Hey y'all I'm back with a new chapter of Empire of Winter. Now I was conversing with some readers who were kind enough to give me some suggestions. On of the main topics was giving the North Ice Dragons, and I have decided to give them a form of air power, but decided on something new, so no Northern Dragons, but I hope you like the surprise. Disclaimer: I do not own a Song of Ice and Fire that great honor goes to George R.R. Martin.
The Andals Last Grasp and The North Grows
The Andal Crusades
In the centuries following the last wave of Andal incursions into Westeros, the Winterlands and the Isles remained a mystery to the tall Fair Haired warriors of the Faith of the Seven. The fact that an entire nation of heathens refused to embrace the "Light" of the Seven and killed and septon sent North to save their souls enraged the Andals Kings of the South. A summit was called by King Loras Gardner II, who invited the Durrandons, Arryns, Lannisters, and Teagues to the meeting. He proposed a great invasion to snuff out the last remaining remnants of the "Heathen Tree gods and their creatures" referring to the Giants, the Children, and Wargs. He claimed that the First Men of the Winterlands were ignorant children who allowed themselves to be fooled by abominations and to work with beasts. He said that together they could bring all of Westeros under Andal rule, and the rule of the Seven. Eager for glory and the treasure of the North, as well as a few of the Kings being led on by zealotry, the other kings agreed.
This planned Invasion was called The Crusade of the Seven, and its goal was to bring down the Kings of Winter and Iron and end the last bastion of the First Men.
Together the five kings rallied an army of over 1500 banners, with close to two hundred foot soldiers and thirty five thousand Knights. This large force also had a considerable number of Warrior's sons and Poor Fellows, eager to kill the followers of the Gods of the Forest.
The Invasion was a three pronged strike, one directed at the Iron Islands, another at the Sisters and White Harbor, and finally the main assault would be launched on Moat Cailin. King Tyrus Lannister would lead the assault on the Iron Islands supported by the Redwyne Fleet while King Osmund Arryn II would lead the attack on the Sister and the eastern coast of the North. And finally, King Loras, King Davos Durrandon, and King Jonos Teague would attack Moat Cailin. This Andal Coalition would be called the Alliance of Five Kings.
The plan seemed perfect, with no gaps in its strategy and absolutely no way the savage and barbaric Northerners could resist the full might of the Andal South. Such thoughts would be put to rest, in the waters of the Sunset Sea, the Bite, and under the bogs of the Neck.
Unbeknownst to the Alliance of Five Kings, Northern Greenseers had foreseen the invasion, and King Beron Stark III prepared his people for war.
He gave orders to the Greyjoys and the Ironborn to wait for the Lannisters and Redwynes, and the "Send them to your Drowned God and burn their Shores." Magnar Quellon Greyjoy replied "With Pleasure, the Drowned God needs new oarsmen." They were also to wait from reinforcement from the Frostfangs, Mormonts, and Sentries. In the east, He ordered the Manderly, Karstark, and Froststark fleets to converge at Sisterton along with The Sisters Fleet and prepared for the Valemen. In the Neck he gave his good brother Magnar Eddard Reed a simple mission, "Bleed Them."
While this was happening, King Beron and his sons Torrhen and Brandon gathered an army of forty five thousand men, A thousand giants, seven hundred Children wood hunters, three dozen mammoths, and over three thousand wargs.
He sent Torrhen to Pyke with eight thousand men two hundred giants, and five hundred wargs. while Brandon was sent to White Harbor with six thousand men, a dozen mammoths, a hundred Giants and four hundred wargs.
This left king Beron to march to the Moat with thirty one thousand men, seven hundred wood hunters, seven hundred giants, two dozen mammoths with litters of archers mounted on their backs, and over two thousand wargs.
The first battle came in the Bite when the Arryn and Durrandon fleets struck at the combined might of the Winterlands eastern fleet. Leading the Stark forces was Magnara Arya Froststark from her flagship, the She-Wolf. Against her was the incompetent Arryn commander Lord Marcus Corbray, who fell headlong into a deadly trap set by Magnara Arya. Setting her ships in a crescent formation and allowing the Andals to push back the center of her fleet, Arya was able to trap the combined Vale and Stormlands navies in a pincer, before giving the order to the beastman on board to release his hawk and give the signal. Nodding the member of the Order of the Beastmen released his hawk and warged into the bird and found the remaining ships of the fleet a screeched, the signal to move in for the kill. As the Andals tried to flee the trap, the ones able to escape the pincer turned to run into the rest of the eastern Wolf Fleet. Over two hundred Andal warships traveled to the Sisters, less than three dozen escape. This loss would cripple the naval power of the Vale and Stormlands for centuries. Among the dead was Prince Osmund Arryn, the son and heir of King Osmund.
In the West, the Andals were harried by the Ironborn all over the Islands. They drew the invaders into trap after trap, attacked their patrols and under the cover of night. King Tyrus, leading the assault personally, quickly grew impatient and decided to strike at Pyke itself in order to cripple the Ironborn's resolve. He had no idea he was playing right into Prince Torrhen and Magnar Quellon's hands.
When the men of the Reach and Westerlands landed, the were meet by the combined might of ten thousand Ironborn warriors and eight thousand Northmen, along with their two hundred giants and five hundred wargs. With his direwolf Night Fang on his right, and his wife and long time lover Yora Greyjoy on his left, Crown Prince Torrhen Stark ordered his forces to charge. The Giants went first and shattered the Andals frontlines, wielding iron hammers as big as a man and covered in leather armor. Before the disorganized soldiers could recover, a horde of beasts and men fell upon them.
The Battle of Pyke was more like a one sided massacre than anything, the Andals being driven into the sea by the men and Giants of the Winterlands and the Iron Islands.
Many Ironborn grabbed and forced many Andals into the sea, holding them down until the sea and the Drowned God claimed them. In the heat of battle, Princess Yora Stark nee Greyjoy killed Crown Prince Daven Lannister and his younger brother Tommen. Seeing his sons killed, Tyrus made his way to the young woman who by this point was exhausted and wounded. Before he could strike however, King Tyrus was bowled over by Night Fang and came face to face with the cold, gray, slitted cat like eyes of Torrhen Stark.
Standing up, the King of the Rock spat on the ground and growled "So the son of abominations and frog eaters has come to play has he."
Torrhen continued to glare as he replied "Yes my lord father and I are descended from a Child of the Forest, my many times great grandmother Oak is a much more pleasant person than you are my king. And yes my mother was a magnara of Greywater Watch and a gentle woman so please refrain from using such terms to describe my family."
And the glared deepened as the Northern Prince scowled, "But it doesn't matter now, you tried to kill my beautiful Yora, and that is all the reason I need to kill you statue worshipper."
With that the young Prince charge the Lannister king. In a short flurry of blade, the Prince removed King Tyrus's hand, and then his head. With the death of their leader the surviving Westermen and Reachmen ran for their boats and tried to flee, only to fall into the waiting jaws of the Iron Fleet and the Western Wolf Fleet. Over half of the Iron Islands Invasion fleet was lost off the coast of Pyke, the battered remnants running to Lannisport for safety. That night Pyke was witness to a glorious celebration feast as he victorious Ironborn and Northmen gathered their spoils and swapped stories. Magnar Quellon praised his goodson's plan and said that he would be a great king one day.
That night, the Prince returned to he and his wife's bedchambers to find his wife giving him a look he knew all too well.
"You saved my life to day husband," Yora smiled as she steadily approached, "That I did dear wife, do you have something planned for me." The smirk never left Yora's face as she gestured with her finger for Torrhen to come closer. And like any smart man, Prince Torrhen obeyed his wife's orders. Moans and sounds of pleasure were heard from their room for the next few hours before the royal couple fell asleep, wrapped in a tangled mess of limbs and blankets.
It is said that was the night that the couple's first child, the future Queen of Winter and Iron, and the First woman to lay claim to the title,Guardian of the Winterlands and the Isles, Protector of the Gods of the Forest, Magnara of Winterfell, and Queen of the First Men, the Giants, and The Children of the Forest, Lyanna Stark the "Harbinger," was conceived.
In the meantime, as of yet unaware of the disastrous defeats in the east and west, the massive andal army commanded by three kings was making its way through the swamps of the neck. And every step they were harried by crannogmen and wood hunters. Arrows tipped in multiple types of poison, son capable of killing a man in seconds, others that prolonged the pain by days hit the advancing army from the deeps of the trees. Any man who left the road to attempt to track down the enemy vanished into the deadly swamp. Disease hit the army and little relief came as the children and the crannogmen continuously attacked their supply lines.
Crannogmen wargs used serpents to strike and poison enemy commanders and lizard lions to suddenly jump from the marshes, grab a hapless Southerner, a drag them screaming into the brackish waters.
Finally, of the one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers and twenty five thousand knight who began their journey up the neck were reduced to a hundred thousand soldiers and seventeen thousand knights. Among the dead was king Jonos Teague, who had his horse's leg grabbed by a lizard lion, which then pulled the beast and its rider into the waters of the neck, neither ever emerged from those dark and murky waters.
Upon reaching the Moat, the exhausted and superstitious Andals looked on in dread at the warden of the neck. A massive fortress of stone upon a hill that rose above the primordial lands of the Neck. Twenty stone towers lined the fortress, each looking like a formidable castle in its own right. Bristling with scorpions and catapults all aimed at the sole road of the Neck, the legendary Moat Cailin looked to the Andals like something out of a nightmare. And above the battlements hung the Gray Direwolf of House Stark. And taunting the Andals from the tallest tower was King Beron himself, by his side the High Greenseer Bracken Wolfsight.
Chanting in the Old tongue, the Child of the Forest knowingly provoked the fanatical Andals, the greenseers meer presence an insult to them.
Stepping forward, King Loras Gardner approached with the High Septon and seven of the highest ranking members of the Most Devout and spoke to the Stark king,
"King Stark, this will be your only chance to save yourself, your House, and your people. Surrender here to us now and renounce your tree gods, make the Ironborn scum give up their heathous Drowned God, and the Sistermen abandon their ridiculous Lady of the Waves and Lord of the Skies. Convert to the true faith, the Faith of the Seven Who are One. Rid your lands of the monstrosities and abominations that invest it like rats, and the High septon has even agreed to forgive your ancestor Theon the Heretic Wolf for marrying one of the abominations. Also the faith has generously decided to officially bless your marriage to your wife and make your children the legitimate heirs to the North, and the same will go with all your lords. Finally if you burn all the heathen weirwoods within your lands you and all your lords and sons will receive Knighthoods and those unmarried will be given proper ladies as wives, and not your savage spearwives."
When the Stark remained silent the King of the Reach continued, "If you fail to do this, you and every man in all houses sworn to you will be killed and your wives and daughters given to true men who follow the proper gods. I hear your wife Lyra Reed is quite a beauty for a bog devil, it would be a shame for her to have to know a hundred true men to erase the sin of having lain with a heathen."
This was what finally got a reaction out of king Beron who all but snarled at the threat leveled at his wife and mother of his children before he replied. "Come try you Southren flop, many before you have tried, and their bones all lie just beneath you in this marsh. You aren't the first, nor will you be the last army to assault the Moat, but you will be broken upon it like all those who came before, so come statue worshipper, your gods can't help you here, this is the domain of the Gods of the Forest. And here's what I have to say about your Seven while I'm at it."
Then in front of the Horde of religious zealots and fanatics, King Beron Stark spat on the High Septon, thus making no delusions on how he had taken the offer.
In all the righteous fury of a man who had his beliefs literally spat on, King Loras ordered the Southron armies to charge. With a great yell the Andals charged, and were met with the arrows, scorpion bolts, and catapults of the Moat. From the Neck, hundreds of arrows struck the Andals in the sides and rear as the Crannogmen and the Children unleashed their poisoned arrow heads.
As the First Andals reached the curtain wall, Stark archers and Wood Hunters unleashed pots of burning oil and venomous snakes upon them. The narrow causeway limited the number of men the Andal armies could bring to bare, thus nullifying their greater numbers. Seven times the Andals charged, and seven times the were repulsed, leaving more and more men dead. On an eight charge, King Davos Durrandon was hit by a scorpion bolt in the left soldier and had to be dragged from the field. King Loras Gardner tried to rally the surviving Andals, but the final knell for the Andals would come in the form of a howl.
And then gates of the Moat opened, and out charged two dozen mammoths with litters of archers on their back, three hundred giants, and all thirty one thousand men brought by the king. And leading his men with the largest direwolf in possession of House Stark at the time, a great gray beast with green eyes named Fury, with the Winter Iron sword Ice in hand charged the Andals with his army of wargs, Giants, Mammoths, and loyal soldiers behind their king.
The army of Winter cut through the Summer knights of the South and shattered their already battered lines. In the melee, the High Septon was set upon by Fury and torn to pieces. This horribly demoralized the remaining Southron warriors, but the real blow came only moments after word. In the battle, King Beron caught sight of King Loras and charged the Andal leader. The two kings clashed for a short time before it was clear that not only Beron was the better swordsman, but that Ice was a better blade than Loras's steel weapon. Faking a stab to the right, Beron then slashed on the King of the Reach's unprotected left and slashed deep into his chest, killing the Gardner King.
The Death of King Loras shatter whatever will the Southrons had left and the surviving Andals fled. They were harried the entire way by the crannogmen and the children. Of the one hundred and seventy five thousand warriors who entered the Marsh, less than forty thousand would ever see home again.
The Battle would be forever known in the North as The Breaking of the Andals while in the South it was know as the Slaughter at the Moat.
Following the battle Torrhen and his brother Brandon coordinated attacks on Lannisport and Gulltown, sacking and burning both cities of the the Westerlands and the Vale. In the Reach, the Ironborn raided and plundered the Mander, taking many valuables, and Yora's brother Victarion Greyjoy would even claimed two women of House Tyrell and one from House Rowan of Goldengrove as saltwives.
And King Beron marched down from the Moat and torched the northern Riverlands, bringing with his army a Weirwood carried upon a platform, so the eyes of the gods were watching over him and his men. He also used the Weirwood as an execution stand for captured Andal lords, and hung their entrails from its branches, sprinkling their blood on the bone white tree.
Andal might was shattered in all the Southern Kingdoms except Dorne and would take decades to recover from. The North received relatively light casualties and emerged practically unscathed from the Five Kingdoms War as it came to be called.
After just over a year of constant defeat, the Andal kingdoms begged the North for peace. King Beron was happy to accept, but with consequences. The Andal kingdoms all had pay to tribute large amounts of gold and silver as "reparations," the Reach had to surrender the Shield Islands to the Ironborn, the Vale had to give all control of the Shivering Sea and the Bite to the North, the Lannister fleet was limited to thirty warships, and the Stormlands had to surrender thousands of steel weapons.
Wings of the North
The Southern Kingdoms would never again try to attack the North, which would enter its second age of peace and development, until the dragons came.
Following the War of Five Kingdoms, the smiths of the North improved the making of Winter Iron. Before, the metal had been incredibly enhanced Bronze combined with chunks of iron to make it stronger. With Andal iron working now at their command, the smiths of the Winterlands and the Isles created a new Winter Steel. Even lighter and stronger than Winter Iron, these pale blades engraved with runes were matched only by Valyrian Steel, and Winter Steel blades, while rarely found outside the North, even managed to find their way into the hands of some of the Freeholds Dragonlords.
Old Winter Iron blades such as Ice were not rendered obsolete by Winter Steel, but did become less common until only a few remained, almost all within the North.
The years following the Breaking of the Andals were good ones for the North. Deciding to unite both coasts to increase the movement of his fleets and Northern trade, King Beron Stark ordered the construction of the Winter Channel, a great channel going from the White Knife to Blazewater Bay. With the aid of the Giants and Mammoths, construction of the great canal took only fifteen years. The increase in trade from Northern Essos proved beneficial to the North, put surprisingly did not cause many problems with Dorne which became a center of trade with Southern Essos. A sort of unspoken arrangement arises between the two regions, the Dornish control the warm waters of the South and the Northmen rule the cold waves of the North.
Upon his death, King Beron was succeeded by his oldest son Torrhen, who would become King Torrhen Stark I, also know as "The Lionslayer" for killing King Tyrus during the War. It was during his reign however that the Starks would discover something that would forever change history.
Beyond the Wall, House Froststark had been slowly but surely been colonizing the land. At the mouth of the Antler River rose the keep of Stoneantler, the new home of House Mudd whose survivors had fled North centuries ago. In the Haunted forest to the south of the Antler, situated near the easternmost river that emptied out of the Gorge, was the fortress of Garon, seat of House Cromon, a Giant household. While setting off from the port of Garon explore the Frostfangs with House Sentry, Magnara Barbery Froststark and her company settled into the mountains for the night.
As they were building camp, they heard a loud screech and looked up at the sky to see something none of them would ever forget, locked in combat in the darkening sky were two creatures with fur white as snow, and feathers of a dark blue. Above the company two Frost Gryphons, creatures thought to be mere myths, fought each other.
One seemed to be trying to enter a cave, but each attempt was blocked by the defending gryphon. Finally the attacking gryphon was driven off, but the defender crashed to the ground, its wounds taking a terrible toll.
Ignoring the cries of her guards, Barbery rushed to the downed creature. The creature was larger than a horse by about a third the size, armed with a razor sharp beak, claws that could rip the young woman to shreds if the mood struck the creature, and finally a majestic pair of wings fit for any eagle attached to the creature's shoulders. As she cautiously approached the gryphon, the great beast moaning in agony, she heard the high pitched chirps coming from the , she saw four little gyphons no bigger than small dogs standing at the foot of the cave chirping at the downed gryphon.
It was quite clear now that the brave she-gryphon had only been protecting her hatchlings, and had made the ultimate sacrifice for them. As the mother began to slowly fade her eyes meet Barbery's and in that moment, the young woman swore to the mother her children would be protected. The great beast died, and Barbery had her companions gather the small gryphons before having to return to Garon.
News spread through the North like wildfire and King Torrhen authorized expeditions into the Frostfangs to track down more gryphons, and within three years, over two hundred gryphons of various ages were caught and brought to Garon. Having wargs meld with the older,more independent gryphons and having others raise the still impressionable hatchlings, a new order was born in the North, The Gryphon Riders and their first Wind Commander was Magnara Barbery Froststark and her Gryphon Ice Beak.
They were to be a new force of order in the North, and a countermeasure should the Dragonlords ever turn their gaze to the North. They would later have a keep built in the Frostfangs south of the Fist of the First Men called the Gryphon's Perch. The men and women of the Gryphon Riders could come from anywhere in the Kingdom of the Winterlands and the Isles. Warriors armed with Winter Steel blades and bows of weirwood, they maintained outposts all over the North and even a few on the Isles. In time, through the capture of more wild gryphons and successful breeding, the number of Gryphon Riders would shoot up to close to a thousand airborne warriors. The Nights Watch were given three hundred gryphons, their sacred mission of holding the Wall against the Others still remembered due to the presence of the Children, who never allowed the men of the Watch to forget what they guarded the world of men from.
With the passing of King Torrhen, a debate rage throughout the North about succession as the king died with five daughter, whom he loved deeply, but with no sons. Many thought his oldest Lyanna should inherit the throne, supported by her mother, her uncles Magnar Victarion Greyjoy and Prince Brandon Stark. The reason for the debate did not stem from the idea of women being unable to lead, thousands of years of spearwife tradition had long expelled that from the North, but that no woman had ever inherited the Winter Throne before.
However Princess Lyanna was very popular with Magnar and smallfolk alike and any dissenters quickly came into line. And so crowned by High Greenseer Bracken Wolfsight with the Crown of Winter, the ancient crown of Bronze and Iron, the young princess became Queen Lyanna Stark I.
The new Queen of Winter and Iron, the spitting image of her mother with the Stark brown hair and gray, slitted eyes, ascended to a secure and powerful North. An intelligent and clever woman, Lyanna was also deeply devoted to the Gods of the Forest, but never tried to convert any of her subjects claiming "A person must follow their own beliefs, and any beliefs forced on a person who later claims to accept them can only be false words to stay the sword of execution."
This was thought to originate from her hatred of Andal zealotry and large scale murder of the Children and Southern First Men in the Andal Invasions. Looking south thought, she found herself concerned by the religious orders of the Warrior's Sons and the Poor Fellows, fanatics who tore apart any not bowing to their gods. Realizing that to counter such fanatics, she needed men similar to the religious orders, men to counter the crazed zealots with their own brand of Northern zeal.
And so in the third year of her reign, Queen Lyanna allowed for the creation of the Harbingers of the Forest. Men and women who wore mail and leather armor, wielded one-handed warhammers and shields and donned masks of Weirwood with red tears painted on them to signify the tears of the slain First Men, Children, and Giants butchered by the Andals. The first High Commander of the Harbingers was the giant Magorn Dagren, a being of sixteen feet and whose hammer was larger than a man. They were blessed by the High Greenseer Bracken Wolfsight in the sight of their new fortress south of Winterfell, Harbinger Hold, in the sight of the new Weirwood planted there.
In time the title Harbinger would come to be given to men who had served in the order and would become the Winterlands equivalent to Knighthood.
She also gave leave for the Ironborn and Sistermen to create their own orders as well, and so rose the Drowned God's Chosen among the Ironborn and the Guardians of the Lady among the Sistermen.
There were put rules on how these orders were to act however, they were not permitted raise their hands against those of the same religion they professed to defend, they could kill children were to be protectors and lawmen in times of peace.
The creation of these holy orders enraged the south, with the High Septon declaring them heathen orders and false, but the people of the Winterlands and the Isles must not have paid much heed to the High Septon words as they men and women of the Northern orders became revered among their people.
The reign of Queen Lyanna the Harbinger was long and prosperous for the Winterlands. Her King consort was Magnar Jeor Umber and together they had a daughter and two sons their names Alysanne, Torrhen, and Eddard. During her reign, Lyanna decided to mimic the Rhoynar, and now Dornish custom of the oldest child, whether male or female inherits the title. The Kingdom of Winter and Iron had a long tradition of warrior women who led men into battle and ruled as Magnaras in their own right, so the law did not cause as much of a stir as one might expect.
Upon her death her daughter was crowned as Queen Alysanne, and the North would continue to prosper.
But upon the Horizon, the flap of dragon wings could faintly be heard upon the wind.
And so the First Men Rose.
Hey y'all decided to give ya a long one this time, were closing in on main timeline, and I hope you're excited. Some of you can probably tell I borrowed the idea of the Harbingers from the total war mod King of Rivers and Hill, always loved looking at those guys they were awesome.
Also making the North more like Dorne in that early Wildling influence about women being able to fight alongside men changed them into being more open minded about that sort of thing so this is kind of a natural evolution of that.
Any suggestions, I would love to hear them.
This is Shadowwolf1997, until next time.