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Ch 53 Eh? Are those Seagulls? Part 1
🕑 Added 2024-02-06 13:20:29 +0000 UTC'Huu...I am tired,' Jon sighed as he fell onto the small bed in his cabin like a piece of dead tree.
It had only been about an hour since they passed the Stepstones so it was still dark outside and while he wasn't sure, he knew that if he had a mechanical watch then it would show something around 3 or 4 a.m. It wouldn't amount much to a normal modern person to be staying awake this late but at the moment his head was pounding like a drum and his body craved sleep like nothing else.
Usually, he wouldn't be bothered by just this much with his robust mind, but various things had happened one after because of which he had to keep his mind alert, and connected to his wargs for far too long, which eventually made him more mentally exhausted than usual.
A few hours before they had even reached the pirate-infested islands, Jon had been on a long distance, warg call with his brother. Robb had been catching him up to everything that had been happening in Winterfell as well as in the North, as a whole, while he was away. Things like how Sansa was getting better at handling weapons, or how Arya and Bran bickered again over something or how Rickon was growing up.
Then after they were done with the mundane stuff, he talked about important things like how their road project was off to a good start and that their father was getting hammered daily by letters from his Lords, first congratulating him on his good decision and then demanding their region be the next to get the improved roads.
He also told him about how LittleTom had gathered something like a community with a lot of excellent Blacksmiths around him and was even in talks with Robb to set up a dedicated street for just them in Wintertown, just like the street of steel in Kings Landing.
So a few hours of straining his mind with that Warg call (It was something like a Zoom call, with him warging into Tiger, the Shadowcat so that he could talk with Robb, though it was mostly Robb talking) and the exhaustive hours staying alert and connected to Frost and Inky(his pet Kraken) during their escape from Stepstones meant that he was completely and utterly spent and wanted nothing more than to sleep as much as his body demanded.
...
..
.
But fate it seems had different plans for Jon...
"Jon! Jon!!" After just a few hours (which didn't feel like more than a few minutes) of sleep, he was abruptly jolted awake by an urgent knocking on the door to his small cabin. He looked disgustedly towards Gan and Tweety on the nearby table, and both of them simultaneously shrugged at his silent question.
Jon groaned as he slowly got up from his bed to open the door to find Merchant Sam standing there with his hair dishevelled and panic in his eyes.
"What happened?" he asked groggily, trying to keep irritation out of his voice. His cabin was the only room above the deck so he was able to see that it was almost morning and the sun was just about to rise behind Sam's back.
"Two ships were just sighted," Sam said grimly, "And I think they could be Pirates!!"
"What?" Jon asked with a sceptical look while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
He had obviously told Frost and Inky to keep a lookout a few leagues ahead of the fleet, for anything outwardly and a quick peek into their minds instantly let him know that they weren't slacking and that both the seas and skies were completely calm and clear of any adversities. "Are you pulling my leg, Uncle Sam?" Jon said irritatedly while walking past the Merchant, "I saw nothing in front of us—"
"Not in Front!" The Merchant cut him off with a frown on his face, "They are behind us."
"Oh..." Jon froze in his steps as his mind slowly caught up to what the Merchant was implying and almost immediately he was jolted awake.
Jon didn't waste any more time and promptly turned around to circle the cabin towards the rear part of the ship. All of the ships in his fleet always sailed in a V-shaped formation with his ship in the lead, this meant that he was instantly able to see the two barely visible ships just at the edge of his vision.
Without taking his eye off Jon opened up his palm in front of Sam who immediately understood and handed him a far eye and without further ado he put it in front of his right eye.
Through its lenses, Jon was able to make out the similar shark flags on the two ships and what seemed to be the whole crew awake, and running up and about the ship, in addition all of them were armed as if they were ready for battle at any moment.
"We only found out about them by chance," Sam supplied gloomily, while watching the ships, "Gill, who was part of the watch, was fiddling with my Far-eye when he accidentally caught sight of them and hurried to wake me up. I shudder to imagine what would have happened if he hadn't... And these pirates sure are lucky that they just happened to come across a ripe target like ours at the open sea—"
"I don't think it was luck..." Jon sighed while putting away the Far-eye. He had sent a signal to Frost to come back as fast as she could so that he could get a better understanding of these pirates and their strength. The possibility of these pirates just happening across them was too little, which could only mean that "...they've been onto us for a while now... probably since last night," Jon admitted in an annoyed tone.
He had known about this obvious loophole in his scouting net, but the possibility of someone coming to attack his fleet from behind them in the open sea had always been so minuscule that he ignored it as inconsequential, now... it seemed the possibility wasn't so minuscule after all.
Sam was having a hard time wrapping his head around with what Jon was implying "B-But that's impossible. How could they find us out of nowhere—"
"They didn't "find us", per se," Jon said slowly as he started to get the whole picture of the situation he was in, "They had been waiting for us..." Jon said with a tinge of comprehension in his voice as it dawned on him that he had been played by a pirate, which definitely wasn't a good feeling.
It was so obvious now that he looked at it in hindsight... The lone ship waiting between the small islands wasn't a weak link, instead, it had been a trap all along, a trap laid down to force them to come into the open... It was an intricate trap made just for them.
"What? What do you mean?"
"I'll explain to you later," Jon said while massaging his forehead, "Right now you just need to know that they are pirates and that they've been following us since we passed through Stepstones—"
"But if that were the case they could have easily caught up to us with their speed by now," Sam asked while scratching his head, "It would been a lot easier for them if they ambushed just before sunrise while we were all asleep."
"That is indeed strange, " Jon said with a frown on his face, "It's as if... they are not here to attack us but to keep an eye on us so we don't disappear or run away..."
Sam was looking at Jon murmuring to himself when he suddenly remembered something, "Er... Jon, I didn't mention it before because I thought that he made a mistake because of darkness... but well, when Gill came to wake me up, he reported sighting not two but three ships—"
"What?! Three Ships—" Jon asked loudly as his eyes suddenly widened and he realised what that meant. Thankfully Frost arrived above the ships at exactly that moment so Jon didn't waste a single moment and immediately had her fly up high above the clouds.
Only a few seconds later, Jon caught sight of the third ship in the distance through Frost's eyes, it was frantically rowing towards the nearby coast... A coast that was almost deserted except for the five very conspicuous pirate ships lying in wait there. With the third ship's speed, it would only take less than half a for it to reach the ships at the coast.
By now it was quite obvious that the third ship was a messenger sent to bring the rest of their ships for a simultaneous attack. If it all went according to their plan, it would take them less than two hours to completely surround Jon's fleet on all sides without leaving them anywhere to run.
Jon conceded that he had underestimated these pirates... underestimated them a lot. The amount of elaborate planning involved in not only finding out that he was sneaking past them during the night but then going on to lay out this trap for him... it involved a lot of calculation that he frankly never even thought a pirate was capable of.
"J-Jon! Look, the ships are moving," Sam suddenly exclaimed while pointing towards the pirate ships. And just like he said the ships that had been quietly following them from a distance so far suddenly accelerated but instead of approaching them, they circled them on the right side. One quickly overtook them while the other stayed some distance behind their fleet... those two ships had now blocked the fleet's only escape route away from the coast.
"It seems they too have a far-eye with them..." Jon said, his eyes twitching at the quickness with which the ships had reacted to being discovered.
Jon took a deep breath to let out the annoyance he was feeling at the situation he found himself in. After all, he had never fallen into a trap like this... at least not since he became a warg and Frost started to fly.
'Ah! What to do with them...' Jon thought while rubbing his eyes. He was more irritated than scared of these pirates... it's just that his lack of sleep made him a bit short-tempered. He wanted nothing more than just to feed all of them to Inky, his pet Kraken. And for a glorious few moments, he was almost tempted to follow through with that impulse of his... before the damned rational part of his mind spoke up and stopped him.
After all, this wasn't beyond the wall and these people weren't Wildlings isolated from the rest of the world. If Inky made an appearance here then not only would he have to be afraid of accidentally letting some of the pirates escape, but he would also have to make sure that the sailors in his fleet kept quiet about it. It would be over for him if even one of them was stupid enough to start spreading tales about seeing a ship demolishing Kraken.
Here in Essos, people weren't as sceptical of magic, they knew that magic was a real force in the world. He could almost imagine the massive target the rumours would paint on his back and the type of people it would attract. He was sure that the likes of Euron Grejoy, the Warlocks from House of Undying, and the Preist and Priestess of R'hllor, would be ecstatic to get a hand on him and dissect him.
Jon knew better than anyone that this wasn't the North and that he wasn't quite invincible here so he had to be careful to not bite more than he could chew.
Jon contemplated the situation for a few more minutes before he finally turned to face the anxious Merchant, "Uncle Sam, I want you to go wake up every sailor on the four longships and tell them to prepare their bows for a battle. The Galleons will stay on their course at their current speed while the four longships will split up to simultaneously attack the two pirate ships,"
"But... Would that really work?" Sam asked with a hesitant look, "I mean, I know that we outnumber them... but from the looks of it, these pirates don't seem to have any intention of tangling with us when they could easily just run away from us with their lighter ships."
"Oh! Don't worry," Jon smirked while thinking about the new ability of Frost that he had recently discovered, "I'll make sure that they don't run away."
