In the war room:
Lissa reported relevant intelligence.
The Serpent Isles' seven main islands scattered like seven poison fangs across dark-green waters—Axe Island cleaving through waves, Howl Mountain shrieking through fog, Fly Island gathering filth, towering Tear Island's cliff-face perpetually salt-crusted, Toad Island sprawling through marshes, Skull Island's white rocks stacked skull-shaped, Claw Island's reefs like raptor talons.
Each island harbored a pirate king. Seven factions maintained fragile balance under the ancient law of "survival of the fittest." Outwardly blood-sworn brothers, inwardly they perpetually sharpened knives for each other's backs.
Upon hearing this intelligence, Lord Barron grinned, showing yellowed teeth. "Seven islands, we have exactly seven lords—" He counted on thick fingers. "One per island, fair and just!"
This refreshingly pirate-straightforward proposal actually made Lord Nobask stomp the deck with studded boots, while Lord Kurper hurled his wineskin against a rope cleat, erupting in cheers. Until they heard Euron's knuckles tapping the gunwale—three crisp sounds like knife-edges scraping ribs.
Noise stopped abruptly.
The two lords realized this barely qualified as tactics. Barron sheepishly scratched his beard as if his fervor had never existed.
Lissa's lips finally curved into shallow arcs. Her fingertip moved westward across the rough chart, landing on that island-outline resembling rotting food. "Following established strategy," her voice remained steady, "the first engagement target is Fly Island, furthest west."
"The 'Bone Brothers' lair there—they're complete brigands," her tone turned cold. "They worship no gods, only their savage philosophy: 'bones outlast lives.' They hoard no gold, only obsess collecting weapons and... enemies' skulls."
She paused, letting this settle. "The Bone Brothers have one supreme leader, four lieutenants, commanding two thousand-plus pirates. Their primary business is slave-trading. Because their geography sits closest to Nas Island..."
Lissa's words paused here, her gaze rising to Euron's face before slowly continuing: "Their 'merchandise' consists primarily of Nas people."
Those final words she spoke softly and slowly, like ice sliding into silent air.
Euron nodded expressionlessly. "Continue."
Leader: "Old Bone" Colin—sixty-year-old, frame dried like seasoned timber, skin cracked like exposed parchment. His left eye socket nested a black pearl excavated from a slave-master's skull.
Once the "Bloody-Hand Pirates' " terror across the Narrow Sea three decades past. Betrayed by partners with a belly-wound, he'd washed ashore on Fly Island barely breathing. He'd treated wounds with marsh mud, survived gnawing dead crabs and rotted coconuts, becoming the brotherhood's "living totem."
Colin's creed: "Living men lie. Bones don't." His sword-hilt was pieced from seventeen fingers of pirates who'd betrayed him. Each kill earned one bone-mark on the scabbard—now fully inscribed like rotted bark crawling with maggots.
Sub-leader: "Blood Axe" Sol—thirty-year-old powerhouse, right arm thicker than left, rippling muscle tattooed with crossed battle-axes.
An orphan Colin rescued from slave-ships, blessed with inhuman strength, becoming the brotherhood's "killing machine." Sol's favorite game: "splitting captives alive"—cleaving people skull-to-toe with dual axes, watching intestines slide like snakes.
Sub-leader: "Poison Bait" Lila—forty-year-old woman, short and squat, perpetually wearing mud-splattered leather apron.
Born into a pirate dynasty, her grandfather was a slave-master's poison-master. She'd learned since childhood concocting "instant death" toxins: swamp-rot herb juices, fermented rotten coconut venom, even pulverized dead-man fingernail powder. She'd bury poison-tipped stakes in shallows, hang toxin-soaked nets in coconut groves, dump corpse-meat into enemy water-barrels—"Make them drink our shit-soup!" she'd boast.
Rumor claimed she mastered blood-magic.
Sub-leader: "Hawk Eye" Coz—fifty-year-old skeleton, eye-sockets sunken like an old crow, fingertips perpetually ink-stained. Originally a Lys merchant-ship scout, he'd stolen the captain's gold, had an eye gouged out, thrown overboard. Washed to Fly Island, he became the brotherhood's "eyes".
Coz could move through tidal marshes ten miles submerged, sniff enemy-ship numbers in the wind, even judge supply-routes from seabird flight patterns.
Sub-leader: "Butcher" Buk—twenty-five-year-old, face scarred from eyebrow to mouth-corner, eternally wielding a serrated butcher-axe. Colin's "executioner," responsible for eliminating traitors and disposing of captive corpses.
Lissa sequentially unfurled five crude yet expressive portraits across the rough chart-table. Charcoal-sketched faces with every scar and cold gaze unnervingly lifelike, seeming to carry blood-scent from wind's depths.
Euron's gaze swept the portraits, nodding slightly. His voice remained calm. "When our three-day deadline expires, if they haven't submitted, they've chosen the second path."
One must keep faith: three days means three days, not earlier one minute, not later one second.
Lord Barron slammed the table, portraits trembling. "Nothing more to discuss! Kill them!"
Euron's gaze turned to the remaining six lords, his heterochromatic eyes betraying no emotion. "Your thoughts?"
His response was uniform predatory grinning like sharks scenting blood. Lord Kurper licked dry lips. Lord Nobask cracked knuckles like snapping firewood. Throats rumbled deeply. "Slaughter all!"
Amid swelling bloodlust, Euron lightly tapped the table, adding: "Their dungeons likely hold slaves they haven't evacuated. When we move, be careful."
Fly Island
Bone Brothers' Great Hall
Whale-oil lamps hissed in the low chamber, casting twisted faces in flickering shadows. Salt-laden wind pierced stone cracks but couldn't disperse anxiety and fear thickening the air.
Leader "Old Bone" Colin pressed skeletal palms against rough wood-table, voice rasping like millstone. "Beast-Lord, Euron Greyjoy, commands twenty thousand Iron folk. Tomorrow his fleet appears on our coastline. Brothers, speak."
"Iron Islands' weaklings?" "Blood Axe" Sol spat out half-chewed crab leg, foul spray splattering the table. "I've split harder reef-stone than their keels!"
"Hawk Eye" Coz polished his brass spyglass, his lone eye transparent with sober despair. "I've witnessed their Sea Kings personally... that's ancient power capable of summoning tsunamis. We're rafts against storms."
"Butcher" Buk shoved aside empty rum-cans. "He swore to shelter Nas Island! Seventy percent our profit comes from there. Drop blades and we're nothing! Should we dig potatoes?"
"Poison Bait" Lila twirled a toxin-coated dagger, whispering. "Our fortress isn't mere ornament. They dare storm us, I'll poison every stone."
"Old Bone" Colin slammed table hard, bony fingers pointing seaward into darkness. "At sea, we lack even the right to resist. Their numbers are ten times ours. Who truly splits ten opponents?" He surveyed everyone, voice low. "Negotiate. This is our only path."
Coz raised his eye. "What are our limits?"
Under yellowed lamplight, Colin's wrinkles cut deep as knife-marks. "Keep territory, retain brothers, maintain all business except Nas Island. We'll accept the Iron Islands' golden kraken flag on our island."
"Since Euron Greyjoy personally promised to shelter Nas Island beneath his wing..." Colin's raspy voice cut sharp in silence. His skeletal fingers slowly clenched until knuckles paled from strain. "We can only offer our greatest sincerity—" he paused, as if expelling organs, "abandon Nas Island."
Silence fell. Only lamp-wick crackling remained. Colin surveyed companions' shocked, twisted faces, seeking their recognition.
"This is the... heaviest bargaining chip we can offer," Colin whispered, believing this forced concession sufficient to purchase the conqueror's forgiveness.