45: Lifting the Shroud 5

  ... ...

  (Cayde’s POV)

  As he stood on the bow of the Red Ravager leading a fleet of ten galleys towards The Whores, Cayde let his mind drift back to the last time he had commanded a fleet in that group of islands. Yes, Cregan’s fleet had been ambushed as well, and he understood that he had only done as well as he had due to his unusual abilities, but it still rankled him that he had lost almost every man and ship under his command. The embarrassment of that day had stayed with him since and he had sworn to himself if given the chance he would remove the stain on his honour. Today, as his fleet sailed south, he would have that chance thanks to Daemon.

  His fellow bastard had granted him command of the fleet that was bound first to collect Bronn and the men with him and then to kill or subjugate any pirate that still operated in the group of seven small, flat islands that lay between Dustspear and The Shrouded Isle. While it was preferred that the pirates bent the knee and their ships were brought back with the fleet, Cayde would be lying to himself if he said that he was not looking forward to driving his blade through the chest of the men responsible for the ambush that had cost him his fleet last year.

  Those men had come from the central island, which Cregan believed was still under the control of men loyal to Aeron Indarys. As such, that island would be left for last not so that he could have his revenge as the final act of this short campaign, but so he could gather more ships that were better suited to the narrow passages of sea between the islands. Passage that the Ravager would be unable to traverse safely.

  After collecting Bronn, he intended to sweep the two outer islands that were still occupied by pirates first, taking out the ports controlled by Aeron Indarys and Alequo Ryndoon of Grey Gallows. Men under Ryndoon had not yet been faced off against at any point since Cregan had begun his war against the pirates of the Stepstones, but the pirate lord of Grey Gallows could not, in Cayde’s opinion, be ignored like the pirates controlling ports and islands near the Essosi coast.

  From what he had learnt, Ryndoon had ruled the central island of the Stepstones for going on five and ten years and was regarded by others as a cautious, calculating man. He lacked the forces to strike out fully against any other island, but the open sea around him meant he had the chance to target any vessel trying to cut through the centre of the Steps to avoid the majority of the other islands when it crossed from Westeros to Essos, or in the opposite way. It was that fact, and the central location of the island, that had Cayde convinced that Cregan would eventually turn his eyes toward Ryndoon and Grey Gallows.

  The island lay on a direct path from Bloodstone – which Cregan was intending to target once The Bloodhawk was removed from the board – and Redwater. Every self-styled prince or king of the Stepstones had ruled from Bloodstone, and while Cregan claimed he had no intention of pushing eastward after Bloodstone, Cayde understood the matter might be forced upon Cregan by the Free Cities of Myr, Tyrosh, Lys, and even Volantis and Pentos.

  In such a case, securing Grey Gallows, and thus the central and western sections of the Stepstones was the only logical path to take. Hells, even if Cregan was able to somehow ensure that the rulers of the Free Cities accepted his position of control of nearly half the Steps, the tactical location of Grey Gallows made it worth claiming as well.

  As oft happened since signing on with Cregan, when Cayde allowed his thoughts to turn to events further afield than a few moons he found himself wondering about his role in the future they were creating. On the Shrouded Isle, before the fall of Lucian Koros, Cregan had confirmed he intended to stop at Bloodstone and focus on developing The Shrouded Isle in the way development was taking place on Dustspear.

  In such a scenario, Cregan would need men to rule in his name; minor lords and landed knights. Daemon was already assured of such a position if he chose to leave his role as the sworn shield of Princess Arianne Nymeros Martell. Yet, even if Daemon assumed control of Dustspear, that would leave Cregan still in need of men to help him rule and administer The Shrouded Isle, to say nothing of The Whores and potentially Redwater and Bloodstone.

  Developing The Shrouded Isle as Cregan intended would be a significant challenge, but one that if successful would not only remove the scourge of piracy from the Dornish coast of Westeros but grant Cregan control of the sea lanes along that coast. Yes, there were Dornish lords in the Broken Arm and down to Sunspear who would protest at a bastard having power over waters they considered theirs, but those same lords had done little to nothing to deal with the pirate threat, nor requested aid from Sunspear in doing so. Cregan had, and by right of conquest, that granted Cregan the seas to control if he so wished.

  Beyond the control of the sea, and thus trade, holding and fortifying Dustspear and The Shrouded Isle would bring Cregan, the islands themselves had potential. The Shrouded Isle was around twice the size of Estermont but with far more arable land and potential for development, at least in Cayde’s eyes. Now, Cayde was uncertain if, after over ten years as a sellsword, he wished to settle down and play lord, but the simple fact that was even an option was incredible considering how his life had been less than two years prior.

  From being a well-paid if wandering sellsword then to now earning more coin in a moon than he had in a year serving in a sellsword company in Essos, his life had improved considerably, and all that was thanks to Cregan Sand. The thrill of battle and the glory of victory was a regular feature of his life, and while settling down might seemingly deny him that adventure, Cayde understood that it would be many years before Cregan’s slowly developing fiefdom would be strong enough to not be threatened by passing pirates, to say nothing of the power wielded by many in Essos and Westeros. The idea of coming to bed with a woman willing to spend her life with him, and possibly even raising sons to carry on his name and legacy also added to the attraction of what Cregan was developing, and claiming a position of importance in that future.

  A call from above and behind him snapped Cayde from his thoughts. Turning he looked up at the crow’s nest seeing the man there pointing forward. While Cayde could not yet see anything on the horizon, he understood that they were close to The Whores. As such, thoughts on the future were better placed to one side. What mattered now was the present and the mission he was assigned.

  … …

  … …

  (Cregan’s POV)

  As was always the case, as the wind rushed over my body as I soared high above the world below, and my body angled itself to effortlessly slice through the currents to ensure I could remain aloft with almost no effort, I savoured every moment of this sensation. Spending time within the mind of Rian was something I always enjoyed, and on the slower, less enjoyable days, I found myself almost longing for it. Perhaps even more than I did for the company of Ari and my other lovers back in Sunspear.

  The moment when I shifted back to my body, after spending more than a few passing moments looking through the eyes of an eagle, had me instantly longing to return. However, I understood this was the temptation any skinchanger faced with those they bonded to, particularly those who inhabited the mind of an avian predator. The risk that one would choose to spend days, then weeks, and then moons and years inside the mind of a bird, swooping over the land and sea below, was an ever-present danger of this rare gift for those of First Men blood.

  The experience was something few men would ever understand, save those like myself who had the ability to skinchange and an airborne companion to meld with. The only one I was potentially aware of lived beyond The Wall among the Wildlings. Orell had appeared in the show, and may well have done so in the books though I had only ever read the first, commanding an eagle. Something he used to scout for the Free Folk. Now, there was a chance that Orell had never been born in this timeline, or that he had already died, or that there were other members of the Free Folk who could skinchange in birds, but he was the only one from my memories that I was certain could skinchange.

  Potentially, based on what Barrian had told me, Alysanne was currently learning to skinchange into Talon, or soon would be, but I had no confirmation of it. Concerned about the dangers that sharing a bond with an animal could bring, particularly a bird and the sense of freedom they granted, I had written a letter to Alysanne speaking directly of the dangers I had experienced regarding skinchanging.

  That letter was the first to not be in any form of code about my magical ability and thus carried the greatest risk that someone might find a way to open the letter – sealed as it was with wax and the flat of Red Rain since I lacked a formal seal to use. To help counter the danger, I had instructed Alysanne to burn the letter after reading it and make sure all of it was consumed by flames before leaving the fire. The envelope carrying the letter was folded smaller than most letters, allowing me to slide it inside a letter I had written to Ari.

  While a letter to the heir to Sunspear and Dorne was more likely to draw interest, few would risk opening said letter. Not when it was inside a sealed chest that I had paid two men to escort to Sunspear and Prince Doran directly. Those men were among those injured severely enough that they could no longer fight and had chosen to return to Sunspear and then, I assumed, onto their families there. To further enhance the odds that they would remain loyal to my instructions, I had paid them an extra moon’s wages. There was also a letter to Phineas going with them, instructing him to add more guards to the chest and check that none of my correspondence had been read.

  Thinking of Alysanne and Ari had my thoughts turn to others in Sunspear. If Alysanne was forming a bond with Talon, then there was a chance Beron might grow irritated. That was if he was not distracted by the fact that he was a little over a year away from both finishing his time squiring for Oberyn and marrying Wylla Manderly. Still, I’d asked Alysanne to speak with him about the potential he had to skinchange, as given the bond that existed between Robb and Quicksilver, Beron might well have a stronger potential for it than Alysanne.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Thinking of Robb and Quicksilver then turned my thoughts to a semi-critical event due to happen at the end of the new year. Along with watching Ned execute the traitor from the Night’s Watch, Bran, Theon, and Robb were meant to discover the litter of direwolf pups. I wasn’t concerned that Ned wouldn’t take in the litter, as the presence of Quicksilver already had the Stark patriarch used to the idea of direwolves around his children. No, what concerned me was what would happen to – working on the names from the other timeline – Greywind and Ghost.

  Robb was already bonded to Quicksilver, and while Beron would be the logical person to bond with Greywind, he wasn’t in Winterfell, and neither was Alysanne for her to bond with Ghost. Add in that there were, from what I last knew, two other Stark children that could potentially bond with direwolves – the children of Benjen and Obara in Moat Cailin – and both were at least as old as Rickon, and there was a decent to good chance neither Beron nor Alysanne would bond with a direwolf.

  In theory, compared to other changes in the timeline – such as Beron’s existence and Alysanne being Alysanne instead of Jon – the pair not bonding with a direwolf seemed minor. However, I had already seen proof of how minor changes in the timeline could drastically alter events in ways that I couldn’t have predicted, with the pair of Stark children being examples of that.

  Assuming the timeline didn’t alter enough that the War of the Five Kings still took place, then Beron would be Robb’s heir. That was a seemingly minor issue, but it could spiral in ways I simply couldn’t predict. As for Alysanne, the timeline was going to, and already was in some ways, spiral out of control massively by her being her instead of Jon.

  Yes, she might be the legitimate daughter of Rhaegar, but the only people that I knew were aware of that were Ned, Howland Reed, my mother and grandmother, and me. No one else would believe Alysanne was the daughter of Rhaegar, not when she looked more traditionally Stark than most of Ned’s children and the letter from Ser Arthur Dayne had been destroyed by Ned to protect Alysanne. Then there was the issue that she was a girl, as no one in the Seven Kingdoms outside of Dorne was willing to let a woman rule over them. That had been proven by first Rhaenys and then Rhaenyra during the Dance.

  Now, yes, in the show, Daenerys had taken the Iron Throne, but she had two dragons with her to help accomplish that, and yes one day, I felt I could help Alysanne birth a dragon from her egg, but there was no certainty that would be enough for Alysanne to claim her rightful place. Nor, I felt, was it probable she would seek it.

  Alysanne, while she had the drive to know more about her parents – or at least her mother since she still generally believed that Ned was her father, at least when we had last spoken on the matter – didn’t want power. No, what she wanted was to be happy with a man she genuinely loved. Others, if the truth of her parentage became common knowledge, would seek to use her to advance their claims, and I would not subject my cousin to that life. Not when she was seemingly deeply in love with Daemon, and him with her. All I could hope was that Ned had accepted the union as a good match.

  Interestingly, there had been no mention by Barrian that Ned had replied to Alysanne’s desire to marry Daemon before he and the others had left Sunspear. That was a touch unexpected as more than enough time had passed for the Lord of Winterfell to consider the matter. However, the fact there was no news meant that he had not outright dismissed the pairing as possible. Something I had told Daemon before we had parted ways for the next leg of my campaign on The Shrouded Isle.

  The other place my thoughts turned to when I thought of Sunspear was Asha, or more accurately my child that she carried in her belly. The birth should have happened about two moons ago, yet I did not know anything else. Were both mother and babe safe and healthy, and if so what was the gender and name of my child? And if things had not gone well, how was everyone coping with the situation?

  Asha would, I hope, understand why I could not be present for the birth. She was Ironborn, so understood better than most women that what I was doing had purpose, though I knew that if she could, at least without breaking the terms of her fostering – read imprisonment – placed on her by the Iron Throne, she would be beside me fighting in battle.

  As with the others, I had written her a letter, apologising for being kept from her side during the birth, and telling her that once Bloodstone was cleansed of pirates – weather permitting that would be at some point in the next few moons I hoped – I would return to Sunspear. I had said the same to Ari, Nym and even Ty. I had also hinted that, once her time as a ward of Prince Doran was over, I hoped she and our child might move to Northpoint, or whichever port I started developing on The Shrouded Isle into my main location. I wasn’t expecting her to wed me, but I wanted her and our child close.

  I had heard rumours that my birth father, Brandon Stark, had bastards across the North though I had never had that confirmed nor met any of them. I wouldn’t be the kind of father who, like Brandon or King Robert, left his bastards behind. No, I would raise and teach them as mine alongside any trueborn children I had, as Oberyn had done for every one of his bastard daughters.

  A gentle tug at my thoughts from Rian had me refocusing on the present. Using his eyes I took in the water that lay between Bloodstone and the Shrouded Isle and engulfed the Bone Breaker Isles. Moving towards one of the four major islands of the group that lay in the channel were three longboats that had sailed from one of The Bloodhawk’s ports.

  One of the pirate lords of Bloodstone had a camp there, using the location to control the nearby waters. Like most of the other islands in the channel, this one was generally flat, rising no more than a hundred or so metres at its peak. There were a limited number of places one could approach the island from, seeing as it, like the other islands in the channel, was surrounded by sharp rocks and reefs which was what gave the islands their name.

  Now, the men The Bloodhawk was sending would likely not be enough to take the camp from whoever held it, which made it clear this was more a raid than an attempted occupation, and also had me wondering if perhaps this assault and another that looked to be taking place at the northernmost of the four major islands of the Bone Breakers were in response to Daemon’s raid on one of the Bloodhawk’s ports. With the fleet there taken without a fight, along with whatever of value the men had managed to grab before they’d departed, The Bloodhawk would have been embarrassed. Not to the point I felt one of his senior officers might challenge him for command, but enough that he had to go on the offensive.

  Even with half of Daemon’s fleet having departed for The Whores, he had more than enough ships and men to repel all but an all-out assault by The Bloodhawk. No such action would take place as it would leave the pirate lord weakened enough that the pirates of Bloodstone might exploit it.

  The men on the islands of the Bone Breakers served primarily as lookouts for movement in the channel. Be that by other pirates or some foolish trader who decided to try and risk the channel and avoid sailing the long way around either of the major islands on either side of it. Most were gathered on the four larger islands in the chain, but several of the smaller islands had small outposts as well. Those never amounted to more than a handful of men and were only held when drawing a line from a major island in the chain to one of the larger islands, and thus the pirate lord who controlled that section of the channel. However, watching the comings and goings of the men in the channel while my fleet sailed around the northern coast of The Shrouded Isle allowed me to gain an understanding of how I would have to shift my tactics when striking towards Bloodstone.

  Now, I understood that I couldn’t make any such move until The Bloodhawk was defeated. Ideally with the vast majority of his men bending the knee to me for minimal losses on my side. The challenge that lay before me was a similar one to what I had faced with Lucian Koros.

  Each of the five ports The Bloodhawk had was connected to at least one other by tracks; ones that appeared both wider and better maintained than those that Koros had used. There were still dirt paths, but each was wide enough that, from what I could tell, two carts could pass by without needing to slow down. Now, while the number of men he had overall, and the extent to which those men could move between his ports was limited, the fact was he could move perhaps a thousand men around with ease to strike at any target he chose.

  Daemon had, or would have once the men sent to The Whores returned, the manpower to counter such a force, however even with Crann Snow bending the knee and bringing roughly a hundred men and two more galleys into my ranks, my fleet didn’t. That issue was compounded by the fact that via Rian I had discovered the fifth of The Bloodhawk’s ports.

  Unlike the other four that all sat in or near the channel where the Bone Breakers were, this fifth port was on the western side of the spur that ran parallel to Bloodstone. It was also far enough into the gap between that spur and the one Crann Snow had previously operated from that when coupled with the fact it only held two galleys and perhaps a little north of a hundred men, that it served the same purpose as Koros’ hidden port had.

  In theory, with my fleet I could strike at the port after taking out the single port Garvy Pyke had on the western side of the tip of the spar he controlled – seemingly in The Bloodhawk’s name. However, holding the port would be a challenge. The closest of the eastern ports was less than a day’s march from this new port, while another was perhaps two day’s march.

  There was no way my fleet could approach the port without being seen from a good distance away, which was why any attack on it would wait for the fleet sent to gather Bronn and his men and wipe The Whores clean of piracy – at least for the moment – to return. Once everything was in place, Daemon would return to The Bloodhawk’s southern port and set up a camp there. The rest, in five or six galleys, would sail around the coast and put pressure on the first port into the Bone Breaker channel. At the same time, I would strike that western port, seizing everything there.

  After that, things would get interesting. The port the western one was first connected to was north of the one Daemon would put pressure on from land and sea. The Bloodhawk had one more port further to the north, but in essence, he would be pincered between Daemon’s forces and mine, with no way to easily move against one of us without risking the other crashing into his flank.

  However things played out, I hoped I would be the one to end The Bloodhawk. Preferably in combat. Yes, I had been the one to end the Grim Prince along with Allerion, but Lucian Koros had been bested by Barrian Fowler while Daemon had taken out Vaegon and Rakakz and Crann Snow had bent the knee. If I were putting emotion and enjoyment of battle to one side, I would prefer that The Bloodhawk bent the knee along with all his men. However, I wanted to fight him.

  He was considered one of the best fighters in the Stepstones and I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to savour the moment when I proved myself superior to him and looked down at his eyes as the last flickers of life left them. I understood that was a bloodthirsty way to approach life, but this was a harsh world – one I had chosen to be reborn in – and the blood that flowed through my veins was bred for war. Something only further empowered by my traits linked to the Wolf and the Dragon.

  There was also the fact that I distrusted both Rakakz and Crann Snow. Yes, the former had yet to give me any reason to doubt him beyond his former occupation, but that alone made him hard to trust. The same was true of the latter, and even though he claimed to be proud to serve alongside a Stark bastard, I was reluctant to allow him any real power for now. If The Bloodhawk bent the knee, the same would be true for him, except that he would have around fifteen hundred men with him, which would cause a shit ton of issues centred around loyalty and trust that I was reluctant to take onboard.

  The threat of betrayal from any of the former pirates in my ranks was always high, and with each one that bent the knee only grew higher. Yet it was a price I had to accept to gather the force needed for my plans in the Stepstones. Without the extra men brought by Rakakz, I might not have been able to strike at The Shrouded Isle so soon after sweeping through Redwater. And without the Bloodhawk’s men, once I gained them, I would be unable to move against Aeron Indarys and The Blood Serpent on Bloodstone as soon as the Bloodhawk’s ports fell.

  Still, I wasn’t a fool who blindly trusted the men who bent the knee and signed my charter. I knew that one day a reckoning was coming. That was why I made sure my men were paid better than any sellsword company paid, and that the men were well fed and looked after – at least relative to what they could endure – so that, when the day came that someone tried a mutiny against me, I wouldn’t, I hoped, be facing thousands of former pirates with only a handful of men at my side.

  That, however, was a threat for a day that I hoped was far into the future. For today, or at least the rest of the time I was willing to stay in Rian for today, I would watch the movements made by men serving various pirate lords. Every iota of information granted me more knowledge about the men I would be facing off against, and I expected it to help me plan their swift and brutal defeats.

  … …

  … …