Treasure map

Morgor slowly slid down the cold, blackened stone wall and sat on the ground.

He could clearly feel the crossbow bolt smeared with a sea monster's venomous blood spreading a contradictory pain, both icy and searing, from the wound between his chest and abdomen.

The poison flowed through his bloodstream like countless tiny needles of ice, reaching every part of his body. Wherever it passed, numbness came first, followed by stabbing agony.

His vision began to blur, and his own labored breathing rasped in his ears like broken bellows.

I'm going to die.

The thought was terrifyingly clear.

He had seen the corrosive effects of sea monster venom firsthand-the flesh it touched would fester and blacken, then dissolve into pus amid excruciating pain.

And now that poison was flowing through his own veins.

No.

I can't die here.

My dream of restoring my family, the treasure in the Stepstones, escaping life as a mercenary, rebuilding the glory of the "Crab Feeder"... none of it has come true!

A faint spark suddenly flared in the darkness of his despair.

Poison... the antidote!

Years of dealing with all manner of poisons had ingrained a habit in him-he always carried a few bottles of general-purpose antidote. They could not counter every poison, but they could at least delay its effects and buy him time!

His instinct to survive overpowered the agony.

With his left hand, which he could still move, he fumbled shakily through the small leather pouch at his waist, caked with blood and dust.

His fingertips touched several cold little glass bottles.

Found them!

But just as he tried to pull out the little bottle filled with cloudy green liquid-

Whoosh.

A gleam of steel flashed.

He never even saw the movement. He felt only a cool touch across the back of his hand, followed by piercing pain.

A bloodstained longsword deftly flicked the lifesaving pouch away, along with the glass bottles clinking inside it. It arced through the air and landed with a crack among the rubble a few paces away.

Liquid splashed from one bottle, hissing on the scorched earth and releasing thin wisps of white smoke.

Morgor froze, then slowly raised his head.

At some point, Aegon Targaryen had stepped in front of him and was now looking down at him.

A dark red sheen rippled across his Valyrian steel armor beneath the dim daylight. In Morgor's increasingly blurred vision, his bloodstained yet eerily calm face resembled the cold statue of a god.

"Save... save me..." Morgor's voice was so hoarse it no longer sounded like his own. Every word came in a breath flecked with bloody foam. "Please... I don't want to die..."

Aegon did not answer at once.

There was no anger in his violet eyes, nor any satisfaction-only an almost appraising calm.

He slowly crouched until he was eye to eye with Morgor's face, twisted by pain and fear.

"Why?" Aegon asked. His voice was quiet, but it cut clearly through the ringing in Morgor's ears. "Give me a reason not to slit your throat right now."

"A... blood feud..." Morgor swallowed with difficulty, his Adam's apple bobbing, the heavy taste of blood filling his throat. "The Targaryens... it was all... because of you!"

Aegon frowned almost imperceptibly.

The Targaryens' enemies really are everywhere... even now, with their bloodline nearly extinguished, avengers still crawl out of the dust of history.

"So you wanted to kill me?" Aegon's tone betrayed neither anger nor pleasure. "With a crossbow bolt coated in sea monster venom? Very professional."

Morgor felt the icy poison eating into his thoughts. The image of Aegon began to double before his eyes.

He fought desperately to focus. "Save... save me... I know... treasure... arms... so much..."

"Save me... I'll take you... only I know..."

Aegon raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Treasure? Arms?" He repeated the two words, leaning forward a little, his gaze seeming to pierce Morgor's unfocused eyes. "Why should I trust someone who just tried to kill me? And why should I believe a dying man's ramblings?"

"No... not ramblings..." Morgor began coughing violently. Dark red froth spilled from the corner of his mouth, tinged with an eerie fluorescent green. "War in the Stepstones... the Triarchy... fighting... you... sending supplies... before they arrived, the war was lost... Daemon blockaded the Narrow Sea..."

His words grew jumbled, his sentences fragmented, but the key details surfaced in fits and starts, like driftwood clutched by a drowning man.

Aegon's pupils contracted slightly.

The Stepstones.

The Triarchy.

Daemon Targaryen.

Linked together, these words vaguely matched a piece of history among the fragments of his memories from his previous life.

During the Dance of the Dragons, Daemon Targaryen, known as the "Rogue Prince," had indeed proclaimed himself "King of the Narrow Sea and the Stepstones" and fought fierce naval battles against the Triarchy, formed by Lys, Tyrosh, and Myr.

That war had lasted several years, and shipping through the Narrow Sea had been disrupted for a time...

Morgor's claim that supplies had been stranded and hidden away made perfect sense.

"How... how much?" Aegon's voice remained steady, but he spoke a fraction faster.

"Plate armor... five hundred... more... weapons too... spears... swords... so many..." Morgor's eyes grew increasingly unfocused, his breathing rapid. The skin around the wound in his chest had already begun turning an ominous gray-black and swelling slightly. "All in my head... burned the map... only me... save me... I'll lead you..."

Five hundred suits of plate armor.

Aegon's heart gave a sudden thump.

In Westeros, a single well-made suit of full plate could bankrupt an ordinary knight.

Five hundred suits? Enough to equip an elite core that could turn the tide of a local war!

And that was without counting the accompanying weapons.

The temptation was immense.

Immense enough for him to temporarily suppress his urge to kill the assassin before him.

Yet Aegon's expression did not change at all.

He remained crouched there, his gaze frighteningly calm, as though assessing the value of a piece of merchandise.

"A vague location and a few words that might be lies, and you expect to buy your life?" Aegon slowly shook his head, his tone carrying just the right measure of skepticism and contempt. "The Stepstones are scattered with islands and riddled with reefs. Saying it's hidden there is no different from saying it's hidden on the moon."

"What if I go to all the trouble of finding it, only to discover a trap, or that someone has already taken everything? What would your life be worth then?"

"No... not a trap..." Morgor grew frantic. The encroaching poison and his ebbing life rapidly broke down the barriers in his mind. "East... east of Sawtooth Reef... the third little cove... an underground river... entrance underwater... can't see it at high tide... I went to check... still there..."

He rambled incoherently, but the place, direction, and landmarks spilled out one by one.

Aegon's mind raced, combining these fragments with the geography he had read about in his previous life and learned in this one.

Sawtooth Reef-a notorious stretch of dangerous reefs in the northeastern Stepstones, its channels intricate and seldom traveled.

An underground river entrance-that fit the concealed caves formed on some islands by geological upheaval.

The chain of logic was gradually coming together.

Aegon fell silent for a moment, as though weighing his options.

The pleading light in Morgor's eyes grew weaker, and the gray of death rapidly clouded his pupils.

He reached out with a trembling hand already mottled with black, trying to clutch the hem of Aegon's clothes, but grasped only empty air.

"Please... please... believe me..." His voice was barely a thread.

At last, Aegon moved.

He stood and looked down at the dying assassin on the ground. Then, as a faint glimmer of hope suddenly lit Morgor's eyes, he calmly raised his longsword.

The point aimed at Morgor's heart.

"No... you said..." The light in Morgor's eyes was instantly replaced by shock and an even greater terror.

"I said I would consider it." Aegon's voice was as cold as the iron of Valyria. "I never said I would save someone who ambushed me with a poisoned bolt."

"Besides," he paused, his gaze passing over the gray-black flesh on Morgor's chest, "sea monster venom contains the poisons of several sea snakes and creatures of the deep. It corrodes the blood and rots the organs."

"Your antidote won't delay death. It will only prolong the pain."

Morgor's lips trembled. He still wanted to say something.

But Aegon gave him no chance.

His wrist shifted slightly.

Steel flashed.

Shhk.

The sharp sword point sank precisely into his heart.

Morgor's body jerked violently, and his pupils dilated completely. The last expression frozen on his face was a twisted mixture of despair, defiance, and unbearable agony.

Aegon withdrew his longsword, blood sliding down the blade.

He did not look at the corpse again. Instead, he turned his gaze east-toward the Narrow Sea, toward the Stepstones.

Five hundred suits of plate armor, and weapons to go with them.

This was no longer a vague rumor, but a specific, credible treasure that very likely existed.

A starting point that could let him establish himself across the Narrow Sea and raise a real army.

He bent down, picked up the little leather pouch, and tipped out the remaining bottles and a few silver coins.

There was no map. Just as Morgor had said, he had long since committed it to memory and burned it.

But the location was now clearly etched in Aegon's mind:

The Stepstones, east of Sawtooth Reef, the third little cove, an underwater entrance to an underground river.

Five hundred suits of plate armor... an unexpected windfall.

Aegon looked toward the darkened sky beyond the ruins.

The road ahead seemed a little clearer now.