Interrogation and Plunder

When Daggmo's skinning dagger pierced the gap between the first captive's fingers, the screams erupting on deck were more piercing than a seagull impaled by a harpoon.

"Bones are the Drowned God's harp... finger bones are his keys..." the old pirate crooned hoarsely, humming a tuneless ditty. With a slight twist of his wrist, the blade moved nimbly like a bloodthirsty silver fish. Skin peeled back from fingertips, revealing quivering, bright red tendons beneath. Blood dripped down the gleaming blade, forming a broken, strangely beautiful necklace of rubies in the dim moonlight.

"The spice ship's course... number of guards... Speak!" Balon Greyjoy's roar drowned out the wet sound of flesh being stripped from bone.

The captive twitched, spitting out a few garbled, broken syllables. Balon's war axe fell without hesitation—crack! The little finger snapped off at the base, a stump of bone bouncing on the deck before rolling to Yulon's salt-encrusted boot.

"Liar!" The Greyjoy's eldest son kicked the severed finger into the black sea. The cold axe blade shifted to the ring finger. "I'll ask one last time?"

"Really... please... let me go..."

Balon grinned, revealing teeth stained yellow by sea salt. "Wrong answer!" He raised his axe and brought it down, another finger severed from its body.

Then, he tapped the captive's remaining right little finger with the bloodied back of his axe. "Rhysian jewels, which hold?"

The captive bit down hard on his bleeding lips. The axe blade flashed—crack! The little finger was severed at the root, bone fragments and blood spattering onto Yulon's leather boots.

The intense pain finally broke the dam of his will. The captive shrieked, "Port side! Second cargo hold on the port side!"

Yulon, who had been watching coldly, finally moved. He tapped a old arrow scar on the captive's right shoulder with the tip of his boot. "This mark left by a triangular arrowhead... you've taken coin and served as a sellsword." He leaned down, scooped up a handful of damp, rusty iron filings mixed with salt, and pressed it mercilessly deep into the old wound, grinding it into the new flesh and scar. "A sellsword's eyes are on the tip of his blade; he's most concerned with life and death, victory and defeat. So he must count how many of his own men can wield a blade—how many?!"

Under the precise application of agony and the crushing weight of fear, the captive completely broke. "Nine! Only nine! Including two unarmed attendants! It's true!"

"Free City... they fly the flag of Braavos..." the third captive babbled, his mind shattered.

Two hours later, the intelligence squeezed from the three captives, interrogated separately, pieced together like driftwood washed ashore by the waves, formed a complete and tempting picture: two merchant ships, laden with Tyrosh's rare spices, Myr's softest silks, and Rhysian jewels that captivated countless nobles. Their escort was laughably weak, only nine men. Daggmo licked the congealed blood from his dagger, his eyes, bloodshot with greed and slaughter, fixed on the ink-black horizon to the northeast. "Tomorrow night, when the moon sets, they'll pass through Widow's Pass!"

"Do you all understand?" Yulon's voice was low and calm. He even offered the three half-dead, unrecognizable captives some stale water. He squatted before them, the moonlight casting half his face into deep shadow, the other half as cold as sculpture. "Tomorrow night, moonset, Widow's Pass, two ships, nine men. If this intelligence is even slightly inaccurate, if there's any mishap during this hunt..." He paused, his voice laced with a chill colder than the North Atlantic ice. "I swear to the Drowned God, you will deeply regret not having poured out your hearts and guts to tell the truth. They will start by skinning you, then slice off your flesh piece by piece, and finally tie you to the reefs to let the rising tide gnaw at your exposed bones for days."

His tone shifted subtly, with a hint of almost merciful temptation. "But if all goes well... perhaps you might even keep your lives. You must know my name and my identity by now. On this sea, Death himself would struggle to take away someone I wish to protect. So, now, think carefully... is there anything else you've forgotten to say, anything useful?"

Extreme fear could sometimes wring out the deepest secrets. After a brief silence, broken only by the mournful sound of the waves, a faint voice emerged:

"...Wildfire..."

Wildfire—a creation older and more deadly than wildfire, extremely flammable, like liquid rage from hell. A long time ago, some merchant ships skirting the edges of the law would secretly carry a few barrels, hidden in the most concealed lower holds, to be used as a last bargaining chip or a weapon of mutual destruction when facing certain death. But its ingredients were rare, and the art of its preparation was held tightly by the few known as "Alchemists."

Now, those Alchemists were long since kept by King's Landing's Mad King with the wealth of the kingdom.

Who could have imagined that such a dangerous secret lay hidden on these seemingly ordinary merchant ships?

Balon and "Cracked Jaw" Daggmo exchanged a fierce glance, and the air instantly filled with a new, more dangerous scent of greed. Then, their gazes turned to Yulon simultaneously. In their eyes was undisguised admiration and awe, like beasts discovering a larger prey.

The fourteenth day of sailing, the night as black as ink.

As the last sliver of moonlight was swallowed by the churning dark clouds, the "Hao Yin" slipped silently into the jagged reef cluster like a sea serpent covered in black scales. The hull blended almost perfectly with the roaring darkness, only the peeling paint on the figurehead occasionally flashing a faint gleam in the spray.

Yulon Greyjoy lay behind the figurehead, his nostrils catching a faint, floating fragrance in the wind—the warm sweetness of nutmeg intertwined with the deep scent of sandalwood, so luxurious it clashed with the salty tang of the sea breeze and the faint smell of blood. His lips curled silently, like a shark smelling death.

The merchant fleet was oblivious. Like docile lambs, they slowly sailed into the deathly gorge. On the deck of the lead ship, under the dim glow of two yellow lanterns, two guards shoved and cursed each other over a deflated wineskin. Their voices were shattered by the roar of the waves, their eyes clouded, never dreaming that from the shadows of the pitch-black reefs on either side, the horn strings of twelve longbows had been drawn into cold full moons.

"Release!"

Captain Daggmo's roar was immediately swallowed by the crashing waves.

The poisoned arrows, smeared with night owl dung, left the bows, vanishing silently into the darkness. The next moment, the guards on deck fell like wheat stalks cut by an invisible scythe, one after another. Feathers trembled in their throats, and not even a final whimper disturbed the night.

Almost simultaneously, Balon Greyjoy's grappling hook bit firmly into the enemy's ship railing. He swung across the rope like an agile ape, his curved saber flashing a cold arc through the air—the archer on the watchtower had just noticed something amiss when his throat was sliced open, a warm gash. He clutched his spurting neck blood and fell silently into the churning black sea below.

The Ironborn's raid displayed a terrifying, hard-won efficiency. Old Wick led a team that moved like ghosts towards the cargo holds, quickly covering the wooden barrels marked with dangerous symbols—containing the "wildfire" that could ignite hellfire with the slightest spark—with thick blankets soaked in seawater. A young attendant, trembling with fear, could barely hold his torch. Without hesitation, Old Wick swung his blade, and the young man's head, with an expression of shock, rolled onto the wet deck.

On the other side, Grenn's skinning knife precisely found the helmsman's ankle. With a flick of the blade, the faint sound of severed tendons was drowned out by the clamor. The helmsman, who once controlled their direction, slumped like a pile of mud.

On deck, Daggmo stomped through the viscous chaos, his roar overpowering the wind and waves. "The Drowned God only collects souls, not cargo! Throw the dead overboard to feed the fish, and not a single piece of cargo is to be damaged! You little bastards, keep your eyes sharp, or I'll skin you if you take the wrong item!"

His voice, rough as reef stone, dripped with greed and blood with every word, echoing across the sea suddenly invaded by death, like a final prayer for this dark sacrifice.