The castle standing in the middle of the island of Grey Gallows was a small one, at least according to Westerosi's standards.
It was only made as a small outpost by Daemon Targaryen after his conquest of Stepstones, but considering the kind of man the Rogue Prince was, even as an outpost this castle wasn't too shabby.
Sleeping in the top-most room of this castle, the one that a few centuries ago hosted the likes of Targaryen's royalty, was the pirate king Ravager.
Deep in his sleep, he was lying alone on a massive, luxurious bed when he was abruptly woken up because of an urgent knocking on the door.
"Captain! Captain! Wake Up!!"
His eyes immediately shot open, as an alert Ravager looked towards the window, only to see that it was still completely dark outside.
Now wide awake, the pirate slowly got up from his bed and immediately picked up the sword lying by his bedside table.
With a frown on his face, Ravager silently walked up to the door but stopped just shy of it.
He stood there completely still for a few seconds with his ears to the door, before the frown on his face deepened and he abruptly opened the door with his sword raised and alert.
Three men were standing outside the room with anxious looks on their faces, two of them were the pirates who were supposed to guard him during the night, while the last one was an ugly man who he vaguely remembered as the aide of one of the pirate captains under him.
Even standing at the door, Ravager could hear the raised voices and loud commotion coming from afar in the castle, which implied that something had gone horribly wrong. But still, most of the tension had left his body at the sight of familiar faces so Ravager slowly lowered his sword and asked tersely, "What happened?"
"A-Attack! Captain! The island is under attack!!" The messenger hurriedly replied with a panicked look in his eyes.
"What?! Who told you that?" Even though he had expected that something bad had happened considering the commotion, he still hadn't anticipated that someone would dare to attack his island in the middle of the night, "Who is attacking us?" he asked angrily.
"I-I don't know, Captain." the messenger answered nervously shaking his head, "B-But Captain Blackheart and the others are gathered in the meeting hall, waiting for you..."
"Fine, then! Wait, here," he ordered briefly before going back into the room and closing the door behind him.
When Ravager opened the door a few minutes later, he was dressed for battle and was wearing his characteristic armour, a decent quality chainmail he had looted from a merchant a few years ago, and had a sword, and a dagger at his side, "Lead the way," he ordered curtly and the messenger nodded immediately as he began leading him while the guards fell into steps beside him.
They walked two corridors and one floor down from his room before they reached a massive wooden door, behind which one could already hear loud raised voices arguing with each other.
The captain didn't wait for a single moment and slammed the door open and with a single glare of his, the crowd of rowdy pirates inside the room fell silent.
"Who was the one who dared to attack us? Was it from the nearby islands again?" he growled out loud while walking around the table to stand at the head.
"It is an unknown group, Captain," replied Blackheart, he was a tall skinny pirate with a thin beard and was one of the most trusted commanders under Ravager, "We don't know much about the attackers, and the only thing we do know at the moment... is that they attacked our eastern settlement half an hour ago..."
"How the hell could someone reach all the way to our settlement and attack us without us knowing?" Ravager asked furiously while slamming his fist on the table, "What the fuck were the scout ships doing? Why were we not alerted?"
"We don't know, Captain," replied Hark in a deep voice, a large black man with a flat nose, "We only heard about this news half an hour ago from the two pirates who narrowly escaped the attackers. According to them, these unknown men appeared out of nowhere and fell upon the camp from two sides. The attackers were skilled and well equipped and managed to almost annihilate the camp with only a few managing to escape towards the ships on the shore. And since there had been no news from the scout ships even after all this while, we can only assume that either all of them fell asleep at the same time or..."
"So the scout ships are also gone..." Ravager said with gritted teeth, "Who the hell do these people think they are?" The pirate king hadn't suffered a humiliation like this in years, so his tolerance for anger was quite low, "Hark!! Send a call out to all of our pirates! We will show these bastards what happens when they attack the Ravager!"
"Yes! Captain—"
"I don't think that's wise, Captain," a voice calmly interrupted the pirate's enthusiastic response, making everyone turn their eyes towards the door only to see the man who was known as the brain behind the rise of this pirate fleet, the Advisor.
"Finally!" shouted Ravager with a somewhat relieved look on his face, "Where the hell were you?"
"I was gathering information, Captain," The Advisor replied with a small nod towards the door, "The minute I got news of the attack, I sent pirates in all directions of the island as scouts to find the condition of all camps big and small, and if they can, then lead them towards the castle as soon as they can..."
"Good! Good!" Ravager nodded with a pleased look on his face, "If those trashes are quick about it then we may not have to wait long before punishing those who dared to attack us,"
"That... may not be possible, Captain," The advisor replied cautiously, raining on the Ravager's parade.
"What?! What do you mean,"
"The scouts reported that all of our people in those camps and settlements are... dead,"
"What?!" "No! That can't be!!" "How is that possible!!"
Almost immediately exclamation of shock and denial rang throughout the room as the pirate leaders took in the unimaginable news that in just a matter of few hours, their Pirate fleet had lost so many pirates.
"Is this true? Do you know for sure?" Ravager asked with a stunned look on his face.
"Yes. I sent the scouts twice just to be sure," The Adviser replied grimly, shaking his head, "But the result was the same... In the North, in the East, and in the West, all of our camps were filled with nothing but dead bodies. The only place still unharmed is our settlement near the west port..."
"B-But that... that is absurd," Hark stuttered out with a scared look on his face, as he tried to imagine the kind of force that you would need to do something like this... and that too silently, "For someone to be able to do this... to kill more than a third of our forces with us not even getting a whiff of it... they would have to have, I don't know, ten times the fucking numbers as us... which makes no sense."
"It doesn't matter how they did it. What matters is... what should we do now?" Blackheart interrupted in a tone of forced calm.
"Obviously, we should run away," said one of the other pirates, "We need to take our remaining force and leave for the seas immediately..."
"What?! You coward? How can we just run away?"
"Then what?! Do you want to fight them?! When they can have ten times the number as us." The cowardly pirate retorted back angrily, "It would be foolish to stay here and wait for this enemy to attack us when we know nothing about them... As long as we survive we can fight them another day." he urged.
"Even if we do that, we'll surely be bled dry all the way to the port... and who knows what kind of fleet these people have, because don't forget they managed to easily take out all of our scout ships... so running away may not be a better option."
"Well! What other choice do we have, you fool!! Do you want us to just—"
"Silence!" Ravager barked with a frustrated look on his face, halting the rowdy pirates from arguing uselessly, before turning back to the Advisor, "What do you think? Do you also believe that... retreating is the best choice for us?"
"I don't think that would be necessary, Captain," The Advisor said calmly, "Besides I already called all the remaining pirates back into the castle."
"What?! Why?"
"For their safety and... to protect you."
"Protect Me?! What do you mean?"
"From what I have noticed, the enemy leader is a competent individual, so I would guess that the only reason those two pirates managed to escape... was that they were let go deliberately, so that they could bring the message to us, forcing us to leave the safety of the castle, to flee towards the port... and from there they can easily attack us on the move, and get to... you."
"But why do you think they are after the captain?" Blackheart asked confusedly.
"For the bounty, I would guess," he shrugged and almost immediately a gleam of realisation occurred in the eyes of the pirates. Most of the pirates present here had already heard that the Braavos had put a bounty of 100,000 gold on the head of their captain while quite a few of them were tempted by it, all of them knew that even if they somehow succeded, it would be cold day in hell before Braavos would give money to a pirate... "But that's not important, what's important is that if we leave the castle, we will be out in the open giving them exactly the opening that they need..."
"But we can't just stay here and do nothing, right," one of the pirates said hesitatingly, not wanting to sound like he didn't care for their Captain's safety. "Because then we'll all be killed when they attack the castle..."
"Not necessarily,"
"What do you mean?" The Captain asked turning to the advisor with a frown on his face, "Do you know something?"
"You are all speculating from the feats that they have accomplished during the last few hours that they have a lot of men on their side but... that may not really be the truth," The Advisor replied calmly, "I had sent one of the sneakier scouts to the east camp after getting the news of the attack and he managed to catch a glimpse of the forces gathered there, and from his estimates, there are not more than five hundred to six hundred fighters in their force... Not a small group, sure, but also not something we have to be fearful of."
"B-But then... how could they have killed so many of our pirates?" asked Blackheart with a frown.
"Likely though ambushes, I would presume.... But that doesn't matter, what matters is that they are not so strong as to be able to overwhelm us now that they have lost the element of surprise, so I don't think we need to be hasty in any of our decisions, because as long as we have the protection of the castle, I don't think they would be stupid enough to attack us."
"So you want us to just sit here in the castle waiting for them..."
"Yes," The Advisor replied to the cowardly pirate's inquiry, "Whether it be to attack or to defend, everything would be better once the night passes. Because when the sun rises in a few hours, they would lose all their advantages and then the momentum will be on our side and we'll be the ones to decide whether to fight them or not..."
"But what if they don't attack and just decide to wait outside o-or lay a siege to the castle? What will we do then?"
"That would be even better for us... because then we'll have the advantage with all the ration that we have stored here, but I don't think they would do anything like that." The Advisor shook his head with a smile, "They have neither the men nor the time for that because if you recall, we are on an island in the middle of Stepstones, the biggest stronghold of pirates in Essos. They know for sure that if the pirates on the other islands get a whiff of their whereabouts... then they'll be the ones who are trapped in here with us... So all we need to do is just wait and prepare..."
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