Dozens of miles from the Twins, the afternoon wind was as soft as a lover's hand. It caressed the face and carried the scent of summer wheat, making the world feel deceptively peaceful.
Eddard sat his horse, a faint smile on his lips as he whispered to a magpie perched on his shoulder. To anyone else, it looked like a strange Northern eccentricity. In reality, he was using [Animal Friend], reading the blurred, flickering images the bird had seen from the canopy.
Behind him, forty Karstark warriors stood ready. They were checking their bowstrings and feeling the weight of their javelins. Not far off, their spare warhorses grazed in a clearing.
"Lord Eddard, shouldn't we be moving?"
Beside him, Ser Lyman Frey looked like he was vibrating. He was a mix of nervous sweat and forced excitement. "The scouts swore on their lives, those bandits are in there. They've got a massive haul of gold and jewels. If we hit them now, we catch them while they're sleeping off the wine!"
This was the third "tip" Lyman had provided in a week. The first two had been real enough, Eddard had returned with dozens of heads to hang on the Twins' walls, earning a tidy sum of silver moons from Walder Frey. But this one felt different.
From the magpie's eyes, Eddard had seen at least a hundred men hidden in the brush. They were dressed like bandits, mismatched armor, grimy faces, rusted blades but a hundred bandits didn't just sit in one spot. It was too loud, too hungry, and too easy to track. A group that size was an army, or an ambush.
Old Walder is getting impatient, Eddard thought. He's trying to drown me in a sea of 'broken men' to see if I'm as good as the rumors say. Or to make sure I don't come back at all.
Eddard turned to Lyman, his eyes flashing with a cold light that made the Frey shiver. "We'll fight, Ser Lyman. but how we fight is up to me. Understand?"
Lyman gulped, his wobbly chin shaking. "Of course, My Lord. I was just... reminding you."
"Abel, Dita, Konn. Over here."
Eddard used a branch to draw a quick map in the dirt. He assigned thirty men to the flanks, leaving only ten with him for the "main" charge. Lyman watched, confused and pale, as three squads of ten vanished into the tree line without a sound.
"Ser Lyman, you stay here and watch the horses," Eddard said. "This is going to be messy. If a stray arrow catches that belly of yours, I'll never hear the end of it from Lord Walder."
Lyman didn't need to be told twice. He practically scrambled toward the horses, his task of "luring the wolf" technically complete.
The forest was a tomb. Fallen leaves muffled their footsteps, and the canopy was thick enough to turn the afternoon into a murky twilight. The air smelled of wet earth and rot.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
A volley of twenty arrows erupted from the bushes.
"SHIELDS!" Eddard roared.
The ten men behind him snapped their sunburst shields together. The arrows, cheap, hunter-grade shafts clattered off the steel-rimmed wood like hail on a tin roof.
"Javelins!"
Eddard reached to his belt and launched a half-meter steel-tipped javelin in one fluid motion. It hissed through the air and caught a bandit in worn mail right in the throat, pinning him to an oak tree.
Five more javelins followed from his retainers. Screams filled the woods as bandits who thought they were the hunters suddenly found themselves being skewered from the dark.
"Charge!" the bandit leader yelled, stepping out from behind a tree. "There's only ten of them! Tackle them! Get under their mail with your knives!"
The bandits surged forward, a wave of desperate, dirty men. The leader, however, began to backpedal the moment his men started running, trying to hide behind his subordinates.
Eddard didn't wait for them. He charged.
He was a black-armored juggernaut. He smashed his shield into the first man's face, felt the nose bridge collapse, and then spun his battle-axe. The blade split a man's skull down to the jaw, spraying hot grey-and-red matter across Eddard's visor.
A bandit tried to sneak a sword into Eddard's neck from the side.
Clang.
The blade hit a shimmering, transparent force field [Magic Armor] and bounced back. Eddard didn't even look. He backhanded the man with his shield and brought his axe down, severing the arm and half the ribcage in one go.
Suddenly, the woods erupted with Northern war cries. Dita and Karas's squads slammed into the bandits' flanks, while Konn's team appeared behind the archers.
The "ambush" turned into a slaughter. The bandits, realizing they were surrounded by professional killers who moved faster than they should in heavy mail, broke and ran.
"CHASE THEM!" Konn yelled, throwing his own axe to drop a runner. "Ten silver a head! That's a night at the brothel for every ear you bring back!"
The Karstark men moved with a fanatical speed. They weren't just soldiers anymore; they were "farming." To them, every bandit was a gold dragon with legs.
Five minutes later, the screaming stopped.
Eddard wiped his blade on a dead man's tunic and checked the System.
[Battle Results: Victory.]
[Soul Power Gained: 142 SP.]
[Casualties: 1 (Northern Soldier).]
Eddard clicked his tongue in annoyance. Even with magic, even with the perfect counter-trap, he'd lost a man. War was never clean.
He looked at the pile of heads his men were gathering. They were grinning, thinking of the payday Walder Frey was going to have to cough up.
"Gather the grain and the valuables," Eddard ordered. "And someone tell Ser Lyman the woods are safe. For now."
He looked back toward the Twins. The undercurrent of the war was shifting. The Freys were testing him, the Boltons were watching him, and the Magic Tide was rising. He needed more than just axe-swingers. He needed to turn these "Northern Soldiers" into something the South had never seen.