Hey I'm back with another chapter of Empire of Winter. Again I do not own a song of Ice and Fire, that honor belongs to George R. R. Martin
Expansion and The Andals
During the age of of Magorn Stark's Great-grandson, Donnor Stark came to the Winter Throne. He was called the Beast by friend and foe alike for three reasons during his lifetime. The first reason was that he was born a Warg, the first Stark king to be a Warg in fact. It was also Donnor who built the Wolf Pen in Winterfell. This was the second reason he was called the Beast as within the Wolf Pen dwelt the new pride of House Stark, a large pack of Direwolves. Capable of holding over fifty of the great beasts, they were to be used not only as the literal guard dogs of Winterfell, but the friends and companions of the Starks. Donnor's own personnal Direwolf was a massive black beast with feral orange eyes named Skagos, the Old Tongue's word for stone. The third and final reason was King Donnor's founding of the Order of the Beastmen. This Order was made up exclusively of Wargs loyal to the Winter Throne. They were the eyes and ears of the North, some of the greatest trackers in the world, and men and women of unquestionable loyalty. They were the King's scouts on the battlefield and his living war machines.
It was also during this time that Donnor began making plans to conquer the Iron Islands and end their constant harrying of the Stony Shore. With the castle of House Frostfangs, the descendants of the King Beyond the Wall Magorn, the great citadel of Wavecrest, as his base of operations, King Donnor planned in meticulous detail the invasion and conquest of the Iron Islands. He knew he wouldn't be able to bring many mammoths with him, but he had tens of thousands of Wargs and foot soldiers as well as hundreds of Giants.
The plan called for 30,000 men-at-arms, spearwives, and Wargs along with 300 giants split in between three man attack forces. The first wave led by Cregan Frostfang would take Blacktyde and turn it into a forward outpost to launch attacks on the rest of the islands. Once Blacktyde had been secured, the Northmen would launch a three pronged invasion.
One force led by Rickard Umber would lead the attack on Old Wyk and Great Wyk while Lyrra Mormont and Wun Dagren would attack Harlaw and Orkmont. And King Donnor himself would lead the assault on Pyke.
Later that year, the Invasion of the Iron Island began. The Northmen smashed the Ironborn on Blacktyde within hours of the first ships landing ashore. As the Ironborn tried to repel the Northern Fleet, the continuously fell into traps and were but on the defensive, courtesy of Northern Wargs and their bird companions who could spot the Ironborn's long boats from miles away. And so the Northern fleets outmaneuvered the Ironborn at every turn, and in a large sea battle off the coast of Oakmont, the Winterland's Western fleet smashed the fabled Iron Fleet to splinters and sent thousands of Ironborn to their Drowned God.
The Smashing off the Iron Fleet had the unforeseen consequences of having Orkmont, SaltCliffe, Old Wyk, and Harlaw to surrender as the Ironborn were no watch for the Giants and superior numbers of the Northern Army. Only Pyke and Great Wyk refused, and the Islands were but to the sword.
After he killed the King of the Iron Islands, Dagmar Greyiron, he took his daughter Asha, his last living child and sole survivor of house Greyiron, as his wife, thus annexing the Iron Islands to the Kingdom of Winter. In his victory Donnor allowed the Iron Islands to continue reaving the lands below the neck, but the Winterlands were off limits. They could also continue their Worship of the Drowned God, but had to plant Weirwoods in their castles for any who might worship the Gods of the Forest.
Having no choice and seeing the terms as better than they could have hoped for, the Ironborn bent the knee, their Independence forever lost to them. With the destruction of the royal family and its sole survivor now Queen of the Winterland and the Isles, House Greyjoy of Pyke were made the Magnars of the Iron Islands and the Sentries of the Sunset Sea. In time, the Greyjoys would become some of the Starks most loyal bannermen, but that was a thing that took centuries to occur.
With the conquest of the Ironborn, the Winterlands settled into an age of entrenchment and exploration. Their navigators became some of the best in the world, many of them born on the Iron Islands or the harsh northern coasts. While their sailors explored the world, the Starks spent most of their time and resources turning the North into an impenetrable fortress. Great Sea Walls bristling with defenses, large trenches filled with spikes, wall with catapults mounted on their towers, stronghold carved from the rock of the land itself became the a common sight along the eastern and western coasts.
On the Iron Islands old mines were turned into underground fortresses, tunnels were carved that would lead a besieged force out of to the rear of the enemy and smash them from the rear. Many new harbors were established, often hidden in secret underground grottos that the Ironborn used as shipyards to build new ships and resupply.
Beyond the Wall a small colony was set up at the peninsula just north of the massive barrier. In time the colony grew to be the city of Hardhome, seat of House Froststark, a cadet branch that formed when a daughter of King Jon Stark led an expedition to increase the Winterlands holding beyond the Wall. Hardhome would become a major trading center in lumber and amber to be sent South and across the sea to Essos.
Another colony was set up by the Mormonts in the Northern half of the Bay of Ice in the shadow of the Frostfangs. The castle that was built there was named Jeor's Fjord and would become and an important fishing and whaling center, as well as a sentry to watch over the Frozen Shore and Lands of Always Winter. The cadet branch that springs from the Mormonts is named House Sentry.
Life would continue like this in the Winterlands for centuries, as roads, villages, and strongholds slowly filled the land. While not as populous as the Reach or rich as the Westerlands, the North became the strongest of the Kingdoms. Their soldiers were born in the harsh snows of the Winterlands or the rocky, unyielding Iron Islands. Born in such places the warriors of the Kingdom of the Winterlands and the Isles were the hardest men in Westeros. This did not even count the Northern Mammoths, their Giants, or the Wargs, which were rare below the neck. The land itself was a fortress that had only been reinforced by the Starks over the ages.
But times were changing, and in the lands of the Vale arrived a new enemy, the men of Andalos, the Andals. In the Vale they exterminate both the native First Men and any Children of the Forest they found. Only a few native First Men houses were allowed to survive the massacre and became intermarried with the invading Andals. Surviving Children of the Forest fled to the one safe place to them at the time, the Winterlands. The King at the time of the Andals arrival offered them sanctuary, and they joined their Northern brethren in the one known city of the Children in Westeros. It was called the Foresthome and was built in the center of the Wolfswood.
Around this time, a house expelled from the Reach came to the North begging for aid, they were House Manderly, a Half Andal House but still they came to the heavily anti-Andal North for salvation. Seeing their pitiful state the King of the Winterlands and the Isles let them in a gave them the City of Whiteharbor, now needing a new Magnar to replace the rebellious Greystarks who sided with the Boltons in their latest Rebellion, and both paid by having all male members killed and their daughters married to loyal Magnars. And so it was that the first Manderly Magnar married the last daughter of House Greystark, and abandoned the gods of the Andals for the Gods of the Forest.
Also they Northmen decided to smash the pirates of the Three Sisters and add the Sistermen to their growing kingdom. In a five month campaign the First Men of the Sisters were brought into the Kingdom of the Winterlands and the Isles. House Sunderland was made Magnars and Wardens of the Bite while House Manderly was made the Shield of Whiteharbor. The Sistermen were also allowed to continue their raiding as long as it was not against subject of the Winter Throne. They were also allowed to continue worshipping the Lady of the Waves and Lord of the Skies, but also had to plant Weirwoods on their islands.
As the Andals spread throughout the South, marrying into or displacing the First Men, or as in the Reach, simply allowed in, killing the Children and burning the weirwoods to please their seven strange and rigid statue gods the Children fled to the North and Foresthome. As more and more Andals came and as the slowly cut out the worship of the Gods of the Forest, the surviving Children decide that to survive they would need the protection of the Starks of Winterfell. And so it was, after centuries of living independently with their tree city and living in harmony with the Northern First Men, the High greenseer of the Children, an ancient being named Wolf Sight came before the King of Winter and Iron, Magnar of Winterfell and the Giants, King Theorn Stark, and pledged the loyalty of the surviving Children to House Stark, kneeling before the King and all but begging him to save his people.
Legend has it that the Stark king rose from his throne and ran to the old greenseer and raised him to his feet saying "Do not beg before old one, there is no need, I swear now by the True Gods of the Earth that as long as my family rules your people will always have a home hear.
And so the New Pact was formed, which named Wolf Sight's family as the new Magnars of the Tree City of Foresthome, and they would later take the name House Wolfsight after the old greenseer's death. Also to further the alliance between the First Men of the North and the Children a unique marriage was proposed, Theron's oldest son, Theon Stark and the Great Granddaughter of Wolf Sight, a beautiful Child of the Forest and young for one of their kind at only a twenty and a hundred named Oak, a young greenseer would be married in the Godswood at Winterfell. It is said that the young Stark's love for his new wife would be what encourage him to seek revenge upon the Andals, and it was revenge he would get.
In thanks for the king's generosity, the Children would teach the North a secret art of metalworking they had learned during the Long Night to help fight the Others. They taught the Northmen how to forge Winteriron, metal infused with the children's magic and blessed before a Heartree and capable of killing an Other or a Wight. They presented the then Prince Theon with the first blade of Winteriron, a two handed great sword as pale as ice and as sharp as a direwolf's fang, the hilt was wrapped in black leather and made of weirwood and had bronze wolves made to be eternally and snarling Theon named the blade Ice, and it would become the family sword of House Stark.
Years later when the Andals led by the Andal warlord Argos Sevenstar attempted to attack the North's eastern Coast, he and his Andals were met with not only the daunting coatal fortifications, but also the army of Northern Warriors, Ironborn Berserkers, Wargs, Giants, Mammoths, and the Wood Hunters of the Children of the Forest. And leading this vast and mighty host was the now King Theon Stark the Hungry Wolf his blade Ice drawn and his Direwolf Beron at his side . Argos and his host of forty thousand Andals were slaughtered in the Battle of the Weeping Water, the only survivors the few ironsmiths, who Theon tortured into revealing the secrets of iron working. The septons who were captured were fed to the Direwolves of the Wolf Pen, the High septon had the "honor" of being fed to Theon's direwolf Beron, the great beast was said to have taken his time killing the unfortunate zealot.
Deciding to pay the Andals back for all the pain the had cause his now beloved wife's people, King Theon led an expedition across the Narrow Sea, and torched the whole coast line of Andalos, destroying over a hundred Andal villages, twenty castles, and seven septs, along with every poet he could find to disrupt the flow of Andals to Westeros. He lined the shores of his kingdom with thousands of Andal heads and became known to the Andals as "The Heathen Wolf" while in the North he was called "Andals Bane."
Upon returning from his raid into Andalos, Theon returned in time to witness the birth of his first child with Oak, and squalling baby boy with all the stark features, brown hair, a long face and gray eyes. But one could see the blood of the Children in the boy, for he had nut brown colored skin and his gray eyes were slitted like those of a cat as were as claws instead of nails. It is said upon seeing his son he went to exhausted wife Oak and kissed her deeply and said "Look at the little miracle the gods have given us my love." The Queen did not respond, for she was too busy crying in joy not only for the birth of their son, but also the return of her husband. The crying baby, half his blood that of men and the other that of the children, was named Cregan. In time the King and Queen would have three daughter, all taking the Stark features from their father, but with the slitted eyes and nut brown skin of their mother. Their names were Maege, Lyanna, and Arya.
In time Cregan would come to the Winter Throne, the squalling baby replaced by a man of average height, but with a keen intellect and great wisdom. He was also a powerful greenseer and Warg and commanded great respect from all of his Magnars. It was he who created the title that would be carried by his later descendants "Guardian of the Winterlands and the Isles, Protector of the Gods of the Forest, Magnar of Winterfell, and King of the First Men, the Giants, and The Children of the Forest."
As he was his mother was one of the Children, Cregan lived to be over a hundred and twenty years old and became known as the Venerable. Seen as the worst kind of abomination in the eyes of the Seven to the Andals, may warlords tried to conquer the North and kill him. Their bones would either line the bottoms of the swamps of the Neck or the waters and Shores of the eastern coast.
And when the age of the Andal invasions came to an end and when the dust settled, the South was run by the Andals and their Statue gods, with their language and writing replacing Old tongue and Runes. But in the North, the blood of the first men remained strong and due to the efforts of Cregan and his successors, the Old tongue and Runes survived South of the Wall. The North would split itself off from the rest of Westeros, Wanting nothing to do with the Andals and the First Men who had turned their backs on not only the gods, but also their own culture.
The North emerged from the Andal Invasions more secure than it had ever been before, with stronger weapons taken from captured Andals and new allies in the form of the Children. The Wintertown of Winterfell evolved into the Wintercity, the beating heart of the North and the jewel of First Men culture.
And so the North Rose.
Hey everyone here's chapter 2 now it was brought to my attention that I messed up on the Timeline for this, but in this story the Andals invade five thousand years before A.L. not six thousand so there. Hope you all enjoy this one and stay tuned for next chapter.