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Divide and Conquer, Chapter 27: Preparations
🕑 Added 2025-08-13 13:39:48 +0000 UTCThird Moon, 112 AD (11 AC)
The Warg King
“There there, I’m happy that we could come to… an understanding,” Brandon said slyly.
Wrapped in his arms, Lady Jonelle Hornwood nodded slowly, her mind becoming foggy and affectionate as the bond solidified between them.
“You understand now right my dear? The North needs a strong hand to bring it back from the brink; to save it from all the debauchery and violence it has had to endure these past four years. It needs, me.”
“Yes, yes you are right,” Lady Hornwood said, her words initially hesitant but becoming more certain and surer as time passed and Brandon weaseled into every corner of her mind.
“Who am I Jonelle?” he asked seductively, his voice low and raspy.
“You are my king, my master,” she choked out finally, as if some fraction of her mind was still resisting but finally broke to his will.
“And will you serve your king and help him take the throne he deserves?”
“I… I will. House Hornwood is yours Your Grace.”
Brandon could only smile. “Excellent.”
His little chit was completely humbled then and she shuddered when Brandon finally laid a kiss upon her lips. The squeals she had made when he claimed her that night were delightful. It almost made the unbearably long wait worth it.
Like many other houses throughout the North, House Hornwood had suffered grievously at the hands of the Targaryens. While some had gone extinct entirely, their lands falling into chaos after all their members had perished during the Red Twins’ rampages and the Dragon’s Wroth, others further north who had been spared the direct attacks of the Wroth had been no less savaged.
Dustin, Ryswell, Cerwyn, Flint, and Reed had been but a few of those that had been utterly destroyed. And Umber, Mormont, Bolton, and Hornwood had been but a few of those that had been bereft of all their lords and sons, with only young daughters left to try and rule them.
Karstark had been the latest addition to that list after he had fed the last male Karstark alive to his wolves for daring to lay claim to Winterfell’s ruins and then taken his sister to wife. Even with her brother dead at his hands, the Karstark girl and the Ladies Bolton, Umber, and Glover had all been made his mewling little puppies. And now, despite her initial resistance and her refusal to pledge to any of the claimants in the ongoing civil war that had consumed the North, Lady Jonelle Hornwood had become his as well.
It had all started on that terrible day. The day he had finally returned to Winterfell after the Dragon’s Wroth and found it obliterated. His mind, already fractured from the deaths of so many of his bonded animals in rapid succession, had shattered. Yet pain had proven to be the best teachers, and upon the ruins of what he had once been, Brandon had built himself back up into something stronger.
Where he might once have struggled to control the minds of men and women, now Brandon could do it with ease. There were limits of course, if he tried to brute force his way into the minds of others, those with strong wills could resist and fight back the same way they always did, biting off their own tongues and clawing at their own eyes in their agony and desperation.
But Brandon preferred to work more subtly, worming his way into their hearts and minds. He would put all his charisma and charm to use, the same traits that had once made him so admired and respected as his brother’s right hand-man, the same that had allowed him to seduce and bed so many women despite never marrying until the Karstark girl.
He couldn’t win over all who opposed him, but he could do almost as well, forming bonds much like those that existed with the animals he claimed that would let him influence and seduce them into his cause, implanting suggestions in their mind and making them more malleable and compliant to him and only him. It paired perfectly with his natural charisma and charm which helped to get them to lower their guard and think favorably of him.
He didn’t have to bed them either, it was simply something he chose to indulge in for a few of the women he influenced that made it even easier. For others, and for all men, he would seem to them like their kingly leader and brother, their master and owner like how his bonded animals would see him.
And once the bonds had been formed, once they had been coaxed into obeying his will and becoming devoted and loyal to him, their minds would welcome him in unbeknownst to them and he could see through their eyes, direct their actions and thoughts, and make them do as he pleased.
In this way, even with all the limitations and challenges he had faced in the four years since the Dragon’s Wroth, Brandon had been able to secure the loyalty of many of the surviving houses in the North and the pieces that remained of their armies. It helped that most of the houses that joined him were from the northern parts of the kingdom, those less devastated by the Wroth but also those that had always been more traditionalist and conservative.
Even without his skinchanging to influence their minds, few of the Northern houses had been comfortable with the idea of being ruled by Queen Sansa and her Seven-worshipping Manderly husband. Brandon had found it all too easy to exploit these sentiments and guide them just how he wanted so that he was seen as the only real candidate for the Crown of Winter, despite the concerns and misgivings some might have had with him on account of his bastardry and sorcery.
If some of that ‘guidance’ had been done with the help of a little skinchanging and mind fiddling, well that was between him and those bonded to him, wasn’t it? It was not like he would ever actually harm them; he could no sooner bring harm to the women and men under his mind’s sway than he could to the wolves, ravens, and other animals he had taken to replace Ebony and Shadow. It would be like hurting himself.
Pieces of his mind dwelt within each and every one of them, and they in turn dwelt within him. One whole, strong and united. He intentionally forced himself not to think of the turmoil his mind endured whenever his bonded skins fought. Keeping control over so many unruly animals and people at once was easier said than done and regardless of whether or not they all loved him, many of them would still dislike each other and that could have detrimental effects with how it pushed, pulled, and tore him in an infinite myriad of directions.
A small part of him whispered that this was why the taboo existed but he crushed it underfoot. The supposed three taboos had never been set down by the Old Gods or commanded by any law, they had simply been informal rules created by weak skinchangers and wargs who had neither the will nor the bravery to reach out and take more power.
Every time he slipped into the skins of men and women, Brandon could feel his power growing like never before. Every time he consumed the flesh of humans or mated with other animals, as perverse as it may sound, he could feel his virility and bloodlust growing stronger and mightier and the feeling of it all was intoxicating.
No, the supposed rules and taboos had been created by weaklings who had sought to hold themselves and others back from their true potential. And he had taught his Wolf’s Teeth much the same as well, cementing their loyalty to him even more as he led them to greater and greater power. Though none could challenge him or hold as many skins as he, their power was his power with how devoted and loyal they were and he needed them to grow as strong as they could for the wars to come.
It was unfortunate that he still had so few Wolf’s Teeth. Long gone were the days in which he had forty-nine brothers in arms. A scant ten, including himself, had survived of the original fifty after their failed missions in the Riverlands, and in the years since Brandon had barely been able to recruit another six to bring the Teeth back up to a solid six and ten in number. A mere fifteen skinchangers in addition to himself.
Very troubling. For all the power they had attained from discarding the taboos entirely, sixteen skinchangers did not have the strength to challenge House Targaryen and its eleven dragons, especially not with the rumors coming from the south of their own studies in magic ever since the Wroth. They would be little more than a nuisance ultimately.
The Targaryens knew this, it was why they had so utterly destroyed the Neck where more than half of his original Wolf’s Teeth had come from. They had wanted to make sure they were weak, with no more crannogmen to recruit or supply them with poisons and potions, and they had succeeded. Every last crannog had been destroyed, and if there were any survivors, none had escaped the fires that had consumed the Neck for over a year until at least half of the swamps had been burned, leaving behind only flat ashy marshes.
After the Wroth, the Targaryens’ men had slowly begun moving into the depopulated ruins of the Neck, draining the ashy marshes with ditches and canals and setting more fires to clear more of the swamps that had barely survived. This had accelerated about a year ago, shortly after the fall of Oldtown, when the Targaryens had moved to fully occupy and annex the Neck and neighboring Cape Kraken into their kingdom as a new Crown Province and Ward respectively.
Ever since, the Targaryens had started rebuilding Moat Cailin and Flint’s Finger as fortresses under their control as well as rebuilding the devastated Three Sisters. They were draining the swamps and marshes of the Neck, laying down farms, forts, roads, and warehouses, building shipyards and ports and stationing fleets. They were destroying the natural barriers that had long shielded the North and preparing for an invasion under their very noses.
They had even initiated a trade embargo and blockade on the North, using their naval base in the Three Sisters. The blockade had crippled their trade and made it impossible for them to export goods or import extra food that would help feed their people in winter, hampering their recovery from the Wroth. The past four years had been harder and leaner than any in living memory, even for the Northmen. The Targaryens were so navally dominant they even had the audacity to ship all their prisoners by sea to Eastwatch to join the black and they had no choice but to watch and let it all happen.
What frustrated Brandon most was that he couldn’t do anything about it at all. He didn’t even have all of the North under his control. The Neck and Cape Kraken were lost to him, perhaps for good, and White Harbor and the surrounding environs still remained defiant and loyal to his errant niece.
But he would push onwards, he always did. And when all the North beyond Moat Cailin was at his beck and call, he would turn his attentions back on the damn dragonspawn.
His endless fretting had finally led him to sleep in the arms of his new dear Jonelle Hornwood, but his dreams were hardly better than the waking world. Strange portents and signs of trees aflame and new life growing from the ashes of the old forest and a hundred other queer things he could not even begin to understand. The dreams had haunted him ever since that day at Winterfell, and they had soon come to entirely supplant even his old nightmares of Torrhen’s death.
It was inevitable that Brandon eventually stirred from his sleep, and as he did so, a quiet feeling of alarm flared to life in the back of his mind, a warning from one of his birds that an intruder had neared the quarters he and Lady Jonelle were sharing in Castle Hornwood.
How did they get past the guards!?
Immediately he jumped from the bed, careful not to disturb the lady’s sleep as his fingers wrapped around the hilt of a blade he had leaned against the wall. In a fluid movement, he drew forth the ginormous blade from its scabbard. Six feet long, as wide across as his hand, and the metal dark, smoky, and rippling with the familiar patterns of Valyrian steel. Ice.
The ancestral Valyrian steel greatsword of his family had been left in Winterfell by Torrhen all those years ago, its size leaving his brother reluctant to wield it as he found it cumbersome and perhaps some foresight had told him not to take it to war against the Targaryens lest it be lost. It had been buried in the ruins of Winterfell after the Wroth, but Brandon had found it and it had served him well ever since, helping to rally the North to his banner.
With Ice in hand, Brandon walked out of the room and looked around. The guards that should have been posted at the door were nowhere to be seen and down the corridor, a child was drawing strange symbols on the wall. She was short, barely four feet tall he would estimate. Her hair was like autumn, a lovely tangle of auburns, browns and reds, with withered flowers woven through it with vines and twigs.
Not letting his guard down, Brandon approached. “What are you doing here child?”
She giggled like a child in response, but her laughter did not sound like that of a child. It was high and sweet, with a strange music in it he had never heard before and a melancholy that reminded Brandon of his own grief. And when she spoke at last, her voice was that of a woman.
“Men are always the same. They call us children for they cannot comprehend what it is like to be different. I am no more a child than a grey wolf is a direwolf's pup.”
The little woman turned to him then and Brandon gasped at the sight. Her skin was nut-brown and dappled like a deer hide in a forest, with pale white spots like the freckles on a redhead. Her eyes were queer, large and liquid, all gold and green and slitted like a cat. Her ears were no less large, and Brandon had little doubt that her sight and hearing were far beyond his own. Her two cute little hands had but three fingers and a thumb, with sharp black claws instead of nails.
She was otherworldly and homely, beautiful beyond measure yet so adorable, petite, and cute, like a spirit of the forest itself. Yet Brandon could not help but feel some measure of fear and apprehension at her presence, sensing the age and power in her little body, the uncanny otherness of her being.
“A child of the forest,” he said at last, still in disbelief.
“That is what men have always called us yes. In our own True Tongue that men may not speak, we call ourselves those who sing the song of the earth. And our ancient foes and friends, the giants still call us woh dak nag gram, the little squirrel people.” She said the last sentence with no small amount of displeasure and Brandon could not begrudge it.
He too would be displeased if a race larger than he named him a little squirrel.
“I thought your race had passed into legend,” he said in amazement.
“There are few of us left,” the not-child agreed, “but still enough to sing and speak on behalf of the gods we both worship.”
Brandon immediately snapped to attention. “What would they have of me, my lady?”
The little woman looked amused. “Humility suits you well, Brandon Snow.”
He winced. “Brandon Stark,” he corrected.
“Stark, Snow, call yourself whatever you may please Brandon, it will not change who you are in the eyes of the gods.”
“And how about you, my lady? It occurs to me that I do not yet have the pleasure of knowing your name while you know mine. How do the gods see you?” Brandon asked, a slight challenge in his voice.
The child of the forest smirked. “My true name is far too long for even you to ever understand and know Brandon Stark, in a language you will never be able to speak. But in the tongue that you speak… I suppose you may call me Maple.”
“Maple?” Brandon asked politely.
“Indeed. I’ve always much adored them,” she replied and he noticed that was indeed not wrong. Much of her dress had indeed been woven out of maple leaves.
As he had observed her dress however, Maple had turned back to the strange symbols she was inscribing on the wall and Brandon could not help but ask, “What are you doing?”
She did not answer, only continuing to draw the strange symbols before finally stopping and singing in a language he could not understand. It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard, sweet and melodical, her voice as crisp and pure as winter air. Brandon felt a peace in his soul he hadn’t felt since before Torrhen had died, a feeling akin to laying down to rest in a meadow of leaves in an old forest. Yet all too soon the song was at an end.
“There, now we shall not be overheard.”
Brandon looked around at the deserted corridor wondering where eavesdroppers could be hiding that his birds did not see but Maple spoke again pointedly. “You should know better than most that there are other means of eavesdropping, Brandon Snow.”
He nodded. Magic, of course. “But who would be able to use magic to eavesdrop on me, and how?”
“Have you never heard of the stories of the glass candles of Valyria? Did you truly believe that you could make enemies of the last heirs of the Freehold and not have them hunt you?”
His breath caught in his throat then. Of course, so many things made sense now. He had been a fool to never even consider it.
“Teach me, please,” he begged.
Maple looked at him as if one looked at a curious tree in the woods. “You would not be the first man to learn our magic in full. Your ancestor and namesake was particularly proficient and he put them to full use in all that he built.”
Brandon’s eyes widened. “So, the stories of Brandon the Builder are true,” he said in amazement.
“Perhaps,” Maple answered mysteriously before she turned to him.
“Some would say that your actions have been foolish Brandon Snow. You provoked the last dragons like never before and their wrath has had immense consequences. The last greenseer, the Three-Eyed Eagle, had already perished from the fallout of the Black King’s destruction of the sacred Isle of Faces and now because of what you have done, not a single skinchanger, green dreamer, or weirwood tree exists south of the Fever River. The dragonlords have gone further than any of your ancestors or even the Andals did and utterly expunged the last remnants of my people and our gods from all the south. Tell me, do you think my people and the gods can survive if the Targaryens conquer the North as they intend to and destroy every last weirwood south of the Wall?”
Brandon had been outraged at the idea he had been foolish at first, and yet as the child had continued speaking, he couldn’t deny the feeling of shame that started filling his spirit. He had failed, that was indisputable. Because of his failure, Torrhen and his nephews had all died in vain, the North had suffered, and now the gods themselves were on the brink.
“How can I make up for my mistakes?”
“Pledge yourself to the gods Brandon Snow. They are in need of a new vessel of their will, a new greenseer that will lead our people to victory. While your past failures may have started this sequence of events, in truth one can argue that you simply woke up the gods to the true threats the Targaryens are and now they need you to finish the job before they destroy us all.
“If the Targaryens conquer the North and destroy all the weirwoods, the gods will wither away and die with what little remains beyond the Wall unable to sustain them. Perhaps not all at once, but it will happen inevitably, a slow decline into impotence and obscurity, a fate worse than death. Especially with the cold ones still sleeping in the Lands of Always Winter... You are our last hope Brandon Stark, at averting this future. There is no one else with greenseer potential that has the resources that you do.”
Brandon was eager to agree before he realized with disappointment, “I have no potential as a greenseer.”
“Don’t you? Have you not been having strange dreams ever since that day at Winterfell?” Her voice was challenging, a smirk on her face, as if she knew everything that there was to know about him.
He froze. Yes, Maple would know about that wouldn’t she? If she was here on behalf of the Old Gods, then she would know everything there was to know about him. The thought was as liberating as it was terrifying.
“So where do we go from here?” he asked her.
“I and my brethren will train you to commune with the Old Gods and unlock your awakened potential as a greenseer. And we will train you and your Wolf’s Teeth as much as you are capable in our magic, our influence over the forests and all their creatures, waters, soils, and winds, our enchantments, runes, and spells, and so much more. Everything the crannogmen once did for your brotherhood, we will now provide to a far greater extent than they did.”
“And in exchange?” Brandon asked. There was no way they would do all of this for free.
That took Maple back a little. “We do this on behalf of the gods; there is no need for payment.”
He shook his head. “Your offer is too generous for there not to be a catch somewhere.”
Maple smiled. “We would ask you to honor the Pact your ancestors made, and return all the forests under your dominion for us to dwell in.”
That could be difficult given how many Northmen lived in the Wolfswood and the other forests… “Allow me to consider that. Where have your people been all this time anyway? How many of you are left?”
“A few of our kin fled to the Isle of Faces and the Neck to escape the persecution faced at the hands of First Men and Andals alike but they are surely all dead by now. The last of my people reside beyond the Wall. It is a hard land, and there are only a few hundred of us left but we will surely thrive more if allowed to return south by your leave.”
“How did you even get south of the Wall without alerting the Night’s Watch?” Brandon asked, curious.
“There are a few ways if you know where to go. Some even traversed by men in the past,” Maple said mysteriously, clearly not wanting to give up all her secrets, but he suspected the truth regardless.
Gendel and Gorne’s tunnels. Brandon remembered the story. He did not say that he knew it, however. It was not necessary.
“I see no reason why I cannot accommodate a few hundred ‘singers’ in my kingdom,” Brandon finally said, thinking it would improve his standing with Maple if he used her people’s preferred name for themselves. “I do not think I can give you all the forests but with just a few hundred of you, I can certainly promise you a more than plentiful portion of the Wolfswood near Winterfell as your own. It is the least I can do, let alone all the benefits you are offering for my magic and skinchanging, your return at my side after so long will bring me much legitimacy as a king and I hope your presence will strengthen my kingdom enough to fight against the Targaryens as you have promised.”
“As we can all only hope Brandon Stark. The future of the gods, both our peoples, and possibly even the world entire is dependent on our success. But we have been betrayed by men before, and we would hold you to your word and secure our alliance in a more… binding way.”
“What do you propose?”
“Take me to wife and unite our peoples,” Maple said suddenly and Brandon was taken aback.
“I beg your pardon?”
Maple had never looked more childish as she suddenly blushed like a maiden. “My people have long pondered our past, why all our attempts to coexist with yours failed ultimately, and we have concluded that for us to have a permanent peace with men, we must integrate ourselves more firmly. There have been intermarriages between our races in the past but they were not common enough to truly unite our races.
“This time we would propose that we and your skinchangers shall intermarry, with almost every member of my clan that is unwed taking a mate from the race of men. It would unite us behind a common cause and our offspring shall have greater power and inheritance. I myself hold a high status in my clan and it would only be for you and I to wed and consolidate our alliance as the respective leaders.”
“I am already wed, and I have only five and ten skinchangers under my command,” Brandon attempted to refuse but he could not deny how tempted he was. Despite her petite stature, Maple was very beautiful and he could only dream at how powerful his potential children with her could be.
“Your marriage to the Karstark girl has not stopped you from making merry with countless other women across the North,” the child of the forest pointed out sharply. “And many of your ancestors were sorcerer kings who took many women to wife.”
“Not to mention, you having so few skinchangers is precisely the point is it not? All of my people are born skinchangers and that could give you a few hundred should we join you but we are still few in number and slow to reproduce. We cannot be so easily replaced. That is why you and your Wolf’s Teeth must have as many children as possible to ensure our people’s shared future.”
“The Targaryens will surely invade within a few years though. Not nearly enough time for a new generation to grow up and fight. And there are few skinchangers left in the North after the Neck’s destruction,” Brandon observed.
Maple nodded gracefully. “Correct. That is why we would propose you reach out to the wildlings beyond the Wall once you have secured your throne. With us as your intermediaries, you will be able to negotiate on respectful terms with countless wilding tribes and their many skinchangers. Perhaps even a few giant clans as well. If we can convince them to join us…”
“The possibilities are endless,” Brandon breathed out. He would have to consider the difficulties of integrating so many wildlings and giants into the North along with the children of the forest already but with the North still so devastated and depopulated by the Dragon’s Wroth and all the hardships since, there had never been a better time. And the thought of having hundreds, perhaps even thousands of wargs and skinchangers at his disposal, and giants wielding great bows and axes to fight the dragons… it was too tempting to pass on, damn what his lords and the Night’s Watch thought.
“Another thing as well Brandon Stark,” Maple interrupted his dreaming. “We singers remember what the world was like before men interfered with it. We know the balance of nature and what animals and plants would be best for restoring that balance. It would please the gods and my people yes, but it would also help to balance the effects of winter on your people and give you and your skinchangers many new creatures to claim as skins and bonds. The giants’ mammoths, the unicorns of Skagos, the shadowcats, the direwolves, the snow bears, the great elks, the aurochs, the reindeer, they all played an important role in the natural balance of these lands once and if they can be restored, it would surely be of great benefit to your realm.”
Brandon raised an eyebrow. He had a feeling the children of the forest were trying to push their own agenda and restore even a fraction of Westeros back to what it had been before the Dawn Age but he could not deny the veracity of Maple’s suggestions. Just the idea of bonding with a mammoth or unicorn and having them as a skin to slip into and ride sounded amazing.
“I can certainly see the benefits in that,” he said.
“I’m glad you do. But any further discussion would be pointless since you have yet to actually agree,” Maple prodded him with a mischievous smile and he jolted at the realization that he had yet to fully pledge himself.
“My answer is yes. I accept the calling of the gods to become their new greenseer and all the requests that your people have asked of me,” Brandon said without another moment’s hesitation.
Maple smiled. “We have an accord then,” she said as she cut open both her hand and his with her claws before joining them together. “The pact is sealed.”
The very next moment she pulled him in for a kiss and he eagerly reciprocated. “Now Brandon Stark,” she said, lust in her eyes. “Your first mission for the gods will be to consummate your marriage with your new bride.”
It was a mission he accepted with glee. The following months would prove his decision had been the correct one. More and more of Maple’s people began moving south of the Wall and with their training, Brandon and his Wolf’s Teeth reached greater and greater heights of power, finally enabling them to take White Harbor.
Every last one of the Manderly traitors and their impure Andal blood was extinguished in the battle save for his niece Sansa and her two daughters. For a brief moment he had been tempted to kill the three of them as threats to his rule as well, but a far better idea occurred to him before he did.
He took Sansa to wife as he had Maple, Lady Karstark, Lady Hornwood, and many others. Her Stark bloodline would surely birth him many skinchanger heirs and her connection to his brother helped legitimize his rule further. Her daughters would do much the same as well when they flowered in a decade or so. Perhaps in time, more singers from Maple’s clan and various wargs and skinchangers from the wildling tribes they were negotiating with would join as well.
Brandon was destined to save the world after all, and a heroic greenseer Warg King like him needed many heirs to carry on his bloodline and ensure that the wretched dragonspawn were finally wiped from the face of the earth.
Rarely did he ever stop to wonder what his brother would think of what he had become. That part of him had long since been lost.
____________________________________________
Ninth Moon, 113 AD (12 AC)
The Lion of Night
“Pleasure doing business with ya crows! Let’s hope we never have to meet again!” Gorm, leader of one of many wildling clans they had been negotiating with, jeered as he and his tribe were allowed through the gate of Castle Black.
From Castle Black they would be escorted by a contingent of the Night’s Watch along with soldiers sent by the new King in the North, Brandon Stark, until they left the Gift and after that it would no longer be Loren’s problem what happened to them.
“I still can’t believe we’re just letting wildlings through the Wall like this,” one of his oldest allies and friends, Leo Lefford, the former Lord of the Golden Tooth said, shaking his head.
“It’s all for the plan Leo. Our true allegiance is not to the vows of the Night’s Watch, it never has been,” Loren reminded his old friend.
“A strange thing for the Lord Commander to say, but I remember the point my king,” Leo said obediently, a smile on his face.
It was a plan that had been in the making for over a decade at this point. For over eleven years he’d frozen up here at the Wall, bereft of all luxuries and royal dignities he’d once possessed, yet his ambitions and wit had never been taken from him. Within three years, he had arranged for a little ‘accident’ to befall his predecessor, Harras Hoare, and made himself the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch.
He'd been aided in this by many respects due to the sheer number of his lords, vassals, soldiers, and knights that had been sent to the Watch alongside him. A whole thousand. They remained loyal and true to him even in exile and he would forever be grateful for that. With such a large and skilled voting bloc under his command, it had not been difficult at all for him and his loyalists to soon secure all the top positions of the Night’s Watch.
Loren himself was Lord Commander, his sole remaining younger brother Tybolt was the First Ranger, Leo Lefford was the First Steward, Symon Serret was the First Builder, and command over Eastwatch and several of the other important castles of the Watch was all under his other loyalists. And with their stranglehold on power, many of the other Watchmen had gravitated to their faction.
They had never been content to simply maximize their control of this glorified penal colony and continue freezing their balls off with any lands or women, however. In addition, the writing on the Wall had been obvious as to the intentions of the Targaryens after the fall of the West and they had inevitably been proven right as the Targaryens had swallowed up the Vale, the Reach, and the Stormlands, and enacted the Dragon’s Wroth on the North for their assassination attempts.
Someday soon, House Targaryen would inevitably turn its attentions upon the North and then in turn upon the Night’s Watch, and Loren and his loyalists refused to ever again be at the mercy of Aegon Targaryen or anyone else. Fear and ambition had had the same solution, and to that end ever since he had become Lord Commander, Loren had been hard at work preparing a master plan that would see him as a king once more.
For the past eight years, a large contingent of builders, stewards, and rangers had been securing Storrold’s Point, long since renamed Loren’s Point, and building a series of forts and ports centered around Hardhome under the command of his brother Tybolt, the First Ranger. Ostensibly this was to be a forward operating base for the Night’s Watch and its Rangers in the lands beyond the Wall for combatting wildlings and other threats but in truth Loren and his allies intended to make a new kingdom for themselves when the time was ripe.
As soon as the Targaryens invaded the North proper, Loren would call a ‘Great Ranging’ that rather conveniently happened to take all of his remaining loyalists on the Wall and everything that wasn’t nailed down and they’d make straight for Hardhome and leave the Wall to the Targaryens to do with as they pleased. Until then however, maintaining control of the Night’s Watch had its uses and allowed Loren to continue funneling more resources to develop and build up Hardhome and its environs and move more and more skilled workers, ships, and funds.
Half of the Night’s Watch’s gold and the Eastwatch fleet had already been moved to Hardhome and Loren intended to see all of it moved by the time he himself left. They had also been forcibly moving a number of farming families and especially women from the Gift to cultivate the lands of the Point and help them sustain their population in the long-term.
It was fortunate that the seas near the Point were so rich with whales, fish, seals, and crabs. Farms alone would struggle to feed their population in such cold conditions and the Eastwatch fleet could help them exploit the resources of the sea and trade excess goods to bring some minute measure of wealth and comfort to their little kingdom.
The inheritance he would leave his heirs would be paltry compared to the Rock he could have once given them, but he would have something at least to leave behind for them. He had never been fortunate enough to have any trueborn children with his wife before Aegon Targaryen had sent him here but he had a few bastards from his conquests and trophies in the Iron Islands campaign.
It had been years since he had last seen his former wife or any of his concubines or daughters, but his five bastard sons had been sent to the Watch with him as children, babes even, and Loren had raised them as if they were his trueborn sons ever since. Tywin was the eldest, a lad of four and ten, and then Tygett and Jason, both three and ten, and Larys and Daven, both two and ten. All of them were Hills right now, but when he was King of Hardhome, he would legitimize them all as Lannister Princes, his sons and heirs. Perhaps he might even give them a few younger siblings once he was free to marry and bed women openly once again.
Ahh but it was best not for him to get lost in his daydreams of the future. His focus had to remain firmly on the present or that future might never come to be. There were more dangers than just Targaryens these days.
The Night’s Watch had been ten thousand strong the day Aegon the Dragon had landed in Westeros but it had not stayed there. Over the course of their conquest, the Targaryens had sent Loren himself and thousands of other former lords, knights, soldiers, nobles, royals, and Faith Militant to the Wall until now the order stood at an incredible eighteen thousand strong. The largest it had ever been in history, large enough that the order now maintained garrisons in all eighteen castles along the Wall at the same time, which had never happened before. And the number was only continuing to grow as the Targaryens continued to ship more and more prisoners to Eastwatch by sea.
That size was not necessarily a good thing, however. Before the Targaryens had completed their wars against the Faith Militant and the other kingdoms, Loren and his faction had held a very comfortable plurality if not majority within the Watch, all of his followers being his Westerlander loyalists or Watchmen they had recruited from the ranks. Ever since the Fall of Oldtown however, the Targaryens had shipped thousands of prisoners in bulk to the Wall and they had brought competition with them.
Some of the new recruits had been welcomed to an extent of course. Quite a few of them had been Westermen, those nobles and their retinues who had knelt to the Targaryens after Loren’s fall in the West but had risen in revolt for the Faith Militant.
While Loren was still bitter about all of that, he could not true begrudge them for kneeling to the Targaryens to spare their own families and at least they had proven how little they had cared for the dragons in the end when they had risen for the Faith and tried to put some of his distant cousins back on the throne of the Rock. It was more than he could say for traitors like Reyne, Farman, and Crakehall who had completely bent over for the Targaryens at this point.
In the end, pragmatism had won out over an illogical grudge. Welcoming his fellow Westermen was all that had allowed Loren to maintain his faction’s dominance in the Watch which was hanging on the edge of a knife.
Thousands of Valemen, Reachmen, and Stormlanders had all been exiled to the Watch. Many were fanatical Faith Militant whom Loren wanted nothing to do with, and most of the others were still loyal to their own royals who had similarly been exiled. The two Arryns, Ronnel and Jonos commanded the allegiance of the Valemen and the would-be Mern X and his two young sons with Argella Durrandon had the fealty of most of the Reachmen and Stormlanders.
While some of the new recruits had lost faith in their erstwhile royals and joined Loren whom they saw as having the upper hand, it was undeniable that Mern and Ronnel commanded most of their former countrymen as well as the Faith Militant. It was fortunate for Loren that the two men simply could not agree on who should be the overall leader of the faction, their pride and egos were in fierce competition and the Arryns held a grudge over supposedly being abandoned by the Gardeners to the Targaryens.
The infighting allowed Loren to maintain his precarious position but he was ever watchful and wary that one day they would put aside their differences long enough to put a knife in his back and ruin all that he had worked for. That was not even considering the traditionalist Watchmen, those that had joined the Watch before the Targaryen conquests and disliked all of this new politicking and lack of focus on the Night’s Watch’s supposed mission.
All of the factions suspected Loren’s intentions to make a new kingdom up in Storrold’s Point, it was not exactly easy to hide. The traditionalists absolutely hated the idea, murmuring about the Night’s King or some other tripe while the Arryns and the Gardeners wanted in and Loren refused to suffer any rivals. It was currently all that he could do to deny the other factions access to Hardhome, and it was rather unfortunate that the more of his own loyalists he sent to secure and develop Hardhome, the weaker his position on the Wall itself would become.
Yet Loren still had his cunning, and like a lion he had begun playing some of the other factions like a fiddle. He had given Gardener and Arryn’s factions command over some of the western castles on the Wall, interspersed with traditionalists in between them. That had allowed him to push more and more of the rival factions’ members to the western side of the Wall and make them think it was their own idea too, as it was only natural that his rivals would seek to consolidate their new powerbases with their own loyalists.
He had willfully turned a blind eye to all of Gardener and Arryn’s own crude projects to set up bases beyond the Wall, knowing the likelihood was high that they would fail without the years of preparation he had put into Hardhome and without sea access to sustain a large population. Meanwhile the traditionalists neighboring them would be thorns in their side, constantly questioning their motives and hampering their efforts and distracting them all while his faction continued to maintain control of Eastwatch and moved more and more resources to Hardhome unimpeded.
Even the pretentious new King in the North and his demands had been something Loren had been able to turn to his advantage. The bastard Brandon Snow, or Brandon Stark as he was now calling himself, had become rather infamous throughout the entire continent.
First, he and his little Wolf’s Teeth brotherhood of sorcerers, freaks, and wargs, had carried out two assassination attempts on the Targaryens that had ultimately failed to do anything but infuriate them into burning down half of the North in the dreaded Dragon’s Wroth. Then Brandon Snow had appeared to lose his mind and declared himself Brandon Stark, using his wargs to conquer the North and begin enacting a sorcerous reign of terror. He had dealt with many of his enemies cruelly, even feeding some alive to his wolves while taking countless women to wife. Rumors had it that Brandon would skinchange into his wolves to personally partake of their flesh before raping his rivals’ women in wolf form. And despite killing the former husbands and kin of many of the women he had taken as concubines, Brandon appeared to have some kind of skinchanging powers that made them love him, and there were even whispers that the legendary children of the forest had reappeared straight out of the tales to give Brandon aid.
His infamy was such that he was now known as the Warg King of Winter and the man seemed to not even care, relishing in his new reputation and madly claiming that the Old Gods had made him their new champion. It had rallied the North’s people as much as it terrified them and even now opinions on the new Warg King remained very divided even as the Old Gods adherents in the North were being whipped up into a fanatic fervor that could rival the Faith Militant.
Loren was certain that Brandon was still going to lose to the Targaryens, but his madness was so great and unnerving it was making him consider even copying the Targaryens’ own decrees and outlaw skinchangers, greenseers, woods witches, and weirwood trees when he moved to Hardhome. If having those around could lead to something like the Warg King arising in his domain, Loren wanted nothing to do with it.
This uneasiness hadn’t stopped him from working with Brandon though of course. In his infinite wisdom, His Mad Grace had decided that the best way to rebuild his ravaged kingdom and fight the Targaryens was to invite thousands of wildlings, wargs, giants, and gods knew what else beyond the Wall south into the lands of the North. Another Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch might have refused Brandon’s demands but Loren, who only became Lord Commander to drive his own kingdom-building ambitions, had seen little reason to make an enemy out of a man that might be able to control his own mind.
He had never once spoken to Brandon in person and had refused all such meetings but he had wholeheartedly gone out of his way to agree to all of Brandon’s demands and requests for his supposed new allies and subjects to be allowed to pass the Wall on a few conditions that the Warg King had easily accepted. Stark paid him certain fees in gold and other resources for every tribe he allowed to pass, Loren would be allowed to exact his own tributes from the passing tribes, and the Night’s Watch and North would cooperate to escort the incoming wildlings out of the Gift.
Because of their arrangement, thousands of wildlings, hundreds of wargs, skinchangers, woods witches, giants, and who knew what else had already been allowed to pass through the Wall. The Warg King was even collecting animals of all things, acquiring and breeding large numbers of direwolves, shadowcats, snow bears, mammoths, great elks, aurochs, reindeer, and other creatures from beyond the Wall and from across the North as well as importing unicorns from Skagos (which was still only debatably subject to the North).
For his part, Loren had rather eagerly gone out of his way to help Brandon with his mission. He had offered and sent many of his own scouts to meet and negotiate with wildling tribes and clans and give them Brandon’s offer of fertile lands in the south in exchange for their allegiance to him. Just as many accepted the deal as others spat in their faces for being kneelers and while Loren wasn’t quite sure why so many accepted the deal (was there something about Brandon he didn’t quite comprehend?), he wasn’t complaining.
The more wildling tribes left the lands beyond the Wall and came south, the less of them there would be around to be a problem to Hardhome in the future. They would become the problems of the Warg King and eventually the Targaryens while Hardhome would be made safer.
Loren had also taken advantage of those scouting missions to improve his own faction’s knowledge of the lands beyond the Wall, to learn its lay and form connections and alliances with the people. They had even found a few friendly tribes to make allies with and invite to settle near Hardhome and whenever tribes passed through the Wall, Loren made sure to take his tributes without fail, taking women, furs, and other tributes to help enrich and develop Hardhome. He had even taken a page from Loren’s mad books and acquired some reindeer, mammoths, and other animals, thinking they might have their uses in his eventual kingdom.
No matter what happened in the south between the Warg King and the dragons, Loren would make sure that he and his family would have a new home to call their own and thrive in. Casterly Rock might forever be lost to them but that didn’t have to mean the Lannister roar had been silenced forever.
___________________________________
Fifth Moon, 114 AD (13 AC)
The Wise Fool
After so many long years of stubborn rule, his beloved mother Meria had finally perished of old age. Nymor almost envied her, she could die with all of her pride intact, her ego never allowing her to accept the finality of what was coming for Dorne.
She was not the only to have such pride. The Fall of Oldtown three years earlier had infuriated many of the faithful in Dorne, especially the pious lords who had given aid to the Faith Militant but had withdrawn before the end and thankfully not faced any reprisal from the dragons for it as of yet. Nymor was just thankful that his mother had heeded his advice and not allowed any of the Faith Militant or Most Devout entry to Dorne when some of them had sought to escape the imminent fall of the Reach.
There was no place for such fanaticism in Dorne and it would have only antagonized the Targaryens and drawn them into war with them early. Fortunately, that dire future had been averted and with their annexation and development of the Neck and Cape Kraken, it was clear that the Targaryens’ grudge against Brandon Snow had not died and they were moving against the North first. That was good news, very good news indeed.
The more time the Targaryens spent preoccupied with the North and its new Warg King, the more time Nymor had to prepare Dorne for when the dragons inevitably turned their attention south once more.
Not that he was having an easy time with those preparations either. For all that his mother had extolled the virtues of the hidden oases and sietches in the desert, there simply weren’t enough of them to house anywhere near enough of Dorne’s population despite all of Nymor’s efforts to build more warehouses and supply depots. The Red Mountains had been more promising but even then, there were limits.
He had spent years training up Dorne’s archers and crossbowmen as much as he could, buying more scorpions and siege weapons and training crews in their use while making plans and protocols for evacuations and fighting in the desert yet no matter what he did, it still didn’t feel like it was enough.
The extra time was both a blessing and a curse however, because by the time the Targaryens moved against Dorne, they would have eleven adult dragonriders, fully trained and bloodthirsty, and with magic and armies more powerful than ever before.
Against the power rising to their north, sometimes it felt like there was no hope at all, no victory, and they would be better off fleeing like Nymeria did but where would they even go?
The Summer Islands would surely not welcome them. Essos was on fire and the Free Cities had refused to give them any shelter or aid lest they antagonize the Targaryens.
Fools all of them. Even as they chafed under the extortionate tributes the Targaryens had levied for their neutrality in the ongoing Century of Blood, none of the Free Cities dared turn their resentments into action. Did they truly think the Targaryens would be content to simply feast on Westeros once the North and Dorne had fallen? That the greedy dragons wouldn’t lust for the Stepstones? Or even for the Free Cities themselves as the self-proclaimed heirs of Old Valyria?
All of his worries and fretting for the future often left Nymor with feelings of despair and melancholy. And the only things that could shake him out of those dark moods was the thought of his daughter Deria and the rest of his family. It was for them that he fought, and he couldn’t give up, no matter how hopeless it all seemed.
If they could not run, and if they could fight the Targaryens openly, then his original belief that their only hope laid in magic and assassination seemed truer than ever. And in this aspect at least, Nymor had had the greatest success.
While the Faceless Men continue to refuse his requests to assassinate all the Targaryens, the Sorrowful Men in Qarth had agreed to his proposal to sponsor a branch of their guild based in Dorne to take on more contracts in the west of the Known World in exchange for them agreeing to hits on the Targaryens when the time came.
Nymor had also successfully recruited several warlocks from the House of the Undying in Qarth, even if their purple lips and obsession with shade of the evening gave him pause. A number of other mages from across Essos who claimed and had demonstrated to certain extents abilities to manipulate sand, earth, and air had also been recruited at no small expense, yet despite all of his best efforts, not a single trace of water magic had ever been found.
In Essos the Valyrians had utterly destroyed all remnants and the Volantenes had been loath to share what texts they may have had. And here in Dorne, the Orphans of the Greenblood had been little better. They had spat in his face and told him that because of what his ancestors, the infamous Red Princes had done, water magic was gone and with it much of Nymeria’s culture and language.
The Orphans hadn’t stopped there however, they had continued to mock and jeer and Nymor wasn’t proud of what he had done next but he had lost control of himself. He had sent soldiers into the Plankytown and all other Orphan settlements across Dorne, seizing several of their people and punishing them for their disrespect while ransacking their homes and questioning prisoners sharply for any single scrap of water magic that they could find. They had found nothing but the stories of what it could once do.
He could almost hear his mother’s mocking voice in his ear. ‘I told you so.’
Nymor couldn’t help but curse her despite how much he missed her. He cursed his ancestors for their foolishness, he cursed the Targaryens for driving him into this despair, and above all he cursed himself for his weakness and his pride.
His actions had accomplished nothing but further angering the Orphans of the Greenblood and what little goodwill he had built up with them by restoring their right to speak Nymeria’s own language and practice her culture had been burnt away.
Nymor just felt so, so tired. He was far too old for all of this; his mother’s long reign had seen to that.
As his dark thoughts continued to plague him, Nymor almost fell back into the oppressive pit of melancholy and despair before a knock on the door of his solar shook him out of it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“My prince, the Red Priestess is here to meet you, as requested.”
“Ah yes. Send her in,” he replied.
He had spoken to a few of the priests in the few red temples in Dorne and asked for magical aid but he had never expected it to truly amount to much to be honest, not with how much the Red Faith otherwise appeared to support the Targaryens given that it was allowed inside their domain and shared several traits such as a liking for fire. However, to his surprise, he had been informed a few months ago that a Red Priestess all the way from Asshai was coming to speak with him and he had been waiting eagerly ever since.
With bated breath, he watched as the door of his solar was opened and in she walked.
His first thought was that she was extremely beautiful. She had a heart-shaped face, a narrow waist, and full breasts. Her hair was long and reached down to the small of her back, as deep as burnished copper. She was slender and graceful, with a stature greater than most of his knights, and she wore a flowing red dress, a scarlet cloak, and a red gold choker with a ruby about her neck. The room almost seemed to fill with heat at her very presence.
When she spoke at last, her voice was deep, melodic, and spicy, with a thick and rich Jade Sea accent.
“All salutations and greetings to you Prince Nymor of Dorne. I am a recently ordained Red Priestess from the Temple of Asshai, and I have come due to your request for magical assistance against the last dragonlords,” she said.
Nymor was impressed but he could not help but wonder. “I am grateful for the offer, but if you do not mind, could you inform me how your skills differ from the other red priests already here in Dorne?”
The woman nodded. “Of course, Prince Nymor. My abilities with scrying and fire magic are far superior to my colleagues here in Dorne, but in addition to that, I am also a fully trained shadowbinder.”
“And what does shadowbinding entail exactly?” Nymor asked, curious.
“Many things,” the woman said mysteriously. “But of particular interest to you, it will allow me to send intangible and mystical shadowy assassins after your preferred targets so long as certain… conditions are met.”
That sounded wonderful, but Nymor still had some concerns. “And will there be any issues should you need to fight some of your brethren? The Red Faith is tolerated in the lands ruled by the Targaryens and the red temples there are subservient to –“ his words were cut off sharply by her interruption.
“They are all false heretics and blasphemers. The only one that we should be subservient to is the Lord of Light. These brethren of mine have betrayed their oaths and sold their souls to unbelievers and for that they shall be punished. The tolerance of the Targaryens is intolerable and if you would wish for my assistance Prince Nymor, I would ask that you allow me to proselytize in Dorne. I understand if it will take time for you and your people to see the truth, but I must insist that the Red Faith one day become the sole religion in these lands. That is the price of my services.”
A fanatic then. Just as crazed and insane as the Faith Militant had been. And yet… what choice did he have. Nymor pinched his eyebrows and breathed out loudly before he sighed.
“So long as you do not force your religion upon anyone, we have an agreement Lady…?”
“You may call me Melony, my prince,” the priestess said with a red smile.
_____________________________________
Author’s Note: So sorry for the late update, I had some planning and motivation delays for this chapter, but it’s finally out at last. Lots of juicy details in this chapter what with Brandon Snow becoming a greenseer and champion of the Old Gods, Loren Lannister scheming to found a new kingdom, and Nymor Martell crashing out in desperation and recruiting a certain Red Priestess.
Please let me know your thoughts, suggestions, and questions for all of it in the comments below or over on Discord! https://discord.com/invite/NSEwuzpcWm
Comments
Tertius711
What cost indeed. Brandon has absolutely lost his mind. There could be some poetically horrid ways for the Warg King to die indeed hehe. Are you rooting for Loren and his little underdog story lol? How do you think it will play out? Any thoughts on Dorne developments?
Zenokya
Excellent chapter, really liked what the antagonist are trying to do to counter the Targaryen. The real question is at what cost ? Loren as a good idea, take as much stuff possible and fuck off north of the wall. Might even work with the Targaryen as a pacifier north of the wall and trade outpost. Brandon should die in a poetic/horrible way. Killed by his many wives or mind shattered with all the bonds he made, eat alive by the animals. I am pretty sure if the Targs capture him he will not have a fast death.
Lightisyhepathtosark
How will the Targaryen handle the Others? Also I say they burn Braavosi, they are a threat. Finally Dorne delenda est
Tertius711
I’m taking suggestions:) what ideas have you got?
AJ
I really hope Brandon dies the worst way possible because of the horrible things he has done
Tertius711
Main antagonist energy fr. Quite a fun main antagonist I think, had quite the fun time writing his POV this chapter. Loren's new underdog story shall be fascinating indeed. As for Nymor, pity not the Martells lol but valid opinion. Glad you liked it! Stay tuned!
felipe Arrieta
I love how Brandon went from being a character with a small mention in the entire canon to being the one who, up until now, and I assume will continue to be, the main antagonist and the only one who has achieved anything against the Targs. Loren is definitely being the smartest person on the entire continent with his plan to go on an eternal frozen vacation, and honestly, I feel bad for Nymor; the poor man is doing the best he can, but neither his mother, his vassals, nor his subjects are helping him. Great chapter; the wait had me desperate.
Tertius711
Idk Worm so idk either two examples but great points! Brandon is mad and very unhinged right now, definitely jumped right off the cliff into madness. Let's see how the final war of the North plays out!
TwoJacksAndAnAce
Damn Brandon’s larping as some sick combination of Heartbreaker and Jack Slash from Worm on top of thinking he’s some kind of “chosen one” a terrible combination for a guy who’s also gone crazy and has had great power given to him. I don’t think much of the North will survive the war that’s coming for them, Brandon will inspire great fanaticism and will never surrender.
Tertius711
Lmao. Loli wif :ROFL. The madness has truly taken him XD
Tertius711
Burn it all indeed! Down with the Old Gods!
Emi
It seems Aerys and Daenerys were right all along. Burn it all down.
Kolek
Lmao, Brandon is turning in a bad Harem, anime protagonist complete with a loli wife.
Lord Sturm
Thing is that magic is clear danger to all rulers, so with exception of magocratics (like Valiria) magic users are persecuted (Andals) or contained (Warlocks of Quarth). Here rulers received fuck-you from Targs and their magic REALLY hard, so magic becomes "investment number 1" for those who opposed Targs.
StrangeCrest
This just feels like a whole lot of "If you give Frodo a lightsaber, then give Sauron a deathstar". If you are going to give the Targs a buff and then instantly turn around give everyone else buffs, then there was little point in giving the buffs in the first place besides flavor.
