ARC III: THE AWAKENING OF THE DRAGONS AND THE WAR OF THE EMPIRE
Chapter 41: The Plagues of Winter
POV: Lord Edmure Tully (302 AC)
In front of the immense leather map spread across the oak table of my command solar, I kept my eyes fixed on the markings of the Riverlands, thinking and planning. Or, at least, that was what I hoped it looked like to the men around me.
The truth was that my sister Catelyn's untimely and paranoid decision had caught us completely by surprise, crashing down upon our heads like a burning roof. When the news that she had imprisoned Eddard Stark in the black cells reached my father's ears, Lord Hoster Tully almost went to meet the Stranger ahead of his time, such was his fit of fury and despair. Sick and coughing blood, he had to be carried in a hurry to a carriage heading toward King's Landing, in a desperate attempt to assume the office of Hand of the King and fix the diplomatic disaster Catelyn had provoked. Meanwhile, my uncle, Ser Brynden "the Blackfish", marched east to gather and coordinate the remaining forces of the Vale of Arryn.
To me fell the inglorious and crushing task of leading the armies of the Riverlands. Having to endure the explosive temper of the many lords of these lands, each shouting a different opinion and demanding a strategy more cowardly or bloodier than the last, had been a true torture. For a few brief minutes that morning, fortunately, they had left me in peace.
The silence, however, did not last long. A young stable boy abruptly opened the flap of the command tent, panting heavily. I was already with my lips open, ready to reprimand him harshly for disrupting my tactical planning, but the words died in my throat when I looked at his face. The boy was so pale, so devoid of color, that he looked as if he had seen the very face of the Stranger walking among the living. He clearly did not bring good news.
"Gather the lords... now!" I ordered the guard at the entrance.
Minutes later, with all the major lords of the river squeezed inside the tent, I crossed my arms and faced the trembling messenger.
"Speak at once, boy. What news so terrible has frightened you to the point of making you forget your manners?"
"Lord Edmure... I... I come from the Twins," the boy stammered, his hands shaking uncontrollably. "Lord Walder Frey had sent me to ride south to report on the siege that the Northern army had established. They had positioned themselves in mass right in front of the northern entrance of the castle."
Lord Jonos Bracken stepped forward, thumping the pommel of his sword against the ground with disdain.
"And what is so frightening about a Northern siege, boy? Was the cursed Emperor of the North alongside their vanguard?"
The stable boy shook his head frantically, his eyes wide.
"No, my lord. The scouts of House Frey scanned the enemy lines with looking glasses and did not see the immense black wolf that always accompanies Emperor Arawyn wherever he marches."
A collective sigh of relief echoed through the tent. And, indeed, that was an excellent way to track which of the Stark leaders was coming our way, since the direwolves of that cursed lineage always walked alongside their masters, and the Emperor's monstrous beast had no possibility of being confused with any other creature in the mortal world.
"Well, if the Emperor was not there, a simple runic siege at the Twins would not be enough to leave you in such a state of pure dread, boy," I commented, trying to restore confidence in the room.
"You do not understand, Lord Tully!" the boy exclaimed, his voice choking with tears. "When I was already a mile away from the Twins, fleeing south, I heard a deafening noise... A crash that sounded like the sky itself splitting in half. When I looked back, I saw the waters of the Green Fork rise in a supernatural way. They reared up like two colossal serpents of liquid water, ascending to the heavens, and then... then they fell with the force of mountains upon Lord Walder's castles. The water entered through windows, through crevices in the stone, destroying iron doors, bridges, and drowning everything inside within seconds. The Twins... the Twins are gone."
An absolute and gélid silence took hold of the command tent. The river lords looked at each other, once arrogant faces now turning pale before the described horror. The Lord of Maidenpool stepped forward, his voice failing slightly.
"Are you absolutely sure that happened exactly that way, boy? You just told us that Emperor Arawyn was not present at the siege! Who in the name of the Seven gods was the Stark leading that force of destruction?"
"The survivors who managed to escape from the banks said that the one commanding the vanguard was the King of the Neck, Robb Stark..." the boy replied, swallowing hard. "But beside him, carving runes into the soil, was his older sister, Princess Sansa. And in the courtyards, hunting down the Freys who tried to swim, was the coppery-red-furred wolf belonging to the youngest of Cersei's twin sons."
"Then it was Sansa..." I murmured, feeling my stomach churn.
"How can you be so sure it was the girl, my lord?" Lord Bracken asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.
"Even though information coming from the North is scarce due to their blockade, our merchant spies still manage to bring some details about the capabilities of the young wolves," I explained, my voice heavy. "Sansa Stark, the eldest daughter between Ned and Cersei, is the most dedicated and direct mystical apprentice of Emperor Arawyn himself. She was taught to master the same elemental magic that destroyed Pyke years ago."
Nieleen in the tent dared to say a single word. The tragic and absolute end of House Greyjoy in the Iron Islands was a story everyone in Westeros knew perfectly well, and knowing that there was another living human being in the North capable of replicating that level of apocalyptic devastation, other than the Emperor himself, instantly destroyed the remaining morale of my men.
"You are dismissed for now, my lords," I declared, making a tired gesture with my hand. "I need time to think about our next movements."
The truth was that we desperately needed a miracle. We needed a quick victory, something grand that could lift our soldiers' morale before Robb Stark's main army crossed the Trident. It was not possible that we wouldn't have the capacity to launch even a single counterattack against these barbarians of the North.
And our great golden chance arrived a few days later.
Our advanced scouts noticed that the Northern army, after exterminating the Freys and taking control of the ruins of the Twins, had split into two distinct columns of march. The main body, led by Robb Stark and his heavy weapons, followed straight down the Kingsroad, probably with the tactical objective of intercepting the Vale cavalry before they could join us in the Riverlands.
However, a considerably smaller and isolated division had separated from the main force, continuing to march slowly toward the territories of Houses Mallister and Blackwood—lords who were suspiciously absent from our military summons in recent weeks.
Gathering the survivors of House Frey along with a part of their men—these being only those who were outside the Twins during the cataclysm—and even without counting the armies of the Freys, Mallisters, and Blackwoods, we still had close to 30,000 strong men. Even with the Stark army possessing their magic, winning a battle with a six-to-one difference was a certain statistic. And the most encouraging factor of all was the identity of who led that small enemy division of 5,000 men: the young Prince Tommen, now fifteen years old.
Despite being known as one of the most talented prodigies in the mystical arts of the North, his docile, peaceful, and excessively gentle nature was famous even south of the Neck, mainly through the sailors who passed through the Northern Canal and the news of the old lion's grandson being Cersei's youngest son. According to rumors, the older twin had some sort of mystical destiny and could not rule, and Tommen was passed over because his gentle nature did not please Tywin Lannister's surgical pragmatism. They had sent a gentle lamb to lead wolves in a forest of lions.
"Organize the battle lines!" I shouted to my commanders while mounting my warhorse.
Convincing the men to march had not been a difficult task; the clear difference in numbers and Tommen's mild reputation left them in a state of pure ecstasy and confidence. Everyone in the Southern entourage knew that this was the chance to achieve eternal glory by defeating what many consider, and indeed was, the most powerful army in the world.
I marched in the vanguard, feeling the wind of the Trident strike against my face. I would prove to Catelyn and to my father that I was a worthy commander. Everything would go perfectly well this morning.
But... what in the name of the gods is that strange noise? — I thought, pulling the reins of my horse.
Coming from among the canopies of the trees in the side forest and crawling through the rustic bushes, a sharp, incessant, and deafening sound of wings and legs began to fill the air. An absurdly immense quantity of insects of all imaginable species began to sprout from the soil and leaves.
Could a natural plague be about to begin right now, at the start of a war campaign? — I asked myself, feeling an inexplicable discomfort in the pit of my stomach. I shook my head, brushing the thought aside. We should leave the plagues of nature for the maesters to solve later; now, my sole and absolute focus was to crush the young Stark and save the South.
POV: Prince Tommen Stark (302 AC)
In front of me, kneeling on the damp soil of the Riverlands, the Lords of Houses Mallister and Blackwood held their heads low, pronouncing their solemn vows of submission and eternal loyalty to the North.
I didn't know exactly how or when, but it seems that my cousin Arawyn was already planning and weaving that secret alliance with them years ago through hidden diplomatic channels, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to bring them to our side officially. Well, now with Queen Tully's madness throwing the South into disarray, the perfect opportunity had manifested.
After the surrender ceremony, our march continued at a steady pace, advancing directly to meet the forces of the rivermen who were trying to block our path.
The deepest truth of my soul was that fighting in a war was by no means to my liking. Seeing so much death, so much blood spilled, and so much destruction of innocent lives brought me an immense sadness that I struggled to hide beneath my posture as an imperial prince. My cousin Arawyn used to say, during our conversations at the Winter Throne, that I am the most powerful and talented skinchanger that has ever walked among men in all the history of Westeros. Which always sounded extremely strange to me, given that he himself possesses a spiritual strength infinitely superior to mine; but Arawyn simply shrugs and states that he shouldn't be counted since he is a "cosmic anomaly" outside the standards of the world. What he means by that, I don't know, but the Emperor frequently says things we don't immediately understand.
Much of what I knew about controlling animals and expanding my consciousness was taught by him, but my true and relentless teacher in the arts of the Warg had been Ros.
The Emperor's personal assistant has always been someone who didn't make sense; even though she is a third-level green seer, she preferred skinchanging over green dreams. Of course, every green seer is a skinchanger, which cannot be said for the inverse, since I myself do not possess the talent to see glimpses of tomorrow—that specific mystical talent belongs entirely to my twin brother, Bran.
But anyway, Ros was exactly what Arawyn used to describe with his sharp humor: a woman who seemed to have "a piece missing from her head". Her way of teaching the mystical arts was by no means easy or gentle. Ros's method was based on pure and brutal mental combat practice; she would force her own consciousness into my mind by sheer power to control and subjugate me, while commanding dozens of wild wolves and bears to physically attack me in the real world. To survive and not be torn apart, I had to fight mentally against her and steal her control over them, which I didn't like because it hurt the little creatures. Fortunately, she cannot enter the minds of insects like I can, so those little creatures are safe.
Walking beside me in the vanguard of the marching line, besides the newly allied Lords Mallister and Blackwood, were Lord Roose Bolton and his son, Lord Domeric Bolton—the latter acting as the official cupbearer and direct cousin of Arawyn, therefore considered an intimate part of our imperial family. Both had been sent by the Winter Throne to assist in managing the surrender negotiations of the Riverlands, which turned out to be unnecessary, as the two lords of the river needed no insistence to kneel before our runic banner.
"Order the men to set up the defensive camp right here, Lord Bolton," I instructed, stopping my runic horse near a glade. "My little winged friends have already warned me that the army of the rivermen is approaching quickly through the side forest."
After waiting for a few hours in perfect combat formation, the immense mass of soldiers commanded by Edmure Tully finally appeared on the horizon, raising their fish banners and beginning to set up an improvised siege quarter right in front of our lines.
Lord Roose Bolton approached me with his usual whispered and gélid voice, his pale ice-colored eyes analyzing the numerical disparity of the enemy.
"What military action will be taken now, my prince?" Roose asked, keeping his hand on the hilt of his dagger.
"I am keeping an eye on their every movement through my swarms, Lord Bolton," I replied softly, keeping my gaze fixed on the Tully camp. "I will see first what diplomatic posture they choose to adopt. But please, keep our runic soldiers prepared for the imminence of a battle."
"We always keep our blades sharp and our runes charged, my prince," Roose Bolton replied with a respectful nod.
The most interesting detail of that situation was that, even maintaining his usual stone posture, I could clearly feel a trace of pure fear and discomfort emanating from the man from Dreadfort beside me. In fact, that subtle fear came not only from him, but from almost all the veteran soldiers of our own rear guard. Well... apparently, the massive presence of billions of insects crawling and buzzing in silence around our lines was something capable of frightening even the most hardened and violent men of the North.
After a few minutes of expectation, a Southern knight approached bearing a peace banner, announcing that Lord Edmure Tully demanded a parley meeting in the center of the field before the start of hostilities. I accepted immediately, riding to the meeting point accompanied by the lords who made up my council.
Upon reaching the center of the glade, Edmure Tully's expression instantly changed from arrogance to shocked surprise, followed by a wave of unbridled fury as he noticed the presence of Lords Mallister and Blackwood integrated into our imperial entourage.
"Lord Mallister... Lord Blackwood..." Edmure hissed, his hands trembling over his mount's reins. "It seems you have badly mistaken the way back to the chambers of your true, legitimate liege lords of the Riverlands. What is the meaning of this heretical treason?"
"In fact, we have not mistaken any way, Tully," Lord Mallister replied with a cutting firmness, looking down at him. "We are exactly in the right place, alongside the true power that will guarantee the future of our houses."
Lord Jonos Bracken, positioned right behind Edmure, spat ostentatiously onto the hilt of his own sword, his eyes bloodshot with rage.
"It was to be expected that this Blackwood scum would reveal themselves as a cowardly traitor at the first opportunity!" Bracken blustered.
Lord Tytos Blackwood slowly turned his face in the direction of his historical rival, his gaze cold and devoid of any mercy.
"I still haven't decided whether I'm going to put your pig's head on the tip of a runic spear or order your whole body hoisted by the c* in a public square, Bracken," Blackwood replied with an eerie calmness.
Seeing the two Southern men carry their hands to the hilts of their swords, I took a step forward with my horse, raising my left hand encased in a dark leather glove.
"Save the steel and the fury for later, my lords," I ordered, and the authority in my voice made both of them hesitate.
One of the lesser lords accompanying Edmure Tully's entourage let out a loud, mocking laugh, pointing to our defensive line.
"Boy... are you blind or did the sorcery of the North melt your wolf brain? Can't you see that you are at a catastrophic disadvantage here? We are thirty thousand strong men against your miserable garrison! We stand in overwhelming numerical superiority!"
Domeric Bolton, who remained right behind me with a relaxed and aristocratic posture, shrugged, a smile of pure disdain shaping his thin lips.
"Numbers of frightened peasants matter very little before the manifestation of absolute power, my dear lord of the river," Domeric retorted smoothly.
I ignored the provocations and focused my grey gaze directly into Edmure Tully's eyes.
"Return to your respective castles and order the immediate surrender of your forces, my lords," I declared with sincerity and compassion in my voice. "If you lay down your weapons and do not take up steel against the Empire of the North, none of you or your families need fear for your lives or possessions. The North will be fair to those who surrender."
Edmure Tully let out a bitter laugh, full of derision and distilled hatred.
"And in whose name should we trust your word as a heretical pagan, Stark?! When even King Robert Baratheon, who considered Eddard Stark a true brother by blood, was cowardly murdered by his father's own hands in the dungeons of King's Landing?! Why would we trust the word of a Stark of the North, when it isn't worth even the mud we remove from our stables every day?!"
The other lords around Edmure began to scream insults and bellows of approval, inflaming the atmosphere. However, the cries of arrogance were cut short instantly by the sharp, heavy sound of wings beating in the air.
An immense raven with feathers black as night descended from the grey skies, landing softly upon my extended left arm. Silence fell over the glade as the Southerners observed the bird. I heard the trembling and terrified whisper of one of Edmure's knights asking the companion beside him if anyone else saw a third eye right in the center of the animal's forehead.
And they were not wrong in the slightest. The raven turned its head, driving its three intelligent eyes directly into my soul. The bird opened its beak, and the voice of my twin brother, Bran, echoed directly in my mind, though the words seemed to come in a whisper audible only to me:
"— Do what needs to be done, brother... —" Bran whispered through the creature.
"— But Bran... I don't want to cause a massacre... —" I replied mentally, feeling the weight of hesitation crush my chest.
"— It must be done, Tommen... —" my twin brother's voice insisted, laden with a millennial gravity that went far beyond his twelve years. "— We cannot always afford the luxury of being the perfect heroes of chivalry stories. Sometimes, what the real world needs to find peace is a monster... an relentless villain who does what others fear. Do you trust me, brother?"
I clenched my fists, swallowing hard as tears threatened to well in my eyes. I looked at the black bird.
"We were born together, Bran... and we will be together for all the eternity of our lives," I answered aloud, without realizing that the Southern lords around had stopped shouting just to watch me talk to the bird, thinking that I was completely mad and talking to myself in the glade.
The raven opened its wings and took flight back to the grey skies. I turned my gaze back to Edmure Tully, my expression abandoning any trace of my usual childish gentleness and assuming the ancestral rigidity of the Kings of Winter.
"Are you a married man, Lord Tully?" I asked with a voice devoid of any emotion.
Edmure frowned, caught off guard by the disconnected question. He hesitated for a second before answering arrogantly.
"Yes... I am very well married to a daughter of a great house that you barbarians destroyed. But what does my personal life matter to a Stark boy like you?"
"And do you... by any chance, already possess a legitimate heir for your lineage?" I continued with my cold questions.
"Yes, I have a beautiful, strong, and healthy young son who will inherit Riverrun!" Edmure exclaimed, irritation growing in his voice. "But why the hell are you asking me that, Stark?!"
I sighed deeply, feeling the weight of what I was about to unleash upon that battlefield.
"I know perfectly well that your two sisters, Catelyn and Lysa, have only one male child each, and that these boys will inherit their respective fathers' castles and lands," I explained at a measured pace. "And I also know that your father Hoster and your uncle Brynden are already very old men, incapable of generating further descendants for your house. I asked this question... because I genuinely did not want to be the man responsible for striking from history and leading to the complete extinction of one of the Great Houses of Westeros."
Edmure opened his mouth to utter yet another heretical insult, but the phrase died in his throat when he noticed that his warhorse began to neigh in pure despair, leaping and kicking the ground uncontrollably.
"What in the... ants?!" Edmure screamed, looking down in horror.
From the damp soil of the glade, billions of giant carnivorous ants, whose runic iron mandibles were capable of piercing the thickest leather, began to sprout from the earth like a shifting, bubbling carpet of pure darkness. They climbed up the legs of the horses of the Southern entourage within seconds.
But the deafening beating of billions of wings soon diverted everyone's attention to the sky. Expanding my skinchanger consciousness to the absolute limit of my capabilities, I drew from all the forests and fields of the Riverlands an apocalyptic and colossal cloud of millions of ravenous locusts. The mass of insects was so absurdly immense that it simply covered the light of the summer sun, plunging the battlefield into an artificial and terrifying darkness.
"Retreat! Retreat now!" Edmure Tully bellowed, desperately trying to turn his mount, but it was already too late.
The elemental swarm of locusts advanced like an avalanche over the river lords who had come for the negotiation. The ravenous creatures covered their bodies completely, entering beneath their visors, clogging their throats, and devouring the leather straps of their armor. The lords were mercilessly thrown from their horses in panic, falling heavily onto the shifting soil.
And as soon as they hit the ground, the carpet of billions of carnivorous ants covered them completely. The screams of agony and despair of Lord Bracken and the other Southern commanders echoed through the clearing for a few brief and terrible seconds before being silenced abruptly.
The apocalyptic plague was not limited to the parley party; under my relentless mental command, the cloud of locusts and the army of ants marched directly against the lines of Edmure Tully's thirty-thousand-strong army. The insects devoured food supplies, gnawed the strings of bows and ballistas, and attacked the eyes and skin of the soldiers in a widespread panic that destroyed any remnant of conventional military discipline. In less than ten minutes, more than half of that entire Southern army had perished in unspeakable ways, with the rest routing in pure despair toward the forests. The place looked like a scene straight out of the pages of ancient books that described the punishments of the gods against heretical men.
I turned my horse back toward our lines, my breath ragged from the mystical effort. Looking at my men, I faced a barrier of pure fear and dread spread across their gazes. Lords Mallister and Blackwood remained static, visibly trembling over their saddles, staring at me as if I were a demon incarnate in the form of a fifteen-year-old boy.
Lord Roose Bolton broke the silence, his whispered voice maintaining an impressive stability, even though his eyes were fixed on the mortal remains in the clearing.
"Should we... should we order our cavalry to pursue the survivors fleeing in panic through the forest, my prince?"
"No... there is no need for that, Lord Bolton," I replied in a low, tired voice, stroking the thick, coppery-red fur of Firefox to calm myself. "More than half of their military force perished on this field, and all of their main commanders and lords have been eliminated. Those who managed to escape are no longer organized soldiers or warriors ready to defend the crown of the South... they are now just ordinary men consumed by the purest and most absolute fear. They no longer represent a threat to our advance."
Upon returning to the center of our fortified camp, I realized that the atmosphere among the common soldiers of the North had also changed drastically. The men cleared a path for my passage in a sepulchral silence, bowing their heads and avoiding turning their eyes in my direction, as if looking directly at my sweet and gentle face were an inevitable death sentence. I had become the monster of that story.
Until a small, contained, laugh echoed right behind me.
I turned my face and saw young Lord Domeric Bolton let out a low chuckle, shaking his head as if remembering something extremely funny at the most inappropriate moment possible. I couldn't help but look at him curiously, joined by the equally confused gaze of his father, Roose.
"I apologize for my lack of manners before such solemnity, my prince," Domeric declared, wiping an invisible tear from the corner of his eye while controlling his laughter. "It's just that... before the terrified silence of all these men, I ended up remembering a valuable piece of advice my dear mother gave me many years ago."
"And what was the teaching that our Emperor's aunt passed on to you, Lord Domeric?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.
Domeric Bolton straightened his aristocratic posture, the sly smile still present on his sharp features.
"She told me... that no matter how docile a direwolf may seem before you, no matter how much it gives its paw, wags its tail amiably, or walks back and forth with its tongue out like a domestic dog... you must never, under any circumstances, commit the foolishness of willingly placing your head inside its mouth. After all, at the end of the day, a wild beast will always remain a relentless beast ready to devour its enemies."
I stood in silence for a few long moments, absorbing the weight of those rustic words while watching the cloud of insects slowly dissipate across the skies of the Riverlands.
"Well..." I replied softly, offering Domeric a sad, tired smile. "It seems your mother was a considerably wiser woman than the overwhelming majority of the men who rule this world of the South. Let us continue the march. Winter still has a long way to travel."