"Where is the advisor?"

"I don't know, Captain. The last time I saw him..." Blackheart replied with a hint of pity in his eyes, "He said he was going to the privy..."

Almost all of the leaders had little chance to get sleep last night, but the Advisor had the worst of it. The man had been running to and fro, the whole night trying to keep everyone awake and alert... so it was understandable that his stomach was now rebelling and giving him a hard time.

"Fine, just get someone to bring him to me as soon as he comes out..." Ravager ordered distractedly as they exited the inner castle, "So is everything here prepared then? Are they all ready to move?" he asked as he saw hundreds upon hundreds of his pirates standing under the shades of the castle walls.

They were divided into seven different groups each having a leader of their own who were currently barking orders at the rowdy crowd of pirates trying to get them to behave.

Only a small percentage of his pirates had armours of their own, the rest of them either had to snag them from someone else or were left going into the fight unarmoured, which wasn't a new thing for the pirates as they mostly participated in naval battles where armour was more of a bane than boon.

And, their choice was coming to bite them in the back, but it was too late to do anything about it now... so they could only sharpen their blades while praying that theymanage to kill their enemy before they get killed themselves.

"Yes, Captain." Blackheart replied while nodding towards the pirates gathered in front of them, "They have all already been fed and are now bursting with energy, raring to have a chance to take revenge for last night's embarrassment... I must say, Captain. It was a brilliant idea of the Advisor to have the cooks prepare porridge so early on. Just seven of those huge pots filled with that simple and filling meal was enough for everyone here... it was the perfect feast before our battle."

Ravager of course hadn't eaten with this rabble. He ate a different meal in his own room provided by his personal cook filled with all kinds of meats and dry fruits. But knowing that his underlings were filled with energy satisfied him because he knew the more vigorous they were the more enemies they would kill.

"But Captain..." Blackheart suddenly said hesitatingly, "One thing has been bothering me about the ambushes last night..."

"What?"

"I just feel... that it was really unrealistic how this new force, who has most definitely arrived on our island for the first time, was able to kill so many of our people in such a short time and that too during nighttime... the only way something like this could even be remotely possible was if they had a very precise map of the island, with the location of each of our settlements marked beforehand, which would indicate that we have a... spy in our midst."

"Do you think I didn't think of that?" Ravager replied back in a low voice while glaring at Blackheart, "There is no doubt in the fact that there is a spy amongst our midst... and he is not some grunt either as he is most definitely someone in a high position... but even if we know this, there is nothing we can do about it... Taking drastic actions will only cause panic among them, so for now we can do nothing but wait..."

"But Captain... wouldn't this mean that the spy could be sharing every single detail about our action at this very moment and that would mean that the enemy could already know about our plan to ambush them from the back."

"Don't worry! After our meeting last night, I had the rookery watched by ten of my personal guards every single hour... Even a hint of someone trying to so much as send a single word would reach me immediately and then when I catch this spy..I would make him wish for death..." Ravager said with a cruel look in his eyes before shaking his head, "But that is all for later... for now we just need to deal with these attackers,"

"You're, of course, right Captain." Blackheart nodded with an admiring look on his face.

"So are all the pirates here then?" Ravager asked changing the subject.

"Yes, Captain. Most of the pirates are here, except for the few who would be left behind to guard the castle in our place. And I have also had all the blacksmiths, slaves, prostitutes and other workers locked in the storage underground. It is a bit stuffed in there, but at least they won't be able to create any problems behind our back..."

"Perfect." Ravager nodded with a satisfied look on his face. "Then I think it's time. I want you to send out our best scouts in all directions of the island. I want them to find those bastards as fast as possible. And the moment they get even a whiff of the enemy's location, I want us to be ready to move out and—"

"Oi! Oi! Look! Look at that!" "What?!" "What?! Let me see!"

A loud commotion abruptly interrupted Ravager's conversation with Blackheart, and both of them looked up to see that the pirates standing atop the wall were pointing their fingers and staring at something in the distance with distressed looks on their faces.

"Go! See what the problem is," Ravager ordered with a frown and Blackheart immediately nodded and complied with the request as he ran towards the wall while barking loudly, "What the fuck is going over there Mickey! What are you all panicking about?!"

"Captain! T-They are here." The man replied while pointing towards the distance with an alarmed look on his face.

"Who is here, you idiot! What in the world are you getting so hysterical about—"

"The enemies!" The lookout impatiently interrupted Blackheart uncaring about him being a leader, "They are here! Right outside our castle!"

"What?! What are you..." Blackheart's eyes widened as he finally managed to comprehend the message and when he turned to look at Ravager, he saw his own surprise mirrored in his face.

And then without waiting for a single moment, both of them hurried to climb the stairs leading to the wall.

By the time they reached the top, the commotion had spread throughout the wall, and by now there were more than a hundred pirates all over the wall looking towards the distance with scared looks on their faces.

And when the two leaders finally managed to catch sight of the land beyond the castle... they realised that the lookout was indeed not wrong—The enemy was here.

Coming towards the castle in a tight formation made of seven rows divided into two parts was a disciplined army filled with men wearing well-maintained armours and sharp gleaming weapons in their hands.

And them being in a formation only made it easier for all the pirates to count their only took them a few moments to realise that the numbers on both sides of the conflict were almost equal... which made it very clear this would be a fierce battle with a lot of casualties.

In addition, considering how they were on land and how well-equipped their enemy was... it was safe to say that things weren't looking good for the pirates.

"B-But didn't the Advisor say that they wouldn't dare to attack us in the castle," Blackheart stammered in an appalled voice, "He said that it would be—"

"Where is he?!" Ravager interrupted him while gritting his teeth in anger, "Where is that damn Advisor?"

"I-I-I—"

"Don't just stand there, you idiot! Go find him, and bring him to me!" he hissed at the pirate who hurriedly nodded his head before scurrying away.

Ravager grimaced as he turned back to the pirates, and saw how quickly the panic was spreading amongst them.

He knew that he had to do something very quickly or the upcoming battle would become nothing more than a rout.

And being an experienced pirate Captain, it only took him a few seconds to come up with a solution.

After taking in a deep breath Ravager began, "HAHA!" laughing at the top of his lungs.

Almost immediately he attracted the attention of all the pirates on the wall, "This is just the best... Here we were working so hard to find these bastards and now... these idiots decided to come to us on their own, Haha! How generous of them to have decided to spare us from doing all the work..."

The pirates exchanged confused glances at that, wondering why their captain was happy that they were being attacked by the same force that had managed to devastate their fleet to less than one-third of its strength in just a single night.

"Men!" he bellowed with all his might, "There is a saying that one needs at least ten times the men as the ones inside a castle to take it... Come! Let's see today if that checks out! Haha!"

"..."

"T-That's right! We have the castle on our side. There is nothing to be afraid of!"

"You're right! With the protection of the castle, they can do nothing to us,"

"Haha, Most of them would probably die bashing their heads against the walls, long before they even reach us!"

"Definitely! This battle is going to be an easy one,"

"Good! Good! Let them come! I'll show them the reason they call me the widow maker, Haha!"

"No one calls you that, you idiot!"

All over the wall most of the tension seems to have left the pirates with just a few words from their captain. Their fear had turned into anticipation in a matter of seconds... showing that pirates really were simple-minded folks...

"Quickly, now, Men! Gather on the walls! Defend against the enemy" Ravager shouted at the ones still standing below before turning back to the ones beside him on the wall, "I want the archers to the front and all the warriors... if you can then change your weapons to spears!"

There was loud commotion and disarray among the pirates as they rushed to follow Ravager's orders.

Some were rushing to get their spears while others were trying to borrow some arrows from their comrades. But soon, enough pirates had managed to climb the walls so that they covered almost the whole wall facing the enemy force.

And while all this was happening, the sellswords had gotten a lot closer to the castle.

But then abruptly they just... stopped.

They halted just outside the distance that the arrows from the pirates could reach them, but they were now close enough that they could cover the rest of the distance in a matter of minutes if they were quick about it.

"Wait! Why did they suddenly stop?"

"Huh, Maybe they got scared?"

"There's no way that's true, you idiot!"

"I think... they are waiting for something,"

"Waiting? Waiting for what?"

"Maybe they are waiting for us to come out and meet them in the field..."

"Do they think we are stupid or something? Why would we do that?"

Ravager was also quite confused by the strange decision of their enemy to abruptly stop so close to their target, as this does nothing but give his people more time to prepare, 'So why in the hell are they...'

"Captain! Captain!" Ravager irritatedly turned his head around and saw Blackheart shouting while climbing the stairs towards him.

"What?!"

"T-The Advisor! He is not there!"

"What do you mean he is not there..." Ravager repeated while getting a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach.

"I checked the privy and his room and even asked all the ones in the castle but no one has seen him in the last hour,"

"What? Where could he have gone—"

"Oi! Oi! What are you doing? What the fuck's wrong with you?!"

All eyes on the castle abruptly turned towards a pirate who was shouting while holding his friend in his arms trying to wake him up.

The man in the pirate's arm was a thin almost malnourished pirate and he was currently shivering as if he was having a seizure, his eyes had rolled back into his head and no matter how hard his friend slapped him, he wasn't showing any signs of waking up.

"What happened?!" Ravager growled as he rushed to stand behind the pirate.

"I-I don't know, Captain." The pirate answered with a panicked look on his face, "One second he was standing there laughing with me and in the next, he suddenly started behaving strangely and then he just fainted and became like this."

Ravager grimaced but decided that now wasn't the time to be thinking about this so he decided to make an excuse to get the pirates back on track, "He was probably just a greenhorn who was nervous about the battle and fainted because he couldn't handle the pressure. Alright, men. Leave him for now—"

"But Captain, look!" Blackheart interrupted Ravager with a horrified look on his face while pointing towards the fallen man, "Look at his mouth! He's throwing up white foam... isn't that a sign of p-poisoning."

"I-I... He must have eaten—"

Thud*

Before Ravager could even make more excuses they were all distracted by the sound of a scream and a loud slam that came from the very front.

When they all looked towards the front they saw that everyone was looking towards the ground in front of the wall with a horrified look on their faces... Ravager gulped and followed their eyes only to have his worst fear realised as he saw one of his pirates splattered on the earth with his limbs twisted and his skull cracked... completely and irrevocably dead.

"H-He fell! He just fell!" stammered a pirate who was standing beside, the now-dead pirate, just a few seconds ago.

And just like that it was as if a dam had burst open... all around him pirates began showing signs of nausea, fainting, and stomach aches.

Some had their faces turning green while others were shivering uncontrollably as if they were standing in the middle of the snow. The symptoms all around him were completely random as if someone was playing a game of death with them...

"Argh! It hurts! My stomach hurts!"

"Ugh! I am seeing stars all around me,"

"My legs! They feel like jelly. Damn it! I can't stand!"

As he looked at the chaos around him, Ravager's stomach sank even lower, and a horrifying realization began to rise in his mind as he asked, "Blackheart! Where is Rostch?"

"Eh? Rostch? The advisor's son? I don't know... Probably with the rest of the trash in the basement storage. Why?" Blackheart answered distractedly, preoccupied with all the commotion happening around him.

But that was the last straw as all the puzzles in Ravager's mind fell into place, all the suspicious things that had been happening since last night, and all the strange coincidences began aligning in his mind.

'There is probably a spy amongst our midst, Captain...' 'The spy must be in a high position..' 'Don't worry, Captain. I've had the cooks woken up early to cook food...' 'I don't think we should run away, Captain...' 'The enemy won't dare to attack us in our castle, Captain...'

"Captain! Captain!"

"Huh?" Ravager came back to his senses due to Blackheart's scream.

"What should we do, Captain?! This is getting really dangerous! Our men are falling left and right and our enemy is right in front of us. We need to do something or else we'll all die!"

"R-Right! You're right." Ravager nodded with a forced smile on his face, "Don't worry, I know the exact poison that is affecting all of them and it has a really simple antidote. Blackheart! You! I am leaving you in charge of the wall while I go and prepare the antidote for all of us! It shouldn't take me too long. So you need to hold the wall with all your might. Understand!"

"Really! T-Then I won't let you down, Captain!" he nodded with a nervous expression on his face before he immediately went to corral the pirates who weren't showing the symptoms of poisoning...yet.

"Look! Look" "They are coming!" "The enemy is coming!"

"What are you panicking for, you idiots!" Blackheart cried in a booming voice, "MEN! Gather on me! We'll show these bastards what pirates are made of!"

After sending one last resentful look at the army of sellswords charging towards the castle, Ravager decisively turned around and hurried down the wall and into the castle... leaving all his men to fend for themselves.

...

"I-Is that an apple I see in your hand?" Oberyn asked with an incredulous look in his eyes, "Where in seven hells did you get an apple from, boy?"

"Oh, this..." Jon asked while raising the half-bitten apple in his hands, "It's from an orchard in Pentos..." he replied, shrugging nonchalantly before taking another bite, "I know it's quite shocking but there are apparently quite a few of those in Pentos, all of them owned by a wealthy magister..."

All three of them, Oberyn, Gared and Jon were standing a few meters in front of their company's army.

Gared had a far-eye in his hands and was watching the pirates on the wall while Jon was casually eating an apple and standing a few steps behind him along with Oberyn

"I know that there are orchards in Pentos," Oberyn replied, his eyebrows twitching wildly, "What I don't understand is how an apple from... an orchard in Pentos, managed to reach your hands all the way here in Stepstones, and that too in this fresh condition as if it has just been plucked last night."

"Umm... Oh, that! Well, I found it lying around this morning so it... probably just fell from the sky..." Jon replied with a lame excuse.

Frost had this habit of bringing along whatever fruit she saw along the way whenever she went on a hunt during the night and considering that her speed was faster than even the commercial aeroplanes from his previous lives, Jon gets quite a varied choice in his breakfast every other morning.

"How is that even—You know what." Oberyn stopped before taking a deep breath, "Forget about it. Just tell me why we are stopped here..."

"We're waiting..."

"Waiting for what?" Oberyn asked with a raised eyebrow, "For them to come down out of the castle and fight us here... because I don't think even these are stupid enough for that."

"Now, now, don't go swearing on that Oberyn... You can never put a limit on the stupidity of pirates,"

"If you say so..." Oberyn replied while rolling his eyes.

"And to answer your question, I am waiting for one of them to... fall off, hopefully," Jon answered while squinting his eyes as if he could actually see the pirates standing on the wall in the distance, "Hmm, according to Sam the effects should start getting visible right about now..."

Initially, Jon's plan hadn't involved poisoning at all, but due to his sudden luck in finding a man on the inside at the last moment, he had decided to send Sam a letter asking him to make as much of his special solution as possible.

And while Sam came through with his request, he also said that it was somewhat of a rushed job involving a lot of different varieties of stuff that he had lying around, so he told him that the effects could be erratic, with some showing adverse reactions while others with a more robust constitution having little to no effects. Sam wasn't even sure what those effects could be... just that they would be very harmful to the victims.

"Waiting for one to fall?" Oberyn asked in a confused voice, "What in seven hells are you talking about? And what does Sam have to do with this when he is all the way back in—"

"Oh! Look! One of them really did fall off..." Gared interrupted in a mildly surprised tone while pointing towards the castle in the distance.

"What?! Let me see," Oberyn blurted before immediately snatching the Far-eye "Oi!" from the Sellsword's hand and placing it on his own eye.

Almost immediately he could see a body lying on the ground in front of the wall and from its twisted position, it really did seem as if the body had fallen from the wall.

And not only that... all over the wall, pirates were behaving strangely, some were clutching their stomachs and kneeling on the ground, while others were holding on to their heads moving around drunkenly as if they couldn't see straight, all over the wall the pirates were showing signs of being... poisoned.

"So this was your plan all along, huh," Oberyn breathed out in an amazed tone as he lowered the Far-eye and turned back to look towards Jon with his eyes wide in astonishment.

Jon's only reply was to wink mischievously, before he turned towards the sellsword Captain beside him and said, "Let's go, Gared. It's time for your men to earn your keep, and... try to make it quick, will you," he said before shielding his face from the sun's piercing rays that were getting hotter with every minute, "I want us to be done before the sun really starts beating on us..."

"You hear that boys!" Gared bellowed while taking his longsword out of its sheath, "We need to make this a quick one or else our pretty boy's face will be ruined... and we don't want that, Do we?"

"NO!" The men replied with a snicker while preparing themselves, making Jon shake his head with a wry smile but it was his own fault for giving Gared such an easy opening.

And then after a last-minute check, Gared bellowed without any fanfare, "ATTACK!" leading the charge of his sellswords army from the very front along with his son Bran, and Oberyn right beside him.

"Attack!" "Kill those pirates!" "Save the pretty boy!"

Jon almost stumbled in his step when he heard someone shout that last part but quickly shook it off and followed along with the army, but he wasn't in the front along with the others instead he was in the middle with all the other archers.

And the moment they reached an appropriate distance from the castle he ordered the archers to halt while the rest of the army kept going.

A few seconds later all the archers, amounting to thirty men, raised their bows simultaneously and began firing at the scattered pirates on the wall.

The pirates being in disarray made them easy targets so the archers were taking lives with every other arrow or in Jon's case with every single arrow out of his quiver and that was when he was shooting at almost twice the speed as others.

Now, usually, this would be the time when the enemy archers replied back with their own volley to hold them off... but sadly for pirates, they didn't have that convenience on their side... as most of their archers, which weren't too many, to begin with, had already succumbed to poison and they were now too busy trying to not fall off the wall, to shoot any arrows...

It was probably the easiest path any attacking army had taken to a castle wall in this world's history... It was so effortless, that every single sellsword managed to reach the wall without a single casualty and that too in just under five minutes...

But when the Sellswords began to put the two ladders, that they had prepared beforehand, on the wall... they finally faced some resistance.

A skinny white man called Blackheart by his fellow pirates, was leading all the healthier pirates, who weren't showing signs of poisoning, towards the ladders and was trying to throw back the climbing sellswords and was being an all-around nuisance to them...

But sadly his efforts, while valiant, didn't amount to much as it only took Jon's momentary notice of his antics for his next arrow to go directly through his chest, killing him and shocking the pirates next to him.

With Jon in the lead, the rest of the archers also began focusing their arrows on the pirates standing near the ladders and in only a matter of seconds, that small bit of resistance from the pirates died in its infancy...

And just like that, a few minutes later, the sellswords managed to gain a stable footing on the wall making it easy for the rest of the army to climb.

Jon also decided at that moment that it was time for them to join in the effort, "Let's go," he ordered before leading the archers towards the wall and when they reached the ladder, the sellswords standing in front immediately made way, letting his small force climb first.

After reaching the top, Jon took a few moments to survey the battle and from his short survey he was satisfied to find that things couldn't be better for them.

On the left side, the forces led by Gared were holding the wall stably, not letting a single pirate come near them while on the right, Oberyn was leading an aggressive attack against the pirates and was now almost halfway towards the stairs.

Both men were experienced and were calmly relaying orders without giving into the atmosphere and were not letting their subordinates break rank in their haste to score a kill.

"Shoot the ones near the wall!" Jon ordered the archers as they all lined up against the wall, protected on both sides by sellswords, and began bombarding the pirates in the courtyard with arrows.

It was a complete massacre...

The pirates ran like headless chickens as they were shot dead left and right... In just a matter of minutes a massive semicircle had opened around the wall the archers were shooting from, causing it to be filled with nothing but dead bodies...

Without any command, both Oberyn and Gared knew what to do next as they simultaneously began sending their men down the stairs to take command of the gate...

It took them a while and this was also where they faced the fiercest resistance from pirates as they lost almost ten of their men during this skirmish in narrow stairs, and that was considering the fact that most of their enemies were weakened by poison...

Nonetheless, a breakthrough was achieved eventually as the men were successful in opening the front gates of the castle, and not a moment later, a flood of sellswords rushed into the castle screaming their heads off, vying for pirates' blood, with Obara leading the charge from the very front.

And that was the final straw for the pirates as seeing the rush of man after man wearing armour pouring into their castle, it felt nothing short of a nightmare to them... and it broke most of their wills to resist.

Some tried to surrender, some ran away while others got even more aggressive in their attack going completely suicidal... but it didn't matter what they did as the end result was still the same... Death.

Barely fifteen minutes later the screams began dying down...

Except for a few small pockets of resistance still holding out here and there, most of the pirates were already lying on the ground breathing their last...

It was an easy battle overall... and why wouldn't it be, more than a third of pirates were already down before the battle even began and the rest were also considerably weakened, not to mention the disadvantage they had in terms of skill as well as equipment.

Most importantly the pirates had no one here to lead them, so they fought like loose sand... and scattered enemies like these were the best food for experienced sellswords...

Coming up empty when he tried to take out another from his quiver, Jon finally put his bow away before taking a deep breath. Taking one last look at the devastated courtyard in front of him, Jon slowly began to walk down the stairs only to find Oberyn and Gared taking a small rest.

"Is that a new scar I see your face, Prince Oberyn," Jon said with an amused smile as he came up to them while pointing towards a very thin line of blood on his cheek, "Your paramour isn't going to be angry with me for ruining your face, Is she?"

"What are you talking about? Women love scars, don't you know that..." Oberyn said while wiping the line blood from his face, "Oh, right! I forgot! You're still a boy so you wouldn't know anything about women, would you..." he quipped with a smirk making Gared laugh loudly.

Jon rolled his eyes but didn't bother with a retort as he knew that the Dornishman was somewhat of a legend when it came to comebacks and he would only be hitting himself in the foot by getting into a banter with the Viper.

"Where's Obara?"

"She's out there hunting the last few pirates who managed to sneak away..." Gared answered before Oberyn could, "Bran is also with her. We left them to it as it could be a learning experience..."

"Good for them," Jon replied while nodding his head.

"And when they are done, it will be over... finally," Gared said while heaving a sigh of relief, "I must say, boy, you're getting your money's worth by making me work this hard..."

"Thank you for that compliment, Gared," Jon replied with an amused smile, "But we're not quite done yet... After all, it's not over until we deal with the biggest fish in this pond."

"Ah! That's right..." Gared said shaking his head before standing up with a grunt, "There is still that bastard who was a no-show for the fight..."

"Then let's go," Oberyn said while picking up his spear, as both he and Gared followed the young Northern boy for their last fight on this island. "I have always wanted to kill a Pirate King..."

/