"—down too quickly," Whett said, his voice tinged with confusion as he observed the vanishing lights in the distance.
To prevent confusion and keep track of everything during the battle, they had decided that after a ship was conquered and every enemy abroad was dead, the last person to disembark would extinguish the light as a signal that the ship had been secured.
"What in the blazes is happening down there?"
"There's no way it's this easy, is there?"
The other merchants were equally perplexed by the swift and unnatural pace at which the Ironborn ships were being vanquished. They were sure that even with this ambush where they caught the enemy with their pants down, it shouldn't be this quick.
"Dacey!" Tyrand, the Westerlands merchant, turned to the stoic Northern woman beside him. "Do you know something?"
"Hmm... Who knows," Dacey replied noncommittally. Jon had decided not to reveal the specifics of how they poisoned the Ironborn, as it would raise too many questions. Instead, they opted to keep things vague and let the merchants' imaginations run wild. "Maybe we're just lucky, and they're all inept fighters..."
"Ironborn being inept at sea? You can't be serious!" Whett retorted disbelief etched on his face as he pointed towards the ongoing battle. "Look out there! A ship is sinking almost every few minutes... Are you telling me our fighters are skilled enough to achieve that? Don't be absurd—"
"Wait! I see a boat approaching," Tyrand suddenly interrupted, pointing towards a small boat rowed by a lone man coming toward the galleon where they all stood. As the boat drew nearer, Tyrand recognized the young scout from a Reach vessel.
"Boy!" Whett didn't give the lad a moment to climb aboard before demanding answers. "Tell me! What the fuck is happening out there?" he pointed at the distant battle where another ship went down.
"T-They're dropping like flies, Master," the boy answered, his voice trembling with excitement. "We're easily taking one ship after another, and—"
"I know that, you idiot!" Whett interrupted impatiently. "I'm asking why. What's happening out there?"
"I think they ate something foul, Master," the boy replied uncertainly. "They all seem sick, vomiting, fainting, and even... even..."
"Even WHAT?"
"They're even shitting their pants while trying to fight. It's quite amusing, Master, hehe..."
"They've been poisoned," Tyrand whispered involuntarily, and immediate understanding washed over all the Merchants. They swivelled their attention to Dacey, and Tyrand stated more as a fact than a question, "You poisoned them."
"I don't know what you're talking about..." Dacey said in a nonchalant tone, but everyone could make out smugness from her expression.
"How did you do it? Did you have a spy on their ships? But... No! They'd have perished too, since you didn't instruct us to make any exceptions, and it's impossible without having a spy on every single ship... Did you have a spy in the port, then? Someone who poisoned their provisions in advance—Ah! But that seems farfetched, doesn't it? The timing of the ambush is too perfect for that to be possible," Tyrand brainstormed out loud before he scratched his head in frustration and asked "How in Seven hells did you do it," it was as if there was an irresistible itch in his mind that he couldn't scratch and that was infuriating.
"It's a trade secret. I can't tell you anything," Dacey finally said with a smile of pure satisfaction on her face, "You just need to know that as long as you're with us, no one can touch even a hair on you... We will keep you safe at sea, no matter the enemy..."
...
"Where's the Captain?" Orkwood whispered to the second mate.
As the noble overseeing a significant portion of the fleet, he had his own cabin. However, in the current turmoil, the confined space felt stifling. When the battle erupted unexpectedly, he had joined the fray with zeal, taking up his sword alongside his fellow sailors in defence of the ship. But as he witnessed people falling like leaves and the prospect of victory dwindling, he abandoned his opponent and sought refuge in the cabin, hoping for a rescue before the enemy reached them.
In the cramped cabin were Orkwood and his three guards, along with three coward sailors who hadn't bothered with the fight at all as the injured second mate, an arrow stuck perilously close to his heart. He was fortunate; the archer seemed to have narrowly missed a fatal shot, possibly due to the ship's swaying, or else the second mate might have already met the Drowned Gods.
"H-He's... dead... M'lord..." the second mate replied with a furrowed brow, his hand hovering over the arrow as if contemplating whether to remove it or leave it be. Even though Orkwood was no healer, he knew that it would be stupid for him to pull that out, but he didn't bother voicing that since there was no way the man would be able to get a healer out here anyway.
"Ahh! How many fucking archers are out there," he cursed as he saw another man just about to kill a Northerner, go down with an arrow straight to his heart. He peered out of a small window, with only his head visible, granting him a vantage point to observe the ongoing battle. What he saw was far from reassuring. Among the sprawled bodies on the deck, he saw only Ironborn, not a single one from the enemy.
"O-Only... one..." the second mate stammered, his voice quivering.
"One! Just one!" Orkwood repeated incredulously, eyeing the man, who nodded in pain, his eyes shut.
"You! Fetch that bow from the table," he commanded one of his guards, who promptly obeyed. "See if you can take him down."
The guard immediately strung his bow and aimed towards the battle but even after hesitating for a long while he didn't shoot and just moved it left and right.
"Just Shoot him!" the Noble barked and the archer flinched but didn't lose the arrow, "I can't get a clear shot. There's no torch out there and he's almost standing in darkness on the bow of the ship, a-and if I miss then we are dead..." the guard had already seen that Northerner take more than a few archers from the nearby ships who had at shot him in just a few minutes.
From left to right, up and down, even killing people hiding behind crates, that godly Northerner archer didn't stop for a single second, he was culling Ironborn lives in all the nearby ships at the same time, it was almost... magical.
"I don't—" the archer started, but an arrow whizzed past his ear, narrowly avoiding decapitating him and he immediately ducked. His heart beating like a drum, he shakingly touched his ear only to find crimson blood there. He breathed heavily, realizing how close he had come to death, saved only because he looked down at the last moment.
"He's found us..." the Noble muttered in fear, he knew that it was only a matter of time before the enemies breached here now that the archer had seen him, "W-We need to kill that archer,"
"H-How? He'll kill us before we can get close to him..."
"I have an idea..." Orkwood said after taking a deep breath. "Gather anything you can find to shield us from arrows," he immediately went towards the single shield placed on the wall and picked it up.
...
A few minutes later, they were all ready, some were holding wooden planks, some buckets and one man even holding the chamber pot, but all of them had some kind of a makeshift shield.
"On the count of three..." the noble directed, clutching a shield from behind. "One... Two... Three. GO!"
"AHHHH!!!!"
The first man burst through the door and sprinted toward the bow, where the archer stood. They ignored the ongoing melee, with both Ironborn and Northerners stunned by this sudden rush, parting to avoid getting trampled.
Their target, the handsome young Northerner, immediately noticed them and looked at them rushing towards him with an amused smile on his face. He calmly raised his bow and started shooting arrows at them.
One arrow after another, he shot the arrows into the most minuscule of gaps, easily taking the front runners out of their group. But the Ironborn, driven half-mad by seeing their comrades fall, pressed on.
Jon effortlessly dispatched four before they drew too close. Although he could have dealt with the remaining few if he had carried a sword, he already bore two full quivers so as to avoid becoming too heavy and lose his agility, he didn't carry any other weapon with him.
"AHHH!!! Die FUCKER!!!"
The two remaining Ironborn screamed as they lunged at the archer but they weren't given the satisfaction as they saw the young Northerner smoothly topple backwards into the sea all while maintaining a smile on his face.
Orkwood peered down at the water, sighing in relief when he saw no sign of the archer resurfacing. He turned and smiled at his lone surviving guard, the other survivor of their mad rush, and whispered, "The bastard's dead!" before he turned and hollered at the remaining Ironborn fighters, "The FUCKER'S DEAD!"
"Finally!" "Thank the Drowned God," "Haha!!"
The men rejoiced, relief washing over them, from the beginning of the battle, they had been constantly harassed by the archer who was like a sword hanging above their neck.
Orkwood immediately saw the opportunity and tried to raise the morale by shouting, "We can escape now if we—"
However, his words were abruptly interrupted by that dreaded piercing sound, and he slowly turned his head to find his last guard with an arrow in his throat looking at him with a shocked expression on his face.
Scared, Orkwoord immediately looked down towards where the arrow had come from and what he saw immediately made him soil his pants.
There he was, the Northern Archer, still alive, with the bow still in his hands and still looking at him with the same amused smile.
The most crazy unbelievable thing was that he was cruising along with the ship but there was no boat or plank supporting, there was... nothing underneath his feet. H-He was actually standing on water as if...
"As if a ...GOD..." he whispered and that was the last thing the noble saw before an arrow claimed his life.
///