Author's Note: There has literally been time for children to be conceived, carried to term and born since I last updated this. I am so sorry for that guys. I have no excuses and will give none. I just hope some of you are still around, and that the below helps me get back into the swing of things.
The aforementioned below, by the way, may not be for those easily disturbed by descriptions of battle. This fic is far from child friendly so anybody who has made it this far should be fine, but you have been forewarned friends.
His second arrival at Winterfell was much quieter than his first.
When he had travelled here as a Prince, in what seemed to be a whole lifetime ago, he had ridden into the courtyard with pomp and circumstance, his father the King making a show of his arrival, as was to be expected. Now that Damon was the king, though, his entrance was much different. They rode in in the late hours of the night or early hours of the morning, soaked to the bone by a mixture of rain and snow. They didn't even intentionally wake the castle, though by the time the dismounting nobles had gathered in the courtyard and the soldiers had begun raising tents outside its walls everyone but the dead in the crypts were awake.
There was no feast. Rodrik Cassel, graying but with thick arms and shoulders, returned the castle to Robb formally, and Robb in turn presented it to Damon's hospitality. Expected protocols were met, formal answers given, and then nearly all of them staggered to quarters and collapsed into beds almost at random.
But, hours later, three men sat in chairs facing the greatest of the hearths in the otherwise empty main hall, passing flagons of ale between them as Tyrion told two kings of the fall of the Wall, adding in details they had only learned from waiting ravens when they arrived at Winterfell mere hours ago. The Night's Watch had made a fight of it, holding out for seven days under attack from the north and repulsing two separate raiding parties from south of the wall, but the numbers of Mance Rayder had won out in the end. Jon Snow, acting Commander after Alliser Thorne fell wounded, had sent the dwarf out the first day, with explicit instructions to tell his nephew face-to-face what was hapening.
"I am glad I found you so far north, Your Grace. I imagine your mother would have sought my head had I been forced to return all the way to King's Landing."
"She'd have tried."
Tyrion shoot him a cool look. "She has tried. She has succeeded, only it will come at the hands of the cold or a wilding instead of Ser Illyn Payne, and at the order of her son rather than her person."
Damon flushed and said no more.
Eastwatch-By-The-Sea and The Shadow Tower still resisted, or at least they had the last the Halfman knew, but with thousands of the wildings splitting from the main force at Castle Black and marching towards them their fall was inevitable. Thousands more of the savages were raiding the smallfolk of the Gift and Last Hearth, with hundreds of Northerners fleeing towards the seats of House Umber and Forrester and those mountain refuges of the hill clans, none of which were prepared to feed so many mouths in the beginning of winter.
No one knew if Jon Snow was even alive much less his whereabouts, much to Robb's deepening dismay. It was another burden on the man, piling on to the others he had seen building on Stark's shoulders. Damon had witnessed the life go out of the former King in the North the night Tyrion had arrived, and with each day his face gathered more lines and his shoulders sagged lower. Damon imagined that, were he to look upon his own reflection, he'd see much the same.
As Tyrion had so aptly put it, it was "all fucked up".
Robb's voice was weary, much too weary for someone their age. He gripped a horn of ale so tightly his knuckles were white, and his eyes stared unblinkingly into the flames. "The Greatjon and Smalljon wish to ride for Last Hearth immediately. The Glovers want to ride for Deepwood. Bolton wishes for the Dreadfort."
Damon expected him to continue, but Robb did not. "And we don't have the numbers to split them, even if we had the proclivity to." More silence. "What are your thoughts?"
His answer was the bitter, morbid laugh of an old man. "I have no idea. Haven't I proven that in these last few moons?"
The king said nothing, though the statement struck home within him. How often have I thought and said the same thing? More times than I'd like to admit, I think.
They drank for a time. Even Tyrion, he who could have a lively conversation with a wall, said nothing as they pondered the predicament. Damon tried to look at it strategically. Rumors had the wilding army at one hundred thousand, an unfathomable number. It was probably as untrue as it was unbelievable—even if there were that many windings, something he doubted, not all of them were fighters. There were likely many women, children and old in the pot, and even if their women fought the same as their men, that would limit their number of soldiers.
"We have steel as well." Robb's words startled Damon, and it took him a minute to realize he had been thinking out loud. Damon glances at his flagon of ale, face reddening with embarrassment, and set it aside with a determined *thud*. Robb, his face also red although that was likely to do with the drink in his own fist, continued. "I've never been there, but I don't think there are many forges beyond the wall, and certainly not many good ones."
Both men looked to their dwarven companion, who had taken more drink than the other two combined. Even so, he only slurred a little. "There isn't. Most of their steel and iron weapons were stolen, the rest are bone or some such."
"That would make their armor likely the same." Damon stood, stretching until each of his joints popped. His eyes remained on the flame as he spoke out loud. "And, from what Tyrion has said, they are more of a conglomeration of different fighting clans than any true army."
Robb nodded slowly. "As prone to fighting one another as they are fighting us."
"Exactly, and I doubt they have much if any experience fighting mounted horse, and certainly not armored horse."
Tyrion looked between the two men. "I don't believe a political scheme to turn them on one another would work, gentlemen, though I rejoice at the idea that you both have matured to the point of considering it."
Robb clearly didn't like the condescending tone, but Damon spoke again before an issue could be made of it. "That's not my point. They are held together by an allegiance of sorts to one man, this Mance Rayder. If he were to be removed…"
"And by removed you mean killed," Robb asserted.
Damon nodded. "Or captured, though I don't see that being easily achieved."
His uncle cocked an eye. "And you feel killing him would be?"
"Easily? No. But is it doable?" Damon shrugged, thinking of his father and Ser Philip Foote and a blue-eyed peasant from the Riverlands. "Well, all men must die."
They hit the first band on the shores of Last Lake.
The Wildlings were a hard people, but few of them had been farther south than the Gift. The northern men with Damon, however, came from all corners of the north, and they knew the land like the back of their hands. The wilding band had spread their camp on the shores of the freshwater lake, spreading from the Kingsroad to the water in a forest of fur tents. Robb's scouts, many of the same men who had set up and carried out the ambushes on Damon, had silently slipped in and out of the forest multiple times, but had been unable to get a proper gauge of the wildling number.
The only thing they could agree on was that they were many.
Damon had held a council two hours before dawn. They had crept up in the night towards the wildlings, having left an hour after midnight from their own camp. In the torchlight he gathered his commanders, all in leathers and armor, standing in a rough at the head of the thousands of mounted men, the torchlight flickering on faces ranging from angered to furious.
He understood. They had encountered bands of fleeing refugees of varying sizes on their movement north, smallfolk of the Umbers and Karstarks and the Gift itself, first in twos and threes and finally by the dozens. The stories, the look of shock and terror and in many cases absolutely nothing on their faces…Damon understood their anger. Robb had sent them to Winterfell to a man, but for many—particularly the young women, who owned the majority of those blank faces—it was too little too late.
The king wasted no time. "Is he there?"
The man in black was a hair and a half over five feet tall, making his nickname of 'the Giant' the more interesting. Bedwyck, slightly built with graying hair, had survived the fall of the Wall and evaded the wildlings in the days since. A ranger, he and a band of seven of his brothers had been shadowing this band ever since, killing pickets, burning shelters of a night, anything they could do to cause a nuisance. It was mostly futile with so few, but Damon respected the effort. They were the only band of Night's Watch Damon and his party had come across so far.
Bedwyck shrugged. "I've been trying to determine that for a fortnight now, m'lord, but I still can't say. Rayder don't flash or show his standing like southerners, beggin' your pardon." Damon imagined some kings would be offended by such, but he wasn't one of them. "I ain't seen the man, but I ain't been all that close to the center of their lot either. This is the biggest band though, so I figure it's as good a bet as any."
Damon's eyes were focused on the soiled snow at the center of the circle, pondering his options. Finally, he looked up, nodding. "Whether Rayder is there or not, we can't leave them here. We'll be funneled through the King's Road until we break clear of the forest, which works against us, but we'll have the advantage of surprise." He glanced at Robb. "Assuming your scouts are as good at killing wildling pickets as they were at killing mine."
Robb nodded unsmilingly. Bedwyck the Giant snorted. "If they ain't, m'lord, my boys are."
"Good. Best get to it then, we won't be far behind." Bedwyck and Declan Lake, heir to the lordship the wildlings were camped upon, bowed and left at once. Damon watched them go for a moment; from what the king had heard, Declan Lake had been the one to orchestrate the ambush that had killed Ser Philip Foote and nearly Damon himself. And now I'm placing my life in his hands, at least to an extent. Oh the complexity of war.
Turning back to the rest he cleared his throat. "We'll go in in three columns. I'll lead the first, consisting of half the Reachmen, Crownlanders and the Westerlanders through the center. Lord Robb, bring half your northmen and the Riverlanders through the left. Ser Garlan and Lord Umber, bring the remaining Reachman and Northerners through the right. Lord Marbrand, hold four hundred of the Westerlanders back inside the woods to act as a screen in case we are forced to withdraw. Knights with lances to the front of each column, we want to hit them hard and quick and in a way they haven't seen before. Our rally point will be the other side of their camp, and then we swing through again. Questions?"
"They'll be able to hit the sides of our column, Your Grace, at least until the others are in place." Ser Balon had taken for granted he would be with the King, and Damon wouldn't have argued even if he had had other ideas. Balon had saved his life once already; he trusted the knight to do so again. "It is a risk."
"It is," Damon agreed. "But we will fan out into rough wedges. Speed is needed here. Confusion, fear, all of that will work to our advantage. If we hit fast enough, all our men will be engaged beforethe wildlings truly know what is happening."
Ser Balon nodded alongside some others, though he clearly was not pleased. Not that I blame him. "There will likely be prisoners, be on the lookout." An impossible ask. We'll all be too focused on staying alive I'd wager, but we have to make the effort. "The wildlings have horns, not trumpets, so three long blasts of the latter will be the signal to withdraw." He glanced around, then nodded again. "I see no point in wasting breath. Let us go to battle."
And go to battle they did.
Damon had seen much unpleasantness for one his age, at least in terms of war. He'd seen men with their guts hanging out swinging swords, seen some break down into hysterical laughter while others sobbed, seen them shit themselves and beg for their mothers and die by the hundreds.
The sounds of panic from the wildling camp when he cantered out of the woods though—the shouts and cries of not only men, but clearly women and children—would haunt him to his grave.
Balon Swann rode to his left, Tyrek his right, lances lowered. Others filled the wedge behind him, lifting their voices in a roar of fury and lust for battle as they cleared the distance from Kingsroad to camp in a heartbeat.
Bedywck and Declan had done their jobs. He saw complete shock on the face of man at the edge of the encampment, who had his pants undone with his manhood in his hands as he relieved himself. Without even stopping his stream, the wildling turned and ran.
And then they were among them.
He lanced the urinating man in furs in the back as the hooves of his stallion—a brute of a horse, as black as Damon's armor—bulled over two others stumbling out of the first shelter. The steel tip ripped through the wildling as he fell, and Damon redirected the point to catch another across the face, gouging out an eye. Damon only saw the effects, his horse galloping full speed, weaving through or running over campfires both old and new. It punched through the throat of another man a moment later, ripping out the side of his neck in a spray of blood and flesh.
He lost the lance a moment later. He saw for only a second the wildling girl—his age, younger?—as she loosed an arrow. It grew huge in a heartbeat before it deflected off his helm not even a quarter inch below the eye slit, splintering and snapping his head back as if he had been punched.
The king reacted as if she were a man without a second's hesitation, even though she clearly wasn't—blonde of hair and brown of eye with a sweetly curving figure, she was a pretty thing, and as he neared he realized she was not yet his own age. Yet none of that stayed his hand, none of it had the time. He centered the lance even as he leaned back forwards from the blow her arrow had dealt, her face turning to one of terror.
She wore furs, not armor. His lance punched through her as if she were made of butter, exiting her back and leaving her body pinned on the lance. Damon held her form—so small—on the end of his lance for a blink, momentum and his own strength carrying her forward, arms flailing like a morbid puppet on the end of his lance. He dropped it, girl and lance both, galloping by in an instant.
Damon had never so much as raised a hand to a woman in his life. Yet, as he drew Widow's Wail and galloped on through the chaos of the ambushed camp, he felt nothing but the thrill of battle.
He leaned this way then that, hacking and cutting and screaming. His stallion trampled a shelter, its inhabitants shouting in fear and pain as thousands of pounds of steel and flesh crushed them beneath hooves. His blade opened the face of another lad, and out of the corner of his eye as he raced on Damon realized he had been holding a child in his arms, not a weapon. An old woman beside them reached for them both, screaming, but by then Damon was gone.
The king never saw the giant until the last moment, though how he missed something so immense was beyond comprehension. It slammed a fist into the flank of his sprinting horse just behind Damon's leg, a thick thud and sickening snap accompanying it as the animal roared in pain. The blow, delivered with an incomprehensible strength by an incomprehensible being, sent the animal flying awkwardly, pinwheeling side to side. Damon lost his seat almost at once, finding himself staring back at his own men charging as he flew backwards, knees still apart as if he were atop his mount, sword still in hand. Hi back collided with a shelter after a second and a lifetime, collapsing under his weight.
The furs softened the blow, though Damon was still knocked breathless. He vaguely heard Balon Swann shout, then heard the roar of what had to be a giant drown it out. The king lay prone atop the furs of the fallen shelter, breath coming in gasps, as horses, dozens of them, raced around him, some missing him by mere inches.
A hand placed itself on his helm and a knee pinned his swordarm, and Damon only saw a knife rise high. Still gasping, Damon threw out his armored left forearm. Catching the descending blade at the wrist. Still half senseless the king swung the arm out and away, then rolled as he darted the fist towards where he assumed the wielder's face to be. He missed, connecting instead with a furred shoulder, but it dislodged the knee enough for Damon to release Widow's Wail and jerk his right free. He shoved out with both hands from his side, knocking the assailant on their haunches.
A wildling man, black beard only half as wild as his eyes, one of which was bloodshot and the pupil turning milky from a blow that clearly had blinded him moments ago, screamed and tried to come back to his knees. Damon gathered enough of his strength to rise up a fraction and jump forward, tackling the man back. He raised an armored fist and brought it down hard, hearing the cartilage of the nose crumple. The man bucked beneath him, but Damon in his armor weighed too much. The knife deflected off Damon's pauldron, the king managing to throw his left arm around the man's right and pin it in place, hand and knife inside it up by Damon's head but unable to do damage.
The king struck with his own right, again on the wildling's broken nose. The man waved his left, trying to do to Damon what the king had done to him and pin the arm, but the king managed another hit, then another and another. By the time Damon stopped hitting, the black bearded man's face was unrecognizable as anything human.
The King finally glanced up a moment later, straight into the fanged, snarling mouth of an animal as it pounced.
*tease* Rayder done been Rayded