Game of Thrones: The Road to Pirate King

Chapter 222 Order to Recruit Talented Individuals

The chill of winter seemed to reach the back of their necks. Davos and Salado Sun stood on the swaying deck, gazing at the desolate and dangerous sea ahead, their faces filled with unprecedented solemnity.

They had no other choice.

The ship's hold was piled high with what was not ordinary cargo, but life-saving food—grains and cured meats that had to reach Westeros before the harsh winter completely blocked the sea lanes, otherwise countless people would not survive the long winter.

What's even more suffocating is that this entire shipload of grain represents their life savings and all their loans. Every sack of wheat gleams with the golden luster of their hard-earned money accumulated over the years.

Success might offer a glimmer of hope; failure, on the other hand, means utter ruin.

"If this cargo sinks, or gets robbed—" Salado Sunn's voice was hoarse, his eyes, which usually held a sly smile, were now filled with anxiety, "we won't just be bankrupt, old friend. We'll be worth less than the rats on deck."

Davos nodded silently, his rough hands gently stroking the rough wooden railing. He knew better than anyone what this meant. Without all of this, they would no longer be merchants, not even respectable sailors. To survive, they would have no choice but to take up arms and become the very kind of people they had always tried to avoid—pirates who plundered the seas.

Davos was unremarkable in appearance, thin, with brown hair and brown eyes that allowed him to easily blend into a crowd; only his thick, messy gray beard showed signs of hardship.

Davos hailed from the lowest rung of King's Landing, the flea den, and struggled to survive from a young age. As a youth, he served as a crew member on the Pebblecat, following Captain Rollo Uhorris across the Narrow Sea. The memory of Uhorris's arrest and execution by the Night's Watch for selling weapons to the Wildlings was deeply etched into Davos's mind, exposing him early to the harshness of the law and the coldness of the frontier.

However, the lessons of reality did not deter Davos: even after becoming a notorious smuggler, he still refused to make deals with the Night's Watch as long as the price was right. In those years, he was accustomed to sailing his small boat with black sails into the heavily guarded harbor at night like a floating leaf, becoming the most elusive shadow in the darkness.

His current partner, Salado Sun, is almost the complete opposite of his personality and background.

This mercenary captain from Ries was as unpredictable as the ever-changing flag atop his head: sometimes a shrewd businessman, sometimes a generous banker, and sometimes a fearsome pirate. He was adept at navigating social situations, adept at social maneuvering, and renowned for his flamboyant and extravagant attire.

Davos still vividly remembers the scene when he first saw him: Salado was wearing a bright coat with long, flowing sleeves woven with silver thread, the buttons of which were monkeys carefully carved from jade, and a fan-shaped green hat decorated with peacock feathers, which contrasted interestingly with his slender, bright white curly hair.

House Sunn has a long history as a pirate lord, dating back three centuries to an ancestor of Salad during the reign of Aegon I Targaryen, Samaro Sunn, who was also a member of the renowned "Nine" of the Narrow Sea.

Now, fate has bound these two people from vastly different backgrounds together in the same high-stakes gamble.

Their two ships were quietly anchored in treacherous waters: the Valyrian—a large warship with three hundred oars and brightly painted sides, and the Thousand-Colored Bird—a wide-hulled merchant ship built specifically for long-distance ocean trade.

All their hopes, all their possessions, and even their fates, rested on these two ships and the grain that this ship had to deliver before winter.

Davos gazed at the faint outline of Blackrock Isle in the distance, his brow furrowed, searching for a glimmer of hope in this desperate situation. "I saw Euron Greyjoy at the tournament in King's Landing," he murmured, his grey beard trembling slightly with each word. "Back then, people called him the Blade of Justice. He's not a bloodthirsty man; I'm here only to seek justice for my plundered people. If we speak frankly, explaining that the food on the ship is crucial to the survival of countless civilians through the winter, perhaps—he'll show leniency."

Salado Sunn let out an exaggerated sneer, his green hat, trimmed with peacock feathers, swaying slightly with his head shake. "My dear old friend, you are pitifully naive!" he tugged at his ornate silver-threaded cuffs, his tone sharpening. "Haven't you heard of those three crowns of sea corpses built from heads? You think you can reason with him, talk about mercy?" He leaned closer, the emerald monkey-shaped button flashing coldly in the sunlight. "Let me tell you, he won't even blink when he cuts off your head, and he won't listen to a single word you say!"

Davos was silent for a moment, a struggle flickering in his brown eyes. He looked at the hold full of food, their only hope. Finally, he lowered his voice and proposed a near-desperate plan: "Then—why don't we just join them here and temporarily become pirates? At least we can save our lives and our cargo."

Salado Sunn paused for a moment, then burst into laughter, the sound jarring on the tense sea. "Haha! Perhaps the spirits of my pirate ancestors are truly calling me!" He patted Davos on the shoulder, but there was little amusement in his eyes. "To be honest, sometimes the only thing separating mercenaries and pirates is a flag that can be flipped at any moment."

But before he could finish his joking remark, Davos interrupted him gravely, pointing to the increasingly clear islands and dense black sails ahead: "Enough. We're almost there. Put away your smirking, old friend. Every step from here could be a matter of life and death."

As Davos and Salado Sun's ship slowly approached the Blackrock Island dock, the first thing that caught their eye was not the jagged reefs or fortresses, but the towering, chilling "Crown of the Sea Corpses" standing majestically on the shore. Countless heads were stacked layer upon layer, their empty eye sockets staring collectively at the sea. The stench of decay and salt mingled together, creating a nauseating, salty, and foul stench that almost solidified, making it hard to breathe.

In eerie contrast to this landmark of death, the dock was bustling with an unprecedented, bizarre, and chaotic atmosphere. It was as if every marginal figure in the Narrow Sea region had been drawn here. The queue snaked its way from the dock to the entrance of the island's main hall, moving slowly like a crawling centipede.

The group was crammed with all sorts of people who could never coexist peacefully elsewhere: a local corpse retriever with a numb expression, wiping seaweed off his grappling hook; a pirate from the Serpent Islands, covered in tattoos and with fierce eyes; a Braavos assassin dressed in understated dark clothing, with eyes as sharp as an eagle; a Reese prostitute in revealing clothes with a flippant laugh; a tall, dark-skinned woman from the Summer Islands wearing a headdress adorned with vibrant bird feathers; and a mysterious guest wrapped in a long robe, his face strangely veiled, revealing not a trace of skin.

The Tyrosh merchants, dressed in luxurious silk, shrewdly surveyed their surroundings, calculating the risks; there were even escaped slaves with the marks of old shackles around their necks, their eyes filled with both fear and longing—

Driven by their own purposes, whether fear or lure by profit, they all followed unspoken rules, lining up in long queues, one after another, silently and anxiously waiting to enter the door leading to the Blackrock Island Hall, the door that would determine their fate.

Davos and Salado Sunn stood silently at the very end of the winding queue, but in no time, a new flow of people gathered behind them, sandwiching them in the middle. Standing in front of them was a round-faced Mil merchant in a luxurious velvet coat. He turned around and asked curiously in Common with a heavy accent, "My friends, are you also here to answer that lord's call for talent?"

"A summons for talent?" Davos and Salado Sun asked almost simultaneously, their faces showing confusion.

They had all seen the summons, but they had simply laughed it off, treating it as a joke or a tactic to weaken their opponents before a major battle. They never expected so many people to actually answer the call.

Davos looked around at the bizarre crowd and lowered his voice to ask, "Are all the people here here to pledge allegiance to that lord?"

"Of course!" The Mil merchant's face lit up with an exaggerated expression, as if recounting a well-known miracle. "No matter your background or past, as long as you have a skill to offer, that lord will generously grant you what you desire." He leaned closer, his voice brimming with barely suppressed excitement. "Just yesterday, a bastard son whom even his father refused to acknowledge, a pirate wandering the Stone Steps Islands, was given a surname and became a legitimate heir to a family line! And a little-known merchant from Valisa Town, simply because he possessed winemaking skills and presented fine brews, received Lord Euron's personal promise to become the only supplier in the entire town authorized to distribute 'Sea Monster' wine!"

Salado Sun raised an eyebrow, his green hat adorned with peacock feathers swaying slightly, as if to mock the overly optimistic promise. Just then, a small commotion at the front of the line caught his attention—a corpse retriever, reeking of fish and sea salt, was stammering to the Iron Citizen officer registering him about his expertise in a unique marine fish farming technique. Surprisingly, after carefully noting it down, the officer waved him through.

Davos keenly caught the sarcastic remark that Salado was about to utter, and immediately nudged him imperceptibly with his elbow, preemptively offering the Mil merchant a humble and sincere smile: "Yes, sir, we—we too—have come to ask for a favor."

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