The Warg Lord (ASOIAF)(SI)

[drshree129]

Good, About time for Jon to let loose... Been waiting for this. Hope u do justice to the next chapter.

 

[oscar e Sampedro Lopez]

Thank for the chapter. Great story as always

 

[LazyWizard]

"Wolf's blood?" Robb asked in a bewildered tone and the massive shadow cat sitting by his side nodded in a humane manner. "You want me to find out about Wolf's blood?"


Robb and Jon were sitting beside the icy pool in the Godswood of Winterfell. Robb was there in person while Jon was there in the mind of Tiger his Shadow Cat.


Now, normally, a conversation between a human and an animal was a mentally exhausting endeavour at best times. And while the animal having a warg inside his head made it a tad bit easier... it was still not a walk in the godswood.

But with years of practice under their belt, Jon and Robb had managed to make this way of communication into something akin to an art... with Jon using Tiger's paws to write in the soil and Robb using his familiarity with his brother to understand what the ugly words crawled into the ground meant.


"That is correct," Jon wrote agonisingly slowly and in a short form that probably only Robb or Sansa could understand, "I want you to search in the library to find any of the old books that mention the Wolf's Blood. It doesn't matter if it just mentions a small incident or even as a joke, I need you to mark those books and those pages so that I can see them when I come back..."


"Did you forget how big our library is?" Robb asked with a raised eyebrow, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, "How am I supposed to search through all of them while trying to look for just a few words... Especially since most of the old books are in Old Tongue which I am still not particularly good at."


"Oh, you don't need to read all the books. You can just start with all the personal accounts you can find in there like if any of our ancestors wrote a journal or if there is a Maester's diary in there..."


"But why... Did something happen out there?" he asked with a note of worry in his voice.


"No, nothing," Jon replied shaking his head, keeping silent about his upcoming adventures with the Pirates that he knew Robb wouldn't be too happy about, "Just curious about it... want to know where all those stories and legends about the so-called 'Wolf's Blood' originated from..."


"Fine," Robb said nodding with a slight frown on his face, "I will see when I can find the time..."


"Oh, you don't have to do it all on your own," Jon added after seeing the somewhat miserable look on his brother's face, "You can get some of the Acolytes to help you select the appropriate books and I am sure Sansa or Emily wouldn't mind helping out either once you mention that it's to help me..."


Even though they were just words scrawled on the ground, Robb could almost feel that Jon was standing in front of him with a smirk on his face, bragging about how he was the favourite sibling.


"That would indeed make things a lot easier for me..." Robb said with a hint of relief in his voice.


"That busy, huh?"


"Oh, You can't even imagine," Robb breathed out with an exhausted smile, "And not only me, Father, Maester Luwin, The Steward and even Mother, every single one of them are busy with work from dusk to dawn." he said before looking at Jon with a fake annoyed look, "And most of the work is kind of your fault,"


"What? What did I do?" Jon asked somehow making an indignant expression using the Shadow Cat's eyes.


"Have you been to Wintertown lately? Do you know how large it has gotten now? Do you know that the number of people that live there now, during the peak of Summer, is almost triple the amount of people that came down to live there during Winter? And not mention the amount of people that just pass through there daily..." Robb just shook his head with a sigh, "It is just mind-boggling..."


"Are you sure you are not exaggerating?" Jon asked with a hint of scepticism in his voice.


He had been quite busy in Essos for the past few months so he had kept both Frost and Tweety beside him and since neither his Shadow Cat nor his Kraken Inky was any good for wandering the streets of Wintertown, it indeed had been quite a while since he was able to scout how Winterfell or rather how North as a whole has been doing... but still, he didn't think it has been so long as to have as big a change as Robb insinuating.


"I am really not exaggerating here. In fact, even though not quite to the level of King Landing, I think our small town is well on its way to becoming a small city like White Harbour in a few decades if it goes on like this,"


"Now you are just making things up..."


"I am really not..." Robb said with a wry smile, "You wouldn't doubt me if you actually saw the number of smallfolk and Merchant who stand in line every single day in front of Winterfell to meet us to get permission to open a shop or build a house or do business or a dozen other thing... And not to mention the Lord's and the other vassals... Oh! How I hate the lot of them,"


"What? Why?" Jon asked with an amused look on his face, "What did they do?"


"Oh, they are just the worst." Robb said as he shook his head, "Every time one of them arrives at Winterfell gates, we just need to drop everything we are doing and meet them and then entertain them for the duration of their stay no matter how long (and it is quite long for some of them) and not to forget the feasts at night... Ah! I tell you, Jon, we would have already been bankrupted by the amount of small and big feasts we had to throw in their honour during the last year if we had not already gotten so much richer... And it would have been fine if it was just once or twice but the frequency of visits has just reached ridiculousness.... And there is no sign that it would stop anytime soon as all of them are dying to get a piece of the prosperity that had suddenly fallen into our hands..."


"But why? It can't be all just because of the factory and the new blacksmith street, can it?"


"Oh, no, no," Robb said as he immediately shook his head, "I mean, sure, they could have played some part in it but the most crucial reason for all this sudden fortune (which had even evaded all of us for a while) was our decision with... the roads,"


"What? But that doesn't seem right, we are not actually making new roads, are we? We are just repairing and improving the already laid Kingsroad to make travel faster around North." Jon asked with a confused look on his face, "If the roads were so pivotal then wouldn't North or Wintertown have already flourished far in the past when they were first laid down?"


"And you are right about that." Robb nodded his head with a small smile as he had asked the exact same question to Maester Luwin when he suggested that Roads were the main reason behind this Windfall, "The roads alone would have never been enough for all this to happen... if they hadn't had the help of the other changes that had been made in the North during the last five or so years..."


"Huh?"


"Let me explain. You know that even before, Wintertown or rather Winterfell was somewhat of a trade centre of the North right? Or at least they had that intention when our ancestors first laid down here but unfortunately, even after years and years, the town could never fulfil its potential as North was just too big and Winterfell was not very accessible to utilize its location from the other parts of the kingdom. But now... now it can finally do that."


"Ah..." The shadow cat abruptly got an enlightened expression in his eyes as if he finally understood what Robb was trying to explain.


"That's right Wintertown is finally a place that is the easiest for the people of the North to get to and trade." Robb nodded with a somewhat excited expression, "Even before all this, Winterfell was already somewhat well-connected with White Harbour and the East part of the North because of the river White Knife, and now... travel had only become easier due to the frequent ships running up and down to transport the Starkhorse shipments from our factories. And more importantly, due to the now far more practical roads, we are also much better connected to the western holdfasts, most significant of which are Bear Island and Deepwood Motte which are at the moment brimming with goods from the Westerlands and the Reach which they can now easily bring to Wintertown and ultimately transport to the rest of the kingdom... The North has gotten much smaller,"


"This is all so... unbelievable,"


"I know," Robb nodded his head, "Who would have thought that North would change so much... Trade is booming all over, and no one is going hungry as food prices have never been lower. In fact, a few days ago I even saw some merchants that came all the way from Riverlands to trade with us, which is just... beyond belief." Robb shook his head with a smile, "And to think that we are not even one-fourth of the way through with the roads,"


"... It seems that the golden age of the North has finally come,"


"You're right about that... And North is more than ready for it."


...


There were many big and small islands in the chain of rocky islands that make up the Stepstones. But only a few of them were famous and big enough for people other than pirates to know of their names.


The biggest and most famous one was of course Bloodstone Island having previously been a host for not only half a dozen petty Pirate kings but also the infamous, Daemon Targaryen, self-declared King of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea, who lived here for a short time during the height of Targaryen power in Westeros.


And now this island came under the rule of the infamous Lysene pirate and sell-sail with the most number of ships in Stepstones, Salladhor Saan.


But the second most famous island was called Grey Gallows and that is where the Ravager Fleet has made their base over the last decade or so.


Even after so many years, the pirates still hadn't made any permanent homes here instead they just used the centuries-old broken-down castles and buildings scattered across the island as shelters because after all their 'jobs' as pirates meant that they spent far more time at sea than at land.


On the top floor of the centermost castle on that Island, the Advisor exited the meeting room with a tired and irritable expression on his face.


The meeting had been a completely useless one just like all the others that had been called for the last week.


Ever since they had arrived back at their base the Pirate King Ravager had begun the long gruelling process of recalling all of his pirates who were scattered across Essos.


It was foolish and wasteful to keep a large number of ships in a single place without them doing anything, so most of Ravager's subordinate pirates had been sprinkled all over Essos in different numbers and they were free to traverse the waters surrounding different free cities looting and killing rich Merchant ships whenever they wanted. And they only came back to the base every few months to share information or sell their loot... both living and non-living kind.


And as for the reasons he was now recalling all his forces, well, there were mainly two of them.


Firstly, to share a very small portion of the massive wealth that he had looted from the Merchants that the Braavosi ships were protecting, which was a must in his position if he wanted to continue using them as cannon fodder in the future.


Secondly, he wanted them present near him and to consolidate his fleet's strength so that in case Braavos was stupid enough to underestimate him and send a weak force as revenge then he could decide at the drop of a hat if it was profitable to stay and fight them off. And if Braavos' retaliation was more fierce than expected he could also make the quick decision of leaving this part of Essos for a while to sail in seas out of Braavos' influence such as the Slaver's Bay.


Because no matter how much he made fun of them in front of his pirates, his actions still showed that he was quite scared of their retaliation.


But this meeting hadn't been about that, no, this meeting had been about the loyal lackeys of Ravager who had been sent to Braavos for that— very important task.


But after sending a short letter two weeks ago that said that they had been successful in their task and had captured a man who could have the information about the whereabouts of Northern Wolf Captain, they had gone completely silent.


So the Ravager had called upon his most trusted and competent pirates to ask them what their opinions were on this situation and what they thought happened to those two.


Most of them decided to go for the ass-licking route and suggested that they were probably on their way back with good news and that the only reason they weren't able to send any letters was that they were on a ship which Ravager somewhat agreed with from the pleased look on his face.


But a few also suggested that maybe they had gotten captured by Braavos while they were on the Island and while the Captain didn't like that he agreed that it was a possibility so he declared that they would only wait for them for four more weeks before deciding on their next course of action.


One of them, a reckless drunk fool, had even dared to suggest while whispering that maybe they had already gotten that secret method of Sea travel from the Northerner but had gotten greedy and decided to keep it a secret for their own use or sell it to the highest bidder...


Obviously, that man didn't survive the meeting for even suggesting something as insulting as Ravager being weak enough to lose control over his own men...


But the Advisor's instincts were telling him something else... that those two were already dead.


After all, the man they were targeting was not a normal human... because if what he had felt back then was right then he may just be a...


"Ah! Advisor! Do you want to partake in some girls? We got some nice goods from those Braavosi Merchants, hehe..." As the former Volantis noble turned pirate was on his way back to his room he was blocked by an ugly pirate with a lewd look on his face. He was one of the smaller pirate captains with barely more than three ships under him.


The screams coming from the nearby room told him that the girls were obviously not very willing in the... partaking.


"No," The advisor replied with a cold expression on his face barely stopping in his path, "Now get your ugly mug out of my face," he continued while looking at the pirate as if he were a cockroach before shoving him aside and moving on.


"You—" The Captain's face flushed in humiliation but just as he was about to do something stupid in his drunkenness, his fellow pirate stopped him.


"Oi! Leave him alone," The man said holding his friend's shoulder back, "You know how much the captain treasures him... Don't you remember what happened to the last Captain who crossed him?"


A hint of fear appeared on his face at the mention of that incident... before he spat on the floor to save his dignity and went back to the room to vent.


Advisor didn't care for what the creatures who were worth less than trash were doing as he was already in the next corridor.


He wanted to get to his room as fast as he could so that he could take a rest... which raised a few questions as the windows he was passing by clearly showed that it was barely noon at the moment which meant that the night had only passed a few hours ago.


But the reason his body was craving so much sleep was very simple... he hadn't slept for more than a few hours over the whole last few weeks.


And the reason for that was the same man that was giving Ravager so many headaches... Jon Snow, The Captain of the Northern Wolf.


Ever since he learned that they were going to target that company only one thing kept revolving around his mind again and again... those dark grey eyes looking straight at him from an impossible distance through the other end of his far-eye...


The way they had lost their last battle against the Northern company had just been bizarre.


The rest of the pirates had thought that it was just a coincidence that their ships had suddenly lost their sails just as they were about to chase enemy ships... That there just happened to be a mad group of seagulls flying around waiting to tear through their sails...


Those stupid pirates were satisfied with that explanation and just decided to drink a few to forget about it.


But Advisor didn't forget... because he couldn't forget about it even if he wanted to.


After all, he wasn't like the others.


He knew things...


He had grown up in Volantis as the third son of one of the highest-ranking nobles before he was forced to become a pirate, so obviously he knew a lot more about magic than an average pirate...


He knew that magic was a real tangible thing...


He had seen a few different forms of magic being performed in front of his very own eyes... he knew what it could be used for, he knew the things it could do...


He knew that it wasn't gone from the world like everyone else believed... instead it was just weakened, in hiding, waiting for a chance to come out...


And he knew that what he saw that day... was magic.


Of course, he had kept this discovery of his to himself, because why would he tell them... why would he try and save those worthless trash from the wrath of a being who was much more than a man...


Because even after so long, he didn't forget that he was just a prisoner and not a real pirate...


So he did not care whether they lived or died... the only thing he cared about was him and his son, his blood... The one person he wouldn't let be killed even if the enemy knew magic...


But on the other hand, if he could somehow use this to his advantage... then maybe...


"Wait! What if..." The Advisor abruptly stopped in the middle of the corridor as his eyes widened in sudden enlightenment and then without waiting a single moment he suddenly turned back and began moving away from his room towards the lower parts of the castle.


He passed by room after room as he went deeper into the castle before finally ten minutes later he stood outside a small blackened room at the very end of the corridor.


"Are you in here?" he asked while knocking on the door.


There was mad scrambling and loud clattering from the other side for a few moments before a sixty-year-old man wearing a blacksmith apron opened the door with a surprised expression on his face, "Ah! Ser Advisor! What can I do for you? Do you need your weapon repaired?"


The advisor didn't care about the man calling him a Ser as he knew that it was something ingrained in his blood as a former smallfolk to call all the people higher than them Ser.


"You're from Westeros right?"


"Eh? Ah! Y-Yes I am— I mean, I was. I lived there in Riverlands for about twenty years before I left for Essos to run away from a petty crime and then felt that it was much easier to make money here as a pirate than anything else, hehe..."


"So you must know about the place called North..."


"Huh? Um, yes, I do know a few things from here and there but not much... because even though we were the closest Kingdom to North, people rarely ever travel out from there," The part-time Blacksmith replied while scratching his head, "Ah! But I had an old man from the North who lived in my village so even though I have never been there I do know a bit..."


"Then do you know about their legends, their folk stories, their myths..." The Advisor asked with a serious look on his face, "Things from their history that people believe are just made up to scare children..."


"Huh? Do you mean like Snarks and Grumpkins... or do you mean legends like Bran the Builder..."


"Everything!" he whispered as his eyes narrowed in intense focus, "I want you to tell me everything..."


///

if you want to read a few chapters ahead and support me, you can go to: patreon.com/lazywizard

 

[oscar e Sampedro Lopez]

Thanks for the chapter

 

[GrimmKenway8646]

"Huh? Do you mean like Snarks and Grumpkins... or do you mean legends like Bran the Builder..."


"Everything!" he whispered as his eyes narrowed in intense focus, "I want you to tell me everything..."

Click to shrink...

Well that's gonna take some time cuz that would be like asking a church friar about Norse mythology just to find out about runes which are a subtle part of the legends, even in Odin's story.

 

[ATP]

Well that's gonna take some time cuz that would be like asking a church friar about Norse mythology just to find out about runes which are a subtle part of the legends, even in Odin's story.

Click to shrink...

Agree.Dude could not knew much,except that wargs exist.But - it should be enough for advisor.

 

[LazyWizard]

It was the hour of the wolf, the darkest time of the night just before the first rays of the Sun washed away the darkness.

In a medieval world like Planetos, the night represented the unknown, the terrifying, the time when even the bravest of knights were hesitant to go outside and this fear of the unknown was magnified a hundred times out on the open ocean.

Or at least it should be... for normal people...

Fifteen huge but sleek ships unhesitatingly cut through the vast turbulent ocean water during the hour of the wolf as if uncaring of the boundless darkness surrounding them.

All the ships were moving in a bird-like formation with adequate distance between them. The ships all had some kind of lamps on them spreading the light but the foremost ship, also the largest one, was leading the way using five massive torches that didn't go out no matter how fierce the wind got.

In a cabin inside the leading ship, sat a middle-aged man with black lustrous hair, a sharp nose, and black viper eyes. His face was set in a permanent gloomy expression as he sat on his bed contemplating some things while sharpening the tip of a spear in his hand, meticulously.

A sharp knock on the door broke the man out of his concentration and he looked up as a voice called from outside, "Father, are you awake?"

"Yes, come in," Oberyn replied while placing the spear vertically against the wall beside his bed.

The door to the room opened and in came Obara, Oberyn's oldest, looking much more like a woman now than during their time with the Company of Cats. Her hair had grown up to shoulder length and she had also stopped binding to her chest to hide her gender now as she had decided that they were in 'safe' company... for now.

"You're up early today," Oberyn asked with a raised eyebrow, "Something happened?" The Dornish man knew from the view outside his small window that there should still be about an hour before the sun rose on the horizon.

"We have reached, father," Obara replied in a peculiar tone.

"Hmm? Reached where?" Oberyn asked distractedly while putting on his leather armour that he never left his room without.

"The shore," Obara clarified while still looking at her father with a strange look as if she didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "We have reached the shore of Disputed Lands near Tyrosh where we were supposed to pick up the Company of the Rose..."

Oberyn's fingers which were in the midst of tying the knots on his armour froze for a few moments before he looked up at Obara with an amused smile, "Did that sellsword put you up to this? I know that we had a bet but still... he didn't have to be so desperate," he shook his head while finishing his getup, "How could we have reached Tyrosh so soon when it's barely been a week since we left Braavos... we should have barely crossed Pentos by now..."

"Just... come out and see for yourself," Obara interrupted with a look of sympathy on her face before she left his cabin.

Oberyn wryly smiled at his daughter's impatience but followed after her nonetheless.

After closing the door to his room he walked a dozen steps down the hallway before he reached the stairs and climbed them to reach the deck only to find more than a dozen sailors going to and fro all over the place doing... sailor things.

He wasn't too surprised to see this flurry of activities so early in the morning as he had learned over the past week that he had travelled with this Northern Wolf company that all the ships in it had sailors working in shifts which meant that sailors would be toiling over sails even during the darkest part of the night when not a single thing would remain visible in the surroundings... except of course, that bright torches on the uppermost portion of the ship acting like a lighthouse.

He had obviously been very curious about how it was possible for these ships to not only navigate the open sea during the night but also to do it without hugging the shore.

In fact, Oberyn hadn't seen any sign of land since they had left the city of Braavos and it would have been quite concerning if it weren't for the nonchalant way that all the crew behaved around him as if they hadn't even contemplated the notion that they could get lost on the ocean.

But sadly even after he set aside his pride and 'nonchalantly' asked Jon about his secrets his curiosity didn't get sated as the boy just smiled at him and pointed towards the sky in answer.

Oberyn had taken a while but had eventually managed to gather that the boy was maybe pointing towards the possibility of using the position of the sun and the moon in the sky to navigate... or at least that was the most prevalent theory amongst the sailors whom he had befriended during this time.

Shaking his head and deciding to forget about it for now, Oberyn walked past all the sailors to reach the edge of the ship where he found Obara waiting for him along with Gared, the leader of Company of the Rose.

"Haha, you finally came Viper," the massive man immediately guffawed after seeing Oberyn's face, "I thought you would stay hiding in your room from the shame of losing the bet."

"Lose the bet?" Oberyn snorted with an amused look on his face, "Are you perhaps still drunk from last night? Because I am not sure if you correctly remember how many days had passed since we left the shore so unless you mean to tell me that we traversed all the way from Braavos to Tyrosh in under a week... how exactly did I lose that bet..."

"Hehe, I mean to tell you exactly that..." he said before turning and pointing towards the distance with a shit-eating grin, "Look there! We've indeed reached the shore of Tyrosh,"

"I... can't see shit," Oberyn replied with a deadpan expression on his face while squinting and trying but unable to see more than a few meters ahead of him even though the darkness had begun to lighten up a little as the sunrise wasn't too far away.

"Ah! Apologies," Gared murmured as he rummaged through his vest before taking out a far-eye, "Here,"

Oberyn looked at Gared with a curious look on his face wondering how far the man was going to take his prank but he took the far-eye from his hand nonetheless. He raised the contraption and put it on his right eye before peering into the distance.

For the first few seconds he couldn't see anything but then abruptly out of nowhere, he began to see faint small dots of lights in the distance.

As he narrowed his eyes further, he finally caught sight of the shore in the distance occupied by what looked like tents upon tents of a sellswords company with hundreds of men hurriedly running everywhere and haphazardly moving things around as if they had just been given the order to pack up.

The scene left Oberyn mute for a few seconds before he managed to ask, "Are you sure they are the Company of Rose? Maybe we accidentally found some other group..."

"Yes, Yes, I am sure what my own company looks like," Gared replied while rolling his eyes.

"But... how exactly is this possible," Oberyn asked after finally taking the far eye off his face with a frown on his face, "I know that we were sailing day and night and we didn't take any breaks but still... it is too absurd to clear the distance between Braavos and Tyrosh in just six days." It was too much for the Dornish man to even fathom all the implications... of what one could achieve with speed such as this on their hands.

"As I told you before, my friend, I don't know and I don't care to know," Gared shrugged with an unconcerned look on his face, "I don't question too much and just believe in the boy when he tells me shit with that look of conviction on his face... and I haven't been led wrong with it yet."

When Jon had told them that they would only take about a week or so to reach their destination from Braavos, Oberyn had of course taken it as a joke and laughed it off, but Gared hadn't. The sellsword Commander believed in the Northerner boy completely and after seeing the disbelief in the Westerosi noble he had gleefully proposed a bet with him... a bet that Oberyn lost.

'Just how many more shocks is this boy going to give me,' Oberyn mused while placing 10 gold dragons in the eagerly waiting palm of the sellsword.

A few hours later, they reached the shore with the morning sun brightening up the sky, but since Jon had told Bran, Gared's son, to lead the company to the nearest coast he could find, there wasn't a proper dock here, so all their ships were anchored in the distance in the shallow waters and were not sending small rowing boats turn by turn to pick up sellswords to take them back to the ships half a dozen at a time.

Jon, Gared and Oberyn were standing underneath a tall coconut tree on the shore some distance away watching the ships slowly get loaded up with the warriors.

"So how far are we from Stepstones from here?" Gared suddenly asked curiously.

"Hmm... about five days if we take it slow and don't move during the night," Jon answered with a shrug, "That should give all of my sailors as well as your sellswords enough time to rest and prepare for the upcoming battle,"

"Ah! That's good then and it will probably also give some of the young ones who haven't been on a ship before, some time to assimilate to the sea..." Gared murmured with a nod.

They fell silent for a while after that before Oberyn finally asked the question that had been bothering him all this while, "So how are we actually going to do this? What is your attack plan? Are we going to take them down one by one? Employ hit-and-run tactics or what?"

"Hmm, Guerilla tactics are fine and good... but only if we wanted to defeat them ship by ship but my plan is much simpler," Jon replied in a calm voice, "We attack their base at night when they are all gathered together on the island... take them off guard with our full might when they least expect it and then... annihilate every last one of them."

"...That's it?" Oberyn asked back with an incredulous look on his face, "That's your whole plan,"

"Yes. That is right," Jon nodded with an interested expression on his face, "Why? Do you think it won't work?"

"You do know that you're about to fight the Ravager fleet, right?" Oberyn asked, somewhat confused with the nonchalant way the boy was taking all this, "The fleet of the notorious pirate king who has been hunting in these waters for the last decade or so. He probably has more than 100 ships under him not to mention the number of pirates... there must be something like 3000 to 4000 pirates waiting for us on that island ready to defend him." he said with a raised eyebrow, "How exactly do you expect us to defeat them with just these 15 ships, five hundred sellswords and what 150 of your own sailors? We will be completely and utterly destroyed if we meet them in a battle and that is a fact." He had expected that the boy had some kind of intricate plan, like the one he had used to bring down the Company of Cats, but this...

"First of all, they don't have 100 but 70 ships in that fleet," Jon replied in an unperturbed tone, "And secondly, I know exactly where that man is, where all his pirates are, what he is doing at the moment so he is just like sitting duck to me... and if we are done with him, the rest of his pirates will be just like headless chickens waiting to be slaughtered..."

"You make it sound so simple," Oberyn said with an exasperated sigh, "Even if the information you have is correct they still have about five times the number of ships that we have, and that Ravager is not some small-time crook who will run away at the sign of a fight... Last I heard about him, he even had the guts to loot from Braavos and do you know what they did about it? They placed a bounty on him of about 100,000 gold dragons, because they knew that even they wouldn't be able to easily catch someone like him with all his ships if he decides to fight or retreat..."

"And everything you are saying is correct... but once again these things only matter if we are going to go against them head to head in sea warfare which we are not... so the number of ships they have wouldn't matter," Jon said before a mysterious smile appeared on his face, "Besides I have a secret weapon under me which is going to make things a lot easier for us..."

"What?! What weapon?"

"Now for that... you will just have to wait and see," Jon replied with a playful smile, "After all, isn't that what you're here for," Jon said before leaving towards the boats which were just about finished with delivering the last group of sellswords.

Jon, of course, knew why the man was so frustrated, after all, anyone in his situation would have been if they didn't have the whole information that Jon had. But it wasn't like he could tell him all of the juicy secrets...

Besides, even if he could, Jon wouldn't want to because as they say the lower the expectation the higher the shock value and the more impact it would leave on him when things go out of his expectation...

Oberyn had an irritated look on his face as he watched the boy walk away arrogantly(in his opinion).

He was unsure if he should believe in the Northerner and take this huge risk or if...

"What about you? You don't have a problem with this?" He asked turning to the one man who was taking a much bigger risk than him with the existence of his company depending on it.

"Hey, I told you before, didn't I? I just believe in him and don't think too much about it..." Gared shrugged nonchalantly.

After all, the company commander had already seen the boy accomplish quite a few unbelievable things since the day he had met him, so he had faith in him...

"But if you are really not sure then how about another bet, huh?" Gared asked with a cunning smile, "I could always use some more gold, Haha,"

"You incorrigible?" Oberyn shook his head with a helpless smile, "Let's just go before they decide to leave us here,"

What Oberyn didn't know was that if he had asked Jon this exact question about his plans just a few days ago, then his answer would have been a lot similar to his own suggestion and something along the lines of hit-and-run. But thanks to something that happened three nights ago... his plan changed completely, as he got the surprising 'secret weapon' out of nowhere... as if the old gods were sending him their gift.

...

Three Days ago...

"Chii! Chii! Chii!" came a cute squeaking squeak from somewhere below her but Ice Pheonix ignored it just like she always did and kept on leisurely riding along the wind, "ChiiI!"

'Come now, Frost. Don't go so fast... you know that Tweety can't handle the cold like you." came the familiar soothing voice inside her head making Frost roll her eyes and huff in annoyance but slowing down her speed nonetheless so that tiny stupid bird hiding between her chest feathers and taking a free ride, didn't just freeze to death (not that, that would too much of a loss)

Frost preferred to fly far above the normal atmosphere where the air was cold and thin, with the freezing wind, helping instead of hindering her, making her almost twice as fast. But sometimes the pleasing cold winds could become somewhat life-threatening for her passenger.

'...I think we should be reaching the island just about now,' Jon said while ignoring his oldest wargs murderous thoughts about the younger one, 'You can lower yourself now, Frost,'

Jon saw through his blue eagle's eyes as they sped through cloud after cloud before they were finally low enough that the air started warming up and he began to see a tiny island located directly in the ocean below them.

As Frost slowed down, the island got magnified in her eyes and Jon was able to make out dozens of smoke plumes rising in the air from campfires scattered all over the island making it quite clear that the pirates were not staying in a single place together.

'I think this is far enough, Frost,' Jon said when they were just a few hundred meters away from the island, 'It's your job from here on, Tweety,'

"Chii!!" squeaked the tiny colourful bird as she exited the fluffy home she had made inside Frost's chest and after flapping vigorously a few times to thaw her cold feathers she took off after a final salute to her ride and flickered down towards the island as Jon shifted his focus from the bigger bird to the smaller one.

The position of the sun in the sky showed it was about 6 pm at the moment and since it was summer and it was an island, it meant that there were still a few hours of light left, but the pirates down there seemed to have already begun their dinner preparation.

Jon spent an hour wandering the island in Tweety's body, he scouted all the different parts, observing all the various groupings of the pirates, taking note of where the leaders were, what they were cooking, how many times the ships were patrolling the nearby waters, which group was bigger and which was smaller, on the which side of the island the concentration of the pirates was bigger and which side had fewer pirates... he noticed everything.

And, of course, it wasn't his first time doing this. In fact, Jon had been here constantly every other day for the past week and a half and in that time he had taken note of all the changes that were happening on this island and that led him to conclude one thing...

'It wouldn't be poison all of them at the same time...'

Not only were all the camps randomly scattered, but all of them also bought their own rations and everyone also ate at different times so even if he managed to poison a few groups, it would still mean that they would easily raise a ruckus and manage to alert the other groups before Jon's company could have any kind of significant advantage... so it would make poison not as potent of a weapon here. And while it wasn't devastating information, it would still become an obstacle to his plans.

Tweety circled for the last time and then took off towards the run-down castle in the centre to work on the next part of scouting.

He started from the top, from the room of the pirate Captain Ravager, and then worked down the ladder towards the other main captains.

Jon had already gotten most of the useful information about the fleet so he was mainly here to see if he could get lucky and eavesdrop on some important information or get a handle on some kind of weakness that could make the upcoming fight easier on the sellswords but alas... he hadn't had any luck yet.

Jon stayed outside the window of the pirate captain for a very short few seconds before leaving, not because he wasn't in there or anything but because if he saw that bastard's face for too long then he wouldn't be able to stop himself from poisoning that bastard right there and be done with all this.

But death by poison was too good... far too merciful for that bastard... just remembering the things that the young lad Gill had to go through because of this bastard sent Jon's blood boiling...

Anyway, he slowly went from one room to the other to see what the other smaller captains under him were doing, and who they were talking with, who had how many ships under them. And thankfully, it wasn't too much of a hassle as most of the higher-level captains were all living in the castle as they were too pompous to stay with the other low-level pirates.

On the way, he of course came across many pirates performing all kinds of unthinkable acts of atrocities that made him sick to the stomach but this only made his resolve, to butcher these bastards, stronger.

The last room on his list was that of a man named Advisor, and he wasn't the last because he was the least important, no he was the last because Jon felt that he was the one person on this shithole of an island that he wouldn't mind letting go alive as at least he behaved like a human unlike. In fact, Jon once even saw him save an underage girl from a life of misery by taking her under his care.

So even though he had only briefly noticed him during his scouting, he felt that he was better than the others.

'Huh? Where is he?' Tweety tilted her head while standing on the windowsill of an empty room.

The room was a mid-sized one with an empty bed, a chair, and a desk in the middle with some books on it, but there was no sign of any man in there.

'Hmm, that is weird, he would usually be here at this time, and why is his door locked from the inside—Wait! Tweety, No!! What are you doing?' The little bird squeaked excitedly as she zoomed straight for the table on which lay a plate filled with berries of all kinds, the colourful kind that just happened to be the tiny bird's version of a feast.

Jon usually never took full control of his wargs as that was not only cruel to his friend's minds but also inefficient in the long run. Instead, he kept a very tiny hint of control on them just to share their senses and made most of them work through communicating his desires with them, and while it worked perfectly most of the time, on a few occasions like this one when their emotions were heightened, they did things... out of his control.

'Ah! You stupid birdbrain! Why are you always so impatient,' Jon's exasperated voice echoed inside the tiny critter's brain but the bird just ignored him and kept her focus entirely on merrily sucking the juices out of the succulent berries, 'Ugh! It's not like I don't feed you enough—Swish!"

The bird's head was abruptly and forcefully turned around towards the wooden window she had come through only to see it be slammed close by the hand of the very man Jon had been here to scout.

"You can't imagine how long I had to hide in that awkward position to meet you," the man named Advisor murmured with an exhausted but pleased look on his face as he stepped out of the shadows of the window he had been hiding in.

'It was a trap,' Jon growled in his thoughts but didn't panic too much as he had a backup prepared for cases just like this and he knew that as long Tweety managed to stall for a few seconds then everything would be alright... and considering the bird's speed that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

"Oh! You don't need to worry too much," The man said with a smile while taking slow measured steps towards the chair beside the bed as if trying not to scare off the bird intently looking towards him, "I don't have any bad intentions as I only closed the window because I was afraid of you taking off and I wanted to have a chance to talk to you... to make a deal with you."

If a bird could make a stunned expression then that would be what Tweety's face would look like at that moment.

The man had a nervous but relatively confident expression on his face while talking to Tweety making Jon almost certain that he wasn't just insane but actually knew that Jon was inside the warg... which should have been almost impossible for him to know. So Jon was quite curious...

'Frost! Wait out for a while. I want to see where this leads,' Jon sent the words to stop his backup, who was on her way to smash through the windows to rescue him, before turning towards the Advisor.

"Are you Jon Snow?" the man asked after a few seconds of silence when he saw the bird not fleeing away but instead standing there calmly looking at him with an absurdly humane expression on her face, which finally dispelled the last of his doubts that there really was something supernatural involved here and he wasn't just being a paranoid idiot, "I am only asking because I am not sure if you yourself are the legendary Skinchanger I heard about or if you have one under you—Ah! So you are Jon Snow," The man exclaimed when the bird bobbed her head in answer, "Then that should make it easier,"

Jon was mighty interested to know how this man on the other side of the world managed to find out that he was a warg when he shouldn't even know what a warg was, plus he was also quite interested in what the deal he was talking about was. Besides if at any point he didn't like what the man was talking about then... well, there were always ways to deal with it.

"It isn't the first time I've noticed you, um, your bird, in fact, I have known that you have been scouting the island for quite a while, Ah, but don't worry too much, I only found out about you because I was actually looking for you. I don't think anyone else suspects anything," The man said waving his hands, "Anyway, It was very obvious from all that scouting, that you... are about to launch an attack on this island... on our fleet,"

Jon was quite surprised at how nonchalant the man was about being attacked as if he was talking about someone else's problem. And that only made him more nosy so he decided to go all the way and nodded his head to confirm that he indeed was going to launch the attack.

"Oh, That's good then," an almost relieved smile appeared on the man's face before he adopted a serious expression, "I am sure a man with your... powers should not have too much of a hard time dealing with our fleet but If I assure you that if you have my help... then the battle would become even simpler for you,"

Jon didn't reply and just stood waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the other end of the deal and sure enough the man wanted...

"And in return, I ask you for one thing and one thing only... to save my Son," he pleaded with a desperate expression on his face.

///

 

[ATP]

Well,he would win anyway,but any help is precious.
And - if they have 15 ships with 1500 sellswords,then it is enough for pirates during land battle.They almost never used armour,which against even medium armored enemies mean massacre.
I read about joanites in half armours fighting turks without armour - it was massacre.


Another thing - there must be at lest 400 sailors on 15 ships,not 150.

Aside from that - great chapter.

 

[GrimmKenway8646]

"And in return, I ask you for one thing and one thing only... to save my Son," he pleaded with a desperate expression on his face.

Click to shrink...

And here comes the plot twist.

 

[oscar e Sampedro Lopez]

Thanks for the chapter.