Game of Thrones: Viserys the Three-Headed Dragon

This should be the longest time they have stayed at sea since they set sail. Since leaving Lys, the merchant ship has not landed on land again.

Although they still have to take the route from Lys to Volantis to go to Slaver's Bay, they will not stop in Volantis, but will directly follow the route from Volantis to Slaver's Bay, turn south, and make a big circle on the vast sea, bypassing the peninsula and the ruins of the sea of ​​smoke where the ancient Valyria Empire is located.

When the merchant ship turned east with a distant cape in the southernmost part of the Valyria Broken Peninsula as a marker, the journey was only halfway here.

From Lys to here, they have been on the sea for more than ten days.

Viserys and Daenerys stood in front of the window of the room, looking far into the distance, looking at the looming towering continental shelf at the end of their sight, slowly turning from the east of the merchant ship to the north, and they could see that the blue sky there seemed to be no different from anywhere else.

But people fear that land. More than four hundred years ago, that land suffered the "Doomsday Catastrophe". The peninsula was destroyed to form an island, and many lowlands were submerged, forming what people call the Sea of ​​Smoke today. It is said that the Sea of ​​Smoke is a dangerous sea, with volcanoes and smoking reefs everywhere in the boiling sea water, and there may even be demons and sea monsters.

According to rumors, many people who went to the Sea of ​​Smoke and Valyria for exploration did not come back. Most people would rather avoid the Sea of ​​Smoke, thinking that it was an ominous place.

It is said that the city of Valyria is located in the center of the largest existing island, surrounded by cliffs, where the island was once connected to the mainland.

The merchant ship sailed into the outer waters of the Valyria Peninsula three days ago. The ship was very far away from that land. Only occasionally could a piece of land be seen in the farthest field of vision. Until one time, Viserys observed dark smoke rising from the sky in the distance, and then asked Captain Grolai, he knew that it might be the volcano on the Valyria Peninsula that was active. People would also say that it was the devil in the Sea of ​​Smoke.

At that time, Viserys realized that they had been traveling in the sea outside the Valyrian Peninsula for a long time.

And this time the merchant ship turned east on the sea, which would be the closest time for them to the Valyrian Peninsula on this trip, because the passing ships would turn with the bulge of the Broken Island in the distance as a sign.

From here to the southeast is Sothoryos, and to the east are the Gulf of Sorrow, Ghis, Qarth, the Jade Sea, and Asshai, Yi Ti and other lands that are only in the rumor.

They are already far away from Westeros, and Lys and Volantis have long been left far behind.

Viserys was once worried that there would be some accidents in the waters of Volantis, but except for a heavy rain at sea, they arrived here smoothly without any twists and turns. They have been very lucky these days. They have not encountered storms, pirates, or the legendary giant sea monsters in the summer sea that would drag merchant ships to the bottom of the sea.

It’s a pity that today they couldn’t continue the good luck of the past ten days.

Viserys heard the warning sound of the rowing boat in front.

It was hard to imagine what the warning horn might be when it was sunny and calm during the day.

This was not a controlled area of ​​a certain power, so there would be no fleets operating in this area, and pirates generally would not operate openly during the day.

The horn sounded three times, and the echoes were long.

This meant that the rowing boat ahead had encountered pirates.

Viserys withdrew his gaze from the north, where the traces of Valyria's islands gradually disappeared, and looked at Daenerys, who was also puzzled, beside him: "It might be pirates, hurry up, put on your leather armor."

Daenerys responded and hurried back to the head of the bed, pulled out a box from under the bed, took out the leather armor from it, and hurriedly put it on herself.

Viserys tied the sword belt around his waist, tidied himself up a little, and then hurried over to help Daenerys put on her leather armor. He put on a black cape with a red three-headed fire-breathing dragon embroidered on a black background on her backwards. This was embroidered by Viserys' maid Ani when she was free at sea. He drew a sketch, and when Ani was still there, she would embroider it in the corner every day.

Finally, Viserys helped Dany to put up her hair and put the leather helmet with iron on her head, covering half of her face, leaving only her eyes, nose and mouth. She had been exercising these days, and stood straight, looking like a young knight.

Viserys was very satisfied with Daenerys's appearance at the moment: "Let's go and take a look at the rudder."

Daenerys keenly noticed that Viserys' eyes stayed on her flat chest for a moment after she put on the leather armor, but showed a satisfied expression. She was a little unsure of his attitude.

When they arrived on the deck, Captain Grolai was already at the helm, steering the ship leisurely. He was eating an apple while steering the ship. When he saw Viserys coming up with the fully armed Daenerys, he took out a new one from his pocket and asked him if he wanted to eat it.

Viserys did not take his apple, but only asked: "What's going on? Are there pirates during the day?"

"It's hard to say." The captain stuffed the apple back into his pocket and reached for the apple in his mouth, "We'll see it later."

While they were waiting, they heard several short horns from the rowing boat in front of them before they saw the pirates.

Grolai casually spit out the fruit core to the side and said, "False alarm." He paused, spat, and added, "We encountered a ghost ship. What a bad sign."

Ghost ships refer to ships that are occasionally found floating on the sea and appear to be empty when sailing on the sea. These ships are considered ominous because terrible things must have happened on them, and they have mysteriously disappeared or sunk at sea, and their reappearances often have a ghostly atmosphere.

This seemingly superstitious thought is actually very logical. Because an empty ship at sea often means that all the crew members are killed, either as a plague at sea, or they are all slaughtered, or the sunken ship is re-vomited from the earthquake on the seabed, these are not good things.

After about a moment, the Sedourion saw the ship that had sounded the warning horn for the rowing boat ahead.

It was a ship painted entirely black, and its damaged sails were also pitch black. It was floating aimlessly on the sea to the north of the Sedourion in the absence of wind.

Viserys could vaguely see white marks on the black sails of the ship. It looks like bones.

"Damn it." Captain Grole took out the telescope from his pocket, looked over there and couldn't help but cursed, "It's really a pirate ship, with a blood eagle hanging on the bow, the method is so cruel, I'm afraid it's all dried up." There was a fight between two groups of pirates not long ago."

Daenerys heard a term she had never heard before: "Blood Eagle?"

Grole bared his teeth and looked uncomfortable: "It's better that you don't know what it is, miss."

Viserys said to Grolei, "Lend me the telescope."

Grole said worriedly: "Sir, this is not something worth seeing."

"I know what that is." Viserys held out his hand, "Show me."

Grorai shrugged and handed the telescope to Viserys.

He pointed at the ghost ship and looked over. The black sail was indeed a white skull mark, with some faint brown traces visible, which were thought to be dried blood. The bow of the ship was a sculpture of an eagle with wings, and hanging on the eagle sculpture was a shriveled corpse that seemed to have wings.

Blood Eagle is a form of torture in which the torturer makes two incisions on the victim's back near the chest along both sides of the spine, breaks the ribs, and finally pulls the victim's lungs out of the chest with both hands. The two lung lobes sticking out from the back look like contracted wings, so this punishment is commonly known as the blood eagle.

It can be clearly seen through the telescope that the body has not been completely decomposed or eaten clean by seabirds, which means that the time that caused the ship to become a ghost ship was only a few days ago.

The road ahead may not be smooth.

Viserys returned the telescope to Grolei and saw how he would respond to the situation.

Grole held the rudder and thought solemnly for a long time, then sent a signal to the pilot on the mast.

Not long after, the navigator picked up the horn from his waist and blew a few blasts.

When the sailors heard the trumpet, the boatswain immediately called people to the winch that connected the huge iron cable between the Sedourion and the rowing boat in front. Dozens of sailors began to shout the trumpet and pull the winch to connect the merchant ship and the rowing boat. A huge noose shook endlessly on the sea, while merchant ships and rowing boats gradually approached amidst the sailors' chants.

The distance between the rowing boat and the merchant ship shortened visibly to the naked eye. It was not until the three ships could almost hear the shouts from each other's boats that the sailors stopped moving.

From this moment on, the three ships sailed in this very close way for several days. During the day, additional security personnel were posted on the masts. At night, the merchant ships did not save fuel. The night watch sailors kept their lights on and stayed on duty until Dawn.

Speaking of which, in the past few days since I met the ghost ship, I have occasionally seen broken wooden boards and barrels floating on the sea.

Encountering these at sea for days on end is not a good sign.

It was as if there were ships in front of them and on the same road as them, throwing things into the sea. Otherwise, why would they encounter these things on the vast sea?

Over the past few days, Viserys even felt a little uneasy in Captain Grole, who always had a calm face.

However, the ship continued to move towards Slaver's Bay, taking its time.