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Chapter 50 - Big Surprises
🕑 Added 2025-09-28 21:04:33 +0000 UTCThe Lands Beyond the Wall
The morning had come, and with it, the search for the cave. With aerial advantage, and his knowledge, it was easy to triangulate the location, somewhere between the Fist of the First Men, the Antler River, and Craster’s Keep.
Closer to the Antler River, they finally found a cave, the only one in fact, opening in a hillside.
“Alright, we can’t take the dragons in, so it will just be the two of us.”
“Is there anything inside, besides Bloodraven and the Children of the Forest?” Those two were unbelievable enough to Sandor, but he was just here to follow Robert, not question whether they were real or not.
“There shouldn’t be.”
—
The entrance was too small that Robert and Sandor needed to crawl, most likely a defense mechanism. After all, if the Children of the Forest could pull off something like creating Bloodraven by bonding a man to Weirdwood trees, then they should be able to manipulate the land.
The inside, however, expanded into an underground complex, and navigating the twisting tunnels was difficult, most likely on purpose.
Avoiding the sharp roots piercing through the ceiling, they followed the light offered by the glowing mushrooms, and after a considerable amount of time, entered a wide area that seemed to be inhabited, but with no Children in sight.
Robert looked around without moving, searching for any sign of a trap, but what the Children of the Forest had waiting for him was something far louder.
With each step sounding as if a wooden mallet was struck on ground, several giants came out of one of the caves, followed by several short and green feminine figures.
Giants and the Children of the Forest were in cahoots, it seemed.
“Giants?” Sandor muttered, seeing that they were outnumbered and outpowered without the dragons.
“Seems the Children found some muscle for protection.” It actually explained why they did not try to stop Robert on the way here.
“Leave.” The giant, whose kind, as far as Robert knew, did not speak the common tongue, demanded. He was more humanoid than described in the books, not as hairy, though still had a pretty long beard.
“How did they convince you to protect them?” Robert asked the twelve foot giant, not an ounce of fear in his expression.
“We offered them shelter.” One of the Children spoke, and the giant grunted, affirming her words.
If Robert knew it was that easy, he would have come and convince the giants to join Asgard. “Who are you, and from what?”
“I am Leaf. We offered them shelter from the Night King and the Others.” So the Night King did exist here. He would have hated making a fool of himself.
Putting down his hammer, Robert clapped, slowly and deliberately.
“What are you doing?” The Children and the giant were confused, and Sandor looked at Robert weirdly.
“I am applauding. Did anyone ever tell you that your kind would make excellent capitalists?” Robert asked, grinning. This was going to be good. If the Night King existed, then it meant the Children were the ones responsible for it.
“What is a capitalist?” Even the giant, who was following the conversation, looked around to see if anyone knew what the word meant.
“They are the people who sell solutions to the problems they created in the first place.” Robert explained, which just confused everyone more.
“Here you are, offering shelter to the giants from the Night King, when the Children of the Forest were the ones to create him in the first as a weapon, and lost control afterwards." Once the words registered, the giant turned to Leaf, and her response proved that the accusation was true.
“How could you know that?!” The small green creature hissed like a serpent, shocked that anyone would know the origin of the Night King.
“Simple sweetheart, I am Robert Baratheon.” Robert opened his hands to the side, grinning at the flustered Children.
The giant wasn’t happy at what he heard, and began to speak to Leaf with a deep, thrumming voice in the language of his kind, while Leaf responded in the same language.
Stomping his foot, the giant turned to the rest of his kind, and said something that got them to pack their belongings.
Seems the giants were leaving.
“Hey, big guy. Would you and your family consider a life beyond the Wall?” The leader, at least Robert assumed the giant that just told him to leave was the leader, did not even heed the words.
“You understand my words, and I am sure you can understand this. Your kind is dying.” His words stopped the giant in his throes. “People beyond the wall believe you are just tales, that you don’t exist. There are, what? A couple hundred of you left? In ten years, maybe less, you will all die and be mere stories. I am offering you a chance to live, not just survive, in my lands, as my people.” He didn’t want to see any race go extinct, and giants could be a great addition to Asgard.
“We respect strength, kinship, oaths. What have you to offer?” The giant’s speech was broken since his grasp of the common tongue wasn’t absolute.
“Strength? Come closer, I have something to tell you.” The giant, almost twice Robert’s height, approached and bent forward, looking down at Robert.
Planting his right foot behind, Robert turned his whole body and punched the giant in the chin.
Robert was always strong, more than most men, but at that moment, none would think he could punch a giant and do any reasonable damage.
They would be wrong.
The giant’s head snapped to the left, and he stumbled back, looking around confusedly before falling down, unconscious.
—
“Strong enough for you?” Robert asked the giant as he got up, shaking his massive head.
The giant looked at Robert for a while, nursing his chin before nodding. “Strong, yes. Oaths, kinship?” He asked, demanding more than strength.
“My kin isn’t just the people I share blood with, but the ones who fight for the same cause as me.”
“Fight for what?”
“For a brighter future, not just for men, but the giants and all other peaceful races.” Not that there were too many races going around, but Robert would take what he could get.
“Men not peaceful.” The giant snorted, and Robert couldn’t fault him for it. They were pushed to the far north by humans after all.
“There is no man out there like me, if I say there will be peace, then there will be peace.” The giant considered before grunting, and Robert took it as affirmative.
Now, perhaps the most important part. “Oaths?”
“Oaths go both ways. If you keep to yours, I’ll keep to mine. So, I’ll ask one more time, would you like to live in Asgard as a part of it, rather than just slowly dying in this blasted cold?” Even in the cave Robert felt a slight chill.
The giant looked at his family, and nodded. “We join you, in peace. I am Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun.”
Robert chuckled. Just his luck, he ended up finding Wun Wun’s father. “And I welcome you as part of Asgard.”
Turning to the Children of the Forest, who were watching the exchange while slowly backing away, knowing their little charade had come to an end. “Now that your protectors aren’t willing to defend you anymore, you seem to be in trouble.”
“Perhaps we chose the wrong person to fight the coming Long Night.” Leaf confessed, now willing to give up Brynden rather than fight a losing battle.
“That you did. But you know, I am not an unreasonable man. Prove you are useful, and I’ll offer you the same deal, to live in Asgard in peace, safety and prosperity, away from the undead.” The Children, especially if they knew the secret to shaping molten stone, would be even better to convince.
Leaf was hesitant, but saw no other option. “Generous. What must we do?”
“First, I want Bloodraven.” Leaf acquiesced, and slowly the entrance behind her, barred by thick roots, opened up.
“Second, I want you to summon all the remaining giants in these lands. If they are to survive as a species, then all of them must be willing to join Asgard.” Just the twenty or so giants here wouldn’t be able to repopulate their race.
“That is doable.” It should be, if they were able to convince Wun Weg and his family to come all the way here.
“As for my third demand, I don’t know if Bloodraven was aware of it, but I recently conquered Valyria after killing the Archdemon responsible for the Doom.”
“We have sensed the death of something great.” The death of a being greater than any they had encountered on the mortal realm had reverberated through the land.
To know it was this man, the very same whose family Bloodraven had tried to kill, made the Children realize how close they had come to death.
“Good. Records I took from Valyria spoke of something called the Earth magic, to shape molten stone.” Leaf and the other three with her did not recognize the name, but a short discussion among each other was enough to figure out what Robert meant.
“You speak of the Echo.”
“Echo?” Maester Olivar did not report that word, but perhaps the Valyrians had a different name for it than the Children did.
“The magic of deep earth that can shape molten stone. We cannot use it.” Leaf shook her head, and now Robert was the one baffled.
“Then who can?” If they can’t use it, how did they know what it was?
“The Underdwellers.”
What the fuck? A race not mentioned in the book? Or were Old Nan’s tales about the children who live beneath the earth actually meant these Underdwellers?
“Who are they?” Things got more complicated now, and Robert considered finding Old Nan to record her tales.
“They live deep beneath the land. We can guide you to them.”
That sounded way too similar to be a coincidence.
“Alright, we’ll do that later in Asgard. Then I welcome you as well.”
—
Robert walked down into the deep chamber where Brynden Rivers sat on his weirwood throne.
“So you came.” Brynden Rivers, with his decrepit body and roots in one of his eyeholes, spoke with a raspy voice.
Robert held his hammer out, ready to smash Bloodraven to a bloody smear on the tree roots, piece by piece. “Any last words?”
“You have ruined all my visions and work. I cannot say what will become, and what won’t.” So Robert fucked this bastard over so badly, his visions were all over the place.
“Cry me a river, you little bitch.” He mocked the living corpse, and didn’t feel a speck of regret.
“I was going to torture you actually, but if you tell me where Darksister is, I’ll give you a quick and clean death.” Giving the prized sword of House Targaryen to her grandmother would be a sweet revenge against Bloodraven, ridiculing him even after death.
“I lost it.”
“You lost it? To who?” Was it the giants?
“Wildlings.” Brynden admitted, ashamed of himself.
Robert began to laugh, deep and unbound, slapping his knee and holding his stomach.
It took him a while to stop.
“You are a disgrace.” Robert unsheathed Nightblood and removed Bloodraven’s head, causing the Weirwood roots to shrivel up and die.
—
“Here, another thing for you. Make sure this head does not rot, I’ll keep it as a trophy.” Robert dropped the head in front of Leaf, who did not look happy but took it to do as she was told.
Sandor, who had been waiting outside the entrance to Bloodraven’s chamber, fell into steps.“What now?”
“Well, we wait for the giants to gather, convince the rest to join me, kill Craster, and then go home.”
“You are fucking unbelievable.” Giants, the Children of the Forest, and now these Underdwellers.
It was getting too ridiculous for Sandor.
—
Across the lands beyond the Wall, giant families traversing in search of food and shelter began to receive visions calling them to a certain place. Long has it been since the Children last spoke, and the giants listened.
—
Robert, followed by Sandor, eventually left the caves to go see the dragons, who were on edge for some reason.
No wildling could hope to unsettle his dragons, so something far more dangerous must be lurking around.
Taking out his telescope, Robert inspected the area, but saw nothing, and just as he was about to give up, the air on the edge of his vision rippled. Looking closer, it took a great deal of focus and contrast to realize that there was something out there, reflecting the sunlight, and almost appearing invisible.
There was only one thing capable of doing that, and Robert grinned, relishing the challenge.
Mounting Obelisk, Robert landed a hundred feet away from the Other, and walked the rest of the way. There were no wights around, unless they could camouflage too, which meant the creature had come to scout the dragons, alone, trusting that his armor would help him avoid detection.
“You know, its rude to watch someone like this and not come to say hi.” He looked straight at the ripple, making sure to not lose sight of it.
Perhaps still believing that Robert was bluffing, the creature did not show itself. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? Or maybe you can’t understand my words.”
“Come now, if I wanted you dead, I would release my dragons on this forest and burn it to the ground.”
The ripple effect began to fade as the Other stopped camouflaging, revealing a figure shorter than Robert.
“Now that’s better.” The Other was dressed in armor from head to toe, and he couldn’t see any discerning features.
But he didn’t need to.
Putting down his hammer and sword, Robert approached the creature of frost, which pulled out his sword, ready to strike.
“You are a fool.” Surprisingly enough, the voice was feminine, though no less threatening.
At least they could communicate. “So you can understand me.”
“Your dragons cannot save you now.” The female growled.
The Other, fast as wind, struck, and Robert raised his hand, catching the crystal blade with his hand. Had it been regular steel, Robert would have lost his hand now, but Valyrian steel was not affected by the magic of the Others, allowing him to safely grasp the sword.
“Darling, I am not the one in danger here.” The Demonslayer spoke with a condescending tone, before his punch rocked the Other’s world.
Stunned by seeing her sword caught so easily, the Other could not react.
—
Western Coast of Reach
Seven hundred and fifty Ironborn longships sailed.
Their target?
Asgard.
To plunder its riches while the dragons are away.
Westerlands and Reach were already aware of the ships, and none except House Florent did anything except ensuring that the Ironborn didn’t target them.
Alester Florent had sent letters to Asgard, warning them of the Ironborn fleet and that the newly found city was their target.
Mysteriously, the ravens never made it to Asgard.
Comments
Fortunis
Yeah somebody is fucked. Missing off the guy who killed the Doom and whos family owns a bunch of full grown Dragons with more yet to come? My god the idiot ball is strong with these people.
