Stannis was doomed. He and his pathetic force would be crushed in a storm of dragon fire and blood. His claim would end here, on this godsforsaken, windswept, Northern wasteland, its ground hard, rocky and frozen, with scarcely a living thing growing. Stannis' story would end up as a mere footnote in the annals of Westerosi history, a history that would be written by Daenerys Targaryen. Or so Stannis had been told. Every traitor and oathbreaker in the realm sang the same song, that they would not support him, their rightful king, against the Essosi invaders, and the Targaryen usurper. So be it. Their time would come too. He would make his stand here, in a desolate valley, far in the North.
Surrounded by nine tall, snowcapped peaks, Stannis had deployed his men around a series of hillocks. They numbered thirty thousand in total, among them were loyal Stormlanders, honour bound Northmen, fierce Wildlings, as well as thousands of volunteers from Dorne to the Twins. They were good men, loyal and true, and they had all come with willing hearts, to fulfill their duty to their King. He could ask no more than that.
Together, with thousands more, they had faced the armies of the undead, and smashed them, after nearly four years of war, and countless dead. In the end, it had been a resurrected Jon Snow, atop a dragon of ice risen from beneath the wall, who had won them the war. Without Stannis's men however, Westeros would have been overrun. The Others had been finally been halted just south of Winter fell, and their army destroyed. Armed with blades of dragonglass, fire, and precious Valyrian steel swords, the armies of the living had cut down countless undead and Others. But at a high cost. To Stannis, it had been worth it.
The threat from the North had been forever ended, with Snow taking up residence as King beyond the Wall. Stannis was left to pursue his claim south of it, to take control of a land wracked by war, plagued by treachery. Before he had even left the North however, news of a new threat, a threat from the east arrived. The Targaryen girl had landed at Kings Landing, and the whole of the South, from Sunspear to Highgarden, had declared for her.
Only he was left to face the might of Essos, two hundred thousand men, including forty thousand Dothraki screamers, ten thousand of those pointy capped eunuchs, and thousands more from the free cities, which had all bent the knee to that infernal dragon girl. All of them save for Braavos. Braavos alone had refused to bend, and had paid the price. News of the sack of Braavos had been brought by merchants, and the tale of a city turned to ash, and the slaughter of countless thousands of women, children and men, had spread through the realm like wildfire. A once proud city was now a smoking pile of rubble and charred corpses.
It was a warning, the emissaries had told him. A promise of what would happen to him and his men, should he resist the Dragon Queen. He had sent her a warning too. A message. He had had three of the four emissaries buried up to their necks in the snow outside Winterfell. They had lasted a day, screaming in agony as the frostbite went to work. Dawn found scores of ravens and wolves rooting around their corpses. Stannis had had the remains of their heads mounted on spikes above the gates of Winterfell, and had sent the fourth emissary back to Daenerys, to recount the grisly scene. He had made his choice. Now he would take the consequences as they came.