More than ten days and nights had quietly passed since Liu Qian seized Cleftjaw Island with an iron fist.
The salty sea wind still swept across the rugged island.
The air no longer carried the clamor and bloodshed of pirates, but the fresh scent of timber, the pungent tang of tung oil, and the ringing rhythm of hammers striking ship planks.
Rollo and Ser Jorah Mormont had returned from Spearhaft with a rich haul.
More than a dozen fully laden flat-bottomed barges rode low in the water as they slowly entered the makeshift shipyard on Cleftjaw Island's western shore, fashioned from a lightly modified natural bay.
The unloaded supplies piled up like mountains.
Thick oak logs, pine beams, barrels of strongly scented tung oil, tough flax ropes, heavy rolls of linen sailcloth, and dozens of Tyroshi shipwrights.
Liu Qian stood on a towering rock at the edge of the shipyard, looking down over the bustle below.
Sunlight pierced the thin clouds and scattered glittering patches across the sea, setting off his serene face.
He had mixed the Tyroshi craftsmen hired at considerable expense with Cleftjaw Island's existing pirate shipwrights. Under Rollo's coordination, they worked day and night to repair the warships damaged in the sea battle.
In the shipyard, the craftsmen bustled like worker ants, stripping away broken planks, replacing rotten keels and ribs, and sealing gaps with red-hot iron nails and flax fibers soaked in tung oil.
Liu Qian knew all too well that Salladhor Saan could descend upon them at any moment.
Every repaired ship was another stake securing his foothold in this storm-tossed sea.
As for Weeping Reef Island, the pirate den that had been completely emptied out, Liu Qian had not taken it lightly.
He ordered Hal to select an elite hundred-man squad, led by several