"Maybe one day I'll think you're right."

Bam Criss thought for a long time and said this.

"Very well, I'll take you to meet the Pirate King Hisso, who is a guest of another Pirate King." The steward said.

The next day, they left through the Sunrise Gate, and Bamkris didn't see any sunrise at all.

"It's like you've never been to the Pirate King's realm, my good lord." The steward assured, "Just as no one knows of your arrival, no one must see you leave here." ”

"Nobody knows, except for the sailors who stuffed me into the barrels, the boy who cleaned my cabin, the girl you sent me to warm my bed, and the deceitful washerwoman, oh, and your guards, unless you've taken their brains off, they know you're not alone."

"The difference between our pirates here and the rest of Dubrovnik is only a different name." The steward assured him. "The ship that brought you here has gone somewhere else, and if the sea has mercy, it will not return until two years later, and as for the servants of the Pirate King, they love him, and no one will betray him."

Keep this thought, my fat friend, and one day we will carve these words into your grave......

"We should get on that boat."

"It's too risky to go by sea over there." The steward replied. "Autumn is the season of storms, and with the other pirates still entrenched on the island over there and venturing out to plunder the honest ones, we can't let my good adults fall into the hands of those people."

"What nonsense, ridiculous! Will the Pirate King be afraid of other pirates? Bam Criss scoffed.

"It's true, those damn poor ghosts. Why are we talking about this in such good weather? We'll see it soon, and until then, let's drink and dream. We have good wine and good food to enjoy. Why do we want to talk about illness and death? ”

Bam Cris, he asked himself, why bother with all this?

They were followed by a team of mules, carrying chests, barrels, and boxes of delicacies to ensure a vigorous appetite. They have spicy sausages and some smokeberry brown wine in the morning. Eel jelly and Dorne's red wine accompanied them for the afternoon. In the evening, with the help of light ales and spirits, they digested thin hams, boiled eggs, and roasted larks filled with onions and garlic, and they continued to move slowly to ensure the comfort of their passengers, but Bamkris soon found himself fidgeting with impatience.

"How many days are we left to get to that river?" That night Bam Criss asked the steward. "According to this way, is it a big circle, where is the king of pirates?"

"I'll be with you, right? Come, have a glass of wine. ”

"Tell me," said Bam Criss, drinking, "why doesn't the Pirate King see me on his own territory?" What good can I do you, my lord? ”

This fat guy licks the grease off his lips. "I'm old and tired of this treacherous world. Is it so strange that in the days I have left, I will do something good to help a destitute nobleman regain his birthright? ”

"Then you should give me a suit of armor and a palace."

"Don't worry, my good lord, the Pirate King will decide this."

When he awoke, dawn had come, and the horses were still moving slowly, swaying and creaking among them. Bamkris lifted the curtain a little and looked out, but there was nothing to see but ochre-colored earth, bare brown elm, and avenues—wide stone paths like spears pointing straight to the horizon.

He had drunk too much last night, and even a slight shaking was enough to make him gag. Although he didn't complain, the steward easily understood his distress.

"Come, have a drink," said the fat fellow. "Fight poison with poison." He filled the jug with blackberry wine, which was so sweet that it attracted flies more than honey. Bamkris chased away the flies with the back of his hand and drank them all. The sweet, greasy taste made him have to swallow it with all his might. But the second cup is less difficult to swallow. Even so, he had little appetite, and when the steward invited him to a bowl of cream-soaked blackberries, he waved his hand and refused.

"I dreamed of the king." He said. "I knelt before him and swore allegiance, but he mistook me for my brother."

Let's hope this dream is not a prophecy. You are a wise nobleman, a valiant knight. ”

"The knights knew only one way to solve the problem, and they charged with their spears. A down-and-out aristocrat will see the world from a different perspective. But what about you? You're a smart guy. ”

"You're complimenting me." The steward waved his hand. "Oops, I'm not fit to travel......"

They had only changed teams three times that day, but they stopped twice, and each time it took almost an hour for the steward to climb down and pee. At one stop, he spent that time carefully looking at the road, and Bamkris knew what he would find: not solid ground, not bricks, not pebbles, but a strip of lava rock, half a foot above the road surface so that rain and snowmelt could flow down the shoulder. Unlike the dirt paths that had been walked, the avenue was wide enough for three carriages to run side by side, and neither the years nor the vehicles had been able to erode it. These avenues are as strong as ever. He tried to find ruts and cracks, but only found hot horse manure that had just been pulled out by one of the horses in the herd.

As they continued their journey, the steward made him sleepy with a bunch of boring old jokes......

When he woke up, his legs were as stiff as iron. "Where have we been? Bam Criss asked him.

"We haven't left the flatlands yet, my anxious friend. Immediately we were entering the mountains. From then on, we will go up the river and climb all the way.

It was a smoking ruin, and I was walking through history, Bamkris recalled, his mind back to the days when dragons ruled the land.

Bamkris fell asleep, woke up and fell asleep again, day or night seemed to matter anymore, the mountains were disappointing.

"The breasts of the women of Dubrovnik are bigger than these mountains," he told the steward. "You should call them velvet heads." They saw a circle of stones, which the steward claimed was made by giants, and then a deep lake.

He woke up alone and found that it had stopped.

The crumpled cushions indicate that the steward had once been lying there. Bamkrist's throat was dry and astringent. He dreamed...... But what did he dream about? He couldn't remember.

Several voices were talking in a language he didn't understand, and Bam Criss jumped to the ground with his legs dangling through the curtain to find the steward standing beside the horse, and the two riders looking down at him. The two men were wearing old leather shirts under their dark brown wool cloaks, but their swords were still in sheaths, and the fat guy didn't look dangerous.

Bamkris walked down the avenue and freed himself in a bush of thorns, which took quite a long time.

"At least he's well," a voice noticed him.

Bam Criss shook off the last drop and fastened his pants as he turned to the steward. "Do you know these two? They look like outlaws, should I go find my axe? ”

"Your axe?" The big rider exclaimed that he was a strong man with a bushy beard and a bunch of orange-red hair. "Did you hear that? That guy wants to fight with us! ”

His companion was older, with a cleanly shaved beard, a wrinkled ascetic face, and his hair combed back in a knot. "People always need untimely boasting to prove their mettle," he claimed. "I doubt he'll be able to kill a duck."

Bamkris shrugged. "Bring the ducks."

"If you insist." The rider glanced at his partner.

The strong man drew a damn sword. "I'll call it a duck."

Oh, God mercy. "I mean a little bit smaller."

The big man laughed. "Did you hear that? He wanted a little duck! ”

"I'll be content to arrange for me to be quieter." The man named Halton looked at Bamkris with calm gray eyes, then turned to the steward. "Do you have some boxes for us?"

"And the mules that carry them."

"The mule is walking too slowly. We've got pack horses, and we're going to move the boxes over. Duck, deal with this. ”

"Why are ducks always doing the work?" The big man put his sword back into its sheath. "What have you done? Who is the knight, you or me? But at the same time he stamped his feet to the mule carrying the luggage.

The moon had risen, and they had returned to their horses, trot east under the stars. In front of them, the ancient avenue winded like a long silver ribbon through the woods and valleys. For a moment, Bamkris almost felt peaceful. They had been riding all night, and Bam Criss would fall asleep from time to time, snooze against the saddle and wake up suddenly.

They arrived the next day, and it was right next to the river. "The river of legends," said Tyrion when he saw the slow green water from the top of a hill.

"Creek."

"That's true." It's an interesting river, but the smallest tributary is twice as wide, and all three flow smoother than it. The city is also nothing attractive.

There are still some who remain in this filthy wreckage, tending to a small vegetable garden among the weeds. The sound of iron hooves pounding on the avenue made most of them rush back to the cave they had just climbed out of, but there were still those who dared to stand in the distant sunlight, staring at the passing riders with dull and blank eyes. A red** kid stood knee-deep in the sludge and stared at Bamkris.

Behind the willow trees, the avenue came to an abrupt end, and they walked a little north, and then rode along the river, until the bushes had dispersed, and an old stone pier appeared beside them, half of which had sunk into the water, and tall brown grass surrounded it.

When they got closer, they found that the roof on which the boy was stepping turned out to be a cabin, a dilapidated dhow, with a broad keel and a shallow draft, which was used to travel between streams and sandbanks.

I didn't like the mercenary's eyes as he sat down across a cracked wooden table with a stick of butter wax in the dimly lit cabin, Bamkris thought, pale blue, pale blue and cold-eyed. Bam Criss has an aversion to light-colored eyes.

For a long time, he did not turn over, but lay motionless on the old sack that was used as a bed, listening to the whistling wind and the sound of the waves crashing on the side of the ship.

The full moon hung above the mast, and it followed me down the river, watching over me like a giant eye. Despite the warm tattered hides, a glass of wine, many glasses of wine, is needed.

There was a wooden ladder on the top of the cabin, and Bam Criss put on his boots and went down to the back deck, and the mercenaries by the brazier kept vigil himself, like his men, until the sun rose before going back to sleep.

Bam Criss crouched across from him to roast the fire, and the nightingale's song could be heard on the other side of the river.

"It's about to dawn,"

"It won't be that fast. We're setting sail. ”

The wariness in the mercenary's eyes never disappeared, and he searched the night all the time...... But what was he looking for? Pirate? Slave traders?

"I can fight you to the death for a glass of wine," muttered Bam Criss. "Red wine helps me sleep,"

"Then sober up."

The first pale rays of daylight in the east diffused over the river. The river gradually turned from black to blue, echoing the mercenary's beard.

"Everyone's getting up, the deck is yours." When the nightingales fell silent, the finches took over their work and continued to sing. The egrets splashed among the reeds and shed their mark on the sandbar. The clouds in the sky look brilliant: pink and violet, brown and gold, pearl white with orange. One of them looks like a dragon.

Early morning is the best time to see turtles. During the day they sink to the bottom of the water or lurk near the shore, but they rise to the surface at the beginning of the sun. Some will swim along the side of the boat. Tyrion glanced at several species: large and small, flat-backed and red-eared, soft-shelled and bony-carried, brown, green, black, clawed and horned, and tortoises with a spiraling shell and ridge covered in gold, emerald, and cream. Some are big enough to carry a man on their backs,

"I also like to watch the sunrise."

The anchor was raised, a long pole was dragged off the roof of the cabin and set sail. The two egrets looked up and watched as they slid into the water from the shore and slowly headed downstream. They were flipping over biscuits, placing an iron pan on a brazier and putting a slice of bacon in it.

Bamkris cracked two slices of biscuits and sandwiched the bacon, after which he helped raise the sails and led everyone to the rapids in the middle of the river.

"As far as I can see, so do people." He caught a glimpse of the ruins along the banks of the river, overgrown with weeds, crawling with vines, moss, and wildflowers, and devastated with no trace of human habitation.

"You don't know the river, the pirate ship can watch in any stream, and the runaway slaves lurk in the ruins. Slavers rarely came to such a northern place. ”