, he was already living his dream...

And when Merchant Sam had said that someone needed to remain behind to watch over the shop as well as coordinate the letters as they came between Darrio the Banker, Jon and the Company, he had immediately volunteered himself as he felt that it would be very adventurous.

He had fantasised a lot about all the wonderful things he could do in Braavos during this break, from visiting famous places like the Titan or spectating the nightly duels between water dancers or maybe even paying a visit to the famous courtesans.

But it turns out that he was thinking too simply because none of the things he had imagined felt any fun without any of his friends from the Company to keep him company. Even something as simple as going to a nearby tavern for a drink felt too lonely and depressing without anyone from the North around him.

So he was now counting the remaining days until the crew arrived back from their trip to the North.

And thankfully, according to their last letter, it should take them no more than two to three days to arrive in Essos.

The clanging sound of a large bell broke Gill out of his musings and a single look at the light outside the shop told him that it was time to leave.

He immediately jumped off his chair and started putting things inside for closure, which didn't take him too long. And only a few minutes later he was leaving the shopping street of the port while saying farewells to the nearby local shop owners.

He was on his way towards the big mansion that Jon had bought for the Company to stay in while they were in Braavos and at the moment he was the only one who was staying in it.

On the way, he decided to take the shortcut through a dark alley that he always took... but the moment he stepped his foot inside, he knew that something was wrong...

A massive black man was standing with his back against the alley wall and the second he caught sight of Gill a massive grin appeared on his face as he immediately walked to the middle of the street to bar his way.

His hair standing on end, and Gill immediately thought to run but before he could even turn his head he felt a hard blow to his head making him see darkness around him as he fell to the floor.

"...Quickly... put him in the carriage..."

That was the last thing he heard before Gill lost consciousness.

...

With a loud bang, Sam slammed into the ground with his shield falling sideways and his blunted axe slipping out of his hand.

"I win..." Obara announced while breathing heavily as she held a somewhat shaky stick at Sam's throat as if it were a spear.

"Y-You... did. I... concede," Sam let out in a relieved tone.

If Obara was exhausted then Sam could barely move any of his limbs and was on the verge of fainting. He almost swimming in his sweat and could barely breathe after the repeated bouts he had had with the monster of a fighter that this woman was.

If it weren't for the shield in his hand having an advantage against a spear and the countless hours he had spent training his stamina and his skills under Jon, Sam didn't think that he could have even made this woman sweat given how strong, nimble and skilled she was with the blunted spear.

"Good," Obara replied as she caught her breath just a few minutes later, "Now, why don't you get that Northerner out here anc—"

"Obara!!" shouted a familiar voice making Obara's eyes widen and she immediately swirled her head to see her father standing outside the ring along with the Northerner brat, as if he had been spectating their bout for a while.

"Father!" She immediately beamed as she ran towards him, "Did you see? I won all the bouts. So according to the bet, we are now free to leave," she said with a proud smirk, "Isn't that right, Boy?" she asked while turning to Jon with a fierce expression on her face. It seems she was still miffed about the way she had lost to him the last time.

"Yes. Of course, you are free to leave..." Jon replied with an amused smile on his face, "That is if you want to..."

"What? What kind of nonsense is that? Of course, we want to—"

"Obrara!" Oberyn interrupted her with an exasperated look on his face. It was unknown whether he was embarrassed by his daughter's nativity or if he was apologetic because he was about to ruin all her hard work, "It seems that we are going to be joining this sellswords company for a while..."

That was the compromise both of them came to. Oberyn couldn't easily place his life in the hands of Jon so easily so it was decided that he would stay with the company for a year watching Jon and evaluating whether he had the capabilities to accomplish the task he had been boasting about.

And since Jon already needed that amount of time to put all his affairs in Essos in order he easily.

"W-What the fuck are you talking about, Father?"

"Ahem! You see..."

Jon was having the time of his life watching the Viper try and explain to his daughter why they were they were staying with their enemy even after all her hard work in the bouts when his expression changed abruptly as he looked towards the sky behind him to see an unfamiliar black raven flying towards him from the direction of the sea.

A frown instantly came upon his face when he noticed that the bird was a Warg's animal.

It didn't take him more than a second to realise that this bird must have belonged to one of the new wargs that Robb was going to send from Winterfell along with Merchant Sam.

But what he couldn't understand was why they were suddenly sending him a letter without waiting for him to contact them first at their regular time...

It must have taken the bird quite a while to find him going just by his last known location and he knew that Merchant Sam wouldn't put a warg through something so exhausting unless there was an emergency.

'Could something have gone wrong...' Jon's stomach immediately dropped as an uneasy feeling came over him.

Because of the battle against the Company of the Cats, he had to keep both Tweety and Frost beside him for an extended period of time, which meant that for a while he had lost both his eyes and ears around Braavos.

At that time, he hadn't thought that it would matter too much but now it seems...

The bird reached him and landed on his arms while he was analysing in his mind. Then without wasting a single moment, Jon tore apart the letter and began reading it.

A few moments later his expression turned sour as he crushed the letter in his hand.

His worst fear had been realised as the letter came bearing dark news.

"What happened?" Oberyn asked curiously after the grim look on his face.

"It seems that you'll get to participate in a battle to practice your skills much sooner than we had thought prince," Jon replied with an icy look in his eyes.

///

 

[LazyWizard]

A few days later, the commander arrived back at the Company of Rose with a wide smile on his face as if he had gotten very good news on his venture to the city of Myr.


But on the very next day that he returned a party of seven consisting of Jon, Sam, Oberyn, Obara, Commander Gared and a few others from the company, left the Camp on the fastest steeds that the company could provide towards the nearest port city.


And on that very same day, the Company of Rose also began to dismantle their camps under the supervision of young Bran, their Commander's son. The boy had been tasked by his father to begin transporting all of the company's warriors to a deserted coastline nearby where there would hopefully be ships ready to pick them up.


Since the Company travelled mostly on foot they would be a lot slower than them so Jon hoped that he would have enough time to make a trip to the city of Braavos, and then arrive back at the pickup location with all the ships in his company before the warriors reach there.


...


The first thing Prince Oberyn noticed about the boy during their travel was that unlike other Noble lads his age, Jon seemed to actually know what he was doing... instead of just pretending.


He always had this look of absolute surety on his face when guiding them as if he had never even considered that he could be wrong and while Oberyn knew quite a lot of young people with that unflinching confidence he could see that unlike others Jon's was one born out of conviction and self-assurance rather than arrogance.


Even Oberyn with his years of experience would sometimes get confused with which path to take and would have to stop every now and then to get his bearings. But not Jon... the boy was so sure of his path that it was almost uncanny.


In the beginning, he was quite sceptical when it was revealed that Jon would be the one to lead them and that too through a so-called shortcut.


He had imagined that in his haste to cut the time the boy would take a wrong path and would lead them in a circle or into a dead end and then they would have to backtrack and waste even more time.


But then he began taking them through all kinds of convoluted paths some were well trodden while others were deserted, sometimes they had to take a trek through a small forest while other times they had to go through the middle of a field of tall yellow grasses the height of men...and ever so slowly Oberyn began to feel that maybe he was wrong.


Because never once did the boy hesitate...


He was like a sure-footed Dothraki scout who had roamed the wilderness for decades. Except for the fact... that the boy was barely more than a decade old. So it was quite a conundrum for Oberyn to understand.


Even the commander of the company of Rose whom Oberyn had befriended along the way, was in awe of this and said that Jon was gifted by the Gods.


'Well... his ancestors considered themselves to be the Gods of the sky so maybe they were showing him the path through their 'magic'...' Oberyn mused before snorting at his absurd inner thoughts.


But then they reached the city of Myr in almost half the time according to Gared, and it made him question if there really was magic involved in this...


Oberyn couldn't have imagined how close he was to the truth there...


And that wasn't even the end of surprises.


When they entered Mry, they were greeted by a forty-year-old man, who called Jon Captain and was waiting for them with a carriage right outside the city.


Not only had the man prepared the carriage so that it could directly take them to the port, but he had also purchased tickets for all of them to a ship that was leaving for Pentos that very same day in just a few hours... which was just insane.


How in seven hells did he even know that they were going to reach the city at that time on that day... or did he fucking purchase so many tickets to Pentos every single day while waiting for them. Because no one could be that stupid and rich...


'Well... unless their surname's Lannister...'


And the same fucking thing happened when they reached Pentos, they had a man waiting for them at the port with seven tickets booked for them on the fastest ship that was leaving for Braavos the morning next day... it was just fucking mind-boggling.


After all, they had to know the exact date and the exact time the ships they were sailing on were going to reach that port... which he hadn't thought was possible for sea travel until then...


And how in the seven hells did he even get the message to them...


Anyway, the sheer logistics associated with doing something like this was something Oberyn didn't think possible for a bastard all alone in Essos because you would need to have a lot of money and a lot of ever-alert subordinates situated in all of the big cities who were ready to do your bidding at all times...


And whatever happened to travelling from city to city, staying at shit inns... arduously searching for the right ships while making sure that the captain wasn't a slaver or a pirate in disguise who would loot and sell you the moment their ship left the port.


Travelling the world of Essos was supposed to be hard, adventurous... and not this constant jump from ship to ship... He didn't think that even Essosi noble could have travelled like this...


Thankfully Braavos was their final destination so at least that would be the end of travelling on the sea for a while...


Or at least that was what Oberyn had hoped.


The moment their ship docked in Braavos, Oberyn wasn't much surprised to find that they once again had people waiting for them... and this time there was a whole group of them.


Most of them looked like sailors and almost all of them were Northerners. And Oberyn could somewhat understand that as from what he could gather, Braavos was the main base for Jon's shipping company.


"Good to see you, Uncle Sam," Jon said with an exhausted but warm smile on his face at seeing the familiar face of his Merchant friend after such a long time.


"You too, Captain. It's been too long." Merchant Sam replied while shaking Jon's hand.


"And these two must be Jarl and Nal," Jon said while looking towards the two young boys who stood out a bit amongst the burly rough sailors around them. They were both about 15 years old with brown hair and had common Northerner features with one of them being thin and tall while the other being short and thick.


"Ah! Yes, these are the—Er—helpers that Lord Robb sent us," the Merchant said changing his words midway after a quick glance at the unfamiliar faces behind Jon. "Come on, Lads, come greet him. He is the Jon Snow I was talking about, the owner of our shipping Company and Lord Robb's brother."


"Y-Yes," The boys immediately nodded and quickly forward to awkwardly bow to Jon, "Greetings, Milord."


"Don't be so nervous, and both of you can just call me Captain like the rest of them," Jon said with a small smile on his face and both of them immediately nodded their heads. Jon then turned back to Sam, but with a serious expression this time, "Where is he?"


The Merchant instantly understood what Jon was implying and replied with an equally grim expression, "At the shop. I told him to take some days rest but the boy is too stubborn and says that he was used to the shop during the last few months and that he couldn't stay in the room any longer..." he finished with a wry smile.


"Very well, then. We'll go straight to the shop," Jon nodded his head before he suddenly remembered something and turned towards his companions, "Ah! If you're tired then all of you can head towards the mansion first... It'll be a bit cramped with all of my sailors but it's still a lot more comfortable than an inn."


The only thing Jon had told Oberyn was that he had run afoul of some pirates and that they were going to retaliate using the Company of Rose but other than that, he was in the dark... So the prince was quite curious about who Jon was going to meet and how he was related to this venture, but then again he was also very tired from all the Sea travel...


"Perfect! A bed is exactly what I need," Obara nodded with a hint of relief in her voice, "Let's go, Father," she said making the decision for both of them.


Oberyn smiled wryly at that before nodding towards Jon and then followed Obara towards the two carriages that had already been prepared for them by Merchant Sam.


"Well, then boys. Let's follow them," Gared slammed his palms on the back of his two 'guards' who looked a lot smaller and weaker than him, "I want to go to this mansion and see our boss's as rich as he says he is..." he said with a wink at Jon before he chuckled and moved with his subordinates towards the other carriage.


"I know it from your letters but are you sure that this man has really not been in North all this time," Sam asked in a weird tone while watching the massive man who wouldn't look out of place amidst Umbers or Mormonts.


Jon shook his head in answer to that before turning to Sam, "Sam you should go with them, and make sure that no one... fights anyone." Jon had wanted to say 'kill' instead of fight but Sam had already gone pale at the thought of handling a group of people consisting of a Dornish prince, Essosi sellswords, and Northern sailors, so he didn't want to scare him too much.


"Yes," The Tarly boy nodded with a heavy expression on his face before going towards the carriage with Oberyn in it.


"Let's go, then Uncle Sam." He said turning towards the Merchant who nodded and they immediately began walking towards their shop.


The shop was situated in the prime location near the dock where everyone who landed in Braavos would have to pass through so it wouldn't take them more than ten minutes to reach it.


Along the way, Jon decided to ask in detail about the incident because of which he had to come here in such a hurry.


"...And since I wanted the new wargs, Jarl and Nal, to improve themselves and get their birds used to Braavos, I was having them make regular trips to Braavos every other day just for the sake of it. And that is how I knew that something was wrong immediately when the shop remained empty and closed during midday."


"After searching for him and not finding him even at the mansion, I began to worry that something had happened and immediately alerted Darrio through a letter straight to his table in the Bank..." Merchant Sam said before an impressed look appeared on his face, "And I have to give it to that banker, the man managed to find him that very same night using his resources and I guess the pirates not being the subtle sort had a lot to do with it too..."


"He is related to one of the most powerful men in Braavos so it is somewhat expected of him..." Jon said while nodding in a nonchalant manner. "Anyway, what happened to the pirates, did you manage to catch them alive?" he said with a dark expression on his face


"Sadly, no. The pirates were too good at fighting to capture them alive and they managed to kill five of Darrio's guards before they were eventually felled..."


"It's alright. I already know who pirates belonged to. So that's not much of a problem," Jon said with narrowed eyes, "Tell me about the ships. Are they all ready?"


"Yes, I had them begin repairing and stocking them the moment we docked here. I am also having the lads get used to the new galleys and Warships that Darrio managed to deliver to us, and even though the Warship is giving the boys a bit of trouble, they shouldn't have any problem after a few months of practice..."


"Good, then. Have them practice and be ready by the time we come back so that they can immediately come with us on our next trade trip."


"Huh? So we aren't taking the warships along with us to deal with the pirates..."


"No," Jon answered while shaking his slowly, "On this trip, I only want speed and efficiency and besides this is not going to be the naval battle you're thinking about, so don't worry."


"Oh..." The Merchant said with a confused expression on his face since according to what he knew, they were about to get into a confrontation with a pirate fleet that had a lot of ships... so if not through naval battle, then how else were they supposed to defeat them?


But alas they reached the shop at that exact moment so he could only suppress his curiosity inside him.


"Huh? Looks like those people still don't that the company has arrived back in Braavos..." Jon said after seeing that the shop was empty of customers lining up to ask about the date of their new shipping excursion as he had expected.


"Ah, no. They do know," Merchant Sam said shaking his head with a wry smile, "In fact, most of them already knew from the moment we stepped foot inside the port that we had arrived and they have all been hounding our shop and filling it to the brim for the whole last week, and they would still have been if Gill hadn't sent more than a dozen of our sailors to all of our important merchant customers to tell them that the ticket sales would begin in a month's time... so their curiosity has already been satisfied now that an exact date has been given..."


"Good then, this should also give us enough time to see if everything went smoothly with our trip to Stepstones and send back the message to prepare for the next trade excursion..." Jon nodded before he opened the wooden door and entered the shop.


The shop was simple, clean and big with plenty of space for a dozen people to stand around comfortably, which was more than anyone could say about any other shop on this street. There were a couple of beautiful paintings of ships, sailors and sea hanging on the wall and on the left side, there was a wooden desk counter behind with sat an empty chair.


"He must me in the back," Merchant Sam murmured before shouting towards the back room, "Gill, come out here, boy!"


"Coming!" came the shout of a young boy whose voice had barely started to deepen, "What happened, Uncle? Why did you come—Ah! Captain! You're back!!" he abruptly exclaimed in a surprised tone when he caught sight of the man standing beside Merchant Sam.


"Gill, how are you—" Jon abruptly died in his throat when he fully laid eyes on the exact condition of the boy in front of him and almost immediately his eyes widened and his mind went numb.


Of course, he had expected that it wouldn't be a pretty sight but he didn't think that they would be this cruel to a child who was barely 16...


The boy had dark purple bruises all over his face, his left eye was swollen shut and it seemed to have only just begun to heal, a few of his fingers were swollen as if they had been broken and healed...


All the nails in his left hand had been plucked brutally and he was limping when he walked out so he could imagine the same had been done to his leg... and these were the injuries that could be seen on the outside, so he couldn't even fathom what the rest of his body looked like...


When Gill saw where Jon was looking at he immediately tried to hide his hand behind him as if he was a child who had been guilty of wrongdoing... and that sight immediately broke something in Jon.


Jon rarely felt anger.


In fact, he couldn't even remember the last time he had been genuinely angry.


But this time... after seeing the bruised and beat-up look on the young boy's face he felt rage like never before...


He had been the one to recruit the boy and he had been the one to bring him all the way from North to here in Braavos, so he had always felt that it was his responsibility to take care of him...


But he had failed in that...


He had let this young boy not only get captured but also get tortured and almost killed and that thought made his blood boil and sent him into such a fury, that he couldn't control it...


He wanted to bring those dead pirates back to life and then torture them himself... he wanted them to suffer the same pain that boy had...


And then he wanted to find all the pirates that had been involved in this and tear them apart piece by piece with his own hands... and then...


His left hand was tightly gripping the sword at his waist while his right hand was making a deathly fist so tight that he could it become wet with blood... and his urge to kill became stronger and stronger...


"Jon...Jon...JON!!" Uncle Sam yelled in an alarmed tone suddenly bringing Jon back to the present.


"Huh? Wha..."


And just like that the haze in his mind cleared and Jon felt as if his mind was hit with a splash of cold water.


It was then, that Jon realised that he was shaking, sweating and breathing heavily as if he had trained for hours in the training yard and his heart beating so fast that he felt as if people would be able to hear it from a mile away.


'What happened to me... Why did I...' Jon had never felt like this, he had never lost control like this, ever. He was not a person prone to anger, not in this life especially not in his previous... In fact, this was the first time he had felt so...


"A-Are you alright?" Sam asked in a concerned but also slightly scared tone, his eyes flickering between Jon's face to his left hand with something akin to amazement.


"Huh? Oh, no, I am fine. It's just..." And that is when Jon noticed where the Merchant was looking and lowered his head to see a sight that dumbfounded him.


The sword handle he was gripping with his left had been completely bent and was almost on the verge of cracking...all because of how tight Jon was holding it. Which was humanely impossible, "Ah, this...hmm... I guess the sword..." Jon replied, shaking his head and removing his hand from the sword, deciding to leave this mystery for a later time. "It must have been from a defective product."


'But it had been made by the best blacksmith in Winterfell...' Sam wanted to say but kept it in. He wasn't sure what exactly had happened but he heard plenty of stories about the so-called wolf blood, and since the boy already had an ancient magical ability in him that was supposed to be a part of legends... it wasn't too out of the realm of possibility that he had other abilities too...


"Anyway, How are you now, Gill?" Jon asked after taking a deep breath.


"I am fine now, Captain." the boy replied while scratching his head before he flinched in pain and looked at his tremoring nail-free hand with a wry smile, "Well mostly, fine..."


"Tell me everything, from the very beginning..." Jon asked in a very solemn tone.


"Well, I closed the shop early that day and was on my way back..." He immediately began telling the story with a practised tone as if he already told it to others countless times.


"...Hehe, and since I knew that Merchant Sam and the other were going to arrive in Braavos in just a few days. I was sure that I would be saved by them, so I didn't panic and resist them instead I gave them the wrong information that you were in Pentos for a meeting with Magisters about some goods so that they would leave me alone..."


Gill then shook his head with a wry smile, "But I guess they didn't like that I gave them the information too quickly or maybe they were just bored while waiting for a ship to take them away... anyway, even though I gave them the information, they still came by every few hours to ask the same question to see if I crack and change my answer... But I didn't. Not even once."


"That..." Jon didn't know how to reply to the hint of pride in the boy's eyes and could only say, "I... am very proud of you Gill. You are the bravest boy, no Man that I know."


"Hehe, I didn't do that much," the boy said shyly but his chest swelled with a surge of happiness at that and even though he knew that Jon was almost the same age as him and that he could be only saying those words to comfort him but still... those words almost made him feel like he was praised by his...parents.


"Now, Tell me, Gill. Are you fit enough for long-term sea travel, or do you need some more rest?"


"Eh? Oh, Yes, I am completely fit." Gill replied enthusiastically to Jon's question, "Maybe I can't fight for a while but I can still help around the ship and..."


"You misunderstand," Jon said shaking his head, "I don't want you to come with me for those things. I want you to come with me because I am going to destroy all those Pirates belonging to that group..." Jon said in a dark tone, "and I want you to be there to witness that. So do you want to come with us?"


"I...." Gill was flustered for a while on how to answer this before he abruptly remembered what it had felt like staying inside that closed room with no windows, getting starved, tortured, screaming with no one there to hear him, feeling so helpless, so weak... and almost immediately a resolute expression appeared on his face and he replied, "I want to."


"Good." Maybe Jon was wrong and maybe the boy would be better off with some therapy or even retiring from this job but this wasn't Earth and here in this world, it was believed that revenge was the best therapy, "Then let's go catch some pirates..."


///

 

[LazyWizard]

"Wolf's blood?" Robb asked in a bewildered tone and the massive shadow cat sitting by his side nodded in a humane manner. "You want me to find out about Wolf's blood?"


Robb and Jon were sitting beside the icy pool in the Godswood of Winterfell. Robb was there in person while Jon was there in the mind of Tiger his Shadow Cat.


Now, normally, a conversation between a human and an animal was a mentally exhausting endeavour at best times. And while the animal having a warg inside his head made it a tad bit easier... it was still not a walk in the godswood.

But with years of practice under their belt, Jon and Robb had managed to make this way of communication into something akin to an art... with Jon using Tiger's paws to write in the soil and Robb using his familiarity with his brother to understand what the ugly words crawled into the ground meant.


"That is correct," Jon wrote agonisingly slowly and in a short form that probably only Robb or Sansa could understand, "I want you to search in the library to find any of the old books that mention the Wolf's Blood. It doesn't matter if it just mentions a small incident or even as a joke, I need you to mark those books and those pages so that I can see them when I come back..."


"Did you forget how big our library is?" Robb asked with a raised eyebrow, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, "How am I supposed to search through all of them while trying to look for just a few words... Especially since most of the old books are in Old Tongue which I am still not particularly good at."


"Oh, you don't need to read all the books. You can just start with all the personal accounts you can find in there like if any of our ancestors wrote a journal or if there is a Maester's diary in there..."


"But why... Did something happen out there?" he asked with a note of worry in his voice.


"No, nothing," Jon replied shaking his head, keeping silent about his upcoming adventures with the Pirates that he knew Robb wouldn't be too happy about, "Just curious about it... want to know where all those stories and legends about the so-called 'Wolf's Blood' originated from..."


"Fine," Robb said nodding with a slight frown on his face, "I will see when I can find the time..."


"Oh, you don't have to do it all on your own," Jon added after seeing the somewhat miserable look on his brother's face, "You can get some of the Acolytes to help you select the appropriate books and I am sure Sansa or Emily wouldn't mind helping out either once you mention that it's to help me..."


Even though they were just words scrawled on the ground, Robb could almost feel that Jon was standing in front of him with a smirk on his face, bragging about how he was the favourite sibling.


"That would indeed make things a lot easier for me..." Robb said with a hint of relief in his voice.


"That busy, huh?"


"Oh, You can't even imagine," Robb breathed out with an exhausted smile, "And not only me, Father, Maester Luwin, The Steward and even Mother, every single one of them are busy with work from dusk to dawn." he said before looking at Jon with a fake annoyed look, "And most of the work is kind of your fault,"


"What? What did I do?" Jon asked somehow making an indignant expression using the Shadow Cat's eyes.


"Have you been to Wintertown lately? Do you know how large it has gotten now? Do you know that the number of people that live there now, during the peak of Summer, is almost triple the amount of people that came down to live there during Winter? And not mention the amount of people that just pass through there daily..." Robb just shook his head with a sigh, "It is just mind-boggling..."


"Are you sure you are not exaggerating?" Jon asked with a hint of scepticism in his voice.


He had been quite busy in Essos for the past few months so he had kept both Frost and Tweety beside him and since neither his Shadow Cat nor his Kraken Inky was any good for wandering the streets of Wintertown, it indeed had been quite a while since he was able to scout how Winterfell or rather how North as a whole has been doing... but still, he didn't think it has been so long as to have as big a change as Robb insinuating.


"I am really not exaggerating here. In fact, even though not quite to the level of King Landing, I think our small town is well on its way to becoming a small city like White Harbour in a few decades if it goes on like this,"


"Now you are just making things up..."


"I am really not..." Robb said with a wry smile, "You wouldn't doubt me if you actually saw the number of smallfolk and Merchant who stand in line every single day in front of Winterfell to meet us to get permission to open a shop or build a house or do business or a dozen other thing... And not to mention the Lord's and the other vassals... Oh! How I hate the lot of them,"


"What? Why?" Jon asked with an amused look on his face, "What did they do?"


"Oh, they are just the worst." Robb said as he shook his head, "Every time one of them arrives at Winterfell gates, we just need to drop everything we are doing and meet them and then entertain them for the duration of their stay no matter how long (and it is quite long for some of them) and not to forget the feasts at night... Ah! I tell you, Jon, we would have already been bankrupted by the amount of small and big feasts we had to throw in their honour during the last year if we had not already gotten so much richer... And it would have been fine if it was just once or twice but the frequency of visits has just reached ridiculousness.... And there is no sign that it would stop anytime soon as all of them are dying to get a piece of the prosperity that had suddenly fallen into our hands..."


"But why? It can't be all just because of the factory and the new blacksmith street, can it?"


"Oh, no, no," Robb said as he immediately shook his head, "I mean, sure, they could have played some part in it but the most crucial reason for all this sudden fortune (which had even evaded all of us for a while) was our decision with... the roads,"


"What? But that doesn't seem right, we are not actually making new roads, are we? We are just repairing and improving the already laid Kingsroad to make travel faster around North." Jon asked with a confused look on his face, "If the roads were so pivotal then wouldn't North or Wintertown have already flourished far in the past when they were first laid down?"


"And you are right about that." Robb nodded his head with a small smile as he had asked the exact same question to Maester Luwin when he suggested that Roads were the main reason behind this Windfall, "The roads alone would have never been enough for all this to happen... if they hadn't had the help of the other changes that had been made in the North during the last five or so years..."


"Huh?"


"Let me explain. You know that even before, Wintertown or rather Winterfell was somewhat of a trade centre of the North right? Or at least they had that intention when our ancestors first laid down here but unfortunately, even after years and years, the town could never fulfil its potential as North was just too big and Winterfell was not very accessible to utilize its location from the other parts of the kingdom. But now... now it can finally do that."


"Ah..." The shadow cat abruptly got an enlightened expression in his eyes as if he finally understood what Robb was trying to explain.


"That's right Wintertown is finally a place that is the easiest for the people of the North to get to and trade." Robb nodded with a somewhat excited expression, "Even before all this, Winterfell was already somewhat well-connected with White Harbour and the East part of the North because of the river White Knife, and now... travel had only become easier due to the frequent ships running up and down to transport the Starkhorse shipments from our factories. And more importantly, due to the now far more practical roads, we are also much better connected to the western holdfasts, most significant of which are Bear Island and Deepwood Motte which are at the moment brimming with goods from the Westerlands and the Reach which they can now easily bring to Wintertown and ultimately transport to the rest of the kingdom... The North has gotten much smaller,"


"This is all so... unbelievable,"


"I know," Robb nodded his head, "Who would have thought that North would change so much... Trade is booming all over, and no one is going hungry as food prices have never been lower. In fact, a few days ago I even saw some merchants that came all the way from Riverlands to trade with us, which is just... beyond belief." Robb shook his head with a smile, "And to think that we are not even one-fourth of the way through with the roads,"


"... It seems that the golden age of the North has finally come,"


"You're right about that... And North is more than ready for it."


...


There were many big and small islands in the chain of rocky islands that make up the Stepstones. But only a few of them were famous and big enough for people other than pirates to know of their names.


The biggest and most famous one was of course Bloodstone Island having previously been a host for not only half a dozen petty Pirate kings but also the infamous, Daemon Targaryen, self-declared King of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea, who lived here for a short time during the height of Targaryen power in Westeros.


And now this island came under the rule of the infamous Lysene pirate and sell-sail with the most number of ships in Stepstones, Salladhor Saan.


But the second most famous island was called Grey Gallows and that is where the Ravager Fleet has made their base over the last decade or so.


Even after so many years, the pirates still hadn't made any permanent homes here instead they just used the centuries-old broken-down castles and buildings scattered across the island as shelters because after all their 'jobs' as pirates meant that they spent far more time at sea than at land.


On the top floor of the centermost castle on that Island, the Advisor exited the meeting room with a tired and irritable expression on his face.


The meeting had been a completely useless one just like all the others that had been called for the last week.


Ever since they had arrived back at their base the Pirate King Ravager had begun the long gruelling process of recalling all of his pirates who were scattered across Essos.


It was foolish and wasteful to keep a large number of ships in a single place without them doing anything, so most of Ravager's subordinate pirates had been sprinkled all over Essos in different numbers and they were free to traverse the waters surrounding different free cities looting and killing rich Merchant ships whenever they wanted. And they only came back to the base every few months to share information or sell their loot... both living and non-living kind.


And as for the reasons he was now recalling all his forces, well, there were mainly two of them.


Firstly, to share a very small portion of the massive wealth that he had looted from the Merchants that the Braavosi ships were protecting, which was a must in his position if he wanted to continue using them as cannon fodder in the future.


Secondly, he wanted them present near him and to consolidate his fleet's strength so that in case Braavos was stupid enough to underestimate him and send a weak force as revenge then he could decide at the drop of a hat if it was profitable to stay and fight them off. And if Braavos' retaliation was more fierce than expected he could also make the quick decision of leaving this part of Essos for a while to sail in seas out of Braavos' influence such as the Slaver's Bay.


Because no matter how much he made fun of them in front of his pirates, his actions still showed that he was quite scared of their retaliation.


But this meeting hadn't been about that, no, this meeting had been about the loyal lackeys of Ravager who had been sent to Braavos for that— very important task.


But after sending a short letter two weeks ago that said that they had been successful in their task and had captured a man who could have the information about the whereabouts of Northern Wolf Captain, they had gone completely silent.


So the Ravager had called upon his most trusted and competent pirates to ask them what their opinions were on this situation and what they thought happened to those two.


Most of them decided to go for the ass-licking route and suggested that they were probably on their way back with good news and that the only reason they weren't able to send any letters was that they were on a ship which Ravager somewhat agreed with from the pleased look on his face.


But a few also suggested that maybe they had gotten captured by Braavos while they were on the Island and while the Captain didn't like that he agreed that it was a possibility so he declared that they would only wait for them for four more weeks before deciding on their next course of action.


One of them, a reckless drunk fool, had even dared to suggest while whispering that maybe they had already gotten that secret method of Sea travel from the Northerner but had gotten greedy and decided to keep it a secret for their own use or sell it to the highest bidder...


Obviously, that man didn't survive the meeting for even suggesting something as insulting as Ravager being weak enough to lose control over his own men...


But the Advisor's instincts were telling him something else... that those two were already dead.


After all, the man they were targeting was not a normal human... because if what he had felt back then was right then he may just be a...


"Ah! Advisor! Do you want to partake in some girls? We got some nice goods from those Braavosi Merchants, hehe..." As the former Volantis noble turned pirate was on his way back to his room he was blocked by an ugly pirate with a lewd look on his face. He was one of the smaller pirate captains with barely more than three ships under him.


The screams coming from the nearby room told him that the girls were obviously not very willing in the... partaking.


"No," The advisor replied with a cold expression on his face barely stopping in his path, "Now get your ugly mug out of my face," he continued while looking at the pirate as if he were a cockroach before shoving him aside and moving on.


"You—" The Captain's face flushed in humiliation but just as he was about to do something stupid in his drunkenness, his fellow pirate stopped him.


"Oi! Leave him alone," The man said holding his friend's shoulder back, "You know how much the captain treasures him... Don't you remember what happened to the last Captain who crossed him?"


A hint of fear appeared on his face at the mention of that incident... before he spat on the floor to save his dignity and went back to the room to vent.


Advisor didn't care for what the creatures who were worth less than trash were doing as he was already in the next corridor.


He wanted to get to his room as fast as he could so that he could take a rest... which raised a few questions as the windows he was passing by clearly showed that it was barely noon at the moment which meant that the night had only passed a few hours ago.


But the reason his body was craving so much sleep was very simple... he hadn't slept for more than a few hours over the whole last few weeks.


And the reason for that was the same man that was giving Ravager so many headaches... Jon Snow, The Captain of the Northern Wolf.


Ever since he learned that they were going to target that company only one thing kept revolving around his mind again and again... those dark grey eyes looking straight at him from an impossible distance through the other end of his far-eye...


The way they had lost their last battle against the Northern company had just been bizarre.


The rest of the pirates had thought that it was just a coincidence that their ships had suddenly lost their sails just as they were about to chase enemy ships... That there just happened to be a mad group of seagulls flying around waiting to tear through their sails...


Those stupid pirates were satisfied with that explanation and just decided to drink a few to forget about it.


But Advisor didn't forget... because he couldn't forget about it even if he wanted to.


After all, he wasn't like the others.


He knew things...


He had grown up in Volantis as the third son of one of the highest-ranking nobles before he was forced to become a pirate, so obviously he knew a lot more about magic than an average pirate...


He knew that magic was a real tangible thing...


He had seen a few different forms of magic being performed in front of his very own eyes... he knew what it could be used for, he knew the things it could do...


He knew that it wasn't gone from the world like everyone else believed... instead it was just weakened, in hiding, waiting for a chance to come out...


And he knew that what he saw that day... was magic.


Of course, he had kept this discovery of his to himself, because why would he tell them... why would he try and save those worthless trash from the wrath of a being who was much more than a man...


Because even after so long, he didn't forget that he was just a prisoner and not a real pirate...


So he did not care whether they lived or died... the only thing he cared about was him and his son, his blood... The one person he wouldn't let be killed even if the enemy knew magic...


But on the other hand, if he could somehow use this to his advantage... then maybe...


"Wait! What if..." The Advisor abruptly stopped in the middle of the corridor as his eyes widened in sudden enlightenment and then without waiting a single moment he suddenly turned back and began moving away from his room towards the lower parts of the castle.


He passed by room after room as he went deeper into the castle before finally ten minutes later he stood outside a small blackened room at the very end of the corridor.


"Are you in here?" he asked while knocking on the door.


There was mad scrambling and loud clattering from the other side for a few moments before a sixty-year-old man wearing a blacksmith apron opened the door with a surprised expression on his face, "Ah! Ser Advisor! What can I do for you? Do you need your weapon repaired?"


The advisor didn't care about the man calling him a Ser as he knew that it was something ingrained in his blood as a former smallfolk to call all the people higher than them Ser.


"You're from Westeros right?"


"Eh? Ah! Y-Yes I am— I mean, I was. I lived there in Riverlands for about twenty years before I left for Essos to run away from a petty crime and then felt that it was much easier to make money here as a pirate than anything else, hehe..."


"So you must know about the place called North..."


"Huh? Um, yes, I do know a few things from here and there but not much... because even though we were the closest Kingdom to North, people rarely ever travel out from there," The part-time Blacksmith replied while scratching his head, "Ah! But I had an old man from the North who lived in my village so even though I have never been there I do know a bit..."


"Then do you know about their legends, their folk stories, their myths..." The Advisor asked with a serious look on his face, "Things from their history that people believe are just made up to scare children..."


"Huh? Do you mean like Snarks and Grumpkins... or do you mean legends like Bran the Builder..."


"Everything!" he whispered as his eyes narrowed in intense focus, "I want you to tell me everything..."


///

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[LazyWizard]

It was the hour of the wolf, the darkest time of the night just before the first rays of the Sun washed away the darkness.

In a medieval world like Planetos, the night represented the unknown, the terrifying, the time when even the bravest of knights were hesitant to go outside and this fear of the unknown was magnified a hundred times out on the open ocean.

Or at least it should be... for normal people...

Fifteen huge but sleek ships unhesitatingly cut through the vast turbulent ocean water during the hour of the wolf as if uncaring of the boundless darkness surrounding them.

All the ships were moving in a bird-like formation with adequate distance between them. The ships all had some kind of lamps on them spreading the light but the foremost ship, also the largest one, was leading the way using five massive torches that didn't go out no matter how fierce the wind got.

In a cabin inside the leading ship, sat a middle-aged man with black lustrous hair, a sharp nose, and black viper eyes. His face was set in a permanent gloomy expression as he sat on his bed contemplating some things while sharpening the tip of a spear in his hand, meticulously.

A sharp knock on the door broke the man out of his concentration and he looked up as a voice called from outside, "Father, are you awake?"

"Yes, come in," Oberyn replied while placing the spear vertically against the wall beside his bed.

The door to the room opened and in came Obara, Oberyn's oldest, looking much more like a woman now than during their time with the Company of Cats. Her hair had grown up to shoulder length and she had also stopped binding to her chest to hide her gender now as she had decided that they were in 'safe' company... for now.

"You're up early today," Oberyn asked with a raised eyebrow, "Something happened?" The Dornish man knew from the view outside his small window that there should still be about an hour before the sun rose on the horizon.

"We have reached, father," Obara replied in a peculiar tone.

"Hmm? Reached where?" Oberyn asked distractedly while putting on his leather armour that he never left his room without.

"The shore," Obara clarified while still looking at her father with a strange look as if she didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "We have reached the shore of Disputed Lands near Tyrosh where we were supposed to pick up the Company of the Rose..."

Oberyn's fingers which were in the midst of tying the knots on his armour froze for a few moments before he looked up at Obara with an amused smile, "Did that sellsword put you up to this? I know that we had a bet but still... he didn't have to be so desperate," he shook his head while finishing his getup, "How could we have reached Tyrosh so soon when it's barely been a week since we left Braavos... we should have barely crossed Pentos by now..."

"Just... come out and see for yourself," Obara interrupted with a look of sympathy on her face before she left his cabin.

Oberyn wryly smiled at his daughter's impatience but followed after her nonetheless.

After closing the door to his room he walked a dozen steps down the hallway before he reached the stairs and climbed them to reach the deck only to find more than a dozen sailors going to and fro all over the place doing... sailor things.

He wasn't too surprised to see this flurry of activities so early in the morning as he had learned over the past week that he had travelled with this Northern Wolf company that all the ships in it had sailors working in shifts which meant that sailors would be toiling over sails even during the darkest part of the night when not a single thing would remain visible in the surroundings... except of course, that bright torches on the uppermost portion of the ship acting like a lighthouse.

He had obviously been very curious about how it was possible for these ships to not only navigate the open sea during the night but also to do it without hugging the shore.

In fact, Oberyn hadn't seen any sign of land since they had left the city of Braavos and it would have been quite concerning if it weren't for the nonchalant way that all the crew behaved around him as if they hadn't even contemplated the notion that they could get lost on the ocean.

But sadly even after he set aside his pride and 'nonchalantly' asked Jon about his secrets his curiosity didn't get sated as the boy just smiled at him and pointed towards the sky in answer.

Oberyn had taken a while but had eventually managed to gather that the boy was maybe pointing towards the possibility of using the position of the sun and the moon in the sky to navigate... or at least that was the most prevalent theory amongst the sailors whom he had befriended during this time.

Shaking his head and deciding to forget about it for now, Oberyn walked past all the sailors to reach the edge of the ship where he found Obara waiting for him along with Gared, the leader of Company of the Rose.

"Haha, you finally came Viper," the massive man immediately guffawed after seeing Oberyn's face, "I thought you would stay hiding in your room from the shame of losing the bet."

"Lose the bet?" Oberyn snorted with an amused look on his face, "Are you perhaps still drunk from last night? Because I am not sure if you correctly remember how many days had passed since we left the shore so unless you mean to tell me that we traversed all the way from Braavos to Tyrosh in under a week... how exactly did I lose that bet..."

"Hehe, I mean to tell you exactly that..." he said before turning and pointing towards the distance with a shit-eating grin, "Look there! We've indeed reached the shore of Tyrosh,"

"I... can't see shit," Oberyn replied with a deadpan expression on his face while squinting and trying but unable to see more than a few meters ahead of him even though the darkness had begun to lighten up a little as the sunrise wasn't too far away.

"Ah! Apologies," Gared murmured as he rummaged through his vest before taking out a far-eye, "Here,"

Oberyn looked at Gared with a curious look on his face wondering how far the man was going to take his prank but he took the far-eye from his hand nonetheless. He raised the contraption and put it on his right eye before peering into the distance.

For the first few seconds he couldn't see anything but then abruptly out of nowhere, he began to see faint small dots of lights in the distance.

As he narrowed his eyes further, he finally caught sight of the shore in the distance occupied by what looked like tents upon tents of a sellswords company with hundreds of men hurriedly running everywhere and haphazardly moving things around as if they had just been given the order to pack up.

The scene left Oberyn mute for a few seconds before he managed to ask, "Are you sure they are the Company of Rose? Maybe we accidentally found some other group..."

"Yes, Yes, I am sure what my own company looks like," Gared replied while rolling his eyes.

"But... how exactly is this possible," Oberyn asked after finally taking the far eye off his face with a frown on his face, "I know that we were sailing day and night and we didn't take any breaks but still... it is too absurd to clear the distance between Braavos and Tyrosh in just six days." It was too much for the Dornish man to even fathom all the implications... of what one could achieve with speed such as this on their hands.

"As I told you before, my friend, I don't know and I don't care to know," Gared shrugged with an unconcerned look on his face, "I don't question too much and just believe in the boy when he tells me shit with that look of conviction on his face... and I haven't been led wrong with it yet."

When Jon had told them that they would only take about a week or so to reach their destination from Braavos, Oberyn had of course taken it as a joke and laughed it off, but Gared hadn't. The sellsword Commander believed in the Northerner boy completely and after seeing the disbelief in the Westerosi noble he had gleefully proposed a bet with him... a bet that Oberyn lost.

'Just how many more shocks is this boy going to give me,' Oberyn mused while placing 10 gold dragons in the eagerly waiting palm of the sellsword.

A few hours later, they reached the shore with the morning sun brightening up the sky, but since Jon had told Bran, Gared's son, to lead the company to the nearest coast he could find, there wasn't a proper dock here, so all their ships were anchored in the distance in the shallow waters and were not sending small rowing boats turn by turn to pick up sellswords to take them back to the ships half a dozen at a time.

Jon, Gared and Oberyn were standing underneath a tall coconut tree on the shore some distance away watching the ships slowly get loaded up with the warriors.

"So how far are we from Stepstones from here?" Gared suddenly asked curiously.

"Hmm... about five days if we take it slow and don't move during the night," Jon answered with a shrug, "That should give all of my sailors as well as your sellswords enough time to rest and prepare for the upcoming battle,"

"Ah! That's good then and it will probably also give some of the young ones who haven't been on a ship before, some time to assimilate to the sea..." Gared murmured with a nod.

They fell silent for a while after that before Oberyn finally asked the question that had been bothering him all this while, "So how are we actually going to do this? What is your attack plan? Are we going to take them down one by one? Employ hit-and-run tactics or what?"

"Hmm, Guerilla tactics are fine and good... but only if we wanted to defeat them ship by ship but my plan is much simpler," Jon replied in a calm voice, "We attack their base at night when they are all gathered together on the island... take them off guard with our full might when they least expect it and then... annihilate every last one of them."

"...That's it?" Oberyn asked back with an incredulous look on his face, "That's your whole plan,"

"Yes. That is right," Jon nodded with an interested expression on his face, "Why? Do you think it won't work?"

"You do know that you're about to fight the Ravager fleet, right?" Oberyn asked, somewhat confused with the nonchalant way the boy was taking all this, "The fleet of the notorious pirate king who has been hunting in these waters for the last decade or so. He probably has more than 100 ships under him not to mention the number of pirates... there must be something like 3000 to 4000 pirates waiting for us on that island ready to defend him." he said with a raised eyebrow, "How exactly do you expect us to defeat them with just these 15 ships, five hundred sellswords and what 150 of your own sailors? We will be completely and utterly destroyed if we meet them in a battle and that is a fact." He had expected that the boy had some kind of intricate plan, like the one he had used to bring down the Company of Cats, but this...

"First of all, they don't have 100 but 70 ships in that fleet," Jon replied in an unperturbed tone, "And secondly, I know exactly where that man is, where all his pirates are, what he is doing at the moment so he is just like sitting duck to me... and if we are done with him, the rest of his pirates will be just like headless chickens waiting to be slaughtered..."

"You make it sound so simple," Oberyn said with an exasperated sigh, "Even if the information you have is correct they still have about five times the number of ships that we have, and that Ravager is not some small-time crook who will run away at the sign of a fight... Last I heard about him, he even had the guts to loot from Braavos and do you know what they did about it? They placed a bounty on him of about 100,000 gold dragons, because they knew that even they wouldn't be able to easily catch someone like him with all his ships if he decides to fight or retreat..."

"And everything you are saying is correct... but once again these things only matter if we are going to go against them head to head in sea warfare which we are not... so the number of ships they have wouldn't matter," Jon said before a mysterious smile appeared on his face, "Besides I have a secret weapon under me which is going to make things a lot easier for us..."

"What?! What weapon?"

"Now for that... you will just have to wait and see," Jon replied with a playful smile, "After all, isn't that what you're here for," Jon said before leaving towards the boats which were just about finished with delivering the last group of sellswords.

Jon, of course, knew why the man was so frustrated, after all, anyone in his situation would have been if they didn't have the whole information that Jon had. But it wasn't like he could tell him all of the juicy secrets...

Besides, even if he could, Jon wouldn't want to because as they say the lower the expectation the higher the shock value and the more impact it would leave on him when things go out of his expectation...

Oberyn had an irritated look on his face as he watched the boy walk away arrogantly(in his opinion).

He was unsure if he should believe in the Northerner and take this huge risk or if...

"What about you? You don't have a problem with this?" He asked turning to the one man who was taking a much bigger risk than him with the existence of his company depending on it.

"Hey, I told you before, didn't I? I just believe in him and don't think too much about it..." Gared shrugged nonchalantly.

After all, the company commander had already seen the boy accomplish quite a few unbelievable things since the day he had met him, so he had faith in him...

"But if you are really not sure then how about another bet, huh?" Gared asked with a cunning smile, "I could always use some more gold, Haha,"

"You incorrigible?" Oberyn shook his head with a helpless smile, "Let's just go before they decide to leave us here,"

What Oberyn didn't know was that if he had asked Jon this exact question about his plans just a few days ago, then his answer would have been a lot similar to his own suggestion and something along the lines of hit-and-run. But thanks to something that happened three nights ago... his plan changed completely, as he got the surprising 'secret weapon' out of nowhere... as if the old gods were sending him their gift.

...

Three Days ago...

"Chii! Chii! Chii!" came a cute squeaking squeak from somewhere below her but Ice Pheonix ignored it just like she always did and kept on leisurely riding along the wind, "ChiiI!"

'Come now, Frost. Don't go so fast... you know that Tweety can't handle the cold like you." came the familiar soothing voice inside her head making Frost roll her eyes and huff in annoyance but slowing down her speed nonetheless so that tiny stupid bird hiding between her chest feathers and taking a free ride, didn't just freeze to death (not that, that would too much of a loss)

Frost preferred to fly far above the normal atmosphere where the air was cold and thin, with the freezing wind, helping instead of hindering her, making her almost twice as fast. But sometimes the pleasing cold winds could become somewhat life-threatening for her passenger.

'...I think we should be reaching the island just about now,' Jon said while ignoring his oldest wargs murderous thoughts about the younger one, 'You can lower yourself now, Frost,'

Jon saw through his blue eagle's eyes as they sped through cloud after cloud before they were finally low enough that the air started warming up and he began to see a tiny island located directly in the ocean below them.

As Frost slowed down, the island got magnified in her eyes and Jon was able to make out dozens of smoke plumes rising in the air from campfires scattered all over the island making it quite clear that the pirates were not staying in a single place together.

'I think this is far enough, Frost,' Jon said when they were just a few hundred meters away from the island, 'It's your job from here on, Tweety,'

"Chii!!" squeaked the tiny colourful bird as she exited the fluffy home she had made inside Frost's chest and after flapping vigorously a few times to thaw her cold feathers she took off after a final salute to her ride and flickered down towards the island as Jon shifted his focus from the bigger bird to the smaller one.

The position of the sun in the sky showed it was about 6 pm at the moment and since it was summer and it was an island, it meant that there were still a few hours of light left, but the pirates down there seemed to have already begun their dinner preparation.

Jon spent an hour wandering the island in Tweety's body, he scouted all the different parts, observing all the various groupings of the pirates, taking note of where the leaders were, what they were cooking, how many times the ships were patrolling the nearby waters, which group was bigger and which was smaller, on the which side of the island the concentration of the pirates was bigger and which side had fewer pirates... he noticed everything.

And, of course, it wasn't his first time doing this. In fact, Jon had been here constantly every other day for the past week and a half and in that time he had taken note of all the changes that were happening on this island and that led him to conclude one thing...

'It wouldn't be poison all of them at the same time...'

Not only were all the camps randomly scattered, but all of them also bought their own rations and everyone also ate at different times so even if he managed to poison a few groups, it would still mean that they would easily raise a ruckus and manage to alert the other groups before Jon's company could have any kind of significant advantage... so it would make poison not as potent of a weapon here. And while it wasn't devastating information, it would still become an obstacle to his plans.

Tweety circled for the last time and then took off towards the run-down castle in the centre to work on the next part of scouting.

He started from the top, from the room of the pirate Captain Ravager, and then worked down the ladder towards the other main captains.

Jon had already gotten most of the useful information about the fleet so he was mainly here to see if he could get lucky and eavesdrop on some important information or get a handle on some kind of weakness that could make the upcoming fight easier on the sellswords but alas... he hadn't had any luck yet.

Jon stayed outside the window of the pirate captain for a very short few seconds before leaving, not because he wasn't in there or anything but because if he saw that bastard's face for too long then he wouldn't be able to stop himself from poisoning that bastard right there and be done with all this.

But death by poison was too good... far too merciful for that bastard... just remembering the things that the young lad Gill had to go through because of this bastard sent Jon's blood boiling...

Anyway, he slowly went from one room to the other to see what the other smaller captains under him were doing, and who they were talking with, who had how many ships under them. And thankfully, it wasn't too much of a hassle as most of the higher-level captains were all living in the castle as they were too pompous to stay with the other low-level pirates.

On the way, he of course came across many pirates performing all kinds of unthinkable acts of atrocities that made him sick to the stomach but this only made his resolve, to butcher these bastards, stronger.

The last room on his list was that of a man named Advisor, and he wasn't the last because he was the least important, no he was the last because Jon felt that he was the one person on this shithole of an island that he wouldn't mind letting go alive as at least he behaved like a human unlike. In fact, Jon once even saw him save an underage girl from a life of misery by taking her under his care.

So even though he had only briefly noticed him during his scouting, he felt that he was better than the others.

'Huh? Where is he?' Tweety tilted her head while standing on the windowsill of an empty room.

The room was a mid-sized one with an empty bed, a chair, and a desk in the middle with some books on it, but there was no sign of any man in there.

'Hmm, that is weird, he would usually be here at this time, and why is his door locked from the inside—Wait! Tweety, No!! What are you doing?' The little bird squeaked excitedly as she zoomed straight for the table on which lay a plate filled with berries of all kinds, the colourful kind that just happened to be the tiny bird's version of a feast.

Jon usually never took full control of his wargs as that was not only cruel to his friend's minds but also inefficient in the long run. Instead, he kept a very tiny hint of control on them just to share their senses and made most of them work through communicating his desires with them, and while it worked perfectly most of the time, on a few occasions like this one when their emotions were heightened, they did things... out of his control.

'Ah! You stupid birdbrain! Why are you always so impatient,' Jon's exasperated voice echoed inside the tiny critter's brain but the bird just ignored him and kept her focus entirely on merrily sucking the juices out of the succulent berries, 'Ugh! It's not like I don't feed you enough—Swish!"

The bird's head was abruptly and forcefully turned around towards the wooden window she had come through only to see it be slammed close by the hand of the very man Jon had been here to scout.

"You can't imagine how long I had to hide in that awkward position to meet you," the man named Advisor murmured with an exhausted but pleased look on his face as he stepped out of the shadows of the window he had been hiding in.

'It was a trap,' Jon growled in his thoughts but didn't panic too much as he had a backup prepared for cases just like this and he knew that as long Tweety managed to stall for a few seconds then everything would be alright... and considering the bird's speed that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

"Oh! You don't need to worry too much," The man said with a smile while taking slow measured steps towards the chair beside the bed as if trying not to scare off the bird intently looking towards him, "I don't have any bad intentions as I only closed the window because I was afraid of you taking off and I wanted to have a chance to talk to you... to make a deal with you."

If a bird could make a stunned expression then that would be what Tweety's face would look like at that moment.

The man had a nervous but relatively confident expression on his face while talking to Tweety making Jon almost certain that he wasn't just insane but actually knew that Jon was inside the warg... which should have been almost impossible for him to know. So Jon was quite curious...

'Frost! Wait out for a while. I want to see where this leads,' Jon sent the words to stop his backup, who was on her way to smash through the windows to rescue him, before turning towards the Advisor.

"Are you Jon Snow?" the man asked after a few seconds of silence when he saw the bird not fleeing away but instead standing there calmly looking at him with an absurdly humane expression on her face, which finally dispelled the last of his doubts that there really was something supernatural involved here and he wasn't just being a paranoid idiot, "I am only asking because I am not sure if you yourself are the legendary Skinchanger I heard about or if you have one under you—Ah! So you are Jon Snow," The man exclaimed when the bird bobbed her head in answer, "Then that should make it easier,"

Jon was mighty interested to know how this man on the other side of the world managed to find out that he was a warg when he shouldn't even know what a warg was, plus he was also quite interested in what the deal he was talking about was. Besides if at any point he didn't like what the man was talking about then... well, there were always ways to deal with it.

"It isn't the first time I've noticed you, um, your bird, in fact, I have known that you have been scouting the island for quite a while, Ah, but don't worry too much, I only found out about you because I was actually looking for you. I don't think anyone else suspects anything," The man said waving his hands, "Anyway, It was very obvious from all that scouting, that you... are about to launch an attack on this island... on our fleet,"

Jon was quite surprised at how nonchalant the man was about being attacked as if he was talking about someone else's problem. And that only made him more nosy so he decided to go all the way and nodded his head to confirm that he indeed was going to launch the attack.

"Oh, That's good then," an almost relieved smile appeared on the man's face before he adopted a serious expression, "I am sure a man with your... powers should not have too much of a hard time dealing with our fleet but If I assure you that if you have my help... then the battle would become even simpler for you,"

Jon didn't reply and just stood waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the other end of the deal and sure enough the man wanted...

"And in return, I ask you for one thing and one thing only... to save my Son," he pleaded with a desperate expression on his face.

///

 

[LazyWizard]

If you looked down from the sky, the small island of Grey Gallows partially resembled a banana, a very crooked and hexagonal-shaped one, but still a banana, wider in the middle and thinner at the edges.

According to Jon's rough calculation, a total of three thousand-something pirates were residing on this island at the moment, and that's of course not counting the number of slaves, prostitutes, blacksmiths and other workers most of who resided near the castle. But since only the ones counted as pirates were useful in a fight, the rest didn't matter much at the moment.

Now, around half of these pirates came directly under the command of Pirate King Ravager and were exclusively part of his fleet but the rest came from various big and small pirate fleets and usually hunted in other areas on their own but they still owed their allegiance to Ravager and came to him when he ordered, just like now.

The concentration of the population of pirates on this island somewhat mirrored its geographical shape, with most of the men under Ravager's direct command being densely situated in the middle. They were divided into two equal settlements, of about 700 men each, and stayed in settlements on either side of the big castle in the middle, where Ravager himself lived along with most of the smaller pirate captains.

The rest of the fifteen hundred pirates who were mostly part of big and small independent pirate fleets were roughly divided into four parts and were situated along the four diagonal shores of the island some distance away from the middle.

The only two ports in this place were situated near the two big settlements in the middle on both sides of the island. They were just shoddy docks made using the island's natural rock formation, but they were still big enough to house all the pirate ships belonging to the Ravager fleet.

The seventy-something ships were also divided almost equally between the two ports and while during the day they may go here and there, during the night almost all of them stayed at the docks, except for five randomly selected special ships.

These five ships instead of sleeping during the night like the others, would be given the task of patrolling the nearby waters by Ravager, you know, just in case any of the other pirates staying on the nearby islands got any funny ideas.

That was all the piece of information that Jon had shared amongst all the important leaders of the company and all the ones who were going to lead the night's operation.

It would be obvious to anyone that the very first obstacle to their attack plan would be the five patrolling ships circling the island from a distance.

Oberyn had initially assumed that it would be a very hard job and that they would need to be incredibly lucky to even be able to take out all of these ships without letting them alert the pirates on the island... but the reality of things had been much... much different.

A single ship... that is all Jon had needed...

He dealt with all the patrolling ships with a single fucking ship... and Oberyn was still reeling with the shock of comprehending it all, and if he hadn't been given the chance to be on that very ship and hadn't seen it all with his own eyes, he wouldn't have ever believed it no matter who told him about it...

From stealthily approaching the enemy ship during the night using the faint glow of torches provided by the enemies themselves with no light on their own ships, to Jon then taking out the few awake look-outs silently by somehow managing to shoot all his arrows perfectly in complete darkness.

To then, sending their warriors abroad on enemy ships using small silent row boats and then killing every single living person abroad with just a handful of muffled screams getting out, which fortunately got easily drowned by the wind and the waves of the ocean... it was all quite surreal.

And then without stopping, they went to the next ship... and then the next... and like clockwork they took care of one patrolling ship after the other until just an hour later the patrolling ships were no more than ghost vessels sailing in the sea aimlessly with the people on the island none the wiser.

Oberyn had so so many questions about what he had witnessed... How could someone see well enough in the darkness to shoot arrows? How could anyone even know where each ship exactly was, especially during the night? How could someone even get such detailed information about a pirate fleet in such a short time? How... How... How...

His mind was filled with so many how's that it was disorienting, but sadly for him, it didn't seem like he would be getting answers any time soon as soon after dealing with the patrols, their ships had been split up into two groups to begin the next part of the attack.

But if there was one thing Oberyn had concluded with surety after all this time with the Northern Wolf Company, then it was that the boy was... special, maybe even more than his ancestors.

This meant that all the things he had promised Oberyn back at camp, didn't seem so far-fetched anymore...

...

Jon had a total of 700 men participate in this operation, which may not seem like a lot but in actuality were a huge number of people for what constitutes a private army of a Noble Bastard.

These men included the 500 sellswords from the Company of Rose and an additional 200 sailors from his own company.

Sadly only half of those two hundred were good in a land battle as they were mainly trained to be sailors proficient in operating a ship and they were far too valuable to just be used to add numbers so Jon just left them abroad the ships to keep them 'running', in case they required a quick get-away(not that he believed that it would be needed).

So in total Jon had about 600 warriors under him and he planned to make use of each and every one of them. And unlike others in this world, he wouldn't be using them to brute force through his enemies, no he would use them like a precise scalpel that would cut through their enemies like a hot knife through butter.

The first thing he did was divide all the warriors into two equal groups each carried by about 8 ships.

One group would be mainly led by him along with some help from others, while the other group would be led by Gared, the Rose commander, and Oberyn, a man who probably knew more about leading men than anyone else here.

The attack plan Jon had come up with had a total of three phases.

The first phase was called trimming the edges. It involved the two groups silently and simultaneously attacking the pirate settlements on the upper left and the lower left side of the island. They would stealthily move through the island from left to right while taking care of all the pirates along the way until they reached the other edge, and that is when the next phase would begin.

For now, the first phase had begun smoothly with warriors sneaking up to the shores of the upper left side of the island in tiny row boats which deposited them in the shallow water and then went back to pick up the others.

Even from their position at the beach, the warriors could easily see the numerous small pirate settlements in the distance because of the numerous campfires but none of them made any move to attack them instead they just spread out in a defensive position on the shore while waiting for the rest of their fellows to finish landing.

It took about half an hour before the last of the ship had emptied their warriors and, finally Jon had the whole of his attack force gathered on the island consisting of a total of 355 warriors in front of him carrying all sorts of swords, spears, axes, and bows.

There were a total of six settlements of pirates near this side of the island, three within just a five-minute walk from the shore while the other three would take them about fifteen minutes to reach.

Each campsite had roughly about 100-something pirates sleeping in them so Jon also decided to divide his forces into three equal parts.

One would be commanded by him, one by young Bran(Commander Gared's son) and the last one by a 50-year-old sellsword who Gared had boasted as one of the best leaders that his company could offer.

While there wouldn't be any problems leading their units to attack the nearest campsites since they were visible even from here, the same couldn't be said about the other sites as even the pirates of this island would be hard-pressed to find their way in this darkness, thankfully Jon had a solution prepared for precisely a situation like this.

He gave both Bran and the older sellswords a thick piece of paper on which were lines drawn and instructions written as to where all the pirate campsites were located as well as how many pirates each one had and a few other useful information. The crude map was so detailed that as long as they followed them, it would be impossible for them to get lost and even if they did, they could easily find their way back using it.

After one final check and a parting nod, all three groups set off at the same time towards their targets.

Within ten minutes faint sounds of slashing and stabbing rang out into the night but what was uncanny was not a single scream escaped the massacre, as if all the pirates were in such deep sleep they didn't realise they were being attacked before they died, and the only thing signifying the death of so many was just the faint smell of blood in the air that dissipated not long after when a breeze happened to pass through the camp.

The main reason for such easy success was that the sellswords not only had almost double the numbers as their victims but they also found out that almost all the pirates they had fallen upon were fully drunk with bottles upon bottles of alcohol nearby as if they had a huge party the previous evening and this made their work more a butcher's job than a fighter's.

But they did their duty nonetheless, with grim determination and just fifteen minutes later all the groups were done with their first targets and then they set off towards the next one after just a short break.

This night was going to be a very long and bloody affair... at least for the pirates.

...

"Blrgh!" The drunk asleep pirate gurgled as Oberyn pulled his spear out of his throat but that was the last sound the pirate was able to make as he left this world with his eyes wide open in confusion and anger.

Oberyn looked up to find that almost all the rest were also done with their targets, in fact, half of their group were just standing idly by as this camp they had attacked only had forty-something members in it, not nearly enough for everyone to get a shot.

They had been deposited on the shores by ships led by Merchant Sam about an hour ago and this was the third group on their list of targets, and so far every single kill had gone smoothly, so smoothly in fact, that it didn't even feel like they were killing humans and not just crushing some ants.

"Does any of you need a break?" Oberyn asked in a low voice, just for the sake of it and just like he expected all of them shook their head.

He was quite sure that the slow measured walk up to this camp had burned more of their calories than this short culling had and besides they were all experienced sellswords and not amateurs who would begin breathing heavily at the sight of blood, "Let us move on then."

Oberyn led his team of warriors through a slim well-trodden path laid between thin cover of tall tropical trees. He had a small piece of paper in his hands that he was frequently checking under the light of the torch that a young sellsword was carrying and was using it to navigate their path.

'A left from here and then we come up to a clearing,' he mumbled to himself before putting the paper back in his vest and then gesturing to the men behind him to get ready while raising his own spear.

They then slowly moved towards the aforementioned clearing where they were supposed to find their next target, a medium settlement of about 60 pirates, but when they came out they found that all of them were already dead, with their killers standing over their bodies looking at Oberyn's group with wide smiles.

"Haha! You finally came, Viper. I was getting worried for a while there," Gared guffawed in a low voice, but even that was too loud for the stealth operation in Oberyn's opinion but since all the nearby pirates were already dead, it didn't matter too much.

"I thought we were the ones who were supposed to take care of this camp," Oberyn asked with a raised eyebrow as he came to stand in front of the Rose commander.

"Ah! Well, you were just taking too damn long and since we were done with our part, I thought... why not give you a helping hand," he said with a very smug grin on his face as if bragging that he had gotten more kills than Oberyn making the Dornishman roll his eyes at the childishness.

The reason the sellsword commander was faster than him was quite easy for Oberyn to guess.

He just knew for sure that unlike him, Gared must have rushed from one camp to the next completely trusting in the instructions on the map with no hesitation or precautions, which the Dornishman just couldn't do no matter how much he had begun to believe in Jon's abilities and his claim of this information being ironclad. This meant that Oberyn had taken the cautious approach causing him to be a bit slower as he believed in his experience that there was no information in this world that was 100 per cent accurate(and just because he was wrong this time doesn't mean anything,).

"Fine. Thank you for your help, then," Oberyn replied with a wry smile on his face before shaking his head, "Then shall we move on to the next part or do you need to rest..." Since they had already taken care of all the seven campsites on this part of the island, they would now have to move through the trees to the opposite shore for the next portion of the mission.

"Of course not, as I said I was just waiting for you so we are ready." Gared nodded and then immediately began leading the way out of the clearing with the men following after him without hesitation, "Let us hurry a bit from now on. After all, we don't want to be late for when the real party starts do we?" he asked the viper with a smirk who also nodded back with a hint of excitement in his eyes.

Normally, one would assume that walking through a forest on a pirate-infested island in the middle of the ocean would be a very stressful affair but somehow it just wasn't...

The night had a very peaceful feel to it, the moon was shining brightly in the sky, the trees around here were sparse enough that it wasn't so dark, and since there were no dense shrubs they didn't have to struggle too much to walk, so, all in all, if you discount all the dead bodies they were leaving in their wake, this could almost be considered as taking serene night stroll.

They reached their destination, marked crudely on the map, about half an hour later, and at that point, they split up once again to continue on to their respective target camps.

On Oberyn's side, everything initially had gone as smoothly as before, he and his team carefully sneaked up on their first camp on this side and after assigning every sleeping pirate to a warrior, they had all struck at the same time... easily sending the drunk asleep pirates to their death.

The second pirate camp had also gone the same way but when they were about to attack the third camp... an accident occurred.

Maybe, it occurred because they were unlucky, or maybe they had just been incredibly lucky so far and now their luck ran through... but for whatever reason, on the third campsite, a pirate just coincidently happened to get the urge to pee at that exact moment and happened to catch sight of them sneaking up on the camp, and after a brief moment of shock, the now completely awake pirate began screaming his lungs out, "ATTACK!!! We're being attacked!! Wake up, You FUCKERS!!!"

"Ah! Shit!" Oberyn cursed, having grown a bit complacent after the continuously successful ambushes, he hadn't thought to scout ahead before getting close so now they were completely caught off guard but the milk was already spilt and there was nothing Oberyn could do except yell, "Kill Them!!" he then immediately sprung on the disoriented pirates who were just coming around with the full force of his team.

The fight wasn't much harder than the others so far had been and was still a massacre with no casualties on their sides.

The main reason for that being that the pirates were still very much outnumbered and they also weren't given any time to come to their senses or even pick up their weapons.

But sadly it would probably be their last easy fight because even though they were so quick about it, one of the pirates had managed to get away and was now hollering at the top of his lungs about invaders attacking, while running towards the middle of the island where the castle was located.

"Should we chase him?" one of the older sellswords asked Oberyn while looking at the place where the runaway had disappeared with an unsure look on his face as the screaming voice went away with time.

"No, let him go." Oberyn shook his head as it was already too late for it to be of any use even if they captured him, as the commotion he had created by now must have already alerted quite a few pirates on the island.

Thankfully it wasn't a completely lost situation as, if nothing had gone wrong with the other group then, by now there must be only one more settlement left in this area that had living pirates, so it didn't matter too much even if they managed to get away as Jon had prepared measures for a situation just like this.

"Men! We need to move to the next gathering point immediately. Let's go!" he ordered in a firm voice and immediately dashed into the trees with his team not far behind him. They had completely forsaken any idea of stealth by now and were moving through as fast as they could while ignoring everything else.

And so not even five minutes later, they entered the small clearing, that was their next meeting point, to find the others gathered there as expected.

"A man got away from us," Oberyn grimly said the moment he caught sight of Gared.

"I know, I heard him well enough," The sellsword commander replied with an unconcerned shrug, "It was only a matter of time before someone caught up but it doesn't matter too much... we were almost done with here anyway. And besides this just means that the next part will be a bit more interesting. Don't you think?"

"Hmm, perhaps you're right about that. I was indeed getting a bit bored with all this sneaking around." Oberyn replied with a quick smile on his face.

Knowing Jon, they must have been done with their side of the things too, which meant that at this moment almost all the small groups of pirates (that is about half of them) on the edges were dealt with, leaving only the two settlements in the middle as well as the pirates in the castle.

"You lose any of your men?"

"Of course not, what do you take me for? Ten-year-old initiates could have done this job let alone me and my men." Gared replied with a proud smile.

"Perfect, then I think we should get a move on." Oberyn said and after one final check to make sure everyone was ready, they began to move, "It's time for phase 2."

///

 

[LazyWizard]

"W-What?! What's all this ruckus about?!!" asked the disoriented pirate Rake as he woke up with a start and blearily looked around at the sudden commotion around him originating from all the pirates who were lying around him and sleeping just a few seconds but were now looking at something in the distance.


"I asked what the fuck is happening?!" he barked irritatedly at a nearby pirate when he didn't hear any answers while his hands automatically began searching for his Cutlass that he seemed to remember tossing somewhere nearby during last night's revelry.


'Ugh! Damn! This headache!'


Last night had been the hardest Rake had ever partied in his whole life. The Advisor, an aide of the pirate king, had decided to be generous, he had opened up the coffers and distributed liquor freely amongst all the pirates. For what reasons, they didn't know...


Some said that he did it because the alcohol was about to go bad(which he didn't think was possible,) while others said that he wanted them to have one last party to raise their morale before they left the sea surrounding the free cities for a few years to hunt in the waters surrounding the Slaver's bay to hide from Braavos's eyes for a while.


But in the end, no matter the reason, all he and the other pirates cared about was that there was more liquor to go around than any of them had ever seen in their lives and every single pirate took advantage of it by drinking to their absolute limit and some... had gone beyond that, they had puked their guts out and then started anew... so, all in all, it was a very fun party, but now... his head was aching so much and his surrounding were looking so wobbly that he almost began regretting his decision.


"A-A pirate from a nearby campsite came running into the camp shouting at the top of his lungs that some sort of invaders have attacked their camp..." replied the pirate as he finally answered Rake's question while looking towards a gathering near the campfire in the middle.


"What?! H-How? Who? Who is attacking us?!" he asked as he finally got hold of his weapon and began to try and look in the surroundings to see if he could catch anything but in this darkness of the night, only faintly lit by the moon above and a few of the small fires that were still burning, he couldn't see very far "Is it the Braavos?" he asked trying to keep the fear from his voice.


"I-I don't know..." the pirate replied with a shrug making Rake unconsciously grit his teeth.


"Where is that pirate, then?"


"There!" the man immediately pointed at the place fifteen meters away in the middle of the camp where more than a few dozen pirates had gathered in a circle to surround the pirate who had been the cause of the commotion.


Rake nodded and after taking a few moments to get his bearings he immediately made his way towards the gathering, "Let me through, Fuckers!!" he growled while pushing anyone in the way and about 50 steps later he reached the centre of the crowd of pirates where a panicked looking man, with eyes wide in horror, was trying to explain something to a bunch of confused, half-drunk, irritated pirates.


"You! What did you see of the attackers? Who were they? How many were there? Did they look Braavosi?"


"N-No! Not the Braavosi, I think... but it was too dark to be sure," The man replied while shaking his head, he was sweating from head to toe showing that he had run all the way from his camp without a single stop, "And while I can't be sure how many they were but they shouldn't be more than 30 men..."


Rake had a frown on his face as he digested the information. He frankly didn't know what to do with it as he had never been much of a thinker, that had been his captain's job but he was out there in the castle along with the others. This meant that he, as a close friend of the captain, had to be the one to give orders to the pirates here to solve this situation.


"Rake, I think they are probably just a few of the idiots from the nearby islands once again," said a 30-something-year-old man who was well-known amongst the pirates as being a kiss-ass, "They must have heard about how our captain looted that Braavosi fleet and they probably got greedy and decided to hit one of our camps to see if they get lucky. I am sure that they are already running away by now after hitting the camp... so we need to move now if we want to catch them all..."


"But what if they are the Braavosi?" nervously asked one of the newer pirates who had only joined them a few months ago, "He did say that he wasn't sure..."


"No, that can't be right. If it was Braavos who was attacking, they wouldn't have done it in the middle of the night, no, they would have wanted an audience to send a message and besides if their warships left Braavos for some reason, our captain would have gotten the news long ago. So no, I don't think it is Braavos..."


'Hmm, he must be right about that,' Rake thought while nodding to himself before he turned to the man, "Very well, Lark. I want you to gather fifty men and go find those fuckers wherever they are and kill them. If you do a good job, I'll be sure to speak to the captain and get you a good reward for it."


"Aye, I'll see to it right away," Lark replied excitedly and then immediately began gathering the pirates from among those who were awake, most of them were reluctant, not wanting to do a job in the middle of the night if the captain wasn't the one ordering, but Lark was a smart man and knew how these pirates think so he easily managed to entice them with some simple promises.


So before long, a group of fifty men left the camp with exuberant smiles on their faces, eager to get to those ambushers and kill some easy prey to make a name for themselves.


"Um, Rake, shouldn't we alert the castle about the attack," said the nervous cowardly pirate once again, "Because I don't think they would have heard the commotion all the way from here..."


"Nah! Don't bother," Rake waved the pirate's concern away, "They probably had some party of their own last night and I don't want to be the one to ruin the captain's sleep and take on his anger."


"But—"


"Argh! Forget about it. I'll tell them in the morning." he interrupted before turning and shouting towards other pirates, "And somebody lights up those bloody fires!! I can't see shit out here..."


It was a human instinct to run away from the darkness of the night and seek out the light, so seeing that more than half the pirates were still waking up from their drunken sleep, the pirate's thought of wanting them to light a fire, so as to not let any of the idiots fall on their own sword and die, was not a bad one...


But sadly for him, this idea would be the undoing of all the pirates surrounding him... because in this place on this night, he wasn't the only one who would find it easier to see with some light.


The moment one of the pirates lit up the massive campfires in the middle of the settlement, the surroundings abruptly brightened and at that exact moment, the predators hiding in the dark struck at the bumbling pirates with unerring accuracy.


The first casualty of the battle in this chaotic gathering of about 700 pirates (now 650) turned out to be a pirate who died soundlessly in his sleep with a single arrow in his throat, stunning the few pirates who were near him but before they could do more than blink the next arrow took out another pirate.


The pirates finally woke up from their stupor and screamed noisily as they began scrambling around to hide or find where the arrows were coming from.


"A-Attack!! We're being attacked!!" some hollered while running around like headless chickens.


"Where the fuck did that arrow come from?!!" others cried angrily swinging the weapons in their hands, their eyes furiously scanning the surroundings.


"Find cover! Hide!!"


"No! Find the bloody attacker! and Kill him!!"


"I-I am running away!!"


The pirates responded to the attack in the absolute worst possible way... by panicking.


And the predators hiding in the dark didn't miss this chance so the next attack wasn't just a single shot but a rain of arrows consisting of at least thirty arrows falling upon the bumbling pirates like a hail of death, killing almost twenty of them.


"Argh! Fuck!!"


"There!! I saw it!! They are attacking from there!! From between the fucking trees!!"


"Come on!! Let's Kill them!!"


The pirates nearest to the edge managed to catch a glimpse of the attackers hiding in the trees at the border of the campsite and then without waiting for anything, they gathered into a group and charged for the trees while yelling at the top of their lungs.


The attackers managed to send only one more rain of arrows, which only managed to hit 10 men before the pirates got close enough to attack them.


But the hollering pirates who had prematurely rushed consisted of only fifty men, which... while normally would have been enough to deal with those thirty-something cowardly bowmen hiding in the trees, was not in this case as they found to their disappointment that the bowmen came with friends of their own, friends wearing armour and carrying cruel weapons in their hands.


Seeing three hundred sellswords abruptly jump out of the trees all around them halted the pirates in their steps and scared the shit out of them.


"Argh!!"


And then, without giving the pirates any chance to respond, the sellswords fell upon them like a pack of wolves fall upon a herd of deer, and as someone would expect from that situation, none of the deer survived the massacre and were completely butchered in a matter of seconds due to sheer imbalance between their numbers.


The pirates who had been left behind in the camp(now numbering less than 550) were still in the process of scrambling to find a hiding place so they were completely stunned by the sudden reversal happening in the distance and for a moment all of them just stood there in their position like statues... unsure on what to do about the emergence of this sudden force.


But then if there was one fact, that pirates all over the world were well known for, it was that they were cowardly curs who were weak against the strong and strong against the weak and that the only battle any pirate would willingly partake in was the one in which they have the absolute numerical superiority.


So the pirates here acted on their ingrained instincts when this sudden scare stuck them, their brains began working rapidly, they only took a few glances to roughly calculate their enemy numbers, and after unconsciously comparing them to their own numbers, they realised almost instantly that they were comfortably in the lead.


And when all the pirates present there realised that fact, they immediately saw red and then without needing any order every single one of them raised their weapons, screamed at the top of their lungs and charged for the enemy with insane bloodlust that they were well known for.


But the sellswords were neither surprised nor scared by their enemy's bloodlust and acted with complete calm.


Not stopping for a single second after they were done with the last of the pirates who had fallen into their trap, the sellswords all simultaneously took a few steps back and then quickly but orderly began rearranging themselves in proper defensive formation with the ones in front raising the shields they had brought.


Their sheer reaction speed meant that by the time the pirates were within attacking distance, the sellswords were ready with a sturdy wall of spears that helped them easily hold their ground against the pirate's reckless charge.


A few seconds later the pirate rush abruptly halted as they got stuck against the shields and each other and then came... the real attack.


The sellswords hiding behind with swords and spears in their hands jumped on the stuck pirates and began killing as many as they could reach. It was a complete massacre... because sellswords with years of experience in killing people weren't the only thing working against pirates at that time.


Everyone who's ever fought a battle on a ship knows that a battle on the sea was a completely different thing than one on the ground.


For one, when you fight on the deck of a ship, it is mostly about keeping your balance while making sure that you dodge all of your enemy's wild swings and eventually your foe will make a mistake and be killed by your sword.


But sadly for the pirates knowing how to keep your balance wasn't as useful in a fight over land as it was over water. And while it wasn't that the pirates never fought on land, because they did. It's just that their usual fare of enemies consisted of old farm hands, young helpless maidens, and fat merchants, so it was safe to say, they were quite unused to facing an opponent with such skills.


And not only were the pirates out-skilled, but they were also out-armoured.


Most of the pirates were still in their half-naked state with no protection on their upper bodies, and then there was the issue of all of them being hungover from their party last night, making it too challenging for them to see properly in the darkness, even with the campfire brightening the night a little bit.


Their heads were pounding from the dying screams of their fellows, some of them were pucking their guts out in the middle of the battle, and then even more of them were slipping on those very guts and then dying to the swords of opportunistic sellswords who had no problem with easy kills.


So it was indisputable that things were not looking very good for the pirates. Their numbers were being culled left and right, they weren't making any dent in the number of sellswords.


But Rake, the pirate who was commanding the attack safely from far behind the pirates, was still very optimistic about the situation. Because he knew that as long as they kept at it, their enemies would get exhausted sooner or later, and then once enough of them began dying, it would only be a matter of time before they got overwhelmed by the pirate's sheer numbers and then the pirates would win... and if a few hundred pirates were sacrificed for the win along the way, who cared.


"KEEP IT UP!!" Rake cried, not letting the pirates in front of him have any second thoughts, "Reinforcements could be coming from the castle at any moment. Don't Worry!!"


And miraculously, at that exact moment, they suddenly heard the clanging of metals and charging footsteps from behind them, raising a small hope in the pirate's hearts.


But unfortunately for them, while reinforcement did arrive... they came for the opposing side.


Before the pirates could even turn around, they were abruptly hit in the back by a flood of stabs by a new force of enemy sellswords.


This new force jumped on them with even more ferocity than the one in front of them. And that is when the pirates found out to their dismay, that they weren't in a numerically superior position, after all.


In fact, enough pirates had died by now, that the pirates were not only at a skill disadvantage but were also being crushed numerically. Plus, their situation only got worse as their number dwindled and they began to get tag-teamed by more than one enemy at a time.


It was the classic manoeuvre of hammer and the anvil with the pirates being completely routed in the middle of the two groups.


Gared and Oberyn were at the very front of their group's charge and were killing the pirates left and right with each swing of their weapons. It was as if their enemies were nothing more than children with swords... but even then the number of their kills was nothing compared to Jon, whose every arrow was taking a life and by now he had already emptied his first quiver and was halfway through his second one.


But soon enough, the haze in the pirates' eyes began clearing and they finally noticed the carnage all around them and realised that this was a losing fight. And while you could say a lot of things about pirates... brave and self-sacrificing was not one of them. So...


"ARGH!! FUCK IT!!" a pirate screamed as he lost his shit, trampled over his fellow pirates and ran for the port with all his might. He threw away his weapon and ducked his head while hoping desperately that an arrow wouldn't kill him. And miraculously his prayers were answered and he somehow reached the port safely and even climbed abroad on a ship anchored there.


And just like that, it was as if a dam had opened...


After seeing the successful escape of one of their fellow, the pirates couldn't handle the pressure anymore and slowly but surely one after other they began abandoning the fight.


No one was interested in this losing fight anymore, and as the pirates began screaming and running for their lives... it only made them easier to kill.


This was where all the archers in the sellswords company showed their worth once again. Killing the running pirates seemed as easy as target practice for them.


Since Jon had ordered the archers to focus their fire on the ones running towards the castle first, this meant that more than half the pirates running towards the port survived, while only two pirates among the ones running for the castle were lucky enough to not get pierced by an arrow.


And so... five minutes later the last surviving pirate while begging for his life.


This settlement that boasted almost 700 pirates just last night... was almost annihilated, with less than 120 survivors who managed to safely reach the ships and were now impatiently trying to sail away in the night, hoping that the ones in the castle would soon come to their rescue and defeat these invaders so that they could sail back.


On their end, Jon was informed that their side had incurred five deaths and ten injuries in this battle, which while unfortunate was as much of a win as one could expect from a battle like this considering the numbers both sides boasted.


Jon had been in charge of men for a while now and had long come to accept the irrefutable fact that when you have men under your command in this world... then you would inevitably lose some of them along the way, whether their deaths be to diseases, drowning, animal attacks... or if they die while fighting for you.


So while he, of course, felt guilt due to the deaths... he didn't let it affect him too much as he knew that it wasn't the time to mourn. Even from his distant position in the centre of this settlement, he could see the numerous torches lighting up on the castle...


This meant that the ones in the castle had finally become aware that their precious island was being attacked... so it meant that it was finally time for Phase 3.


///

 

[LazyWizard]

The castle standing in the middle of the island of Grey Gallows was a small one, at least according to Westerosi's standards.


It was only made as a small outpost by Daemon Targaryen after his conquest of Stepstones, but considering the kind of man the Rogue Prince was, even as an outpost this castle wasn't too shabby.


Sleeping in the top-most room of this castle, the one that a few centuries ago hosted the likes of Targaryen's royalty, was the pirate king Ravager.


Deep in his sleep, he was lying alone on a massive, luxurious bed when he was abruptly woken up because of an urgent knocking on the door.


"Captain! Captain! Wake Up!!"


His eyes immediately shot open, as an alert Ravager looked towards the window, only to see that it was still completely dark outside.


Now wide awake, the pirate slowly got up from his bed and immediately picked up the sword lying by his bedside table.


With a frown on his face, Ravager silently walked up to the door but stopped just shy of it.


He stood there completely still for a few seconds with his ears to the door, before the frown on his face deepened and he abruptly opened the door with his sword raised and alert.


Three men were standing outside the room with anxious looks on their faces, two of them were the pirates who were supposed to guard him during the night, while the last one was an ugly man who he vaguely remembered as the aide of one of the pirate captains under him.


Even standing at the door, Ravager could hear the raised voices and loud commotion coming from afar in the castle, which implied that something had gone horribly wrong. But still, most of the tension had left his body at the sight of familiar faces so Ravager slowly lowered his sword and asked tersely, "What happened?"


"A-Attack! Captain! The island is under attack!!" The messenger hurriedly replied with a panicked look in his eyes.


"What?! Who told you that?" Even though he had expected that something bad had happened considering the commotion, he still hadn't anticipated that someone would dare to attack his island in the middle of the night, "Who is attacking us?" he asked angrily.


"I-I don't know, Captain." the messenger answered nervously shaking his head, "B-But Captain Blackheart and the others are gathered in the meeting hall, waiting for you..."


"Fine, then! Wait, here," he ordered briefly before going back into the room and closing the door behind him.


When Ravager opened the door a few minutes later, he was dressed for battle and was wearing his characteristic armour, a decent quality chainmail he had looted from a merchant a few years ago, and had a sword, and a dagger at his side, "Lead the way," he ordered curtly and the messenger nodded immediately as he began leading him while the guards fell into steps beside him.


They walked two corridors and one floor down from his room before they reached a massive wooden door, behind which one could already hear loud raised voices arguing with each other.


The captain didn't wait for a single moment and slammed the door open and with a single glare of his, the crowd of rowdy pirates inside the room fell silent.


"Who was the one who dared to attack us? Was it from the nearby islands again?" he growled out loud while walking around the table to stand at the head.


"It is an unknown group, Captain," replied Blackheart, he was a tall skinny pirate with a thin beard and was one of the most trusted commanders under Ravager, "We don't know much about the attackers, and the only thing we do know at the moment... is that they attacked our eastern settlement half an hour ago..."


"How the hell could someone reach all the way to our settlement and attack us without us knowing?" Ravager asked furiously while slamming his fist on the table, "What the fuck were the scout ships doing? Why were we not alerted?"


"We don't know, Captain," replied Hark in a deep voice, a large black man with a flat nose, "We only heard about this news half an hour ago from the two pirates who narrowly escaped the attackers. According to them, these unknown men appeared out of nowhere and fell upon the camp from two sides. The attackers were skilled and well equipped and managed to almost annihilate the camp with only a few managing to escape towards the ships on the shore. And since there had been no news from the scout ships even after all this while, we can only assume that either all of them fell asleep at the same time or..."


"So the scout ships are also gone..." Ravager said with gritted teeth, "Who the hell do these people think they are?" The pirate king hadn't suffered a humiliation like this in years, so his tolerance for anger was quite low, "Hark!! Send a call out to all of our pirates! We will show these bastards what happens when they attack the Ravager!"


"Yes! Captain—"


"I don't think that's wise, Captain," a voice calmly interrupted the pirate's enthusiastic response, making everyone turn their eyes towards the door only to see the man who was known as the brain behind the rise of this pirate fleet, the Advisor.


"Finally!" shouted Ravager with a somewhat relieved look on his face, "Where the hell were you?"


"I was gathering information, Captain," The Advisor replied with a small nod towards the door, "The minute I got news of the attack, I sent pirates in all directions of the island as scouts to find the condition of all camps big and small, and if they can, then lead them towards the castle as soon as they can..."


"Good! Good!" Ravager nodded with a pleased look on his face, "If those trashes are quick about it then we may not have to wait long before punishing those who dared to attack us,"


"That... may not be possible, Captain," The advisor replied cautiously, raining on the Ravager's parade.


"What?! What do you mean,"


"The scouts reported that all of our people in those camps and settlements are... dead,"


"What?!" "No! That can't be!!" "How is that possible!!"


Almost immediately exclamation of shock and denial rang throughout the room as the pirate leaders took in the unimaginable news that in just a matter of few hours, their Pirate fleet had lost so many pirates.


"Is this true? Do you know for sure?" Ravager asked with a stunned look on his face.


"Yes. I sent the scouts twice just to be sure," The Adviser replied grimly, shaking his head, "But the result was the same... In the North, in the East, and in the West, all of our camps were filled with nothing but dead bodies. The only place still unharmed is our settlement near the west port..."


"B-But that... that is absurd," Hark stuttered out with a scared look on his face, as he tried to imagine the kind of force that you would need to do something like this... and that too silently, "For someone to be able to do this... to kill more than a third of our forces with us not even getting a whiff of it... they would have to have, I don't know, ten times the fucking numbers as us... which makes no sense."


"It doesn't matter how they did it. What matters is... what should we do now?" Blackheart interrupted in a tone of forced calm.


"Obviously, we should run away," said one of the other pirates, "We need to take our remaining force and leave for the seas immediately..."


"What?! You coward? How can we just run away?"


"Then what?! Do you want to fight them?! When they can have ten times the number as us." The cowardly pirate retorted back angrily, "It would be foolish to stay here and wait for this enemy to attack us when we know nothing about them... As long as we survive we can fight them another day." he urged.


"Even if we do that, we'll surely be bled dry all the way to the port... and who knows what kind of fleet these people have, because don't forget they managed to easily take out all of our scout ships... so running away may not be a better option."


"Well! What other choice do we have, you fool!! Do you want us to just—"


"Silence!" Ravager barked with a frustrated look on his face, halting the rowdy pirates from arguing uselessly, before turning back to the Advisor, "What do you think? Do you also believe that... retreating is the best choice for us?"


"I don't think that would be necessary, Captain," The Advisor said calmly, "Besides I already called all the remaining pirates back into the castle."


"What?! Why?"


"For their safety and... to protect you."


"Protect Me?! What do you mean?"


"From what I have noticed, the enemy leader is a competent individual, so I would guess that the only reason those two pirates managed to escape... was that they were let go deliberately, so that they could bring the message to us, forcing us to leave the safety of the castle, to flee towards the port... and from there they can easily attack us on the move, and get to... you."


"But why do you think they are after the captain?" Blackheart asked confusedly.


"For the bounty, I would guess," he shrugged and almost immediately a gleam of realisation occurred in the eyes of the pirates. Most of the pirates present here had already heard that the Braavos had put a bounty of 100,000 gold on the head of their captain while quite a few of them were tempted by it, all of them knew that even if they somehow succeded, it would be cold day in hell before Braavos would give money to a pirate... "But that's not important, what's important is that if we leave the castle, we will be out in the open giving them exactly the opening that they need..."


"But we can't just stay here and do nothing, right," one of the pirates said hesitatingly, not wanting to sound like he didn't care for their Captain's safety. "Because then we'll all be killed when they attack the castle..."


"Not necessarily,"


"What do you mean?" The Captain asked turning to the advisor with a frown on his face, "Do you know something?"


"You are all speculating from the feats that they have accomplished during the last few hours that they have a lot of men on their side but... that may not really be the truth," The Advisor replied calmly, "I had sent one of the sneakier scouts to the east camp after getting the news of the attack and he managed to catch a glimpse of the forces gathered there, and from his estimates, there are not more than five hundred to six hundred fighters in their force... Not a small group, sure, but also not something we have to be fearful of."


"B-But then... how could they have killed so many of our pirates?" asked Blackheart with a frown.


"Likely though ambushes, I would presume.... But that doesn't matter, what matters is that they are not so strong as to be able to overwhelm us now that they have lost the element of surprise, so I don't think we need to be hasty in any of our decisions, because as long as we have the protection of the castle, I don't think they would be stupid enough to attack us."


"So you want us to just sit here in the castle waiting for them..."


"Yes," The Advisor replied to the cowardly pirate's inquiry, "Whether it be to attack or to defend, everything would be better once the night passes. Because when the sun rises in a few hours, they would lose all their advantages and then the momentum will be on our side and we'll be the ones to decide whether to fight them or not..."


"But what if they don't attack and just decide to wait outside o-or lay a siege to the castle? What will we do then?"


"That would be even better for us... because then we'll have the advantage with all the ration that we have stored here, but I don't think they would do anything like that." The Advisor shook his head with a smile, "They have neither the men nor the time for that because if you recall, we are on an island in the middle of Stepstones, the biggest stronghold of pirates in Essos. They know for sure that if the pirates on the other islands get a whiff of their whereabouts... then they'll be the ones who are trapped in here with us... So all we need to do is just wait and prepare..."


....


"They are going in," Bran whispered while squinting his eyes to see as much as he could in the light of the moon.


"I can see that boy," Oberyn replied to the obvious observation from the son of the Sellsword Captain.


Both of them were acting as scouts for the company and were hiding in thick bushes on a small hill about two kilometres away from the castle.


At that very moment, hundreds upon hundreds of pirates were hurriedly, but with vigilant looks on their faces, heading into the castle.


These pirates were the ones from the settlement of the Western shore, the only pirate camp still left unscratched from the company massacre during the night.


They were estimated to have about 750 men according to Jon, from what Oberyn could observe that was an accurate assessment... which meant that they had abandoned the camp and now every single one of those pirates was racing into the castle to hide from their company.


"Wouldn't now be a good time to attack them, Prince Oberyn," Bran asked in a low voice, his voice tinged in confusion, "Why are we just letting them easily get away into the castle? Why aren't we ambushing them like the others?"


"Because now... they know that we are here and that we are attacking the pirates on this island, which means that any attack we go into... would not be an ambush but a proper battle," Oberyn explained calmly, "And battles mean heavy casualties, and from what I know of your friend, Jon Snow, he doesn't like them very much..."


"So then are we not going to... fight them anymore? Because if we are then wouldn't it just be harder to attack them when they are all inside the castle..." The boy asked in a baffled tone.


"Of course, we are still going to fight, otherwise everything until now would have been pointless... As for how we are going to do that..." Oberyn shrugged with a helpless smile, "Only your friend Jon knows that..."


"Oh! That should be... fine then."


At that moment the last of the pirates had gone inside and the large wooden door of the castle was finally being closed, so Oberyn took one last look at the walls and whispered, "Let's go."


Bran nodded his head as the two of them slowly but silently stood up and began backtracking their way through trees and thick foilage towards the camp near the shore where they had left the rest of their company.


It only took them twenty minutes to reach the camp and what they saw surprised them quite a bit...


Only about an hour must have passed since they parted from the company, but the pirate settlement looked completely different from the condition they had left it in...


For one thing, all of the dead bodies of pirates they had killed had been cleared off and dumped into a massive pit dug some distance away to ward off the smell and the company sellswords also seemed to have done some nominal cleaning to open up a huge space in the clearing, where most of the sellswords were lingering at the moment.


Other than the ones who were on watch duty, most of the sellswords had already let go of their vigilance and were now in complete rest mode. Some were cleaning their weapons, others were chatting with their friends, and a few of the older ones had already gone to sleep...


If one just sees the peaceful atmosphere that the company was in, then they would find it hard to predict these people had fought a brutal battle just an hour ago, that they were still in the middle of a pirate-infested island, and that there were still enemies on this island waiting to kill them... because from the looks on these people's faces, it felt as if they were sitting in their backyard and not in enemy territory...


Oberyn shook his head at the absurd situation after absurd situations he had found himself in ever since he had joined this company.


But so many of these situations had happened that by now Oberyn felt that he had built some immunity to it.


So when he came to the middle of the camp to find Jon and Gared sitting on the ground conversing nonchalantly about different types of swords, he didn't act like a panicked greenhorn began badgering them with questions like what they were doing or if they were in their right mind...


Instead he just calmly and nonchalantly took a seat beside them and asked, "You're not planning to set up home here, are you? Because you look entirely too comfortable on this pirate island..."


"How did you know I was thinking the exact same thing?" Jon replied with a wide smile on his face, "Don't you just love how peaceful it is here... and not to mention how beautiful and unique the view of the night sky here..." he said while pointing towards the sky filled with millions upon millions of stars that looked so clear and close that one feels as if they could touch them... just by raising their hands. "One doesn't find views like these just anywhere,"


"Sure! Sure!" Oberyn nodded sarcastically while rolling his eyes.


"So did you see them?" Gared suddenly interrupted with a raised eyebrow.


"Yes. Jon here was right about his information however he got it," Oberyn replied a bit reluctantly while taking a deep swig from a pouch of ale placed nearby, "All the pirates from the last settlement entered the castle a while ago and from the looks of it, none of them have any intention of coming out anytime soon. So it seems that there is no need for us to worry about them for a while..."


"Do you mean that 'you' don't need to worry about them?" Gared asked with an amused smile on his face, "Because as far as I recall you were the only one who insisted that we absolutely need to scout the castle because Jon's information could be wrong..."


"I just wanted to see it with my own eyes to be sure... or else I wouldn't have been able to sleep." Oberyn replied while ignoring the amused expression on Gared's face, "I mean what was I supposed to do to when Jon here tells me that..." he waved his hand at the Northern Bastard, "that he wants all of us to take rest and go to sleep right here, right now."


"Not all of us, you know," Jon interrupted while pointing towards the attentive lookouts.


"Yes, yes," Oberyn mumbled sarcastically, "Can't forget about the five sentries now, can we?"


"My father always told me that a meal and a few hours of sleep can be the difference between a veteran warrior and a stumbling greenhorn," Jon said with a small smile, "So the few hours we have left before the sun rises would be very useful for us to rejuvenate ourselves from the exhaustion of all the battle and ambushes we went through during the night... And thankfully none of our fighters here are novices, so I don't have to worry about them having trouble falling asleep in this foreign environment due to nightmares(from all the killing,) or something else..." he said while looking at surrounding sellswords, most of whom were already deep in their sleep, snoring loudly.


"You think I don't know the importance of rest for an army," Oberyn scoffed while looking at the sky, internally agreeing that the night sky on this pirate island really was quite beautiful, "Because trust me I do... it's just that I was worried that the pirates might get some ideas and would want to launch an ambush of their own to take revenge..."


"Trust me, they won't," Jon said factually as if he had complete confidence in his own words, "They will pass the night alert in the castle, waiting for us to attack but they won't launch an attack of their own," he said calmly while finding a flat place nearby and then he immediately laid down on the ground as if he was ready to sleep.


"But what if they did..."


"Then I'll know long before they even leave the castle," he replied with a mysterious smile, the same one that he always had on his face whenever he was sharing information... as if he knew something that no one else did, and it frustrated the Dornish prince to no end.


And he hated that a part of him immediately began to feel relieved at that smile as if he had already begun to unconsciously place his trust in the boy's words as if he knew deep down that if the boy said there was no danger... then there would probably be no danger.


"Ugh! Fine, then. But know this, if I die in my sleep... then I am definitely going to go haunt that wasteland you call home for eternity," Oberyn threatened before shaking his head and making a place of his own on the ground to sleep.


"People who live in the desert should really not comment on other people's homes, you know," Jon retorted making Oberyn snort as a small smile appeared on his face.


Things went silent after that as the conversation around the camp went down and all the exhausted sellswords gradually fell asleep under the night sky.


....


"It seems your prediction turned out to be right..." Ravager murmured as he stood upon the wall of the castle gazing at the horizon as the first rays of morning fell upon the island driving away the gloominess of the night, "They never did attack us during the night..."


All around him stood pirates with bloodshot eyes trying hard to keep their eyes open, so that they don't miss anyone attacking them.


Even though the advisor had told them that they wouldn't be attacked during the night, Ravager didn't dare to let the pirates under him fall asleep. He had kept more than half the pirates awake at all times as a precaution, and no one could fault him for it, considering the number of pirates they had lost because of carelessness in a single night.


"Of course, Captain." The advisor nodded with a calm expression on his face, "I can easily imagine the kind of person their leader is... he must have been so sure of his plan that he probably kept all of his men awake and ready to attack us for the night, they must have been waiting impatiently for us to leave the castle so that they can fall upon us all this while. Hehe, it must frustrate him to no end that we didn't play into his hands..."


"I am sure it did," Ravager said as a satisfied expression appeared on his face at the thought of frustrating his unknown enemy, "All the work they did, all the pirates they managed to kill was all useless because, I am still here, alive and well, having lost nothing more than a few worthless pirates.... pirates I can easily replenish with a few raids at any time. But all their hard work must still be rewarded and when I find out who they are..." his eyes gleamed with a burning rage, "I'll be sure to pay them back a thousand times."


"We may not have to wait for long to do that, Captain..."


"Hmm, What do you mean?"


"If I am assuming it right, then all those attackers must have been quite exhausted by now, their eyes weary with sleep, their limbs aching from the exhaustion of the fights during the night. So if I were their leader, then I would be looking to cut my losses right about now and preparing to leave the island... so if we time it right, we can hit them in the back, exactly like they wanted to do to us."


"That... is not a bad idea," Ravager nodded slowly as a hungry expression appeared on his face, "Good! Very Good!! I'll get the pirates to prepare... we should leave immediately then lest they manage to run away..."


"Don't worry, Captain. I've had the cooks woken up early so they should be done preparing the food by now. With a simple meal to rejuvenate us, we'll be ready to go after them properly..."


"Perfect! This is a chance to finally show those bastards why they call me..." he said with a savage smile on his face. "The Ravager."


///