Year 108 A.C.
POV: Denovan
I approached Viggo and talked to him as we walked, doing my best to extract information about Skagos. It was almost an interrogation. I didn't know much about the internal geography of this isolated island, but, after a few minutes of conversation, a vital piece of information emerged: the island was volcanic, possessing a semi-active volcano in its center.
This was fantastic news. It meant we could collect obsidian, dragonglass, to arm our men. The encounter with that wight, some time ago, had triggered a red alert in my mind. My mere appearance in this world had already changed many things, and everything I knew about the original timeline might not happen as I remembered. If the White Walkers decided to attack earlier, we would need to be armed to kill them.
My thoughts were interrupted when one of the Marked approached, his axe already in hand.
"We are ready, boss."
I nodded dryly. I turned to Viggo, drawing my own weapon.
"Lead the way, Stane. Let's kill some cannibals!"
The march to the Crowl clan's territory was tense and silent. The terrain was rugged, full of sharp ravines and dark rocks. It didn't take long to find the cannibals, but the first skirmish was a tactical disaster.
The Crowl warriors were savages who knew every hole in that place. They didn't fight in the open field; instead, they retreated strategically into narrow ravines and dark caves, luring our men into ambushes. Rocks fell from above and makeshift spears emerged from the shadows. The confined space nullified our numerical advantage and the brute strength of the Marked.
We ended up with several severely injured men. Broken arms, deep cuts on legs, and torn tendons. No one died, thanks to the absurd resistance the runes provided, but some of those warriors would be unable to fight in the future, limping for the rest of their lives.
I was imagining an easy massacre. It seems I overestimated myself and my men, and I was not happy about it at all. I changed the strategy immediately.
The next assaults were made slowly, calculatedly, and brutally. Orochi, unfortunately, couldn't fit into the narrow, claustrophobic caves without running the risk of getting stuck, so I ordered her to guard the exits, devouring any cannibal that tried to flee.
I gathered ten of my best Marked and led the invasion personally. We entered the main cave with torches in one hand and axes in the other. The darkness reeked of old blood and feces. With every step, the combat was hand-to-hand, desperate, and bloody. My sense of smell and hearing guided me straight to every damn cannibal in that place.
We crushed them against the stone walls, carving our way through bone and flesh until we reached the great hall at the back of the cave.
We killed all the Crowl warriors who dared to raise weapons. When silence finally reigned, we began to loot. We took everything of value in the rock-carved houses: furs, stolen weapons from shipwrecks, and food stockpiles. Because of the long summer that covered all of Westeros, the amount of stored human meat was minimal, but, even so, we took absolute care to inspect everything to ensure we only took dried fish and hunted game.
These underground battles were extremely exhausting. The process of entering, fighting, clearing the caves, and leaving took three long and grueling days.
Even with warrior shifts every few hours, fighting continuously inside stuffy, cramped ravines wasn't among my men's prior experiences. But this was good training for what we would face in the Stepstones: the change in temperature, the change in terrain.
All of this was a preview of our coming months... or years.
When we finally eliminated most of the threat and took everything we could carry — which, honestly, wasn't that much —, we returned to the beach. We stored the spoils in the ships under Orochi's watchful eye, rested for a night with the right to a good meal — as good as something unseasoned can be — and marched again.
The food we collected would never be enough. It might last two weeks in Scalebay, or even less; it was hard to predict.
We had goats and chickens, but the quantity was very small, not enough to continuously feed all of Scalebay. That's why I was so interested in the unicorns of Skagos: animals accustomed to the cold and scarce food, that roamed in herds and gave milk, allowing humans to keep them in captivity.
The Stanes themselves said they reproduced quickly and ate whatever plant they saw. That was exactly what we needed.
On our way, we found a somewhat warm valley, with a few heart trees. They didn't have carved faces, something I considered great; those things bothered me.
The valley had hot water flowing from the slopes that surrounded it, keeping the environment warm. The area was green, and it was already possible to see the unicorns from here. There were plenty of them, and they couldn't be called beautiful. They looked like a mix of musk ox and goat, just with a single horn. Hairy, very hairy. Maybe all that fur could be used for something.
This place was, for sure, what kept all of Skagos alive, the only piece of land that had anything green and wasn't covered by rock and snow. When my birds finished summoning the Free Folk, I could scout the island as a whole. For now, it was all we had.
I could already imagine raising thousands of unicorns here. It could generate a good income for the North; the fur could make clothes without us having to kill them, and the milk... if, somehow, we managed to transport milk in large quantities, maybe I could even introduce ice cream to the Seven Kingdoms. It would be a hit.
We could create a source of income that would help keep the North alive. After all, to make ice cream you need cold, and the only place that has cold in abundance is the North.
But back to what matters.
Our next target: the Magnar clan's castle.
The initial goal wasn't to annihilate them, but rather to negotiate. The Magnars possessed the famous unicorns of Skagos. I could simply subjugate those savages, but that would make things difficult. We could show dominance and consolidate power here on Skagos, besides taking the more docile unicorns home already. After all, transporting animals wouldn't be easy; taking cornered and savage beasts would only complicate everything unnecessarily.
But the Magnars didn't want to talk.
As we approached the castle lands, the ground began to tremble. The scouts shouted warnings. The enemy army was already formed and waiting for us. And they didn't come on foot; they came mounted on unicorns — massive, hairy beasts with heavy hooves and a long, lethal horn in the center of their foreheads.
If what I had seen previously resembled a tame ox-goat, now they looked like ferocious beasts of war.
They launched a heavy cavalry charge directly at our formation.
I smiled, coldly. If they wanted open-field war, I would give them a nightmare. I would lose the human resource they would have to offer in the future, but showing the strength I possess now would eliminate most of the headaches later on.
It's almost what Aegon the Conqueror did in some places.
"Orochi!" I roared, sending my command through our mental connection.
The gigantic naga emerged from behind our vanguard, hissing with a fury that made the skies seem to tremble. The smell of an apex predator and the colossal size of the serpent caused immediate panic among the enemy mounts. The cavalry charge dissolved into absolute chaos before even hitting us. They weren't very organized to begin with, but their meager organization fell apart in a matter of seconds. The unicorns reared up, throwing off their riders. Orochi charged forward like a train of scales, crushing bones, swallowing warriors, and sweeping away dozens of men with lashes of her tail.
It was a one-sided massacre.
Upon seeing the destruction and the ground covered in dead beasts, I raised my hand, halting the carnage before there was nothing useful left.
"Flay the meat off the dead unicorns! Take the leather and the meat, we will take it all to the boats!" I ordered the Marked. Then, we pointed our weapons at the open doors of the enemy fortress. "Take the castle!"
With their main army destroyed in minutes, the Magnar castle fell with almost no resistance. I spent the next three days exploring the fortress and supervising the looting. Unlike the cannibal caves, here there was much wealth accumulated from generations of shipwrecks on the coast. They went on raids, after all; it was impossible for all those items to be from accidental shipwrecks alone. I inspected decent steel weapons, jewelry, tattered noble clothing, southern coins, and, surprisingly, books.
The things were very decent.
Most of the inscriptions in the castle were written in the Old Tongue. The Skagosi didn't read or care about books, but they kept them along with the other pillage. I ordered all the scrolls and tomes packed up; you can never have too much knowledge.
At the end of the third day of occupation, I met with Viggo Stane in the castle courtyard.
He was watching one of my Marked lift a colossal piece of collapsed masonry using only his arms, his muscles bulging as the mystical marks on his skin seemed to pulse slightly. Viggo swallowed hard.
"They are not normal men, snake-man," Viggo murmured, without taking his eyes off the warrior. "They fought in the caves for days and crushed the Magnars without showing fatigue... What witchcraft did you do to them? How did you tame that giant snake?"
"No, they are not... And it is not witchcraft, they are runes," I said, leaning casually against a pillar and showing my arm with the mark of the beast. "It is the power of the blood runes they bear on their bodies. They grant strength, vigor, and endurance beyond human limits. My warriors are the elite. Each of those designs shows how much they have fought, shows their achievements, their power."
I could see the gears turning in the Skagosi's head. Viggo was a brute, but he wasn't stupid. With the Crowls decimated and the Magnars crushed and lacking their castle, the Stanes were now the most powerful and unquestionable clan in all of Skagos. But Viggo knew that this newly acquired power only existed because I had allowed it. And he wanted more; he coveted the strength of my men.
"I can grant this power to you and your men..." I began.
"What kind of man would I be if I traded my loyalty to the Starks for yours?"
"How good are the Starks, who never gave you anything? You suffer in the cold more than anyone, and you receive nothing for your loyalty. You belong more to us than to the Starks..." I retorted. "I can offer power and reward your loyalty. Much more than the Starks can do."
Viggo turned to me, ambition replacing the apprehension in his eyes, and kneeled on the cold earth.
"The Stanes will give you the ships. And they will give you loyalty... to the King of the True North," he swore, lowering his hairy head.
I gave a satisfied smile. Skagos was now mine, the resources it could offer belonged to me. My ambition was closer than ever, I was almost there... But how long would it take to truly become a respected power in this world?
In the following hours, we gathered everything we could: food, unicorn meat and leather, we took the few obsidian weapons, the steel armaments, and the chests of loot. We joined our fleet to the new boats given by the Stanes.
They even gave a few more than we had agreed upon. According to Viggo, they would make new ones. I invited him to come with me to Scalebay, but he declined, saying that now was the time to consolidate the Stanes' power on Skagos.
I placed the mark of the beast on him, the Ouroboros on his shoulder. His strength would increase over time; he surely won't regret it.
The boats set sail full, all loaded with provisions. The live unicorns we ended up leaving behind; after thinking a bit, Skagos had the valley with good pasture, something we didn't have in Scalebay. The closest thing to that was in the Thenn Valley, and well, the logistics wouldn't pay off for now.
The plan was laid out. We would quickly return to Scalebay to unload the supplies, ensuring our people wouldn't starve for the next few months, leave the wounded, and then, with our fastest ships, set off again. But next time, we would go even further South.
-
Hundreds of leagues away from there, far beyond the Wall, the snows of the North, and the Neck, the climate was considerably warmer.
Cutting through the clouds with enormous, silent wings, a colossal eagle circled the bustling skies of a grand city. From high above, the creature's sharp eyes focused on the imposing towers of the Red Keep.
Heindall had arrived at King's Landing.
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