Lord-Captain Aerion Ilyleon
In the feasting hall, twilight reigned due to missing windows, a stench hung heavy from the reek of stale fumes, greasy candles, spilled alcohol, and unwashed bodies, and noise filled the air from drunken cackling, multilingual conversations, uniformly disgustingly vulgar, discordant songs, and music incessantly pouring from out-of-tune instruments. Such was the feast of the Pirate King-Admiral of the Basilisk Isles, Racallio Ryndoon—the most powerful (though one should say, most fortunate) pirate south of the Stepstones.
Since their st meeting on Great Moraq three years ago, the Tyroshi had changed practically not at all: he remained the same lopsided hulk with dyed hair, save perhaps for a few new scars on his mighty arms. Aerion did not venture to judge himself, but Ryndoon guffawed upon meeting him (however, the fool always guffawed, appropriately or not), cpped him on the back, and assured everyone that the d had grown into a man. For "d," Aerion punched him in the snout—another's word bred weakness in the eyes of subordinates, including strangers, and this threatened the loss of everything, starting from respect and ending with life; however, with his line of work, these concepts were not separated by much. Ryndoon in response goggled at him with a sapphire eye, under which a bruise soon blossomed, and then neighed louder than before, cpped him on the shoulder again, and ordered the best wine to be served to them.
"Now at least there's someone to drink with!" he announced to his captains, acknowledging his right to sit beside him.
Aerion only smirked to himself at these words then: as if he wouldn't acknowledge it when two dozen brand-new ships entered the port of Barter Beach, den to the brim not only with rich gifts for the King-Admiral from all the shores of the Jade Sea but also with the best weapons to be found east of Sver's Bay. Sailors armed to the teeth with excellent sharp steel served as perhaps a more convincing argument than the obligatory gifts to the strongest. Aerion did not intend to challenge Ryndoon's authority; after all, he had saved him from the bitter fate of a sve, and his crew would not let him lie—the Lord-Captain knew how to be grateful. Of course, exactly until this gratitude became overly burdensome.
The next two weeks passed in incessant revelry. First, Aerion and his men were welcomed, then they threw a return feast, then one of the local pirate lords showed "how to feast properly," to which they had to respond and demonstrate that you know how to feast no worse, and even better than them... The entire life of Ryndoon's isnd kingdom seemed to boil down to endless celebrations, because day by day carracks left the harbor, departing for another raid, and others returned, den with new booty to boast of and drink away.
Ryndoon hated svery with all his soul, which many found strange considering he was the son of a Tyroshi merchant, and therefore there were no sves on the Basilisk Isles—captured thralls received their freedom as soon as they arrived in his domains. However, few returned home: one could sail from the archipego only on pirate ships, and they never carried anyone for free, and working off the return journey turned into actual bondage. Many preferred to start life anew in a new pce where no one knew them and with desire, luck, and a fair wind, one could fly to the very top of the local hierarchy. The King-Admiral himself was such an example: he started as a fugitive adventurer, quickly gained authority, became a captain, then cobbled together his own flotil, amassed wealth, people, and fame on noble robbery in the eastern seas, and then appeared on the Basilisk Isles, challenged his predecessor to a duel, and split him from shoulder to groin, appropriating his dubious title and ir.
Many started just like him, but those who survived two or three years of such life and achieved at least some barely noticeable success could be counted on one hand. Evidently, the special favor Ryndoon harbored for Aerion was a consequence of precisely the respect for the lucky star that led his young compatriot along the same path.
Ilyleon had knocked about Essos considerably in his wanderings, walking from Uncle Jaegaer's domains to Myr on foot, from Myr on a smuggler's ship getting to Lys (miraculously avoiding Tyroshi patrols), and then to New Ghis and Qarth. He had to flee from the first due to a foolish skirmish in a gateway, where Aerion had to knife the son of some local bigwig. The second had to be left due to a fring epidemic, which the locals ignored for the time being. He wanted to reach Asshai, but all pns were confounded by Ghiscari pirates overtaking the Qartheen vessel in the Straits of Cinnamon.
Fifteen-year-old Aerion was threatened with fighting pits at best, pillow houses at worst, but luckily for him, Captain Oznak had managed to cross Racallio Ryndoon somewhere, and the tter attacked him while the Ghiscari were busy looting. Aerion called himself a Tyroshi, and the dashing pirate with the excmation "This ship has always cked Tyroshi!" kept him. The rest was a matter of time. To prove oneself, to be diligent, not to demand more than due, not to be greedy and not to skimp on gifts, to be in sight, not to get caught trying to screw someone over—all this turned out not so difficult. Ryndoon loved the faithful, for he did not forgive traitors, and loved the lucky, as he believed they brought luck to him too, and did not skimp on keeping them by his side.
The natural attrition of the pirate ship's crew allowed Ilyleon to rise to quartermaster in two years, earning the respect not only of the sailors but of the Admiral himself. The degree of Ryndoon's trust was such that when he decided to go west, Aerion was left in the east with a good ship and crew so that the flow of money, weapons, and booty from the shores of the Jade Sea would not dry up. Of course, one should not delude oneself—the degree of autonomy was retive. The guarantee of Aerion's obedience was Ryndoon's half-joking promise to get him even from beyond the Saffron Straits if he thought to deceive him, and this was believed.
Having wandered for the st six years and seen all the cities and seas east of Valyria, Aerion met nowhere a man as changeable and unpredictable as Racallio Ryndoon. This man adored kittens but kicked adult cats with his boots; he bowed before pregnant women, but as soon as they gave birth, he was ready to strangle the crying infant with its own umbilical cord; with one hand he threw Vontene honors, Yunkish marks, Lysene panthers, and Westerosi dragons to beggars and showered his wives and friends with gifts, and with the other cut off tongues and heads of those who dared to ask him for something. Greater fickleness could not be expected even from fire-breathing mountains, but this is precisely what bought Ryndoon his popurity.
Aerion himself did not even try to imitate him; not because it was impossible, but because he himself preferred to keep people by his side in other ways. Racallio divided the booty equally among everyone, while Aerion paid a fixed price for each passage depending on service on the ship and divided the booty according to the contribution to the common cause. Racallio freed, pardoned, and punished depending on his mood, while Aerion adhered to the strict rule never to decide anything in haste unless necessary.
On his ships, the Lord-Captain recognized only two crimes, which were based on what Ryndoon demanded of his lord-captains: viotion of his order and theft from a comrade. The first was punishable by drowning, the second—by sale into svery in the nearest port.
Forcing seasoned cutthroats to observe two simple rules was not easy, for, having become a captain at seventeen, Aerion faced the reluctance of sea wolves to obey a "milksop," "beauty," "infant," and "sucker incapable of commanding." To break this resistance, he had to find a more effective and at the same time elegant, as it seemed to him, way, and then many regretted ever being born into the world. He gutted freethinkers alive, sprinkled their entrails with salt and shit, and then sewed them up; so the idiots wouldn't die prematurely, he had to dope them with milk of the poppy, horse doses of nightshade, infusion of ghost grass, and half a dozen other potions from Asshai. It came out extremely costly, but it was worth it. One of those who disobeyed an order sted a whole two weeks, during which he almost rotted alive in his cage on the deck.
Punishment for thieves was also not quick: on the first day, he chopped off a finger per hour, the next day they lost hands and feet, a week ter—arms to the elbow and legs to the knee, and another week ter only a head remained on a torso bandaged and sewn up according to all the rules of medical science. Of such, a Summer Isnder sailor sted the longest—he still sailed on one of the ships as a lookout, sitting in a basket on the chest of the figurehead and shitting under himself. Aerion even allowed him to buy whores in port.
The cruelty of the punishments did not concern him in the slightest. Even before getting to Ryndoon, he had managed to visit pces where not a copper or a chipped bowl of dirty water would be given for a human life, and even less so afterward. East of the ruins of Valyria, the principle "kill or die" turned out to be the only effective way to preserve one's life; with proper skills, one could even hope for some prosperity until luck left you. Aerion had long ceased to pay attention to whether his hands washed clean of others' blood or not anymore, just as he did not care about the gossip of pirates who considered him the spawn of the most terrible of hells, a soulless demon deriving pleasure only from the sight of others' torments.
Be that as it may, these measures of intimidation led to the desired result. Strict observance of discipline by everyone, including Ilyleon himself, allowed turning a motley rabble gathered in half the ports of Essos into a coordinated team that kept the entire Jade Sea in fear. His sailors spoke a dozen different nguages and an even greater number of dialects, but everyone learned commands in the Common Tongue or Tyroshi one way or another, and this turned out to be enough to ensure all their activities. Once they managed to capture and lead away right from under the noses of patrol ships an entire flotil of merchant ships from Leng—and all this with a dozen ships!—another time they captured and then looted Asabhad for three days.
Ultimately, Aerion might have been loved less than Ryndoon, but stability, bance, and obtained wealth more than compensated for this difference in the eyes of his subordinates. Seasoned pirates forgave him his young age, ambitions, and the tough temper of a lord-captain for reckless feasts and generous gifts, on which he never skimped.
This time Racallio arranged a general feast in honor of old Zhao returning from a raid on Qarkash. The elderly YiTish, small like a fairy-tale grumkin and wrinkled like the slit of a whore who has served her time, had sheared the Qartheen sheep well and was now treating everyone on the occasion of his success. In his homend, he was threatened with an intricate execution for insulting some noble official, and the narrow-eyed lord-captain, having had too much to drink, loved to describe all the details of his potential torments.
While sailors, soldiers, shipwrights, armorers, artisans, carpenters, whores, and priests enjoyed Meereenese apricot wine pouring like a river, chasing it with fruits and smoked fish and game, Ryndoon, together with Aerion and half a dozen of his lord-captains, sat on a dais simir to a royal one, and with a benevolent smile of a drunk man watched the general merriment.
"Hey, strummer!" Zhao shouted to some Summer Isnder musician with a guitar, mentioning her sow-mother in YiTish. "Py something normal!"
"She is pying normal!" Sharako Lohar was indignant.
"That's not music!" the winner continued to stick to his guns. "You don't understand shit, you..."
Then followed a long tirade in one of the coastal dialects of Yi Ti. Fortunately for everyone, Lohar did not know YiTish, unlike Aerion, and therefore did not understand that he was wished to lick the prick of every piglet in the world, otherwise Zhao would not have lived to see the execution of his sentence. YiTish in general and Zhao in particur preferred pork to any other meat, and mentioned pigs in abuse as well as in blessings.
"Calm down, old man," Racallio grimaced, pulling his violet-red mane with his five fingers. "Your mandolins make me want to howl. Darling, strum us something else."
The understanding musician nodded like a Lengii idol and, catching the change in the captains' moods, began to py something rexed, and then sang in a slightly deep, husky voice about the golden harbors of Lys, painted gangways of ships, and one young scoundrel.
"Boar shit," Zhao spat contemptuously, appreciating neither the music nor the lyrics.
"Shut up, narrow-eyes!" Lohar snapped. There was nothing surprising in the fact that the pomaded Lyseni liked the song about Lys, the hero of which he surely imagined himself to be, and Aerion did not judge him for this py of drunken imagination.
"Fuck you..."
"Oh, by the way, about Lys!" Ryndoon suddenly perked up.
The fring squabble immediately subsided. Lord-captains did not receive their pces at this table for nothing, and knew how to catch the change in their admiral's mood as precisely as the change of wind at sea. Those who did not learn this valuable skill ended up either on the yardarm, or at the bottom of the sea, or in a pool of someone else's vomit with a slit throat—in any case, they did not linger among the living. Now was just such a moment: a spark of excitement fred in Ryndoon's clouded eyes—a sure sign that the King-Admiral had been visited by another idea.
"While you were chasing Qartheen, Zhao," he continued meanwhile. "I was visited by several gentlemen from Lys. They must be somewhere here, we invited everyone, right? We can look for them ter, very interesting people. Look like you, by the way, Aerion."
"Everyone who had Valyrians running in their ancestors looks like me," Ilyleon smirked.
"And that's true," the Admiral guffawed. "I was unlucky with that. I dye my hair, and you dye yours—a sin. Although green would suit you, emphasize your eyes..."
"Gentlemen from Lys," the interested Lohar reminded, fidgeting in his seat with impatience.
"Strictly speaking, they are not gentlemen, but so, envoys. Some magister sent them, not to hell sent them, of course, but to me. They cried to me for a long time about how radiant Lys has become impoverished under Vontene rule, how the Pearl of the Southern Seas has dimmed..."
"Did the pleasure houses become sad?" blurted Maltak, a ft-nosed Summer Isnder nicknamed Narrow for his thinness.
"Shut up! I won't bore you with the details of their mentations, since some here are so unrestrained and impatient," Racallio gred displeasedly at Maltak, and the bck-skinned lord-captain hunched his head into his shoulders. "In short, the Freehold decided to fight dragons, and that magister decided this is a wonderful time for rebellion. Says he is not alone, that there are many of them, such zealots for the fathernd, and they are ready to pay us generously if we help them."
"And what is the name of their magister?" Lohar inquired. "Well, the one who is the sender."
"Rogare. I remembered because it sounds like ragout."
Aerion twitched an eyebrow in surprise; their King-Admiral had strange associations, everyone knew that.
"Ah, old Lysandro," Sharako curled his thin lips contemptuously. "Because of this panther vomit we lost everything. If not for him and his ambitions..."
Lohar did not eborate on the past, like none of them, but Aerion managed to find out that he was a captain in the service of Magister Bazzare and deserted with his crew so as not to become prey to the Vontene fleet. At the same time, Sharako himself loved to py the destitute exile fighting for the freedom of his city and not reconciled to defeat.
"In other words, carrion, not a man?" Racallio crified.
"Rare scum! Sold his own brother to the Dornish for harbors and extra swords, and when they didn't like something, they slit his throat."
"So, I shouldn't believe the words of these Rogares?"
"No, if you don't want to wake up without pants, or even without a prick. They sell their own blood for money, let alone strangers."
Ryndoon neighed, and with him all the lord-captains. Aerion allowed himself only a shadow of a smile; such feasts only seemed like carefree holidays, but any careless word could lead to a knife in the back immediately or after some time, so the Lord-Captain considered it best to speak no more than necessary, and show fewer emotions. The offended Lohar, looking like a ruffled parrot in a pigsty, sipped wine with an insulted air.
"Understood," the Admiral concluded, wiping tears of ughter with his own hair. "Then the Vontenes' offer looks even more profitable."
The remnants of ughter subsided immediately, and the gazes of seven captains converged on their leader.
"And what did these come with?" Zhao inquired warily.
"Practically with the same," Ryndoon shrugged.
Instead of the expected continuation, he grabbed a bird carcass oozing with honey and fat from the dish, tore it in two with his bare hands, and gnawed into it like a starved sve. The lord-captains had to wait for him to finish his snack, whiling away the time with the contents of their own goblets and ptes. And the Summer Isnder with the guitar kept praising and praising Lys, where lemons and almonds bloomed, and blood-cherry flowers blossomed on the clothes of a blonde lover. The moved Sharako sniffled, and this, evidently, reminded Ryndoon that they were still waiting for him.
"These striped elephants, well, or big-nosed tigers, Trios sort them out," he continued as if nothing had happened. "Offer me a contract which, as they say, will allow us to settle down and live richly, drinking three barrels of the best wine a day and fucking as many broads as we want."
"They know us poorly," one of the captains snorted. "We do that anyway."
The King-Admiral grinned, and chuckles were heard from all sides.
"In other words, they offer me a contract with some absolutely terrible amount of honors, I didn't even remember it," and here Ryndoon clearly lied; Aerion knew that although the Admiral loved to pretend to be a blissful fool, he knew how to count money perfectly well. That he did not deem it necessary to initiate his inner circle into financial matters meant that at the moment gold was not of priority importance. "And in return, they ask us to help them capture Tyrosh."
The lord-captains, all to a man, could not contain their amazement; muffled curses were heard, and it cost even Aerion some effort to keep his habitual mask in pce. Racallio loved his native city just as Sharako Lohar loved his lemon harbors, only unlike the pomaded deserter, he did not sigh about it every drinking bout.
Having captured Tyrosh, the Westerosi abolished svery, and for this Ryndoon respected Daemon Targaryen, but otherwise, the King of the Stepstones made a pirate's life simply unbearable, and return impossible. Ships under dragon banners patrolled the waters of the southern part of the Narrow Sea in search of smugglers and other adventurers; they were ruthlessly punished not only with swords, arrows, and stone cannonballs but also with dragon fire, against which nothing could be opposed. There was no pce for people like Racallio Ryndoon in a city where for the first time in two centuries its own dragonlords appeared, and therefore Tyroshi who fled from them, like Aerion, invariably enjoyed the Admiral's special favor.
"Sounds not bad," Maltak remarked cautiously.
"That's what I thought," Ryndoon nodded, and the Summer Isnder captain straightened his narrow shoulders—Admiral's disfavor rarely sted long. "Good, I think, it would be to return home. At least look at the Bloodstone Tower from afar, otherwise all sorts fly here, breathe fire... Yes, countryman?"
"Yes," Aerion agreed. "King Daemon's dragons fly over the sea and isnds regurly."
"And what the hell stick your nose there then?" old Zhao inquired querulously, for a change not mentioning YiTish pigs.
"Would you return to your Jinqi if your sentence were canceled?" Racallio inquired.
"Of course!"
"Liar, old piglet, you love me too much."
Sharako couldn't stand it and grunted with ughter.
"These striped elephants know how to tempt me," Ryndoon smiled dreamily, twirling a gnawed drumstick in his hands. "They promise money, very, very good money, even offer to give me all the Stepstones with these castles of the sunsetters. What say you, countryman, are they worth it?"
"The castles? Of course," Ilyleon answered. No need to say that Ryndoon's people are not accustomed to sitting in castles and won't be able to use all their advantages, but otherwise... "Every lord's castle is a fortress, and all together they plug the Narrow Sea and allow shearing merchants like Zhao his Qartheen. You don't even have to sail anywhere or wave a sword—sit, wait, and a merchant with goods needs to sail anyway, he will cover you in gold."
"Simply a fairy tale," the King-Admiral drawled dreamily. "Sit, do nothing, and you get paid... Boring, true, but what can you do? Home, wealth, Tyrosh..."
About Tyrosh, apparently, the Vontenes kept silent. Want to keep it for themselves, no otherwise—and in their pce, Aerion would have done exactly the same. And also, were he in the embassy of his mother's countrymen, he would have promised the pirate king seven, fourteen, a hundred and fourteen times more for sticking his head into a dragon's maw. In any case, there would be no one to pay.
If Racallio decides that nostalgia for the homend is worth burning alive for... Well, old Zhao always seemed to Aerion an exceptionally practical man, and Sharako can be egged on—Ryndoon should remember more often that not all his lord-captains support his ideas completely and unconditionally.
"I don't like this pn," Lohar stated. Everyone goggled at the daredevil who risked contradicting the Admiral. Such was not strictly punishable even on ships, but cutting Racallio off in the moment of his sweet dreams was dangerous.
"And why, pray tell, do you not like it?" he inquired displeasedly.
"Dragons! You spoke of them yourself, and Aerion confirmed. The Vontenes will throw you into dragon fire, and us along with you! Remember what happened to the Triarchy's fleet? Or with Drahar?"
"I was told the Tyroshi dragons are quarreling with the rest."
"Perhaps, my Admiral," Ilyleon remarked. "But dragons grow, and in fifteen years there are more of them. Four dragons fought against the Triarchy, and now there are five or seven there, or maybe more if the Targaryens reconcile. They want to try to rake the fire with your hands, only it is the heat of dragon fire. Neither man nor ship is a hindrance to it."
"I know," Ryndoon snapped. "I was there and saw the Blood Wyrm."
"Then what are we talking about?" Zhao snorted. "Send these Vontenes to a pig's slit, and be done with it."
"Zhao, old man, are you out of your mind?" Maltak inquired affectionately. "For such money, you'll build yourself a golden pace, and scrape together enough for a pardon."
"What's the use of a pardon to a pile of ash?"
"So don't get under the fire!"
"Have you eaten pig brains?!"
"So what about Rogare?" Lohar intervened again. "How much does he promise?"
"Panther knows," Ryndoon shrugged, hiding the truth again. He wouldn't discuss such a question if he didn't know the price. "Less, of course."
"But the risk is less there too," Lohar remarked. "Vontis has no dragons. If Rogare's money is enough for a rebellion, the Vontene garrison will go to feed the fish."
"Like the lover of our beauty?" the Admiral smirked, recalling the Summer Isnder's recent song.
"Something like that, yes. If the elephant-tiger bastards decided to fight dragons for a couple of honors, they won't have the strength to hold Lys."
"Besides, who told Rogare he would get the city unharmed?" Aerion threw in the idea. Not necessary to return the city to the Lyseni immediately. A few days for looting will be more than enough. During this time, their people will be able to get themselves a second, third, and if lucky, a fifth reward, and then... then we'll see.
"And I like your train of thought, countryman!" Ryndoon ughed and cpped Ilyleon on the shoulder. "You think like a real Tyroshi merchant!"
"I think like a real Tyroshi captain," Aerion objected with a smirk. "Let the Vontenes climb into the dragon's hell themselves if they want to so much. We will help them, and have from this as much as they promised us for a beautiful death."
"Well, to the Seven Hells (Peklo) with these big-noses then," the King-Admiral stamped and spped the table, making the goblets jump. "Hey, you, with the pitcher! Pour more! And you, darling, strum us something more about Lys! Need to prepare, after all!"
His captains roared in agreement, and the understanding Summer Isnder willingly began to py something cheerful. While everyone drank to future success, victories, booty, and themselves, Aerion silently raised a goblet to the irony of fate: he remembered Grandmother Saera jumped into triarchs from a Lysene brothel, and now Lys so kindly provides an opportunity to rise for him himself. The King of Tyrosh will undoubtedly appreciate that a bunch of adventurers decided to strike his enemies in the back, and Daemon Targaryen always rewarded generously for merits: take Uncle Jaegaer for example, who became a lord from an exile. And his elder brother on the Iron Throne was also reputed to be a magnanimous, kind king, and unlike others, loyal to his people. Of course, the main reward will go to the one who leads this strike... Or the one who picks up his banner—that's how luck goes. Therefore, he must try so that luck favors him specifically.
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