ARC III: THE AWAKENING OF THE DRAGONS AND THE WAR OF THE EMPIRE
Chapter 30: The March Beyond the Wall
POV: King Arawyn Stark (299 AC)
The sound of the monumental runic iron gears echoed like thunder through the icy bowels of the Wall, breaking the sepulchral silence that dominated the top of the world. Slowly, the massive and heavy gate of oak and black steel rose, opening the dark passage that divided the kingdom of men from the unknown vastness of the true North.
Around me, riding in perfect combat formation, was my full Black Guard. Men molded by steel, winter, and the protective runes that I myself had carved into their skin. Beside them, flanking my mount, were Robb and Aemon. They were no longer the frightened boys or curious apprentices of years past; now they were full-grown young men, sixteen years of age, broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed, and bearing the imposing presence that only those who carried the blood of the First Men and ancestral kings could emanate, accompanied by our loyal companions.
Our journey to the other side of the Wall was of colossal geopolitical and mystical importance. We rode forth in perfect synchrony, the thundering hooves of the horses against the frozen ground dictating the rhythm of a march that would change the destiny of these lands forever. Supported by the runes of acceleration and vigor engraved upon the harnesses, and with the aid of animals mystically enhanced by my matrices, we crossed the first leagues of blizzard with terrifying speed. It did not take long for the horizon to reveal the fortified silhouette of the outpost I had recently created to coordinate all operations in the region.
The leader of that fortress of runic wood and stone was none other than General Jon Umber. As soon as we crossed the outer palisades, Great Jon came to meet me. His massive frame, covered in scars and tattoos that gleamed faintly under the reflection of the ice, bent as he knelt before my horse.
"— My King —" the Umber's thundering voice reverberated through the courtyard. "— Everything is ready for the great gathering."
"— How was your stay out here, Jon? —" I asked, dismounting with the ease that my titanic physique allowed.
"— It was good, my King —" he replied, standing up and brushing the snow from his knees. "— We had a few isolated skirmishes against some wildling bands who tried to test our defenses, but nothing that couldn't be resolved quickly by our patrols and enchanted weapons. They learned to retreat very fast."
I nodded, looking up at the grey sky. The birth of the dragons in the East, which occurred a short time ago, had worked exactly like the turning of a cosmic hourglass. The time for silent and isolated preparations had come to an end. With the tide of magic growing stronger and denser in the world, the power and influence of the Others in the Lands of Always Winter had also increased proportionally. I could feel their cold and malevolent pulse through my Supreme Greensight. And I was not about to stand idle, watching the Night King's army of the walking dead grow larger by the day, swallowing the free clans to strengthen itself. I needed to resolve the wildling issue once and for all.
But I am no barbarian thirsty for unnecessary blood. I will attempt to resolve this through diplomacy first. For this reason, in the preceding weeks, I ordered Ros and the smiths to send dozens of ravens and owls as messengers to all the leaders and magnars of the forces beyond the Wall, summoning them to a grand gathering. The official objective was to decide the future of those lands; the real objective was to warn them, directly and unequivocally, that I was taking control of everything for my kingdom.
While the day of the grand assembly did not arrive, I took advantage of the outpost's isolation to train intensely with my cousins. I needed them to be at their absolute peak for what was to come.
For this campaign, the weapon dynamics of the North had reached a legendary level. Rhaenys, who had remained at Winterfell, had handed over Dark Sister—the legendary Valyrian steel sword that I had taken after Shiera Seastar revealed its whereabouts to me, and which the old crow Brynden Rivers tried to claim for his idiotic prophecies. Rhaenys voluntarily lent it to Aemon, knowing that the blade would resonate perfectly with his Targaryen blood.
Robb, for his part, had already permanently received permanent custody of Ice, the immense execution sword of our house, from Uncle Ned's hands. Ned was gradually passing all of his administrative and lordly responsibilities to Robb. Currently, my uncle acted truly only as the Supreme General of the Armies of the North, since even the lordship of Moat Cailin was being managed almost entirely by Robb.
To any outside observer looking at the frozen courtyard of the outpost, seeing two sixteen-year-olds armed with two of the most famous Valyrian steel swords in human history fighting against a completely unarmed man would seem the exact definition of a brutal injustice. But those who knew the reality knew very well that the unjust side of that fight was actually tilting toward the King.
One of the most terrifying and complex things about the elemental magic of the North that I developed is that, unlike the water mages of Dorne or the vulgar pyromancers of Essos, our art is not based on the mere manipulation of an element already existing in the environment. The true elemental magic of the First Men consists of the creation and absolute control of the element from the user's own internal energy. Because of this, the user's body is heavily struck by the flow of power; pure energy tries to consume the flesh from the inside out. Without the containment and biological isolation runes I created, this practice would be extremely detrimental to any human being's health, destroying their organs in a few short years.
However, with the bodily runic matrices protecting the energy channels, a highly benign side effect occurs: the user's body grows more powerful, dense, and strong with every use and elemental discharge. This ended up generating some scenes that bordered on the absurd and comical in daily life at Winterfell—such as the beautiful and refined Princess Sansa, with all her aristocratic lady-like appearance, being physically strong enough to bring down a solid stone wall with a single well-placed punch when she was testing her elemental runes.
In the courtyard, the runes on the youths' skins began to glow intensely beneath their armor. Robb's matrices linked to activate his *Wolf Blood*, releasing a perfectly controlled berserk state that expanded his muscles and accelerated his heartbeat. At the same time, Aemon's runes glowed a dark crimson, activating both his own Wolf Blood and the Valyrian blood magic that ran through his veins, fusing the two sources of power into an aura of distorted heat.
In the blink of an eye, the two lunged at me like blurs of steel and snow, attacking simultaneously from opposite flanks. Ice descended in a destructive arc capable of parting a horse in two, while Dark Sister came in a surgical thrust toward my vital points.
But their attacks had long been foreseen by my transcendental perception. Moving my titanic body with a fluidity that defied my size, I dodged in the only mathematical way that would guarantee escaping both blades at once—a millimetric step backward, allowing the Valyrian steel to slice through only the cold air where I had been a thousandth of a second prior.
The youths already expected this. Aemon changed the direction of his blade mid-course with terrifying agility, but before the sword could complete the motion, my right hand lunged forward like an iron vice and grabbed the sharp blade of Dark Sister directly with my bare fingers, locking the Valyrian steel in place thanks to the runic density of my skin. With my free left hand, I delivered a straight punch toward Robb.
Robb, being in the berserk state of the Wolf Blood, was slightly slower in purely technical reflexes than Aemon, who had also activated it alongside blood magic. Thus, Robb was unable to keep up with the raw speed of my counterattack. However, he was quick enough to raise the broad blade of Ice, using the wall of Valyrian steel as an improvised shield to block the impact.
My punch struck the center of the ancestral sword with the sound of a blacksmith's anvil being beaten. The force of the blow generated a shockwave that threw Robb's body backward, dragging him for meters through the accumulated snow. But the young wolf did not yield; as soon as his feet firmly touched the ground at the end of the slide, he flexed his legs and lunged back toward me with a roar.
In the brief time it took for Robb to be thrown by my punch and return to the fray, the dynamic between Aemon and me had already reached a devastating rhythm. The young prince and I exchanged several blows in a fraction of a second. He tried to disengage his sword and strike quick slashes, but he was getting the worst of every physical trade; the wolf-claw-shaped tips of my runic gauntlets tore through the air, leaving several shallow, precise cuts across his armor defenses and protective fabrics.
When Robb financially closed in to flank me again, Prince Aemon made a drastic decision. His skin instantly turned a sickly pale hue and his eyes flashed. With a swift motion of his free hand, he sacrificed a portion of his own blood, spilling it onto the snow to activate a branch of his Valyrian magic. A mystical, invisible pressure crushed the courtyard, and my movements were momentarily frozen. He had managed to paralyze my physical body through blood attunement.
Robb's immense sword, Ice, capitalized on the perfect opening and swung directly toward my exposed neck in a decapitating blow. The blade came down with the full force of the berserk fury... but struck something invisible a few inches from my skin. The impact against a barrier of an extremely dense ice block that I created mid-air generated a snap of pure energy. The Valyrian steel blade was violently deflected backward by the barrier, leaving Robb's chest completely open and his defenses shattered by the rebound.
Capitalizing on his instability, I broke Aemon's blood paralysis with a raw influx of my own runic energy and delivered a direct punch to Robb's chest. The blow was powerful enough to dent the prince's runic steel plate armor, expelling all the air from his lungs and dropping him unconscious into the soft snow. The young wolf was out of the fight.
When Aemon realized Robb's defeat and tried to move to retreat, he felt a freezing cold bind his feet. Glancing down for a split second, he saw that his legs were firmly trapped in blocks of solid ice that I had created from the ground moisture beneath his boots the exact moment I shattered his spell. Before he could formulate another counter-spell, the runic claw of my gauntlet was already firmly positioned against his throat, just millimeters away from piercing his skin.
"— If we were at war, you would be dead —" I said, keeping my voice calm and deliberate as I retracted the gauntlet. "— You did well, Aemon. Your practical use of blood magic for biological paralysis is visibly improving, but it still lacks basic creativity. You fixate too much on the patterns you've learned."
I looked at the two of them while Robb began to cough, regaining his senses in the snow with the help of the guards. In truth, as I watched my cousins stand up, I realized this was a chronic problem for all warriors and mages in this world: their thoughts were structurally too limited by traditions and what they considered "possible." Well... perhaps my ability to break those mental barriers and create entirely new industrial and magical concepts is a secret bonus for reincarnating with the memories of a modern life. A bonus I hadn't even planned for, but one that was collecting its price in gold.
Our direwolves, who were watching the training from the corner of the courtyard, approached slowly. My immense black wolf with green eyes like wildfire walked up to me, his head easily reaching the height of my chest even as I stood with my titanic physique. He let out a hot breath that melted the snow around me. Robb and Aemon's wolves went to their respective masters, licking their wounds and growling low in a sign of respect for the end of the bout.
After the training ended and the outpost's defenses were aligned, the days passed quickly until the scheduled date. The grand assembly was finally being held in an immense natural clearing located a few leagues north of the fort, surrounded by ancient trees whose branches sagged under the weight of centuries-old ice.
Several chairs of heavy runic wood had been distributed across the center of the space, arranged in a perfect semicircle—one for each known major leader of the wildling clans. I was the first to arrive openly and imposingly. However, through my Greensight and the sharp perception of my direwolf resting beside me, I knew perfectly well that dozens of wildling scouts, hidden warriors, and skinchangers were already lurking nearby among the bushes and branches, watching our every move with suspicion and watchful eyes.
I walked to the center and sat in the chair I had reserved specifically for myself—a smaller copy of my own Winterfell throne, perfectly carved in dark runic wood. At my side, standing with their hands resting on the pommels of their Valyrian steel swords, were Robb and Aemon. Behind us, positioned like an impenetrable wall of iron statues, stood my full Black Guard; their dark armor that absorbed light and their long cloaks with hoods gave them a terrifying presence against the whiteness of the snow.
Focusing the moisture of the air above my head, I caused the Crown of Winter to magically condense from the frozen vapor, assuming its form of eternal ice adorned by the central red gem. I rested my arms on the throne and waited in silence.
The first leader to emerge openly from among the trees was the man who called himself the King-Beyond-the-Wall: Mance Rayder. He had not yet reached the absolute peak of his influence or the desperation for unification that he would achieve a few years in the future, which I saw through my greensight when the advance of the dead became unsustainable. Nonetheless, Mance already possessed the largest number of sworn warriors and the greatest respect among all the leaders of the free clans.
"— Welcome, Mance Rayder, King-Beyond-the-Wall —" I declared, my voice cutting through the cold air with absolute authority. "— Sit down and wait a while. The other fools are still hiding shiftingly behind the trees, naively thinking I do not know of the presence of every single one of them in this clearing."
Mance walked with firm steps, evaluating the Black Guard and the monumental size of my black wolf before taking his place in one of the chairs. He let out a short, humorless laugh.
"— Which is a tremendous folly on their part, after all —" Mance spoke, glancing sideways at the forest. "— The level and extent of your mystical abilities are already well-known facts to all of us on this side, King Stark."
Following the ex-ranger's direct provocation, the forest finally yielded. From behind the trunks and frost-laden bushes, the other leaders began to march toward the semicircle. The first was the immense red-haired man, Tormund Giantsbane—who in the future would formally join Mance as his right hand. Right behind him came the young red-haired archer, Ygritte, known for being one of the primary causes and minds behind the seasonal invasions and raids on the North's farmlands. Her animosity toward me was clear; her eyes flashed with a wild resentment.
"— Tormund, Terror of Giants —" I listed the names as they approached, keeping my gaze locked on them. "— And Ygritte... the primary leader of the cowardly attacks on my land's farms."
The immense red-haired man puffed out his chest, slapping the stone axe at his belt.
"— They talk a lot about your physical strength in the songs of the southrons, King of the South —" Tormund spat into the snow, defiantly. "— Perhaps it is time to see if you truly have the strength of a giant, as they say in the songs."
Ygritte took a step forward, crossing her arms over her wooden bow.
"— And what happened to our many brothers and the hunting parties that went to your fertile lands in recent months, King of over there? —" she asked, her voice sharp as a shard of ice. "— Not one of them returned to tell the tale."
I looked into the eyes of the red-haired archer with a coldness that would freeze fire itself.
"— Winter came for them —" I replied shortly and cuttingly.
The direct answer and the implicit understanding that all the raiders had been hunted down and executed by my runic patrols made the girl bite her lips in anger. She sat down abruptly in her chair, huffing with irritation.
Right after, the imposing leader or Magnar of the Thenns arrived with his ancient runic bronze armor, accompanied by the Lord of Bones—Rattleshirt, wearing his armor made of carcasses and a giant's skull helm—and finally, the old witch Morna White Mask, whose mystical eyes gleamed behind the carved wood.
As soon as everyone took their seats, Mance Rayder leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"— Now that all the great clans are represented here, shall we begin the discussion, King of the North?"
"— Not everyone has arrived yet —" I replied calmly.
My words generated a wave of confused whispers and suspicious glances among the wildlings; after all, every known human leader of those lands was already sitting in that semicircle. To answer their silent doubts, I simply extended my arm and pointed to the last two chairs positioned at the far edge of the clearing: one of them was slightly smaller than human size, and the other was a colossal structure, carved from a block of solid rock.
As if waiting for the exact moment to be announced, the branches of the oldest trees parted with a heavy snap. From among the deep weirwoods emerged one of the legendary giants of ancient lore. Like the other leaders, he was not alone; he was accompanied by a group of his own massive warriors. However, the leader giant was clearly much larger, denser, and more imposing than all the others of his kind. Followed closely by two more warriors carrying entire stripped trees as wooden clubs, the leader advanced heavily.
But the detail that truly paralyzed the wildlings with shock was what rested on the shoulder of the immense being of stone and fur: a legitimate Child of the Forest, with her skin spotted like that of a deer and large eyes that held the wisdom of eras.
After the two legendary beings took their respective places in the special chairs, I rose slowly from my runic wood throne. My black direwolf stood up in perfect synchronization, baring his sharp teeth.
"— Now that we are all gathered, we shall begin this blood assembly of the First Men —" I announced, letting the silence absorb my words before continuing. "— You see... the world's clock has changed. The time of easy harvests is gone, and the true Winter is finally arriving. And along with it, the ancient horrors of the shadows have begun to march. Many of these apocalyptic events were shown directly to me through my visions. Everything I did, built, and industrialized in the North was a direct preparation for this event."
Mance Rayder narrowed his eyes, seriousness shaping his face.
"— What event, King Arawyn?"
"— Thousands of years ago, on these very lands where we stand, a great battle took place —" I continued, walking slowly before them. "— That ancient war was not motivated by disputes over arable lands, gold, or some foolish pride that only powerful men and petty kings have the time to flaunt in courts. It was a battle purely for the survival of life against death. But you already know that very well, don't you?"
I looked deeply into the eyes of each of the seated leaders, from the Magnar to Tormund, and saw the glimmer of recognition and ancestral dread in their expressions. They knew.
"— Our ancestors and the brave men of that era managed to push the shadows back, but they failed to put a definitive end to that Long Night —" I declared, raising the pitch of my voice. "— And now, a new night, even worse and more devastating, approaches the world of the living. But again, you know this perfectly well... after all, you are already feeling on your own skin the emergence and advance of the Others, marching once more from the Lands of Always Winter."
Mance nodded gravely, letting out a heavy sigh.
"— Yes... it is the absolute truth. Death now walks freely among men again, just as it did thousands of years ago. There is no denying it."
The witch Morna, speaking from behind her white wooden mask, corroborated with a voice trembling with pure dread: "— Yes... the ice shadows have been hunting us mercilessly. They are destroying settlement by settlement, clan by clan. The dead are rising to swallow the living."
"— Yes, they are —" I replied, crossing my arms over my runic chest. "— But what real plan do you have to face this threat? Defeating the Others in direct infantry combat is something you have absolutely zero capacity to do with these weapons of bone and stone. And trying to cross the Wall to flee South will not work either, for my defenses will turn you to ash before you even touch the ice."
The Magnar of the Thenns stood up abruptly from his chair, his bronze armor clattering loudly as he displayed an expression of pure disdain and arrogance.
"— You speak as if we are afraid of your presence or your boyish sorcery, King of the North! —" the Magnar roared, pointing a finger in my direction. "— Here in the true North, the ancient magic of the First Men never died, never vanished like it did in your lands of knelt kings! We know how to defend ourselves!"
I looked at him with a corner smile, filled with a gélid mockery.
"— Of course you're not afraid, Magnar... after all, fools and the ignorant are never afraid of anything until the blade cuts their throats. But if you truly think, in your limited little head, that the primitive magic you preserved in your clans is the same thing as my runic science... you are lamentably mistaken."
In the exact millisecond I finished the sentence, a snap of mental energy echoed through the clearing. Absolutely every seated wildling leader froze in the same position; each of them felt the cold, sharp, and unmistakable touch of a real steel blade pressing against the skin of their necks. It was no figurative threat or mystical illusion. The warriors, scouts, and personal guards who had accompanied the leaders and were positioned right behind their chairs had drawn their own weapons and placed them at their chieftains' throats. Their eyes were completely white, devoid of pupils—their minds had been instantly invaded and their wills entirely stolen by my simultaneous Warg command.
I maintained control over their bodies for a few seconds, letting the terror of absolute loss of control settle into the leaders' minds, before blinking and releasing them. The guards gasped, regaining consciousness of their minds without understanding what had happened, hastily sheathing their weapons in a state of shock.
I raised my open right hand toward the grey firmament. Concentrating the energy of my bodily matrices, I channeled a massive amount of elemental power and expelled it upward. A colossal, overwhelming pillar of pure fire soared into the clearing's skies like a divine column, rising with such force and heat that it seemed to try to burn the very clouds at the top of the world. The wave of heat generated by the blaze was so absurdly violent and intense that, within a matter of seconds, all the accumulated snow on the clearing's ground melted instantly, turning the frozen soil into damp earth and water vapor.
I lowered my hand, letting the vapor slowly dissipate as the clearing returned to silence. I looked directly at the leader of the Thenns, who had fallen back into his chair with a pale face and wide eyes.
"— So, Magnar... do you finally understand now why you are merely a fool for not being afraid?"
Absolute and reverent silence took over every free man and woman in the clearing. No one dared to breathe loudly or make a single sudden movement before the demonstration of divine power. Only the Child of the Forest, who remained free and untouched on the giant's shoulder, shifted her wise eyes, observing the scene with ancient understanding.
She leaned forward, and her voice, which sounded like the whispering of leaves in the wind, echoed softly: "— And what do you, son of man and Wolf King, plan to do with all this strength that the gods have granted you?"
"— Well... at least someone in this assembly had the intelligence to ask the correct question —" I replied, nodding to the small creature. "— You see... that giant Wall dividing the continent was built in the past using ancient runes and binding magics. That is something I have in abundance in my mind. My plan consists of creating another massive runic barrier, a new line of defense that will surpass and isolate these lands from the borders of the Lands of Always Winter."
Mance Rayder absorbed the information, processing the tactical details.
"— And this new Wall you intend to raise with your runes... will it be capable of containing the advance of the Others and their army of the dead?"
"— Yes, it will contain them —" I affirmed with seriousness. "— It will contain them for a set period of time. And that time is exactly the necessary and crucial window I will provide for the preparation and military industrialization of this entire land before the Long Night collapses upon us."
Ygritte, who had remained in absolute silence until that moment due to the shock of the heat, gathered her wild courage and questioned me, her voice trembling but firm: "— And why the hell should we exhaust ourselves preparing for a war if this new barrier of yours is supposed to hold the monsters? The old Southern Wall held them successfully for over eight thousand years without us needing industries or armies!"
"— Because the Long Night and the final confrontation are absolutely inevitable —" I responded, locking my eyes onto hers. "— The new barrier serves only to delay their advance slightly, granting us the necessary time to arm ourselves. We will have to fight with everything we have. And we will have to win."
Tormund wiped away the sweat that erupted on his forehead from the remaining heat of the blaze and scratched his red beard.
"— So... all this gathering and this display of pyrotechnics serve merely to ask our permission to build this new barrier of yours on our free lands? —"
The question from the Tormuld made me let out a loud and genuine laugh, full of a sovereign mockery that echoed through the trees. I looked at him with disdain.
"— And why in the hell would I need to ask your permission to do anything in these lands, terror of giants?"
After uttering my words, I noticed from the corner of my eye that the immense leader of the giants shifted his posture on his stone chair, looking down at the red-haired man with a deep, heavy expression on his face of stone and fur—a giant countenance that ordinary men would be incapable of deciphering, but which exuded clear disapproval of Tormund's insolence.
"— The construction of this new runic line of defense is not a request —" I continued, recovering my serious and imposing tone. "— It is merely a warning of what I will do."
The Lord of Bones, ajeitando as costelas of his rustic armor, let out a snort from behind his giant skull helm, demonstrating his typical contempt.
"— With you southron kings and nobles, there is always a damn 'but' hidden in your pretty speeches, isn't there? What do you truly want from us?"
"— I laughed at your remark, Rattleshirt, but the reality is simple —" I replied, resting my hands on the runic gauntlets at my belt. "— I will not expend so much energy, so much physical effort, and so many of my kingdom's resources to build barriers and guarantee the mystical security of lands for you to continue enjoying them freely while I protect you for nothing from behind walls."
Ygritte stood up, stamping her foot in anger on the damp earth.
"— And who the hell asked for your protection or your walls, King Stark?! We are the Free Folk! We take care of our own!"
"— So you do not want my intervention? —" I asked, narrowing my eyes predatatorily. "— Very well. I can simply order my smiths to close and permanently lock the massive iron gate of the old Wall behind me, isolating the South completely, and let the ice shadows and the army of the Others fall with all their hunger upon your defenseless clans. Let us see how long the Free Folk's pride lasts against thirty thousand wights."
The brutal reality and the threat of abandonment left everyone in an absolute, suffocating silence. Not one of them had an answer to the fact that they were being cornered by death.
Mance Rayder rose slowly, maintaining the dignity of his position.
"— So your price is our submission... You expect us to kneel before you and surrender our freedom for this? That will never happen, boy. We are the Free Folk for a reason. We do not kneel to any southron king."
I remained in silence for a long time, observing the expressions of mutual agreement, stubbornness, and foolish pride that shaped the faces of the other wildling leaders before Mance's speech. I sighed softly, adopting a calm, whispered tone of voice, but one that, due to the runic acoustics I controlled in the clearing, everyone could hear with terrifying clarity.
"— So you have chosen... death."
I took a step forward, my green eyes glowing like wildfire in the clearing's gloom.
"— I will not allow the Night King's army to grow in size because of your stubbornness. Therefore, I myself will make this effort in the name of humanity's survival. I myself will gather, hunt down, and execute every single one of you here and now, burning your bodies myself to prevent you from dying of cold at the hands of the Others and joining the army of shadows as dead soldiers against my kingdom."
The exact instant the last word left my mouth, the Black Guard, operating in perfect and terrifying military synchronization, drew their runic black steel swords with a single sharp, metallic ring. The atmosphere in the clearing instantly grew tense, laden with the promise of an imminent massacre. The wildlings reached for their bone weapons, knowing they were at a disadvantage against the power of the King.
The tension was suddenly interrupted when the immense leader of the giants rose from his stone seat, making the ground shake beneath his massive feet. He took heavy steps toward the center of the clearing, positioning his colossal body between the humans and the Black Guard. He looked down at me, uttering words in a perfectly understandable, though coarse and harsh, version of the westerosi Common Tongue:
"— King of men... talks much of conquests and terms... but does not show his own physical strength for it in the true North. How do you expect to lead the Free Folk... if you do not demonstrate the strength necessary to crush your enemies? —"
I smirked, my runic muscles contracting beneath my cloak.
"— Ah... but proving that is the easiest thing in the world, giant."
The exact same instant I finished the sentence, the leader of the giants unleashed a war roar that shook the treetops and charged in my direction with terrifying linear speed—a swiftness that a being of such colossal size and massive body weight should never possess under normal laws of physics. But to my transcendental reflexes and the superhuman speed my runes of acceleration granted, seeing him run fast by normal human standards and seeing him completely stationary was the exact same thing.
Before any wildling could blink or Mance Rayder could raise a hand, I vanished from where I was sitting. In the blink of an eye, I appeared floating in the air, exactly at the height of the immense being's face.
Concentrating the monstrous strength of my titanic physique into my right fist, I delivered a single straight, clean punch against the giant leader's face.
The impact of my fist against the monster's massive bone structure generated a dry crack that echoed through the entire forest. The raw, immense force of the blow sent the giant flying backward through the air for several meters. His massive body collided against the clearing's frozen ground with a violent crash, kicking up a cloud of damp earth and vapor before stopping.
Long and agonizing seconds of absolute silence followed. All the wildling leaders and their hidden warriors stared at me open-mouthed, paralyzed by the shock of seeing a human man bring down the greatest legend of those lands with a single unarmed punch and no visible effort. Robb and Aemon's direwolves let out low growls of satisfaction, while my immense black wolf merely sat majestically beside my empty throne, observing the giant's ruin.
Slowly, letting out a groan of pain and shaking his shaggy head to clear the dizziness from the impact, the immense giant rose from the ground. He wiped away the blood streaming from his massive nose and looked at me with a reverent respect that replaced any sign of ancestral anger.
"— King of men... shows true strength... and honor in sparing the life of this weak one —" the monster declared, bending his colossal body until one knee touched the damp ground of the clearing before me. "— Mag the Mighty... will follow you and your wolf blood from this day forth."
With the formal submission of Mag the Mighty, I turned slowly back toward the other wildling leaders who remained static in their chairs, their hands trembling over their rustic weapons.
"— I offer all of you real protection against the monsters marching in the ice —" I began, my voice echoing with unquestionable authority. "— I offer mystical security, abundant food from my runic glasshouses, warm shelter in my new forts, and the promise that my own men of the Black Guard will fight for you, bleed for you, and, if necessary, die on the front lines defending your families. But in exchange for this colossal effort, the only thing I demand is that you bend your knees and follow me as your sole and rightful King. And you reject all of this because of a foolish tribal pride and blind stubbornness? What is worth more to you today: this meaningless pride or the survival of everything you love?"
There was a long and tense period of silent deliberation. The words sliced through the final defenses of their convictions. It was then that the Lord of Bones and the old witch Morna White Mask rose from their seats in unison, their expressions laden with a fanatical and unyielding resentment.
"— The true Free Folk do not follow knelt kings from the South, Stark boy! —" Rattleshirt spat on the ground with contempt. "— You can use your sorcery and your iron soldiers to hunt us down and kill us all in this clearing if you want, but we will not kneel before your crown!"
"— That's right, boy of Winterfell —" old Morna added, adjusting her fur cloak. "— Come with your Black Guard if you have the courage. We do not fear death in the snows."
Without waiting for an answer or authorization, the two leaders turned their backs with arrogance and began to march toward the deep trees, followed closely by the warriors of their respective clans who deserted the clearing.
I turned to the remaining leaders who continued to sit, including Mance, Tormund, and Ygritte, who watched the departure of the dissidents with expressions split between pride and the weight of reality.
"— I would highly recommend that you think very carefully about your next choices in the coming hours —" I declared, walking back to my runic mount. "— I will wait for the definitive response from each of your clans until tomorrow morning at my outpost. Choose wisely between the eternal ice of the Others or the protection of the wolf."
I mounted my black stallion and began the march back to the fort, followed in silence by my Black Guard and, to the astonishment of the remaining wildlings, by Mag the Mighty and his entire clan of giant warriors who marched right behind my rearguard as new sworn vassals of House Stark.
Early the next morning, the definitive answer knocked at the outpost's gates.
Under the dim light of the winter sun, Mance Rayder, Tormund, the Magnar of the Thenns, and Ygritte crossed the palisades accompanied by the elders of their tribes. Before the full Black Guard arranged in the courtyard, the remaining wildling leaders walked to the center, locked their eyes onto mine, and, one by one, bent their bodies and knelt their knees in the soft snow, formally submitting to my royal authority. Some did it with a pragmatic acceptance of reality, others with clear distaste stamped on their wild features, but everyone there shared the same inevitable understanding that this was the sole and final real chance of survival their peoples would have before the shadows devoured them.
Mance Rayder raised his head after the oath, keeping his serious gaze locked onto my improvised throne.
"— Many of our more radical brothers did not take the news of our submission to your crown well, King Arawyn —" Mance explained, the subtle bitterness in his voice. "— There was a mass defection during the night. Hundreds of warriors and entire families fled into the deep north, joining the rebel tribes of the Lord of Bones and the witch Morna White Mask. They intend to resist your advance in the ice mountains. What will you do about them?"
I looked at the two sixteen-year-olds positioned beside me, whose hands rested firmly on the hilts of their Valyrian steel swords and whose direwolves growled in synchronization with my thoughts.
"— Aemon... lead our men of the Black Guard in the vanguard of the pursuit —" I commanded, my voice cutting through the courtyard with implacable military rawness. "— Robb... you will be responsible for creating the entire strategy of siege, troop movement, and runic logistics in the mountain passes. It is time for you to truly prove yourselves before the North and before these lands, my cousins. Show what you have learned."
The two young princes took a step forward with determination and, in a unissonous movement that filled the courtyard with Stark pride, knelt firmly before me.
"— At your command, my King! —" both answered in a single firm, vibrant voice.
I turned back toward the wildling leaders who remained kneeling on the frozen ground, absorbing the speed with which my war orders were issued.
"— I was very clear yesterday in the clearing and I will not repeat my words —" I declared, looking at each of them with severity. "— I will give no more human bodies to the Night King's army to grow, and I will not permit the existence of active enemies or armed rebels within the borders of my new lands. The dissidents will be hunted down, disarmed by force, or eliminated before the Others reach them."
The harsh reality and the raw military determination of my rule struck them like a punch to the stomach, shattering any romantic illusion about the "Free Folk." But deep in their pragmatic minds, Mance and the others knew perfectly well that this was the only logical and correct path to guarantee that the human race kept breathing on that side of the world.
Another gigantic step had been taken toward the consolidation of my runic empire and the fortification of the world of the living against the ice apocalypse. However, before the war retinue could disperse to begin preparations for the campaign to hunt the rebels, I noticed that Mance Rayder remained motionless in the same position in the center of the courtyard. He wiped his snow-dirtied hands on his fur trousers and stepped forward, locking his eyes onto mine with an expression laden with a new tactical secret.
"— My King... —" Mance began, lowering his voice so that only I and my closest generals could hear. "— Now that we have sworn our loyalty to your crown, there is one more proposal, not mine, but from all the Free Folk, and it will help to calm and reassure all of us."
I narrowed my eyes, leaning my titanic body forward on the runic throne, interested in the glimpse of this proposal shifting on the Winter's chessboard.