Life at Sea and First Aid

After the storm, the tenth day of the voyage.

The deck of the Hao Yin was piled high with bulging barrels, each lashed tight with coarse hemp rope to keep them from rolling loose during the voyage. The most conspicuous were the barrels of salted cod—frosty salt crystals oozed from the gaps between the blackened planks, and when the lids were pried open, the stench of rotten seaweed and dead fish hit you like a wall.

The first time Yulon saw the sailors crack open a barrel, he thought it was some kind of punishment ritual, a biological weapon, or maybe a scheme to stink the enemy to death.

"Watch closely, little prince!" Red-haired Oakhart grinned, spraying reeking alcohol from his gap-toothed mouth. He pried the lid off with his dagger, revealing a layer of milky-white maggots floating on the surface of the yellowish brine, writhing over the salted fish carcasses like a living layer of mold.

Old One-Eye Wolf took it in stride, pinching up a dried cod with his rough fingers as the maggots showered down. He wiped it casually on his grimy apron, shoved it into his mouth, and chewed, yellow juice dribbling from the corners of his lips. "The more you chew, the better it gets," he muttered, baring his uneven black teeth. "Sea salt nourishes a man."

Yulon's stomach churned. But as he hesitated, Daggmo's iron hook speared a chunk of fish and thrust it before him. "Eat," the old pirate's one eye narrowed. "Unless you want to end up like Torik, gnawing on your own leather armor." Yulon finally shook his head gently in refusal.

Hardtack was another kind of torture.

Those blackened, round biscuits were locked in iron chests to keep out rats and damp. When the cook, Old Lame Leg, hauled out a chest, they were already hard as reef rock, their surfaces speckled with suspicious green spots.

"Catch!" Oakhart swung an axe and brought it down hard. Bam! The biscuit split in two, sending crumbs flying. Yulon picked up a piece and found the inside crawling with tiny beetles, scurrying frantically through the honeycomb holes.

Balon grinned, grabbed half, and stuffed it into his mouth. The crunch of beetles being crushed between his teeth was unmistakable. "Fresher than the fish."

He wasn't wrong—it did look a bit better than the fish. Yulon followed their example, taking a cracked biscuit from the chest, scraping off the surface mold with his dagger, and dipping it in seawater to soften it. On the first bite, his tongue tasted wood and grit—the bread was mixed with sawdust and ground shells to extend its shelf life.

Fresh water was even more precious than food. Tarred goatskin bags hung in the shadow of the mast, every drop strictly rationed. When Yulon drank, he noticed tiny, transparent creatures swimming in the water, like wisps of living mist. The worst came after the seventh day. The water in the goatskin bags turned greenish, tasting of rust and rotten seaweed.

"Don't stare at it, and don't waste a drop! Every bit of fresh water is priceless!" Daggmo warned him, handing over a rusted iron strainer. "Just strain it. Drinking it won't kill you—your guts will be full of sea worms soon enough anyway."

Yulon didn't follow the old pirate's advice. Instead, after straining it, he boiled it over the fire before drinking. His brother Balon looked down on him for it with utter contempt.

For the crew of the Hao Yin, the worst part was that their booze was almost gone! Originally enough for at least a month, half of it had been taken by the Drowned God in the great storm the day before. What remained had to be strictly rationed. To a sailor, alcohol was as important as the blade in his hand or the head on his neck.

After sunset, the cargo hold became the Ironborn's arena. Twenty sailors crammed between barrels of salted fish and coils of rope, the stench of sweat and fish stewing into a murky, hot haze.

"Come on! Show the little prince what's what!" Old Wick shoved Yulon into the center of the circle.

His opponent was One-Eyed Grenn, his face still crusted with blood from the day's fighting. He used no weapons, his hands smeared with sticky whale oil, gleaming slickly in the dim whale-oil lamp. "First rule of Ironborn fighting," he lunged forward, his oiled hand swiping at Yulon's face, "make sure your enemy can't stand!"

Yulon sidestepped, but Grenn hooked his boot around Yulon's ankle. Just as he was about to fall, Yulon grabbed an overhead rope and swung, scissoring his legs around Grenn's neck. Both crashed heavily onto the deck, rattling the barrels.

"Nice!" Daggmo took a swig of rum. "But in a real fight, you do this!" He suddenly kicked over a barrel, drenching Yulon in amber liquid. As Yulon's vision blurred, the old pirate's knee slammed into his lower back, a rough dagger pressed against his throat. "A dead man doesn't get to swing on ropes!"

The bloody lesson lasted late into the night. Ironborn combat had only two words: practical. Biting through an enemy's windpipe, gouging out eyeballs with fingernails, even hiding sharpened fish bones in your sleeve. "Elegance is land-dweller bullshit! At sea, survival is the only truth!"

Besides eating, sleeping, bragging, fighting, drinking (too little booze to drink to satisfaction), and staring blankly at the sea, there was another very dangerous activity during the voyage—Finger Dance.

Finger Dance was a game popular among the Ironborn of the Iron Islands, requiring at least two participants. They would throw hand axes at each other, and the target had to catch or dodge the spinning axe without moving a single step. It was called Finger Dance because the game usually ended with at least one participant losing a finger. Balon Greyjoy was a fan of this game, especially after hearing a legend: Heras Hoare defeated Lorgar Greyiron II in a Finger Dance duel and thereby inherited the title of King of the Iron Islands. However, Heras Hoare also lost two fingers in the duel, earning the nickname "Crippled Hand" Heras. This legend turned Balon's fondness for Finger Dance into an obsession. Yulon thought it wasn't a game at all—it was just idiotic self-mutilation.

But at five years old, Yulon had no power to change Ironborn customs. He could only watch from the sidelines.

The Sharkskin War Drum pounded across the deck, each beat like a blow to the ribs.

"Let the Drowned God witness the brave!" Daggmo roared, slamming down the drumstick. The Sharkskin War Drum rattled eardrums. The sailors used whale oil to draw a circle five paces in diameter. Balon Greyjoy and "Split Finger" Hoke stood facing each other, their throwing axes gleaming with mercury-like coldness in the moonlight. On Daggmo's third drumbeat, the duel erupted!

Balon's right arm pulled back like a catapult, his waist twisting as the hand axe shot out in a horizontal silver arc straight at Hoke's heart! Yulon clearly saw the air tearing around the spinning blade—this wasn't a game, it was a killing strike aimed at a vital point.

Hoke's one-armed body exploded with astonishing resilience. He pivoted on his left foot, the axe blade grazing his leather chest plate, striking sparks. Almost as he dodged, his remaining left hand had already drawn the axe from his belt, hurling it back with the momentum of his spin! The axe screamed like a ghost, heading straight for Balon's throat.

Clang!

Balon raised his axe to block, the two blades colliding in a shower of sparks. The immense force drove him back half a step, his heel already touching the edge of the oil circle.

"Step back! Sea water!" the Ironborn roared. Daggmo grinned, lifting a salt bucket and drenching Balon's head with the murky liquid. The saltwater seeped into the unhealed whip scars on his neck, making him flinch.

Balon wiped the salt from his face, his eyes blazing with murderous intent. Both axes left his hands at once! One swept low at Hoke's ankle, the other spun high to block his escape. A deadly pincer attack!

Hoke roared and leaped, the high-spinning axe grazing his boot sole. But as he landed, the low axe had already buried itself in his calf muscle! The crack of bone made Yulon's stomach churn. Yet Hoke, using his kneeling momentum, bit down on the axe handle and hurled it back!

The bloodstained axe spun into a red wheel. Balon jerked his head aside, the blade shearing off half an inch of hair above his left ear before burying itself deep in the mast behind him. Wood chips flew as Hoke, dragging his leg with the bone exposed, somehow stood up again!

"His artery's severed!" Yulon rushed into the circle, pointing at Hoke's calf—blood was spraying in a fan three meters wide. "Femoral artery rupture! He'll bleed out in three minutes if you don't stop it!"

Daggmo's drumstick hung in midair. Balon panted heavily, glaring at his brother, the axe humming in his hand. "You want to die in his place?"

Old Wick stepped in front of Yulon, never forgetting his role as protector even aboard the ship. "I want to preserve the Hao Yin's fighting strength!" Yulon kicked the bloodied axe away, slapping a sea chart onto the pool of blood. "There's a Braavosi swift-ship to the northeast! If we lose a man now, they'll be hunting us by dawn!"

"Ironborn courage," Balon said, his voice icy, "is worth more than life."

"Pointless mutilation isn't courage!" Yulon stepped forward, his mismatched eyes eerie and piercing in the moonlight. "It's stupidity!" He suddenly drew his sword, slashing the rope, and the heavy anchor crashed into the death-circle. "Want to play? Then tie your feet together and jump onto the anchor's tip! Only the one who survives deserves to be called a warrior!"

Silence fell over the deck. Then Daggmo burst into wild laughter, smashing a barrel of rum. "Hear that, you idiots? Next time, we'll play it that way!" He didn't want to see the two brothers bickering on his ship, so he defused the tension with a joke.

Play, my ass! Yulon cursed inwardly. By the moonlight, he saw the horrific wound on Hoke's calf—the axe had split the fibula, dark red muscle curling open like a split pomegranate, with a throbbing, purplish-blue vessel visible in the depths.

"Press here!" Yulon shouted, grabbing Old Wick's hand and pressing his thumb hard into the groin at the top of Hoke's thigh. That was the surface pressure point for the femoral artery—modern first aid knowledge now a lifeline. The spurting blood suddenly weakened, turning from a jet to a flow.

"Get me liquor! Needle and thread! Canvas rope!" Yulon's childish voice carried an undeniable authority. Daggmo hesitated for a moment, then kicked open a chest and pulled out half a bottle of rum. Balon silently cut a length of canvas rope, the coarse hemp fibers soaking up blood.

Yulon bit off the cork and poured the amber liquid over the wound. "Ugh—ahh—!" Hoke woke and fainted again from the agony. Under the alcohol's wash, Yulon could see the severed vessel: the main branch of the femoral artery was cut a third of the way through, gushing blood like a burst waterskin. Bone fragments and wood chips were embedded in the muscle, trembling faintly with each pulse.

"Give me your shark tooth!" Yulon reached out. Grenn hurriedly unstrung his necklace—an Ironborn talisman made of six shark teeth. Yulon picked the longest, sharpest tooth, dipped it in rum, and threaded it through a "suture" twisted from hemp rope. As he pierced the rolled-back flesh with the shark tooth, the watching Ironborn sucked in their breath. The needle tip avoided the nerve bundles precisely, weaving back and forth across the torn vessel walls. With each pull of the rope, the tear in the vessel closed a little more. The canvas rope Balon handed over was torn into strips by Yulon. He first padded the wound with rum-soaked coarse linen, then spiraled the strips around it. On the third layer, he suddenly shoved Hoke's dagger between the wounded man's teeth: "Bite down!" Then he grabbed both ends of the strip and pulled tight—crack!

The grinding sound of bone made everyone's teeth ache. Hoke's eyes bulged, deep bite marks denting the dagger's handle. But more terrifying was the instant crimson of the cloth soaked through with blood. Without hesitation, Yulon added a second, then a third layer of pressure bandaging. By the time the seventh layer was tight, the bleeding had finally stopped. Yulon broke two oars and whittled them into splints. Grenn contributed his last foot-cloth as bandage. When the splints were tied, Yulon elevated Hoke's injured leg on a rum barrel. In the moonlight, the wounded man's face, pale from blood loss, finally showed a hint of life.

Daggmo crouched in the blood, his one eye fixed on the delicate splint. "Where'd you learn that?"

"The Drowned God taught me in a dream." Yulon wiped his face with a bloody hand, his mismatched eyes flickering eerily in the moonlight, and grinned. "Believe it?"

Daggmo was half-convinced. Balon snorted from the side. "Believe it... my ass! Last month, Vincent Rayne fell climbing Blackwater Cliff and broke his leg. A female healer from the North sawed off his bad leg and stopped the bleeding just like that. This little brat was standing right there watching the whole show, probably just copying what he saw."