The pungent stench clinging to Archmaester Marwyn finally faded as he staggered off.
Lo Quen returned to the cabin, where Jaelena had already finished all the handover procedures with brisk efficiency.
Dragon Soul Guards were directing the hundreds of newly recruited sailors onto the ships, the harbor alive with activity.
"Lord, everything is ready."
Jaelena gave her report crisply. "Thirty new merchant ships, eleven flatboats, five swan ships, and the rest large sailing vessels. The total cost came to nearly two hundred and fifty thousand golden honors."
Lo Quen nodded. The treasures he had taken from Tyria and the King of the Rock were more than enough to cover such expenses.
He gave the order to set sail at once.
The great fleet raised its sails and left the bustling port of Volantis, heading straight for the chaotic Stepstones.
The Stepstones lay some four hundred leagues away—twice the distance from the Smoking Sea to Volantis. But with the superior speed of the new ships, the skill of the hired sailors, and the favor of wind and current, the fleet moved with astonishing swiftness.
In less than a month, they reached the southern waters of the Stepstones.
Lo Quen stood at the bow of a sleek swan ship, a Myrish lens pressed to his eye as he scanned the channel ahead for reefs suitable for anchorage.
"Hm?" His brow tightened suddenly.
At the edge of his lens, several tiny black specks were quickly growing larger.
Four narrow, fast oared warships were closing in on a small merchant vessel.
Pirates!
The four pirate ships moved in a wedge, their unmatched maneuverability hemming the merchantman in tight.
Ballistae and crude catapults roared from their prows, loosing stones and thick bolts like hail upon the trapped ship.
The merchant crew scrambled in panic, desperately working the sails. Catching a strong crosswind, they broke free and fled—straight toward Lo Quen's fleet.
Just as the swan ship ahead on Lo Quen's right tried to maneuver clear, the terrified merchant vessel, like a runaway horse, smashed into its side with a thunderous crash.
"Damn it!" Lo Quen's face hardened as he ordered his own swan ship to close at full speed.
The site of the collision was chaos.
The merchant ship's hatch gaped open, spilling panicked passengers and crew in plain clothes. It was clearly just an ordinary passenger vessel.
As Lo Quen's ship drew near, Jaelena and her sister already had the Dragon Soul Guards throwing a gangplank swiftly across the gap.
The moment Lo Quen stepped onto the damaged swan ship, frightened sailors rushed up to plead, "Lord! The ship was moving too fast with the tailwind, we—"
Lo Quen cut them off with a wave, his gaze stabbing toward the huddled crowd on the merchant deck. "Where is the captain?"
The crowd parted. A middle-aged man with a square face and neatly trimmed gray beard—bearing the typical look of the Free Cities—shuffled forward, trembling. He collapsed to his knees with a thud, tears and snot streaming. "Lord, spare me! It... it wasn't my fault..."
Lo Quen vaulted the gunwale and landed before him, his voice like ice. "Your name? Where are you from? Where were you bound? Why were those four ships surrounding and attacking you?"
"M-my name is Ternesio Terys, captain of the Titan's Daughter," the man stammered. "We sailed from Braavos, bound for Lys. We never expected to be ambushed by pirates so soon after passing the Stepstones..."
Lo Quen sneered. "And so you rammed your ship into my fleet?"
"Not me! I swear it wasn't me!" Ternesio flailed his hands in terror.
"It was my order." A deep, resonant voice rolled out from the shadows of the cabin.
Lo Quen turned toward the sound.
A burly, middle-aged man stepped slowly into the light.
A burly, dark-skinned man with thick hair stepped out, gripping a sword still streaked with fresh blood. He wore only a breastplate, no helmet, his slightly thinning brown hair exposed.
His eyes burned with wariness, fixed on Lo Quen. From the depths of his pupils flashed a predatory light, like a beast coiled to strike.
The passengers shrank back in awe, clearing a path for him.
Lo Quen's gaze hardened as he slowly drew the Valyrian steel sword he had taken from Terys. The blade was etched with dense, swirling runes that clung to its mirror-cold steel, glinting with a pale, ghastly light.
He leveled the sword's point at the man. "State your name. I've no wish to kill a nameless wretch."
The man's eyes flicked to the weapon, a trace of shock flickering deep within them.
He scowled, sizing up the young black-haired challenger before him, and sneered. "Boy, if your swordplay proves worthy of the blade you hold, then I'll tell you my name."
He raised his sword across his chest, settling into a steady stance.
At that instant—
"Whoosh—crack!"
A siege bolt as thick as a child's arm tore through the air with a deathly scream and slammed into the merchant ship's hull.
Splinters exploded like a storm, the vessel shuddered violently, and panicked screams ripped through the air once more.
Lo Quen's eyes cut toward the four oared ships.
They lingered two hundred yards off, slyly using their range to harass from afar.
Figures shifted on their decks; the shouts of crews reloading ballistae and catapults, mixed with the pirates' jeering curses, carried clearly across the water.
"Jaelena!" Lo Quen's voice rang sharp. "Order all swan ships and galleons to grapple them head-on! Flatboats form the outer cordon—don't let a single one escape!"
"Understood!" Jaelena's eyes blazed with battle fury, her armor flashing in the sun.
...
The swan ships and galleons, massive and durable, lacked the maneuverability of the nimble oared ships. Encirclement was their only answer.
As the heavy ships swung in from the flanks, the four oared vessels churned the water in a frenzy, trying to rip through the closing net with speed, all while focusing their fire on the two swan ships leading the charge.
Stones whistled against fresh oak planks, leaving deep pits.
Thick bolts slammed into the gunwales, tail-feathers quivering.
But the new timbers were thick and resilient, and the pirates' hurried shots did little more than scratch the surface. They could not halt the tightening noose.
One swan ship, using its bulk, rammed hard into an oared vessel that was trying to veer away. The impact sent the smaller ship lurching, oars snapping, pirates shrieking as they tumbled.
Before the gangplank had even settled, a figure vaulted the rail—Jaelena.
Her form was encased in Valyrian steel, the matching blade in her hand blurring like a phantom.
The deck of the oared ship was crowded with nearly a hundred pirates, ragged men clutching short swords.
For an instant they froze at the sight of a lone warrior leaping across. Then, with howls of bloodlust, they rushed her.
What greeted them was slaughter.
Jaelena's swordsmanship was already tempered through endless drills, but with the strength and speed of the Dragonblood Pact, she was a weapon made flesh.
Her blade sang with a savage beauty—no technique, only raw, merciless power.
It flashed as a silver streak too fast to follow. Crude blades snapped like twigs. Shabby leather and thin iron shattered like paper before the Valyrian steel.
Where her sword passed, arms and legs flew, blood sprayed in mist. Each step she took was punctuated by screams and the thud of bodies crashing to the deck.
The pirates' ferocity proved laughably fragile against such overwhelming force, speed, and the bite of a god-forged blade.
Expressionless, Jaelena cut through them like death in a wheat field, reaping without pause, forcing a bloody path through the press of bodies.
She alone was enough to shatter the pirates' morale.
Moments later, a dozen Dragon Soul Guards vaulted the rail in silence.
Clad in steel, they moved with precision, each step heavy and sure.
In their hands, Valyrian steel swords wove a moving forest of death.
Desperate counterstrikes skittered harmlessly off their armor, leaving only faint scratches.
Every thrust, every sweep, claimed a life.
Tight in formation, they pushed forward behind Jaelena's breach, crushing the last of the resistance without mercy.
The deck was soon littered with corpses and the wails of the wounded.
The pirates on the first oared ship broke completely. Survivors wailed, flinging their weapons aside and dropping to their knees, begging for mercy.