Patriot-112: Hey everyone! This is both a one-shot and a challenge for Game of Thrones, which I call Wrath of the North, if anyone wants to try it. The idea of this challenge is the North's reaction to the Red Wedding, including the death and mutilation of Robb Stark. When I first read about the fates of Robb and most of his army and family at the hands of the Lannisters, and the treacherous Boltons and Freys, I immediately felt a wave of vengeance form in the pit of my heart. Nobody gets away with that kind of bullshit, NOBODY!
Now, enough of my rant let's start...
Disclaimer: Game of thrones doesn't belong to me.
Warning: To those who haven't seen the series...SPOILERS!
"Wake the White Wolf, at the Dawn of war...and Punishment he'll bring"
On the Road to Winterfell
One Week after the Red Wedding
A column of nearly 5,000 men marched on the Kingsroad, their banners being blue with a skinned man, making them the Bannermen of House Bolton. In the lead, Roose Bolton, the Lord of House Bolton, former vassal lord to House Stark, and now the new Lord Paramount of the North, after he had betrayed the Starks in his involvement in the Red Wedding, after being promised lordship of Winterfell and control of the North.
However, word had spread quickly to the people of the Northern Kingdom, and their reaction was obvious...rage.
Many of the surviving Noble Houses of the War of the Five Kings, with the exception of the Whitehills, want nothing to do with the Boltons, and the smallfolk throw insults, and a few rotten vegetables, at Roose and his men, calling them betrayers, murderers, usurpers, oathbreakers, guest right violators.
Of course, Roose Bolton took it with a straight, and rather smug, face. He didn't care about their griping, he was the LORD of Winterfell and Warden of the North, with the Starks, mostly, now gone. Eddard Stark, executed by the order of King Joffrey, his wife Catelyn Stark, killed at the Red Wedding, their eldest son, Robb Stark, dead along with his own wife, their youngest sons, Bran and Rickon Stark, killed in the sacking of Winterfell, (according to him anyway), Eddard's bastard son, Jon Snow was on the Wall as one of the Night's Watch, and wasn't planning on leaving it soon, Sansa Stark was held in King's Landing, and Arya Stark was missing.
Overall, all he had to do was deal with the Ironborn and bring the other Northern Houses to heel, the ones who did survive his treachery, or else they will suffer the same fate as the Starks.
"Milord Bolton," said one of his bannermen, "Something is blocking the road,"
Roose looked ahead and sure enough, there was something in the middle of the road, and the Lord of the Dreadfort could see it was undoubtedly a peasant's wagon. His face scrunched a bit at the minor interference, promising to find the farmer and have him flayed alive.
"Get that cart out of the way," he ordered, and the bannerman nodded and he and four other bannerman rode ahead to remove the road block.
He then turned back to the column he brought with him from the Dreadfort. Two thousand cavalry, two thousand men at arms, and a few hundred archers, most of them armed with crossbows. Not much an imposing army that Robb managed to muster to battle the Lannisters, but it was enough to hold Winterfell from anyone foolish to try to taking it.
"Milord..." said another bannerman, a young man of twenty, "...something doesn't feel right. It's too quiet,"
Roose blinked and looked around and noticed that the young man was right. With the exception of the wind blowing throw the trees, there was no sound of any animals that lived the forest. Not even the song of a bird.
"AGH!"
His head snapped forward, just in time to see a man of the group he sent to remove the cart from the road, fall off his horse dead, due to an arrow through his neck. Soon the other Bolton soldiers suffered the same fate as arrows from the trees rained down on the horsemen.
"AMBUSH!"
It was that single shout which signaled a volley storm of arrows from the trees to rain down on the Bolton column, killing many men.
"Form up! Archers return fire!" Roose ordered, but the archers and crossbowmen were having trouble returning the incoming volley, as they were suffering casualties themselves.
"FOR THE KING IN THE NORTH!"
Roose heart dropped at that familiar war cry, as out of the forest, came thousands of well armored, well armed, and very angry North Men all shouting with fury. Mounted on horses or on foot, they all charged at the surprised Bolton column. Roose didn't see any banners of known houses of the North, except the only banner that was colored a light grey, with a rampant white wolf on a black kite shield as the Sigil.
The ambushers crashed into the stunned Bolton troops and the sounds of steel meeting steel, steel meeting flesh, and steel meeting shield, as the attackers fought the Bolton traitors with no mercy and no pity. All that was on their minds were two things: Justice and Revenge.
Roose fought from his horse as he slashed and stabbed at any of the attackers that came near him. A polearm nearly stabbed him in the head, but the head of House Bolton grabbed the shaft of the weapon and rewarded the foot soldier with a stab to the heart killing him instantly.
A horn blast caught his attention, and his heart sunk even more as he saw more men coming from the trees, all wanting to tear his men to shreds.
'Fuck! Where the hell did they all come from!?' Roose thought angrily as he deflected a sword strike from a mounted cavalryman.
"Fucking traitor! You'll pay for what you've done!" the man shouted, as he continued to slash at the Red Wedding conspirator.
"Fuck off!" he shouted, before he deflected the sword again, before punching the rider off his horse.
THACK!
"AGH!"
Roose winced in pain, as an arrow lodged itself into his shoulder, distracting him long enough for a spearman to thrust into his horse's chest causing the animal to whinny in pain before collapsing to the ground, send the Lord tumbling off. Managing to scramble himself upright despite the pain in his shoulder, Roose decided that he had to get away and get back to the Dreadfort and the rest of his army. He first had to get out of this slaughter house, as he saw his men falling left and right, dying from being stabbed, slashed, or their skulls bashed in. Some of his men did the wise thing and sought to get away, only to be brought down by arrows as they try to run back down the road.
Seeing no choice seeing as the King's Road was a free-for-all shooting gallery, he decided to take his chances by heading into the forest.
Overlooking the slaughter
(OST: Witcher 3 The Trail)
A man clad in steel armor with a white surcoat draped over the breastplate, the visor of his helmet hid his face, as he watched as the Traitors column was reduced to a few tatters of resistance as others tried to run.
"Milord, Roose Bolton has fled into the woods," said a mounted knight, as the armored man nodded.
"Just as I thought he would, he would be stupid to follow the herd," he said, and turned to the knight, "Continue finishing off the last of these turncoats. I'm going after Bolton on my own,"
"Milord," the knight said as the man kicked his black stallion into a full run, the man's mission clear.
Hunt down and kill Roose Bolton.
With said person, he was running through the trees, desperately trying to get away from the massacre back on the road, as Roose could still hear the death screams of the men he brought with him. He tuned them out as his main priority was getting out alive.
However, that plan was about a big snag, as the sound of howling reached his ears. Wolf howls.
"Oh fuck..." the Lord of the Dreadfort cursed as he looked around, as the howls soon turned into growls, and soon coming from the mist that had just appeared, eyes glowing with fury, was a pack of gray wolves, all snarling at the Traitor.
The Bolton Lord held his sword as he waited for the fleabags to attack... but for some reason they were not. They just kept still in their spots, glaring and growling at him, daring the Lord of House Bolton to make a sudden move.
A new sound reached his ears as the familiar beating of horse hooves made him look into the direction they were coming from, only to see a figure in armor, on a black stallion stop right in front of him, the animal itself rearing as it neighed. The armor itself was wolf themed, with wolf heads for pauldrons, and what he believed were wolf ears settled on top of the helm. The narrow slit, looking down at him, and as if his mind was playing tricks on him, he saw the armored warriors glow a eerily yellow.
After the war stallion settled itself, the knight dismounted from his horse, drawing a sword from the scabbard mounted on the saddle. The sword that was drawn was a Longsword, with it's most distinguish feature being the brass pommel which was shaped into four snarling wolf heads. However the most shocking part of the sword were the ripples throughout the blade, identifying it as Valyrian Steel.
"You really thought you were going to get away that easily did you?" the man said, snapping Roose out of his shock as he saw the helmet being removed. As soon as it was off, Roose could now clearly see the features of the knight before him. He looked to be at least in his late thirties, with his face being battle hardened with a few scars. But the most interesting feature was the ashen white hair, making him almost mistake for a Targaryen if not for the wolf-like yellow eyes. Roose took notice that the knight was taller than him by a few inches, and his build was lean, but muscular.
The traitor then decided to speak.
"Who in the seven hells are you?" he demanded, and the man raised his sword and aimed it at the Head of House Bolton.
"Your punishment, traitor," the man said, his voice hard as cold steel. He then turned to the pack of wolves surrounding them. "Don't interfere. Keep him from leaving, but don't attack unless I order it,"
Roose was surprised as he saw the wolves, all took a calm but alert posture, their eyes still glaring into his. Without warning the knight charged forward fast, even with the armor, and delivered a low strike making Roose use a low guard to protect himself, deflecting the sword away. The knight immediately attacked again as he swung his Valyrian blade in a high strike.
The Lord of the Dreadfort, barely had enough time to block the strike, before a kick sent him backwards sprawling on the ground.
"Get up, Warden of the North...," the knight said mockingly, "...Get up, and take your death like a real man of the North should!"
Roose managed to get himself back up, thrusting his sword at the man's gut, while the man countered by deflecting the thrust away from him, while using only one hand, and then pulled the Bolton into a headbutt making the man fall back on the ground, this time the traitor holding his head to ease the pain of the sudden attack.
"You may be a good interrogator, Bolton," the knight drawled, "But as a warrior, you're sorely lacking in skill."
Roose immediately took offense to that as he got himself back on his feet and began swinging his sword at the knight, who just blocked and deflected every one. The duel continued, until a small audience other than the wolves appeared, as a few of the soldiers who attacked the column stood around and watched the fight, all of them having smirking, or neutral expressions on their faces.
Soon, with Roose's sword looking like it was about to break any minute, and after dealing a few cuts to the Lord of House Bolton, the knight gave one last swing that both broke the sword, and sending it out of the traitor's hand. However, the white haired knight then delivered a downward slash that removed the traitor's arm from the elbow down.
With blood spraying from the severed limb, the conspirator of the Red Wedding went down on his knees, placing his hand on the stump, in an attempt to stop the blood flow. He then looked and glared as the whit knight, gave him a emotionless expression that showed neither anger or joy in seeing the condition that the traitor was in.
"This could've been avoided if you hadn't betrayed Robb Stark, and helped the Freys in massacring our Northern brothers at the Twins," the man said, "But thanks to your greed, your jealousy, and your lust for power, the North will now lose not only one, but TWO great houses, as your House is now forever cursed for breaking Guest Rights, and will suffer the consequences for it,"
Roose only growled as he drew his flaying knife and attempted to stand up and shove his favorite weapon into this obvious Stark Loyalist's throat, only for his remaining hand to be sliced off as well, and the man pushed him back on his knees, and gripped his longsword in both hands.
"I, Balian, of the Order of the Direwolf, first of that name, in the name of Robb Stark, first of his name of House Stark, the King of the North, do I hereby sentence you, Roose Bolton of House Bolton, and all of your wretched house...to death,"
With a single swipe of the longsword, the head of Roose Bolton was removed from his shoulders, and sent toward the ring of wolves. The said animals then let out loud howls, and the man giving a loud roar of victory knowing that justice was served.
(End OST Withcer 3: The Trail)
The knight, Balian, said as he wiped the Bolton's blood off his sword with a rag, and then sheathed it, before turning to a soldier with a spear and signaling to him to bring it over, the soldier obeyed and walked over and handed the weapon to him.
Balian then walked over to the head and grabbed by the hair, before taking the severed appendage and slamming it on the point of the spear.
Raising it up, the men only roared louder and louder, and soon chants of 'White Wolf!' were shouted as the Northmen saluted their Lord Commander, as he rose the mounted head high.
Balian remained silent though, knowing that this was not the end, not by a long shot. There were still the Freys, the Lannisters, and all who are allied or who support them, to deal with. And the rumors of the Others return from the Wall, growing more and more with each day.
'This is only the beginning. Winter is soon upon us, and there are many that must be brought to justice,'
Patriot-112: FOR THE KING OF THE NORTH! That felt good. I hope I got some things right, this is my first GoT fanfics, and I hope there are those of Stark fans who loved Bolton getting his much overdue reckoning.
As for my OC, he is known only as Balian the White Wolf, for having ashen white hair, and wolf-like eyes, and is a member of my Northern Order of Knights, the Order of the Direwolf, founded secretly by Torrhen, the last king of the North. They are loyal to the Starks, and have mostly kept their activities hidden until the Red Wedding.
Moving on, there are two rules to the challenge: 1.) Make your own Northern Knight Order. 2.) Vengeance on those who orchestrated the Red Wedding (Boltons, Freys, and Lannisters).
Until then my friends. See ya later.