The Narrow Sea stretched endlessly beneath the open sky, a vast blue hunting ground.
The Spyglass was trapped in the upper channels of the Stepstones. If the pirate longships managed to drag the merchant cog deeper into the treacherous, winding straits between the islands, there would be no escape.
Gendry noted that most of the Myrish crew had olive skin, dark hair, and dark eyes, starkly different from the fair, blonde Lyseni. Many claimed they shared blood with the ancient Rhoynar. But whatever their bloodline, they were sailors, not soldiers.
The two pirate longships flanked the Spyglass, their black sails billowing. The dull thump of ship-mounted ballistas echoed across the water, launching heavy, iron-barbed grappling hooks that bit deep into the cog's timber rails. As the longships ground against the hull, the corsairs hurled rope ladders over the side faster than the panicked Myrish sailors could hack them away.
Thwack! Thwack!
The Myrish crew unleashed a desperate volley from their repeating crossbows. Several pirates shrieked as poison-laced bolts caught them in the chest and throat, tumbling backward into the churning sea to feed the sharks.
"Keep firing! Passengers to the rear!" Captain Dunstan roared, his voice cracking with panic.
The sailing master tried to rally the men, directing their fire. The Myrish fought with the weapons they knew best: crossbows, short swords, and poisoned daggers. But the pirates' ballistas were terrifyingly heavy, launching massive, spear-sized bolts that punched straight through the Spyglass's wooden bulkheads, pinning men to the deck and suppressing the Myrish counterattack.
"Gods, I should have hired proper longbowmen!" Dunstan wailed.
The repeating crossbows were intricate, but they lacked stopping power at a distance, and the crew hadn't stocked enough of the expensive three-shot magazines. A skilled Westerosi longbowman could loose three arrows in the time it took to crank and load a standard heavy crossbow.
When the massive ballista bolts began splintering the deck boards, the Westerosi passengers threw down their weapons, covered their heads, and scrambled for cover. Gendry dodged a shower of splinters, but before he could raise his own crossbow, Qyburn grabbed his arm and yanked him back. Human flesh could not withstand artillery fire.
After only a few volleys, the Myrish defense broke.
Raising heavy wooden shields to block the remaining crossbow fire, the pirates swarmed up the boarding ladders like spiders, ignoring the corpses of their fallen comrades. They were hardened corsairs, born to the bloody chaos of close-quarters deck fighting. The Myrish sailors, relying entirely on the distance their crossbows provided, were painfully clumsy once the fight devolved into a melee.
War is not a game. It is a crucible of blood, iron, courage, and cruel experience. The Myrish front line collapsed almost instantly. They lacked the sheer, psychotic bloodlust of the Stepstones raiders, and the conscripted passengers were worse than useless.
Gendry watched the terror warp Captain Dunstan's face. Boarding actions were fast, brutal, and absolute. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The Westerosi passengers huddled near the stern, weeping and sweating in the heat.
"It seems my luck has finally run out. I should have stayed in Westeros and begged some minor lord for a drafty tower," Qyburn muttered, crouching beside Gendry near the stern. Despite his words, the old man's face remained remarkably calm. "Can you swim, child? If it comes to it, dive over the rail. I have lived long enough, but you have years ahead of you."
"Just watch the board," Gendry whispered back, his eyes locked on the pirates.
"Slaughter the dogs! Take the ship!"
The corsairs swept across the deck like a squall of flashing steel. The Myrish sailing master was the first to fall, his throat opened by a pirate cutlass. Several other sailors were hacked down before they could even drop their weapons. Seeing the butchery, the rest of the Myrish crew threw their swords and crossbows to the blood-slicked deck and dropped to their knees.
Only Captain Dunstan remained standing, his face the color of wet ash.
"Drop your steel! Get on your knees! Face the deck!" the pirates roared, kicking the surrendered sailors into submission.
The clatter of dropped weapons and discarded armor echoed over the waves. Gendry found a shadowed spot near the stern rail, slipping his ringmail shirt off, it was too conspicuous now, and keeping his short-handled warhammer hidden just out of sight beneath a coiled rope. The Myrish crew cowered near the mast, leaving the Westerosi passengers huddled at the back.
One, two, three... twelve, Gendry counted silently.
Twelve boarders on the deck. To stay light on their feet, the pirates wore boiled leather rather than heavy mail or plate.
"I am the storm!" The pirate captain vaulted over the rail, his voice booming over the whimpering captives.
He was a massive, powerfully built man with violently dyed purple hair. When he smiled, a row of gold teeth flashed in the sun. He wore a shirt of black iron scale mail and carried a longsword in each hand. The corsair captain looked at Dunstan the way a butcher looks at a lamb.
"Why must we ruin a perfectly good deck with blood?" the pirate captain sighed, stepping deliberately on the dead sailing master's chest before kicking the corpse aside. "You men are skilled Myrish sailors, not slaves. Leave the cargo, and you keep your lives. Your guilds will pay a handsome ransom for you."
He leveled a bloody sword at Dunstan. "How does that sound, Captain?"
"My lord... I beg you, I will pay whatever ransom you demand," Dunstan stammered, forcing a sickly, desperate smile. "But the cargo... I must return to Myr with the cargo. I have debts with the magisters!"
"Every fool knows a pirate never haggles!" The purple-haired corsair backhanded Dunstan across the face with the heavy steel pommel of his sword, sending the Myrish captain crashing to the deck. "Perhaps that will clear your head."
The pirate captain gestured to his crew with a flick of his blade. "Spread out. Take half the men below and inventory the hold. The rest of you, hold this rabble here."
Gendry's mind raced, calculating the odds. There were men left on the longships to manage the ropes, and the twelve boarders had just split in half. Only six men remained on the deck to guard the prisoners. The gold-toothed captain was heavily armed and armored in scale, making him the only true threat.
The window is opening. Do I strike?
"Now, my wise captain," the corsair sneered, turning his attention away from Dunstan. "I see we have passengers. Westerosi, by the look of them."
He sneered at the huddled group near the stern. It was easy to tell them apart; the Westerosi bore the distinct Andal features of fair hair and blue or green eyes.
"Y-yes, my lord," Dunstan stuttered, blood leaking from his split lip.
The Westerosi passengers whimpered. The Myrish sailors might be ransomed, but a pirate wouldn't sail all the way to King's Landing to collect coin for a handful of merchants. The Westerosi would either be sold to Essosi slavers or simply murdered and tossed overboard to save rations.
The pirate captain strode toward the passengers. They shrank back in terror, inadvertently exposing Qyburn and Gendry at the rear.
"Gods, what a miserable lot," the corsair spat in disgust. "Ugly and old. Not a single pretty boy or maiden among you. The Lyseni won't pay copper for this refuse."
"My lord, please! Spare me! I have gold hidden in my cabin! Take it all!" a fat Westerosi merchant begged, pressing his face to the deck.
"Give me your gold?" The pirate captain laughed uproariously. "If I slit your throat, the gold is mine anyway!"
His eyes landed on Qyburn. "And what use is this withered old husk? Old men aren't worth the salt it takes to drown them."
He stepped up to Qyburn, looming over the stooped maester. Gendry tensed, shifting his weight slightly. He wasn't afraid; he was merely inching closer to the coiled rope hiding his hammer. Qyburn noticed the subtle movement and gave Gendry a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. Wait.
"My lord, I beg your indulgence," Qyburn said, his voice completely steady, devoid of the panic infecting the others. "I am no ordinary elder. I forged my chain at the Citadel in Westeros. I am a highly trained physician and healer. I assure you, I can be of immense use to your crew."
The pirate captain paused, blinking in mild surprise at the old man's brazen composure.
"Well spoken, old man. But you are too frail," the corsair sneered, grabbing Qyburn roughly by the front of his robes. "I'd spend more coin feeding you than you're worth. Give my regards to the Drowned God. Perhaps the mermaids require a physician!"
He hoisted Qyburn up, making a show of dragging him toward the rail. Qyburn finally let out a convincing cry of terror, which only made the pirate roar with laughter.
"Pathetic old fool! I'll let you breathe a few minutes longer. You made me laugh. Once I've stripped this ship of its silver, I'll toss you to the sea!" He dropped Qyburn back onto the deck.
Then, the corsair's eyes locked onto Gendry.
"And you, boy. Take off that iron mask," the pirate commanded, his gold teeth glinting. "You've got a broad chest on you, and your voice hasn't cracked. Assuming your face isn't a ruined mess of pox scars, the pillow houses in Lys will pay a fortune to break a stallion like you."
"As you command, my lord," Gendry said softly.
He raised his hands slowly, as if reaching for the straps of his iron mask. But his fingers never touched the metal.
Instead, his body coiled like a loaded spring. In one fluid, explosive motion, Gendry dropped his right hand, gripped the leather-wrapped haft of his short warhammer, and lunged.
Wait. Observe. Wait. Observe. Strike.
The pirate wore black iron scale over his chest. If Gendry failed to kill him with the first blow, he would be hacked to pieces.
Gendry's mind went perfectly blank, settling into the familiar, singular focus of the forge. He channeled every ounce of his Baratheon strength into his arm, swinging the beak-like spike of the warhammer straight at the corsair's skull, delivering the most perfect strike of his life.