Offerings to the Drowned God

The Ivory Price had made good time to New Ghis, where they had restocked their supplies and taken on some new wares, before heading for Volantis. The island port had been small and unimpressive compared to Qarth and he had spent the few hours that they had been docked giving a hand with the ship. Now it was days later and the middle of the night but with a clear sky and a bright moon Naruto had no trouble looking out over the water to the north.

It was warm in the Summer Sea even if it was supposedly still winter. They were only a few leagues from the ruins of Old Valyria now. No sane captain braved the Smoking Sea of their own free will and the Basilisk Isles were said to be a cesspool of pirates and cutthroats, so they charted a course farther from the coast than usual while circling the destroyed peninsula. He could not see the ruins themselves from the deck and even from the crow's eye only ash and smoke marked the remaining islands, but sometimes the sky shimmered a foreboding red in that direction.

Quaithe had been teaching him over the weeks at sea and she favoured tales and histories of the ancient Freehold. It reminded him of the few tidbits he knew about his clan's homeland. Uzushio had been an island nation before it's destruction and the ruins had been of some interest to him, so he could understand her fascination with what remained.

He wasn't alone on deck but the few deckhands that were on watch had taken other spots. The night crew avoided him as much as most of the other members did by day, though he wasn't the reason for it. He had not paid it much attention the first time they met but men and women feared Quaithe and her mask.

Shadowbinder. Witch. Sorceress. Naruto could hear their whispers when they thought neither of them were close enough. Quaithe did not seem to mind, if anything she deliberately provoked that reaction in others, but then she was quite good in hiding her thoughts even without the mask.

Thinking of Quaithe made him remember their last days in Qarth and remembering that made heat rise to his cheeks. When she had collapsed, he had frozen in surprise before hurrying to help her. Picking her up had made it more than clear that there was a woman under those concealing robes. He had known that before of course, but it hadn't really set in until then.

Unfortunately noticing that once meant that he now found his eyes unconsciously focusing on her every time she came into view. It was quite distracting which did not help in his lessons with her. Quaithe was a strict teacher with little patience for dawdling and she pushed him to learn as quickly as possible.

Naruto should be dreaming in his bunk right now, but he was restless and nowhere near tired enough for sleep. Just sitting inside and reading and learning and repeating and answering questions brought him back to his academy days. Even after his latest foray into learning back in Yi Ti, spending his days with only books and lessons wasn't in his nature. So, he stood on deck and watched the ocean and starlit sky.

It was a pretty sight even if the stars were all wrong here. That was one of the things he had only noticed after the warlocks and Kurama. Some things looked similar enough, but the people here had different names for the constellations which was just another thing he had to learn.

The Ice Dragon he already knew, with its eye in the north and a tail you could follow south. Quaithe had shown him the others as well, but he hadn't memorised every single one yet. The Sword of the Morning was easy enough, as was the Crone's Lantern, but he couldn't decide if he was remembering the other ones correctly.

It didn't matter much any way. They were still more than a week from their destination, that was time enough to remember them all.

The waters were calm and warm, only tiny waves lapping against the wooden hull of the ship. Naruto debated jumping in and swimming for a bit, he hadn't needed to swim for a few years, but he should still be able to do it well enough to keep pace. Swimming would exhaust him a lot quicker than walking on water would and Quaithe was insistent on not using any magic where others could see.

Her own magic had only fully recovered a week ago. There had been a raw edge to her energy even after she had woken from her fever. Neither of them had been quite sure what it meant but the first thing to do was be careful, so they had waited. Teaching her still had to wait even longer however, poorly controlled fire and ships weren't a good mix.

He decided against jumping into the water, contenting himself with the view. There was not a single other ship in sight but that was no ill omen. Corsairs were rare this far from land that was not a smoking ruin, but they could still happen. That was what worried their captain the most, he thought. As soon as they circled around Valyria the chances of being set upon by pirates would only grow until they reached the port of Volantis.

What did it say about him that he almost hoped that a ship would appear on the horizon, heading for them with muffled oars and black sails? A good fight would definitely tire him out. Then again, how could civilians give him a good fight?

Naruto exhaled a frustrated breath and hung his head, leaning forward over the railing, arms perched on wood. It was too dark to see a reflection in the water at this height, but he would have welcomed a look at himself. Instead, there was only the moon and the whispering of the waves.

He had no affinity for water, but he had none for fire either and he was going to do his best to teach that to Quaithe nonetheless. The first stage was easy enough, do to the leaf what would have happened to the paper. Cutting, Crumbling, Burning, Soaking, Crinkling. The second step was the harder part. He didn't have enough chakra to cut a waterfall more than once right now and Quaithe didn't even have that much.

In time he would have to figure out some other way to train her. Maybe, while he was at it, he could think of something to do after he had soaked his first leaf as well.

Training and learning and training again. That was what he spent his days on, and he was still no closer to figuring out what he did it for.

In the end, Naruto got his wish about a hundred leagues from their destination.

He was with Quaithe in her cabin, going over the history of kings in Westeros before the trouble started. She was without her mask at the moment, but the illusion underneath was still in place. When others were around, she always donned the lacquered mask but when it was only them, she went without it now and again.

The illusion looked rather normal. A small nose, dark brown eyes, and long brown hair. Whether it was the fact that he knew it to be an illusion or something else, Naruto thought that the face looked almost eerily ordinary.

"So Maegor took the throne from his half-brother and Jaehaerys, who was the son of that half-brother, took the throne from him?" All the kings were marked with a crown in the family tree laid out before him. Aegon, Aenys, Maegor, Jaehaerys, Viserys, and then Aegon again, and on and on it went. Seventeen kings there were in total. Seventeen kings over two hundred and eighty years

In comparison Konoha's history seemed insignificant and those kings didn't even include the time before the Conquest. Quaithe had said the oldest houses could trace their lineage for eight thousand years or even more. That boggled his mind.

"In basic terms, yes. The history of House Targaryen is full of family fighting family," she said. The Dance, the Blackfyre Rebellions, Quaithe had given him a broad overview before starting on the details.

Naruto heard the shouting on the deck through the closed door. He could no more speak their language than he could at the start of their voyage, but the emotions were easy enough to understand. Surprise, anger, fear.

'Pirates,' he realised in an instant and he could see the same understanding in Quaithe's eyes.

Both hurried out the door and up on deck to overcast skies. There was land to their east, a small rocky island that wasn't even big enough to be part of most maps and would probably be completely swallowed by the sea in a fierce enough storm.

From behind that same rock came two black sailed ships on twenty oars each, their decks filled with colourfully garbed men. Both ships were smaller than the Ivory Price but with oars powering their speed they would not take long to catch and encircle them.

Quaithe took one look at them and hurried back below deck. He wasn't sure what she planned to do but it didn't matter much for now. Besides himself, there were fifteen men on deck, most of them already clutching curved cutlasses or long knifes as they ran around. The few others had wound crossbows and had already trained the weapons on the incoming ships.

His hands fell to his own weapons on reflex. The ships were too far away for kunai or shuriken but that would not be the case for very long. If the wind turned against them, the pirates would reach their ship in a few minutes, if not they may hold out for thirty, maybe even forty, minutes before the first man tried to board.

The captain continued shouting orders at his crew, and they moved to obey, some more quickly than others. The Ivory Price was intended for sailing, not rowing but even if it had been there was no hope of outrunning the two smaller vessels. The attempt would have only left them exhausted before the fight even started. Their only advantage was the height difference between the ships.

If the pirates wanted to board, they would have to climb the higher railing which would leave them exposed from above.

Naruto could take both ships on by himself, but who would stop the second crew while he dealt with the first? One of the pirate ships outnumbered the crew on the Ivory Price by itself but with the high railing and only one side to defend it should be enough. He cursed his inability to speak a language the captain or crew could understand. His Yitish was good, and he had the barest essentials of the Westerosi tongue, but the mix of Quartheen and Volantene sailors spoke neither.

Minutes passed, a slow drizzle began pelting them, and the pirates gained on them. The two ships had split up and settled in behind them, one to the left, the other to the right. Quivers filled with bolts had been placed within easy reach and some of the sailors had exchanged their blades for long spears that would allow them to attack any boarders from the safety of the deck well before the pirates could retaliate with sword or axe.

Unfortunately, his own side wasn't alone in having the ability to attack at range.

Before any of the crossbows had been fired, four dark skinned pirates on the ship closing in from the right, had nocked, drawn, and loosed arrows from their longbows. Naruto tracked their flight through the air. Three wouldn't hit anyone on deck but the fourth was heading right for one of the sailors.

He rushed over and pulled the man out of the way moments before the arrow could feather him through the chest. He understands the man's gratitude even without a shared language between them. Naruto directed him to the other side of the ship and the man obeyed after a moment of hesitation.

More arrows were flying now, and the few crossbows on the Ivory Price were starting to return a few bolts of their own. Most of the projectiles found only wood, whether deck or hull or railing, but a few pierced flesh.

While arrows and bolts flew, the oars did not stop powering the speed of the pirates and they continued advancing. Soon both were of height with their own ship and only needed to close from both sides.

Naruto placed a foot on the railing, kunai in hand. The ships crept closer. Sixty yards. Fifty yards. Forty yards. Arrows flew, and he stepped up with the other leg, intentionally overbalanced, and pushed off from the wooden hull.

Most of the pirates were still preoccupied with their oars as he flipped through the air and landed in the middle of their deck. They all looked at him in shock, surprised by his actions which gave him a few seconds of freedom.

He rushed to the stern of the ship, the rudder his goal. Disabling that would reduce the threat of the whole ship and its crew in one move. The first man in his way was one of the archers, bow still in hand. Tall, dark brown skin and short black hair. The man was groping for the knife sheathed at his belt, but Naruto was too fast.

A punch to the throat had him gasping for breath and the pommel of Naruto's kunai knocked the man out and to the side. A flick of the wrist had the kunai flying towards the second archer in line, the other two were behind him and would be loosening arrows at him soon but the one in front was his first target. The man took the blade in the throat and Naruto ripped it out as he moved past.

With rain making the wooden deck wet and slick keeping your balance was much harder, but these men were sailors and adjusted to that problem already. Naruto could deal with it, but he once more wished for his old reserves, thinking about his usage this carefully was just annoying. With chakra he would stick to the deck so tightly that nothing could dislodge him without his agreement.

Two of the four oarsmen still in front of him had gotten up and exchanged wood for steel, one a cutlass, the other a big knife.

Naruto dodged the first swipe and grabbed a hold of the knife-wielder by his thin vest. He jerked the man around and into the path of the cutlass. The steel edge bit a scant few inches into the flesh of his captive before the other sailor stopped his swing. Naruto kicked the first man into the second and over the edge of the ship.

Two men were left in front of him, one manning the tiller and the other shouting commands at the crew. Naruto threw a quick look over his shoulder. With most of the crew behind him he had to keep an eye on his blind spot. The two archers were ready to loosen arrows his way and five other oarsmen had abandoned their oars for weapon.

The arrows flew and he jumped, letting them pass underneath. One buried into the wooden railing ahead while the other took the shouting captain in the thigh. He was a strong man, muscled and tall with a forked green beard but the impact still made him flinch and cut the latest command short.

Even with an arrow in his leg, the captain did not buckle, brandishing a knife in one hand and a scimitar in the other.

Naruto blocked the scimitar with his kunai and forced him back, making the captain put his weight on the injured leg. Naruto leaned back, dodging the wild swing for his throat with the off-hand knife.

The ship impacted the hull of the Ivory Price and a great shock travelled through the deck, unbalancing him for a moment. The captain was unable to counter the motion while balanced on his weakened leg and stumbled to the side. Naruto's heavy backhand turned the stumble into a fall. The captain crumbled and his head met the wooden deck with a loud crack.

Before he could strike the pirate manning the tiller, the man raised both hands and backed away, fear plain in his wide eyes. Naruto shooed him away and lashed out at the tiller with a foot. The wooden handle snapped, leaving only a small stub to control the rudder and with it the ship. He wasn't done.

Gripping the railing he swung his body over the side, hanging with one hand on the railing and the other braced against the outer hull. Two kicks cracked and then fractured the wooden rudder, making steering impossible.

He pulled himself up to the railing again and swung onto the deck. Two grappling lines already connected the smaller ship to the Ivory Price and the first of the pirates was already shimmying up a rope with a knife clutched in his mouth while another was getting ready to ascend the second line.

Two armed men awaited him near the destroyed tiller, one with an axe the other with a sword that looked more like an unusually long knife. Behind them, lying in a pool of blood, was the man that had surrendered to Naruto moments before. The man with the axe was the shorter of the two but he looked twice as mean and twirled his axe with familiarity and skill. He also sported a grey mail shirt, which distinguished him from most of the other pirates who wore only thin linen, if anything at all, for fear of drowning in the weight of any armour.

The taller men slicked his long wet hair back, to keep it out of his eyes, and then advanced. The man with the axe was tossing his weapon from one hand to the other and back while circling to the left. They were talking with each other in short sentences, but he could not understand them.

Naruto dodged the first diagonal slash with a half turn to the side that had the edge pass in front of him with inches to spare. He swept the man's feet out from under him and yanked on an arm. The man grunted in pain when his shoulder was forced to carry all his weight. Naruto spun with the arm in hand and threw him towards the axe-wielder.

The armoured pirate was quick enough to duck underneath the screaming body and came up with a slice intended to bury into his chin from below as the other man splashed into the water. He recoiled to dodge the axe, but the other hand was coming for his belly with a dirk. Naruto caught the dirk by the blade with his free hand and didn't let go. He lashed out with his kunai, but the pirate had realised the futility of a contest of strength and abandoned his dirk to tumble backwards.

Instead of having a few inches of steel planted in his neck he got away with a thin red line across the throat, slowly weeping blood.

Naruto flipped the wet steel so that he had the dirk by the handle instead of the blade. The design was plain, but the point and edge were well maintained.

The pirate wasn't disturbed, not paying the wound any mind even if he must have felt it, and only advanced again, a dangerous smile on his face. The man was enjoying himself. He said something else then and though Naruto did not understand these words either, he at least knew that the man was speaking the language of Westeros. He had heard Quaithe speak it enough for that by now.

Before the man reached him Naruto rushed forward. He lashed out with the dirk, but the pirate barely deflected the point to the side with his axe. Steel clanged against steel and Naruto stabbed with the kunai in his other hand. The mail stopped the blade eventually but by then the point had penetrated more than an inch into the pirate's stomach.

The axe came around for his neck in an arc and he ducked, pulling the kunai free in the same motion. Naruto stabbed again, with the same effect as before and brought the other hand around as well. The kunai penetrated as far as it did before, but the dirk had more success. With his full strength behind the thrust mail links snapped and the dirk buried into the lung from under the arm.

Naruto pulled both blades free and the pirate kept standing for a few seconds, taking wet bloody breaths. Then the axe slipped from nerveless fingers and he collapsed to the deck.

One pirate crested the railing and swung himself over while three others were still climbing the lines connecting both ships.

A touch of wind chakra ran along the dirk, and he threw. The blade was straight and well balanced and flew much like a kunai would though it was much heavier and would not fly very far ordinarily. Both lines had been pulled taut, to make shimmying up easier and to keep the ships close. The steel and chakra snapped the rope easily and the dirk buried into the wooden hull of the Ivory Price. The climbing pirates fell, one splashed into the water between the ships and the two others hit their own deck again.

Naruto jumped on and then started running along the railing of the pirate ship. Two swords swung for his legs as he ran but he dodged both by jumping into the air and then landing between the two ships, one leg braced against each hull.

He pushed, forcing the ships apart inch by inch. One arrow flew for his face, but he caught it before the head could burrow into his face and then the ships were too far apart to brace against both.

A touch of chakra stuck him to the Ivory Price as the distance widened and he watched two of the remaining crew throw new lines. The first earned himself a kunai to the face, stopping him from throwing but the second hook flew and caught the railing. Naruto scrambled up the hull and ripped the hook away, letting it fall into the water, and then the distance was too far to throw lines.

Some of the pirates had already taken to their oars again, in some vain hope of steering them back towards their prey but without a captain or a rudder that task would not be successful for a while. He kept an eye on the two remaining archers and vaulted onto the deck of his own ship again.

Two arrows flew but he leaned out of the way of both.

On the deck the fighting was thick but quickly turning against the crew. Four lines had been thrown over the railing and now connected ship to ship admitting more and more of the pirates to the deck. Four of the crew were already on the ground and bleeding, three with arrows sticking from their bodies. One of the pirates was forced over the railing and one of the lines was cut. The crew member responsible for that small victory caught an arrow with his throat and fell to the deck, dead.

Rain was beating heavily against the deck and the drumming had grown so loud that it drowned out most other noises. Naruto rushed over, flinging a kunai as he ran. The target had been about to split the skull of one of the crew members with his axe and dropped onto his back with the handle sticking from his forehead.

The line closest to the stern of the Ivory Price was the least defended and another man was already gripping the railing to pull himself onto the deck when Naruto arrived.

Two men faced him again and he produced a new kunai from the holster attached to his leg. These fought well together, covering each other's weak spots in an eerie display of synchronicity. They looked similar enough, smaller builds but long-limbed and the same square jaw. Probably brothers.

One collapsed to the deck when Naruto kicked a leg out from under him and his brother followed him a moment later. Without the numbers advantage his wide swings left glaring openings that were easily exploited and earned a pommel to the temple.

The third man fell on him with a scream, and he stepped to the side to avoid a heavy swing. Naruto exploited the opening that created and kicked the man over the railing and into the sea. All three dealt with, he cut the line and turned to the next.

What little resistance there had been from the other crew members seemed to have crumbled in the short time he had been busy with one line. Three of them had been disarmed and surrounded and another were lying in pools of blood.

Naruto wasn't deterred. He kicked the next man that faced him backwards and the pirate tumbled head-first over the railing while he moved on. Two other pirates went the same way and a third died with steel in his neck.

"Stop!"

It was the first bit of Yitish Naruto had heard since talking with Quaithe, heavily accented though it was, and if he hadn't been looking out for any noise that penetrated the drumming of the rain, he wouldn't have heard it at all.

The speaker was a pale man, with two golden teeth and a heavy earring decorated by a red gemstone, a garnet or ruby perhaps, and had one of the crew members kneeling in front of him with a knife at the throat. The sailor looked properly terrified and didn't even attempt to struggle against the hold on his shoulder, much less the knife.

Naruto could see four standing pirates on deck, including the speaker. The others were closer to the railing and had dispatched the rest of the resistance offered by the sailors. A few of those were still breathing but most were injured in some way and had given up the fight.

He hesitated, and then lowered his arms. He didn't put away his kunai yet. If Naruto fought the captive sailor would die before he could interfere.

"Good, good!" There was satisfied smile on the man's lips as he shouted, as if they were having a pleasant chat. "Weapons and they die." He inclined his head, first to the man on his knees and then the other sailors that were still alive.

Naruto wrestled with the decision for only a few seconds. He dropped his kunai to the deck and opened both hands to show that they were free of steel. If necessary, he still had two kunai hidden up his sleeves and taking one from his holster could be done in the blink of an eye. He needed only a small distraction.

The man nodded his head and exchanged short words with the other pirates. Those Naruto did not understand again. Two of them moved towards him, keeping a careful eye on his hands.

Another pirate pulled himself on deck. Six feet tall, heavily muscled arms, though one more so than the other, and clad in fine blue and red robes. On his back was a black bow as tall as he was and a quiver of arrows. It did not look like wood to Naruto, but he had no idea what else it could be.

The newcomer and speaker talked, and the two pirates came closer.

A commotion from below deck was barely audible over the rain. Three figures came up the stairs. He knew two of them already, one was a deckhand on the Ivory Price who now sported a bloody nose, and he and the unknown man had Quaithe by her arms and forced her out into the rain.

She had a sneer on her unmasked face, but Naruto could see the outline of her dagger beneath her robes. His fingers twitched for a moment, the impulse to act was hard to suppress.

Quaithe wasn't particularly nice and he didn't really know her all that well yet but she was still the closest thing to a friend he had in this world. The feeling bubbling up from his stomach had nothing to do with Kurama but his vision was still going dark at the edges. He didn't like getting angry but he still had a temper.

One of the two pirates kicked the kunai away and then both grabbed one arm each. They tried to force him to his knees. He didn't budge.

Got done with chapter 10 yesterday but I didn't want to post at midnight so it here it is today.

More of a transition again, and some action that hopefully drives home how little having limited chakra means for Naruto in a fight against ordinary people.

A bit of a view into the things Naruto is learning from Quaithe, but even a few months of that obviously can't compare to a life of study or even growing-up learning those things. I'm aware that people are looking forward to the many possible meetings with the knwon characters from ASoIaF canon and I am looking forward to writing those parts but just rushing there wouldn't be very satisfying. Naruto doesn't actually have any reason to just go there after all. I think where we will go soon should be pretty obvious.

I'm debating when I should start including other PoV's and what those will be, though I already have two picked out. Right now I think it would just slow things down unnecessarily but in Westeros we will spread out and get a broader view more comparable to the books.

Thanks for reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting. Until next time.