The Sunset Starks

by SoulGamesInc

King Brandon the Shipwright sailed across the Sunset Sea, but never returned, his tomb in the crypts of Winterfell remaining empty. He made landfall on what would become the Sunset Islands and now generations later the youngest son of Brandon VII Stark attempts a return to Westeros. Winter is Coming.

45. Chapter 45: Louder than Words

Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin, other than my own the original character(s) in this story. This is purely a work of my personal enjoyment so don't expect anything worthy of GRRM. I fully welcome criticism/suggestions/questions. The story will eventually be finished (I hate leaving things unfinished) but I have no real schedule. Please review as I'd love useful thoughts :) feedback goes a long way to encouraging my writing.

---

Chapter 45: Louder than Words
"You know the price of defiance."
– Prince Darion Stark

It was a grey day, damp and misty. The wind was from the north, moist as a kiss. The ruins of Moat Cailin were visible in the distance, threaded through with wisps of morning mist. His horse moved toward them at a walk, her hooves making faint wet squelching sounds as they pulled free of the grey-green muck. He'd come this way before on their way south. Theon had thought once how the next time he saw this ruin, they'd be returning with Ned Stark; or Tywin Lannister's head.

They had neither, such was the reality, instead their chosen king was death, his father was dead, and Ned Stark was likely dead too…

Last he walked this causeway an army had followed close behind him, the great host of the north riding to war beneath the grey-and-white banners of House Stark. Theon rode alone now, mounted on a courser, swift and spirited as the winds; Robb's parting gift. "You're a lord," he'd said with a kind smile that betrayed his worries.

Robb had never been good at hiding his emotions…

"Aye," Theon had told him easily. In the safety of his mind, he doubted that. He was lord of little but Salt and Sorrow.

How many had died for his supposed Lordship to come around?

Too many, was the answer. It was not a price he'd have wished paid.

"You're the Lord of Pyke," he frowned, scolding his wayward thoughts.

With the ruins of the Moat ahead of him, it was time to start acting the role.

His life might well hang in the balance. Theon rather liked living…

"You might be tempted kraken," Qrow Ryder had cornered him back at camp before he'd departed; waiting till nobody else was within sight to grab him by his tunic and slam him up against a tree. Bastard. "Maybe you'll run, or turn your cloak, but know this much – you'll not live long enough to enjoy it…"

Theon had pushed the man back and cursed him something fierce.

Who was he to question his loyalty? What had he done to deserve it?

It wasn't fair… he'd fought as hard as any man beside Robb…

"Bastards," Theon frowned at the memory.

The air was wet and heavy, and shallow pools of water dotted the ground of the Neck. Theon picked his way between them carefully, following the remnants of the log-and-plank road that Robb's vanguard had laid down across the soft ground to speed the passage of his host. Where once a mighty curtain wall had stood, only scattered stones remained, blocks of black basalt so large it must once have taken a hundred men to hoist them into place. Some had sunk so deep into the bog that only a corner showed; others lay strewn about like some god's abandoned toys, cracked and crumbling, spotted with lichen. Last night's rain had left the huge stones wet and glistening.

Morning's sunlight made them look as if they were coated in some fine black oil.

The Drunkard's Tower leaned as if it were about to collapse, just as it had for half a thousand years.

The Children's Tower thrust into the sky as straight as a spear, but its shattered top was open to the wind and rain.

The Gatehouse Tower, squat and wide, was the largest of the three, slimy with moss, a gnarled tree growing sideways from the stones of its north side, fragments of broken wall still standing to the east and west. The Karstarks had taken the Drunkard' s Tower and the Umbers the Children' s Tower, he recalled. Robb once claimed the Gatehouse Tower for his own. If he closed his eyes, he could see the banners in his mind's eye, snapping bravely in a brisk north wind.

Only kraken banners flew above the remains of Moat Cailin now, displaying a golden kraken on a field of black.

He was being watched. He could feel the eyes upon him now. When he looked up, he caught a glimpse of pale faces peering from behind the battlements of the Gatehouse Tower and through the broken masonry that crowned the Children's Tower, where legend said the children of the forest had once called down the hammer of the waters to break the lands of Westeros in two. The only dry road through the Neck was the causeway, and the towers of Moat Cailin plugged its northern end like a cork in a bottle. The road was narrow, the ruins so positioned that any enemy coming up from the south was forced to pass beneath and between them. To assault any of the three towers, an attacker must expose his back to arrows from the other two, whilst climbing damp stone walls festooned with streamers of slimy white ghostskin.

The swampy ground beyond the causeway was impassable, an endless morass of sinkholes, quicksands, and glistening green swards that looked solid to the unwary eye but turned to water the instant you trod upon them, the whole of it infested with venomous serpents and poisonous flowers and monstrous lizard lions with teeth like daggers. Just as dangerous were its people, seldom seen but always lurking, the swamp-dwellers, the frog-eaters, the mud-men. Fenn and Reed, Peat and Boggs, Cray and Quagg, Greengood and Blackmyre, those were the sorts of names they gave themselves. The ironborn called them all bog devils…

Howland Reed didn't look like any devil Theon had thought to see however, when he'd been escorted to Greywater Watch with a sac over his head – such was the swamp-dwellers hospitality – they trusted him not; but Lord Reed had apologized for his bannermen's caution all the same. The apology didn't reach his eyes though.

He'd been the only one with a sack. "Can't trust no squid," one of Reed's men had gone so far to spit at him when they'd met.

Robb's orders were clear. It was obvious the devils didn't like it, but they were a loyal lot – not like to question a Stark of Winterfell.

Theon passed the rotted carcass of a man as he neared the ruins, an arrow jutting from the man's neck. A long white snake slithered into the corpses empty eye socket at his approach. The crows had stripped the flesh from the man's face, and a feral dog had burrowed beneath his mail to get at his entrails

Farther on, another corpse had sunk so deep into the muck that only his face and fingers showed…

"Devils," Theon muttered as he passed them. Reed's people had been harassing the Ironborn in the Moat ever since they'd taken it…

Closer to the ruins, corpses littered the ground on every side. Blood-blooms had sprouted from their wounds, pale flowers with petals plump.

The garrison would know him, he was sure of it, atop his fine courser dressed in fine black leathers and furs marked with the golden Kraken of his house.

"No closer! " a voice rang out to greet him. "What do you want? Who are you!?"

"My name is Theon Greyjoy," He spurred his mount onward, refusing to show any fear. "Open the gates!"

There was no reply. Inside the walls, he knew, the ironmen were discussing whether to admit him or fill his chest with arrows.

Would the Drowned God hear his prayers here? Did it count, Theon wounded, to drown in a bog? It was not salt water after all…

Then the gatehouse doors flung open as if to answer his prayers. "Quickly now! Move it boy!"

With a great wet THUD the gates crashed shut behind him. In a heartbeat he was pulled from his horse and shoved against a wall.

Then a knife was at his throat, a bearded face so close to his that he could count the man's nose hairs. "Who are you really? What's your purpose here!? Quick now, or I'll do you the same as him." The guard jerked his head toward a body rotting on the floor beside the door, its flesh green and crawling with maggots.

"I am Theon Greyjoy," he answered, growling at the man. This was the second time today he'd been grabbed and threated. "Look at my face! I am Lord Balon's son and heir!" His captor stared at his face, squinting, his mouth twisted in suspicion. His teeth were brown, and his breath stank of ale and onion.

"Lord Balon's sons were killed," the man countered, but the pressure from his knife slacked.

"My brothers," Theon argued. "Not me. I was taken by Ned Stark to Winterfell as a boy…"

If the man believed him or not, Theon couldn't quite tell, but the knife wasn't quite so close anymore.

"Do you command here?"

"Me?" The man lowered the knife and took a step backwards, almost stumbling over the corpse. "Not me, m'lord."

His mail was rusted, his leathers rotting. On the back of one hand an open sore wept blood.

"Ralf Kenning has the command," the man said. "I'm on the door, is all..."

"And who is this?" Theon gave the corpse a kick.

The guard stared at the dead man as if seeing him for the first time.

"Him... he drank the water. I had to cut his throat for him, to stop his screaming. Bad belly. You can't drink the water. That's why we got the ale." The guard rubbed his face, his eyes red and inflamed. "We used to drag the dead down into the cellars. All the vaults are flooded down there m'lord. No one wants to take the trouble now…"

"The cellar is a better place for them. Give them to the water. To the Drowned God…"

The man laughed. "No gods down there, m'lord. Only rats and snakes. White things, thick as your leg. They slither up the steps and bite you in your sleep..."

"How many of the garrison are left?"

"Some," said the ironman. "I don't know. Fewer than we was before. Some in the Drunkard's Tower too, I think. Not the Children's Tower. Dagon Codd went over there a few days back. Only two men left alive, he said, and they was eating on the dead ones. He killed them both if you can believe that m'lord…"

Moat Cailin has already fallen, Theon realized then, only no one has seen fit to tell them.

He rubbed his mouth to hide his broken teeth, and said, "I need to speak with your commander."

"Kenning?" The guard seemed confused. "He don't have much to say these days. He's dying. Might be he's dead. I haven't seen him since... I don't remember when..."

"Where is he? Take me to him."

"Who will keep the door, then?"

"Him," Theon gave the corpse a kick.

That made the man laugh. "Aye. Why not? Come with me, then m'lord."

He pulled a torch down from a wall sconce and waved it till it blazed up bright and hot. "This way," the guard led him through a door and up a spiral stair, the torchlight glimmering off black stone walls as they climbed. The chamber at the top of the steps was dark, smoky, and oppressively hot. A ragged skin had been hung across the narrow window to keep the damp out, and a slab of peat smouldered in a brazier. The smell in the room was foul, a miasma of mold and piss, of smoke and sickness.

Soiled rushes covered the floor, whilst a heap of straw in the corner passed for a bed. Ralf Kenning lay shivering beneath a mountain of furs.

His arms were stacked beside him-sword and axe, mail hauberk, iron warhelm. His shield bore the storm god's cloudy hand, lightning crackling from his fingers down to a raging sea, but the paint was discoloured and peeling, the wood beneath starting to rot.

Ralf was rotting too. Beneath the furs he was naked and feverish, his pale puffy flesh covered with weeping sores and scabs. His head was misshapen, one cheek grotesquely swollen, his neck so engorged with blood that it threatened to swallow his face. The arm on that same side was big as a log and crawling with white worms. No one had bathed him or shaved him for many days, from the look of him. One eye wept pus, and his beard was crusty with dried vomit.

"What happened to him?" asked Theon with a disgusted look to the man.

"He was on the parapets and some bog devil loosed an arrow at him. It was only a graze, but... they poison their shafts, smear the points with shit and worse things."

There was no saving this one, not that Theon cared to try – death would be a mercy.

"Kill him," he told the guard. "His wits are gone. He's full of blood and worms."

The man gaped at him. "The captain put him in command."

"You'd put a dying horse down."

"What horse? I never had no horse."

"I'll do it myself," Theon snatched up Ralf Kenning's sword where it leaned against his shield. When he laid the edge of the blade against the swollen throat of the man on the straw, the skin split open in a gout of black blood and yellow pus. Kenning jerked violently, then lay still. An awful stench filled the room.

Theon left the room and the stench of it, bolting for the steps. The air was damp and cold there, but much cleaner by comparison. The ironman stumbled out after him, white-faced and struggling not to retch. Theon grasped him by the arm. "Who was second-in-command? Where are the rest of the men?"

"Up on the battlements, or in the hall. Sleeping, drinking. I'll take you if you like."

"Do it now," Theon didn't have long. Lord Umber would begin his assault sooner than later.

The hall was dark stone, high ceilinged and drafty, full of drifting smoke, its stone walls spotted by huge patches of pale lichen. A peat fire burned low in a hearth blackened by the hotter blazes of years past. A massive table of carved stone filled the chamber, as it had for centuries.

Two dozen ironborn sat drinking at the table. A few looked at him with dull, flat eyes when he entered. The rest ignored him. All the men were strangers to him. Several wore cloaks fastened by brooches in the shape of silver codfish. The Codds were not well regarded in the Iron Islands; the men were said to be thieves and cowards, the women wantons who bedded with their own fathers and brothers. It did not surprise him that his uncle had chosen to leave these men behind when the Iron Fleet went home. This would make his task that much easier. "Ralf Kenning is dead," he said. "Who commands here?"

The drinkers stared at him blankly. One laughed. Another spat. Finally, one of the Codds said, "Who asks?"

"Lord Balon's only son," Theon replied coldly. These men would not respond well to any show of weakness, he knew that…

"That so," one of the ironmen shrugged. "Balon's dead, ain't he? Why should we care, eh boy?"

"You should care because soon there will be a host of northmen at your walls," Theon began, staring blankly at the fools on the table.

The ironborn shifted uneasily.

"M'lord?" The first guardsman asked, blinking dumbly.

"I've come to spare your sorry hides," he told the men. "You must yield the castle and the Stark's will be merciful…"

Theon drew out the letter that Robb had given him and tossed it on the table before the drinkers . One of them picked it up and turned it over in his hands, picking at the grey wax that sealed it. After a moment he said, "Parchment. What good is that? It's cheese we need, and meat..."

"Steel, you mean," said the man beside him, a greybeard whose left arm ended in a stump. "Swords. Axes. Aye, and bows, a hundred more bows, and men to use em!"

"Ironborn do not surrender," said a third voice in defiance, gulping down his tankard of ale.

"Tell that to my father," Theon countered with a stoic face. "Lord Balon bent the knee when Robert broke his wall, elsewise he would have died. As you will if you do not yield." He gestured at the parchment. "Break the seal. Read the words. That is a safe conduct, written in Lord Stark's own hand. Give up your swords and come with me, and his lordship will feed you and give you leave to march unmolested to the Stony Shore and find a ship for home. Elsewise you die…"

"Is that a threat?" One of the Codds pushed to his feet. A big man, but pop-eyed and wide of mouth, with dead white flesh. He looked as if his father had sired him on a fish, but he still wore a longsword. "Dagon Codd yields to no man. No man boy, you hear me!?"

"Is that your answer?" Theon practically growled at the man. "Does this codfish speak for all of you?"

The guard who had met him at the door seemed less certain. Many at the table seemed uncertain.

"Victarion commanded us to hold, he did. I heard him with my own ears. Hold here till I return, he told Kenning."

"Aye," said the one-armed man. "That's what he said. The kingsmoot called, but he swore that he'd be back, with a driftwood crown and a thousand men."

"My uncle is never coming back," Theon told them. "The kingswood crowned his brother Euron, and the Crow's Eye has other wars to fight, far to the South. You think my uncle values you? He doesn't. You are the ones he left behind to die. He scraped you off the same way he scrapes mud off his boots when he wades ashore."

Those words struck home. He could see it in their eyes, in the way they looked at one another or frowned above their cups. They all feared they'd been abandoned, but it took Theon to turn fear into certainty. These were not the kin of famous captains nor the blood of the great Houses of the Iron Islands.

These were the sons of thralls and salt wives, none of whom wished to die so far from the sea…

"If we yield, we walk away?" said the one-armed man. "Is that what it says on this here writing?"

"Read it for yourself," he answered, though he was almost certain that none of them could read. "The Stark's treat their captives honourably. I was one myself; as a ward in Winterfell. Lannister captives were taken in the war to and have been treated fairly. Stark's value their honor."

His words were sinking in, he could see it, but Theon resisted the urge to smile at his victory.

"Yield up your swords," he repeated to hammer the message home. "Do this, and you will live."

"Liar!" Dagon Codd drew his longsword. "You're with the Greenlanders, boy. Why should we believe your promises?"

He is drunk, Theon realized. The ale is speaking for him. "Believe what you want. I have brought Lord Stark's message. I'll return with your answer. We'll sup on wild boar and neeps, washed down with strong red wine. Those who come with me will be welcome at the feast. The rest of you will die within a day. Lord Stark will bring his host of fifteen thousand men up the causeway and no quarter will be granted. The ones that die fighting will be the lucky ones. Those who live will be given to the bog devils."

"Enough, " snarled Dagon Codd. "You think you can frighten with words? Run back to your master before I pull your entrails out and make you eat them!"

He might have said more, throwing all manner of threats and insults, but suddenly his eyes gaped wide. A throwing axe sprouted from the centre of his forehead with a solid thunk of iron to flesh and bone. Codd's sword fell from his fingers. He jerked like a fish on a hook, then crashed face-first onto the table.

It was the one-armed man who'd flung the axe. As he rose to his feet, he had another in his hand.

"Who else wants to die?" he asked the other drinkers. "Speak up now, I'll see you do!" Thin red streams were spreading out across the stone from the pool of blood where Dagon Codd's head had come to rest. "Me, I mean to live, and that don't mean staying here to rot!"

One man took a swallow of ale. Another turned his cup over to wash away a finger of blood before it reached the place where he was seated. No one spoke. When the one-armed man slid the throwing axe back through his belt, Theon knew he had won. These men had no wish to die for a lost cause.

He pulled down the kraken banner with his own two hands as the host of Lord Umber's rode up the causeway blowing horns.

There were less Ironborn than he would have guessed. Sixty-eight in the Gatehouse Tower and another seventeen in the Drunkard's Tower. Three of those were so close to dead there was no hope for them, another eight too weak to walk. That left few fit enough to fight. Weak as they were, they would still have felled many lives from the Moat – as no army could hope to seize it without paying a heavy toll. Lord Umber would've lost many men before Robb would arrive from the North.

"That them," one man asked as Umber's banners approached from the south, brazing and loud, demanding attention.

"Not all of them," Theon admitted, watching the host of northmen approach from the south.

It was a fine sight, looking out at the causeway filled with banners fluttering in the breeze coming to take the Moat.

The thought of preventing a siege made Theon smirk something fierce. Umber would have no glory today – this was His victory.

A horn blasted from the north. Harooooooooooooooooooooo, it cried defiantly, gripping the notice of every Ironborn.

"North," one of the ironborn was wide-eyed.

"Lord Stark comes from the north-west to-"

"East," another Ironborn declared. "North-east, m'lord…"

"What?" Theon pushed the man aside and made for the rear of the ruins.

Robb would come up from the north-west through passages known only to the bog-dwellers – such was the plan – but for the briefest moment Theon feared he'd not been trusted with the whole truth… perhaps Robb had lied… perhaps he'd expected a betrayal… the notion hurt…

The trumpets blared again, da-DAAA da-DAAA da-DA da-DA da-DAAAAAAA.

They were from the north-east, the men hadn't been lying, but it was not Robb's host.

White-silver mermen with green hair carried tridents on blue-green fields before Theon's eyes, lining the north-east horizon were well over ten thousand mounted knights and riders. "Manderly," Theon supposed, but the numbers didn't add up. White Harbour could not call upon so many, especially having already sent men south.

The trumpets blared loud and defiant as the light snows fell over Moat Cailin and the strange host practically shimmered in the distance.

Birds flew above the Manderly host – an odd number of them – all ravens, eagles and hawks by a glance. They swooped over them as if to spy on the ruins.

Strange banners were alongside the Manderly host and Theon couldn't place them. Ned Stark had taught him alongside his own sons, so he liked to think he knew the northern houses well… yet alongside the familiar merman and direwolves were a silver shark on blue, a black anchor on white and ice-blue roses of all things…

"You didn't mention they had so many…"

Theon blinked; his eyes locked on the horizon.

Did it matter? They flew Stark banners, so this was a good thing… wasn't it?

Lord Umber's men were pouring through the causeway gate by now, with the giant of a man at its head.

"Greyjoy!" He bellowed, hopping down from his horse and storming over to Theon.

"Umber," he replied, mustering his best shit-eating smirk.

The Greatjon burst into laugher and clasped him on the shoulders.

"Well done squid," he practically SHOOK the kraken like a child's ragdoll.

"You doubted me?"

"Only a little," Umber chuckled heartily. "Lord Stark here lad!?"

Theon shook his head and motioned to the north and the strange host.

"Manderly's," Umber hummed in thought.

"We should ride out, my Lord," Theon suggested. "Meet them in the field…"

"Aye lad," Umber moved back to his great tall horse and leapt into the saddle with surprising grace for one of his height.

"Lord Umber?" Ser Wendel Manderly asked before they could leave.

"See to the men," Umber bid the knight. "Give that sour bastard Roose command once his rear arrives!"

"Bolton?" Wendel shrugged, moving off to do as he was tasked while Lord Karstark and his sons fell in behind the Greatjon.

"That fat mermaid finally left his city, eh?"

"Looks that way Karstark," the Greatjon scoffed at the notion.

"Father," Torrhen Karstark pointed out. "Those are Ryder banners, same as Qrows…"

Lord Karstark squinted at the horizon.

"Prince Willam?" the man guessed, asking aloud.

If it was, then perhaps Harrion was with them? Karstark could only hope…

"Only one way to find out!" Lord Umber pushed his horse forward into a trot without another word.

"Leave your weapons here," Theon told the prisoners quickly. "Swords, bows, daggers. Armed men will be slain on sight…"

Climbing back onto his horse he followed Umber and Karstark across the boggy ground to where the strange Manderly host had begun to encamp.

It took them thrice as long to cover the distance north as it had taken Theon to travel the southern causeway alone, leaving the bulk of Umber's host behind.

Crude litters had been patched together for the men who could not walk; one carried by his son upon his back. It made for slow going, and all the ironborn were well aware of how exposed they were, well within bowshot of the bog devils and their poisoned arrows, or the northmen's swords. The one-armed man walked at the head of the procession, limping heavily. His name, he said, was Adrack Humble, and he had a rock wife and three salt wives back on Great Wyk. "Three of the four had big bellies when we sailed," he boasted, "and Humbles run to twins. First thing I'll need to do when I get back is count up my new sons. Might be I'll even name one after you, m'lord."

He turned his head away from the man at that, the thought lingering at the back of his mind.

A light rain had begun to piss down out of the slate-grey sky by the time they reached Manderly's camp on the very edge of the swampland. A sentry watched them pass in silence. The air was full of drifting smoke from the cookfires drowning in the rain. A column of riders came wheeling up from the camp of men, led by some lordling with a horse on his shield. It was the Ryder colours, Theon knew, mumbling a curse at the memory of Qrow's threats.

From the distance of the Moat he'd not noticed the difference between Ryder colours and Ryswell's.

"Who leads here?" the rider asked from atop a chestnut stallion.

"I do," Theon replied, despite the scoff from Umber's lips. "You are?"

Ryder men, these were, that meant only one thing. Prince Willam…

"Bolvar," came the name. "Son of Lord Ragnar Ryder. You are, Ironborn?"

"Theon Greyjoy, son of-"

"Greyjoy," Bolvar scoffed, the men around him suddenly looking far more threatening.

"Lord Stark sent me to-"

"Ain't no Lord Stark here squid – you're in the wrong camp."

Robb wasn't here then… where was he exactly?

"This is the North boy," Umber scowled at the stranger. "Stark land – best you remember it!"

"Oh we're aware," Bolvar didn't seem concerned. "You are?"

"Umber," the Greatjon answered with a huff and a scowl. "Lord Jon Umber…"

"Another Umber," Bolvar's face twisted. "Gods, not another one…"

"You-"

Lord Karstark was laughing.

"-little shit!"

Theon interrupted before things could escalate.

"I have negotiated the surrender of Moat Cailin, my Lord…"

"Negotiation with Ironborn," Bolvar spat at the ground, seeming to forget all about the Greatjon.

Theon fought the scowl on his lips at that insult. It had seemed to cheer Lord Umber up though…

"Take me to whoever is in charge," Theon demanded sharply. "That isn't you, I know."

"The balls on this squid!"

Ryder's men all laughed with him.

"Careful boy," Bolvar leaded forward in his saddle. "We might just have to cut those off…"

"You said we'd be let go," Adrack Humble looked afraid, hand drifting to where his axe would be.

"You will be," Theon vowed, not quite believing it.

"Oh we'll free you pirate, don't fret," Ryder's smirk was devious.

"Lord Stark's given these squids free passage," Lord Karstark confirmed, very reluctantly.

"Is that how you treat Ironborn in the North these days? With pity? Gods… you've all gone soft…"

"Bolvar!" A new voice came riding over on a black stallion, dressed in thick furs – with a dark blue cloak and a silver shark on his clasp – this one unlike the rest was a face Theon knew, though he'd not seen it in quite some time. "You harassing our guests? The Prince won't be happy…"

"Just having some fun Fisher," Ryder rolled his eyes at the notion.

"Edwyn Fisher," Theon named him, all smiles. "It's good to see a familiar face…"

Edwyn shifted in his saddle and eyed Theon's captives with care.

"Theon Greyjoy," he was cordial enough.

"Fisher!" Umber bellowed, having seemingly forgotten Ryder's insults.

"We thought you were dead, or captured…"

"Near enough," Edwyn sighed at it. "Come, he'll want to see you…"

"Prince Willam is with you?" Torrhen Karstark asked of him.

It was the natural assumption. These strangers were Ryders, they had Fisher banners with them too and others Theon couldn't place…

"No," Edwyn denied with a forlorn look on his face.

"No?" Theon frowned. If he wasn't here, who was this 'Prince' they mentioned?

"Come," Edwyn turned his horse and led them further into the camp.

"Brother!" Bolvar's voice shouted out behind them. Theon glanced back, seeing Qrow Ryder grabbed by the man.

"Where's father?" Qrow asked him, eyes darting around the vast host with a smirk on his lips.

"Away," Theon heard the elder Ryder reply. The rest of the conversation was drowned out by the sound of horses and men as they moved away.

Past the knights and men-at-arms Theon noted several banners he knew, the Umber giant chiefly among them, but alongside what few he knew were the shark of fisher, the rearing horse of Ryder, the anchor of Wright and many more that were foreign to his eyes. Willam's people had finally come for him it seemed.

Theon hadn't believed the man's stories once – dismissing him as a mummer – but he'd never been so glad to be wrong.

The Lannister's were in for one hell of a surprise. The thought brought a beaming smile to Theon's face.

---

In the Merman's Court they'd all sat in the shadow of Lord Manderly's cushioned throne, beneath high walls of wood, decorated with all the creatures of the sea.

At one end of the hall the mighty oak doors closed with a thud to the attention of a select few. Prince Darion looked out from the raised dais, eyeing the guests and admiring once more the painted floor that boasted crabs and clams and starfish, half-hidden among twisting black fronds of seaweed and the bones of drowned sailors. On the walls were pale sharks prowling painted blue-green depths, whilst eels and octopods slithered among rocks and sunken ships. Shoals of herring and great codfish swim between the tall, arched windows. Higher up, near where the old fishing nets droop down from the rafters, the surface of the sea shun brightly.

"Victarion Greyjoy has left the Moat vulnerable," the fat Merman Lord told him, sitting comfortably and eager in his throne.

Darion's eyes caught the sight of a kraken and grey leviathan locked in battle beneath painted waves.

"We ride soon then," he asked the Lord of White Harbour.

"Soon as the feast is over," he was all smiles. "Patience is a virtue My Prince."

Darion fought the urge to sigh. They'd arrived in the city to cheers and open arms – House Manderly had been nothing but accommodating; though they'd also done little but feast and celebrate as if their arrival was some grand victory. Darion supposed it was to them…. it wasn't ever day so many friendly forces arrived to help you…

A moment later, with some difficulty, Lord Manderly got up from his seat and hushed his guests. Among those seated were knights and nobles and guardsmen alike deep in their cup's merriment with more than a handful seemingly rather too drunk. "My lords!" Manderly caught the rooms attention. "Sers! I thank you for attending this gathering to celebrate Prince Darion's arrival and the return of the Young Wolf!" It seemed all of the room, with a handful of exceptions, took the words to heart.

Robb Stark was marching up the Neck by all reports. Darion's wargs had eyes on the young wolf too, all the more reason to have left the damn city by now…

"Let us dance!" Lord Manderly declared happily. "And then, we march! To take back the Moat and welcome back the Young Wolf!"

At his words, it was young Lady Wynafryd that stepped out onto the dais from her seat.

"My granddaughter would be honoured if you'd join us in this," he smiled at the girl. "As she graces us with her voice!"

Wynafryd was dressed in a fine dress, blue with dark green embroidery made to seem like seaweed, her brown hair bound in a long braid.

"In a dark days of yore,

On the banks of our shore."

She was not the best singer Darion had ever heard, but she was sweet enough, as the guests took to the clear floor below the dais and began a slow dance to match the almost sadness in her voice. The girl's grandfather smiled as she sang her tune. A blind man could see the pride in his eyes.

The Lord had gone out of his way to ensure his granddaughters were always close, especially to Varin; unwed as he was…

"We heard the winds sing,

And thus did take wing."

Darion watched patiently as most of the guests took to the floor, all too happy to partake.

"We're wasting time," Varin whispered in his brother's ear.

"I know," Darion fought the urge to frown.

"If we don't leave soon-"

"After the feast," Darion vowed easily.

Prince Varin merely hummed in reply, sipping Arbor Red wine from his cloudy glass chalice.

Lady Wynafryd was still singing her song. It sounded sad, for reasons Darion wasn't sure.

The girl's lordly grandfather explained it as being "the Song of our House's exile from the Mander."

"We left the river behind and then carried on,

As we fled our shores, having done no wrong."

Varin was smirking at the sight of their cousin Serana.

She was dancing with seemingly every unmarried man in the hall – and some married ones too – as every family present had practically jumped at the opportunity to dance with a Princess the moment Darion had introduced her as such. Princess Serana was not nearly as fine a dancer as she was a fighter.

Prince Varin laughed when she stepped on some noble knight's feet and caused him to yelp like a struck puppy.

"We felt the cold winds, brushed the snow from our hair,

We came here to settle and return to nowhere."

Serana was scowling as her noble dancing parent limped away.

"Our hope and our lands were lost,

Yet you smiled and we vowed."

"Princess," Lord Manderly greeted her when she gave up to the dias.

"My Lord," she shot him a strained smile, then grabbed Varin's chalice and drank deep from it.

"I was enjoying that sweet Princess," he frowned at her.

"Shut up," she huffed at him, emptying the chalice of its wine.

Lord Manderly only chuckled at the show.

"Not a fan of dancing, Princess?"

She blinked, eyes darting to Darion for a second.

The Crown Prince's face read something akin to "don't be rude" across it.

"The song is a beautiful one," she sweetened her words. "I prefer to dance with my sword though… my Lord…"

Again, the fat Lord of White Harbour chuckled, his multiple chins jiggling.

"A true she-wolf," he called her happily. "You remind me of our Lady Lyanna!"

Serana's head tilted slightly in question as she put down her brother's chalice.

"My wine," Varin frowned dramatically, looking at the empty chalice. "It was innocent…"

"Lyanna Stark was my liege Rickard's only daughter," Lord Manderly explained with a bite of chicken soaked in gravy from his silver plate. "She was a wolf through and through – born to ride that horse of hers. Winter, she called it, and rode that mare like a northman! She was beauty and iron, much like you my Princess…"

Serana blinked. "I-" She stumbled over the words. "T- Thank yo-"

Varion burst into laughter at her expense.

"By the gods you've made her speechless my Lord!"

"Shut up," she scowled at her cousin.

Lord Manderly merely beamed an innocent smile.

Darion looked at the man in a new light for a brief second. He had quite the way with words when he wished to…

"Ah," Varin ceased his laughter, but held firmly to the smile. "Well done my Lord – you've just become one of my favourite people!"

"You honour me Prince," the Lord chuckled and took another bite of his chicken.

"I need another drink," Serana scowled and Varin laughed as he poured her some wine.

A single Stark banner fluttered behind Manderly's throne, a running grey wolf now standing defiant beside the merman with dark green hair, carrying a black trident over a blue-green field. The bells of White Harbor tolled and rang out as the feast came to an end and well over ten thousand men left the city

Within a few days they arrived to see the mists over Moat Cailin. It was a ruin, far from how the legends described it…

"It's a mess," Varin named it with a frown.

Darion couldn't help but agree. If it were him, this ruin would be rebuilt to its strength. Bowing to the dragons must have made his cousins in Winterfell all too soft. If Winterfell was the heart of the north then the Moat was its shield, left to rust and ruin over the ages, for what reason?

He'd asked Ser Marlon about it and hadn't liked the answer.

"The North doesn't have the funds," he'd claimed.

"Have you looked?"

The Knight seemed confused by that.

"You've silver mines of your own, do you not Ser?"

"Aye," Ser Marlon nodded. "That we do, Prince…"

"What of the mountains?" Darion pried with a scowl.

The North was vast. As far as Darion could see, it held little but potential…

"You've all the trees and stone from the land alone to raise the Moat back to glory, do you not?"

"It would be a vast undertaking," Ser Marlon had countered.

They'd need labour for the task, no doubt. It would take years, but they'd HAD years and no effort was made.

Darion couldn't help but be disappointed in his cousins thus far. He refused to believe that the Kings of Winter would've allowed this…

They'd set up a makeshift camp within sight of the Moat in preparation for a siege only for his wargs to report that Robb Stark's host had already arrived at the walls – while a smaller force had burnt what longboats were waiting along the shoreline. Ser Marlon was sent to fetch that smaller host…

"So much for a great battle," Varin wasn't pleased by the turn of events.

"I'm sorry My Prince…"

"Don't apologize for doing your duty," Darion told the warg, sharper than he'd intended.

Rowana was her name. Edwyn Fisher had recommended her personally – she'd served as his uncle's Warg on the Wanderer and now she served as his own – not that the woman seemed to mind; though she was shy around him. "She blames herself for Willam," Edwyn had told him one night. "Foolish girl…"

She was gifted though, that much had proven obvious.

The Moat had surrendered to some Theon Greyjoy.

"A kraken," Varin scoffed once the warg had left them.

"You can't trust them My Prince," Lord Wright council sagely.

"My father is right," Arthur Wright agreed swiftly. "Pirates, raiders, thieves and worse; the lot of them…"

"It's true," Trian Greystark offered simply from Darion's side.

"Enough," Darion waved it away.

"Fools coming this way regardless," Varin supposed with a shrug.

"Indeed," Darion sighed, running his hand across the map laid before him.

It was a map of the North that House Manderly had so gracefully provided them, made of tan parchment with fine black ink and trimmed in a silver outlay – very damn fancy for a map – but then White Harbour was perhaps the richest place in the North and it showed.

Lord Manderly himself was a damn shrewd man.

Darion could admit he'd underestimated the fat lord upon their first meeting.

Having observed his mannerisms however, it quickly became clear the man had a sharp mind to him.

"If the kraken proves a threat," Darion decided with a glance to his lords. "We feed him to the wolves; simple as that…"

"Aye," and "Aye," and "My Prince" all replied as one to that notion.

When the Greyjoy entered Prince Darion covered up the war map.

---

Theon's smile died on his face when he entered and every eye fell on him, including the eyes of grey wolves – not so large as direwolves – but no less fierce looking as they sized him up as if he were their next meal. "Our guests have arrived brother," one of them broke the awkward silence in the air.

"I see them," Theon eyed this one – apparently brother to the other – he looked young, but older than Robb by some years at a glance. The stubble on the eldest's chin no doubt helped with that, with a circlet atop his head of Silver and Onyx with runes engraved throughout. Willam had a similar crown… though he'd rarely worn it…

"It is customary to kneel before Prince's," another man all but demanded, snapping Theon back from his thoughts.

"Ain't my Prince," Theon told them boldly.

"Fucker," Theon was surprised to a woman curse at him, all dressed in riding leathers with a sword on her hip.

"Peace cousin," the crowned one smiled at the girl. "We'll not feed the wolves just yet…"

"Not yet," The brother was smirking wide, one hand resting on a midnight-black pommel with a silent wolf at his side.

"A pity," the girl snarled at him and huffed very un-ladylike.

He thought with a smirk how she reminded him of Arya Stark somewhat…

"Theon Greyjoy," The crowned one named him without having ever asked for his name…

How in the seven hells did he know his name? Theon shrugged it away for now.

"I have negotiated the surrender of the Moat in Robb Stark's nam-"

He couldn't understand their next words.

"Your thoughts, my lords?"

"Feed him to the wolves I say," Trian Greystark offered, only half kidding.

"Aye brother," Duran Greystark parroted with a devious look about him.

"He was friends with the Stark boy," Arthur Wright claimed. "A ward of sorts in Winterfell…"

"Greyjoy," the eldest spoke the common tongue roughly. "I am Darion Stark, the Crown Prince of Winterhold and-"

"Titles, Titles," the other Prince interrupted with a yawn.

"My brother Prince Varin," Darion explained with a sigh.

"You're brothers of Prince Will then?!" Lord Umber asked aloud.

The two princes shared a glance at that.

"Nephews, my Lord," Darion corrected him.

"You knew our Uncle?"

"Fought together once," Umber seemed glad for the memory.

"He saved me at Riverrun," Torrhen Karstark mumbled, frowning at the memory of his dead brother.

"House Karstark owes him a debt," Lord Karstark finished.

"I know him too," Theon added, eyes darting to Fisher to aid him.

Prince Darion looked to the man too as if searching for a lie from any man.

"They met," Edwyn Fisher confirmed lazily from the squid's side.

"And the others," Darion asked once more in the old tongue.

Theon saw his eyes dart to one of the men in their grey cloaks and silver plate. In a blink they had their answers.

"Arriving as we speak," the silver-grey sentinel informed.

"Excellent," Darion hummed, locked eyes with Theon.

The wolves hadn't stopped staring at them since they'd arrived.

"The one you call Robb Stark will arrive shortly," Varin informed them with no small confidence.

"Ha!" Umber bellowed. "Told him, I'd have the Moat when he came dawdling up!"

Theon fought the urge to say how it was in fact Him that took the Moat.

"How do you know where Lord Robb is?"

Karstark was right to wonder. Few men knew that…

"We have our ways," Prince Varin told them with a cunning look about him.

"Ser Manderly rode for the Fever a day past," Darion added. "They are returning as we speak…"

The question of how they could know quite so precisely would go unasked, as true to their word one of their silver-grey sentinels opened the tent.

"More guests to see you Prince Darion," the man spoke only briefly as he held open the flap.

Robb Stark looked no worse for wear for having travelled through the swamplands.

"Stark!" Lord Umber was the first to welcome his liege's son. "Took your sweet tie, eh!?"

"The paths were narrow my lord," Robb held an easy smile. "You did well – all of you…"

Theon had expected him to look muddy and tired from the bogs; but he looked well rested and in good spirts – if not for the slight glimmer of confusion to his rather strained smile – beside him was a Manderly knight with a grey beard and slate-grey eyes dressed in ornate silver armour and engravings that flowed almost like seaweed.

Jon Snow looked his usual stoic brooding self, his Stark eyes scanning the tent like a wolf judging its prey.

"Lord Stark," Prince Darion greeted Robb from his seat.

"Snow," Varin added, standing to the side of his brother's chair eyeing Jon.

Robb eyed them both before he seemed to soften somewhat.

"You look like Prince Willam," Jon spoke aloud in a mutter.

The Crown prince smiled back at that, paying no mind to Ghost or Greywind at their sides.

"I'll take that as a compliment," he decided easily. "My Uncle was always quite the lady's man…"

One of the Greycloaks scoffed rather loudly at that.

"Something to say eh Duran?"

"No," Duran Greystark denied franticly.

Prince Darion could only sigh at their antics.

"Robb Stark," he told the young lord. "Take a seat, please. Your brother too…"

Jon sat only after his brother did so, while Greywind pawed his way around the tent to inspect the smaller wolves present and Ghost sat silently by his master's side like a stone sentinel. "Direwolves," Prince Varin held one hand out for Greywind to nudge with his nose. "Uncle Cregan told us about them but…"

"Seeing is quite another matter entirely," Darion agreed as the beast licked his palm.

Robb and Jon seemed to sit more at ease with the direwolves seemingly unconcerned about their hosts.

"Welcome to the North," Robb began his introductions, as Lord in his father's absence, the duty fell to him.

"Were it for better reasons," Varin stared at them from across the table.

"I am Darion," the Crown Prince named himself. "This is my brother, Varin…"

"Prince Will's nephews," Jon knew their names.

"Uncle spoke of us, did he?"

"Aye, Prince Varin, on occasion…"

"We'll see him freed," Robb vowed easily. "I promise you – the North Remembers…"

Prince Darion blinked, his ice-grey eyes darting to his brother and his lords only briefly.

"You haven't heard then…"

The girl's voice was laced with dread.

"My cousin," Darion introduced her finally. "The Princess Sera-"

"It's just Serana," she insisted with a scowl.

"We received word in White Harbour," Varin added with a forlorn look.

"Hearsay," Darion had refused to hear it from the Manderly's. "I put no stock in rumours…"

Robb's tully-blue eyes scanned the Crown Prince as he spoke – listening as if the words would somehow change – he looked to Jon afterwards as if perhaps his brother had heard the Prince differently. "It's lies," he insisted after a time. "It has to be – doesn't it? Why in the seven hells would he fight for the dwarf?"

"Sailors in White Harbour sing the same tune," Darion answered with a face of stone.

"Words are Wind," Jon muttered, his eyes scanning the parchment.

"I don't know if it's true," Darion frowned deeply. "If it is, things are suddenly far more complicated…"

"Complicated?" Varin scoffed. "That's one way to put it. Another is that father won't stop till they're all dead."

"No less than they'd deserved," Serana ended harshly.

Her wolf Volki growled at her side and the tent felt colder.

Jon's fist had clenched without meaning to – pushing down a fire that burnt within his heart.

Dark Wings brought Dark Words, as the saying went. "I don't believe it," he insisted after a moment. "It's just rumour…"

"Aye," Serana agreed quietly. "It's a lie, has to be…"

He'd promised her. Uncle Will always kept his promises.

"Is there still no news of my father?"

Jon's eyes darted to his brother at that. Shit…

They'd all feared the truth for months now, but none had dared raise the issue.

"None my Lord," Ser Marlon Manderly's head was hung low. They all feared the worst and had for quite some time.

"My father will bring us both the answers we seek," Darion vowed easily as he stroked his wolf's fur, the beast sitting silently by his side.

"Winter comes for King's Landing," Varin added from beside his brother. "The Fleet sails south with our father and the bulk of our forces…"

"The Prince's speak true Lord Stark," Ser Manderly confirmed with a confident look about him, naming the boy Lord. "I've seen their numbers personally – even without the backing of the bank; the wrath of King Rodrik is no small thing. House Lannister will never see them coming… and if Prince Willam is truly lost…"

It didn't do to dwell on such things. This war was far from over.

"How many men," Robb asked of them instead of voicing his doubts.

"Ten thousand mounted men present," Darion told him freely. "We left a thousand or so back at White Harbour with the Company of the Rose in light of your Wildling problem while my father sails with the bulk of the Winter Fleet. All in all – counting the mercenaries – we've well over thirty-thousand fighting men…"

"So many," Robb practically mumbled. "Willam never went into detail about such things…"

"Three hundred ships with differing crew – most in the hundreds – though not all are fighters," Prince Varin hummed, running the numbers through his head absently. "On average though, you've at least ten thousand fighting men for every hundred ships… depending on the classes… numbers aren't my choice of weapon though…"

The Winter Fleet wasn't so numerous as it was in war time, but Rodrik had been planning his expansions for years. They'd had time to prepare.

"My father kept several thousand behind at Ibben," Serana explained as she stroked Volki's fur to calm the wolf.

"It's a vast and impressive force regardless my Lord," Ser Manderly confirmed with confidence.

"Not to mention the sellswords," Varin was stroking Greywind's fur as the direwolf sat happily enough.

"I'll be damned," Lord Umber broke his relative silence and began to chuckle. "Tywin's gonna shit himself a whole mountain of gold!"

Darion blinked in confusion at the notion of men shitting gold.

"That sounds rather uncomfortable," Serana managed a rather poor jest.

"A saying about the man," Jon explained for her with a weak smile. "They say he shits gold…"

"Well," Varin laughed at that and his cousins blushing. "He can use it to repay his debts then – they're none too pleased with him."

"The Iron Bank supports Uncle Rodrik," she told them all, shooting a glare at Varin.

"My father will seize every port in the Crownlands," Darion explained, leaning back into his chair to get more comfortable as his wolf laid its head on his lap. "They will be blockaded quickly enough – their merchants seized with all riches – so the Narrow Sea belongs to Us now. Let them try to take it back…"

"Tywin's screwed," Lord Umber was laughing still, finding the whole turn of events quite hilarious.

"And what of the North?" Lord Karstark asked of them curiously.

"Aye," Torrhen Karstark added. "What of us? What of my brother and the others?"

Darion paused only a moment to think, locking eyes with Robb. "We do not come as conquerors, cousin," he named him that easily enough – though in truth Robb barely looked like a Stark – his lords seemed to respect him. "Your future is your own, but for now; my orders are to help secure the North and protect our kinsmen…"

Robb spared Jon a glance, some thought on his mind before he spoke. "The North needs us," he decided. "Winterfell protects its own, as we always have…"

"Well said Lord Stark," Darion smiled wide at the sentiment.

"What news have you heard," Jon pried from them.

"The Wall has failed to hold back the wildlings," Serana noted absently.

"And the Dreadfort is under siege," Varin revealed as if it were nothing special.

"WHAT!" Lord Umber yelled at that.

The whole tent tensed at the outburst.

"Lord Manderly received word not long ago," Darion confirmed with a sigh.

"Gods," Lord Karstark was frowning something fierce.

"What of Karhold," his son asked them desperately.

"Piss on that," Umber scoffed angrily. "What of Last Hearth!?"

"Lord Reed informed us it was under siege last we'd heard…"

"You knew!?" Umber growled, earning some snarls from the wolves.

"I only learn at Greywater my lord," Robb didn't balk under his banners anger.

Lord Umber left the tent in a rage, muttering curses about Wildlings as he went.

"Will he be problem?" Prince Darion asked aloud.

"Umbers," Varin chuckled. "Same here as they are across the sunset…"

Robb merely shook his head. "The Greatjon is loyal to a fault – he's just upset…"

"Understandable," Darion supposed. "No matter, so long as he directs that anger at the enemy…"

"He'll be glad to do that much I'm sure," Jon suggested with a half-hearted smirk.

Last Hearth had fallen, leaving Karhold under threat and the whole damn North with it.

"Might I have a moment alone with my brother?"

They all glanced to Robb at that.

"Very well," Prince Darion got up from his seat and motioned for his lords to take their leave.

The tent began to empty until there was only the Starks and their wolves remaining inside.

"We'll make short work of these savages and krakens," Varin vowed as he left them.

"We march on Barrowton within the hour," Darion told them both, taking his leave too.

Robb released a sigh he'd been holding, muttering "Gods" as he sunk into his chair.

"This is good brother," Jon told him, scratching Ghost behind his ears.

"Good?" Robb frowned. "Last Hearth has fallen…"

"The Dreadfort can hold for years," Jon argued. "With these new forces, we've how many men?"

It only took a moment for Robb to run the numbers through his head. It was no small number.

"Twenty-two thousand," he guessed, but the thought did nothing for his mood.

"We can rely on more at Winterfell," Jon thought aloud.

"Barely a few thousand," Robb scowled at the notion.

"That gives us far more than enough…"

"Lord Reed claims the Wildlings have a hundred thousand Jon…"

"Armed with bronze and armoured with furs," Jon shook his head. "Women and children too, no doubt; not fighters…"

"Aye," Robb steeled himself. Another thought nagged at his mind.

"What is it," Jon narrowed his eyes. "You've that look about you…"

Robb smirked at his brother's insight.

"Just a passing thought cousin…"

"Brother," Jon's eyes narrowed further at that.

"Let us save the north," Robb declared, getting up from his seat with reforged purpose.

"And what about afterwards, brother?"

Stark only smiled innocently at him in answer.

"Robb," Jon called after him as he left the tent without a further word.

His brother was potting something, Jon worried, he had that 'wait and see' look about him…

"What?" Jon asked Ghost as the direwolf tilted its head at him in judgement.

The direwolf pawed its way past him and left the tent like a fading shadow.

Ser Jon felt like he was suddenly the butt of some grand mummer's farse.

"Gods," he muttered curses. It seemed this war was far from over.

---

The moon was rising over the wooden walls of Barrowton when they arrived, the wind sweeping across the rolling plains beyond the town's walls, their host left on the outskirts as Robb led their party through broad straight streets lined with elm trees, up towards Barrow Hall; atop the Great Barrow that gave Barrowton its name.

Banners flew from its square towers, flapping in the wind: the longaxes of House Dustin with black shafts crossed and a black crown between their points, on a field of yellow. Four horseheads flew proudly for the four Ryswells of the Rills – one grey, one black, one gold, one brown. The jape was that the Ryswells could not even agree upon the colour of their arms. Above them should have by all custom flew the direwolf of Stark running on an ice-white field… only it was nowhere to be seen…

They rode beneath the gatehouse into a grassy courtyard where stableboys ran out to take their horses.

"This way, if you please," one of the Dustin guards greeted them with a stoic look.

Toward the keep, the banners were those of the late Lord Dustin and his widowed wife. His showed a spiked crown above crossed longaxes; hers quartered those same arms with Rodrik Ryswell's golden horsehead. As they climbed the steps, Robb's eyes lingered on the grassy slopes of the Great Barrow. Some claimed it was the grave of the First King, who had led the First Men to Westeros. Others argued that it must be some King of the Giants who was buried there, to account for its size. A few had even been known to say it was no barrow, just a hill, but if so, it was a lonely hill; for most of the barrowlands were flat and windswept…

Inside the hall, a woman stood beside the hearth, warming thin hands above the embers of a dying fire. She was clad all in black, from head to heel, and wore no gold nor gems, but she was highborn, that was plain to see. Though there were wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and more around her eyes, she still stood tall, unbent, and handsome. Her hair was brown and grey in equal parts, and she wore it tied behind her head in a widow's knot.

She made no move to greet them as the doors shut behind.

"Lady Dustin," Robb stepped forward from their group. "We-"

"You look like a Tully," she said bluntly, her eyes judging them all.

"I am honoured with my mother's colours," Robb replied uncaringly. "My brother and sister Arya honor our father…"

"No," she denied, eyes locked on Jon Snow.

"My Lady?" Jon asked, confused.

"You've the hair," she looked the boy up and down. "Cheekbones are all wrong – too fair, nothing like his…"

"I'm afraid I don't underst-"

"Of course you don't boy," the woman sighed, saddened by something.

"Charming woman," Varin muttered not-so-quietly.

Her eyes darted onto the guests she didn't know.

"My Lady," Darion butted in, all smiles and charm.

"You look like him," she paled a little. "The eyes, the jaw…. but not the nose…"

Darion raised a brow at that, looking to Robb for answers only to find none as he shrugged.

"Winterfell thanks you for your hospitality Lady Dustin," Robb told her kindly.

"Ha," she scoffed, turning back to the fire. "Who are your friends, Lord Tully?"

Robb didn't seem bothered by what was meant to be an insult. Darion found it odd though…

If anyone insulted a Stark back home as this woman did here… well… she would not remain Lady of Barrowton for long.

"Prince Darion and Varin Stark," he told her plainly. "King Rodrik Stark's sons."

"And the Prin-"

Serana shot him a glare that could kill.

"Just Serana," Jon decided to introduce her as with a smirk.

She looked flustered but nodded, huffing a simple "what he said."

"Nephews and Niece to Prince Willam," Robb explained further with a sigh.

"Willam," unseen to them, her eyes softened somewhat. "I was married to a Willam once – did your Tully mother ever tell you that boy – he was strong and brave and a damn fool for not listening to me. Lord Dustin, he was, rode away to war promising to return upon the red stallion I'd gifted him…"

"I am sorry for your loss-"

"No you're not," she rolled her dark-brown eyes. "Did you know him? You weren't even born yet…"

"I never had that honor my Lady."

"You weren't alive to, Tully…"

"My brother is a Stark, my lady," Jon interrupted with Ghost at his side.

The Lady of Barrowton smiled oddly in reply, looking him over like a wolf eyeing its next kill.

"Now that's more like a wolf," she almost laughed. "Too southern though – that'll be your mother I suppose Snow?"

"Ser Snow," Robb noted with a glare.

"Knighted," she rolled her eyes. "Oh yes, very southern…"

Jon watched her silently. She'd looked to him with something akin to hope when they'd entered, but now only scorn remained.

"We didn't come here to discuss my brother," Robb was still glaring at her, one hand on Greywind's fur to calm him.

"I imagine not," the Lady scoffed at the notion. "Why did you come then Lord Stark, with such a large host?"

"To defend the North from its foes My Lady…"

"Just like you went south to bring back your father?"

Greywind snarled at that, barring his fangs to the woman.

"You don't scare me boy," she stared down the wolf and its master.

"There's over twenty thousand men outside your walls Lady Dustin," Prince Darion spoke with a weary look. "You don't need to love your liege's son, but you swore a vow – that by the gods you'll uphold, or do you mean not to? That is not the North my grandfather once told me stories about…"

"Do the Barrow Kings so easily break faith?" Varin added, head tilted somewhat; waiting for her reply.

"Uncle will not be pleased," the Princess Serana hummed agreement.

She rolled her eyes again. "House Dustin is a shadow of a thing little Princes, aside from some distant cousins vying for Barrowton all these years nothing else remains since my departed husband got himself killed. I didn't even get his bones returned home; did you know? Of course you didn't… you're not even truly Northmen…"

"Perhaps not," Darion stared blankly at the woman. "I am however a Stark – might be you've forgotten what that means but-"

"I've known true Starks," she snapped at that.

"Well then," he didn't falter. "You know the price of defiance."

She scowled for a moment and locked eyes with the wolves that were watching.

"You've my swords boy," she declared finally. "Take them and leave me be…"

"As you wish," Darion told her coldly before taking his leave alongside Varin and Serana.

"My Lady," Robb moved to depart too.

"You," she called out. "Ser Snow…"

Jon halted in his tracks, turning to face the woman.

Her back was to them again, standing in front of the blazing fire.

"Your mother," she asked the flames more than him. "Who was she? I'd always wondered…"

"I-" Jon wasn't sure what to say.

Robb looked at him and shook his head.

"He loved her," Jon decided, a half-truth – for Ned Stark did love his sister.

"Did he," Lady Barbrey Dustin née Ryswell hummed in thought. "She's dead then?"

Jon's silence was all the answer the woman needed to know the truth of it.

"Good," she smiled at the flames. "I hope it hurt him to lose her…"

"Come brother," Robb bid him follow. "We're done here, ignore her…"

Jon pitied her in truth, she was gripped by a sorrow that had twisted her rotten.

"How did your husband die?"

She didn't turn to face him.

"Jon," Robb scolded, eyes-wide at the question.

"Your father led him to his death," she told him, ignoring Robb entirely.

Jon knew the name. He'd heard the story, but did she?

"Lord Reed spoke highly of him…"

At that, she turned in a flash to face them.

"What would you of it, bastard!?"

Ghost remained calm at his side while Greywind growled in warning.

"He told me that Lord Dustin fought valiantly against Ser Gerold Hightower," he told her as he stroked Ghost's fur absently. "There were seven of them against three of the best swords in the realm, but despite the odds they were felled. Lord Reed told me that Lord Dustin fought bravely my Lady…"

She looked like a woman ready to pull a knife and stab him a hundred thousand times.

"Then how did your coward of a father survive," she practically growled at them.

"Jon," Robb butted in. "You shouldn't-"

"Let the bastard speak, Lord Tully!"

"Lord Stark would have died," Jon told her. "If not for Lord Reed, the Sword of the Morning would've ended them all that day…"

"Reed," she laughed. "You dare tell me a bog-dweller bested Dayne where my husband could not!?"

"He stabbed him in the back," Jon revealed sadly.

Robb's eyes widened in surprise. He'd not heard that detail before.

"Craven," she named him for it.

"He saved me," Jon's thoughts whispered.

Or had he? How would his life have changed if Ser Arthur had raised him instead?

"He saved Lord Stark," Jon decided. If he hadn't, his uncle would've died… and he'd never have wished that…

"He should've let him die instead," she insisted.

"You go too far Lady Dustin!" Robb barked at her furiously.

"Oh now," at his outburst she smirked. "There's some wolf under those scales after all…"

"Lord Stark buried the dead alongside the fallen Kingsguard," Jon explained with a forlorn look, recalling the tale as Lord Reed had told it back in Greywater Watch. "Lord Reed was heavily wounded and there was no way to carry back the bones of every man My Lady, so they buried them there. There was no other choice…"

"There is always a choice bastard," she scoffed at him. "He could've carried my Will's bones!"

"He was already carrying Me," Jon thought to himself quietly.

"He rode your husbands steed home to at least return something of his," he said aloud.

"They were friends by the end My Lady," Robb added, having heard the tale from his brother before.

Ned Stark hadn't ever meant to insult his friend's wife in truth, but she was a bitter woman.

Lady Dustin scowled at that whole notion.

"Leave me," she demanded of them.

"I'm sorry for-"

"LEAVE THIS PLACE!"

Greywind bared his fangs at her.

"Down boy," Robb calmed the wolf with a glance.

Lady Dustin looked ready to either murder them all or break down entirely.

"Let's go Jon" Robb bid his brother. "Prince Darion will be waiting. We've a home to defend…"

"Aye," Jon muttered, taking his leave and leaving the Lady Barrowton alone with her ghosts.

---

The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. A pale sun rose and set and rose again. Red leaves whispered in the wind. Dark clouds filled the skies and turned to storms. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, and dead men with bright blue eyes lingered under the blankets of snow.

In his dreams, he sat upon a weirwood throne, listening to whispers in the dark as ravens walked up and down his arms.

"Never fear the darkness, Bran." The lady's words were accompanied by a faint rustling of wood and leaf. "The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother's milk. Darkness will make you strong – but you must never lose yourself to it…"

Snowflakes drifted down soundlessly to cloak the world in white.

Flying was even better than climbing, he'd long since discovered this much.

Slipping into Summer's skin had become as easy for him as slipping on a pair of breeches once had been, but birds were another beast entirely.

Changing his own skin for a raven's night-black feathers had been harder at first, but not as hard as he had feared, not with these ravens.

"A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, even try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth," Lady Lyarra once told him, "but a horse that has known one rider will accept another. Young or old, these birds have all been ridden. Choose one Brandon, and spread your wings..."

He chose one bird from across Winterfell, and then another, without success, but the third raven looked at him with shrewd black eyes, tilted its head, and quick as that he was not a boy looking at a raven but a raven looking at a boy. The song of the river suddenly grew louder, the torches burned a little brighter than before, and the air was full of strange smells. When he tried to speak it came out in a scream, and his first flight ended when he crashed into a wall and ended back inside his own body.

The raven was unhurt. It flew to him and landed on his arm, and Bran stroked its feathers and slipped inside of it again. Before long he was flying around Winterfell, weaving through the castle, flapping over the villages and even the trees of the Wolfswood. Then he realized he was not alone.

"Someone else was in the raven," he told the lady, once he had returned to his own skin. "It was a girl. I felt her…"

"A woman," his teacher said. "Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if you were to die upon the morrow.

"Do all birds have women in them?"

Lyarra had laughed at that question.

"Shadows on the soul," she'd said. "They will not harm you – they cannot, even if they wished to…"

It had always been this way. The trees remember, she'd told him, but men forget the old ways very easily.

Old Nan had told him the same story once, Bran remembered, but when he asked Robb if it was true, his brother laughed and asked him if he believed in grumkins too.

He wished Robb were with them now.

"I'll tell him I can fly," Bran smiled at the thought. Robb wouldn't believe him, so he'd have to show him.

Lyarra claimed he could learn to fly too, him and Arya and Sansa, even baby Rickon and Jon Snow.

They could all be ravens and live in Maester Luwin's rookery. That was just a silly dream, though… he'd had many dreams lately…

Dreams that became lessons, lessons becoming dreams, things happening all at once or not at all. Had he done that or only dreamed it?

"Only one man in a thousand is born a skinchanger," Lord Lyarra said one day, after Bran had learned to fly. "Only one skinchanger in a thousand can be a greenseer."

"I thought the first greenseers were the children," Bran said with a frown. "The children of the forest, I mean…"

"Those you know as the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they linger long indeed."

She'd smiled at him kindly, as she'd always smiled, beaming like the sun – always happy to see him.

"A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers."

Bran did not understand, so he asked the Reeds; for no others understood him… least of all his mother or sisters…

Arya spent most of her time with her dancing masters, while Sansa was brooding and mother would- well, she'd call Lyarra a demon or madness…

"Do you like to read books, Bran?" Jojen asked him.

"Some books. I like the fighting stories. My sister Sansa liked the kissing stories, but those are stupid…"

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies," said Jojen. "The man who never reads lives only one. The singers of the forest had no books. Maesters will tell you that the weirwoods are sacred to the old gods. The children believed they are the old gods. When the children died, they become part of that godhood..."

Bran's eyes widened. "They became gods? W- will I become one?"

"No," Meera said sharply. "Jojen, you're scaring him…"

"He is not the one who needs to be afraid."

The moon was fat and full as Summer prowled through the silent woods.

The snows were falling heavier again, covering the grass of the moors, hidden, frozen, waiting. A raven with emerald eyes sat on bare brown branches, wings crusted with frost, watching him as he prowled. A half-starved bear crashed through the brush, huge and half frozen. Summer fell upon it and tore it into pieces.

Afterward he gorged on its flesh, Brandon could still taste the iron of its blood upon his lips even after he slipped back into his own body.

"Bran," Meera pried at him in the waking world.

"Meera," he smiled at her, shaking away the taste on his lips.

"Is Summer far away?"

Bran shook his head, getting up to his feet – they weren't supposed to be here…

Mother would be furious, Bran knew, but she could not blame the Reed's when he'd always say how he'd ordered them to follow him beyond the walls of Winterfell.

Jojen vowed it was safe to leave.

"Today is not the day we die," he'd said plainly.

Lady Stark had looked like a fish, mouth agape in shock at his words – demanding they never leave the safety of Winterfell.

It wasn't so far from the walls. Bran decided it was best if she simply never knew he'd left…

"He's found a bear," Bran smiled shyly at Meera.

"Okay," she hummed, throwing her frog spear into the stream beside them in a flash.

The spear impaled a large white fish and she pulled on the attracted rope. They'd caught their own lunch.

Bran wasn't hungry though – he felt full of the bear – but Lyarra had insisted harshly that such meals weren't truly his own.

"His heart is not yours," Lyarra had scolded him in his dreams. Brandon had never seen her quite so serious as she'd been then.

The days marched past, one after the other, each shorter than the one before. The nights grew longer and Winter grew colder.

In the dark, icy fingers ran up Bran's back.

"It is time," Lady Lyarra said.

"Time for what?"

"For the next step," she was not smiling now. "The trees will teach you better than I can…"

He looked at her uneasily, the world around a black shadow-scape.

"What will they teach me?"

"The past," she told him. "The future."

"Will this make me a greenseer? A god?"

"Your blood makes you a greenseer," said the lady. She made no mention of gods.

A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. A greenseer.

He closed his eyes and dreamt.

"The trees remember," her voice echoed throughout the shadows.

The darkness thickened and crept toward him.

"Slip your skin," she told him simply. "Just as you do with Summer and the birds. This time, however, reach down into the roots instead. You needn't be beside one to feel them – their roots go deep and far – simply follow them up through the earth to the trees above, then tell me what you see…"

Bran slipped free of his skin. Into the roots, into the weirwood.

In an instant he was no longer abed and in front of his eyes was his lord father…

Lord Eddard Stark sat upon a rock beside the deep black pool in the gods wood, the pale roots of the heart tree twisting around him like an old man's gnarled arms. He seemed much younger than Bran knew him. His hair was brown, with no hint of grey in it, his head bowed.

"...let them grow up close as brothers, with only love between them," he prayed, "and let my lady wife find it in her heart to forgive..."

"Father?" Bran's voice was a whisper in the wind, a rustle in the leaves. "Father, it's me. It's Bran. Brandon!"

Eddard Stark lifted his head and looked long at the weirwood, frowning, but he did not speak. He cannot see me, Bran realized, despairing. He wanted to reach out and touch him, but all that he could do was watch and listen. I am in the tree. I am inside the heart tree, looking out of its red eyes, but the weirwood cannot talk, so I can't.

Eddard Stark resumed his prayer. Bran felt his eyes fill up with tears. Were they his own tears, or the weirwood's? If he cried, would the tree begin to weep?

The rest of his father's words were drowned out by a sudden clatter of wood on wood. Eddard Stark dissolved, like mist in a morning sun.

Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they duelled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. "Arya!" Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy with surprising speed for Arya Stark… something was wrong…

It couldn't be right, could it? If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long; nor lost to his sister at swords…

The girl slashed the boy across his thigh, so hard that his leg went out from under him and he fell into the pool and began to splash and shout. "You be quiet, stupid," the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. "It's just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?" She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone. After that the glimpses came faster and faster, till Bran was feeling lost and dizzy.

He saw no more of his father, nor the girl who looked like Arya, but a woman heavy with child emerged naked and dripping from the black pool, knelt before the tree, and begged the old gods for a son who would avenge her. Then there came a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor. A dark-eyed youth, pale and fierce, sliced three branches off the weirwood and shaped them into three arrows.

The tree itself was shrinking, growing smaller with each vision, whilst the lesser trees dwindled into saplings and vanished, only to be replaced by other trees that would dwindle and vanish in their turn. And now the lords Bran glimpsed were tall and hard, stern men in fur and chain mail. Some wore faces he remembered from the statues in the crypts, but they were gone before he could put a name to them. Then, as he watched, a bearded man forced a captive down onto his knees before the heart tree.

A snow-haired woman with star-blue eyes stepped toward them through a drift of dark red leaves, a bronze sickle in her hand…

"No," said Bran, "no, don't," but they could not hear him, no more than his father had heard him.

"We Are Winter," the snow-haired woman spoke low and hauntingly.

She grabbed the captive by the hair, hooked the sickle round his throat, and slashed right to left in one motion. And through the mist of centuries Bran could only watch as the man's feet drummed against the earth... but as his life flowed out of him in a red tide, Brandon Stark could taste the blood…

"Bran," a woman's voice called to him in the dark…

He saw more glimpses in flashes so fast they made him dizzy.

Some ghosts fought on red sands below a tower as a woman screamed.

"Brandon," the voice was his mothers. How had he not recognized it at first?

He saw a grey wolf fighting a golden lion only to have its throat torn out.

The snows fell, burying the whole world and blotting out the sun.

"Wake up Bran," his mother's voice practically begged.

Bran tried to open his eyes but found them frozen shut.

"They're here," it was Lyarra's voice. She sounded afraid.

Another wolf was pacing angrily in the shadows amongst ruin and ashes.

"Wake up Bran," his mother again, shaking his body lightly, desperately.

The dream grew colder. He felt something new… …watching…

"Up now," Lyarra's voice demanded. "We're out of time…"

"Bran," his mother's frown had faded the moment he'd opened his eyes to the waking world. "You've overslept again," she wasn't happy about that, but it wasn't enough to ruin the shine in her tully-blue eyes. "You must get dressed Bran, your brother is coming home."

"Robb?" Bran's heart skipped a beat.

"Yes sweetheart," Catelyn Stark hadn't looked so happy in years.

His brother was coming home, so why could Bran only feel a sense of dread?

---

My Note(s): Merry Christmas :) at least to those of you that didn't read the previous chapter and commit seppuku in protest. Let us all take a moment to laugh at their misguided sacrifice… …ah that's the stuff; sorrow tastes like chicken! Annnnnyway, welcome back, big thanks to everyone that took the time to comment. I promise not to kill another character for at least a chapter, maybe… possibly. Okay for real I'm done now :P I went ahead and did a chapter early. We'll do another on the New Year!

Comments for the last chapter have been more positive than expected – aside from the odd misguided few – I expected more crying. There were a few such comments, but most seem to have grasped the chapter well, loved it, liked it, or had notes but are wisely not jumping ship. I greatly appreciate the number of you that seem to have your heads screwed on correctly. Nice to see my readers surpassing my cynical expectations of people :) cookies for you all! My thanks to everyone for commenting.

I greatly look forward to the coming chapter(s) as things escalate into what I consider some of the best chapters in the story ahead, at least in my opinion.

PS: I've made a Discord for myself at Discord / XBuK6tCAB7 for those interested in joining, you're free to :P just add the missing Url thingy

---

246vili: Spoilers :) As to Cersei wanting Willam to fight for her, she's arrogant enough in my opinion to believe nobody would dare champion for Tyrion (she wouldn't be wrong, who would? Oberyn has no reason to do so as he did in canon) and that same arrogance made her blind to the idea that Jaime would 'betray' her like that, in her view. Willam accepted her plan because he didn't have much of a choice in the matter. If he refused, he might've been left like Ned and put Suko/Ash/Aedan at risk.

He is also pretty damn stubborn at the best of times, always has been. It'll all be covered in a later chapter from another PoV when you'll learn more though.

Wolftamer96: Oh, I know people quite well, a wise man should always expect the average person to be a complete idiot. That way you'll find yourself disappointed far less often and rarely – very rarely – you'll be pleasantly surprised by those that surpass your expectations. Thankfully, most of my readers surpass that expectation.

Nihilist Blues: I never shy away from writing what I know has to be written, even if I know I'll get some whining. I'll never change a story to make anyone happy.

Davidoedah: Peace was always a dream. To shed Stark blood is to forsaken ones right to life, after all :)

Sasori8274: F's in chat lads. Sasori has decided to commit seppuku because a character died in Westeros.

FractiousDay: Perhaps indeed, or perhaps not, you'll have to wait and see… unlike Sasori… who is dead…

Natman717: The decision was Cersei's and that should say all it needs to say, her belief was (Suko convinced her as much) that Willam could handle more or less than anyone fool enough to champion Tyrion. She never expected Jaime would 'betray' her, in her view. If not Jaime, chances are Tyrion wouldn't even get a champion – so Will's chances were very high to 'prove himself' to Cersei were it not for Jaime naming himself as champion. Cersei plans aren't always exactly full proof.

You will be hearing from Jorg, I'll give you that spoiler. I am writing my own original story/book on the side too but that's many many many years away.

Gangui: 'Hatemail' is an exaggeration. I merely knew to expect the odd misguided comment as some people expect plot armour and don't get it.

Guest: Speaking of 'Hatemail' I approved this "typical excuse used by shitty authors" review because it made me laugh :) and it'll age very poorly lol.

Dave: The "bring Will back to life as some fucked up heartless undead badass" made me chuckle :) In the books, it was Cersei to name Gergor as champion though, not Tywin, he actually reacted poorly to whole thing. Here instead Cersei told Willam to name himself in the event Tyrion demanded a trial by combat under the (actually fairly correct) assumption that nobody would act as Tyrion's champion. You'll learn more later on about the how's and the why's in King's Landing from other PoVs. Spoilers.

Willam isn't infallible, so being stubborn isn't beyond him. Sometimes plans don't go exactly the way you expect them to – but the alternative was saying "No" to Cersei and ruining all the headway Suko had made; putting Ash & Aedan in danger too. If he told Cersei "No" he'd be more the fool than he was taking the gamble (earning Cersei's support/favour) and hoping anyone but Jaime fought for Tyrion. Will didn't discount the possibility like Cersei did, but he'd fight and die any day over choosing to run. If you want to get deep about it (there's a Lot of layers to Will's character) he's spent most of his life running. He wouldn't run from Jaime. He'd rather die than ever run again.

At the end of the day Willam is a very 'real' character to me and very much prone to making mistakes. They all are, but Will's character has a lot of very human issues.

I'm all about actions and consequences, in writing and in life. Time will shed light on all those shades of black and white to reveal so many shades of grey.