Chapter 62: Ch 53 Eh? Are Those Seagulls?Chapter Text
'Huu...I am tired,' Jon sighed as he fell onto the small bed in his cabin like a piece of dead tree.
It had only been about an hour since they passed the Stepstones so it was still dark outside and while he wasn't sure, he knew that if he had a mechanical watch then it would show something around 3 or 4 a.m. It wouldn't amount much to a normal modern person to be staying awake this late but at the moment his head was pounding like a drum and his body craved sleep like nothing else.
Usually, he wouldn't be bothered by just this much with his robust mind, but various things had happened one after because of which he had to keep his mind alert, and connected to his wargs for far too long, which eventually made him more mentally exhausted than usual.
A few hours before they had even reached the pirate-infested islands, Jon had been on a long distance, warg call with his brother. Robb had been catching him up to everything that had been happening in Winterfell as well as in the North, as a whole, while he was away. Things like how Sansa was getting better at handling weapons, or how Arya and Bran bickered again over something or how Rickon was growing up.
Then after they were done with the mundane stuff, he talked about important things like how their road project was off to a good start and that their father was getting hammered daily by letters from his Lords, first congratulating him on his good decision and then demanding their region be the next to get the improved roads.
He also told him about how LittleTom had gathered something like a community with a lot of excellent Blacksmiths around him and was even in talks with Robb to set up a dedicated street for just them in Wintertown, just like the street of steel in Kings Landing.
So a few hours of straining his mind with that Warg call (It was something like a Zoom call, with him warging into Tiger, the Shadowcat so that he could talk with Robb, though it was mostly Robb talking) and the exhaustive hours staying alert and connected to Frost and Inky(his pet Kraken) during their escape from Stepstones meant that he was completely and utterly spent and wanted nothing more than to sleep as much as his body demanded.
...
..
.
But fate it seems had different plans for Jon...
"Jon! Jon!!" After just a few hours (which didn't feel like more than a few minutes) of sleep, he was abruptly jolted awake by an urgent knocking on the door to his small cabin. He looked disgustedly towards Gan and Tweety on the nearby table, and both of them simultaneously shrugged at his silent question.
Jon groaned as he slowly got up from his bed to open the door to find Merchant Sam standing there with his hair dishevelled and panic in his eyes.
"What happened?" he asked groggily, trying to keep irritation out of his voice. His cabin was the only room above the deck so he was able to see that it was almost morning and the sun was just about to rise behind Sam's back.
"Two ships were just sighted," Sam said grimly, "And I think they could be Pirates!!"
"What?" Jon asked with a sceptical look while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
He had obviously told Frost and Inky to keep a lookout a few leagues ahead of the fleet, for anything outwardly and a quick peek into their minds instantly let him know that they weren't slacking and that both the seas and skies were completely calm and clear of any adversities. "Are you pulling my leg, Uncle Sam?" Jon said irritatedly while walking past the Merchant, "I saw nothing in front of us—"
"Not in Front!" The Merchant cut him off with a frown on his face, "They are behind us."
"Oh..." Jon froze in his steps as his mind slowly caught up to what the Merchant was implying and almost immediately he was jolted awake.
Jon didn't waste any more time and promptly turned around to circle the cabin towards the rear part of the ship. All of the ships in his fleet always sailed in a V-shaped formation with his ship in the lead, this meant that he was instantly able to see the two barely visible ships just at the edge of his vision.
Without taking his eye off Jon opened up his palm in front of Sam who immediately understood and handed him a far eye and without further ado he put it in front of his right eye.
Through its lenses, Jon was able to make out the similar shark flags on the two ships and what seemed to be the whole crew awake, and running up and about the ship, in addition, all of them were armed as if they were ready for battle at any moment.
"We only found out about them by chance," Sam supplied gloomily, while watching the ships, "Gill, who was part of the watch, was fiddling with my Far-eye when he accidentally caught sight of them and hurried to wake me up. I shudder to imagine what would have happened if he hadn't... And these pirates sure are lucky that they just happened to come across a ripe target like ours at the open sea—"
"I don't think it was luck..." Jon sighed while putting away the Far-eye. He had sent a signal to Frost to come back as fast as she could so that he could get a better understanding of these pirates and their strength. The possibility of these pirates just happening across them was too little, which could only mean that "...they've been onto us for a while now... probably since last night," Jon admitted in an annoyed tone.
He had known about this obvious loophole in his scouting net, but the possibility of someone coming to attack his fleet from behind them in the open sea had always been so minuscule that he ignored it as inconsequential, but now... it seemed the possibility wasn't so minuscule after all.
Sam was having a hard time wrapping his head around with what Jon was implying "B-But that's impossible. How could they find us out of nowhere—"
"They didn't "find us", per se," Jon said slowly as he started to get the whole picture of the situation he was in, "They had been waiting for us..." Jon said with a tinge of comprehension in his voice as it dawned on him that he had been played by a pirate, which definitely wasn't a good feeling.
It was so obvious now that he looked at it in hindsight... The lone ship waiting between the small islands wasn't a weak link, instead, it had been a trap all along, a trap laid down to force them to come into the open... It was an intricate trap made just for them.
"What? What do you mean?"
"I'll explain to you later," Jon said while massaging his forehead, "Right now you just need to know that they are pirates and that they've been following us since we passed through Stepstones—"
"But if that were the case they could have easily caught up to us with their speed by now," Sam asked while scratching his head, "It would been a lot easier for them if they ambushed just before sunrise while we were all asleep."
"That is indeed strange, " Jon said with a frown on his face, "It's as if... they are not here to attack us but to keep an eye on us so we don't disappear or run away..."
Sam was looking at Jon murmuring to himself when he suddenly remembered something, "Er... Jon, I didn't mention it before because I thought that he made a mistake because of darkness... but well, when Gill came to wake me up, he reported sighting not two but three ships—"
"What?! Three Ships—" Jon asked loudly as his eyes suddenly widened and he realised what that meant. Thankfully Frost arrived above the ships at exactly that moment so Jon didn't waste a single moment and immediately had her fly up high above the clouds.
Only a few seconds later, Jon caught sight of the third ship in the distance through Frost's eyes, it was frantically rowing towards the nearby coast... A coast that was almost deserted except for the five very conspicuous pirate ships lying in wait there. With the third ship's speed, it would only take less than half a for it to reach the ships at the coast.
By now it was quite obvious that the third ship was a messenger sent to bring the rest of their ships for a simultaneous attack. If it all went according to their plan, it would take them less than two hours to completely surround Jon's fleet on all sides without leaving them anywhere to run.
Jon conceded that he had underestimated these pirates... underestimated them a lot. The amount of elaborate planning involved in not only finding out that he was sneaking past them during the night but then going on to lay out this trap for him... it involved a lot of calculation that he frankly never even thought a pirate was capable of.
"J-Jon! Look, the ships are moving," Sam suddenly exclaimed while pointing towards the pirate ships. And just like he said the ships that had been quietly following them from a distance so far suddenly accelerated but instead of approaching them, they circled them on the right side. One quickly overtook them while the other stayed some distance behind their fleet... those two ships had now blocked the fleet's only escape route away from the coast.
"It seems they too have a far-eye with them..." Jon said, his eyes twitching at the quickness with which the ships had reacted to being discovered.
Jon took a deep breath to let out the annoyance he was feeling at the situation he found himself in. After all, he had never fallen into a trap like this... at least not since he became a warg and Frost started to fly.
'Ah! What to do with them...' Jon thought while rubbing his eyes. He was more irritated than scared of these pirates... it's just that his lack of sleep made him a bit short-tempered. He wanted nothing more than just to feed all of them to Inky, his pet Kraken. And for a glorious few moments, he was almost tempted to follow through with that impulse of his... before the damned rational part of his mind spoke up and stopped him.
After all, this wasn't beyond the wall and these people weren't Wildlings isolated from the rest of the world. If Inky made an appearance here then not only would he have to be afraid of accidentally letting some of the pirates escape, but he would also have to make sure that the sailors in his fleet kept quiet about it. It would be over for him if even one of them was stupid enough to start spreading tales about seeing a ship demolishing Kraken.
Here in Essos, people weren't as sceptical of magic, they knew that magic was a real force in the world. He could almost imagine the massive target the rumours would paint on his back and the type of people it would attract. He was sure that the likes of Euron Grejoy, the Warlocks from House of Undying, and the Preist and Priestess of R'hllor, would be ecstatic to get a hand on him and dissect him.
Jon knew better than anyone that this wasn't the North and that he wasn't quite invincible here so he had to be careful to not bite more than he could chew.
Jon contemplated the situation for a few more minutes before he finally turned to face the anxious Merchant, "Uncle Sam, I want you to go wake up every sailor on the four longships and tell them to prepare their bows for a battle. The Galleons will stay on their course at their current speed while the four longships will split up to simultaneously attack the two pirate ships,"
"But... Would that really work?" Sam asked with a hesitant look, "I mean, I know that we outnumber them... but from the looks of it, these pirates don't seem to have any intention of tangling with us when they could easily just run away from us with their lighter ships."
"Oh! Don't worry," Jon smirked while thinking about the new ability of Frost that he had recently discovered, "I'll make sure that they don't run away."
...
"Ah! When the hell is he goin' to come..." Captain Jack sighed listlessly. He was once again on a deserted coast, lying on a hammock in the shade of some trees to hide from the sun, doing nothing but... waiting.
All around him, pirates were scattered here and there doing something to pass the time, some were in groups while others sat alone, some were drinking and laughing at crude jokes, while others were letting off some heat with barehanded wrestling.
They had already been here for more than a week now, and Jack felt his patience running thin with each passing day, if that Advisor didn't arrive soon enough, he would have to start killing something to stave off his boredom.
"Ah! I should have just ignored that Advisor and just bought along a few slave girls to screw around," the Captain morosely said to himself, "Hmm... perhaps there's a village nearby that I could raid..." he was desperate enough that he wouldn't even mind plain and ugly village girls at that moment, and maybe their screams and squeals would make it a bit interesting for him.
Just when the pirate captain was entertaining some dangerous thoughts, one of the lookouts abruptly stood up and pointed towards the sea while screaming at the top of his lungs, "A-A Ship! I see a SHIP!!"
The Captain almost fell down in his haste to get up from the hammock, thankfully no one was paying him any attention as they were all gawking excitedly towards the approaching familiar ship with anticipation.
"Are they finally here?"
"I was so bored waiting for them, now we can finally kill people and loot some gold."
"Fuck! I hope they have some girls onboard, Hehe,"
The pirates were leisurely talking with each other when the Captain abruptly came from behind and harshly slapped the nearest one, "What the fuck are you looking at?! Go get the ships ready, you Fuckers! If I find even one ship not ready to sail by the time that ship gets here, I'll roast all of you alive," he barked angrily, lighting a fire on every pirate's ass as they began running towards the ship to get them ready.
Thanks to Jack the scared pirates were very efficient and the five pirate ships simultaneously set off a few minutes later, with Jack joining the Advisor on the lead ship.
The advisor was standing on the deck with an hourglass in his hand. He was commanding the first mate and was controlling the speed and direction of their ships so that they stay on course towards the Northern fleet when the Captain came up to him with a giddy look on his face.
"Tell me, Did it work just like you thought?" Jack asked him excitedly, "Did they really fall for it?"
"Like a fish to a hook," The advisor replied smugly while turning around, "Sadly, though Frank and his nephew didn't survive the night..."
"Yes! Yes! It is very unfortunate," Jack said with a smirk, "But I am sure they would have been very happy that their sacrifice was useful, Haha," he burst out laughing at his own joke before taking a look at the open ocean with a gleam of excitement in his eyes, "Argh! I can't wait to get my hands on those bastards... I had to wait for so many days because of them, I won't feel alive unless I torture a few of them to death."
The Advisor skilfully ignored the perverted smile on Jack's smile while commanding the first mate to pick up some speed.
About half an hour later they were finally able to catch a glimpse of ships on the horizon but the condition in which they found the ships was completely different from what they had accepted and it left all of the pirates onboard stunned.
"W-What the fuck is going on out there?" Jack swore with a bewildered look on his face. He was on the deck looking through his far-eye towards the distance. His ships, which were just supposed to keep a lookout for the trade fleet, were surrounded by the longships of the Northern fleet and were fighting a fierce battle.
No, it shouldn't even be called a fight but a massacre, the four longships had surrounded the two pirates in their middle and then using their height advantage the archers on the Northern Fleet were just leisurely shooting arrows at the helpless pirates who had nowhere to hide. What was even more confusing was that the pirates didn't even seem to be trying to get away as if all of them had forgotten that they were on ships and that they could easily sail away from just two ships.
"Why the fuck are they not running away?!" Jack growled in a frustrated voice while looking at the fight that was almost entering its last leg and soon enough there wouldn't be any survivors left on the ships.
"Let me take a look," The Advisor said with a frown while unceremoniously snatching the Far-eye from Jack. He looked through it towards the ships, that were still about an hour away from them. It only took him a few seconds to get a complete grasp of the situation and when he found out the reason behind their ships becoming sitting ducks it even made him gasp.
"What? What did you see?" Jack asked urgently, "Why are they staying in one place to get massacred like that?"
"T-Their sails!" The advisor said with a flustered tone, "There are about a dozen holes in the sails on both ships...but..." he was confused and disoriented, and was completely out of his depth here and his mind was unable to come up with a way to make sense of this unfathomable scene in front of him.
"What? Are you fucking kidding me? How the fuck did they get holes in their—" The Captain's furious rant was abruptly cut short by a loud and piercing screech from above them. Every single pirate on board suddenly looked up to find a massive flock of seagulls flying towards their ships in a bizarre formation.
And then suddenly out of nowhere every single one of those birds dived straight down making every one of them duck but none of them were hurt as the target of the birds wasn't the humans but the sails of the ships. Those Seagulls ran through the cloth with their sharp pointed beaks and easily managed to tear through them as if they were made of paper.
"I-I think I know what happened to those ships now," The advisor suddenly spoke in a stunned voice, as their ships were left completely useless in the middle of the ocean.
"Hah...Huu..." Jack started breathing deeply as he slowly got out of the stupor he had been after seeing what just happened. His face became ever so red as anger overcame his speechlessness and he suddenly started screaming, "Argh! What the fuck are you standing around for?!! Kill those FUCKING BIRDS!!"
"A-AYE!!!"
"Shoot those Birds!!"
"Grab the bows,"
"Ah! Sorry, I forgot to bring arrows,"
The pirates scrambled to follow their captain's order but it was all futile as birds were done with their job and were already flying away out of the range of the archers, leaving behind nothing but torn sails and their poop.
The Captain could do nothing but stare at them impotently as they flew away unharmed.
"Looks like they are finished..." The Advisor suddenly said faintly, and Jack turned around to look at what he was talking about. The Northern longships were slowly moving away from the pirate ships, which seemed to be completely devoid of life, towards the distant trade fleets.
"Bring out the Oars!! We can still catch them," Jack shouted, desperately hanging on to straws. But the advisor knew that they were beaten, the wind was fast and in the ship's favour so they couldn't catch up to them even if their ships were lighter. But he didn't interrupt and let the Captain try anyway, knowing that it would help him calm down.
The Advisor shook his head and once again picked up the Far-eye, to look at the longships moving away. He slowly looked at every individual sailor onboard the Northern longships and before long he found his target.
It was a charismatic young man with an intricate longbow on his back, he was standing with a straight back giving orders to a somewhat fat older man nearby.
'The Seagulls couldn't have been just a coincidence,' he thought while observing the young man, 'There must have been some kind of a trick involved in—Argh" the Advisor suddenly stumbled backwards as if stung while taking the Far-eye off his face. He started breathing heavily and had a stunned look on his face as if he had seen a ghost.
"What's wrong with you?" Jack asked with a peculiar look on his face as he looked at the usually unflustered man looking so shaken.
"N-Nothing!" The advisor replied while shaking his head, 'He couldn't have seen me... it's impossible. It must have been a trick of the eye,' he thought while involuntarily gulping. He could still vividly remember how that man had abruptly turned his head to look straight towards him as if he could... see him, all the way from his ship, as if he knew that he was being watched...which was impossible.
"Shit!! They are getting away!!" The Captain groaned as the fleets easily shook them off and disappeared on the horizon, "Argh! Fuck!" he cursed as kicked a nearby bucket in frustration, at once again letting them slip from his fingers.
"Captain, I think it's time for us to bring your father in..." The advisor said while gently putting his hand on Jack's shoulder but the man just angrily shook it off and left with an ugly sneer on his face.
The advisor didn't mind the rudeness as he knew that it would only take torturing some girls for the Captain's mood to improve. Instead, he stared into the distance where the ships had disappeared, "You managed to get away this time, but let's see if you're quite as lucky the next time..."
But what the man didn't know was that his flustered expressions and his monologue had all been heard by a sneaky little colourful silently flying just above his head.
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