Land of the King

Chapter 76: As High as Honor

The army numbered almost seven thousand, Artys Arryn counted through the far eye. Seven thousand invading troops that had come to take Strongsong and end their rebellion in the bud. They very well could, he knew. For all the prestige his taking of Strongsong had brought him, it had not been enough for all the forces opposing the Unionists and their Arnorian masters to fully rally to him, with many either fighting on their own, or choosing neutrality over a fight they could not see themselves winning.

He needed to prove them otherwise. And it would be here, he knew, that his rule would either begin in earnest, or end before it even began. If he could secure a victory here, he would be established as the ruler of the Valemen still fighting for freedom. And with winter believed to be coming within the year, he'd have time until the spring to solidify control and wait for the inevitable Arnorian response. If he lost though… there were few fortresses in the northern Vale that could hold against an Arnorian army like Strongsong could.

Said army was marching in the valley below, along one of the few roads that led from the Eyrie straight to Strongsong. They had been aware of their advance for weeks now, informed by their own scouts and by sympathizers from local villages.

The Unionist army had an Arnorian vanguard he noted, but he also espied familiar banners of many southern Vale houses which had declared for his cousin. This army, was mostly Valemen he realized, and his heart broke a little. To kill the Arnorian invaders was one thing, but his own countrymen? No matter that they were traitors who had sold out to Arnor, it was a bitter fruit indeed.

He shook his head. For the Vale, for a kingdom free of Arnorian domination, he would sacrifice anything. Steeling himself for what had to be done, he turned his thoughts back to the army that threatened him.

The road was an obvious place for an ambush, something that the Unionist army was aware of, their flanks were well protected, and the Unionists had already fought off several of their attempts to ambush them, they were alert, and ready for a fight.

However, that had been only the preparations for the battle. Looking below, he saw that the decisive battle had started, as the barricade they had set up to block the road came under attack from the Arnorian vanguard. Even from this distance, he could hear the dying screams of men, a sound that seemed to come straight from the Seven Hells.

Through the far eye, he saw as bloody melee began as Unionists helped each over the barricade, incurring heavy losses in the process however. And yet, even if any and all advances were paid by the enemy in blood, the elite soldiers of Arnor could not be underestimated. They continued pushing, and soon the barricade was overrun, Arnorian swords cutting through his infantry as they leveled the odds between the Unionist army and his holding force.

He knew that if the battle were to continue like this, very soon, the Arnorians alone would completely overwhelm and rout his force, to say nothing of the Unionist Valemen behind them. In that very moment however, from the other side of the valley, a great roar was heard, as the bulk of his forces on foot attacked downhill towards the rear of the Unionist lines.

He wasn't sure if it was a Unionist Vale lord or an Arnorian captain who held command, but whoever it was, he had been wise enough to expect his attack. Within minutes, the Unionists got into formation facing the threat to their rear. Even so, he saw that while they had formed a solid line, the attack had still shaken it.

Shaken, but not broken, he saw as the melee began there as well. If the armies had been in any way equivalent, he knew that the momentum of his forces could have been enough to fight their way through the enemy then. But his forces were both of lesser quality, and outnumbered, even if slightly.

Combined, those two element meant that as the battle descended into a melee both in the front and on the side, the Unionists brought the advance of his troops to a standstill, and soon, as their whole army began to focus on pushing his forces back, his men began to buckle under the momentum.

It was the moment he was waiting for however. As he spied the enemy cavalry being engaged in brutal melee in the front, he knew the time had come. With him were over five hundred heavy cavalry, the best of his army, most of them survivors of the Battle Under the Mountain, as the battle that had claimed his father had become known. At his order, the horn sounded, and his knights charged down the mountain, himself at the head of the formation.

It was unlike anything he had ever felt, a strange feeling of weightlessness and elation as some primordial instinct took over as his horse carried him to the now exposed flank of the Unionists. Before he realized it, both he and the men following him went through the Unionist lines, like a knife through butter. Their enemy quickly buckled, not ready to meet their charge. And as he sent his lance through two enemies before losing it and resorting to hacking his way with a sword, he saw that some of the Unionists were fleeing. Those few began to become more and more and more, as the Unionist army, squeezed from three sides began to lose heart and rout.


"Are you sure this is wise?" Arahad asked after they sealed the agreement with the Clansmen and their chiefs begrudgingly kneeled to Alyssa and swore fealty.

Their attempts to retake Strongsong before Artys could solidify his cause had failed. All of their armies sent into the northern Vale had been crippled, the rebels knowing the terrain far better than the Arnorians and Unionists did. Most recently, a joint army numbering some seven thousand under the command of Lord Waxley and one of Arahad's captains had come within twenty leagues of Strongsong before Artys had crushed it, winning himself even more support.

That defeat in particular had cemented Alyssa's decision. In the past few weeks, emissaries had been sent into the mountains looking for the Vale Mountain Clans. Many had not returned, having been lost to the treacherous terrain. Those that had returned however had managed to convince the clan leaders to meet with Alyssa with their safety guaranteed by Arahad personally.

The mountain clans hated the Andal Valemen, but for some reason they respected Arnor, perhaps due to the support Arnor had once given to them before the Concordat of Stars. Arnorian attempts at mediation between the two sides since had been partially successful but the Clans had always refused to kneel to the Arryns so long as they were not granted fertile lands, lands that now happened to be available with so many rebel lords stripped of their territories.

"Perhaps, perhaps not," Alyssa said, ensuring they were out of earshot of the clansmen. "But we need the Mountain Men to lead us safely to Strongsong, they know the mountains better than any of us. And if they break their word and return to their savage ways, they will have already placed themselves in the lowlands, at my mercy."

Arahad frowned, though he hid it from Alyssa. Her ruthlessness was beginning to remind him of his grandfather and he did not like that all. If his wife continued to embrace such ruthless tactics, how much longer could she claim to be following the words of her house? And could he really blame her for forsaking them?


Rylan was an ordinary farmer. He had simple desires in life. Get a nice lass to settle down with on his family's farm, maybe some boys and girls, and just live out his life. He was a good man. Paid his taxes to his lord, gave his tithe to the local sept and prayed to the Seven.

All of this nasty business with the civil war didn't concern him and thankfully he had yet to be called up as a levy in his lord's army. Rylan sympathized with the Queen, he really did. Seven knows what happened to the old king and his family was horrid and despicable.

At the same time however, Rylan was not pleased with the idea that Arnor would now control the Vale through Queen Alyssa. Everyone knew that she was married to the Arnorian Crown Prince and so any child they had would be eligible to inherit both kingdoms, effectively ending the Vale's independence.

Not that this would happen in Rylan's lifetime of course. All them nobles and the Arnorians were very long-lived. If he remembered correctly, the Queen herself was forty years old and still considered young! Forty! Why at forty Rylan would be halfway to being an old man himself!

Rylan did not mind nor begrudge Princess Alyssa her right to the throne nor her vengeance for her family. Seven knew if anything like that happened to his parents or siblings, he'd run through the man who did it with his scythe. Yet some of the rumours were unsettling. Some said she hadn't cried when she learned her family died. Others said she was ruthless and cruel. Apparently she had also allied with the clansmen and given them lands in the fertile lowlands. Savage barbarous clansmen sitting on land next to good loyal Andals! What woman did that? What person?

Rylan's village was quite split. Some had spoken up in support of the Queen, others for the rebels. Rylan himself wondered how anyone could support Artys, son of a kinslayer, yet at times he wondered how true the Queen's claims that her uncle had murdered her father and brothers were. Especially it was the same queen who was said to have done many unsettling thins.

Rylan himself was content to stay in their sleepy little village in the mountains so long as no one bothered them. He did not want some outsiders telling the Vale what to do. They were a free and independent kingdom. Arnor was their ally, not their lord. Even then several who had grown up on the stories of the Dragon War wondered how good of an ally Arnor was when it dragged the Vale into wars like that. Of course one might argue that if not for Arnor, they would all be Valyrian slaves.

Unfortunately, today was not looking to be another sleepy uneventful day as a platoon of soldiers rode into the village on horseback. Rylan frowned at the soldiers. Not only was he not very pleased to see soldiers in the village during this time, the horses they rode were definitely not the right kind for the mountainous terrain of the region.

Rylan's father, well respected among the village, went to meet the soldiers.

"Greetings Sirs. Might I inquire what you are all doing here?"

"We have reports of rebels in the region. We have been ordered to hunt down these rebels by Her Majesty."

"And why would such a task bring you here? There are no rebels in this village."

"We'll be the judge of that. Our scouts have given us reason to suspect this village among many in the region may be sheltering rebels or spying for them. We are here to search this village for any hints of treason."

None of the villagers, including Rylan, were pleased at that idea. These were their homes and possessions and they were to let these rowdy soldiers ransack them in search of imaginary traitors?

Rylan's father continued to protest, "Sir, I must protest. All of us are loyal to our lord and our queen. We have no reason to betray Her Majesty."

The captain of the soldiers did not relent, "That may or may not be so, but I have orders and we have definitive evidence the rebels are operating in the area. Our platoons keep coming under attack, even on isolated routes. Step aside citizen, now."

His father grudgingly stepped aside and the villagers reluctantly opened their doors or were made to forcefully, for the soldiers to search through everything, rummaging in all their possessions and items. Rylan's own family's house was not exempted and he could have sworn that several of the more miscellaneous and valuable possessions they had had that morning were damaged or missing after the soldiers went through their house.

Just as he thought the trouble was over, Rylan noticed his friend Allan being hauled around by two soldiers.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing to my friend!"

"Stand down citizen, this has nothing to do with you."

"Seven Hells it ain't got nothing to do with me! You can't just come here and take away good upstanding people!"

"Except he isn't. We have evidence of suspicious items in his house and so he'll be coming with us for questioning. If he's innocent, we'll return him right back to you."

The unspoken suggestion of what would happen if he was guilty hovered in the air. Rylan froze when he remembered that Allan had been keeping a journal of his observations of the countryside whenever he trekked to the nearby villages to trade goods. Observations that might have easily contained the movements of the Queen's armies. He kept silent then, not wishing to endanger himself.

The soldiers mounted back up on their horses and took Allan away. None of them ever saw him again. Rylan shuddered to think of what might have happened to his friend, innocent or not.

After Allan was taken away, things went from bad to worse. More villagers started being taken away for questioning. Some returned telling of harsh treatment and interrogation. Others never returned at all. All the while the soldiers began treating the villages with a heavier and heavier hand as more and more of their convoys came under attack. Word also spread from other villages of similar harsh treatments and resentment began to brew. Complaints to the Queen in Gulltown went unanswered and Rylan felt his previous sympathy and goodwill to her evaporating.

The breaking point finally came around a month and a half after Allan had been taken away. The smug captain and his platoon rode into the village as per usual and Rylan had to resist the urge to stride forward and punch him in his arrogant face.

"I regret to inform all of you, that in light of the recent raids stressing our supply lines and the continued rebelliousness of the region, our army will now be requisitioning all supplies lost to the rebels from the villages of the region including yours."

Rylan could not take this lying down, "Are you blind? There's nothing here to take!"

The captain's expression stilled into a face of disbelief and hardened anger.

"Say that again."

"I said there's nothing here to take! You and your soldiers and your bloody Queen harass us and treat us harshly, we barely survive as it is, and you want to take what little we do have!?"

He could see his fellow villagers nodding in agreement.

"Seize him," the captain ordered and Rylan tried running as the soldiers rode forward and dragged him back to the captain.

"On what grounds are you arresting my son?" his father demanded.

"Sedition and treason. He was a friend of the first rebel informant we found as well and I have not forgotten that," the captain answered.

Rylan tried struggling from the bindings the soldiers tied around him as the villagers got increasingly riled up and the argument escalated further. He didn't know who started it, but soon the villagers had started throwing rocks at the soldiers and a riot began. It proved to be a massacre as the unarmed peasant villagers were cut down by the armoured and mounted knights.

During the chaos, Rylan was freed from his bindings by fellow villagers and soon the villagers who vastly outnumbered the knights managed to kill them all, but the cost was heavy indeed and in the fighting, a fire had started that had consumed several houses.

His father moaned when everything had ended, "What have we done? What are we to do now?"

Rylan stared at the carnage in shame, wondering what he had started. But he was also full of determination, if this was how her soldiers acted, how much worse would the Queen herself be? Her tyranny could not be allowed to continue. It was unlikely the Queen would grant them pardon. The rumours spoke of a merciless and ruthless queen who had not even cried when she heard her own family had died, what would she care of some peasants?

"We have done what we had to, to protect ourselves from the tyranny of this false queen! You have all heard the rumours have you not? I say we join the rebellion and bring her down!" Rylan cried out, calling all his fellow villagers to action.


"Now!" Artys ordered and his men charged out of the wooded mountains onto the convoy. As they fought with the guards, Artys helped one of his men, a charismatic lad by the name of Rylan if he recalled correctly, fight off his attacker before continuing onwards to another knight.

With the element of surprise on their hand, their victory was all but assured and soon they had acquired fresh stores of armour, weapons, and food and medicine. And they hadn't suffered a single loss, a rare occurrence, but a joyous once.

Artys had to resist the urge to grin. His cousin's heavy-handedness was proving to be her downfall in the northern Vale. Every day brought word of more smallfolk brutally interrogated and harshly treated by Alyssa's soldiers. Some entire villages had even been put to the sword and the people were beginning to call his cousin, 'Bloody Alyssa'. The more villages her soldiers terrorized, the more recruits came to Artys, the more raids he pulled off, the angrier Alyssa became, and the more her soldiers repressed the population. A vicious cycle that was only making Artys's army grow stronger and stronger.

Alone against Alyssa, he'd say he could hold out indefinitely, maybe evetually go on the offensive and retake Gulltown. But Alyssa was not alone. This whole thing had started because she had married Prince Arahad. It was Arnor that posed the real threat here. Arnor was the reason Artys had come to give up hope of ever liberating the whole Vale. There was not a chance in the seven hells Arnor would allow Gulltown or the Eyrie to fall into his hands and with control of the Bloody Gate and their naval dominance, the entire southern half of the Vale was permanently lost to the true Valemen.

There was still a chance for the north though, they could still remain free of the tyrant, and free of Arnor. Artys harbored no delusions that he could possibly hold out against Arnor should it totally mobilise to crush him, but he didn't have to. Rumours from Arnor suggested that many were already opposed to further Arnorian intervention in the Vale Civil War. Arnor, still reeling from their losses in the Third Dragon War, was sick of death and suffering, sick of war. His only hope, their only hope, was to take advantage of the Arnorian people's distaste for war. Make the campaigns and attacks into the north increasingly costly and Arnor, which was propping up Alyssa, would become less and less willing to commit its men to die for her. Without the support of Arnor, Alyssa could no more reconquer the north as they could the south.

An opportunity for that might soon be coming. Reports suggested Alyssa's armies were marching to reclaim Strongsong yet again, this time, commanded by her husband, Prince Arahad. More raids would help weaken their forces but with Alyssa reaching out to the mountain clans, he didn't know if he could stop them before they reached Strongsong.

Winter was coming, and when it arrived, traditional warfare in the mountains of the Vale became all but impossible. If the Arnorians were overburdened by his constant raids and unable to take Strongsong until then, they would likely withdraw. If he could repel them, if he could win, he could prove to Arnor that the war was too costly to pursue any further. At least, that was the hope. And hope was a fickle thing indeed.


Strongsong was a mighty castle, with two sets of walls. Nestled in the mountains and hills and surrounded by the glacial rivers on three sides, it could only be approached by army from one direction, west. That single approach proved to be the bane of Arahad's army as they found themselves funneled into a relatively narrow position for the rebels to defend.

The past five months had been hellish. First they had found the terrain of the mountains difficult to traverse, even with the aid of their guides from the mountain clans –whom almost all in his army took offense to, complicating matters even further. Then when they had finally arrived at Strongsong, they had found the castle fortified and prepared for a siege.

With their single approach, their assaults were always bloody. Every morning they would attempt to break the castle with siege engines and endless assaults with rams, siege towers, and ladders, but the stubborn defenders repelled them all. Had he had giants to support his forces, perhaps the story would have been different, but the last giants had died out decades ago, their population never recovering after the slaughter of the Third Dragon War.

The Third War in general was the reason why they were struggling. Even without giants, Arahad dared say he could still take Strongsong if his entire army was Arnorian, but it was not. Officially Arnor was not at war. They recognized Alyssa as the rightful Queen of the Vale and per her and Arahad's request, they had sent a few thousand men to supplement her forces. But Arnor itself would not mobilise for a full-scale war again, not now.

To lesser men, the Dragon Wars were the stories of their ancestors, but in Arnor, when even the First War remained in living memory, the people had no will for war, no desire to see their sons dead in a foreign land. Despite Arahad's efforts, his father had not been convinced and would not endanger their position among the Arnorian people by forcing them into an unwanted war.

The memories of his grandfather's atrocities in the Third War were still remembered by many and though his father was popular, that could easily change. Aragost had been popular as well before the Third War. Arnor would not rise for this war.

Arahad watched as his men slinked back disheartened from another failed assault. At this point their assaults were simply for show, to keep the defenders on edge. Even Arahad himself wondered if Strongsong would fall. It had that name for a reason. Even to the rebels it had fallen only by treachery and it was commanded by Artys Arryn's younger brother Jonos. With him there they would not lose hope that their leader Artys would abandon them.

As for Artys himself, Arahad presumed he was the other reason their siege had not been going well. Endless raids on their supply lines. Sallies from Strongsong combined with attacks on their siege camps. The guerilla warfare the rebels were waging on them was brutal. The only reason Arahad had even dared to lead an army into the mountains was due to his skinchanger scouts and the support of the Mountain Clans, a tenuous alliance that was starting to fray now, if it had ever truly existed in the first place.

"Stupid Andal! We cannot stay here!" Armund, Son of Rolf said. He was one of the Clansmen guides Arahad had recruited after the Clans had sworn to Alyssa.

"I am no Andal, and we cannot leave. Who knows when we'll next get the chance to end this rebellion! But it's not like a raiding savage like you will understand that!" the man Armund was speaking to shouted back and Arahad realized it was one of his Arnorian officers.

Soon the argument escalated and the two were coming to blows, Arahad intervened. "Alright, break it up. What's the meaning of all of this?" he demanded.

"I was just teaching this savage his place Your Highness. He and his fellow clansmen were trying to desert."

At Arahad's unimpressed glare, the man quailed slightly but Arahad knew he could not punish him overly much. His army was on the brink of mass desertion already, how would they react if Arahad sided with the clansmen over Arnorians and Valemen? At the same time however he had to do his best not to anger the clansmen or their alliance could be endangered.

"Armund, you swore an oath, explain to me your attempted desertion."

"Prince Arahad, the army cannot stay here any longer. Our supplies dwindle, our men bleed, and the snows will arrive soon, and these are no mere summer snows or mountain frost. Winter is coming, we can feel it. The days grow colder," the son of Rolf said.

Arahad could not deny his words, he too had felt how the days began growing colder. Yet he feared if they did not take Strongsong now, they never would.

"It will be no matter, we will intensify our assault on Strongsong. They have to be close to breaking. We will be safe in Strongsong for the winter."

The clansmen grabbed his arm as he tried to leave. It was a clear sign of the army's hostility against the clans that in the next moment, several had drawn their weapons. Armund let go and Arahad waved his soldiers to put down their weapons.

"It will matter not if we take the fortress or not. When the winter comes, the passes will snow over. Our supply lines, already stretched thin by the raids, will collapse entirely. We will all starve and freeze here! Aye I swore an oath, but if you refuse to accept my counsel, the counsel I was recruited for, then I see no point in remaining here longer!"

Arahad clenched his fists, "One more week, and if Strongsong cannot fall, we will leave. Until then, make any further attempt to leave Armund, and it will be considered desertion and you and yours know the price of that."

Armund flinched, his eyes betraying him as they flickered to the edge of the camp where the heads of executed deserters stood on pikes. Arahad had not enjoyed it, but it had been necessary to keep discipline in his army.

Yet as that week passed by and no progress was made, Arahad began to despair. He remembered his grandfather Túrin's stories of what the Siege of Tyrosh had been like, of how they had thrown themselves at the walls, barely breaking past the first level when the dragons arrived and annihilated them. On the sixth day, they finally took the first wall of Strongsong, and Arahad watched as the defenders pulled behind the second level of walls of the concentric castle and he knew then, that Strongsong would never fall to him, not now, maybe not ever. "We're withdrawing," he ordered.

They left in the nick of time, as the snows began falling as they left days later after having packed up their camp. Arahad watched the snows fall, thinking to himself how lucky it had been that they had chosen to withdraw. He tried not to imagine being trapped in the north at the rebels' mercy during winter. The words of House Stark emanated in his mind. Winter had come.

It was not a winter like anything Arahad, hailing from the warm south was used to. It was cold, and freezing, as the men struggled to walk. Here in the mountains of the Vale, the winters were rivaled only by the snowfalls of Norda and the blizzards of the Lands Beyond the Wall. It was fortunate indeed that they were not harassed by the rebels as they withdrew.

Weeks later they reached the Giant's Lance. The Gates of the Moon nestled at its foot and the Eyrie upon its peak. But Arahad could feel little relief. Thousands of men had died for a useless campaign. If this was but a taste of the wars his father and grandfather had fought… it was no wonder his homeland wanted no part of it, as bitter as it was that he had little support from his father to give his wife. Alyssa… how was he to tell Alyssa of his failure?


"It was not your fault. The people have betrayed me, they give aid to the rebels, shelter them, spy for them. And now with winter's coming, any further excursions into the north will be all but impossible," Alyssa said.

"Yet you cannot continue to treat your subjects harshly. It will not endear them to you," Arahad said.

"I reward the loyal and punish the traitors," she replied simply. "When the winter is over, I intend to send a new force north."

"Alyssa…"

"You do not have to lead it if you don't wish to. I see how the burden of command wears on you. We would not have this problem if your father honoured the alliance and committed more troops."

"That isn't fair."

"I wasn't trying to be."

"This is a rebellion. It is not the place of Arnor to end it for you. Would your own people respect you if we did? They already whisper that you are our puppet."

Alyssa backed down, "It would make everything so much easier. This war is not ending anytime soon."

Arahad's expression softened, "No, it's not."

In the corner he could hear their year-old son crying in his crib, upset that his parents had raised their voices and he went to comfort him, Alyssa at his side as they looked down on their son, the heir of the Vale and Arnor. Privately, Arahad doubted Alyssa would ever hold the full loyalty of the Vale there was too much bad blood between both sides, too many grievances, but perhaps… perhaps their son Arassuil might one day.


Author's Note: Oh look, has it really been over four months since the last update? Yeah... I am sorry, my beta was... slow. Good news though, the next chapter is already up on the Patreeon site, the end of the Vale arc. When it comes to the public site is however a different story altogether, once again dependent on my beta. Hope you all enjoyed the chapter nonetheless.