Howland Reed
Moat Cailin – in the Northern Plains
Howland looked at the fort, the ancient fort that held back the enemies of the North, and now it was held by those enemies. The Boltons had destroyed the unity that the North had held over the centuries. Sure, the Starks had their rebellions, but absolute betrayal at the Red Wedding had shaken the foundations that held the North together.
Although Robb Stark was a great commander, the young man didn't have the time to learn to see the bigger picture. Ned had the time to learn with the North truly secure, and Jon Arryn to guide in his campaign. Yet Robb had to fight to first liberate his father after Ned's death, to secure a Kingdom in the middle of a war.
It had been too much, the Young Wolf made mistakes, followed his father's lessons too much and had fallen to them. Orys on the other hand, was the more pragmatic version of Ned, and had ruthlessness to him that not even Ned had. That was the blood of the Kings of Winter and blood of the Dragon coming together into one. Yet Howland didn't think that was all of it, the continued transforming of Jon's eyes to a bright red like his direwolf likely also was part of it. Jon had likely partly survived in his direwolf for those four moons he lay dead, frozen in the ice cell.
The Watch and the wildlings too much in disarray to decide the next Lord Commander, only for Stannis to arrive, and have to make a decision. Alliser Thorne had been a close runner, yet the loyalty the remaining Watch had, they had chosen Edd. Not much later Stannis had ordered Orys's body burned together with dragon eggs of Aemon, and Bloodraven. As well as his own daughter, he still shivered, yet part of him knew he had done something similar. His own boy had told him he would not see him again. Yet he still let him go, after telling it was for the greater good. Howland sighed as he marched on.
The northern part of the Moat didn't hold much of a defense. Only a newly standing palisade, and a wooden keep built during the time of Cregan Stark, the Wolfhold. On the southern side was something that still held the true power. Three towers, built in a time long forgotten, and still sinking even now. Yet those were enough to hold back southern invaders.
He looked at Lord Simon Broggs, one of his closest friends and bannermen. "It's time, let's liberate the Moat for our king." Simon gave him a grin, and ignited his flaming arrow. They were good things for signals, and igniting houses, wagons, but in the battlefield flaming arrows were only a pain in the organisation.
Simon then stretched and loosed the arrow, and it shot into the morning sky.
He glanced at Lord Simon Broggs, his bannerman and close friend.
"It's time. Let's liberate the Moat for our king."
Simon grinned, nocked a flaming arrow, and drew. Flaming arrows were better suited for signals or igniting wagons than for real battle, but they served their purpose. Simon loosed, and the fiery shaft arced into the dawn sky.
At that signal, Howland mounted his horse and stepped forward.
"Men of the North! Today we strike another blow against our enemies! Today we take back the shield that has guarded us for a thousand generations!" he roared.
Two thousand voices thundered in reply: "For the North! For the Starks! Death to the Boltons!" At that moment a shieldwall formed, commanded by Loden Liddle, the big man with the big black beard.
The shieldwall moved forward, spears jutting, axes lifted, swords flashing where men could afford them. Ahead, torches flared along the palisade as the Boltons scrambled into position. They expected the assault to fall against the main palisade. They were wrong.
To the south-east, Howland's cousin Edgar Reed and Lord Duthard Fenn would have advanced when they saw the arrow with four hundred archers of the Neck, creeping through marsh and brush. They would strike at the flanks, turning the Bolton defenses into a slaughterhouse.
The first arrows hissed through the air. Northern men dropped screaming as shafts slipped through the gaps in the wall of shields. Howland's own two hundred archers returned fire, but the battlements offered the defenders cover. For now, it was an exchange of blood for blood.
He still held four hundred men in reserve, and four hundred horse. The riders were scouts and light cavalry. Not the heavy lances that would line, if well the charge was well placed.
At last, Howland dismounted and strode forward through the press.
"Advance!" he bellowed. "Push on! Soon they'll feel Northern arrows biting at their arses!"
The shield wall pressed closer. The crude palisade loomed above them, no great fortress, but enough to stall an assault. Behind him, Howland saw his archers fall silent, holding fire for the moment.
The morning sun crept higher, casting its light across the battlefield. Men of the North lay scattered already, dead, dying, or groaning in the mud. Yet still the line pressed on, grim and unyielding, as the battle for Moat Cailin began in earnest.
At last, the grappling hooks were thrown, catching on the crude palisade, and rough ladders were shoved forward into place. The timbers groaned under the strain of men climbing, shields strapped to their backs, axes and spears gripped tight in calloused hands.
Then a horn sounded, deep and long, not from Howland's line, but from the far side of Moat Cailin. His cousin had struck. Edgar Reed's marsh-archers were upon the flanks. The sound gave new fire to the men.
"Now, men!" Howland bellowed.
"Indeed! Come on, bloody your blades! Put your weapons on these traitors!" roared Loden Liddle, a giant of a man clad in heavy furs and chainmail. With a ladder braced beneath him, he pushed upward, his massive shoulders bulging as he climbed. At the top, a Bolton spearman thrust down, but Loden swung his great axe in a brutal arc, splitting the man's head and helm clean in half. The corpse tumbled backward, knocking two more defenders from the palisade.
A savage cheer rose as the first foothold was won. Loden vaulted over the parapet like a bear loosed from its den, his axe biting into another soldier's chest. Behind him, the men of the hills surged up the ladders, pouring over the wall in twos and threes. The palisade shuddered under the weight of steel and fury.
Howland spurred forward as more of his men mounted the wall. A gatehouse guard tried to slam a rock down, but was dragged screaming into the press and cut down by Northern steel. His heart hammering, Howland scaled a ladder himself. At the top, he swung over the rough timbers and found himself in the chaos. Steel clashed, wood splintered, and the cries of the wounded mingled with the harsh growl of Northern war-shouts.
Some of his men had broken toward the gatehouse. He saw them seize the chains, straining as the wooden gates groaned open. When they swung wide, the Northern host poured through with a roar, flooding into the courtyard.
Howland knew his own weakness, he was no Liddle, no beast of the shield wall. He unstrapped the weirwood bow slung at his back, nocked an arrow, and loosed. A Bolton crossbowman jerked as the shaft buried itself in his throat. Another man, rallying defenders near the well, fell with a scream as Howland's next shot struck his gut.
Smoke began to curl above the palisade where torches had been cast aside. The air was thick with it, bitter on the tongue, stinging the eyes. Through the haze, Howland caught sight of movement at the far tower. The men of the Neck had arrived. Reed and Fenn archers, some armed with iron frogspears, pressed in from the south in their green cloaks. Now they stormed the Gatehouse Tower, the largest of the three, their arrows cutting down fleeing Bolton men.
The courtyard was a killing ground. Northern axes rose and fell, shields locked and shoved forward as Boltons screamed and stumbled back. Already the pale pink banners of the flayed man were being torn down, trampled in the mud, replaced by the direwolf and the marsh frog.
Moat Cailin was bleeding, bleeding of Northern blood, yet most of it Bolton blood.
Soon enough, the chaos was halting, he didn't know exactly how many he had truly slain. He knew by the end of the chaos, his quiver was half full.
All the towers seemed to have been taken, and Bolton dead, and his own lay in a mix upon the ground. Only the Wolfhold stood firm. Its gate is currently being broken by Loden and some of his own men. The big clansman was covered from head to toe in gore and blood.
Loden battered at its gates, drenched in blood. Arrows rained from its towers, answered by Northern shafts. Edgar Reed stood nearby, his curved blade slick with gore, his quiver empty.
He walked toward the keep and found his cousin there as well. Edgar's quiver was empty, but the curved blade he favored was slick with blood. "Cousin," Howland said, clapping him on the back.
"My lord. Good to see you hale," Edgar replied over the chopping of axes against the gate.
"Same for you," Howland answered, his eyes fixed on the keep. "Loden, hold a moment."
The big clansman blinked, then gave a short nod. "Fucking cowards," he muttered, glaring at the timbers.
Howland stepped forward, his voice carrying across the yard.
"Men inside the keep! If you yield now, you will be spared. You will take the black and spend the rest of your days upon the Wall, regaining the honor you lost when you betrayed your fellow Northmen at the Red Wedding and bowed to the Boltons. Choose now, or be silenced forever."
A shutter creaked open in one of the small towers. A balding man with a sagging belly leaned out, the surcoat of House Bolton straining across him.
"Do I have your word, sworn by the Old Gods, that we will be spared if we surrender?" he called.
"I swear it by the Old Gods," Howland replied. "Yield, take the black, and you and your men will be spared."
The man withdrew, the shutter closing with a hollow thud. For a long moment, the yard was silent save for the crackle of burning timbers and the groans of the wounded. Then came the sound of heavy bars being lifted. The Wolfhold's gate creaked and shuddered open.
The small man stepped out first, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
"Nag, Commander of Moat Cailin, surrenders to you," he declared.
At that, one by one, men emerged. Crossbows and bows were dropped, swords clattered against stone, and axes were set aside. Dozens of pale, bloodied faces stared at the ground as they shuffled into the courtyard. Some wept openly, others muttered half-prayers, while a few spat curses, and for that insolence, they were met with heavy fists from Northern soldiers.
"Lay down your arms!" Howland barked. "On your knees!"
The surviving Boltons obeyed, beaten and trembling. One man tried to slip away, darting toward a shadowed corner, but Loden Liddle was faster. With a snarl, he buried his axe in the man's back, splitting the man's spine.
"Anyone else want to be stupid?" he spat, looming over the prisoners, axe still dripping. The clansman's growl was low, guttural, like a hound scenting blood.
Edgar's marshmen moved swiftly among the survivors, binding wrists and stripping away weapons. The air reeked of blood, smoke, and the sour tang of piss and shit.
From the towers above, still some shouts rang out as the last defenders were dragged down and slain. A cheer rippled across the courtyard as the direwolf of Stark and the frog of the Reeds were hoisted high upon the battlements, snapping proudly in the wind where the flayed man's banners had flown.
Moat Cailin was theirs.
Howland stood in the yard, silent, letting the weight of it press down upon him. All around, the dead were heaped into piles, and the wounded were tended with meager skill by tired healers. The cost was high, as it always was. In his mind, he could already hear the keening of wives and mothers when word returned to the villages. But the Moat was free.
That night, in a chamber of the Gatehouse Tower, Howland bent over parchment, quill in hand. Candlelight wavered, casting long shadows as his hand, still stained with ink and blood, scratched across the page.
To His Grace, Jon Stark, King in the North and the Trident,
The Moat is ours once more. The flayed man has been torn down, its banners burned and trampled beneath Northern boots. The price good men will be burned as instructed, but the victory is true. Only the Wolfhold was able to surrendered, the rest of the bolton men all slay, and those who yielded have sworn to take the black. We keep them bound until they can be sent to Castle Black under guard.
The North has bled for you, I hope you will be able to break the the Boltons as we have done here. The Old Gods bear witness, and the direwolf flies again above Moat Cailin.
Your loyal bannerman,
Howland Reed, Lord of Greywater Watch and Hand of the King
Howland leaned back, sealing the parchment with his signet. Outside, the cries of the wounded still echoed through the night, mingled with the guttural laughter of men alive to see another dawn. He allowed himself one slow breath. For all the blood spilled, the North had struck another blow for freedom.
Two days later
Howland walked across the broken courtyard. His men were still busy sorting the corpses and building pyres upon the plains beyond. After the battle, they had counted the dead: the Boltons had lost three hundred and eighty men, while forty-three had surrendered. One hundred and twenty-three of his own had fallen, and if the gods were cruel, soon a southern clash would come, and it would add to that number.
He turned his gaze south and gritted his teeth. Knights of the Vale were marching, their banners bearing the direwolf of House Stark.
It puzzled him. Who did they bring with them? Another imposter, like the false Arya, like the Boltons had claimed? He did not know. Mayhaps it was the late Lady Sansa, or Arya herself. Both were still missing, presumed dead.
Still, he needed to prepare. If battle came, he had to ensure they could not break through the Moat.
He ordered stakes to be sharpened and planted on the southern side. Men hacked at the woods of the Neck, dragging timber across from the Fever River. Others crouched with knives, stripping branches and hardening points in the flames of hastily lit fires. The sound of hammering and chopping echoed through the yard, a rhythm as steady as war-drums.
A palisade would be raised, crude, but strong enough to slow men trying to gain the courtyard. Old timbers from the shattered northern palisade were hauled south and set in place, lashed with ropes and wedged into the boggy ground. Gaps were filled with whatever they could find: broken wagons, overturned barrels.
Howland walked among the work, correcting hands when stakes were set too shallow or lines left uneven. He knew the defenses would not be finished in time, but even half-raised, they might be enough to throw the Vale's cavalry into chaos.
If the knights of the Vale came as foes, they would break against a Northern shield wall, while arrows rained down upon them like waves.
But Howland hoped, prayed, that they came as friends, not enemies. The North had suffered enough.