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Beneath Winterfell's walls, the wind and snow howled. But they couldn't drown out the dull, wet sound of blades biting into flesh.
Ramsay Bolton's madness lasted less than a quarter of an hour.
His prized curved sword was locked against an old Umber soldier's shield, pinned dead. Another longsword came right behind it, punching through his warhorse's neck. The frenzy in Ramsay's eyes vanished in an instant, replaced by pure, bottomless terror.
He tumbled from his dying horse and hit the ground hard, rolling through cold mud and snow before finally skidding to a stop.
"Protect me! All of you, get over here! Protect me!"
He screamed like a cat with its tail crushed under a boot.
Then he scrambled backward on his hands and knees, clawing toward the safety of his own ranks.
The Dreadfort soldiers around him stared with hollow, desperate faces.
What had they just seen?
The man who had promised them land and women , their "future King in the North" , routed in the very first clash, now crawling through the mud to save his own skin?
And they were supposed to bleed and die for this coward's ambitions, against a Northern force that outnumbered them several times over and had been waiting, rested, for exactly this moment?
Morale shattered.
THUD!
A Dreadfort soldier had barely raised his weapon, still deciding whether to surrender, when a spear burst through his chest from behind.
Ned Stark's army gave them no time to think.
This was vengeance. And it was a judgment.
"Kill them all if they don't surrender!"
Ned's command was cold and absolute.
He didn't lead the charge himself. He stood behind the lines and watched the slaughter with flat, unblinking eyes. Beside him, his personal guard threw down the Flayed Man Banners the Dreadfort soldiers had abandoned and trampled them under their horses' hooves.
Ramsay watched Ned's soldiers surge forward like a tide, closer and closer. He grabbed the collar of the soldier nearest to him and hurled the man forward.
"Hold them! Hold them!"
The soldier didn't even have time to cry out. Three longswords found him at once.
Ramsay used those seconds to scramble behind a supply wagon. His eyes darted everywhere, frantic and wide, like a rat cornered in a burning barn, searching for any crack he could squeeze through.
Then, just as he thought he'd bought himself a moment, a dark shape exploded out of the melee on the flank. Moving too fast. Moving wrong. It came straight for his wagon.
It was a woman.
She wore leather armor that didn't fit her. She held two short daggers, both slicked with blood. Her black hair whipped loose and wild in the wind. Her face was smeared red, her expression unhinged.
But her eyes were locked onto Ramsay with absolute certainty.
"Go!"
Her voice came out raw and hoarse, half-mad, half-iron.
She didn't look at him again. She planted herself in front of the wagon like a she-wolf standing over her pup, and she turned to face the Stark soldiers charging in.
Miranda.
The kennelmaster's daughter from the Dreadfort.
Ramsay's most loyal companion. His most broken one.
She had no real skill. Every swing of her daggers was clumsy, desperate, wrong. But her eyes held nothing — no fear, no hesitation — only the flat, burning resolve of someone who had already decided to burn everything down.
She threw her body against their shields. She bit at the hands gripping swords. She drove her daggers into every gap she could find in their armor, again and again, frantic and relentless.
One Stark soldier didn't see it coming. Her blade punched through the leather at his throat. Blood sprayed.
Then a heavy blow caught her.
CRACK!
Miranda's whole body shuddered. Blood poured from the corner of her mouth. She didn't fall. She didn't take a single step back. She just stood there, swaying, her glazing eyes still turned toward where Ramsay had been. Her lips moved.
Whatever she meant to say, it never came out. Only a faint, soundless breath.
Ned Stark watched from a distance.
His brow tightened, just barely.
What was this woman to Ramsay?
"Take them both alive."
He turned to the messenger at his side and issued the new order. He had a feeling , keeping these two breathing might be worth more than killing them.
The battle ended quickly after that.
Crushed by overwhelming force and a morale that had already broken, the remaining Dreadfort soldiers dropped their weapons. They knelt in the snow, hands raised, and surrendered.
Ramsay Bolton was dragged out from under the wagon by several tall Umber soldiers. He was caked in mud and filth, spine broken like a beaten dog, still cursing as they hauled him out.
"Get off me! You bastards! My father is Roose Bolton!"
"Touch me and he'll flay every last one of you!"
SLAP!
A soldier stepped forward and cracked him across the face hard enough to cut the words off.
"Your father?"
The soldier grabbed Ramsay by the hair and shoved his face down into the frozen snow.
"Your father is me now."
Before the walls of Winterfell, three thousand Dreadfort soldiers were herded onto an open stretch of snow like livestock before slaughter. Stark soldiers ringed them on all sides, blades drawn.
Ned Stark rode forward slowly and stopped in front of them. He pulled off his helmet. His face was hard and weathered, and under the gray winter sky it looked carved from stone.
"According to the ancient laws of the North,"
"the only fate for traitors is beheading."
Every surrendered soldier went pale. Bodies trembled without permission. Some of them were already regretting that they hadn't fought to the death. Some were deciding, even now, that they'd rather take one Stark soldier with them before they died.
"But."
Ned's voice shifted.
"You are also people of the North."
"You were deceived by that bastard Ramsay Bolton."
"Lord Lynn once told me that the true enemies are the lords sitting warm in their castles, stirring up war. Not soldiers bleeding in the field."
"So I am giving you a chance."
His gaze moved across the faces below him , fear and desperate hope, all tangled together.
"Lay down every weapon. Remove your armor. Let go of your hatred."
"I will hold you until this war is finished. Then I will judge each of you personally."
"The guilty will be punished. The innocent go home."
The words fell like light through a crack in the clouds. Every man who had been staring into the dark found something to hold onto.
They didn't hesitate. Armor came off. Weapons were flung away. In the face of death, resistance was nothing.
Ned watched it all. His eyes were still.
He had changed.
The time spent with Lynn had taught him the most important lesson he'd ever learned.
Unnecessary mercy toward your enemies is the cruelest betrayal of your own people.
Honor mattered. But the survival of his family, the peace of the North , those mattered more than any creed he'd been raised to hold.
If a few dishonorable choices could remove three thousand threats without costing him a single man of his own...
Then he would carry that sin.
The three thousand Dreadfort soldiers were stripped to their thin underclothes. Then Stark soldiers drove them into a massive trench that had been dug outside Winterfell long before this day.
The trench was deep. Deep enough to swallow them to the chest.
They stood packed together inside it, shaking in the biting wind. But their faces still wore the dazed relief of men who had survived.
Ned rode to the edge of the trench and looked down at them.
"My lord." A braver man than the rest looked up. "When do we come out?"
Ned didn't answer him.
He raised his hand.
Behind him, the archers were already drawn and ready.
"Loose."
"What?!"
The trench erupted. Men froze. No one could believe what they'd heard.
Then the sky went dark.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH —
The arrows came in waves, a blotting curtain of them, falling like the scythes of death into that packed, defenseless mass of men. Screams tore loose. Curses. Begging. All of it tangled into one continuous roar.
None of it stopped anything.
One volley. Then a second. Then a third.
Until no one in the trench was standing. Until the blood had soaked the earth dark red all the way to the edges. Only then did Ned lower his hand.
"Fill it in."
Two words. Cold as the ground beneath the snow. They closed the book on this betrayal in blood.
...
The Riverlands. A dense forest, hidden and still.
[Killed Dreadfort Soldier, EXP +3]
[Killed Dreadfort Soldier, EXP +3]
...
[Killed Dreadfort Knight, EXP +10]
[EXP +9215]
[Current EXP: 26217.2]
The notifications scrolled past Lynn's eyes in a long, unbroken stream.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
➤ Next: Lynn's Rage