60

Chapter 60: Ch 51 Getting FamousChapter Text

Five sleek rundown galleys were haphazardly docked on an otherwise desolate coast mid-way between the cities of Pentos and Myr. Their flags didn't carry any kind of skulls on them but anyone with even an iota of common sense could see that they were all pirate ships.

At the moment, most of the crew were standing in the shade of a few trees with only one large man with a crooked hat sitting comfortably on a light wooden chair.

"Where are they? Where are all the fucking ships laden with goods that you promised me, Huh?" Captain Jack growled, his hands gripping the handle of the chair so tightly that it almost crushed them. The sun was about to set for the third time since they had laid an ambush here in this god-forsaken place to wait for the prey... but their target was still nowhere in sight.

Most of the nearby pirates hurriedly scurried away from the center leaving behind two shivering pirates, Frank and his nephew, in the middle to take on the wrath of the Captain.

The Captain looked like a typical pirate with a hat, an eyepatch and a gold tooth and while he wasn't completely insane like some of the other famous pirates, he was still an... unpredictable man. One minute he could be singing and drinking with you and in the next something would set him off and he would dump you into the ocean while laughing his ass off. So the crew usually tried their hardest to not run afoul of his temper because when he gets angry, it is very... ugly.

"M-Maybe they got d-delayed, Captain—" Frank stammered as he tried to come up with some way to wiggle out of the situation but the Captain didn't have much patience for him.

"Shut up!! I've had enough of yer excuses!!" Captain Jack thundered as he slowly rose from his seat. He was a massive man, almost a head taller than everyone else, so when he came to stand before the two pirates they almost pissed their pants, "You told me that seven ships left Bravoos laden with goods with less than 100 fighters on board and that they would be here soon... So where the fuck are they!! I've been sitting on my ass here for three fucking days with not a single ship in sight. Which means that you lied to me and there were no such ships to begin with because no matter how delayed they are, it can't take them more than three days to reach here from Pentos..."

Unlike what most people think, being a pirate involves a lot more than just drinking, sailing and looting. A lot of delicate intelligence gathering, planning, and patient ambushes were involved before they even got to the fighting and looting part, especially for the pirates here in Essos.

There were not a lot of places in the world where pirates were welcomed so one of the most limiting factors for the pirates was a base where they could supplies. Thankfully the Stepstones were all under the control of forces friendly to pirates but only the most powerful pirates could station their fleet on Stepstones at all times and attack trade ships that came within their striking range which means that the other middling and smaller pirates had to leave the islands in search of targets in other places.

The Stepstone was like a massive tree from which the pirates spread out like branches into the nearby port cities' waters to prey on merchants' vessels. Some of them targeted the northern cities like Pentos, Myr, and Tyrosh while the others went downwards towards Volantis, Lys and the others.

Thankfully Essos wasn't a Kingdom or an Empire under a single ruler which meant that there were a lot of abandoned places and villages in between the cities where there was no government and no regular patrol so that they could set up temporary bases to supply themselves. But even after finding a place to set up, the work of a pirate is far from over, the next thing they need to do is to find targets to hit.

Most pirates always keep scouts in one or more of the nearby port cities so that they can scour the ports all day long searching for the fattest target that their fleet can take on. And when they find something like that, they immediately try to get the information, to their captains as quickly as they can, about when the ship is leaving and where.

If the Captain was happy with the target, they set sail immediately to the nearest uninhabited coast in the target ship's route and then dock there to wait for the target to arrive. A few sentry ships are sent to patrol at some distance from the coast so that they can always keep a lookout for all the passing ships. And since ships in this world aren't able to navigate if they don't sail while hugging the coast, it is usually possible to see all the passing ships even with the naked eye, though some ships sail far enough that they may not seem more than a dot, it is still more than enough to identify if it's their quarry or not.

The moment they identify their target, the sentries immediately raise the alarm, so that the pirates on the coast can board the ships as fast as they can.

After that, it is a race between them and their target, if they set off from the coast fast enough. The pirates are usually able to catch up to their target more than eighty per cent of the time since trade ships are usually a lot heavier and slower than the more slender pirate ships which don't contain anything more than a few crates of food and a few barrels of booze. So the only place where they can mess up is if the sentries miss their target...

"M-Maybe they stopped to e-eat or they got l-lost at the sea—" This time the other pirate, Frank's nephew, tried to find a way for them to out of the situation but only made the problem worse as the Captain became even more mad.

"Hang these curses to trees and let 'em burn to death in the sun." The captain scoffed before going back towards his chair.

"No!!" "P-Please Captain!! Just give us one more chance!!"

"Captain Jack," And just as the rest of the crew were about to merrily carry their former friends off to hang them, the only man, without a beard on the coast, spoke, "It would be a waste to just kill them. Why don't you give them another chance, I am sure they won't make the same mistake again."

The man without a beard was the only one on the crew who could speak up and whom the Captain couldn't ignore easily. He was someone whom his father had sent to 'help' him learn. The crew only knew him as the Advisor and knew that he was the only one who wasn't intimidated by their captain's anger.

"Fine!" Jack grumbled before turning back towards the two pirates who had already been looted and almost stripped naked by the rest of the crew, "Frank, you'll go to Bravoos and try once again, and make sure that this time you get reliable information because if you don't then," the Captain suddenly smiled maliciously while looking at the nephew, "then yer lad here will be sold to the slavers to recover some of the cost of this trip."

From an economic point of view, every single trip for a pirate captain is a form of investment, and a costly one at that. With the cost of food, drink and the repairs of the ships being some of the unavoidable things, if they don't get good loot every few trips, they would go broke very soon.

"B-But—"

"Or I can sell the both of you right now and get my money even sooner," The captain cut off the pirate's pleas with that statement.

"No! I-I'll try my best and make sure that I get a good target this time, Captain," Frank said reluctantly.

"No! I want you to find that same fleet from last time," the Captain said with a gleam in his eyes, "I am sure that since we missed them, they probably completed their trip and made some good profit this time... which means that they are going to be an even fatter catch now..."

...

The one thing that the pirates were right about was that Jon's trip went without a single hiccup and was a mighty successful one.

In fact, by the time the pirates were expecting them between Pentos and Myr, they had already bypassed Tyrosh and were halfway through their trip and had even passed the Stepstones in the night without being spotted a single time. They didn't make any stops to trade in any of the ports before the Stepstones since the trade between cities such as Bravoos, Pentos, Myr, and Tyrosh was already flourishing very well.

Their only long stops were at Lys and Volantis, where they easily sold every single thing onboard into the waiting merchants' eager hands and on the way back they picked up as many local goods as they could to fill their ships.

When the fleet finally made their way back to Bravoos after a successful trip they were all welcomed with shocked exclamations from the crowd at the port.

"W-Why are they already back? It's been less than three weeks... Could it be that they failed the trip?"

"No! No! It can't be that. Look at all the goods that they are unloading from the ships. From the looks of it, it seems to have been a very successful trip."

"B-But that can't be right... You don't believe that they went all the way to Lys and Volantis in just three weeks, right? It usually takes at least three weeks just to reach there even if you only stop in the ports along the way for just a day."

"Maybe they didn't go all the way and just came back after going to Myr and Tyrosh..."

"Can't you see what the goods being unloaded are? Those intricate and beautiful tapestries and those wine barrels are definitely from the Lys and everyone knows that those crates filled with Sugar beets can only be found in Volantis. So they definitely went all the way..."

"But how did they complete the trip in less than half the time?"

"Maybe it was just a fluke... and the winds were just in their favour."

"But what if it isn't a fluke..."

Slowly but surely people's perception of the Company changed as they stopped believing that it was just a scam to trick them and even though not many believed in the company's boast about 100 per cent success, the shop still slowly started to fill with customers.

It was a completely different scene when Jon finally started to prepare for their second trip after resting for a week. For their first trip, they had to convince, coerce and even give discounts to the merchants to lure them in as customers, but for their second time, they didn't even have to do half as much. All the cargo space for the ships was filled shortly after they opened the slots.

While more than half of them were filled with returning customers who wanted to try their luck a second time, the rest were filled with apprehensive newcomers who wanted to try and take a gamble to see if they too could make the same profits as the others.

But what Jon didn't know was that his smooth and successful trip was having a very adverse effect on the life of a few pirates...

...

By the time Frank heard the news and came to the port, it was already too late. Jon's fleet had already left the port of Bravoos... it was like a death sentence for him, as he knew that there was almost no hope for their ships to catch up to them even if he went to his Captain with the information immediately.

Frank hesitated for quite a while at the port about whether he should go back to his captain at all because he knew that his Captain was a man of his word and that he wouldn't have anything good in store for him if he heard the bad news. But then the face of his nephew appeared in his mind... he still remembered the rainy day when his poor fat sister had handed the boy off to him to take care of before running away.

After an hour of agonizing, he finally gritted his teeth and decided that he had to at least try and save his nephew.

And just like Frank had predicted, his Captain wasn't happy with the news at all...

"You Fucker!! I told you what would happen if you failed again, didn't I?" he cursed while kicking the pirate so hard that he almost broke his back, "And you still had the gall to come back here empty-handed while spouting nonsense excuses... What did you think, Huh? That I'd be merciful and forgive you again? Do you take me to be a sisy now?"

"Argh!! P-Please, C-Captain!! I t-tried my best b-but by the time I arrived at Bravoos, the fleet had not only completed their trip but had also started another one." Frank hurriedly explained himself when the Captain stopped kicking him for a moment to listen, "The ships in that fleet are abnormally fast, Captain. They completed the whole trip from Bravoos to Volantis in just three weeks—"

"And here I was thinking that you were finally going to say something useful..." The Captain scoffed and resumed kicking the pirate with renewed ferocity, "Are you kidding me? Do you think I am stupid enough to believe something like that? What will you say next, that their ships can fly in the sky or that all of them ride on their pet whales, Huh?"

"Wait a second, Captain," the clean shaved advisor, who had just been silently watching so far suddenly interrupted and stopped the Captain from killing the pirate in his anger, "Tell me the truth, Frank. Is what you said about them completing the trip in just three weeks true?" he asked the groaning pirate.

"Y-Yes! I-I swear to R'hllor, " Frank replied in a feeble voice filled with agony, "Y-You can ask anyone at the port of B-Bravoos, all of them saw the same thing..."

"You can't be seriously believing in this bullshit? This bastard is probably just making up shit to save his worthless ass."

"Most probably," The advisor shrugged in reply to the Captain, "But it would not be very hard to verify it, and if it turns out that he is telling that truth..." he trailed off as his eyes suddenly got an interested look in them, "I need to see this through with my own eyes."

...

Travel between the Essos's free cities was quite fast as long as the Stepstones were not between them so it didn't take the Advisor too long to reach Bravoos by renting a merchant vessel.

The Advisor was a very thorough man and liked to verify his findings from multiple sources to be sure. So he didn't go back until he had seen the ships complete a full trip in front of his very eyes and only after he was done finding everything he could about the shipping fleet did he return.

But when he arrived at the pirate's camp, Frank and his nephew were almost half dead. They had been locked into cages and were barely being given any food and water to sustain themselves; both of them were sickly thin and filthy and seemed to have had a particularly miserable time.

"Release them." was the first thing that the advisor said after shaking his head at the condition of Frank and his nephew.

"What? Don't tell you're feeling sympathy for these lying pieces of shit." spat the Captain while chugging cheap ale recently looted from a merchant ship.

"They were not lying." The advisor said with a quiet sigh.

"What? What do you mean?" Captain Jack asked in a puzzled voice.

"They were right about that Westerosi fleet being able to complete a round trip to Volantis in just under three weeks, and by now they should have had three such successful trips under their name, each one equally fast," The advisor explained calmly while taking a seat beside the Captain in front of the campfire, "The ships belong to a new company called Northern Wolf Shipping hailing from the North in Westeros and it is owned by a Westerosi and a Banker."

"What? How could that be possible?" The Captain asked in a bewildered tone, his drunkenness leaving him very quickly, "Do they have some new kind of ships with new designs that are very fast? How many sails do these ships have to be so quick..."

"That's the thing... the ships in the fleet are all the common kind. They have four cogs and three trade galleys, but there is nothing outwardly different about them and I would go even as far as to say that they are quite old and on the slower side."

"T-Then how the hell did they accomplish it." The Captain asked frustratedly, his head almost spinning from trying to come up with a way for it to be possible... the only thing he could think of was that there was some kind of magic involved.

"Well... there were mainly three rumours amongst the smallfolk at the port in Bravoos as to how this Northern shipping fleet can achieve this feat. The first one is that it is just a very elaborate scam... they say that the fleet is not really going all the way to Volantis, instead they are stopping at some place mid-way where they exchange Bravoosi goods for the ones from Volantis and Lys with some land merchant who is in the scheme and then they turn back...

"That doesn't seem very likely..." The Captain said with a frown

"I too believe it is the least probable one as it is too complicated and costly... and I can't see any kind of clear motivation as to why someone would do this..." he said while shaking his head, "Anyway the second rumour is an even more absurd one... the people think that the captain, a Westerosi named Jon, knows some kind of Dark Magic and that before every trip he sacrifices a hundred virgins to his heathen god to get a blessing of swift winds to help him at sea."

The Captain scoffed, "As if a hundred virgins would be enough for something like this..."

"But I believe the most probable one is the third one." The advisor continued while ignoring the Captain's comment, "Some people think that Captain Jon knows some kind of Ancient Westerosi navigation method in which one uses the position of the Moon and the stars in the night sky to navigate the open sea."

"I... have never heard of a method like that," The Captain said with a thoughtful look in his eyes before he shook his head, "But even if that were true and even if they were able to travel day and night... it is still too absurd to believe that they could complete the whole trip to Volantis in just under half the time."

"Hmm... Have you ever seen the position of Bravoos and the Stepstones on a single Map?" The Advisor abruptly asked out of nowhere.

"No... I don't think so."

"Well... A trip from Bravoos to Stepstones drawn on a map looks somewhat like this..." he said while drawing a crooked semi-circle on the sand using a nearby stick with Bravoos on one end and the Stepstones on the other, "Normally all the ships traverse the sea hugging the coast... which means that they travel something like this," he said while moving the stick along the circumference of the semi-circle, "But if someone was able to sail directly from one end to the other..." he used the stick to join the two ends in a straight line, "then they would be able to cut the trip drastically short."

The Captain scratched his fiercely trying to understand what the advisor was saying with weird shapes drawn on the sand but no matter how hard he tried he was coming up short. But it wasn't his fault as he had never hundreds of books like the advisor had... Now he knew why his father valued this man so much and why he sent him with him when he left...

"If what you say is true then it must mean that this Captain Jon is a very rich man..." Jack said with a greedy grin on his face, "I can't wait to get my hand on his ships..."

"You're thinking of this too simply my Captain," The Advisor said while shaking his head disappointedly, "It is no longer a matter of just gold anymore... If we are somehow able to catch this Jon alive and force that method of navigation out of him..." even the normally calm eyes of the advisor suddenly shook with excitement at the notion, "Then forget being rich, we could become completely invincible at the sea. No one will be able to compete with us anymore... Not Salladhor Saan, Not the Crow's eye and not even the mighty fleets of Bravoos and Volantis would be our match, We could become the next Sea Snake... maybe even better than him," he took a deep breath before turning to the Captain with a serious look, "It is a lot bigger than you think, Captain, so the best option right now is for you to tell your father about this and take his help—"

"No!" The Captain said as he abruptly stood up, "You will not call my father in... I will be the one to catch this Jon and present him to my father as a gift..."

"But—" The Advisor tried to say but stopped after seeing the rare stubborn gleam in the Captain's eye, "Fine! But it won't be easy catching this Westerosi fleet since detecting them at open sea is absurdly difficult and considering that they only stop at the big cities, attacking them while they are at the port would also be suicidal..."

"I know that it would be hard or almost impossible for the average pirate to catch them, " The Captain nodded, "But I have you... You've sailed beside my father for more than a decade... so I am sure you've got a plan or two on how to catch them."

"Maybe..." The advisor said with a thinking frown on his face before he suddenly turned to the uncle and nephew in the cage, "But first release them..."

"Ugh! Do we really have to release these fuckers?" The Captain said with a disgusted look on his face, "It's not like they are particularly good at anything besides eating..." And he felt a bit uncomfortable just releasing them after all the torture he had inflicted on them over the past few weeks.

"Yes, it's important to release them, since..." he said with a sinister smile, "I've got just the perfect job for them."

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