Pre-Chapter A/N: More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Experimenting with two chapters a week, we'll see how long I can keep this up for.
Vaemond looked far from pleased with the news that I was going to be following him into the forest. In fact, he looked set to dispute the order until he thought better of it. Good. Brother or not, Corlys was not the type of man that tolerated dissent when it came to his orders.
"You will ride by my side. Do not even think of going off on your own," he said. I nodded; that was an easy enough requirement.
"You will obey every order I give you without hesitation. If I ask you to take a shit then you better not even think of taking off your breeches before doing it," he said.
"That's a very strange example," I replied. He glowered.
"Am I understood, Laenor?" He stressed.
"Yes, Uncle Vaemond," I replied. He usually had a better sense of humor than this.
"Good. Now why do you even want to come along for this? I assure you, it's not going to be a fun or even easy time. You've probably done the most out of everyone here for the pacification. The men wouldn't see you as any less for taking the time to rest," he said.
"I want to look at the local wildlife and forestry," I said with a shrug, before I turned around to go get a horse. Even turned as I was, I could still hear the sound of Vaemond's palm hitting his face, and the subsequent growl. He probably thought this was just a flight of fancy from a spoiled Lordling. How could I tell him that the reason I wanted to ride with him was because I wanted to kill a man with my own two hands—well, more like sword, but you get the gist. Better to be seen as a spoiled Lordling than a psychopathic one, methinks.
We rode at dawn the next day. There was no point chasing them into an unfamiliar forest when the sun was about to set, was how Vaemond had justified the delay. Corlys had just waved it off, clearly not caring all that much. What could a Pirate King achieve, forced into exile from his territory and grounded on land? Not much, as far as my father was concerned, so he was fine leaving the entire thing to us while he worried about the logistics of getting more ships from Westeros, moving shipwrights to this Island to see if the shipyard could be expanded and improved to our standards. He thought it could, and so did I, but it would be best if actual professionals got a good look at things.
Vaemond, on the other hand, was keen to catch them, but not so keen as to become careless—the perfect balance as far as I was concerned. They'd left on foot as we'd checked. They didn't have any stables or things of the sort, so they could not have kept many, if any, horses. That meant they'd been walking since last night. If they had any sense, then they would have walked all through the night to build as much of a lead as possible, but then there was the fact that they were pirates. Vaemond and every experienced Knight with the army agreed that they wouldn't have the discipline for an overnight march. That meant they would have stopped to make camp at some point. Once we found that camp, it wouldn't be all that hard to chase them. We had hounds to do the tracking for that.
We rode for about an hour before the hounds started to pick up a scent and we turned with their noses. Another ten minutes of riding led us to the remains of a camp. Relatively fresh remains of a camp, even. The ground was still warm, the shit still stunk and looked far from drying. Examining how long it had been since pirates made camp in a random clearing in a forest by looking at their shit was not something I would have put on this year's bingo card, but here we were.
"The dogs are saying the scent leads backward," one of the Knights whispered.
"Back to the village?" I asked.
"Aye, my Lord."
I looked at Vaemond, and it was clear that he was beginning to come to the same conclusion. "We've been played," he said.
"Played by pirates" was the bit he did not add, but we all heard it the same. It was one thing to be outsmarted, but another to be outsmarted by pirates of all people. We turned our horses, and began the ride back to camp, following their route with the dogs dogging their scent. Huh, dogging.
The only issue with that being that they seemed to have chosen the worst route for horses possible. Upturned roots, confusing, winding paths, trees in places where they should not have been, just all sorts of chaos.
"Ughhh. We're so stupid!" I groaned into my glove when I realized just exactly what we were doing wrong. Vaemond's gaze turned to me, eyes sharp.
"Do you have something to say, Laenor?"
"Yes, Uncle. We're following their route but we don't need to. We know exactly where they are going. We should find an easier route so we can cut them off even quicker," I said. It made sense to me, at least. They were proceeding on foot, and this route would work to their advantage rather than ours; the uneven and often interrupted terrain would interrupt the horses and not give them the time to gather any momentum, as well as run the risk of breaking their legs. We'd already lost one horse to a broken leg when it got stuck in a root, and it was just luck that had thus far prevented us from suffering even more injuries.
"You're right," he said with a growl of his own. He clearly wasn't pleased at not having thought of it himself, but regardless, he ordered us to turn and begin searching for the route we had used to get here. Thankfully enough, it only took about five minutes to find a better route to the village, and once we did, we began to book it, riding as quickly as we could without risking serious accidents. To my shame, I fell behind once we increased the pace. I was a passable horse rider, but the fact that it was not something I got to train much when it didn't relate to jousting meant that compared to these experienced knights, I was far from acceptable.
At least, I had the advantage of not getting sore. I rode a dragon for days and nights; a lesser mount like this one would not be the end of me. It meant I was relatively fresh when we crossed the treeline to be greeted with a burning village. At least, a village that had just been heavily set on fire. It was almost comical, the situation. We rode out from the forest just in time to see the pirates begin their retreat as they began to run straight in their direction.
"Kill them to the last man!" Vaemond shouted.
"The Old, the True…" I called.
"The brave!" The knights behind me answered as we charged at full force.
I wish I could tell you about the first man I killed. I wish I could tell you what color his hair was, what color his eyes were, what his voice sounded like as he screamed his fury—or was it fear?—at me as I rode him down, or even the feeling of his blood as it sprayed on both my mount and I as my blade kissed an artery in his neck or something and made him fall back to the floor, spraying blood all over the place. But none of that remained in my memory. I killed him, and it was on to the next man. No. Not man, pirate. Think of them as pirates. It's easier to kill pirates than it is to kill men. My horse did the next bit of killing for me. The massive warhorse rode the man down. He had run heedlessly at us before tripping at the very last second, and there was no way his bones would have survived hundreds of pounds worth of warhorse and rider riding over him as we continued our charge.
The third pirate to die at my will came at me with a sword of his own. Of course, I was riding a horse, and he was on foot. He mistimed his swing, a sign of fear, indiscipline, or just poor training? It didn't matter which it was. Nothing about that pirate would matter again. Because this time when I swung my blade it did not merely kiss its target as I removed the man's head from his shoulders in one clean swing. At least, I tried to. In truth, fourteen years of age and a standard Valyrian build did not lend the strength for that kind of seamless butchery. Instead, my blade left his head still halfway attached to his shoulder.
And that was my last lucid thought for a second as I felt my horse seize, coming to a sudden stop. I barely got a good look at it, but it was an arrow, or was it three? Either way, they stuck out of my mount's neck, and somehow the archer either had the luck of an old god on his side, or the skill of one, because they somehow managed to kill a horse with that. The horse's stop sent me flying, keeping my momentum.
'Land well, land well, fucking land well,' I screamed at myself over and over again; all the tales Manfred told me of men who fell from their horses and ended up crippled rang in my head. A crippled dragon rider would not be a pretty sight. Fortunately, I just about managed to land on my back and roll to my feet with the momentum.
Less fortunately, I hadn't managed to keep hold of my sword in all of that, and the man in front of me did not seem very keen on giving me a time out to look for it. I stepped back to avoid his first swing. And took another one back to avoid the next swing. I could see a dozen holes in his form. But what did they matter to me when I had no weapon to take advantage of them?
I ducked underneath his third clumsy swing. And with my next step back, I saw my opening.
I stepped into his guard and went for his legs just like I'd done with high school wrestling a million times in my first life. Except that unlike all those times, my opponent was not even close to my weight class. He kicked me in the midsection with his other leg—the one I'd failed to catch in my initial charge, and even through my chainmail, I felt the blow rattle my ribs. I rolled away, just continuing blind with the pain until I came to a stop against something. It took me a second to inhale and realize just what I was laying next to. A corpse. A still warm corpse that belonged to one of my father's men. I looked up to see the pirate that I'd been fighting—was "fighting" too generous a term to use for what we'd been doing—coming straight over here. Well, he was committed, I'd give him that.
I swallowed my instinctive revulsion and began to check the corpse I was next to for anything that could be used. The pirate was almost upon me when I found it strapped to his waist and pulled it free with a jerk. The motion had caused his innards—he'd died trying to shove them back into his stomach it seemed—to escape his grip and fall upon me. Ugh. Don't think about it, I scolded myself as the pirate stepped into range and was about to bring his blade down, already drunk with victory.
He gurgled. It was a sound between a cough, a curse, and a laugh when he met my eyes. I'd moved faster than I ever had and shot up with my stolen dirk aimed for the underside of his jaw. It was a quick death. A quicker death than he probably deserved considering all the indignity he'd made me suffer. As he fell, I snatched his sword from his hand. It was passable. Longer than I would have preferred considering my height so I had to wield it with two hands instead of one to move it around properly. The balance was poor, but it looked sharp enough, and a bigger like me was far from being spoiled for choice as one pirate spotted me and ran my way. His charge was poor, and I wasn't surprised that he almost slipped on some bloodied mud before he reached me.
He managed to catch his footing though, and his first attack was almost competent. It also happened to be his last attack. I parried the blade he held in his left hand in one motion, and with the next, stepped forward, stabbing my newly acquired sword straight through his neck. Did I have something with necks? I wondered. That was my fourth neck kill so far.
The violence was raging all around me. How many pirates had there been? Surely not this many? We hadn't charged into this many people. Was this a counter-ambush? An ambush on our ambush? Or was I just miscounting? One man came to me next; he had a mace clutched in his hand and a smile that screamed blood. Looking in his eyes told me one thing. This man was an experienced killer of men. It showed in the complete fearlessness with which he approached, like I could not pose any threat to him. I'd lost my helmet at some point so my face was fully exposed.
While I was easily as tall as a smallfolk adult, my face did broadcast my youth to all who cared to listen. He swung the mace for my head. I leaned backward, moving my head just slightly back, enough for the spiked head to miss, and I retaliated with a foot aimed for his knee. Shockingly, he managed to move left, allowing my straight kick to miss and he took advantage of the extension, aiming the mace for my outstretched leg next. I snatched my leg backward as quickly as I could. Maybe too quickly.
I'd moved too abruptly and lost my balance. I felt my life flash as I fell to the mud on my backside. It allowed me to avoid the mace aimed for my chest, but now on the ground, this was going to be a nightmare of a fight to win. At least, that was my thinking until I heard a man scream "Velaryon!" as he and his horse bolted past us. It took me a second to track the pirate I'd been fighting. His body was dangling off the man's lance. It took me even longer to realize the man was Ser Ben, my sworn shield.
"You're one lucky fucker," he said, turning his horse around, and allowing gravity to rip the body from his lance as he pointed it downwards. There was a squelch as the pirate's body fell to the ground.
"Ser Ben!" I called, rising to my feet.
Instead of replying, he tossed a scabbard at me; I caught it just barely. It was a short straight sword. The kind I preferred.
"Don't go falling on your arse again." And to my surprise, my sworn shield did what no one would expect a sworn shield to do and rode away from me heading to the thick of the fighting. Wasn't he supposed to be guarding me? I didn't get a lot of time to be confused as I found myself facing two men in short order. One wielded a chain. The other a pitchfork. What an interesting combination. The first twirled the chain before sending it at me. I danced backward, allowing the chain to land on the floor.
I watched as he recalled it, spinning it again, allowing more of its length to be fed out of his grip. This time, he sent the chain at me, and I carefully tracked it. At the last second, I dodged out of the way. It landed in the mud and I stepped on it, holding it still. The man's eyes widened as I ran straight at him, closing the distance.
The one with the pitchfork stabbed the straight weapon at me. I weaved to the side, spinning as I did so and avoiding the stab. In a second, I was too close for him to use the weapon. I went low, slashing through his Achilles tendon in one blow. He screamed, stumbling backward. I rose, blade taking his head in the next movement. The one with the chain was frozen in the process of reeling it back, watching his friend's—scratch that, they had to be brothers'—body fall to the floor. It meant he was too slow to avoid me. He lifted the chain, and sparks flew as my blade ground against the metal chain. He held it above his head, pulled taught in the block, and I smiled at him for a second before I took the opening he so generously presented.
I slammed my foot into his chest, and I felt something give way to my boot as he practically flew backward. I turned, searching for my next opponent, but all the fighting seemed to have come to an end. Whatever pirates remained were surrendering. I crossed eyes with one man holding a bow. It was drawn, aimed right at me. And then I realized that I did not have a shield of any sort. He could kill me now. I prepared to throw myself backward the second he loosed, but instead, he just casually un-nocked the weapon, dropping both it and the arrow he could have ended my life with on the floor as he fell to his knees and placed both hands behind his head.
A/N: So how do you guys feel about Laenor as a fighter? Remember that these are just pirates, most of them not well trained at all, but still he's clearly got a lot of potential. Next five chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.