272 AC

Mors Umber

Mors Umber is a believer of the Old Gods. He believed in the nameless deities of stream, forest and stone worshipped in the north and was proud of his heritage. He exalted his gods with muttered thanks and reverence toward the powerful beings.

He grew up hearing tales of the Old Gods. Playing around as a young ling only a couple name days with his older brother Hother under the watchful eye of the heart tree was something that all northerners do.

He, like other northerners, found solace in the five-pointed leaves, the blood-red sap and the smooth, bone-white trunks of the Weirwoods. Especially in the faces carved into their bole, where no lies could be sprouted from mortals, less they wish to invite the wrath of the Old Gods upon themselves.

"Why must you punish me so?" Whispered Mors.

His large hands ghosted just above the carved face on the Weirwood, in the Godswood, bordering the last hearth. The light from the blinding sun peaking through the stark white clouds, providing a small, but much needed, warmth against the cold settling deep within his bones.

The past few days had been hard on him and his children. Grey hairs decorated his head in a tousled mop of mess while his beard was unkempt like his appearance. The chunk of dragon glass covering the empty socket - where an eye would usually be found. His snow bear cloak somewhere, he couldn't remember and couldn't summon the energy to care.

Mors' almost 7-foot tall frame slumped against the old Weirwood tree and tears began to pool within his eyes. With as much strength as he could muster, he grabbed the spilt tankard of ale and threw it as far as his intoxicated state would allow.

"WHY!" He screamed at no one particular, but fully aware of the targets of his ire. He had passed the point of caring about backlash and needed to vent.

"Was I not faithful enough! had I not spilt enough Wildling blood within the Godswood. Had I not died the roots of the Weirwoods with enough entrails from those barbarians to grant me a boon."

A stubborn feeling of hope clung to his heart like a disease. "Give me a wish. I have never asked much before, but I beg of you; grant me this one wish."

He waited for a sign.

But none came.

There was no gentle breeze to shuffle the leaves. No cold zephyr that made the hair on his arms stand. There was nothing.

The Old Gods weren't listening.

He deflated from his anger and rested his head against the trunk of the tree, gazing at the sky. m,n

"I didn't deserve her," he continued with a much more subdued tone.

"She was sweet and lovely like a northern rose, a true northern beauty. When I first saw her two sennight from my ten and sixth name day at Karhold, I was love-struck. I remember walking over to her with purpose in each step and asking her for her hand. I had meant her hand to dance, but one look in her smokey grey eyes had me speechless."

He chuckled to himself, but it sounded more like a gut-wrenching sob. "I had fought off Wildlings since I was ten and four. Killed a snow bear with nothing on my body except my breaches and a battle axe. yet standing before the women who would later become my wife frightened me more than anything else had."

He paused to centre himself once more.

"She agreed right then and there. The certainty in her voice, the way she glared down at her cousin, Richard Karstark, when he was about to argue was beautiful. It made me more enamoured with her. "A nostalgic smile grew on Mors' face, as he remembered how beautiful she was at that moment.

"Then we wed before the Old Gods two moons later and it was the third-best thing that ever happened to me and I thanked both Old Gods and the new that I would cherish it for my entire life."

"Only the third?" A voice questioned in a saddened tone. "The woman who tamed the great Mors Crowfood is only third."

"Beron, I am not in the mood for your quips." Irritation welling up within him as his older brother appeared before him, clad fully in attire befitting his station as Lord of the Last Hearth. Heavy furs flowing from his shoulders, held together with an elaborate piece of castle-forged iron House Umber coat of arms

"It is second because the first goes to the time of Rowan's birth. I feared for the life of my unborn child, how it gripped at my heart like a noose. I would never forget the overwhelming relief I felt at seeing her tiny frame within my arms. Her steadily rising and falling chest. Her tiny fingers latching onto my finger."

A lightweight settled in his lap, he lowered his head to see the familiar white of his cloak. He ran a hand through the well-worn mantle. The freezing snow beside him pressed against his breeches, pervading through them even further as Beron took a seat onto the ground, shifting it. "But even she was taken from me."

"My nephews are grieving," Interrupted Beron said. " And their father is nowhere to be seen. He offers no comfort and preferably seems to prefer the company of wine and the frigid cold than his own spawn."

Mors felt his break slightly from guilt at his selfishness, but Beron showed no signs of stopping. "Asher has not left the training yard since he got back from fostering from the Karstarks. "

As if Mors had not felt dispirited enough about just remembering he had children of his own.

"He continues to hack away at the training dummy with a ferocity that resembles you in your youth. He only stops to eat and sleep and even then it's the bare minimum."

Be quiet!

"Your second oldest isn't much better. Anthor has not left his quarters and allows none of the servants inside, aside from Asher who would only drop off food, before heading back to the training yard."

Shut up!

"Who knows what is going through their minds now. They saw their mother's defiled corpse and her slit throat and their little sister is missing. Their father is not there for them, no offered assurances like how our father was when our mother passed."

STOP TALKING!

"The servants whisper how their father had abandoned them and I know my nephews hear them. I would not be surprised to find out, they disappeared in the middle of the night to hunt wildlings. Just like you did."

"They are nothing like their father!" Shouted Mors. "Their father is a failure. He couldn't protect his wife, Anaya and he couldn't protect his daughter."

"No." Beron simply said. His voice lacked that normal hue of amusement. "Their father is human. Their father is the strongest bastard north of the neck and soon-to-be nightmare of the wildlings."

Mors nodded slowly, but it was clear to anyone that he didn't agree.

"Little brother. We are not unfamiliar with the loss of loved ones. Our father, Our mother and Our uncles. But we dealt with the losses like Umber men. With alcohol pouring down our throats and our fists already digging into some poor fool's cheek."

Mors found himself nodding at the memories.

"And who was the one who taught us that?" Beron asked with the corner of his lips curling upwards into a fond smile.

"Our father."

"Exactly, Our father taught us that age-old tradition of Umber men because it is tradition. So who is going to teach Asher an Anthor."

Mors' neck almost snapped from the speed his head turned to the side and he snarled. "You wouldn't!"

"Oh," the amusement in his voice only served to enrage him further. "Now you are their father. You didn't even remember you had children."

The retort Mors had in his mind, died at the back of his throat. No words would be able to justify his behaviour, especially not to his own children.

Yet in his mind, he was angry. Northern men weren't vulnerable, they are hardy men tempered by the iron grips of winter and rough terrain of the north.

You don't have to worry, I haven't spoken a word to either of them and with how they're acting, they won't even listen.

"No, I didn't. I know better than to do that. Or do you think I forgot the story of Dirron Umber?"

"W-What should I do?" He hated how weak he sounded. Umber men weren't weak.

Beron looked at his younger brother with a knowing glance, before shaking his head. "What you need to do is go back up to the keep and see your sons."

"Your right."

"I know I am," Beron added smugly. With his tall and wide frame, along with his brown hair, brown eyes and rugged face, Mors thought that smugness did not suit the man.

It's the Wildlings fault. They leave, rape and pillage like Ironborn yet speak of the Old Gods. They should die, all of them. From the men all the way down to the babes.

Determination burned through his veins like fire. "I should hunt them down to their homes."

"Precisely." Beron nodded encouragingly.

"Kill every one of those barbarians from man to babe." After how many hours, Mors lifted himself off the ground, weathering the pins and needles sensation attacking his body.

"Brother, maybe you should..."

"No! It is not enough, I should skin them like Boltons of old and hang the entrails from every Weirwood north of the neck." His bloodthirst slowly rose, as he continued to picture worse things to do the things that murdered the love of his life, and took his precious daughter.

"Beron, thank you. Without you, I would've continued to wallow in pain. Leaving my own children to their own devices, but no more." Mors lifted his bear cloak of the ground and wrapped it around his shoulder, pulling the hood up above his unkempt hair.

Beron stared at his brother with an unreadable look in his eyes. "I'm glad you are coping now brother. The keep is never the same without your tales of when we were young lads."

Beron released an uncharacteristically heavy sigh of regret. " When I had heard the news about what happened, I had sent ravens out to all our vassal houses near the Bay of Seals to watch out for a wildling party, with our rose."

Gratefulness must've shown through his eyes because Beron grabbed him around the neck gently and pressed his forehead against each other. "Listen to me brother. They will treat Rowan like how they treated Anaya."

Mors froze before trying to pull away in anger, but his elder brother's grip remained firm.

"Listen to me." Beron hissed. " They will treat her like a broodmare. Like a pleasure slave and they will continue to do so until she dies from either a disease or giving birth to more of those monsters. They will treat her like they did Anaya and discard her like rotten meat. If not then they have already finished with her, and left her body in a ditch somewhere."

"How dare you!" Mors finally broke away from him and clenched his fists in anger.

After finding me like this, encouraging me to take revenge, to take responsibility for my children, he would turn around and do this!

"NO, How dare you!" Beron shouted back.

"She was like a daughter to me. She would come to me within my study and ask me for the meaning of words she couldn't understand. She would pull at my fur cloak for me to pick her up and would point out all the little things she could see while sitting on my shoulders."

Mors was shocked. His brother, the steadfast Umber. The mountain of muscle had tears running down his cheeks.

"Rowan would run to me, whenever she sees, knowing full well she shouldn't because of her weak bones. She would sit in my lap, reading old books from the shelves and flicking through pages as if she understood the word!" Beron wiped the tears from his face.

"She probably did. She was too smart for her age, too coordinated for a babe, not as emotional as Jon was. She was quiet, almost unnaturally so and she would look up at me with those aged eyes. Eyes that had seen enough."

Beron stopped, looking at his brother dead in the eye. "I say the things that I do because I care. I say them because others are thinking the same and are grieving alongside you."

The more Beron said the more Mors wanted to collapse once more against the Weirwood and sink into his depressed state once more. Those words cut deeper than any sword would ever cut.

"It was with the Old Gods blessing that she lived being born before her time, and it was the Old Gods will that she continued to live despite the hardships she would've faced and will continue to face."

Mors nodded alongside his brother feeling mollified. "It is time that the north remembers that we were once First Men Kings, that the Umbers had carved out a piece of the north for themselves and have lived here for thousands of years."

Mors felt things were going to change for the better. And it was with that thought that a smile grew on his face more. However, he missed the glint of cunningness flash across his brother's eyes.