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21: Dragonborn Conqueror, The Good Frey
🕑 Added 2025-04-08 19:38:53 +0000 UTCTwo weeks ago, Merrick Frey’s life had been—if not peaceful—then at least predictable. He worried, as he always did, about Harren Hoare’s crushing taxes, which drained his coffers and left his smallfolk hungrier with each passing season. He worried about the Ironborn raids that had grown bolder of late, sweeping through the western marches and dragging off his people in chains. And he worried—most of all—for his youngest son, Edwin, taken as a hostage four years ago, a knife Merrick had carried in his heart every day since.
But now, as he rode alongside the Blue Fork on his return journey from Fairmarket, something had shifted. The burdens that had weighed him down for so long were—if only slightly—beginning to lift.
His son had been returned to him.
Ahead, Edwin laughed with the guards. Merrick could not take his eyes off his son, fearing he would be taken away again.
For the first time in years, Merrick allowed himself to believe that things might change—that the storm hanging over the Riverlands might finally be breaking.
The gods had answered his prayers—not just his, but the prayers of every man and woman who still dared whisper them in the dark.
He hadn’t believed it at first, when the raven came from Fairmarket. A message in Edwin’s own hand, claiming that Haldon Greyjoy and both his sons were dead. That Fairmarket had rebelled. That Greyholt had fallen—destroyed by a man called the Dragonborn. A man who wielded magic not as some dark sorcerer from the east, but as a holy one, declared the herald of the Seven, come to free the Riverlands from the Ironborn yoke.
Merrick had read the letter three times over, half-convinced it was a jest—a trick. A trap laid by Haldon to test loyalty.
At last, after receiving ravens from both House Blackwood and House Mallister—each letter echoing the same astonishing tale—he had set out for Fairmarket.
Merrick had gone with doubts still lingering in his chest, but now, on his return journey, those doubts had long since crumbled. He had seen the truth with his own eyes.
He had seen the man.
He had seen the Dragonborn.
He had seen the miracles he performed. The power he possessed.
Now, he returned home to gather an army for the Dragonborn, the man he believed to be the herald of the gods.
“My lord, Greyholt is in sight,” he heard one of his men say.
Still, there was one final thing he needed to see.
Ahead of him, looming in the hills beyond the river, stood what remained of Greyholt.
Merrick reined in his horse and stared.
The once-mighty fortress was a ruin. A yawning hole had been torn through the outer wall, jagged like a wound. Part of the keep had collapsed inward, blackened stone and shattered timber slumping in on itself.
He had visited Greyholt many times in his life. He had feared it, hated it—an Ironborn stronghold planted in the Riverlands like a dagger in the heart.
And now it lay broken.
Merrick smiled.
It was real. All of it. The tales, the stories, the proclamations from Leobald and Septon Ryam—it was all true. The man sent by the gods. The warrior who had brought down this place in a single night.
And if Greyholt could fall…
Then Harrenhal would be next—sooner than anyone would have dared believe.
With the Dragonborn at their side—with Lord Stormcrown and his divine magic—they wouldn’t even need to lay siege to a castle. With his voice alone, he had cracked the very air, shattered wood and stone with power that defied sense.
“Shouting,” Merrick muttered to himself, shaking his head with disbelief. That was what Stormcrown had called it. The Thu’um.
He looked up again, and not far ahead, saw another rider who had stopped at the crest of the hill.
Lord Jaspar Mallister sat still in the saddle, gazing at the broken fortress with the same wide eyes Merrick himself had worn.
Merrick urged his horse forward, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
As he approached the crest where Lord Mallister sat astride his horse, he called out with a grin, “Impressive, isn’t it?”
Jaspar turned slightly in the saddle, the corner of his mouth curling up in a dry smile. “Impressive?” he echoed. “I’d say terrifying.” His eyes drifted back to the shattered remains of Greyholt. “To think a single man could bring down a fortress like this.”
“You saw what he could do, Jaspar,” Merrick said as he pulled up beside him, his tone gentler now.
“Yes. Yes, I did,” Jaspar replied with a long exhale, his gaze lingering on the scorched stone and fractured battlements. “So did you. So did Blackwood.”
Lord Hother Blackwood had stayed behind in Fairmarket, rallying men and mustering arms. His task was no small one—they would need every sword they could raise for what lay ahead. The word “rebellion” still echoed in Merrick’s mind.
“He wasn’t lying,” Jaspar said suddenly, his voice lower now. “Everything he told us. Everything the septon preached.”
Merrick chuckled. “Did you still not believe it, even after he showed us?”
Jaspar’s lips thinned, his brow furrowing. “Oh, I believe in his power. How could I not after what I saw? That shout of his nearly split the hill in two during the demonstration.”
“Then what troubles you?”
“It’s not the power that worries me,” Jaspar muttered. “It’s the man. Or rather, the myth they’re building around him. The idea that he was sent by the gods.”
Merrick turned slightly in his saddle to face him. “I’ve watched him, Jaspar. I’ve spoken to him, walked beside him. He’s kind. Calm.”
He paused, letting the words sink in.
“Lord Stormcrown is a true warrior—strong, honorable. A good man with a kind heart. All the good qualities of a ruler.”
“Do you truly believe it?”
Merrick met his gaze without hesitation. “Yes,” he said, firm and unwavering.
Jaspar exhaled slowly, the sound almost lost to the whisper of the wind. “So,” he said after a moment, “are we to bow to Lord Stormcrown after he fulfills his oath to kill Harren and drive out the Ironborn?” He paused, the lines in his face tightening. “Another foreign king?”
“It’s the best way forward,” Merrick replied, his tone turning steely. “Do you want to go back to the chaos of the Century of Anarchy?”
Jaspar flinched slightly at the name, a shiver running through his aging frame. “Gods, no,” he muttered. “That was madness. But still…”
Merrick leaned forward slightly in the saddle, his voice pressing in with conviction. “A man as powerful as Lord Stormcrown will make the other kingdoms wary of the Riverlands—wary enough to stay away. We could finally have peace, Jaspar. True peace. If we unite behind him.”
Jaspar didn’t answer immediately. His eyes drifted back to the ruin of Greyholt, its scorched walls and torn ramparts a jagged silhouette against the sky. After a long silence, he shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure, Merrick,” he said. “Perhaps in time, I might be. But I’ll tell you this—Stormcrown, Dragonborn, whatever he calls himself—he scares me.”
He gestured with a gauntleted hand toward the collapsed keep. “A man with power like that, doing this alone? What if it’s all an act? What if he wins, then becomes a tyrant worse than Harren? At least Harren is a mortal man. That one… claims to be a god.”
Merrick didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he followed Jaspar’s gaze to where their sons stood, Edwin and Marlon laughing about something.
“We got our children back, Jaspar. We got them home,” he said, voice quieter now. “And now, it’s time we take the kingdom back—so our children will never be taken from us again, and our daughters won’t be forced into salt wives for these heathens.”
Jaspar nodded.
Merrick smirked slightly, jesting. “I think you might just be jealous, you stingy old lord—that your last rebellion against Haldon was all for nothing.”
Jaspar shot him a glare, clearly unamused—but after a beat, he looked back to his son and softened.
“Next time I see you, I will have an army at my back.”
“Let’s see who can field the largest, then…” Merrick said, as the lords continued their journey onward.
