Chapter 15 — Blood, Beasts and Shadows
(288 AD — Volantis, Port)
Three weeks after unveiling the Moonstag sigil, the Noctis was no longer a ship: it was a living organism.
Every man, every sail, every rivet… and every beast responded to the same silent heartbeat. The heartbeat of Ronnel Storm.
The training sessions were no longer mere exercises.
They were rituals.
Under the protection of the crescent moon, the deck of the Noctis was filled with shadows dancing to the beat of a forbidden language.
---
The Children of the Storm
Aslan, the white Hrakka, was Ronnel's shadow made flesh.
A hunting beast from the forests of Sothoryos, with golden eyes and muscles like braided steel, he responded to twenty-three hand signals and eight coded sounds. A touch of Night Rain's hilt was enough for him to disappear into the shadows, moving like a breath of icy wind.
One night, during an ambush off Basilisk Island, Aslan slit the throats of six lookouts without making a sound other than the scraping of claws on wood. The bodies were found at dawn, terror frozen in their eyes. From then on, the corsairs called him:
> "The White Ghost of the Storm."
---
Umbra and Nox, his shadow cats, were a chapter in their own right. Born into the same litter, they were creatures as black as moonless pits, their movements impossible; they could cross an entire ship unseen, scraping only the air. Their training was unique: they responded to blinks and small gestures from Ronnel's fingers.
They were the silent daggers of the Noctis.
In less than three breaths, they could open throats, sever arteries, and disappear before an enemy even touched the ground.
Ronnel used them for tasks no man could perform: vanishing lookouts, silencing sentries, unleashing chaos without anyone hearing a single sound.
A single command was enough, a slight blink from Ronnel, and the creatures vanished into the darkness.
The bodies they left behind didn't bleed. There were no screams, only faces frozen in terror.
---
Nyx, the Hunting Falcon
Nyx could see what men could not.
From miles away, her wings sliced through the air effortlessly, tracking prey invisible to human eyes. Her feathers, trained with coded flashes, communicated messages to the fleet:
One feather in the sun → "prey detected."
Two circles → "enemy ship moving."
Three turns → "coming storm."
In battles, Nyx chose her victims before they even knew they were being hunted.
---
Noctis, the Raven
The raven that gave the ship its name wasn't just an animal: it was Ronnel's other eye.
Its black feathers seemed to drink in the light, and its short, guttural cry served as a secret code that only Ronnel and Mira Sand understood.
They say that, on nights of a new moon, the raven's eyes turned as white as ice… and then Ronnel stopped blinking.
As if his mind crossed an invisible bridge, inhabiting the bird's body, seeing what lay beyond the horizon.
---
What no one on the crew knew—only Mira suspected—was that this ability to instill willpower in the beasts wasn't just training.
Ronnel Storm didn't just command: he felt.
The bond with his beasts ran deeper than any training. It was an inheritance.
In dreams, he saw through Nyx's eyes as he flew over the sea.
Sometimes, he woke up panting, his hands stained with blood that wasn't his own.
The maesters would call it heresy.
The children of the forest would call it the gift of the Old Ones.
In the old songs, they spoke of the First Men able to merge with their beasts. And in Ronnel Storm's bastard blood, the echo of that old magic still burned.
Ronnel's gift was rare, dangerous, and cursed:
the gift of the warg.
Through his beasts, he extended his awareness like roots underground, weaving a map of instincts, smells, sounds, and sensations that no common man could understand.
When Umbra hunted, he felt the warmth of another's blood.
When Nyx took flight, he saw with her eyes.
When Aslan tore flesh, the roar was born in his own throat.
Every time he opened his mind to his beasts, he felt a tug in his chest, as if the roots of a tree buried beneath seas reminded him of who he truly was.
He was born under the roar of the storm.
But what made him dangerous wasn't the sword.
It was the connection.
---
The Silence of the Sea
The nights grew increasingly unsettling.
As the language between man, beast, and crew became more perfected, deaths on the high seas multiplied… but no one heard the screams.
An entire enemy ship could sink without sounding an alarm, and when the wreckage washed ashore, only wide-eyed corpses remained, frozen in mute terror.
Soon, rumors spread throughout the Basilisk Lanes.
Entire vessels disappeared without a single signal.
Guards fell without a cry. Captains died without drawing their swords.
These rumors spread like wildfire among the privateers and slavers of the Basilisk Isles:
In taverns, docks, and brothels, everyone murmured the same thing:
> "There are ghosts at sea."
"No footsteps are heard… only deaths."
"The Noctis hunts in silence."
Under the moon, the Luna Stag's banner flew from the masthead, illuminated by a silver glow.
The corsairs began to avoid those waters.
The slavers of Volantis closed their night routes.
But Ronnel Storm smiled, the Luna Stag's banner fluttering over his ship like a living shadow.
Ronnel Storm watched in silence, his hand resting on the hilt of Night Rain, while Noctis, the raven, cawed softly on his shoulder.
It was a wordless oath.
The Noctis was no longer a ship.
It was an omen.
And the Storm had not yet fallen.
Strength and Silence.
The sea was his.
And soon, the Storm would awaken.
---
Not Only the Beasts Changed
The men too.
In the upper holds, beneath torches of slow, thick oil, Ronnel Storm transformed his crew into more than sea wolves:
He turned them into trained predators.
His fragmented mind, brilliant and dangerous, harbored fragments of tactics, movements, and strategies that were not his own, as if echoes of other times and other wars pulsed within him.
John H. Watson's mental templates taught him surgical precision and logical analysis.
Jason Bourne's, lethal speed and instinctive adaptation.
And from some dark corner of his dreams, impossible memories of Hector Barbossa, master of controlled chaos in naval combat, emerged.
With all this, he created a unique method.
A system designed to transform free and disorderly men into disciplined shadows.
---
1. Absolute Discipline
No one spoke without permission.
No one discussed orders.
No one questioned Ronnel.
The rules were burned into the body and mind. Anyone who broke the silence spent an entire night hanging from the bowsprit, facing the sea and their own fears.
2. Assault Formations
Groups of six: each cell was autonomous and had clear roles:
Shadow → silent infiltration.
Dagger → rapid elimination.
Eye → tactical observation.
Breath → fire or smoke control.
Anchor → physical containment.
Echo → messenger and coordinator.
Each group trained to move as a single unit, without words, only with coded gestures.
Advanced Naval Combat
New recruits were thrown into realistic simulations:
Night boardings with real fire and smoke.
Deliberate disorientation: blindfolds were used to train hearing and touch.
Constant rotation of positions so everyone knew how to do everything: handle sails, light cargo, drop anchors, use catapults.
The result: every crew member could, when the time came, become captain.
4. Deadly Silence
Shouting was forbidden.
Orders were gestures.
Each crew member learned a coded sign language.
In total darkness, they could coordinate an entire boarding without uttering a single word.
5. Psychological Warfare
> "Killing a man is not enough; you have to kill his hope."
Sometimes, they left only one survivor.
Or they hung a corpse from the enemy mast.
Rumors spread faster than wildfire:
> "The Black Deer ships hunt at night."
"No one hears footsteps. No one hears screams. They only die."
---
The Four Sister Ships
The Noctis did not sail alone.
Alongside it, four small vessels he had recently acquired after acquiring those of small pirate gangs where he had tested his crew's training formed the Storm Pack:
Umbriel → fast, stealthy, perfect for scouting.
Vorath → reinforced, designed for ramming.
Lunaris → specialized in incendiary charges.
Nymerion → the silent hunter, with black masts and sails without insignia.
Each ship had six-man cells synchronized with those of the Noctis.
The result was a living naval formation, a single entity.
Inspired by Barbossa's tactics, Ronnel employed pincer strategies:
The Silent Circle: four ships surrounded an enemy vessel while the Noctis boarded diagonally.
The Darkmoon: the fleet sailed without torches under a new moon, letting Nyx, the falcon, point out hidden routes.
The Omen: they feigned retreat, luring corsairs into a prepared ambush.
No one on the Basilisk Routes could match them.
---
Ronnel began practicing psychological warfare.
He didn't always kill his enemies. Sometimes, it was more effective to break them.
One night, the corsair captain Zerho Varrin woke up in his cabin.
The lamp was still lit. His crew was snoring.
But on his table, someone had left a human eye… still wet.
Beside it, a tiny banner with the black stag under the moon.
When the men awoke, they found the masts covered in black feathers.
There was no attack that night.
Zerho left the Basilisk Route at dawn.
That was Ronnel Storm's method: sow fear before sinking the dagger.
---
The Noctis was no longer a ship.
It was a living organism.
Ronnel Storm had transformed it into a creature of bone, wood, and steel, where each crew member was a vital cell and each beast an extension of his will.
But to create an invincible army, it wasn't enough to train killers.
Guardians of life had to be created.
Because a man killed at sea was replaceable… but a man saved was a loyal fanatic.
It was then that Ronnel created The Eight of the Mists.
---
The Mist Eight
They weren't simple warriors.
They were doctors, surgeons, chemists, assassins, and spies.
Chosen from the most intelligent and cold-blooded members of the crew, Ronnel molded them using the mental templates that lived in his fractured mind:
From John H. Watson, he absorbed anatomical knowledge, field surgery, and speed under pressure.
From Gregory House, the almost supernatural intuition to detect toxins, infections, poisons, and hidden diseases.
From himself… the cruelty necessary to train them under pain, blood, and silence.
Their motto was simple:
> "A man who lives, fights.
A man who heals, is yours forever."
---
The Training of the Eight
For four weeks, the Eight lived isolated in the lower hold of the Noctis, where Ronnel converted a cramped space into a surgical theater and battlefield.
1. Anatomy and War Surgery
They worked on cadavers brought in from the docks to learn every artery, nerve, and tendon.
They practiced suturing blindfolded, blindfolded and with only the touch of their fingers.
They simulated amputations under pressure, while the rest of the crew screamed, throwing smoke and fire around to mimic the real chaos.
They learned to cauterize wounds using burning gunpowder and red-hot blades.
2. Toxicology and Poisons
Thanks to Mira Sand, a poison expert from Lys and Dorne, the Eight learned to:
Identify toxins by smell, color, and texture.
Create improvised antidotes in less than two minutes.
Detect subtle poisonings only by pupil dilation or skin tone.
Recognize hidden symptoms of delayed poisons, inspired by House's diagnostic methods.
3. Combat Medicine
They simulated extreme scenarios: punctured lungs, broken ribs, internal bleeding.
They learned to save a life in two minutes with improvised tools: daggers, gunpowder, lit candles, and Lys wine.
They knew when to operate and when to let someone die to save the group.
4. Mental and Psychological Discipline
Ronnel pushed them beyond their physical limits.
For three full days, he kept them sleepless, facing constant simulations:
Vomiting blood.
Emergency amputations.
Controlled explosions.
Fake and real screams.
In the end, there were no ordinary men left.
There were only human machines.
---
The Silent Language
The Eight, like the rest of the crew, used a coded sign language.
But theirs was more complex:
A tap on the neck → "Severed artery, critical bleeding."
Two fingers on the shoulder → "Punch lung, high priority."
Three circular movements in the air → "Possible poison detected."
In combat, they could operate, eliminate, or interrogate without uttering a single word.
They were human scalpels.
Silent. Lethal. Infallible.
---
The First Hunt
Their first real mission came with a name:
The Crimson Serpent.
A Volantis merchant ship, laden with silk, wine, and slaves, owned by Koreth Vhalar, a trader who had betrayed Ronnel by giving information to his enemies.
He couldn't afford to leave him alive.
The Hunt
The Noctis and the Nymerion followed the Serpent for two days and two nights, sailing under a new moon.
Nyx, the hunting falcon, pointed out the currents and secret routes from the sky.
Ronnel, connected to his beasts by the warg bond, saw through their eyes:
The movements of the lookouts.
The position of the guards.
The flickering of the torches on deck.
When the time came, the Eight descended in absolute silence.
The Infiltration
Umbra and Nox, the shadow cats, slithered in first.
They slashed throats without a sound, without spilling a single drop of blood on the deck.
The Eight advanced behind, scalpels and daggers in hand.
They cauterized wounds on their own men, extracted information from prisoners, and dosed poisons into wine vessels for the captains.
Ronnel, from the railing, coordinated everything with imperceptible gestures and whistles.
When the last screams died away, only Koreth remained alive.
Ronnel looked him in the eye and whispered:
"A deer never forgets one who wounds its forest."
He let him live... but marked.
Mutilated, humiliated, broken.
A living message to the other traders of Volantis.
---
When the Crimson Serpent reappeared in the harbor, crew dead, captain mutilated, without a single witness…
The entire harbor spoke of it.
> "The Moonstag has hunted again."
"They are shadows, not men."
"If you see the Noctis, you are already dead."
The Eight became a myth.
Ronnel Storm, a ghost.
And the Moonstag's seal began to be feared more than any pirate flag.
The Noctis no longer sailed the sea.
The Noctis hunted.
---
285 AC — Aboard the Noctis
Mira's POV
Mira Sand's obsession grew like a suppressed flame.
It wasn't love. It wasn't desire.
It was something darker, deeper… as if the storm surrounding Ronnel Storm had caught her in its eye.
At first, she watched him from a distance.
His body was moving steel, but what fascinated her wasn't his strength, but his mind.
Every order he gave, every calculated gesture, every silent glance… everything was planned.
He never wasted anything: not words, not movements, not lives.
Mira had known powerful men before.
Men with ships, armies, riches.
But Ronnel was different.
Ronnel didn't demand power.
Ronnel embodied it.
And that was what consumed her.
---
From the deck, she watched him train by the torchlight.
Night Rain twirled in his hands like an extension of his own body, while Aslan, the white Hrakka, slithered around her like an invisible hunter.
He was lethal, but what truly chilled her blood was his absolute control.
Ronnel didn't need to shout.
He didn't need to threaten.
His presence commanded silence.
The sailors followed him not out of fear... but because it seemed the sea itself obeyed him.
On quiet nights, Mira found herself accepting his company without words.
Sometimes they shared wine, other times silence.
It was strange: he could go for hours without looking at her, and yet she felt as if his full attention was on her.
---
The Moon over the Noctis
That night, the deck was bathed in a vast moon.
The air smelled of salt, wet leather, and old gunpowder.
Ronnel sat alone on the railing, with Noctis—his raven—perched on his shoulder, sipping slowly from a steel cup.
Mira approached quietly.
He didn't need to announce himself; he always knew when someone was nearby.
"You know this isn't just about power, right?" she whispered, leaning in beside him.
Ronnel didn't respond immediately.
He took a slow sip of wine, watching the waves, as if the tide were telling him secrets only he could hear.
When he finally looked at her, his eyes were a still, dark, and unfathomable sea.
She continued,
"What you're building... is more than a brotherhood. It's a legend."
Ronnel slowly turned the glass in her hand, as if measuring the weight of her words.
"Legends are worthless if no one lives to tell them."
His voice was deep, low, like distant thunder.
And in that instant, Mira realized something that shook her:
Ronnel didn't believe in happy endings.
He believed in surviving.
He believed in winning.
---
Between Fear and Desire
She desired him.
She feared him.
And that mixture kept her close.
She had seen what he did to his enemies:
Men hanging from masts, throats slashed open in silence, bodies given to the sea as offerings to the ancient gods.
But she had also seen him save lives with his own hands.
She had seen him teach the Eight of the Mist how to suture lungs, how to detect poisons, how to reverse hemorrhages.
In him, death and life danced together… and Mira didn't know which attracted her more.
Sometimes she hated him.
She hated how he made her feel small and immense at the same time.
She hated that he didn't need anyone… and yet, when he was near, it seemed the whole world stopped.
---
Stolen Moments
Her time with him wasn't made of words, but of gestures, glances, and silences:
At dawn, they trained together.
Ronnel corrected her posture with firm hands and succinct words.
"More under the elbow, Mira. If you're going to kill, do it cleanly."
In the evenings, he taught her how to read current and star charts, sharing his knowledge as a navigator and strategist.
He never treated her like anyone else. With her, there were no shouts. Only lessons.
On quiet nights, they shared wine.
He spoke little, but when he did, each sentence seemed to tear a piece of his soul.
There was an invisible barrier between them.
It wasn't cold... it was hot.
And every day, that barrier grew thinner.
---
The Moon Deer
Mira began to understand that the Moon Deer's sigil wasn't just a symbol of power.
It was a warning.
Ronnel wasn't building a fleet, nor a pirate empire.
He was building a shadow.
The next night, when she saw the banner fly under the crescent moon, she felt it:
The Noctis wasn't sailing for adventures.
She was sailing to change the balance of the sea.
And she, without knowing why, wanted to be part of that storm, even if it destroyed her.
---
285 AC — Volantis, Temple of the Tigers
The Triarchs Begin to Tremble
The Temple of the Tigers stood imposingly in the heart of Volantis, its black columns covered in reliefs recounting past conquests.
There, amidst the shadows of incense and old gold, the three Triarchs who ruled the most powerful city in the East met.
But that night, the air smelled of fear.
In the central hall, lit by red torches, three men argued in tense voices, while the murmur of the Rhoyne River filtered through as a reminder that water could also carry corpses.
---
The Ghost in the Sea
"The routes are dropping like flies," said Moryan Uhlor, one of the Triarchs of the Tiger faction, banging his fist on the marble table. His scarlet robes trembled with each labored breath. "Seven ships sunk in two weeks. Four corsair fleets annihilated. And no one knows who's behind it."
Serys Dhaval of the Elephant faction replied in a low, strained voice:
"We know who... though not their name."
He unrolled a salt-stained scroll and tossed it onto the table. On it, a spy had drawn a banner: a black stag under a crescent moon.
"The slavers of the Basilisk Islands call it The Ghost. The corsairs call it The Silent Storm.
But they all say the same thing:
"If you see the silver moon over the sea... you're already dead."
The third Triarch, Vhalaer Morys, leaned forward, his face lined with deep wrinkles and eyes as sharp as daggers.
"We're not facing a common pirate.
This... Ronnel Storm"—he spoke the name with a trace of fear, as if saying it gave the enemy power—"does not plunder for gold. He does not seek loot. He chooses his prey.
And that makes him more dangerous than any fleet."
---
The Warring Factions
The problem wasn't just the Moonstag.
It was that Volantis was divided.
The Tigers, obsessed with military glory, wanted to send war galleys to crush the enemy before it consolidated.
The Elephants, traders and diplomats, feared that this would only fuel the fire.
"If we send ships," Moryan snarled, "we'll lose more than we have.
This bastard knows how to move silently. Lookouts die without seeing anything, bells don't ring, and when dawn comes, there's only broken wood and blood in the water."
Serys Dhaval clicked his tongue, his voice thick with venom.
"Worse still. There are rumors he uses animals... beasts trained as shadows.
Some say he sees through their eyes, like the skinwalkers in the old songs of northern Westeros."
Morys snorted in contempt, but the trembling in his fingers betrayed him.
---
Paranoia Grows
Volantis' spies had brought back more disturbing stories:
Lookouts with their throats slit without a single cry.
Captains found with their throats slashed, with no sign of a struggle.
Entire ships vanished without a trace.
In the taverns, sailors whispered that the Noctis sailed shrouded in fog, that ravens flew over her masts, and that the sea turned black when her banner flew.
The name Ronnel Storm was not yet known in the city… but her shadow was already in everyone's mind.
---
The Decision
"If we don't act soon," Vhalaer warned, his voice grave, "we will awaken a monster we cannot control."
The three Triarchs remained silent.
Outside, the night wind howled across the waters of the Rhoyne, as if the Old Gods themselves were listening to the conversation.
Finally, they decided to strengthen maritime patrols:
They doubled the number of galleys on the trade routes.
They ordered that no ship should sail unescorted.
They bribed corsair captains to set ambushes on the Basilisk Isles.
They believed they could corner the Storm.
But it was too late.
---
The Monster Was Already Inside
While the Triarchs were arguing over maps and ships, Ronnel Storm had already set foot in Volantis.
That same night, a spy disguised as a slave entered the temple.
No one noticed.
On his wrist, hidden under bloodstained bandages, he wore a tiny amulet bearing the emblem of the Lunar Stag.
When he emerged, he disappeared into the flooded streets of Volantis.
He carried every word spoken by the Triarchs in his memory.
That information would be enough to turn Volantis' defenses into his next weapon.
Because Ronnel didn't attack walls.
He crumbled them from within.
The monster was no longer coming.
The monster already inhabited its shadows.
---
Hello readers, I'm letting those interested in my story know: this is the last chapter of the week.
I won't be posting anything else tomorrow until Saturday, as I work Monday through Friday and am very busy.
So expect another 10 or 15 chapters next weekend.