The North, along the coast of the Bay of Seals.
A bitter wind swept in from the gray Narrow Sea, lashing the bare rocky shoreline and the sparse, low coniferous woods.
Jorah Mormont rode a dwarf horse, his face tight as he scanned the surroundings with wary eyes. A hundred riders followed behind him. They wore plate armor under thick, mismatched cloaks to keep out the cold. Only the horses' snorts and the faint clink of armor broke the dead stillness of the desolate land.
Not long ago, Jorah—stationed on Skagos—had received a letter from Conquest Keep.
Lo Quen had ordered him to land in the North and win over the northern lords.
The moment he received the command, Jorah began guessing at Lo Quen's intentions. He sneered inwardly. To him, that Easterner clearly meant to use House Mormont's name to force the northern lords into submission—especially now.
The western coast of the North groaned beneath the Iron Islands' raids, castles like Deepwood Motte already fallen. Robb Stark, King in the North, had been stabbed by his most trusted vassals at the Red Wedding, leaving only women of the Stark bloodline alive. And before his death, Robb had betrothed Eddard's daughter, Sansa, to that man from the east. That alone granted the Easterner the most direct claim to Winterfell.
Now Winterfell flew the flayed man of House Bolton, Roose Bolton having stolen the title of Warden of the North.
Yet Jorah had been sent with only a hundred men to court nobles whose hands still carried the Young Wolf's blood. It was little more than a blatant challenge to Bolton's authority and a harsh slap at the very traitors he needed to persuade.
How would they see him?
As the Easterner's groveling hound?
A wretch trying to claw his way back to power?
Turning these thoughts over, Jorah's face grew darker. He dreaded facing the lords who had betrayed their king and knew how feeble his small force was. Lo Quen's gift of a hundred Dothraki felt less like support than mockery.
Humiliation flared within him, but the thought of his lady—still in the Easterner's hands at Conquest Keep—forced him to swallow it.
After long deliberation, he chose House Umber's Last Hearth as his first destination. Before his exile, he had met Greatjon Umber a few times, even shared a drink with him. It was a thin connection, but perhaps enough to open a conversation. And House Umber's lands were the closest.
After days of crossing barren ground, the massive gray-stone silhouette of Last Hearth finally rose at the edge of their sight. It stood alone in the cutting wind, guarding the North's far frontier.
By the time Jorah and his men reached the castle, the guards had already spotted them. The heavy oak gates soon creaked open, the drawbridge lowered, and two riders charged out at the head of more than a hundred cavalry.
Leading them was Greatjon Umber.
He rode tall, broad as a bear, but his eyes churned with fury. At his side was his son, Smalljon, his face storm-dark.
The two thundered forward and halted less than ten paces from Jorah. Their warhorses pawed the frozen earth, snorting clouds of white breath.
Greatjon didn't wait for Jorah to speak. He jabbed a thick arm toward him and roared:
"Jorah Mormont! You shameless traitor! You dare set foot in the North?! You dare come to my Last Hearth?!"
Jorah's heart lurched. He tried to answer.
"Lord Umber, please, hear me out. I had no choice. My lady is held hostage by that Easterner. I serve him because I'm forced to. I beg you to understand my position."
He paused, trying to touch whatever guilt still lingered for the Starks.
"Robb Stark betrothed Lady Sansa to the Easterner. By Westerosi law and custom, their children would have a lawful claim to Winterfell. I've come to discuss how we might unite Stark loyalists against that thief Bolton and restore order to the North."
At Robb Stark's name, the muscles in Greatjon's face twitched—barely, but enough. Panic and guilt flickered behind his fury.
Greatjon, too, had struck the young king at the Red Wedding. His betrayal had sprung from a long list of grievances against Robb.
Robb had concealed Catelyn's order to hand over Jon Snow, then dragged his vassals south in defiance of counsel. The Iron Islands had seized the chance to invade, plunging the North into disaster. Against his lords' objections, he had borrowed Dothraki from the Easterner who had once captured many northern nobles. His attack on the Reach army at Lannisport had cost the North dearly, and the Dothraki had slipped away the moment their chance came.
Lady Catelyn was suspected of freeing the Kingslayer without punishment, yet Robb had executed Lord Karstark with a cold hand.
The grievances piled up like a mountain.
So when he saw the Glovers, Flints, and Tallharts raise their blades first, all the resentment he had buried—and the fear of what lay ahead—crushed what remained of his loyalty.
He told himself it had all been for survival, for protecting Smalljon.
Afterward, the nobles who hadn't taken part in the slaughter—Lady Dacey Mormont and Lord Medger Cerwyn among them—were sent to King's Landing. By then Tywin was dead, and Kevan had yet to arrive at Duskendale. In the end, these captured Northern nobles were executed by Cersei.
But no amount of self-justification could scrub the shame from Greatjon's heart, nor help him face the Stark name Jorah now invoked. That shame ignited into an even fiercer rage, all of it aimed at the traitor before him, a man he deemed far more guilty than himself.
"Understand your situation?!"
Greatjon roared, his voice booming:
"Jorah Mormont! Spare me your hollow excuses! You didn't sound like this when we were taken! It was your letter to the Small Council in King's Landing—your betrayal of our movements and intelligence—that sent tens of thousands of our Seven Kingdoms' men to their deaths beneath the waves! It was you who had us nobles penned up like cattle for half a year! And you dare talk about being forced?!"
Jorah shot back at once:
"Lord Umber, I was undercover on orders, trying to coordinate from the inside. But my cover was blown. The Easterners found me out and threw me in their dungeons. When you were captured, I was imprisoned right alongside you!"
"Dungeons?!"
Greatjon barked out a furious, mocking laugh.
"Ha! Some 'dungeon' it was, Ser Jorah! Where did your bravado go—the same bravado you showed when you boasted before every captured noble of the Seven Kingdoms that you would be the new Warden of The North? You even said, with your own mouth, that your aunt, Lady Maege Mormont, deserved her fate! You sick, heartless creature! Today, Greatjon will cleanse Bear Island and The North of your stain!"
"Aunt Maege… dead?!"
Jorah froze, stunned. He knew nothing of Maege's death, and he couldn't begin to guess why Greatjon thought he had said such things. But explanations no longer mattered.
In Greatjon's eyes—blazing red with fury—there was only the intent to kill.
"Kill him!"
Greatjon roared, ripping the heavy two-handed sword from his waist. He spurred his warhorse, charging straight at Jorah with thunderous force.
Behind him, Smalljon and the Umber riders shouted as they drew their blades, galloping after their lord in a spray of muddy snow.
Jorah's blood ran cold. Instinctively he turned to look at the hundred men he had brought with him. But at some unknown moment, those riders had already turned their horses around and were now sprinting back the way they'd come at full speed.
All that remained was a cloud of dust and a trail of hoofprints.
A trap.
A complete, deliberate trap.
Jorah understood instantly. Lo Quen had never intended for him to win over the lords of The North. He had sent him straight into the lion's jaws.
"Damn it!"
Jorah cursed, fear and fury tangling in his chest as sheer instinct drove him. He yanked the reins, slammed his heels into his horse, and bolted after the fleeing riders. If he could catch them—or even use them to draw off some of the pursuit—it might buy him a chance.
Greatjon's shouts and the pounding hooves behind him hammered like a death drum as Jorah lashed his mount harder, tearing across the barren wilds. He didn't dare look back. Behind him rose the swelling clash of shouts and the shrill whistle of arrows slicing through the air.
One arrow skimmed his helmet with a screech of metal. He dropped low against the horse's neck, praying his mount could give just a little more.
He didn't know how long he fled. As dusk deepened, he finally plunged into a dense cedar forest. The thick canopy swallowed the light and, for a moment, shielded him from his pursuers' eyes.
He wove through the maze of forest paths, using the terrain and the coming night to shake the Umbers at last.
Only when nothing remained around him but the howl of the wind and the whisper of branches did Jorah dare slow his pace. He pulled up his foam-flecked horse and gulped air.
Before his breath even steadied, the clear, rapid beat of hooves echoed from deeper within the woods.
Jorah's heart lurched. He leaned low, staring toward the sound—toward a low hill to the southeast.
From the shadows beneath the trees, dozens of riders emerged one by one. They wore gray-brown leather armor, long lances leveled in one hand, kite-shaped shields with a distinct crest in the other.
The sight on those shields nearly froze Jorah's blood.
A blood-red, flayed human figure.
House Bolton.