Torturer's Deep.
The chill in the sea-carved hall was heavy, the air stagnant.
Lo Quen stood before the vast stone wall map, his fingertips drifting absently across the reefs marked "Tidal Reefs."
His voice was calm. "What were our losses at the Tidal Reefs?"
Roro swallowed, his throat working. "Lord, though we won in the end, the price was steep. Four hundred and ninety-seven of Torturer's Deep's pirate soldiers were killed, more than a hundred and thirty gravely wounded, and nearly every man bears some cut or scar..."
He stole a glance at Lo Quen's stern face before hastily explaining, "Lord, Caggo excels at ramming tactics. Many of our dead drowned when their ships went under, only to be picked off by his men with crossbows..."
Lo Quen gave a short nod. The pirate casualties were grim, but they weren't the true loss.
He looked toward Jaelena. She understood at once, answering in a low, steady voice, "Seventy-three Dragon Soul Guards fell."
"Seventy-three..."
In the corner, Jorah Mormont repeated the number to himself.
He had seen countless battlefields, corpses piled like mountains, rivers of blood. Yet the fall of these silent warriors struck him harder than most.
Clad in Valyrian steel armor, wielding Valyrian steel blades, the Dragon Soul Guards were the sharpest fangs and strongest shields of Torturer's Deep.
Losing seventy-three of them was worth far more than the near five hundred pirates.
He snapped his gaze to Lo Quen, wondering how he would answer such a loss to his very core strength.
Lo Quen's fingers, tapping against the sea chart, stilled the moment he heard the number.
That night, Caggo had brought over thirty oared vessels—five or six of them double-decked warships.
In sheer numbers, the gap was staggering. Lo Quen's forces, even counting Roro's men, barely reached two thousand, with only five hundred Dragon Soul Guards among them. Caggo's pirates had numbered more than three thousand.
Even with his ambush turned back on its maker, even with his flanking strike gaining ground, the imbalance of ships and men had cost him dearly.
Jorah's month of drilling the pirates had done little; they were no real soldiers yet.
Without the unyielding resistance of the Dragon Soul Guards, the losses would have been worse still.
Lo Quen closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, every trace of feeling was gone, leaving only cold resolve.
"The ships?"
"Caggo fled in disgrace, abandoning seven galleys still fit to repair. We hauled them back."
Roro answered quickly, trying to soften the weight of the report. "But our own losses... Four medium galleys had their keels snapped clean—they're fit only for firewood. The Abyssal Stranglehold's damage runs deep into her frame, she'll need major work. The Nest of the Crab and the Reefbreaker both had their hulls split on one side, their decks a ruin. They'll take time to mend."
Lo Quen nodded, then turned. His gaze passed over Roro and Jorah, settling at last on Jaelena and Janice standing silently in the corner.
"Jaelena, Janice. Let's see the fallen Dragon Soul Guards. Lead the way."
Jorah's doubts only deepened. He followed in silence, determined to see what Lo Quen intended.
Roro trailed after them too, a thread of nameless fear in his gut. He already knew the sisters had the power to call the dead back once before.
...
Deeper within the sea-carved caverns lay a vast, empty stone chamber.
Seventy-three bodies of Dragon Soul Guards were laid in perfect rows across the cold floor, covered in rough linen shrouds.
The stench of blood and the chill of death hung thick in the air.
The cloth could not hide the wounds—horrific gashes, shattered armor. Death had stripped them bare, silent testimony to the brutality of the fight.
Lo Quen walked to the head of the line. Jaelena and Janice flanked him, one to either side.
"Begin."
Lo Quen's deep voice echoed through the vast stone chamber.
Jaelena and Janice raised their hands in unison.
Their slender fingers flared with halos of light.
The temperature in the chamber spiked. Torches along the walls whipped and flickered, throwing grotesque shadows that writhed across the bodies draped in white linen.
An indescribable aura spread through the air, as if a fissure to the realm of the dead had been torn open.
Jorah Mormont froze, holding his breath, pupils shrinking sharply as he fixed on the nearest shrouded form.
Roro staggered back a step in terror, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. He had known the sisters could raise the dead—but this was the first time he had seen the act itself.
Beneath the linen, the rigid outlines of corpses twitched faintly, like a slumbering beast being stirred awake.
Then the second corpse, the third...
At bone-deep wounds, muscle fibers, splintered bones, even fragments of torn organs began to writhe and knit together under the halo's glow, as though pulled by invisible threads.
Broken bones snapped back into place with grating cracks, torn flesh fused like molten wax forced to seal.
The process unfolded in silence, yet carried a soul-shaking sense of reversal.
Minutes later, the halos ebbed like a retreating tide.
Seventy-three Dragon Soul Guards rose in unison.
Their movements were stiff, inhuman, their gazes colder than before.
Their scars remained—branded on their bodies like marks of war, making them even more fearsome.
Wordless, they turned toward Lo Quen and the sisters, as if they had never fallen.
"Fall back into formation," Jaelena and Janice commanded calmly.
The resurrected guards marched out with heavy, precise steps, their silence absolute.
Only Jorah's ragged breathing and Roro's chattering teeth lingered in the chamber.
A chill shot up Jorah's spine, cold sweat slicking the hand that gripped his sword hilt.
This raw display of mass resurrection struck him like a hammer blow to the soul.
Staring at Lo Quen's terrifyingly calm back, he felt—for the first time—a fear that clawed up from the deepest reaches of his being.
Was this power truly a gift from the gods?
Beside him, Roro had gone pale, his legs trembling.
At last, he understood why the guards were silent, why they felt no pain, why they fought without fear of death...
They were walking dead.
And in that shock, his loyalty to Lo Quen spiked into fanatical devotion.
Lo Quen ignored their terror. "After Caggo returned wounded, what news from Jawbreak Island?"
Roro jerked as if waking from a dream, fumbling out a sheepskin sea chart. His voice quavered with reverence. "M-My lord... Our patrols near Jawbreak Island report that after Caggo fled back, his left arm was ruined—just rotting flesh. He's broken in spirit, paranoid day and night.
He has fewer than thirty seaworthy ships, all hiding in the main harbor like turtles. Meanwhile, the hidden shipyard on the western side of the island is working frantically under his orders, repairing ships as if mad, desperate to recover strength."
Jorah drew in a deep breath, forcing down the storm of shock at what he had just witnessed. The Bear Island knight's resolve and tactical instinct overpowered his fear.
"Lord," he said in a rougher, deeper voice than usual, "Caggo entrenched in the main harbor holds the terrain advantage. A direct assault will bleed us heavily."
He jabbed a finger at the main harbor on the map, then slid it quickly to a smaller mark beside it—the shipyard.
"But his desperation to rebuild ships—that's his weakness. The shipyard lies apart from the harbor, its defenses weaker. That's where we strike. A feint will do the rest."
"A feint?" Lo Quen's eyes locked instantly on the mark.
"Send Roro with a fast fleet," Jorah said, pointing at the harbor, miming an attack.
"Make it loud—make it look like we've thrown everything into an all-out assault on the harbor. The greater the spectacle, the better. Caggo must believe all our strength is fixed there and send every reserve he has to meet it."
His finger tapped the shipyard again. "Then you, Lord, lead the true fleet straight here. While his ships are still in dock, we crush them. Take what we can, burn the rest. If the shipyard falls, Caggo is nothing but fish on the block—waiting for the knife."
Lo Quen stared at the mark, the shipyard, the glaring weakness. His eyes hardened. "A sound plan. We'll do it your way."
He turned to Roro. "And you must sell the act. Don't let Caggo glimpse the ruse."
Driven by fear and fanatic zeal, Roro thumped his chest, eyes flashing with cunning and malice. "Rest easy, Lord. Bluffing's what I do best. I'll scare Caggo so bad he'll piss himself, with his eyes fixed only on the harbor."