The sea breeze stirred ten thousand acres of waves, and the sunlight spilled across an endless stretch of blue.
Beneath the long unseen clear sky, the surface of Blackwater Bay shimmered. Looking out, the boundless sea resembled a piece of deep blue silk dusted with glitter, pure, smooth, and soft.
The full sails were drawn into perfect arcs, the bow sliced through white waves across the silky expanse, and sailors moved leisurely between their posts, steering the ship while singing bawdy songs about women at the top of their lungs. If one listened only to the sound, the scene might even seem like a group of simple fishermen heading out to sea on a fine day.
But the slender hull, the massive black sail bearing the golden kraken, and the hundreds of ships of various sizes sailing alongside and behind it all proclaimed the identity of the warship Silence and its position as the flagship of the fleet.
This was the Iron Fleet, the fleet that had plundered the four seas and raided the Seven Kingdoms in recent years, its notoriety spreading throughout the known world.
Facing the bright sunlight and the early spring breeze that carried a hint of warmth, Euron Greyjoy's expression was dark and cold.
He was unhappy, very unhappy, extremely unhappy.
Even great villains have their own troubles.
Aegor West, that bastard from nowhere, a man of the Night's Watch, kept ruining his plans. The nominal king in King's Landing was arrogant and stubborn even in the face of death. These two setbacks were bad enough. A contemptible outsider and a stubborn old fool, after all, they were his enemies. If enemies did not cause trouble, they would not be called enemies.
But recently, even within the fleet there had been constant problems and unrest, which truly infuriated him.
Euron's troubles mainly came from three sources.
The first was the discontent over how he handled the betrayal of Rodrik the Reader.
Using Asha's return as bait in a scheme to eliminate the greatest opposition and troublemaker on the islands had cost Euron considerable thought and effort. It could be considered one of his most successful plots. All the crew aboard Sea Song had been silenced, and his own sailors aboard Silence were all mute. The plan was flawless, with no risk of exposure. Rodrik's crime of defying his will to rescue Asha and then resisting armed pursuit had been thoroughly confirmed. Yet even so, there were still voices of doubt among the Ironborn.
Those doubters did not question the crime itself. Instead, they argued that a great lord and renowned captain like Rodrik Harlaw, even if guilty of a capital offense, should have been captured alive and brought back to the Iron Islands for trial and public execution. His flagship, Sea Song, should have been seized and returned as a reward for those who had distinguished themselves, rather than being sunk directly to the bottom of the sea.
Easy to speak when you bear no responsibility.
If the first annoyance was limited to the complaints of a few Ironborn aligned with House Harlaw, the second issue had spread throughout the Iron Fleet and the entire Iron Islands.
Since announcing the revival of the Old Way and publicly declaring his ambition to conquer Westeros, Euron had led the Ironborn to raid every coastal region of the Seven Kingdoms they could reach. In doing so, he successfully consolidated his prestige and position. But after a long stretch of favorable winds, beginning when the conflict with the North turned into a prolonged stalemate, more precisely when the Night's Watch inexplicably intervened, the Iron Fleet's fortune seemed to shift.
There were no spoils of war, only constant hard fighting and steady losses of men and ships. The losses were not massive, but a dull knife cuts deepest. Complaints and discussions gradually spread throughout the fleet, calling for Euron to abandon his personal vendetta and return to the proper path of practicing the Old Way.
Personal vendetta?
Proper path?
Euron sneered inwardly. These short sighted worms, these worthless clods of mud.
He was not fixated on the North because of some foolish vendetta. If the Northmen were not pinned down in their own lands, they would raise armies and march south, rallying the Riverlands and the Vale to support Stannis. A lone Riverlands would be difficult to exploit.
As for the lack of frequent plundering, it was not because he did not wish to, but because winter had come. The people of the green lands were huddled within strongholds and castles. There were no valuable and easy targets left across the Seven Kingdoms.
In such circumstances, if he did not actively involve himself in the struggle for Westeros and maintain a certain intensity of warfare to preserve the fleet's cohesion, the Iron Fleet would gradually fall apart from idleness. On the other hand, whichever side gained the upper hand in the continental war would grow stronger, defeat its main rivals, reunify the Seven Kingdoms, and then turn its attention to dealing with the small Iron Islands.
But that band of pirates, with nothing in their heads but women and treasure, could never understand this.
These fools seemed to have mouths only to complain if they missed half a cup of wine, as if their manhood would wither if they did not violate a woman for a day, and they would shout about wasting their lives if they went half a month without plundering a village.
He had led the fleet east and west, north and south without pause, was it not to maintain a stable environment in which they could continue roaming the seas and plundering whoever they encountered? Was it not to seek an opportunity to contend for the continent through sustained warfare, to carve out a path for the Ironborn confined to a corner of the world, to restore the former glory of the Black King, and to fulfill his own ambition?
But he could not explain these things to the Ironborn. Long term plans, future paths, such concepts were beyond these reeking pirates. The moment he began to persuade or explain, he would appear out of character, weak and incompetent, and the fleet would fracture even faster.
Perhaps the only thing to be thankful for was that his fearsome reputation preceded him. Though the Ironborn grumbled, none dared to openly defy him.
All of that could be considered mere annoyances. The third issue was the true source of his unease.
He had not dreamed in a long time.
For many years, whenever Euron slept, he would experience absurd and chaotic dreams. At first glance, they seemed illogical, yet they were always accompanied by strange whispers. That voice conveyed vague messages, instructing him to perform certain strange acts at specific times and places.
It was by following those whispers that he earned his notorious reputation for eccentric behavior on the Iron Islands and became deeply feared. It was because he carried out untimely and terrible deeds at his dreams' urging that he eventually caused trouble and was exiled. Yet it was also by following those same whispers that, while away from Westeros, he always found the richest and easiest targets for plunder, avoided the fleets sent to hunt him down, and turned misfortune into fortune.
The power he commanded grew from a single ordinary warship into the most elusive and terrifying pirate fleet on the seas. He ventured into the smoking ruins of Valyria and returned laden with magical relics. He sailed to the edges of the known world and traded his discoveries in that city of magic for methods to enhance his own strength, learning strange and arcane arts.
All of these experiences gradually led him to believe that the whisper deep within his heart, the murmur in his dreams, would ultimately guide him to become the king of the entire world, perhaps even a god.
But just as he successfully claimed the Seastone Chair, gathered a force capable of influencing the fate of Westeros, and plunged without hesitation into the war for conquest, one day several months ago, about a week after he attacked Ice Canyon Port and burned the Northern fleet at anchor, his sleep became dreamless, and the whispers ceased.
Inexplicably, he had gone from being the chosen one back to what he once was, an ordinary pirate captain.
As though waking from a grand dream that had lasted more than a decade, this quiet change did not strip him of power or weaken him. Yet it brought about a transformation unseen by others but with profound consequences. From that moment on, every action and decision had to be made solely by his own judgment and reason.
Was this the turning point marking his abandonment and eventual destruction, or was it a sign that the time was ripe and he was about to reach the pinnacle of his life?
He did not know. The more he speculated, the more uneasy he felt. Only a great victory and the sacrifice of a dozen detested enemies could slightly soothe this anxiety.
Clang, clang, clang.
A series of urgent metallic rings from above interrupted his thoughts. It was the alarm bell from the crow's nest. The lookout had spotted an enemy fleet.
(To be continued.)