Winter's Kings

by TheGreatStag

Theon the Hungry Wolf, Slayer of Andals and Ironborn. Protector of the North and Conqueror of Andalos and the Isles of the Bite. He will create a legacy that will last millennia with Iron and Blood. His descendants will make the world tremble. Join him on his journey. Major A. Comments and criticisms welcome.

6. Selene I

Selene I

It was not every day that she was not sure how she felt about her position. Some days she loved being Queen of the Winter Kingdom, despite not having an official coronation or crown. The power at her fingertips and the peak of her tongue were staggering. Her uncle-in-law had taken as many men as House Bolton could rally without depleting the land completely of men so as to leave the land 'defenceless'. This would be important; the part of being 'defenceless'. She thought that he had some ulterior motive as to taking so men, but after a while dropped the issue as the end of the day it did not have that great an effect on her plans and their results.

In the two years, a nearly three-year-long campaign of her husband, she took tours of her new kingdom. Early on she had taken a trip to see the smoked carcass that was once called Winterfell, she toured it with Maester Ervin of the Dreadfort. She questioned him on how it would cost to repair the old fort as well it how long it would take to do so. His answer was not the one she wanted; "Your grace, the time and money required to return Winterfell back to its former glory is..." At this point the old man fumbled for words that would deliver the impossibility of rebuilding of rebuilding Winterfell without angering her. A difficult task indeed.

"Impossible, your grace. To restore that ruin to its old glory is an unmanageable feat and it is more efficient to simply tear it down and rebuild from new. The resources needed to build a fortress such as Winterfell - which almost half a decade ago was the greatest fortress north of the Neck, may I remind you- are not cheap, neither will be the cost of labour for a castle this size requires an small army's worth of builders, carpenters, stonemasons, engineers and the like. I am sorry to say your grace, but Winterfell is dead."

She was not sure how she felt about that. One side; without Winterfell the next possible place for Starks to rule from was the Dreadfort – which need its own repairs after the siege- she held mixed feeling on that matter as the Dreadfort was her home and it filled her with a strange sort of pride for it to be the home of Kings once more, the Dreadfort was it felt like desecrating her ancestors to let another take it from her. There were some feelings of joy on the realisation that Winterfell was destroyed and for a chance for a comeback was as impossible. But she knew that if her husband or any loyal to him realised that she had such feeling then she would never be able to influence through anything other fucking. And her sex was still sore from the last time. She put the thoughts away and rode south.

She rode to Cerwyn next, questioning the castellan of the house of how many men he had left and how willing he was to spare. Her question was polite and honest bestowing a Wolf Queen in every manner. Castellan Rodner Cerwyn was the uncle of the current Lord Endrew Cerwyn. Apparently, Lord Endrew's father had been one of the many who had died in the bloody siege of the Dreadfort. Because of this, the Castellan who had been left as the defender of the castle had a hatred of Boltons and anything to do with the House.

Unfortunately, for Rodner and everyone involved, he denied her not in the way befitting royalty. The man forced her to leave in disgrace, promising violence if she did not. If being a Stark did not feel make people obliged to serve her, then being a Bolton certainly would. As all know, the Our Blades are Sharp.

She returned to Cerwyn nearly a two and a half months a later, instead of pleasantries and courtesies befitting a royal, Selene had come with a host comprising of nearly five thousand men. Not a very large one, especially when compared to the forces that had left with her husband and her uncle-in-law but this army was not raised with the intention of sustained warfare against another force. Not originally anyway.

No, her army was of recruited from greenboys, greybeards and anybody else that did not go with Rickard Stark. This host was for scaring House Cerwyn into a surrender of their castle and whatsoever she wished it for... The main army was comprised of five hundred archers, twelve hundred cavalrymen and the rest being lightly armoured infantry. While this host was not for warfare, it would not be right for her to have a poorly trained host.

She gutted the defensive detail of the Dreadfort left by Rickard Stark, taking the majority of a five hundred strong garrison and leaving them with only a tenth of their number. These were Glover swords that were loyal to the Starks and had no allegiance to the Boltons, but she was a Stark through marriage after all. The men were originally unsure of whether or not to obey her but after a threat of flaying and a reminder that it was her husband who was king, not Rickard Stark. They obeyed her, if reluctantly.

With the four hundred trained soldiers, she appointed them into minor positions of command amongst her smallfolk majority of her army. She also commanded quiet Gerrad the Helsinger, whom was appointed to the position of master-of-arms of the Dreadfort after the death of the previous Master-at-arms, an old swordsman of Brant who had bled alongside her grandfather against the Marsh Kings in wars of yore, at the Battle of the Weeping Water, to train as many soldiers as humanely possible as she raised her force in the shadow of the Dreadfort. Despite his silence, he was still one of the best swords of the Dreadfort. Even as they marched she still commanded the better trained and experienced to train the lesser.

Gerrad was the third son of the old Lord Darron Ramsgate whose own seat was a southern castle by the banks of the Broken Branch of the same name. He was a kinslayer who carved his own brother's heart of his chest. The brother in mention being; Jonos Ramsgate who was the second son, for taking the maidenhead of the woman Gerrad loved. The daughter of the master-of-arms, Selene had heard of her, was no great beauty as Selene was credited to be but she could certainly turn heads.

And apparently turn brother against one another. From what she had heard of the delicious tragedy, Jonos had not raped the girl instead courting her secretly and having the girl giving him her maidenhead despite knowing that she was also courting his younger brother.

After killing his brother, in the realization of his crime Gerrad had stolen a horse and rode the poor beast to death by galloping non-stop to the Dreadfort hoping for her brother, Rogar to give him sanctuary from his pursuing kinsmen. He expected, no, hoped on sanctuary from Rogar as the two had formed a strong friendship that had been nurtured with many letters between the two while they were separated, while Rogar had been fostered at Ramsgate. She had teased her brother for those letters, questioning whether he and Gerrad had some sordid love affair. He turned red, she was not sure if it was with embarrassment or rage. He threatened to make a long wooden training sword become her first lover, in retaliation she burned the letters that he had kept from Gerrad and told him that if he tried anything to her, she would maim him as he slept. Not to death of course- she was no kinslayer-, just to the point where he would never forget.

When Gerrad made it to the Dreadfort on a dying steed only hours ahead of his pursuers and days behind the raven that informed her father and brother of his crime. He begged for safety, throwing himself at the gates. Her father, called for the archers to ready themselves to slay him as he knelt but it was only by her brother's pleading of mercy for his friend that saved the third son. When he entered, he was reluctantly offered bread and salt by their father. Gerrad accepted of course.

When the Ramsgates had made it to the Dreadfort, they had brought enough men that Maester Ervin called an army, Selene remembered her father snorting at the description. Though she did not blame him; it was not even a fifth of enough men to properly threaten the Dreadfort let alone besiege it. Lord Darron and his remaining sons; Braddock and Hurdon. They requested that House Bolton peacefully surrendered the kinslayer Gerrad Ramsgate. There was some focusing on the 'peaceful' segment of the statement. There were reasons for this.

In peacetime, the Dreadfort had a standard garrison of six hundred men, which was more than enough to hold the fortress against any attacker for any certain number amount of time especially when the fortress was fully stocked with food and water. As it was at the time, against the few hundred men that House Ramsgate had brought, it would take at most a few rounds of archer fire to wipe them out completely and if there were any survivors her father or the master-at-arms could sally forth and cut the survivors down. Lord Darron would want to avoid such an event at all costs and so asked to parley with the Lord of the Castle, his King, her father; King Royce IV 'the Redarm' Bolton within the relative safety of the Dreadfort.

Lord Darron and a small number of guards were allowed to enter the royal fortress to discuss the fate of Gerrrad with her father, his master; Ervin, castellan master-of-arms; Qarl and his heir; Rogar. She was not a part of them but she could make an educated guess on how the discussions were going from the snippets told to her by the maids she would gossip insipidly with. From the snippets, she had heard, the final verdict was that Gerrad would not be executed neither would he be sent to the Wall but he would undoubtedly be forced to serve a great punishment. And great, it truly was. As for Rogar who stuck out his neck to save his friend, her father was reluctantly forced to concede a betrothal for him with House Ramsgate as well as a sizeable dowry for the Ramsgates.

She did was not to allowed to enter the great hall when the eventual the sentencing would be doled out, but she had intimidated the guards and maids that were there at time to do so. The woman that drove Gerrad to slay his kin, was brought from Ramsgate alongside the Ramsgate host for reasons that were beyond Selene. The woman, whose name was never known to Selene, was brought to the Dreadfort. It was not sure whether she came willingly or not. Gerrad's punishment was to kill her in the same way he had killed his brother, was this just for all parties involved? No, no it was not. The woman in question, strongly disagreed with the verdict if one was to make a rough judgement from her screams of denial and mercy but who was truly say? It's not like they actually asked for her opinion on the matter, seeing as she was a minor noble, if her father questioned this then he would also be executed or given some sort of compensation depending on the mood of Lord Darron.

Gerrad was handed a beautiful knife, perfectly balanced with most of its weight was at the hilt. He was described as shaking, babbling for some kind of mercy, something not as painful as this. Death was one of the words that escaped his lips, but like all the rest it was all ignored. The man tried to postpone, delay anything that would lengthen the time that his beloved could stay alive. Her father was as merciful as his reputation gave him credit for; which is to say absolutely not. He promised that if the woman's heart was not given as gift to Lord Darron as penance then both Gerrad and his lover would be flayed with their skins being used as a substitute. With that encouragement, he walked to his screaming mistress, hesitating with every step and cursing himself with every breath.

Nobody had the iron stomach necessary, to depict the gruesome event that followed. But after interrogating enough people she had the information she wanted; the man was no Bolton and while the tools where in perfect form and condition, he was the opposite. His cutting was sloppy and uncoordinated although that was not helped by the fact the woman he was carving his way through did not stop screaming and struggling the entire way through.

By the end of it, the woman was dead and what used to be two mediocre breasts was a gaping hole bordered with broken pieces of ribcage. Blood and viscera had spread all over the courtroom during the operation and as a result there were very few places not covered some sort of bodily fluid. But Gerrad had done what he had been commanded to do, present the heart of his late lover to his father, weeping profusely as he held the bleeding heart.

But that was not the end of the torment after Lord Darron had accepted his son's apology and then disinherited him for his acts of kinslaying. Her father once more displayed just how forgiving he was and had Gerrad seized with specific instructions to hold the man's nose. The knife that Gerrad had used was cleaned and handed to her father, who declared that Gerrad was to be punished for treason, for which he displayed when he hesitated to kill his old mistress. Her father once more displayed mercy and instead of execution was to have his tongue removed, immediately. After heating the knife in a blazing brazier for a good while, the King walked forward and reached for Gerrad's open mouth as he had been forced to breathe through the mouth, he reached and grabbed his tongue with his left hand and with a single smooth movement he cut his tongue off with his right hand.

Such skill, such grace she hoped one day that she could perform as well as her father. More than likely only after years of practice and experience with the blade. Oh well, it was bound to happen eventually.

Gerrad screamed. The heat from the blade cauterizing the wound immediately, Gerrad's tongue fell out of his mouth and landed with a 'squelch' on the bloodied floor. Her father looked at his handiwork. At this point Gerrad's screams had reached his father who had just left through the main gates. Her father was handed the bloody knife to another and walked off to do take a break from his kingly duties so as to enjoy the fruits of his hard work. Gerrad still had not finished screaming, and by know was beginning to grow hoarse. Her brother had ordered the guards to carry him to the infirmary, as they left Gerrad was incomprehensible, babbling words that would go could not be deciphered by even the most patient listeners. At this point, her father was far out the room and most likely enjoying some wenches that he 'found' on the way.

When they entered the infirmary, with Maester Ervin waiting for them tolerantly to set the man down so as he could go on with his work. Rodgar ordered all the guards out the room until it was just himself, Gerrad and Ervin. It was never repeated what was said in that room, and no one would ever know. But the aftermath was evident for all to see. Gerrad became a permeant appearance in the Dreadfort, her brother saying that he was to his sworn sword. And the story did have some validity to it as Gerrad took to sword practice with an intensity that was more common in wild beasts than it was in men. Eventually becoming one of the best swords in the Dreadfort second only to Rodgar himself and eventually beating him consecutively after a few months of stalemates.

She had seen him fight three men at a time and to say it was one-sided was unfair to Gerrad, the man was undeniably skilled. There were two main attributes to his skill; his speed and his hand dexterity. In the battle that she had seen he had wielding a two-handed longsword which spun and whirled with such speed that it was more comparable to an arrow than a sword. In minutes of the battle starting he had already disarmed the man closest to him, knocked out the second fighter and was halfway through humiliating the last one. Eventually disarming him and forcing him to yield. His speed was something that surprised most men as it allowed him to quickly win most of battle through shock tactics that involved him outmanoeuvring his foes by making feints to draw their attention before darting to their unprotected flanks and cutting them down ruthlessly.

A deadly style indeed, although it did have set backs as it depended on Gerrad being faster than his foe, and was more effective against singular opponents than it was against it was a multitude which was more likely to happen in battle and his speed meant little when fighting an enemy on horseback. Gerrad did his utmost best to increase his agility so as strengthen his own effectiveness; the way he did this was by reducing his weight. Switching from plate amour to chainmail and then to brigandine and going even lighter by using leather armour which was practically useless against anything sharper than a butter knife. He once tried fighting only in a thick doublet, something that her brother and the master-at-arms both disagreed greatly with, ordering him to use brigandine armour. Gerrad was disgruntled with the order but owed too much to her brother to ever rebel against him or his orders. For years he fought, practiced and trained until there was no-one alive that could challenge him and win. No one within the Dreadfort, as for a comparison against some of the best swords in the Red Kingdom there had not been the opportunity until a later date.

When Rodgar had gone north with a handful of men to visit House Blest, which was one of the houses that was directly in the border with the Shadow Kingdom. The House was loyal only to itself, a result of trading loyalties between Bolton and Umber. But they had called for aid from the Dreadfort against some brigands coming over from Shadowlands, Rodgar raised a small force and they went north to deal with the bandits. Gerrad was Rodgar's sworn sword and so was involved. Their progress was slow, firstly because they were rallying as many men on the way as possible and secondly as the Starks say; 'Winter was Coming', what that meant in reality was that they were nearly halfway through a short autumn and snowstorms had been bombarding the countryside as they travelled. It took them nearly thrice as long as usually to make it to even pass the ice cold Last River, fogs that made it impossible to seem five feet ahead of oneself made them dismount their horses and walk through the forest for days on end before they saw the Ravensnest of the Blackwoods.

It must have seemed like some sort of heaven straight out of a fever dream, seeing the black castle towering over them offering shelter and something warm. They were invited in; Rodgar was given the salt and bread inciting the Guests' Right to him and his men. She knew not the exact happening of what happened in the castle only that her brother spent two nights recuperating and resupplying, before being forced to leave in a hurry. With Blackwood angrily unable to do little as he could not very well kill his crown prince could he? Well not unless he wanted his entire house to be annihilated; root and stem by that Prince's father.

From what she had pieced together from various reports was that Rodgar and Gerrad visited the town together, with a relatively small retinue of Bolton guardsmen and which they met a strange man from the Essos, Valyria to be exact. He offered to sell the men good spices and products that they had never seen before. The merchant had a funny accent when he spoke the tongue of the Firstmen, but he was understandable enough. Her brother acted the decorum befitting a man of his position; he toured the man's wares and looked around for anything that he wished to purchase. Gerrad on the other hand, while he did act with decorum for a small while before he saw something. A bastard sword made of black steel, it had two cross guards. One in the conventional placing and the other in the middle of the hilt, signifying that it was meant to be wielded two-handed. Her brother when noticing the interest that Gerrad had in the blade asked for its price. Selene was never told the actual price of the blade, but knew that it was ridiculously high. The price was more fit for a small castle than it was for a sword.

Far higher than any blade had any right to be, when her brother had burst into laughter, and after the chuckles he had asked for the real price. To which the merchant merely repeated the price he had offered, explaining that the sword was so expensive because it was of 'Valyrian steel' and so could cut through anything with ease. The northern men just stared at the merchant, as if they could be tricked into buying 'magic swords', the merchant took the sword out of its sheathe and held it one hand, which was impossible for the short potbellied man to do so. Then with almost practised ease he swung the blade downwards, the blade screaming beautifully as came arching downwards, carving the oaken table that the blade used to be on into two and even the ground below with no resistance. After the example, the northern men were no longer disbelieving and far more willing to part with such a sword if it could perform as such. Gerrad was said to have a glint in his eye that could be charitably described as unnerving.

Her brother asked to be handed the blade, which he was, and as he was examining it he asked if it had a name. The merchant said that in Valyria it was called 'Dōna Vāedar', for the noise it made as it would cut through the air but he added in Firstmen it would be 'Sweetsong'. He asked the merchant if they could negotiate on the price, this led into heated debate between the prince and the merchant. All the while Gerrad –who at this point was held Sweetsong, knew at that moment he would have this sword, his sons would have this sword and so would their sons and their sons ad infinitum.

And so Gerrad walked up to the merchant and with one deliberate action he removed the man's head from the rest of his body. The cut was diagonal, although perfectly straight, the blade connected at the Adam's apple travelling just behind the ears and exiting at the back of the crown. All of that in a smallest fraction of time it took a hummingbird's heart to beat. The song that the sword sung was definitely sweet to the ears, and blade was so sharp that the cut was perfectly flat, and so on that day it was proven that not only Sweetsong was worth every coin that it was priced at but also Gerrad was more than likely insane to some extent.

She did not know how things progressed from that point but in no particular order; more people died, the town began burning, egos were bruised, some people were flayed, Gerrad and Rodgar fled from the town and even more people died.

After a hasty flight from Ravensnest, her brother's host made swift journey to Blest stronghold –it's actual name was unknown to Selene- was unmolested by neither men nor the weather allowing them to make it to their destination quickly. Once there, they met Master Robett Blest. Who explained the issue promptly, once realising the nasty mood that her brother had which was a stark contrast to Gerrad who had been described as 'glowing' with happiness. Choosing to settle with the safety of having the prince leave his lands and hall as soon as possible rather than the honour of hosting royalty despite the chances of said royalty punishing him for some perceived slight.

On the next day Master Blest, rallied a few hundred men of his own and combined with the men of Rodgar they went forth to hunt down these brigands, within two weeks all the brigands were either dead in battle or in flayed with their skins worn as trophies by the commanders' of the Bolton-Blest force. She had heard that her brother had flayed them himself, which she took with more than a grain of salt as it was well-known in the Dreadfort how much her brother hated the act of flaying, calling 'disgusting' it and 'barbaric'. For him to have done so, gave her an idea just how angry he was.

She also heard just how devastating an exceptional sword such as Sweetsong which could cut through anything, in the hands of an exceptional swordsman such as Gerrad who with a regular sword could defeat nearly anybody. Gerrad was akin to a one-man army, as with a small amount of force Sweetsong could cut through plate and mail armour, and in combination with Gerrad's natural speed, agility and skill; he was a god of war. An example of this is one of the tales told to her by one of the veterans who came back from the expedition; five bandits came to challenge him, two lost their heads in his first strike, three disemboweled in the second strike, Gerrad unfazed by blood that had coated him, stepped over their bodies and moved on to the next challengers.

When they returned, her father called Gerrad; the Helsinger, for the songs that his sword sung. It was never certain whether it was mocking or praising. She thought it was mocking at first but when her father entertained the idea of making Gerrad the sworn sword of himself rather his son, she knew that her father had some respect for the man. Her father – at the insistence of Rodgar - had also had a set of custom made mail armour with a black surcoat made for Gerrad, on its chest was a white flayed man wielding two swords one a field of red outlined with dark blue. The helm was a great helm with Her father also gave him the title of the Helsinger, as a result of his sword. All of this made her wonder; why did Rodgar command him to remain with her in the Dreadfort instead of marching off to war. Perhaps he would still be breathing air if he had done so. But he was dead, and so any queries she had would be unanswered.

She gave the command to the army to a tested commander, Qarl the Queer. Qarl was a giant of a man, with shaggy long hair that when braided reached to the small of his back. He usually wore loose dirtied breeches, leather boots, a bronze torc around his neck and skin of bear as a cloak. His preferred weapon was a long iron battle axe, with an oaken shaft that was slightly taller than himself. At either end of the oaken shaft there were two iron spear tips.

The man was a Skagosi who had lost a war against House Magnar of Kingshouse for the Stone Throne of Skagos. He had lost but was so great a general and so skilled a warrior that when he was eventually captured, the Magnars allowed him to leave Skagos with honour befitting a warrior despite his loss. Although they stripped him of his manhood and forbid him from ever using the name given to him by his mother, and instead one given to him by his enemies. Honor was honor, she supposed. They did such a thing so as to ensure that their enemies could never accuse them of 'weakness'.

Her father found him years ago hunting in the Blackwood by the Grey Cliffs in the first weeks of Winter. Apparently, the man had been killing the native hunters and so one of the nearby minor houses rallied a posse and went forth to kill him. They were led by Lord Jaxter Blackwood, who was one of the most powerful nobles in the entirety of the Red Kingdom.

House Blackwood had the only port north of the Weeping Water and while this may seem like a point of pride, it was consistently raided by the nearby Skagosi when they were not fighting amongst themselves. But Blackwood was one of the most powerful vassals sworn to the Boltons, their port mostly used for fishing so as to supply their populace but was also able of constructing and fixing small war galleys able to protect their fishing vessels. They had been requesting financial aid since her grandfather taking the Red Throne so as to invest in building new shipyards so as to have the ability to field the naval power able of taking on the Skagosi warship to warship, sailor to sailor. House Bolton had made promises and agreements in the past to do things in the future but never actually doing anything in the present. This led to some resentment between Bolton and Blackwoods.

They also had a history with magic and sorcery as they shared blood with the Children who had lived deep in the Blackwood. The legend being that the Blackwoods were one of the few Firstmen clans that had made peace with the Children before the Pact and were rewarded with powerful magic. Lord Jaxter Blackwood himself even bore magic upon his own person with a cloak of raven's feathers, iron armour, sword and shield inscribed with runes, the cloak gave him speed, shield was to protect him from all threats mundane and magic, the sword would cut through anything in it's path, and the armour was to protect him from anything the shield did not.

She had never seen this magic nor did any one dare ever call the Blackwoods on this perhaps out of fear. Perchance they had achieved their position as high lords through this sorcery but none truly knew. All she knew was that her father feared the Blackwoods rising against him, and did all he could to either bind them to him or weaken them.

Years ago, she counted this to be a failure as his, she did not believe in the magic of anything. If it did exist, then why did the Children not use it throw back the Firstmen when they came? But when she saw magic, she never questioned it once again. And hoped never to see it's like ever in her life.

And so when her father called his banners for a war against the Starks, Blackwood convinced many of their neighbours and allies to feign ignorance. Such an act would have been considered reason and had her father still been alive after the war with the Starks, he would have turned his army north and crushed the Blackwoods painfully. Selene had not seen their banners; a black red-eyed raven with its wings outstretched, in one set of claws it grasped a series of scrolls in the other was a human skull, on a field of red bordered with grey, when she called the banners for Rickard. Well, that was to be her second target after the Cerwyns.

She remembered eavesdropping on her father telling her elder brothers about how great a folly that was when the Blackwoods chose to hunt Qarl the Queer. The hunters did not know if they were hunting man or beast, or how strong it would be. All they knew that it was a man killer, to say it was not enough could be called an understatement.

A group of thirty, half being local hunters who were armed with short bows and long hunting knives. Ten men in the group were guardsmen who came from the castle; the remaining five were Lord Blackwood and his sons. Their formation was a cautious one, with the archers in the rear to provide support and the swordsmen in the front to face any opponent head on.

They stalked through the forest until they had seen the tracks of their 'prey'. They followed the tracks until it led them to a dead end. It was there that Qarl sprung his trap and catching most of men unawares. With a single swing, he beheaded three men, and then still mid-swing he rammed his axe's spear point into the chest of another. Within the first five seconds of combat, Qarl had killed four men.

Now lacking the element of surprise, Qarl charged the group using both hands to swing the axe until it little more than a deadly blur. He went for slaughter the remaining archers first but that was not without risks as he was close enough for them to fire at him point blank. And so they did, it did not stop their deaths but it did weaken him. He slew the remaining archers easily, with quick swipes and brutal lunges but Qarl was wounded with at least two arrows in his torso. But still the Skagosi giant lived. By the time the first Blackwood swordsman reached the Skagosi everyone knew that this battle could go either way, either with Qarl dead or the Blackwoods dead.

But alas, the battle was not to be for Lord Blackwood was no fool and realized that without their archer support and by going in groups of two they would quickly fall to the already bloodied axe that had slain half of his group. He ordered a quick retreat, so as to save the lives of him men and return with more favourable odds. Qarl did not follow them, instead retreating himself. When Blackwood returned to the Ravensnest, he raised a force nearing nearly a thousand men, more than half were equipped with a bow and quiver of arrows, a good fifth were upon horseback. With Lord Blackwood and all the menfolk that his House held leading them, he commenced the hunt.

With such a great host, he split them up into far smaller hunting parties and sent them to search the entirety of his lands. The search stretched beyond the Last River and the Sheepstead Hills even going so far as to push into the Shadowlands. Lasting months it eventually annoyed enough highlords that eventually her father had to get involved, and when he did was with a quickly assembled force of twenty-five hundred men, all bearing the flayed man upon their chest. He marched northwards his destination to wherever Lord Blackwood was. It took two weeks but he stumbled across his vassal on the peak of the Sheepstead Hills, half crazed and with his soldiers either dead or considering mutiny.

He spoke to the noble, and when he realized that all of that all of this was all over one man. Her father was reported to have laughed so hard that he nearly fell of his horse as the man that had Lord Blackwood had spent months looking for as well as several fortunes of gold had been found by her father on his way to meet the man. The man was found near dead and wounded, he had been taken to the healers in the infirmary to be seen to. Her father had heard the stories of the man's great size and wanted to see the giant himself while he was unconscious, and so recognized that he was the object of Lord Jaxter's hunt.

Immediately, Lord Blackwood demanded that House Bolton hand over the captive as politely as an extremely angry man on top of a small mountain for no good reason could. Her father, declined as he wont to do to his vassals. Lord Blackwood persisted, describing the horrors that the Qarl could commit despite his weakness, at the moment they were speaking. His incredible strength, his intense savagery and impossible ferocity. How he carved through more a dozen men with skill alone. How he trespassed on the private land of one of his highlords, as well as half a dozen other accusations which were half-truths or either baseless lies.

To most sane men, the description of Qarl, no matter how inaccurate it was, would lead them to the rational decision of having him executed for murder at least. Her father had never claimed to be sane not her knowledge anyways, and had rarely shown any evidence towards rational thought in the entirety of the time she had known him. And the result should have unsurprising, but somehow it still managed to shock a few. Her father wanted a performance of the man so had asked that at soon as the man was awoke he was to engage in an impromptu fifty-man free-for-all. The other forty-nine men were bandits, criminals and people her father did not like at the time. So of course, Lord Jaxter Blackwood and his heir - whom was also named Jaxter - were given a non-negotiable invitation into the competition as well. No matter how willing or unwilling they were.

It took two weeks to prepare and by the time the event there was enough publicity for the event that a good-sized number of smallfolk had arrived, by a 'good-sized' Selene was truly describing a non-violent mob numbering in four, maybe five digits. Their true quantity was unknown to her as nobody bothered to register them, a shame truly as perhaps they could have charged a small fee and make a moderate fortune. The location was to be held in the town that had in the shadow of the Dreadfort.

She had destroyed that town when she had caught wind of her father's defeat and the oncoming Stark army, razing the buildings, conscripting the men to the castle guard and the any who couldn't fight- women, children, etc, - were given shelter in any empty space that the Dreadfort had; be it spare rooms, halls, courtyards, wine cellars, even dungeons were used. Although nobody wanted to even enter the rooms due to the dead bodies and leftover skins left over, nevertheless they were offered.

Looking back on it, it was strategic misstep on her part to allow the townsfolk to shelter in the Dreadfort. The men? Yes, they needed as many men manning those walls as possible. Everyone else? No, they were not in any way useful only acting as several hundred mouths that drained their food supplies faster than if she had lit a fire in her larders. She had toyed with the idea of arming some dozen able-bodied women and placing them as guards, who had not heard of House Mormont after all? But these poor serfs weren't the tried and tested fighters of Bearshall, and most would not last against them for any longer than it would take to swing heavy mace. She should have left them out for Starks, but had she not taken the women the men would not have fought for her as she had left their families out for the wolves. So, that idea was scrapped.

But enough daydreaming within a daydreaming, and to focus on how Qarl entered her life as she besieged Cerwyn because one man insulted her. That sounded terribly vain and petty; hopefully, she would find a more suitable excuse once the Starks returned.

Returning to her memories of her first tourney, not that she knew of that at the time. She would always remember just how alien it was. There was a wooden contraption that created, the shape of was a ginormous table for the fabled giants of the land-beyond-the-Wall but instead an of a regular giants' table - if there ever was such a thing - the wooden pillars of pine- maybe blackwood? - which served as the legs did not stop at the horizontal board instead stretched for at least another ten feet at which there was another board. Imagine a cuboid cage, without most of the bars. Making it a rather shit cage in all honesty, but bear with this description. The cage had four central bars, which were really the supports of this construct.

Why was not the lower board/floor on the ground? Ask the architect/carpenters of this monstrosity. To the sides,, were wooden stairs whose purpose was obvious. In the cage were several rows of seats, getting gradually higher as one went further to the rear, the useless cage was covered with an ornately decorated with the sigils of several houses, victorious battles, and other nonsense that was deemed appropriate by her the weavers of the tapestry. There were three of this structure the central one was the largest by half and instead of having rows which gradually rose up, this instead had a large throne in the middle and the rest of the board was empty.

To the sides of these… things for lack of a better word were simple wooden fences that marked a large area of the grassy field. This was where the battle would take place; a field that was mundane in all aspects was soon to become a killing field.

The fifty that her father had originally wanted, this had ballooned into a battle royal into numbers of nearer to a thousand than they were fifty, reasons behind this were evident; her father had promised lordships, gold and other rewards to the victors of the melee. This had no doubt attracted many a second, third and even fourth sons, bastards of course and any warrior of renown no matter how little. It even attracted highlords seeking vainglory and gold. Nothing was required of a competitor other than to merely be there on the day of the battle.

Of the entire competition, there were favourites to win as there were in any sporting event. Qarl, of course, was an obvious choice with his great stature, strength and experience in combat, but there were others that had chances of winning; Gerrad with his Sweetsong, Lord Jaxter Blackwood was an experienced warrior with his Runesteel, the Lord Regan 'Black' Percy who had singlehandedly broken the lines of the Valemen in the last war with sheer ferocity winning the battle as well as killing their Bronze King in the process with a swing of his war hammer, the famed Lord Eddard 'Glorious' Godfrey who had slain twenty berserker Umber giants after sneaking into the Last Hearth and raping the Umber princess. And those were ones she could remember. There was no doubt more who were equally as skilled. All of them wanting to claim the prestige and rewards from this battle.

When the day of the battle came around she sat in the highest tourney stand, on her father's left while her eldest Rodgar sat on his right, all his most powerful vassals and greatest swords also with him. To their sides where the other tourney stands in where the other nobility sat, and in front of them was where the battles was to begin, the small folk had crowded around the area of half an acre. At the beginning of the day, there were little more than six hundred swords, all of varying backgrounds and the men who were about to kill each other had no thing uniting all of them but one; they all knew blood would be spilt.

Her father began it when he signalled for the battle to begin. And immediately these men went forth to kill. Swords, arrows, hammers, cudgel even fists, anything that could be used to kill was used and used vigorously. She payed special attention to Gerrad as he carved through his opposition, none stood against him for longer than a dozen seconds. He faced off against large man in a chainmail hauberk who swung a morning star flail as if it were weightless, the spiked ball smashed against the flat of Sweetsong, the force pushing Gerrad back a step. Smelling weakness, the man raised his right arm for an overhead strike. Should it connect it would more than likely kill Gerrad, probably snapping his neck or caving in his skull, depending on where the morning star landed.

It landed nowhere.

Sweetsong screamed a haunting melody as it was rammed hilt deep into the man's throat, through his shield and through his arm before settling in the crimson warmth of the recently deceased warrior. Gerrad, his emotions unknown to her as his face was hidden beneath his iron helm, used two hands to pull out his blade, but before he could do so he was attacked on his flanks by two assailants. They wore brown brigandine tunics and were wielding bloodied spears, they worked as a unit. One tried to spear Gerrad through the armpit – one of the few weak points in plate armour – while his compatriot was two or so feet away from him. A good tactic, one would attack upfront while the other close enough to support, but still far away enough that they could surprise an unsuspecting enemy from the rear.

Catching a glimpse of his ambush a second before it happened, Gerrad was forced to abandon Sweetsong which was still buried in his previous opponent, in favour of not getting skewered, now forced to face a spearman unarmed and unknowing of his ally a not a few steps away. For the first few seconds, they merely circled each other, gauging weaknesses and strengths. Then the spearman lunged forward trying to catch Gerrad off guard. Had he ever fought Gerrad before he would know just how impossible his task was, using his left arm's iron forearm guard to block the lunge as he moved forward grabbing Sweetsongs hilt in one hand and instead of the neck, he plants it deeply in the chest of the spearman with such force that it lifts him clean off the ground. This time he does not waste time and so removes Sweetsong swiftly from the dead man's body, only to parry away the second spearman who charged in screaming, quite obviously grief stricken at the death of his friend. The spear man comes in with a flurry of quick stabs that forces Gerrad on the defensive using Sweetsong to block or parry what he cannot dodge, but the battle is over when the spearman stalls for two seconds and Gerrad takes the opportunity to bury Sweetsong between the man's eyes.

This would be an interesting day.

AN

Sorry for the late update, other issues came up that demanded my attention. Tried to make it this extra-long through some exposition and backstory to compensate but lost the main plot as a result. Next chapter we continue with Selene and how she rules the Winterlands in the stead of the Starks. I would greatly enjoy reading and replying to your ideas and queries so please review. Thank you

Here is a small description of the houses mentioned in this chapter;

House Blackwood

Seat of Power; the Ravensnest.

Territory; the Blackwood and the Grey Cliffs

Sigil; a black red-eyed raven with its wings outstretched, in one set of claws it grasped a series of scrolls in the other was a human skull, on a field of red bordered with grey.

Words; Eat their hearts

Overlord; House Bolton

Vassals; House Neville, House Lennox, House Moray

House Godfrey

Seat of Power; the Weirhold

Territory; the Sheepstead Hills

Sigil; A white weirwood with red leaves on a field of black

Words; God's Might

Overlord; House Bolton

Vassals; House Dudley, House Kens, House Tor, House Hawkthorne

House Percy

Seat of Power; Percival

Territory; a few acres of land in the Sheepstead Hills, east of the White Knife.

Sigil; a purple diagonal cross on white, at the centre is a right arm in plate armour gripping a sword.

Words; We bear the sword.

Overlord; House Godfrey

Vassals; None

House Blest

Seat of Power; Durham

Territory; A few acres of land by the Bay of Seals, northeast of the Blackwood.

Sigil; Yellow diamonds crossing through field of sea blue

Words; Blessed is our House

Overlord; House Neville

Vassals; House Locke

House Ramsgate

Seat of Power; Ramsgate

Territory; three leagues of all the land that borders the Broken Branch and its tributaries.

Sigil; a black iron gate adorned with a ram's head on a field of blue

Words; We Endure

Overlord; House Hornwood

Vassals; None