When Dagmer Cleftjaw's skinning knife slid under the thumbnail of the first captive, the scream that erupted on deck was shriller than a gull impaled on a harpoon.
"Bones are the Drowned God's harp... knuckles are the Drowned God's keys..." The old pirate croaked a tuneless shanty, his wrist turning delicately. The blade danced like a bloodthirsty silver fish. Skin curled back from the fingertip, revealing the trembling red tendon beneath. Beads of blood rolled down the bright spine of the blade, congealing into a disjointed, eerily beautiful ruby necklace under the pale moonlight.
"The course of the spice ship... number of guards... Speak!" Balon Greyjoy's roar drowned out the wet sound of flesh peeling from bone.
The captive convulsed, spitting out a few broken syllables. Balon's war axe didn't hesitate—Crack! The pinky finger was severed at the root. A segment of white bone bounced on the deck, rolling to rest against Euron's salt-crusted boot.
"Liar!" The eldest son of House Greyjoy kicked the severed finger into the black sea. The cold axe blade was already moving to the ring finger. "I'll ask one last time."
"Truly... please... mercy..."
Balon grinned, revealing teeth stained yellow by salt and ale. "Wrong answer!" The axe fell. Another finger parted ways with the body.
Then, he tapped the back of the axe against the captive's still-intact right pinky. "The Lyseni gems... which hold?"
The captive bit his bleeding lip. Cold steel flashed—Crack! The finger was chopped clean off. Bone shards and blood spray splattered onto Euron's leather boots.
The dam of will finally broke under the flood of agony. The captive shrieked, "Port side! Second hold on the port side!"
Euron, who had been watching coldly, finally moved. He extended the toe of his boot and tapped an old arrow scar on the captive's right shoulder. "This mark was left by a three-edged bodkin point... You sold your life for coin. You were a mercenary." He leaned down, grabbed a handful of wet rust filings mixed with salt, and mercilessly pressed it into the old wound, grinding the grit into the scar tissue and raw nerve.
"A mercenary's eyes are always on the blade edge. You count every threat because your life depends on it. You definitely know how many men on your side can still hold a sword. How many?!"
Crushed by precise pain and terror, the captive broke completely. "Nine! Only nine! Including two unarmed squires! It's the truth!"
"Free Cities... they fly Braavosi colors..." The third captive babbled nearby, his mind snapped.
Two hours later, the intelligence squeezed from the three separated captives was like driftwood washed ashore—fragments that pieced together a complete and tantalizing picture. Two merchant ships, heavy with rare Tyroshi spices, the softest Myrish silk, and Lyseni gems that would make any noble swoon. The guard was laughably thin—only nine men.
Dagmer licked half-congealed blood from his knife, his eyes red with greed and slaughter, staring fixedly at the ink-black horizon to the northeast. "Moonset tomorrow night. They have to pass through 'Widow's Gorge'!"
"Do you all understand?" Euron's voice was low and calm. He even offered a ladle of stale water to the three dying, mangled captives. He squatted before them, the moonlight casting half his face in deep shadow, the other half cold as a statue.
"Tomorrow, moonset. Widow's Gorge. Two ships. Nine men. If there is even the slightest error in this intelligence, if any accident occurs during this hunt..." He paused, his voice steeped in a chill colder than the Shivering Sea. "I swear by the Drowned God, you will regret not tearing out your own hearts to tell the truth. It will start with skinning... strip by strip... slowly slicing off your flesh. Then we will tie you to the reefs and let the rising tide spend days nibbling the meat from your exposed bones."
Then, his tone shifted subtly, carrying a hint of merciful seduction. "But if everything goes smoothly... perhaps you might keep your lives. You know my name and my station. On this sea, the Grim Reaper has a hard time taking those I choose to protect. So, now... think carefully again... is there anything useful you forgot to mention?"
Extreme terror can squeeze out the deepest secrets. After a brief silence filled only by the sobbing of the waves, a voice thin as spider silk squeezed out:
"...Wildfire..."
Wildfire. A substance older and deadlier than common flame. Extremely volatile. Liquid wrath from the seven hells. Long ago, some merchant captains walking the razor's edge would secretly stow a few jars in the deepest hold—a final bargaining chip or a weapon of mutual destruction when cornered. But the ingredients were rare, and the recipe was tightly held by the Alchemists' Guild.
Nowadays, the Pyromancers were kept by the Mad King in King's Landing with the wealth of a nation.
Who could have guessed that these seemingly ordinary merchant ships hid such a dangerous secret?
Balon and "Cleftjaw" Dagmer exchanged a sharp look. The air instantly filled with a new, more dangerous scent of greed. Then, both men turned their eyes to Euron. In their gaze was the undisguised admiration and awe of predators who had just realized their cub had spotted the biggest kill of all.
---
Day 14 of the Voyage. Night as black as ink.
As the last sliver of moonlight was swallowed by churning clouds, the Drinker slid into the jagged reef cluster like a black-scaled sea snake. The hull blended perfectly with the roaring darkness; only the peeling paint of the figurehead occasionally caught a glint from the foam.
Euron Greyjoy crouched behind the prow, his nose catching a drifting, exotic scent on the wind—the warm sweetness of nutmeg tangled with the heavy musk of sandalwood. It was a decadent smell, utterly out of place with the salt and faint blood of the sea. His lips pulled back in a silent grin, like a shark scenting death.
The merchant convoy knew nothing. Like docile lambs, they sailed slowly into the gorge of death. On the deck of the lead ship, under the dim yellow halo of two lanterns, two guards shoved and cursed each other over a deflated wineskin. Their voices were shredded by the surf, their eyes cloudy with drink. They never dreamed that in the shadows of the black reefs on both sides, twelve longbows with horn limbs were already drawn into cold full moons.
"Loose!"
Captain Dagmer's roar was swallowed by a crashing wave the moment it left his throat.
Poisoned arrows, smeared with owl dung, left the strings and vanished silently into the dark. The next instant, the guards on deck collapsed like wheat cut by an invisible scythe. Feathered shafts quivered in their throats; they hit the deck without even a final whimper to disturb the night.
Almost simultaneously, the grappling hook thrown by Balon Greyjoy bit hard into the enemy gunwale. Swinging on the rope like an agile ape, his scimitar carved a cold arc in mid-air. The archer in the crow's nest had just sensed something wrong when his windpipe was opened. Clutching his spurting neck, he toppled silently into the churning black ink of the sea below.
The Ironborn raid displayed a terrifying efficiency honed by a thousand battles. Old Wick led a squad like ghosts straight for the cargo hold, quickly covering the barrels marked with danger symbols—the Wildfire that would unleash hell with a single spark—with heavy, seawater-soaked wool blankets. A young squire, shaking so violently from fear he could barely hold his torch, hesitated. Old Wick didn't blink; a backhanded slash sent the young head rolling across the damp deck, a look of shock frozen on its face.
On the other side, Grenn's skinning knife found the helmsman's ankle with precision. A flick of the tip, a subtle snap of a tendon lost in the noise, and the man who steered the ship collapsed like a pile of mud.
On deck, Dagmer stomped through the gore and chaos, his roar overpowering the wind and waves: "The Drowned God takes souls, not cargo! Throw the dead to the fish, but don't damage a single crate! Open your damn eyes, you little bastards! If you grab the wrong thing, I'll skin you alive!"
His voice was as rough as the reef, every word dripping with greed and bloodlust. It echoed over the sea suddenly seized by death, a final prayer dedicated to this dark sacrifice.