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, toJon 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."
/
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