Year 109 A.C.
POV: Denovan
The return voyage proceeded with a stunning calmness. I divided my men so that a portion would escort the former slaves directly to Scalebay. Those skilled minds and hands were what my people needed most; the population of the Far North was strong and resilient, but lacked the technical knowledge that these artisans, weavers, and blacksmiths from Essos carried in their memories. They would be the spark to transform the wildlings into a true civilized society.
At nearly the same time, messages from my ravens confirmed that the shipment of supplies sent by Viserys had already docked at Skagos, or was within a few leagues of doing so. The agreement with the Crown was working, guaranteeing the sustenance of my people while I dedicated myself to what truly mattered at that moment: hunting and massacring pirates.
It was time to make my name echo definitively throughout the Narrow Sea. Viserys had already instructed me on the identification signal for allied ships; a completely black Targaryen pennant was to flutter at the top of the mainmast. For ordinary crews, a dangerous approach would be necessary to discern the symbol, but for my men, whose eyes shared an uncommon clarity and were as sharp as certain types of birds, the identification happened at a safe distance.
To structure our onslaught, I stationed fifty warriors permanently at Thieves' Port and divided the remainder of the fleet into paired ships. This tactic served both to avoid scaring off the pirates with an excessive number of sails and to cover a larger hunting area. My own galleon sailed intentionally with fewer men visible on deck, turning itself into the perfect bait.
And somewhere in the Stepstones, in the dark depths of the ocean, Orochi glided silently, ready to use her colossal strength to split the hull of any enemy vessel that sailed there.
Our main focus would soon turn against the Crabfeeder. My plan was not to win that war quickly, but rather to extend it for as long as necessary—perhaps some five years at most—to extract every possible benefit for the North. As long as the conflict lasted in the Stepstones, the Red Keep would continue sending supplies to Skagos to keep our alliance firm. In the meantime, I would accumulate treasures, fleets of ships, and, above all, search for any trace of Valyrian steel. I did not care if it came in the form of small rings, brooches, or maesters' links; I needed this metal to test my runic theories. If the experiments worked, I would not hesitate to plan a future incursion into the Iron Islands to take one of their ancestral swords and melt it into the blade of my own axe.
The AmbushMy thoughts were interrupted when I took my post at the bow of the ship, feeling the salty air lash my face with violence. On the horizon line, three pirate galleons advanced in our direction, displaying clean masts without any sign of Viserys's black pennant. We were at an obvious numerical disadvantage, exactly as I had planned to make them bite the bait. The wind blew in our favor, inflating our sails to the maximum, and our galleon gained an impressive speed. An obstinate smile played on my lips.
"Men, brace for impact!" I ordered, steadying my feet on the wooden deck.
The impact was brutal. The reinforced bow of our ship collided directly against the side of the first enemy vessel, provoking a deafening screech of breaking timbers and swaying masts. Almost immediately, a shower of arrows crossed the space between the decks. The projectiles struck squarely against our protections. The pain caused by grazing impacts was insignificant; as long as the iron tips did not strike the eyes or throat, the light armor did its job, and even if it didn't, bodies marked with runes would not stop for measly arrows. Taking advantage of the moment when the enemy archers paused to reload, I ran toward the opposite gunwale and leaped onto the enemy deck, letting out a roar that echoed above the sound of the waves.
"Advance! Kill these bastards!"
My men invaded the ship in a coordinated frenzy. Wearing treated leather armor and bronze helmets adorned with horns, they raised their wooden shields with bronze rims to repel the new volley of arrows. Since I began to establish the foundations of a standing army in Scalebay, the use of helmets and shields had become a strict combat norm. We still did not have enough steel smithies to equip everyone, relying largely on the bronze we managed to produce, which made discovering a rich iron mine an absolute priority for my expansion plans.
The pirates fought chaotically, brandining blades without any military discipline. They were looters, not soldiers, and the difference became clear at the first clash of metal. In the midst of that whirlpool of blood, I was the only one who did not carry a protective shield; the two rustic tomahawks I wielded demanded total freedom of movement for my hands. To bring me down there, it would take a millimetric shot that pierced my eye to hit the brain, or a spear driven deeply into my heart for a prolonged period. Other than that, the intricate runic inscriptions carved into my own skin took care of closing any wound within a matter of hours.
Aquelas eram minhas invenções mais recentes: as runas direcionais (directional runes). I engraved each of them to act in harmony, channeling my body's vital energy into specific attributes: some amplified brute strength, others raised reaction speed and tissue resistance. The practical result transformed me into an unstoppable beast on the battlefield, moving at a speed that the eyes of those decaying pirates could barely follow.
"Bastard! Die!" shouted a stout pirate, rushing toward me with a raised scimitar.
I spun my body and threw my right tomahawk with full force. The throwing axe sliced through the air and struck the man's skull dead-on, dropping him instantly to the ground. Before his body fell, I grabbed a curved sword dropped by a corpse on the deck to parry a lateral blow coming in my direction, using the other axe to lock a blade advancing from the front. A third pirate took advantage of the opening, advancing quickly with a thrust aimed at my chest. It was his last mistake.
A sharp screech cut through the sound of swords as Horus descended from the skies like an arrow of feathers and talons. If I myself were not attuned to the presence of my falcon, I would never have noticed his high-speed approach. His sharp talons tore the exposed throat of the attacker with such force that the impact broke the man's neck, causing him to collapse lifeless against the ship's rigging. The pirates surrounding me hesitated for a fraction of a second, paralyzed by the shock of seeing a bird of prey act with such military ferocity. I seized the slip-up.
My left axe swung in an upward arc, splitting the jaw of the opponent in front, while the curved sword I improvised penetrated deeply into the eye of the other. The greatest mistake of those men had been to be born and sail through those waters; now, the Stepstones belonged to my people, transformed into our hunting ground. I advanced across the blood-soaked deck, ripped my tomahawk from the skull of the first pirate, and continued carving my way through the enemy ranks.
It did not take long for panic to spread and the survivors to begin fleeing, trying to reach the ropes to leap back to their own ships. But a true hunter never allows the prey to escape once cornered. We eliminated them systematically before they even had time to maneuver the rudders of the other two vessels to attempt a desperate escape.
"Three more intact galleons... Pretty soon I won't know where to dock so many ships," I muttered to myself, wiping the blood from the blades onto a dead man's clothes.
Runic AftermathI looked around to evaluate the condition of my crew. Aside from scratches and superficial cuts that were already beginning to close on their own, only three warriors had suffered serious injuries, including finger amputations and severe lacerations near the eyes. Although my runic magic was not yet capable of regenerating an entirely lost limb from scratch, the healing speed provided by the inscriptions was high enough to save tissues if we acted quickly.
"Come with me, I will take care of this," I called out to the three wounded men, leading them to a cleaner area near the captain's cabin. I looked directly at the warrior who was pressing the bleeding stump of his left hand. "Did you manage to recover your finger, or did it fall into the sea?"
"I didn't grab it, boss. But I know exactly where it fell in the middle of the confusion," replied the Northman, showing the wound wrapped in a piece of clean cloth. "Do you think you can put it back in place?"
"Since the cut is recent and the tissue is still alive, if we align the bones and vessels perfectly, the magic can do the rest. But I give no absolute guarantees. How many directional runes do you currently have engraved on your body?"
"I have two, boss."
"Great. Go get the finger immediately and bring it here. We have a real chance of saving your hand." I turned to the other two awaiting treatment. "And you two? Do you also have two runes installed?"
Only one of them confirmed with a nod, while the other remained silent, holding a deep cut that ran down his shoulder to his ribs.
"You who already have two runes, go to the inner quarters and rest for today; your own body will take care of closing that gash by dawn," I instructed the warrior who had nodded.
Then, I faced the last man, whose wound was extensive. "You, take off the leather protection and expose your back. I am going to carve a new directional rune to accelerate your tissue regeneration before infection sets in."
For this procedure, I used to mix Orochi's raw blood with mine and that of other northern beasts, but I decided to test whether my blood alone would be capable of sustaining the symbol's activation. It would be a valuable scientific experiment. Using a fine needle sculpted from whalebone, I dipped the tip into my own blood and began to pierce the warrior's skin with rapid, precise movements. The red liquid coagulated almost instantly in the open channels, displaying a bright crimson coloration that, after a few days of healing, would settle into a definitive dark reddish-black tone.
After long minutes of meticulous work, the rustic rune began to pulse slightly, almost imperceptibly, indicating that the rune was working, and at that moment it was active, and by the position where the directional rune was glowing, the healing rune was the one that was active. In a few days, the man would be ready for combat again.
I cleaned my hands, stood up, and put my tools away in the leather pouch. "The task is finished here. Let's return to base."
Along the way, I ended up lightly stitching the finger that the warrior had found, and bandaged it. This would be the first time we did something like this; to be more certain that it would work, I made sure to engrave another directional rune on him. It would be fair for a man who was serving as an experiment.
Aside from the most exceptional members of my army, the marked ones, and the captains, such as Morn, Thormund, and Korr, this man would have more runes than the others; he would certainly become someone powerful for me.
The sailors, now much more accustomed to the navigation routine and nautical commands, raised the textured sails of the captured ships and pointed the bows toward Thieves' Port. My main galleon followed closely behind, escorting the new prizes of war through the sea currents. If another pirate ship crossed our path before we reached the port, their fleet would simply become our property.