Rise of Silverpine chapter 13

I do now own Warcraft or A song of Ice and Fire

Sansa strode in with a purpose, entering one of the houses inside Gilneas city. She had just arrived within the city with what little troops there were in Northrend, only to find what her sister had managed to do. On the brighter side of things, many of the men that were supposed to attack Icecrown yet were unable duo to simply how many people there were opted to come with the Silverpine queen when the news spread of the Forsaken's attack. As many as fifteen hundred arrived with the red-head, the tiny dock in Pyrewood barely been able to process everyone. Night elves, dwarves, humans. People from all allied state came. And the best part- they were experienced and well-armored.

Pushing the doors open, an uncharacteristic glare on her features found her sister.

"One time! One time I let you take care of something different from outright combat and we suddenly double our size! Do you know how many more people we have to take care off now?!" nearly shouted Sansa, meeting the flat gaze of her silver-eyed sister.

"Twenty times as much, Arya! Six hundred thousand people are now dependent on us because of your foolishness!" continued the flame-haired sister.

"Will you stop overdramatizing everything." Mumbled Arya as she ignored her sister, looking over some map of the southern regions.

"Overdramatizing? We have no means to feed them, to defend them! Between the two of us we can barely manage Silverpine and now this?" shouted Sansa before taking her head in her hands, collapsing onto a nearby chair, rubbing her forehead.

"Didn't you yourself said that we produce a good excess of food in Hillsbrad? With how little the people here have to eat in the first place, we would be improving their conditions!" now shouted Arya. "And none of this is my fault to begin with!"

"Ok, they eat better this year. Good. After that?" asked Sansa, looking at her sister.

"Refugees are still going pass the wall. We simply direct them to Hillsbrad and have them start up more farms!" returned Arya.

"We cannot just force people to move and be farmers!"

"We are not forcing them anything! They are already there and need work to make a living!"

"Very well then. Let's say your plan work. How do you plan to retake Gilneas? We have only around seven thousand men and that is counting the volunteers that came from Northrend. The Gilnean militia is poorly armed and unorganized, even if they have numbers."

"Leave that to me." Said Arya, her eyes returning to the map laid out infront of her.

"Cavalry units are already hunting the Forsaken raiders in the northern parts and Lorna already showed me her father's arsenal. With it, Tempest's reach would easily fall." She said, tracing her finger along the southern end of the Gilnean peninsula.

"My ravens see nothing in Greymane manor…but…"

"But what?" asked Sansa, seeing the hesitation in her sister's voice, the red-haired queen having calmed down somewhat.

"They were filling their ships with bodies. Stormglen is emptied!"

"They are filling their ships? Are they just going to pick up and leave? After everything? Something doesn't make sense here." Said Sansa, rising from her chair and coming to look at the map. Seeing her sister's gaze focused on a single point, she could not help but ask.

"What is it, Arya? Why are you so focused on this…Blackwald?"

"It has been three days and the scouts I sent there are yet to return." Answered somberly the younger queen.

"Scouts have gone missing in enemy territory, that is not something to be surprised about." Noted the elder one.

"It is not just scouts! Even my ravens disappear there!" raised her voice Arya, silencing her sister.

They remained silent like that for a while before Arya rose and headed for the door, Sansa silently following. As they exited, the two guards at the door bowed to them, the many people milling around the square stopping and simply staring. Rugged and disheveled as they come, even the more wealthy citizens, all of them stared at the two queen with hope in their eyes.

"So what do you plan?" asked Sansa as the two of them slowly walked amongst the people, everyone around them bowing.

"Elida will take a third of the army and block the path through the marshes to the south-west while the rest march on Tempest's reach down the east road. Ghost and the others should already be bombarding the fortress."

"And after that?"

"We take back Stormglen."

"That is your plan?" asked skeptically Sansa.

"I saw only twenty ships. At worse, that is three thousand undead." Clarified Arya.

"And those three thousand managed to break Gilneas's army. You cannot just blindly rush at them."

"And do you have a better idea?" asked the irritated queen.

"Wait for our fleet to destroy their ships. With both the Kul Tiras and the ones that came with me from Northrend, there should be a total of at least fifty vessels. Then bombard Stormglen. For days if you have to! I can even call a firestorm!" by now, Arya had stopped walking and was actually listening to her sister for a change. The petite girl had absolutely forgotten about the navy aspect of the upcoming battle.

"Can you do it? The firestorm, I mean?" asked Arya, her eyes narrowed.

"I… I am not sure. Fire is not my thing, but I think I can."

"We have ten bombards anyway. Let's put them to good use." Said Arya, walking off, leaving her sister behind.

Sansa was honestly stunned and even horrified when she learned that they now controlled Gilneas, the poor girl nearly fainting on the dock in Pyrewood. Just when things were starting to smooth out in the last year or so, this happened. When relationships were smoothing out and projects were just about to finish, the kingdom's organization suddenly took a turn for the worse. Sansa was sure that there were many that would be cheering at their kingdom doubling and sizes and increasing over twenty times in population, but all she saw was more spending and more sleepless nights over letters. Not only now the kingdom had an even larger southern border it had to maintain, it now possessed an even closer point to Orgrimmar, the very capitol of the Horde. Previously, there was only this tiny point where the Pyrewood dock was located on the western border, all else been impassible mountains. Yet now there was an entire bay opened to the west. A bay wide enough for an entire fleet to sail all the way up to Gilneas city, the waterfront been barely two kilometers away from the western city bridge.

In the end, Tempest's reach was captured without a single shot ringing out while Stormglen was burned to the ground by the Forsaken themselves. The undead picked up and left even before the fleet coming from the south could reach the Gilnean peninsula. The ships coming from the north ran into the retreating Forsaken, Greywind scoring her first kill, sinking one ship and severely crippling another while on a whole only three Forsaken ships were sunk to zero losses on the side of the Alliance. It was concluded soon after that from the very start, the Forsaken were looking for something specific if the massive digging done in the Blackwald was any indication.

With Gilneas officially undead free, Arya took the army and marched it into Hillsbrad, dismissing three of the five thousand as there was no imminent threat while the many heroes of Northrend returned to their homes. It was Sansa that was left, dealing with the aftermath.

Many of the Gilneas that went into Silverpine still feared for their lives and opted to remain further inland, most choosing to settle around the newly-built capitol, a small town beginning to form. An estimate of as many as forty thousand refugees were calculated to have left Gilneas and settled into other areas of Silverpine, leaving many of the coastal villages and above all, Stormglen, empty.

Thankfully, with people refusing to return to their homes, little to no repairs had to be made. In most cases villages were entirely deconstructed for their materials while in the case of Stormglen, only what was left intact after the fire was collected. Tempest's reach was turned into a permanent garrison, the costal fortification overlooking the smoking ruins of Stormglen and above all, the only place outside Gilneas bay where troops can land.

Most inland destruction was caused by the earthquake itself. There was a major focus on infrastructure, bridges been the main target on the reconstruction efford. The wall itself was left as it was, only the gate itself seeing any work and that was because of the danger of it collapsing upon the road at any given moment. Greymane manor was eventually reached only for a truly sorrowful picture to be revealed.

Everything was stripped to the fullest, not even the paintings were left. Sansa considered turning the manor into some form of fortress, but with the road to Duskhaven having long collapsed, the old home of the Greymanes held no strategical significance. No ship would sail close for despite the town having sunken beneath the waves, it was still close to the surface, some buildings even poking out still. In the end, the queen decided that it would become a summer retreat of a sort, but only to be properly restored when the kingdom had funds in excess, not before.

Three months have passed since Gilneas officially became part of Silverpine and Sansa was yet to leave the new territories, helping the tired population in any way that she could. Her personal approach to everything won her many sympathies for there was no village that she did not visit. Carts of food rolled in every day from Hillsbrad, the quantities not that great, but still noticeable enough for everyone to have his or her share of it. Lord Crowley, a much more familiar figure to the Gilneans set to reforming a new army under the banner of the Starks, his experience from Northrend and fighting against the undead coming into play. Some of the more prideful Gilneans placed the reason for their initial defeat exactly at their unknown enemy and the ways that he fought.

Of course, there were countless problems that the girl ran into. Unlike Silverpine, where almost the entire population lived in villages, here there was a clear separation between poor and rich and while not lords, a lot of the more well-off citizens grumbled at all the help given to the people. Some even asked to be named lords, seeing as no nobility was left within the land. Instead Sansa applied the same system of Lord-mayors to govern the villages and towns, what few fortresses existed were turned into garrisons. Needless to say, few of the richer citizens were elected to be leaders.

Sansa got even larger of a migraine when Danath named the two girls his heirs, meaning that the moment the Trollbane line ended, the kingdom would receive another massive expansion in both territory and populations, seeing as hundreds of thousands have returned from the south to Arathi after its liberation. Both queens did not like the way they expanded, effectively building their kingdom upon the death of great families.

Sansa and Arya were both on a terrace in the main keep of the new capitol, the massive fortress having been completed a month prior. They both looked down upon the town that rose around the road between Pyrewood and Hillsbrad, what can only be described as a massive camp with hundreds of fires alit in the tight ravine as houses slowly rose from the ground. The moment the fortress was completed, the queens paid the dwarven engineers to assists the refugees in building a new home, although with the houses been constructed out of wood instead of the stone that the dwarves were used to, the process was slow.

There was a strong feeling of greatness, both from the sheer size of the new fortress, the castle rivaling Winterfell and the town that rose down below, been easily larger than Pyrewood despite been made entirely out of refugees. Additionally, instead of the five thousand that the kingdom could previously field, as many as sixty thousand were suddenly under the wolf banner with a weapon in their hands. People still continued to leave Gilneas, the prospect of been one of the first settlers in the new capitol or the inviting fertile lands of Hillsbrad been too much to pass up for some.

Despite all this, the two queens minds were somewhere else.

A week after the Forsaken left Gilneas did the other Alliance leaders arrive there. Amongst other things, Arya's talk of a strange longboat after the battle of the span was brought up by Jaina of all people. In the end, after a much thorough description by both queens of what such a ship meant for them, it was decided that a ship would be sent in the opposite direction that the boat was seen moving or simply put – to the east, way pass the narrow channel and all the known world.

And now, three months after that meeting in Gilneas, a month after the ship set off from Menethil Harbor, the vessel had returned having reached land, having reached a port.

Lannisport.

It iz here!

Sansa finally showing some emotion other than worry and uncertainty. Someone brought the numbers up and in rough calculation, given that we only have the numbers for Gilneas city, which are 100 000, we are looking at absolute tops for Gilneas of 750 000. Put the famine and recent costal devastation and we are down to 600 000 since the main population would be around the capitol and in the more fertile lands aka in the northern area.

Once again, GoT territory is here and starting next chapter. From now on, there will be less time skips like there have been up to now. I did them mainly to progress the plot as fast as possible to where Game of Thrones comes into play.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed my crazy writing.

Thank you for reading.