[Chapter Size: 3500 Words.]
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Third Person POV
North, 300 AC.
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Winterfell was tense at that moment as Maester Wolkan entered the great hall with worry etched across his face.
Lord Bolton, who was dining with his wife, a Frey, beside him, and his son seated several chairs away despite no one else being at the table, looked at the maester with a slight frown. He noticed the two letters in the maester's hand.
How could he not? After all, he had been receiving letters from all across the North over the past few weeks.
The maester interrupted his dinner to deliver yet another one, while his bastard son raised his head with interest. Not far behind him stood the broken Theon Greyjoy alongside trusted guards, after all, they had already tried to kill him twice since he arrived at Winterfell.
Roose remained outwardly composed in his corner, though inwardly he was extremely cautious.
Would this be another letter from that man? After all, he had received one about a moon ago, announcing his imminent destruction. It claimed that his fate could never be changed and that he should not bring about the destruction of his House and everything he had built.
Those words were deeply unsettling.
Even while maintaining the most stoic expression possible, he could not help but worry. His face revealed nothing, but inside, he was deeply troubled by everything that had been happening.
After that letter, it was no longer as though he could ignore the events unfolding around him. The news that arrived afterward only reinforced it.
Reports from the ironborn spoke of his men being exterminated on Bear Island, of the slaughter at the camp outside Deepwood Motte, of Arctic supplying the mountain clans with resources while wiping out every remaining group of ironborn that still kept ships along the western coast, capturing their vessels.
Soon afterward came even stranger reports.
Animals gone mad.
Animals that should never have attacked humans gathering in great numbers, slaughtering the ironborn and inflicting horrifying deaths upon them.
The few who managed to survive spoke of the terror they had witnessed. They claimed the North was cursed, that everyone should flee those lands as quickly as possible, and that they did not want to end up being devoured by beasts.
The terror that spread through the squares was immense. Men being devoured by wolves, bears, and even small animals, ravens invading castles. Hundreds of soldiers killed as though they were nothing.
And strangest of all... the animals did not attack the ironborns' victims. The ground was soaked with blood, despair existed on both sides, yet not a single northern victim was attacked.
It was as though they carefully chose who was meant to die.
Roose had never placed much faith in those stories. Tales of people controlling animals... But something different was happening. And the entire North seemed far more afraid of Jon Arctic than of him.
Ironic.
At any other time, he was the Lord of the Dreadfort. He was the one who was supposed to inspire fear in his enemies.
But now he was dealing with an opponent who simply terrified the entire kingdom he intended to rule. Whether in search of benefits through Arctic, because of the boy's birthright, or simply out of fear of what he could do to them, everyone seemed to be turning toward Jon Arctic.
Those two letters were placed on the table before him at that moment. As he took a sip of wine, Roose merely nodded to the maester, who disappeared shortly afterward.
He slowly opened the first letter, ignoring the sounds of servants, guards, and dogs coming from Winterfell's courtyard.
He could feel the curious gaze of his bastard son upon him, while his current wife remained completely silent. She knew she should not even look at him. Life beside Roose Bolton was no bed of roses. She was not beautiful in his eyes either, but at best, she could not have expected anything different from a Frey when she accepted this.
Even so, he had to stand firm, marry her, and get her with child to produce his heir. After all, that had been the agreement between the two Houses.
He unfolded the Dustin letter first. He was certain Lady Barbrey could be a valuable ally against the Starks.
["I will no longer be part of this madness. Your cause is lost, Bolton.
You may still have hostages, but even that will not be enough to hold back what is coming.
I have already received news of what is happening at the Wall. You will not last much longer.
It is a shame that my nephew was killed. I am certain he could have kept House Bolton alive after you. You, on the other hand, after what you have done, have walked a path with no return.
You were always meticulous. I knew you were cruel. You never fooled me, even though my sister always tried to downplay who you truly were during our conversations in the rare meetings we had after she married you.
It is a shame that her son could have brought a different future to House Bolton. However, you have shown your true face to the North. Now that everyone knows who you and that bastard of yours truly are, no one will support you.
At another time, perhaps I might have. But I have absolutely no interest in dealing with those people; they are monsters that no one can stop.
They made the ironborn flee in a way I have never seen before. We have already begun receiving refugees from the North who escaped the hunt in the Wolfswood, pursued by the very animals that dwell there.
That man from beyond the Wall is a monster. A monster that neither you nor a united North can face.
House Bolton will cease to exist, whether by the army marching from the Wall or by the army attacking the Iron Islands.
Good luck."]
The letter ended there.
Roose Bolton kept his expression completely unchanged, but his lips trembled ever so slightly as he clenched his teeth inwardly.
He was alone. Alone to deal with that war. Ever since receiving the first letter from that king, he had, of course, immediately asked Tywin for help, and Tywin had replied that he would send ten thousand men to the North by way of part of the Redwyne Fleet.
Roose eagerly awaited the arrival of those men, who were expected to land in no more than two weeks.
No one knew exactly how large the army that had halted in the North truly was. The problem was that no one possessed a clear picture of Arctic's strength. Not even Tywin had any concrete information about it, despite Varys and his own spies investigating so thoroughly...
The only thing they knew was that they possessed five hundred ships, forty-five thousand men, including five thousand giants.
Five thousand giants.
What kind of destruction could an army of that size unleash?
The answer seemed quite obvious whenever everyone turned their attention to what that army had done in the Dothraki Sea. They had faced forces far larger than their own and had simply annihilated them without losing almost any men.
Rumors claimed that the giants carried shields as large as themselves and simply stood at the front while the Dothraki army, charging at full speed on horseback, began piling up on top of one another the moment they crashed into those massive shields.
And now he might be facing only a portion of that force.
What kind of power did they truly possess? Could it be that there were only five hundred ships on the eastern side and three hundred on the western side of the continent?
Had they built even more vessels in the east, considering they had already constructed three hundred in the west? There was no way of knowing whether those ships had existed for a long time or had been built during the past year.
Roose Bolton certainly would not believe anyone who claimed they had been built in just one month by thousands of dwarves.
Not when the usual rate of construction was only eight ships per month, even for a highly competent workforce.
"Is something troubling you, Father?" Ramsay's voice made Roose look at him.
His cold eyes displayed no emotion. He was always analyzing Ramsay, and that cautious, meticulous nature remained evident. The curiosity that had always been present in his eyes was still there, but now there was also a glimmer of uncertainty.
It seemed that even Ramsay understood that their situation was far from favorable. One only had to look at the number of men they had managed to gather at Winterfell.
They had managed perhaps three thousand at most.
Roose had expected to gather at least eight to ten thousand.
But no one in the North was willing to follow them. No one saw them as rulers anymore. All they saw was a man who had defeated the Starks through betrayal.
A coward. An oathbreaker. A murderer. A hated man.
House Bolton stood on the brink of a crisis. The only force that could still help them was the Lannisters, who were advancing toward the North.
With them, his forces would reach around thirteen thousand men. That might give them a chance.
But without knowing the enemy's true strength, it could also mean his ruin. Roose was beginning to wonder whether he would come to regret the situation House Bolton had placed itself in.
They should have thought more carefully before challenging Arctic. That threat should never have been ignored.
Robb Stark was strong in battle, but he was a fool as a politician. It was no wonder he had fallen.
Roose had seen his weaknesses. He had seen how fragile the crown upon his head truly was. At the same time, it was far too heavy for his neck to bear. That crown had been won through the greed of the lords. They had wanted independence.
But they had been fools. They had tried to protect a kingdom that was not theirs, and in the end, they watched their own lands be devastated by enemies they could not even fight to protect their people from.
Catelyn was driven by her own greed and by a hatred that had become completely irrational. It seemed she constantly needed to prove something, especially when it came to Jon Arctic, a man whose existence she had never been able to accept.
It was at the moment of Robb's coronation as king that Roose realized the North would fall, whether by the hands of its enemies or through the fault of the northerners themselves.
That was why, when the opportunity arose, Bolton wasted no time in profiting from it. His original plan had been to make the North and Arctic fight each other, weakening both sides.
But there was also the possibility that the North would be completely subjugated, further increasing the power of Arctic, who had never lost a battle.
That would have been an even worse outcome. Destroying as much of the northern army as possible was the best choice while keeping their most valuable hostages alive in hopes of using them at the right moment.
Now that kingdom was coming, and Roose saw no weakness... They had enough experience to win any battle, considering the wars they had fought across the world.
He was all of that at once, while Roose, Varys, Tywin, and no one else knew enough to understand how to deal with such an army.
Brought back to his own thoughts, Roose looked at his son, who was still staring at him. "Nothing important. Just a few matters that need to be dealt with."
Bolton picked up Barbrey's letter and held it to the candle. The flames began to consume it. There was no point anymore; the Dustins would never help him now. Nor was it wise to show weakness.
He let the letter burn upon the table before turning his attention back to the second piece of correspondence.
["Go fuck yourself, Bolton! May you burn in the Seven Hells!"] Direct and to the point.
"We don't have that much support in the North, do we?" Ramsay asked, still pressing the matter.
Bolton looked at him and shook his head. "No. The North fears Arctic more than it fears us and the Lannisters combined."
"We can make a few examples," Ramsay replied with a malicious smile.
"We already have," Bolton answered coldly. "There are twenty bodies outside, all flayed. Even so, the result remains the same."
Indeed, there were twenty bodies, nobles and guards alike, murdered in the cruelest ways imaginable, displayed for all the North to see.
The people of Winterfell passed by them every day. Roose was certain that this display of strength had already been seen by practically everyone, and the rumors had spread far enough.
Even so, the North refused to change its mind.
"Perhaps we should kill someone important, as the law demands. We have that little Barth Cassel girl, and also Cley Cerwyn and his mother. We could put him beside his mother out there... We have plenty of opportunities."
"That won't stop an army from appearing at our doorstep," Roose replied immediately. "Not when our communications are already so limited... None of our spies have managed to send back any information from the North..." That was what worried him the most.
Some letters still arrived. But the letters that truly mattered, those containing information about the size of the enemy army and the kind of force they would be facing, never reached his hands.
It was as though someone was deliberately preventing them from arriving. Even the south had stopped sending messages some time ago, despite having maintained constant communication before then.
"We're being cornered from every direction. Are we certain that, once the Lannisters arrive, we'll be able to deal with them?" Ramsay asked.
Roose did not answer immediately. Instead, he turned his gaze toward his wife, who raised her head for the first time. She did not flinch under his stare, but she could not help shuddering beneath Ramsay's gaze.
Roose knew his bastard son hated his current wife and saw her as a threat. To a certain extent, he could not blame him for that. After all, Ramsay had become so cruel because of the freedoms Roose himself had granted him.
Even now, in a time of crisis, his son seemed capable of thinking of nothing but violence. For a brief moment, Roose almost wondered whether he had been wrong about that as well.
But what else could he have done? The real question was another.
What was the northern army doing at that very moment?
Where were they? Had they already begun marching south?
Would they follow the Kingsroad through Karstark lands before advancing on Winterfell?
Or would they head for the Dreadfort first?
Roose continued exchanging a few words with his son while trying to organize his thoughts.
At the same time, in the North, the Arctican army was leaving Karstark territory and advancing directly into Bolton lands.
They crossed the borders and continued onward over the following days. "My lord, we're getting close," one of the Rangers reported.
The Rangers were specialized units trained to locate scouts, survey terrain, and gather intelligence. It came as no surprise that some of them had already been inside Bolton territory for more than a week.
As soon as they arrived in the North, they had been dispatched in every direction. Since they were northerners or men from Beyond the Wall, they looked much like the rest of the people of the North. Despite the more refined bearing they had acquired in Arctic, they were able to blend easily with the local population while investigating the region.
At the same time, the wargs were also sweeping through the kingdoms, using animals to help search for scouts and enemy movements.
The army's advance became practically relentless. No one could understand how they appeared so quickly.
Whenever they reached one of the Boltons' smaller holdings, they attacked immediately, took the entire family hostage, and moved on.
They were not great castles. They were merely small keeps, towers, or large manors in smaller towns, from which the nobles governed their regions as Bolton vassals, or at least that had been the case until then, since they had now declared themselves sovereign rulers of the North.
The true objective of Arctic's forces was the Dreadfort.
Mance, Brynden, Bran, and the other military specialists, men who had fought alongside the king, discussed the strategy for several days.
In the end, they came to the conclusion that the Dreadfort had to be conquered first.
Alys remained at Karhold. A small Arctican garrison of two hundred men stayed behind with her after Arnolf was executed and his son was sent to the Night's Watch.
"We'll reach the Dreadfort in two days," one of the scouts reported as everyone sat down to discuss the next steps.
"We can't hide the situation anymore. Now that we're close to the Dreadfort..." Bran said.
Brynden nodded. "That's true. But it doesn't matter anymore. After all, Roose Bolton is going to be a little terrified. He's already desperate, but he'll be even more so when he realizes we can simply prevent the Lannister forces from advancing to Winterfell, since they have no choice but to pass through the Riverlands," he said calmly while looking at everyone.
"What he doesn't know is that our ships are already going to destroy the entire Lannister force being sent to the North."
And at that very moment, despair was beginning to take hold of the men from the Westerlands advancing northward.
They had just passed the latitude of the Vale of Arryn and were roughly abreast of the Three Sisters when, all of a sudden, the entire horizon filled with white sails.
It was a terrifying sight for those men... At first, dozens of ships appeared, sailing one behind another. But that number never stopped growing.
As more vessels emerged on the horizon, the fleet seemed simply endless. Fear spread through the men.
Visibility at sea was approximately five kilometers, which meant the ships were already very close.
The Lannister fleet quickly attempted to turn around, retreating toward the open sea. "We have to send a message to the mainland immediately! Send this to Lord Tywin!" the commander ordered.
One of the men ran to one of the smaller ships, jumped aboard, and quickly broke away from the fleet along with several other vessels.
Some of them tried to head for the open sea before returning to King's Landing. The others attempted to reach the mainland.
The Arctican fleet continued advancing. In less than a day, they had already caught up with them.
Then harpoons began raining down upon the ships, followed by explosions. The massive green explosions began destroying them one after another.
The entire line of roughly sixty ships was annihilated before it could even react. Meanwhile, part of the fleet continued advancing toward the mainland, clearly pursuing the ships that were attempting to escape.
The commander aboard the Lannister ship was completely horrified. There were at least a thousand ships before him.
He could not even count them. How could they possess such an enormous force? He had already heard about the eight hundred ships Arctic possessed in the west. But this was something entirely different.
What kind of madness was this? What kind of enemy had they tried to face? The truth was that there had never been any chance of defeating whoever dwelled Beyond the Wall.
That was his last thought. An enormous harpoon fired by a giant struck the ship's main mast.
The container attached to its tip exploded.
Wildfire.
All the commander saw was a massive green explosion before the flames began consuming the entire ship.
The explosions did not stop until they reached the last vessel. One after another. The sea was engulfed in green flames that continued burning upon the water, while wreckage and men desperately struggled to save themselves.
But that entire area was consumed by an inferno of fire. The oxygen practically vanished around the flames, and the heat was so intense that it scorched anyone who came too close.
Some tried to dive beneath the surface to escape, staying underwater for as long as they possibly could. But the lack of oxygen above the water ultimately doomed every one of them.
No one could survive after falling into the middle of that green inferno.
Roose Bolton had no idea that his reinforcements had been completely destroyed in less than a day from the moment he had been thinking about them. His last hope no longer existed.
Soon, he would face the Arcticans before the gates of Winterfell without ever having a real chance to stand against them.
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