[INTERLUDE]A cut on a moonless night

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POV of Karl von Rügen first moon 285 AC

With favorable winds and more sailors than needed on some ships, we are sailing steadily through the sea at night. For the Westerosi, who primarily rely on rowing ships for transportation, traveling at night is considered madness. This is because it requires a large number of rowers to expedite transport, but mainly due to the lack of direction captains may experience due to limited visibility at night, especially if there is no moon.

However, for us, with the assistance of a group of astronomers dedicated to studying the stars as scientifically established knowledge proved useless in the strange Westerosi lands, new Prutenic tables were established by the king's order. These tables allow us to determine our position at sea using the stars.

With a compass and the Prutenic tables, we could navigate at maximum speed all day. The power of knowledge... We just had to remind the captains that if they see the possibility of this information falling into enemy hands through boarding, they must ensure that everything burns. If the pirates obtain this information, they would truly become a plague not easily eliminated.

I enjoyed it while I could, as we had fresh fruits; however, halfway through the journey, we would have to rely on hard biscuits as tough as stones, only swallowable with the help of soup – the sailor's pain, but food is food and will last a long time without spoiling.

The days passed; aside from some problems with the rowers on the galleys regarding the long hours of physical exertion, there have been no issues. No ships have been sighted, so the secrecy of the mission is maintained.

The passage of time became routine ensuring everyone was working, constantly checking our position, following the planned route, inspecting if any ship needed repairs, occasionally conducting small drills to assess my men's preparedness. But after that, I handed control to my deck assistant on my galleon and tried my luck with the fishing being done on some galleons to begin classifying the fish in Westerosi waters and discovering what can or cannot be eaten on the high seas.

While observing the sea, I saw some whales on the horizon and remembered when my father harpooned a whale in the North Sea in a simple boat by himself. While resisting the temptation to imitate my father's actions of harpooning a whale on my own, the warg on my ship approached me.

''Yes?'' I said without taking my eyes off the sea.

''Ships, according to the book they gave me to learn and recognize ships... they are Ironborn ships boarding a galley from... those?'' said the warg with some difficulty, as it seemed he didn't speak the common language frequently.

''Are you asking me, or are you telling me?'' I said without much interest.

''I observed it with my eagle, ships of the Ironborn attacking another vessel,'' the warg replied, showing his fangs.

''We don't have time to waste on catching two pirate ships in the Stepstones; there's a bigger prize... What flag does the ship have? It could be one of the exiles' ships,'' I said, then thinking it could be one of our ships.

''I don't recognize it, but they don't carry the... Kriegsflagge or something similar to what the Prussian ships use,'' the warg replied with some difficulty when he should have used words in German.

''Fine... We won't waste time with them; forget about the situation, and in case you spot more ships, inform me immediately,'' I told the warg to return to the mast with his birds.

As we approached our objective, the mission of going unnoticed became more difficult, dodging commercial ships coming from all directions, having to avoid fishing boats off the coasts of Dorne, and avoiding pirates who, the moment they see a fleet of warships approaching, will run like the cowards they are.

The night was the time when we could truly sail in peace. Finally, we were about to reach our destination after several days of sailing. But according to my calculations, we were two days ahead; therefore, we must deviate to open sea and wait for those two days to pass, as the attack must take place on the planned date to take advantage of the moonless night.

When the time came, we sailed to the Stepstones, and the warg began his work again. With his owl, he began to search for the islands where the pirate ships were docked. As intelligence had mentioned before the Bloodstone plan began, Torturer's Deep and Grey Gallows were the islands with the majority of ships docked in the sand; the other islands barely had any ships, making them secondary military objectives.

Covered by the veil of absolute darkness, our ships sailed the seas until reaching the starting point of the operation. I divided my men into three groups to attack the pirate forces simultaneously. It would be safer to attack one by one, but the risk of our prey escaping justified taking the risk of splitting our forces.

I assigned two lieutenants to attack Torturer's Deep and Grey Gallows. Of the fourteen thousand men we brought for the invasion, we would leave a thousand men guarding the ships, while the rest of us would split among the attack forces. Each of my lieutenants would take four thousand men for their attack, and I would disembark with the other five thousand to attack Bloodstone, which had the highest number of pirate ships docked.

We lowered the rowboats and began to row towards the islands, aiming to reach the beaches that the pirates hadn't used to protect their ships. It was extremely difficult to navigate the area due to numerous rocks that could destroy the boats, and we had to maneuver with the least noise possible. The darkness made the task even more challenging; a couple of rowboats were shattered against sharp rocks, and sailors had to board other boats to reach the coast.

As soon as we disembarked from the boats, we organized our attack. There were no coast guards since I made sure all my men were with me, and we started equipping ourselves for battle. Steel breastplates, padded jerkins, and chainmail helmets constituted our defensive gear. For a tercio soldier, this equipment was terrible, but for a sailor, it was the best option easy to remove in case one fell into the water. We assembled the crossbows and began to move.

Our primary objective was to neutralize the pirate ships. Even if our attack on their gathering place failed, without their boats, they would be trapped on the islands, allowing us to reorganize for another assault while they dried off on these islands.

The night provided excellent cover, but organizing a march of five thousand men was challenging. Lights on the beach indicated that the pirates had men guarding their boats and were at ease. I looked at the warg beside me and signaled towards the boats. The warg's eyes turned white for a few seconds, then regained their color as he looked back at me.

"A group of around two hundred men, they are relaxed and not expecting a fight," the warg said, breathing heavily.

I gave orders to my captains to start surrounding the pirates. As we positioned ourselves, we heard the pirates laughing and talking loudly.

"Are they in position?" I asked the warg.

"Yes, your men are in position," the warg replied after his eyes turned white again.

We started moving towards the boats, advancing slowly to avoid alerting the pirates, until we were about fifty meters from them around a bonfire, making them the most visible among the rest. I gave the order to my men, and only the sound of crossbow mechanisms releasing bolts against the pirates was heard. Immediately after, we charged.

Only the desperate screams of the pirates trying to understand what was happening echoed. Seeing how they were quickly surrounded, they grasped the situation. The other groups that had split to encircle the pirates were also attacking.

With sword in hand, I plunged into combat, fighting against two pirates at the same time. It only took a few sword strokes to realize that my opponents barely knew anything about fencing. I was forcing them to retreat rapidly to defend themselves from my attacks, even in a two-on-one situation. While overwhelming them with my sword, I heard the sound of a crossbow, and one of my opponents fell dead with a bolt through his chest.

Seizing the opportunity, I attacked the pirate's dominant hand to deflect his blade and subsequently severed his hand, which flew off with the cut. Before the pirate could scream in pain, I buried my sword in his throat and looked for new opponents who seemed to have already been defeated by my sailors.

Several dead and others who simply surrendered made things easier, as I only had to crucify them later. "Will we have visitors? We made quite a noise," I said, looking for the warg, who was kicking the lifeless bodies of some pirates.

The warg used his ability, and after a few minutes observing the white eyes of the warg, they returned to their normal color.

"No one is coming. There are small villages on the islands, but all without lights, and only in the largest one that seems to have some bonfires, everything else is quiet. It seems the plan worked well... oh, brilliant," said the warg after regaining his senses, removing a silver chain from a dead pirate.

"Leave the looting for later. We must focus on finishing off the enemy. After that, everything will belong to us according to the army's looting laws," I said to the warg in a serious tone. The warg left the chain where he found it, and we focused on getting the pirate ships to the sea to gain control over them. I left some of my men to handle the ship tasks, and the rest of us headed to the main settlement to quickly end the combat.

After a short journey, we arrived at the settlement, a bunch of poorly constructed houses surrounded by a wall that only protected half of the settlement. With a spyglass in hand, I observed the places illuminated by bonfires, and all my instincts told me it was a trap. There were no guards, and with a clear path to the heart of the settlement, my subaltern officers thought the same; it seemed too easy.

But we had to act, and we advanced. To everyone's surprise, it was indeed that easy. Security was dismal, with guards asleep or, worse, drunk.

"So much preparation to defeat a bunch of incompetents," I said as we moved through the streets of the settlement.

When we reached the center, I gave the order for my men to start entering houses one by one, killing and capturing anyone they found. The battle dragged on for almost an hour as we cleared houses, but a tug on my clothes caught my attention.

"A group is running towards one of the hills on the island. They escaped your men," said the warg, looking at everything that had happened with curiosity.

"How many?" I asked as I adjusted my helmet.

"A few, less than three hundred, but they were running like condemned to death," he said with a big smile.

I left a group of men to continue catching the inhabitants and dispatched the rest of my men to help the other groups. The combat here was over, and with a small escort of five hundred men, I followed the group that had escaped the massacre, only to find that they had taken refuge in a cave where they were extracting something.

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I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.

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