The heavy winch groaned as the iron chain slowly lifted.
The "gate" opened, but what yawned before them was a death maw lined with jagged fangs.
Under Roro's near-panicked, suffocating commands, the Cobblecat and the other rowboats were the first to push into the narrow, stifling black fissure.
The disguised "merchant ships" pressed in behind them.
The towering, pitch-dark cliffs on either side seemed ready to close at any moment and crush them flat.
Light all but vanished, leaving only the faint flicker of torches at the bows, their glow dancing across jagged, slick stone walls and the black waters below.
The current surged with treacherous force, making it nearly impossible to steer in the confined channel.
As the Cobblecat struggled past the narrowest point of the passage, nearly a right-angled turn—
"Loose!!!" Crab Claw's shrill, owl-like scream split the darkness from a cavern high above.
The cry ricocheted wildly through the gorge.
In the next heartbeat—
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
A storm of arrows rained down like a swarm of venomous locusts, pouring from cracks, holes, and hanging wooden walkways carved into the cliffs. They fell in sheets upon the fleet packed tightly in the waterway.
Lo Quen's heart sank. A trap. "Shields up!" he roared.
But before the words had left his mouth, the downpour struck. Arrows slammed into decks with rapid, heavy thuds, mingling with the startled cries and choking screams of Dragon Soul Guards caught unprepared. The narrow waterway filled with the sound of chaos.
In that desperate instant, a cold light flashed in Lo Quen's eyes. A piercing, dragon-like cry of steel split the air as the Valyrian steel sword at his waist leapt free of its scabbard.
Magic surged through the blade. The intricate Valyrian runes etched across its surface blazed to life, and crimson fire burst forth as if alive. The searing wave of heat drove back the darkness and chill in a breath.
With a flick of his wrist, the flaming sword carved a blazing red arc.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Arrows shattered on contact with the fiery edge, their heads melting away in the heat, shafts blackening and snapping to ash before falling uselessly to the deck.
The sudden flare of fire and the rolling heat warped the storm of arrows, sending their aim wildly astray.
"Dragon Soul Guards, form up! Shields and counterattack!" Lo Quen's roar cracked through the din like thunder.
The flaming longsword in his grasp blazed like a beacon in the suffocating dark.
He swung in a wide arc, unleashing searing fire like a roaring dragon, hurling it toward the rock wall where the arrows came thickest.
BOOM!
The flaming arc struck, detonating in a blinding cloud of fire.
Pirate archers hidden behind the wall were blasted into the air, set ablaze and flung screaming into the black waters below like burning meteors.
Dry moss and kindling clinging to the cliff face ignited instantly, spilling light across more of the concealed ambushers.
Cutting down pirates as he moved, Lo Quen's eyes searched the shadowed gorge for the figure giving the orders.
Frustration gnawed at him. Since leaving the ruins of Valyria, his magic had crawled forward like a snail—barely a trickle of power gained with each passing day.
The pressure of dwindling magic weighed heavily on him, each use leaving less in reserve. Whether the ghost grass he had brought from the ruins of Valyria could even be cultivated was still uncertain.
He suspected that before the Red Comet appeared, the world's magic had been at a low ebb, and the dense magic within the Valyria ruins was nothing more than the lingering aftermath of blood sorcery gone out of control.
Unless he returned to those perilous ruins, he had no choice but to ration his magic carefully.
That was why, for this raid, he had resolved not to use the ultimate skill of dragon transformation. Instead, he meant to rely on the Dragon Soul Guards to win a clean, decisive victory.
Yet to his humiliation, the ambush he had so carefully laid had been uncovered by these pirates he hadn't even deemed worth considering.
Almost at the same moment Lo Quen unleashed his fiery sword aura, a silver figure on the deck below let out a clear, ringing cry of steel.
It was Jaelena.
The slender, rippling Valyrian steel blade in her hand burst from its sheath, blazing with silent crimson fire.
"Dragon Soul Guards, follow me ashore and wipe out the ambushers!"
Her voice cut through the chaos. Ignoring the arrows flying toward her, she spun the flaming sword before her, weaving an unbroken wall of light.
Clang, clang, clang!
Seizing the opening, Jaelena led the Dragon Soul Guards in a leap onto the fjord's wooden walkways.
The plank road was crowded with pirates feverishly loosing arrows, only to freeze in shock at the sight of this female reaper springing from the darkness below.
"Die!" Jaelena didn't waste motion on sweeping strikes. Her blade flashed with pinpoint thrusts and cuts, each precise and deadly. Whether it struck rough leather armor, flesh and bone, or wooden bow arms, everything her sword touched was either sliced clean apart by its sharpness or scorched black by fire. Each step left behind silver flame afterimages and corpses collapsing in her wake.
In an instant, she had carved a swath of death through the walkway.
Her ferocity became a signal. More Dragon Soul Guards began climbing upward, using grappling hooks and the rock's natural ledges. Arrow fire had thinned, and they pressed the assault without hesitation, following the breach Jaelena had opened.
Screams and splashes echoed without pause, impossible to tell whether they belonged to pirate or guard.
"Found you!"
Lo Quen's eyes, sharp as a hawk's, swept the cliffs until they locked onto a towering, bald figure standing out on a rocky ledge, torch in hand, bellowing orders—Crab Claw.
The red crab tattoo gleamed clearly across his scalp in the firelight.
Lo Quen didn't hesitate.
He reversed his grip and slid the flaming sword back into its scabbard. The fire winked out at once.
From his pack, he drew the massive Dragonbone longbow he had claimed from the ruins of Valyria.
Its body was a subdued gray-white, etched with dense runes and swirling sigils.
As he poured magic into it, the carvings flared crimson, glowing like molten rock. The bowstring, braided from some impossibly strong sinew, thrummed with power.
He set a black arrow, its head gleaming with a cold, sinister light, against the string.
Drawing a deep breath, Lo Quen channeled magic into his arms and pulled. The Dragonbone bow bent into a near-perfect crescent, groaning with a deep, commanding hum.
At that moment—hum!
The arrowhead flared, not with ghostly light, but with a sudden, burning flame.
It burned silently, radiating such heat that the air around it warped and twisted.
The bow reached full draw, its swirling sigils shining brighter, almost alive.
Thrum—!!!
The bowstring snapped forward.
The blazing arrow shot out like a meteor, ripping through the darkness.
Trailing a long, fiery tail, it ignored the storm of arrows and streaked straight for Crab Claw's gaping mouth.
He was still roaring in fury at the chaos below and Jaelena's slaughter when a surge of killing intent seized him.
He spun his head, a cold sweat breaking across his scalp.
From the shadows, a flaming meteor arrow streaked toward him with lightning speed.
He tried to dodge, but for a heartbeat his body froze. All he could do was watch as the fiery light filled his vision, swelling larger and larger.
BOOM!!!
Not the whistling pierce of an arrow, but a violent detonation.
The flaming shaft struck with perfect precision, burying itself in Crab Claw's open maw. The kinetic force and searing fire exploded in an instant.
His head became a furnace.
His mouth, nose, and even eye sockets burst outward under the heat and shockwave.
No shards of bone or brain matter—only torrents of fire mixed with blackened, carbonized gore erupted from all seven orifices.
In less than a tenth of a second, most of his skull had been incinerated from the inside out.
Still burning, the arrow carried Crab Claw's headless, charred bulk backward with brutal force.
With a thunderous crash, his corpse slammed into the cliff face. The arrow drove deep into the rock, holding the body pinned, flames still dancing along its shaft.
The whole of Torturer's Deep fell into dead silence.
Every pirate who witnessed it was struck dumb with terror. Their leader—his head burned away by a single arrow?
"Crab Claw is dead! Surrender, and you'll be spared!"
Lo Quen's voice, cold as steel, carried on the echoes of the Dragonbone Bow, crushing the hearts of every surviving pirate.
Their will shattered.
Cries, kneeling, the clatter of discarded weapons—battle gave way to surrender.
With no resistance left, the Dragon Soul Guards climbed and cleared the remaining walkways.
The burning abyss cast its glow over Lo Quen's figure as he lowered his bow, the gray-white sheen of Dragonbone shimmering in the firelight.
Torturer's Deep had changed hands.