As the two fleets closed in on each other, a thick white mist suddenly began to rise around one side.
The fog spread quickly, rolling up from the river like some ghostly creature awakening from the depths, eager to swallow them whole.
"Fog? What's going on?"
"It's midday! How can there be fog now?"
Some of the river pirates glanced up at the blazing sun overhead, bewildered.
"Don't mind it! Prepare for boarding action!"
Jim, the self-proclaimed King of the Rhoyne River, barked the order. Though the mist was thickening, he could still make out the general position of Viserys's fleet.
The Rhoyne was a wide river; occasional patches of mist weren't unusual. He saw no reason to panic.
Instead, he decided to press the attack.
Half of his ships broke formation and began closing in on Viserys's vessels, while the rest continued firing volleys in their general direction to keep up the pressure.
But within moments, Jim realized something was wrong. The fog grew heavier and heavier until he could no longer see even the outlines of the enemy ships.
When his men fired blindly into the mist, all they heard in return were dull splashes — arrows vanishing uselessly into the water.
No cries. No hits. Nothing.
"Did the fog… surround us?"
The thought struck Jim suddenly, but he brushed it aside. If that were true, then luck had truly abandoned him today.
Yet that was exactly what had happened.
From both flanks, Arthur and Oberyn led their ships forward, closing in around the pirates trapped within the fog.
They couldn't see the enemy either, but they knew the pirates were somewhere inside that white shroud.
Soon enough, one of the pirate ships drifted out of the mist.
The men aboard cheered, relieved to see clear skies again. Some of them even leaned over the rails, scanning for targets.
Then they froze.
Standing on the deck of the nearest ship was a dark-haired man with olive skin, holding a spear, watching them coldly.
"Loose!"
Oberyn's hand slashed downward.
The archers behind him — furious from the earlier volleys — released their arrows in a single thunderous wave.
In the blink of an eye, the pirate ship, open-decked and unarmored, was shredded. Its crew fell screaming, pierced through before they could even draw breath.
Soon the second ship appeared, then the third. Each one that emerged from the mist was met with a storm of arrows from Oberyn and Arthur's men.
Inside the fog, Jim could only hear the familiar screams of his comrades dying one by one. His heart hammered so violently it felt ready to burst.
Their numbers were few to begin with, and without anyone to rally them, panic spread like wildfire.
Some couldn't take the pressure and hurled themselves into the river.
But the Rhoyne was vast, deep, and fast-flowing. Out of a hundred swimmers, perhaps one might reach the shore.
A female pirate broke the surface for air — but before her lungs could fill, a shrill whistle cut through the fog.
Pain ripped through her chest. Her body went limp, and blood spread like a crimson flower on the water before fading away with the current.
Half an hour passed before Viserys could no longer sustain the mist.
The thick fog began to shrink, collapsing in on itself like cotton melting into the river.
When Jim finally saw clear sky again, his heart sank.
His ship was surrounded.
And around him, there wasn't a single friendly vessel left.
He and his remaining crew instinctively reached for their bows — but found over a hundred arrows already aimed at their heads.
What shocked Viserys's men was that the pirates did not surrender. One by one, they jumped into the water, choosing death over capture.
Only Jim was caught — seized alive by Arthur's quick reflexes.
Inside the cabin, Viserys leaned back, feeling dizzy.
Even as a water mage, sustaining such a spell was draining. He was only one man; the Rhoynar water-sorcerers who once performed similar feats had been a hundred strong.
The fog he had conjured was barely a fifth the size and much thinner in density than the one he'd created back at the reservoir — but it had been enough to turn the tide.
A golden prompt flickered in his mind:
[Essence Gained: Archer (Elite) ×344, Archer (Veteran) ×12]
Viserys blinked in surprise. The quality of these essences was extraordinary.
Training an elite archer took at least five to seven years, often longer — and yet every man aboard those pirate ships had been an elite.
It was absurd.
Before long, their captured leader, Jim, was brought before him.
When Viserys heard that the pirates had chosen death over surrender, he was momentarily stunned.
When had river bandits ever shown such resolve?
He studied Jim closely, and Jim, in turn, examined him.
"Valyrian?" Jim asked at last, frowning at the sight of the young man with silver hair and violet eyes.
They were on the Rhoyne, where most travelers were from Volantis — the Free City with the highest number of silver-haired, purple-eyed folk. So Jim assumed he was facing a Volantene noble.
Viserys was studying something else entirely — Jim's longbow. The way he held it across his knees made his curiosity obvious.
Every man who had ever seen one of their bows had reacted the same way.
Viserys was no exception.
He turned the bow over in his hands. It was massive — nearly as tall as he was, at least a meter and eighty centimeters in length.
And the material wasn't the usual ashwood.
"What are these bows made from?" Viserys asked.
"Hmph. No comment," Jim spat.
To him, the bow was the key to ruling the Rhoyne. Even in death, he would never reveal its secret. As long as his people held the material, their little river town would remain untouchable.
It was also why his crew had chosen suicide.
Viserys didn't argue. He simply drew one of his own arrows, nocked it, and let it fly.
The shaft struck cleanly through Jim's chest. The pirate king toppled backward, dead before he hit the deck.
"Rest the men. We move again at dawn," Viserys ordered calmly.
Then, claiming exhaustion, he dismissed the others and remained alone in the cabin.
Arthur, though weary from battle, took his post at the door, silent and watchful. The events of the day still churned in his mind.
In that earlier chaos, retreat had seemed the only rational choice. The pirates' longbows were the finest he had ever seen.
Yet Viserys had told him he would summon a mist to blind their enemies — just as he had once done at the reservoir.
Arthur hadn't believed it.
But he trusted Viserys. The king who had once said, "A man must watch the eyes of the one he condemns to die," was not one to waste lives carelessly.
Battlefields shifted in moments, and Arthur had followed his command.
And then — the fog had truly risen.
It had turned defeat into victory.
Arthur didn't understand it.
It was already remarkable that Viserys could create wildfire — but when had he mastered the Rhoynar's most guarded art as well?
A strange thought stirred in his chest. He looked toward the cabin, his eyes thoughtful, his heart whispering a question he dared not speak aloud:
The man sitting in there… was he truly my king?
___________
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