Winter has Come Chapter three: Fire and Blood
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Arl Walder "the late lord" Howe lived up to his reputation as the Amaranthine forces marched in alongside the last whispers of dusk. Though they were caked in dust and sweaty from the road, to Ghost's acute senses treachery clung to them like a musky Antivan cologne. While the knight of the gate received no satisfactory reason as to their late arrival he nonetheless let them through the doors. The teyrn was abed and a mere knight could not countermand an Arl of the realm.
Lord Walder's men ate of Cousland bread and salt then turned their knives on those that served them. The few guards that had not left with Fergus were butchered in their beds as they slept off their evening mead, and the streets soon ran red with Cousland blood. The whelps in the kennel raised their voices in alarm until they too were silenced. Ghost would never forget the plaintive whimpering of his puppies, hiding under the straw in their cages as the kennel burned down around them. Tears matted his fur as he ran through the streets of the burning city in search of his sleeping master. "He could do nothing for them".
The heartbroken hound jumped the keep's moat and fell upon a pike man at the servant's entrance, his powerful jaws snapping the hastily raised haft before tearing at the mercenary's throat. The man's blood tasted of vengeance.
Ghost lived up to his name as he made his way to his master's den moving like a veritable spirit of wrath. This was his castle and the unsuspecting victims who dared intrude upon his domain posed no more trouble then the rats he had flushed from the larder this morning.
Awakened by the plaintive whimpering of children in his dreams. Jon woke to find a footpad climbing through his window, knife held between his teeth. Though his mind was in a sleep deprived haze, his body had years of training to fall back on. As he vaulted out of his spartan bed, his hands fell upon the only thing in reach. The chamber pot took the would-be assassin full in the face: splattering its contents everywhere and sending him tumbling back out the window.
The smell of smoke banished all thoughts of sleep from Jon's mind. He retrieved Needle from its hiding place under the floorboards. While he had planned to give the blade to his favorite niece upon her tenth birthday, it seemed he would need to put it to good use if either of them were to survive the night.
Jon burst from his room to find Ghost circling a qunari mercenary clad in full plate. The behemoths suit of plate mail was not ornamental not even Ghost's jaws could punch through steel. The brute's oversized greatsword promised sharp retribution for any attempt. But the ox-man was slow and could not managed to land a blow on the elusive dog, instead forcing them into a stalemate of sorts. Jon's entrance changed things however, as ghost feigned retreat Jon circled in behind the beast-man, ramming his short blade into the gap behind the knee joint and twisting for maximum effect. Jon had expected his mabari to finish the giant but Ghost spitefully left the crippled qunari to bleed out and patiently waited for him to kneel for the customary doggie greeting. Wiping the slobber off his face Jon gave the dog a solemn nod and the pair set off in search of the rest of the Cousland line.
What they found was the stuff of nightmares. Howe's hired knives had turned his childhood home into an abattoir. Jon lost count of the number of Howe's men he killed as he searched for the lost: but one thing was certain: it would never be enough.
The worst was found in the chantry. While his sister-in-law had never treated him as anything but the bastard he was: Jon had retched when he found Sansa curled underneath the statues of the seven, arms wrapped around young Rickon to shield him from a rain of blows that never ceased. The image of the mangled boy would feature prominently in his nightmares till the end of his days.
A pair of men-at-arms with shields bearing the twin towers of amaranthine and for a time there is only the warrior fighting for his life amid a sea of fire and blood. And a boy silently weeping for innocence lost, wishing his mother was there to hold him.
Duncan finds the boy on his knees amid a roomful of corpses, crying into the shoulder of his faithful friend. The mabari welcomes him with a quick nod of the head and a pointed glance at the boy on its shoulder accompanied by a concerned gaze. Despite all the horrors of the previous night Duncan couldn't help but let out a tired laugh. He took the boy on his shoulder and head out into the streets to organize a cremation schedule among the survivors. The septons claimed that cremation was necessary for the soul to become one with the seven. Duncan wasn't sure what happened after death, but when the blightwinter came the living soon learned to burn the dead lest they die themselves.
Author Commentary: Man this chapter was a doozy to write. I must have hit several dozen walls of writers block, but now that its past I can move on to more interesting story developments and start hitting places where I can step away from directly recreating events from both cannons and move on to more blended/original material.
Be aware that Sansa (like Alistair) is like 15 years older in this fic then in cannon, in fact up just about everyone's age by about 5 years on general principles, I don't want to put children through the events of dragon age (or ASOIF for that matter). While the stuff I write tends to be dramatic I don't want to overstep that T rating, if you feel that I take anything too far please tell me and I will dial things back.