The leeward side of a nameless islet in the Stepstones.
Far from the main shipping lanes, jagged black reefs studded the coast, waves thundering through the crevices and flinging up ghastly white foam.
Beneath a natural hollow in the sea-cliff, something barely worthy of the name "dock" existed.
A few crooked logs had been driven into the shallows to form a rickety platform, mooring several patched and re-patched galleys and fishing boats whose hulls were blackened with age.
Along the shore, the ribs of ships long stranded—skeletons scoured by wind and salt—lay half-buried in grit.
Huts cobbled together from driftwood, tattered canvas, and loose stones huddled against the rock face.
Outside, rusted pots, picked-clean fish bones, and empty casks lay scattered; the air reeked of brine and unwashed bodies.
It was a typical petty-pirate den: hidden, filthy, living day to day.
Now the crude camp carried a sharper stench—fresh blood.
Bodies in mismatched leather or no armor at all sprawled between huts and boulders, wounds gaping, the sand stained dark brown.
Resistance had been crushed in moments.
Aegon stood at the only more-or-less intact table in the center of the camp, a yellowed, frayed chart of the Stepstones spread before him.
He leaned slightly forward, finger gliding over the parchment, violet eyes intent on the inked reefs, currents, and islets.
In his mind he matched the map with the scraps drawn from Mogol's last words, plotting the best approach to the hidden cache of armor—and the hazards en route.
Sixty-odd Bloodsworn soldiers stood silently around him, hands on hilts, scanning the surroundings with hard eyes.
Their mail and plate glinted cold beneath the island's bleak sky, jarringly out of place amid the squalor.
At their feet knelt a dozen captured pirates, wrists bound with coarse rope, faces a mix of terror and defiance; some still bled.
A clatter of plate rang out.
A squad of ten Bloodsworn herded the last five or six skulking captives from behind the rocks at the camp's edge, halting behind Aegon.
The soldiers kicked the backs of the captives' knees, forcing them to thud face-down on the sand in a choking cloud of dust.
Henry strode up, bowed beside Aegon, and reported in a carrying voice: "Your Grace, the last rats are caught. All are here."
Their chief," he added, pointing to a burly, bearded man in a worn mail shirt, "is among them."
Aegon lifted his gaze from the chart.
He turned, unhurried; Valyrian Steel armor caught the light like cold fire, his right hand resting casually on the pommel of the longsword at his hip, thumb brushing the chilled guard.
He walked toward the bearded man, boots rasping faintly on sand gritty with blood.
Seeing him approach—and the hand on that sword—the newly brought captives recoiled, the last color draining from their faces.
Only the bearded man, though fear flickered in his eyes, clenched his teeth, squared his shoulders, and glared in forced defiance.
Aegon halted a pace in front of him.
His gaze rested on the man's face, empty of emotion, as though studying a stone.
Then he drew.
Shring—!
The sound of steel leaving the scabbard rang clear through the hush, a cold metallic tremor.
The blade lifted, extended, and settled lightly against the thick vein in the man's throat.
Its chill bit through skin, raising gooseflesh.
"Live," Aegon said, voice quiet yet carrying like ice striking stone, "or die?"
The bearded man's body jerked; the edge kissed tighter against his neck.
His throat worked, temples pulsing, locked in a furious inner war.
At last, perhaps from some remnant of pirate pride, he stiffened his neck and spat a blustering snarl: "Do… do your worst! If I so much as flinch, I'm no—"
His words ended.
Aegon's arm flashed.
Steel flickered.
No shout, no wind-up—just a single, clean, terrifyingly precise diagonal cut.
Thud.
A shaggy head, eyes wide in disbelief, parted from its neck, arced briefly through the air, and landed with a sodden thump, spattering blood.
The headless trunk swayed, collapsed; dark blood jetted, soaking the sand in a widening pool.
Aegon never glanced at the rolling head or the spurting crimson, as though he had merely brushed away a fallen leaf.
He flicked his wrist, shaking a few drops of blood from the blade, then moved the point to the pirate prisoners beside him—already collapsed on the ground, white as sheets, on the verge of soiling themselves.
His icy gaze settled on their bloodless faces.
'I don't have the patience for childish games of bravery.'
Aegon's voice stayed flat, yet every word struck the captives' hearts like a maul.
'I give only one chance.'
The sword-tip rose slightly, tapping each fallen pirate on the nose in turn.
'Now, speak.'
'Life—or death?'
'Life! Life! Mercy, my lord! Mercy!'
'We want to live! To live!'
'Please don't kill me! I'll do anything!'
Pleas and wails exploded forth; the pirates kowtowed until sand and blood smeared their foreheads, tears and snot streaming, every trace of ferocity gone.
Aegon shifted the blade to the dozen pirates captured earlier, already half-dead from watching their captain beheaded.
'And you?'
'Life! My lord, we choose life!' 'Willing to die for you!' 'Grant us a way to survive!'
Louder, more frantic cries filled the small camp, drowning even the surf hammering nearby reefs.
Only then did Aegon slowly lower the sword—yet did not sheath it. He surveyed the groveling rabble and began his sorting.
'Point them out,' he said. 'Who among you tortured captives for sport, who ravaged women or children, who would abandon comrades to flee—mark those pieces of filth for me.'
He needed to excise the irredeemable dregs and, through fear, begin forging a crude set of rules in these survivors' minds.
After a brief, tense pause—and under his chill stare and the Bloodsworn's naked steel—the captives, desperate to live and 'atone', began naming names.
They accused, quarrelled, shoved blame onto one another; in the end three men, denounced by many and whose crimes were clearest, were dragged out by Bloodsworn soldiers and executed on the spot amid despairing howls and curses.
After that bloody purge the remaining captives were even more hushed, yet they now understood their new master's law: obey, be useful, touch no forbidden line—only then would you live.
Next came threat and lure.
Aegon offered no empty talk of loyalty or glory, only what pirates could grasp: the chance to keep breathing—and the right to plunder and share spoils.
'From this moment you are no longer pirates,' Aegon declared, his calm voice carrying a strange, undeniable force, 'but my soldiers.'
'Fight for me, heed my commands. Loot will be divided by my rules. Valor in battle earns reward; disobedience or desertion earns death.'
He set down a handful of harsh, simple laws—brutal, yet outlining profit as clearly as punishment.
Then he began the interrogation.
About other pirate bands in these waters: their size, hideouts, strength, leaders, caches—anything the newly surrendered men could spill in their scramble to live and rise under their new lord.
The scraps of intelligence were jumbled and half-true, yet under Aegon's guiding cross-questions a fair picture of nearby pirate powers soon emerged.
When finished, Aegon left Bloodsworn troopers to watch the captives, boarded the skiff that had brought him, and returned to The Quiet fleet waiting beyond the reef-strewn shallows.
Board. Set sail.
Guided by the surrendered pirates, the fleet steered toward the hidden cache of armor.
Yet Aegon's course was no straight line; he deliberately threaded a path past several smaller pirate nests.
The days that followed were one long purge.
Relying on the Bloodsworn's elite skill—and the clear message: surrender and live, resist and die, serve and be rewarded—the fleet swallowed each pirate band it met with snowballing efficiency.
Aegon knew exactly what he was doing.
He had no intention of inducting these lawless, savage pirates straight into the Bloodsworn; that would taint the discipline and loyalty newly forged by blood-oath.
The Bloodsworn were his core, and must stay pure and tightly controlled.
These pirates would form a separate force: a short-term, profit-driven outer ring—or expendable troops—demanding not absolute loyalty but absolute obedience.
He needed cannon-fodder and brawlers in a hurry for the hard fights ahead, and would sift the grit of battle in hope of finding a few flecks of real gold.
The first batch of captives now sworn in were the seed and first demonstration of this new system..
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