The Hao Yin's First Battle

The twelfth day at sea.

The blazing midday sun had baked the deck of the Hao Yin until it was scorching. Tar sizzled in the gaps between the planks. Yulon was crouched at the bow, studying the clouds' movement the way Daggmo had taught him, when a crowlike cry rang out from the crow's nest. "Sails! Thirty degrees off the port bow!"

Yulon jerked his head up. In the distance, the gilded figurehead of the Silver Swan glinted dazzlingly in the sunlight. He narrowed his mismatched eyes, his black left eye and ice-blue right eye both catching the signs of trouble: the Braavosi merchant ship rode far too low in the water, and the disorder on its deck looked far too deliberate.

"Prepare to board!" Baron roared, bloodthirsty excitement in his voice. He ripped open his leather armor, revealing a scarred chest, and his longsword flashed coldly in the sunlight. The Ironborn around him snatched up their weapons, axes and harpoons clanging against the deck in a chilling rhythm.

A sudden sting ran through Yulon's fingertips. His blood boiled, and memories of the original story surged through him like a tide. He remembered the traps Braavosi often used—warships disguised as merchant vessels.

"Wait!" Yulon grabbed Baron's wrist. His hand, the hand of a five-year-old child, was less than half the size of an adult's, yet it was surprisingly strong. "Something's wrong! Braavosi never—"

Before he could finish, the planks along the "merchant ship's" side crashed down, revealing ten gleaming scorpions. In Yulon's vision, time seemed to stretch. He saw the crossbowmen draw their strings, the cold glint of steel bolts in the sunlight, even the slight quiver of feathers at their tails in the air.

"Take cover!"

Daggmo's shout rang out at the same time as the first volley's whistle. A three-foot steel bolt pierced the chest of the oarsman beside Yulon, carrying flesh with it as it pinned him to the mainmast. The man wasn't dead yet. His hands clawed helplessly at the shaft in his chest, and pink froth sprayed from his mouth, spattering Yulon's face.

Yulon's mind went blank. Warm blood ran down his cheek, and its salty, coppery smell filled his nostrils. His legs trembled uncontrollably, but some more primitive instinct took over. When the second volley came, his body had already rolled behind a pile of ropes.

"Baron! Enemy on the starboard side!" Daggmo's shout came from a distance.

Through the gaps in the ropes, Yulon glimpsed his brother leaping onto the enemy ship like a beast. Baron's longsword swept through a deadly arc. A Braavosi sellsword in a bronze mask had just raised his scimitar when the blade cleaved half his head away. Brains traced a pale arc through the air and spattered the gilded gunwale, gleaming eerily in the sunlight.

"Little kraken! Left!"

Old Wick's shout made Yulon whip around. A captain with a silver nose ring was charging toward a barrel with a torch raised, a vicious grin plain on his face. In Yulon's vision, the leaping flame grew enormous; even the path of its tongues licking at the air was clear.

Time seemed to freeze. Yulon could hear his heartbeat thundering and the rush of blood through his veins like a tidal wave. His right hand moved on its own to his waist and drew the dagger Daggmo had given him—a vicious weapon longer than his forearm, yet now as light as a feather.

"Die, you Ironborn bastard!" the man with the silver nose ring roared.

Yulon's body reacted before his mind did. He dropped low and rolled aside, dodging the flying torch, while his right hand thrust the dagger out like a striking snake. The sharp blade slipped precisely into the gap in the tendons behind the man's knee. His scream rang out at the same time as the torch hissed into the sea.

"Aaah! You little brat..."

Yulon didn't give him a chance to finish. He rose with the momentum of his roll, snatched up a harpoon from the deck, and drove it into the man's throat with all his weight. The harpoon pierced his windpipe with a dull, wet sound. The man's eyes bulged as blood welled from the corners of his mouth.

This was the first time Yulon had killed someone.

The stench of blood was overwhelming. He looked down at his blood-soaked hands. Strangely, he didn't feel sick. Instead, he felt a peculiar sense of satisfaction. The black of his left eye seemed to deepen, as if it could absorb all the light around him.

"Behind you!"

Daggmo's warning made Yulon spin around. A bald giant was charging at him, swinging a flail whose head was smeared with brains and bone fragments. Yulon instinctively leaned back. The flail whistled past the tip of his nose, and the gust of air stung his cheek.

Yulon's gaze fixed on the man's slightly stiff left leg. He scooped up a handful of scattered salt from the deck and flung it into the giant's face. The moment the man squeezed his eyes shut, Yulon's dagger struck precisely into an old wound in his left knee.

"Ah!" The giant dropped to his knees, and the flail flew from his grasp.

Yulon didn't hesitate. He planted a foot on the man's back, gripped the dagger's hilt with both hands, and drove it down with all his weight. The blade pierced the leather armor and entered the gap between the vertebrae. The giant's scream cut off. His body jerked violently a few times like a fish hauled ashore, then went still.

The fighting on deck had reached a fever pitch. Baron and a red-bearded sellsword grappled in a pool of blood, both of their weapons knocked away. Now they fought like beasts, biting and tearing at each other. Three sellswords had Daggmo surrounded. His battle-axe was already chipped, but every time he swung it, a limb went flying.

In the bloody boarding battle, the Ironborn fighters displayed their distinctive style. Leaning against the shattered gunwale, Yulon panted as he watched this savage yet efficient art of killing.

"Ironborn! Let them taste the Old Way!" Daggmo's shout boomed like thunder. The old pirate fought in the quintessential Ironborn style: a short-handled battle-axe with a spike forged into its back in his left hand, and a serrated dagger in his right. Every attack came in an unbroken series, like waves rolling in. There were no fancy moves, only the most direct and deadly blows. When the first Braavosi sellsword raised his shield to block, Daggmo's axe slammed into it, numbing the man's arm. A heartbeat later, Daggmo's right-hand dagger stabbed into his belly from beneath the shield.

"Watch closely, boy!" Wick called, even in the middle of the melee, never missing a chance to teach Yulon. "Ironborn don't fight with knights' tricks!" He twisted aside to dodge a thrust, then slammed his shoulder into his opponent's chest, sending them both crashing onto the deck. As they fell, Wick smashed the man's nose with a headbutt, then clamped his teeth around the enemy's ear and tore away a chunk of flesh.

The sheer savagery of their fighting left Yulon both shocked and fascinated. He noticed that the Ironborn favored short weapons—battle-axes, scimitars, harpoons—and carried almost no longswords. Such weapons were far handier on a cramped deck. During their days at sea, the sailors had taught Yulon how to fight, and he'd learned the basics, but nothing could compare to the real thing: killing.

"Longswords are a burden on a ship!" Baron's voice rang out amid the melee, confirming Yulon's observation. His brother was fighting with a scimitar, shorter and thicker than the styles commonly seen in Westeros, with a serrated back. Each of Baron's blows carried the rhythm of the waves, his body shifting its balance naturally with the ship's sway. When a sellsword thrust his sword at him, Baron didn't retreat. He charged forward, parried the blade with his scimitar, and drew a skinning dagger from his belt with his left hand, stabbing up into the man's chin.

The Ironborn excelled at close-quarters brawling. Yulon watched Old Wick even throw away his weapon and beat the enemy with fists clad in iron knuckles. The old sailor, who was missing two fingers, aimed every punch at the eyes, throat, and groin. "There are no rules in a fight at sea! It's kill or be killed!" He spat out a broken tooth and laughed.

What shook Yulon most was the Ironborn's fighting spirit. A sailor with a harpoon sticking out of his chest lunged at an enemy with his dying breath and bit through the man's throat. Another warrior, his belly slashed open, kept swinging his axe from his knees until he'd bled his last. They were like reefs in the sea: no matter how hard the wind and waves battered them, they would smash their foes bloody before they fell.

"Remember, boy," Daggmo gasped between blows, "Ironborn don't fear death, because the Drowned God will let us be reborn!" He spat out a mouthful of blood. "But make the enemy fear death!" As he spoke, he grabbed a wounded sellsword and, while the man screamed, gouged out one of his eyes and shoved it into his mouth.

This brutality wasn't just about killing. It was psychological warfare, too. Yulon noticed that the sellswords who witnessed it visibly began to falter, while the Ironborn grew even more frenzied. They shrieked like gulls and fell upon their prey like bloodthirsty piranhas, embodying the Ironborn's code of combat: I may die, but you'll die first!

When a sellsword turned to flee, Yulon instinctively snatched up a fishing net from the deck and flung it. The moment it caught the man, he pounced and stabbed him repeatedly with his dagger until he stopped struggling. Only when he stood up did he realize he was letting out the same seabird-like cry of victory as the other Ironborn.

After the battle, Yulon looked at his bloodstained hands and gained a deeper understanding of the Iron Islands' philosophy of survival. At sea, elegant swordsmanship meant nothing. Only the most savage, direct, and fearless fighters could survive. Like waves crashing against a reef, either the reef was worn smooth, or the waves were broken apart.

Yulon suddenly noticed something strange about the hold. Through the gaps in the jewelry chests that had supposedly been abandoned "in a panic," he glimpsed the glint of iron chains. He cautiously approached and pried open one with his dagger, then sucked in a sharp breath: inside were heaps of shackles and chains. He could faintly hear heavy breathing from beneath the hold, and all the blood on the deck had seeped down through the planks. Yulon knocked on the deck with his hand; it rang hollow. He pulled back a bloodstained rug, lifted a rusty iron ring, and saw more than a dozen terrified eyes staring up at him from below, along with piles of black rocks.

"Slave ship! This is a merchant ship disguised as a slave ship!" Yulon's cry cut through the battlefield, edged with disappointment and anger. "The lower hold is full of rocks, and there are more than a dozen slaves!"

The news sent the Ironborn, already crazed with bloodlust, into a fury. They kept swinging their axes and blades, cursing so profusely they could have drowned the sellswords in spit alone. By the time Baron broke the last sellsword's neck, the setting sun had stained the sea blood-red. Yulon slumped onto the deck and only then realized his clothes were soaked through with sweat and blood. A wound on his left arm ran deep enough to expose the bone, but strangely, he could barely feel the pain.

The Ironborn who still had the strength to move searched everywhere for gold and silver. Baron limped over, dragging his injured left leg, and looked at his younger brother with respect for the first time. "You saved my life." He grinned, his missing front tooth making the smile especially vicious in the sunset.

With the battle over, nearly all the strength had drained from Yulon after those few brief bouts. He panted and leaned against the hold, casually waving away his brother's thanks.

Daggmo stormed around the captain's cabin of the Silver Swan, slashing wildly with his sword. "Sons of bitches! Eight of our brothers died for this worthless scrap!" The spoils amounted to little more than a dozen trembling slaves—and every one of them was male—with not a single gold or silver treasure. This raid had been a failure. If he returned carrying nothing but a shipload of sea sand, Cracked Jaw Daggmo's name would become a joke, and every Ironborn in the Iron Islands would laugh at him until the Drowned God took him.

Yulon wasn't surprised they'd gained nothing from the battle. He struggled to his feet and walked to the bow. The sea breeze brushed his wound, bringing a stinging pain. He gazed at the distant horizon and suddenly smiled.

"Have you ever thought about it?" Yulon's voice wasn't loud, but the restless sailors fell silent. "Why send an armed ship to patrol this area?" He pointed to the captured sea chart. "Look here. They resupplied three days ago. Did they really have thirty fully armed sellswords just to escort a few dozen slaves?"

Daggmo's single eye lit up. "Boy, are you saying..."

"There must be a bigger prize up ahead." Yulon's mismatched eyes gleamed in the twilight. "A merchant ship loaded with gold, spices...and women."

"Leave a few alive!" Daggmo's roar rang across the deck. "I'll interrogate them myself!"

[ Ding! First naval battle complete. Pirate King System activation increased by 5%. Current activation: 85%. ]