Game of Thrones: The Road to Pirate King

When Dagmo's skinning dagger pierced the first prisoner's thumb, the screams that erupted on the deck were more piercing than those of seagulls being harpooned.

"The bones are the drowning god's harp... the finger bones are the drowning god's keys..." The old pirate hummed a tuneless ballad in a hoarse voice, his wrist flicking, the blade moving nimbly like a bloodthirsty silver fish. Skin rolled upwards from the fingertips, revealing the slightly trembling, bright red tendons beneath. Drops of blood rolled down the gleaming silver blade, congealing in the pale moonlight into a broken, eerily beautiful ruby ​​necklace.

"The spice ship's course... number of guards... speak!" Baron Greyjoy's roar drowned out the sticky sounds of flesh being torn apart.

The prisoner convulsed, uttering a few incoherent, broken syllables. Baron's battle axe did not hesitate for a moment—snap! His little finger was severed at the base, a piece of white bone bouncing on the deck and rolling to Euron's sea-salt-stained boot.

"Liar!" Greyjoy's eldest son kicked the severed finger into the dark sea, the cold axe blade already moving towards the ring finger. "I'll ask one last time?"

"Please...please...let me go..."

Baron grinned, revealing teeth stained yellow by sea salt: "Wrong answer!" With a swift motion, another finger left the body.

Then, he tapped the prisoner's still-intact right pinky with the blood-stained back of his axe: "Which compartment is the Reiss's gem stored in?"

The prisoner bit his bleeding lips tightly. A flash of cold light from the axe blade—snap! His little finger was severed at the root, and flying bone fragments and blood stained Euron's leather boots.

The intense pain finally broke through the dam of his will, and the prisoner screamed hoarsely, "Port! Second cargo hold on port!"

Euron, who had been observing coldly, finally moved. He extended the tip of his boot and touched an old arrow wound on the prisoner's right shoulder: "This mark left by a triangular arrowhead... you've risked your life for money, you were a mercenary." He bent down, grabbed a handful of damp, rusty iron filings mixed with salt, and ruthlessly pressed them deep into the old wound, grinding new flesh against the old scar. "A mercenary's eyes are on the blade; their primary concern is life and death, victory and defeat, so they must know exactly how many warriors on their side can wield a sword—how many exactly?!"

Under the precise onslaught of excruciating pain and terror, the prisoner completely broke down: "Nine! Only nine! Including two unarmed servants! It's true!"

"Free trade port...they're flying the Braavos flag..." the third prisoner muttered after his mental breakdown.

Two hours later, the information extracted from the three prisoners, who had been interrogated separately, pieced together like planks washed ashore by the waves, finally formed a complete and alluring picture: two merchant ships, laden with rare spices from Tyros, the softest silks of Mil, and the coveted gems of Ries, their guards laughably weak, numbering only nine. Dagmo licked the half-congealed blood from his dagger, his eyes, stained crimson with greed and slaughter, fixed intently on the inky black horizon to the northeast: "Tomorrow night, at moonset, they will surely pass through Widow's Gorge!"

"Did you all understand?" Euron's voice was low and calm. He even offered a little stale water to three barely conscious, unrecognizable prisoners. He half-squatted before them, the moonlight casting half of his face into deep darkness, the other half as cold as a sculpture. "Tomorrow night, the moon will set. 'Widow's Gorge,' two ships, nine men. If this intelligence is even slightly wrong, if anything goes wrong with this hunt..." He paused, his voice chilling with a coldness more biting than the ice of the North Ocean, "I swear to the drowning gods, you will regret not having told the truth now. They will start by skinning you, then slice by slice, slowly cutting away your flesh, and finally tie you to the reefs, letting the rising tide gnaw away at your exposed bones for days and nights."

He subtly shifted his tone, adding a touch of almost benevolent seduction: "But if everything goes smoothly... perhaps you can still save your lives. You must already know my name and identity. On this sea, those I protect are hard to take away even by death. So, now, think carefully... is there anything else I forgot to say, anything useful?"

Extreme fear can sometimes extract the deepest secrets. After a brief, deathly silence, broken only by the mournful sound of the waves, a faint voice squeezed out:

"...Will-o'-the-wisp..."

Will-o'-the-wisp—an older and deadlier creation than wildfire, extremely flammable, like liquid rage from purgatory. Long ago, some merchant ships walking on the edge of danger would secretly keep a few barrels, hiding them in the most concealed hold, as bargaining chips in final negotiations or weapons for mutual destruction when faced with dire straits. But its raw materials were rare, and the art of its preparation was tightly held by a very few known as "fire sorcerers."

Now, those fire sorcerers have long been kept by the Mad King of King's Landing with the wealth of the entire kingdom.

Who could have imagined that such a dangerous secret was hidden on this seemingly ordinary merchant ship?

Baron and "Rending Grim" Dagmo exchanged a sharp glance, instantly filling the air with a new and more dangerous aura of greed. Then, their gazes simultaneously fell upon Euron. In their eyes was undisguised admiration and awe, the kind of gaze a wild beast would show upon discovering a larger prey.

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On the fourteenth day of the voyage, the night was as dark as ink.

As the last glimmer of moonlight was swallowed by the churning clouds, the "Drinking Ship," like a sea serpent covered in black scales, silently slid into the jagged reefs. The hull almost blended into the roaring darkness, with only the peeling paint on the figurehead occasionally gleaming faintly in the foam.

Euron Greyjoy lay crouching behind the bow, his nose catching a whiff of exotic scent on the wind—the warm sweetness of nutmeg mingled with the somberness of sandalwood, a luxurious blend clashing with the salty, briny air and the faint scent of blood in the sea breeze. A silent grin spread across his face, like a shark that had caught the scent of death.

The merchant fleet was completely unaware of this. Like docile lambs, they slowly sailed into the deadly strait. On the deck of the lead ship, under the dim glow of two lanterns, two guards were jostling and shoving each other over a deflated wine sack. Their voices were muffled by the crashing waves, their eyes clouded, utterly oblivious to the fact that, in the shadows of the dark reefs on either side, the horn strings of twelve longbows had been drawn to a cold, full moon.

"put!"

The captain Dagmo's roar was swallowed up by the giant waves crashing against the shore.

The poisoned arrow, coated with owl dung, was released and silently disappeared into the darkness. The next moment, the guards on deck fell one after another like stalks of wheat cut down by an invisible scythe. Arrows trembled in their throats, and even their final sobs did not disturb the night.

Almost simultaneously, Baron Greyjoy's grappling hook had already gripped the enemy ship's side. Swinging along the rope like a lithe ape, his curved blade slashing a chilling arc in mid-air—the archer on the watchtower had just noticed something amiss when his throat was slit open with a warm gash. Clutching the gushing blood from his neck, he fell silently into the churning, inky sea below.

The Ironborn's raids displayed a chilling efficiency honed through countless trials. Old Wick led a team of men like phantoms into the cargo hold, swiftly covering the barrels marked with danger symbols—containing "ghost fire," the kind of fire that could ignite hellfire at the slightest spark—with heavy, seawater-soaked blankets. A young squire's hands trembled violently with fear, barely able to hold his torch. Without hesitation, Old Wick swiftly slashed, and the young man's head rolled onto the damp deck, a look of astonishment on his face.

On the other side, Glenn's skinning knife precisely found the helmsman's ankle. The tip of the knife flicked, and the subtle sound of tendons snapping was drowned out by the noise. The helmsman, who had once been in control of the helm, now slumped down like a lump of mud.

On the deck, Dagmo roared, his voice drowning out the wind and waves, as he trudged through the sticky, chaotic mess: "The Drowned God only takes souls, not cargo! Throw all the dead overboard to feed the fish, and don't damage a single piece of cargo! You little bastards, keep your eyes peeled, or I'll skin you alive!"

His voice was rough like a rock, every word dripping with greed and bloodlust, echoing across the sea suddenly invaded by death, as if it were a final prayer offered to this dark sacrifice.