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."
/