-Eddard stark-
After learning of Robert's death my friend, and my king. I did not linger in that viper's nest a moment longer than necessary.
I gathered my two daughters quickly. Sansa was weeping, though I could not tell if it was for the king or for the golden-haired prince she had dreamed of marrying. My household men formed a wall around us as we slipped from the capital under cover of darkness.
We sailed to Dragonstone, where Stannis had crowned himself king. I gave him the pendant the badge of the Hand of the King that Robert had given me so long ago. Stannis accepted it, and dismissed me from his service. He commanded me to take ship for the North and call my banners.
The journey home was long. By the time we reached White Harbor, winter had begun to tighten its grip on the realm. My banners came when I called them.
I brought most of the men who had traveled south with me and I have also brought my two elder boys Robb and Jon as both were almost old enough to be considered men.
We traveled through the Neck, past the ruins of Moat Cailin, and finally reached the Twins.
Ser Stevron Frey, heir to the Crossing, waited for us at the gates. "Lord Stark," Ser Stevron called out. "We received word of your coming. My father bids you welcome to the Twins. He has prepared chambers for you and your lords, and a feast for this evening."
I dismounted and looked up at the two towers looming on either side of the Green Fork. "Tell your father I am grateful for his hospitality," I said, keeping my voice neutral. "I look forward to speaking with him."
Ser Stevron's smile widened. "He looks forward to speaking with you as well, my lord. He has... much to discuss."
I signaled to my men, and we began to cross.
-King Balon Greyjoy-
As I sit upon the Seastone Chair, I stare at the gift that arrived this morning.
The box is sealed with pitch and bound in iron chains. My thralls placed it before me and then backed away quickly.
Inside the decapitated body of my brother Euron and his bastard mongrel nephews are in there as well.
The eastern emperor sent them. This Aurion Vorysion has shipped them to him.
I had no real love for my brother Euron not after what he had done to Victarion... Euron slept with Victarion's salt wife rape her and bragging about the fact afterwards.
Of course, he had always known that Euron was a complete monster and that monster had been useful against his enemies. He had no shame in him, admitting that he wouldn't mind, closing his eyes to his brother's actions, if it meant that he could benefit from him, but not if he use those impulses against his own kin.
And even after three years later, I still had no love for him after that event neither did any of my other surviving brothers.
But he was still my brother, my kin and blood I wouldn't let him be unavenged, even if he did it to himself.
But first, I will take the North.
The green lands are weak. The Stark is fighting his own war in the south, leaving his coasts undefended.
It would take time, but he knew that he would achieve it after all he was an iron born and no one else in the world could compare to them in the sea.
-Jaime lannister "the kingslayer"-
As I look at my new red doublet with the sigils of house Lannister with some irritation. I have been removed from the kingsguard after Joffrey was crowned.
This was likely just a favor for my father to finally get back his precious heir.
Currently his father was marching from the Westlands to the Riverlands to crush stannis forces.
Unfortunately he was committed by his father to stay in the capital and for him to temporarily take the position of hand of the king…..
I pour myself a cup of wine and drink it in a single swallow.
"Jaime?"
Cersei's voice drifts from the doorway. She is beautiful, as always, golden hair spilling over her shoulders, and her beautiful emerald eyes.
"Shouldn't you be dressing for the council?" she asks, stepping into the room.
"The council can wait." I set the cup down and turn to face her. "I am the Hand. I can arrive when I please."
"You sound like Father."
"Gods forbid."
She crosses to me and straightens my doublet, her fingers lingering on the golden lions. "You look handsome in red, more like a lord".
She leaves after a few more minutes of meaningless chatter. I stop listening after the first few words.
When she is gone, I pour another cup of wine.
….
The council chamber is full when I arrive.
"Uncle Jaime," Joffrey says as I enter the room. "How kind of you to join us."
"Apologies, Your Grace." I take my seat and spread my hands. "I was... occupied."
Joffrey's eyes glitter. "Occupied doing what? Polishing your sword? Or did you find a whore to warm your bed?"
The other councilors shift uncomfortably.
Gods give me strength.
-Eddard stark-
The report from the North arrived this morning, sealed with the cracked wax of Deepwood Motte. After Balon Greyjoy has crowned himself king again. The kraken rises from the depths, hungry for our shores. And King Stannis, ordered the execution of Balon's last son.
I tried to convince Stannis otherwise. I stood before the king in his cramped solar on Dragonstone and I argued for the boy only for it to land in death ears.
And now the Ironmen are attacking the North.
Torrhen's Square has fallen, according to the report. Deepwood Motte is under siege. The Harlaws are raiding the Stony Shore, and Victarion Greyjoy sails his Iron Fleet up the Saltspear, burning every village he finds.
I have ordered my bannermen to reinforce the coast. Glover. Mormont. Tallhart. They will do what they can to slow the iron tide. But they cannot hold forever. They need more men. And I must send them, knowing that some perhaps most will not come back.
But after a long debate with the other lords made a decision.
My boy Jon will go north. He is no longer a boy, I suppose. He has become a man in these past months of war. A knight, even now know as Ser Jon Snow, they call him now. "Golden-Bane."
The name came from the battle at the Golden Tooth. One of our scouting parties stumbled into a Lannister column Leo Lefford's men, trying to circle around our flank. Jon was with that party, along with a handful of other young warriors.
When the fighting was done, Jon had killed Lefford himself. And Lefford's three trueborn sons. And two bastard cousins who threw themselves at him in a frenzy of grief and fury.
Ser Wylis Manderly knighted him on the field and giving him the name Golden Bane.
Other than Jon, Ser Brynden Blackwood the heir to Raventree Hall, has volunteered to accompany him. Dacey Mormont as well.
They will take a hundred men between them. Blackwood men and Mormont men, mostly, though a few of Lord Mallister's knights have asked to join the host.
And Ser Harry Rivers, the Bastard of Bracken, has also asked to go north.
That surprised me. The Brackens and the Blackwoods have feuded for centuries. Either way, I approved the request. Harry Rivers is a capable fighter, and the north needs every sword it can get.
They will ride at dawn north to reinforce our coast.
-later-
For the past two moons, we have been defending the Riverlands and harassing Tywin Lannister's supply lines. Making every mile of his advance cost him his men.
We have not stopped him. The Old Lion is too clever, too patient, too rich to be stopped by raids and skirmishes. But we have slowed him. Bought Stannis time to consolidate his forces.
It is not enough. It will never be enough, not while Tywin Lannister still draws breath.
And now there is another problem.
A pretender has landed in the Stormlands. Taken Storm's End. Raised a red three headed dragon banner and called himself Aegon Targaryen, the son of Rhaegar and the rightful king of the iron throne.
He has the Golden Company at his back. Ten thousand swords. The finest sellswords in the known world.
Another Blackfyre.
I thought the black dragon line was extinct. Maelys the Monstrous died on the Stepstones, and with him, it seemed, the last of the usurpers.
Apparently, we were all wrong.
-Tyrion Lannister-
As we march pass the mountains the cliffs rising on either side. I pull my cloak tighter against the wind and watch as Shagga's boys drag the body of the latest Vale knight behind a boulder.
Another dead lordling. Another suit of steel for my growing collection.
My new personal sword Bronn rides at my side, his hand resting casually on the hilt of his sword.
-later-
The Eyrie.
I have dreamed of that castle every night since I fled the Vale. Not the castle itself though it is impressive, I will grant it that but the woman who sits within it.
Lysa Arryn.
She tried to kill me. She dragged me before her court, accused me of murdering her husband, and threw me into the sky cells to freeze and starve and go mad.
If not for Bronn and the promise of gold I would be dead. She will pay for what she did to me. They will all pay.
My plan is simple enough. We will come down from the mountains when the snows clear, hit the landed knights who hold the passes, take their steel and their horses and their supplies. We will gather strength as we go, recruiting sellswords from every corner of the Vale men who have no love for Lady Arryn, men who serve only gold.
By the time we reach the Gates of the Moon, I will have enough swords to storm the castle. And from there... the Eyrie itself.
The Eyrie, which has never been taken.
I will take it, I will drag Lysa Arryn from her precious weirwood throne, I will make her beg.
And then I will throw her son out the Moon Door.
And of course, I could never forget about him Petyr Baelish.
The man who lied about me, who told Catelyn Stark that the dagger used to attack her son belonged to me. Who set this entire chain of events in motion.
When the Vale is mine, I will find Petyr Baelish. I will hunt him through every brothel in the Seven Kingdoms if I must. I will drag him back to the Eyrie, and I will show him the same sky cells where I nearly died.
And then I will push him out the Moon Door myself.
I am no longer the heir to Casterly Rock. Father has made that clear. He has Jaime now his precious.
I am nothing to him. Less than nothing.
So why should I pretend anymore? Why should I play the part of the dutiful son.
And when I sit in the High Hall of the Eyrie, when I look out over the Vale and know that it is mine...
They will call me Lord Tyrion Lannister of the Eyrie and Warden of the East. It has a pleasant sound, does it not?
-Lord Edmure Tully-
It worked.
Gods be good, it actually worked.
I stand at the edge of the river ford, watching my men drag the last of the Lannister soldiers from the shallows.
Ser Gregor Clegane kneels in the mud ten yards from where I stand. His greatsword lies in the rushes behind him, too heavy for any ordinary man to lift. His helm has been knocked loose, and I can see his face and he was not surprised to learn that the mountain was not a handsome man.
The plan was simple, which is why I am certain none of my bannermen believed it would work.
We knew Tywin Lannister would send raiders into the Riverlands. We knew Ser Gregor would lead them the old lion's mad dog unleashed to burn and pillage and terrorize.
So we let him come.
We pulled our forces back from the villages. We abandoned the keeps that could not be defended. We made the eastern Riverlands look empty, undefended, ripe for the taking.
And when Clegane took the bait when he pushed deeper than his supply lines could support.
We closed the trap.
Three thousand men hidden in the woods along both banks of the Red Fork. Archers in the trees, pikemen in the shallows, heavy horse waiting behind the ridge to cut off any retreat.
The fighting lasted less than an hour.
After that, we killed every single man to the last except Gregor but we did cut his hands off so he wouldn't be able to wield a sword.
The king would judge him.
-Ser Jon snow-
As first he felt horrible after every battle every man life he took he felt guilty afterwards. But slowly their feeling had been turning into hatred, especially when it came to the iron born.
These good-for-nothing pirates are nothing better than the savages beyond the Wall.
I have seen what they do to the villages they take. I have pulled women from the rubble who were too broken to speak. I have held children who watched their parents die.
I have stopped feeling sorry for the men I kill in return.
We have liberated three keeps in the past fortnight. Each victory brings more men to our banner. I do not turn any of them away. We need every sword we can get.
Right now they were marching to Bear Island were currently the last of the Ironborn he ones who fled west when they realized they could not hold the coast and now Victarion Greyjoy leads them.
I had to mentally prepare himself victarion from what I had heard was a legendary captain in the sea and a great warrior.
He would have to be prepared for this battle since he couldn't use ghost this time for a scouting. He wasn't going to risk his partner…
-later-
The landing was chaotic.
We came ashore at dawn, longboats cutting through the grey chop of the sea I could see the Mormont keep in the distance.
The Ironborn were waiting for us.
They poured out of the trees and I saw Victarion Greyjoy at their head a tall man, broad as a bull, he had a Kraken helm gleaming in the pale morning light.
The battle was bloody.
My men fought well more than well if I had to say so myself. But the Ironborn fought harder.
They knew they had nowhere to run. The sea was at their backs, and we had burned most of their ships the night before.
We lost good men too many good men…
But in the fight Victarion Greyjoy found me in the middle of the battle coming to me quickly with an accent in his hand.
I barely got my sword up in time to block the first blow. The impact jarred my arms to the shoulder I ducked under his second swing and slashed at his leg. The blade bit into his thigh, and he roared in pain. He backhanded me with his shield, and I went spinning to the ground.
He stood over me, his axe raised for the killing blow. But I rolled to the side as his axe came down, burying itself in the mud where my head had been. I kicked up, catching him in the knee, and he stumbled. I drove my sword into the gap between his breastplate and his pauldron a small gap, barely wide enough for a dagger, but I made it fit.
He fell.
I stood over him, my sword dripping with his blood, and watched the light fade from his eyes.
….
After the battle, the survivors surrendered.
There were perhaps three hundred of them, and I had given them a choice either take the black or prepare for their death.
Take the oath, join the Night's Watch, spend the rest of your lives freezing on the Wall. Or die here, on this beach, and feed the crabs.
Most of them chose the black. The rest just became food for the animals
-later-
Dacey Mormont came to me as the sun was setting "I am staying," she said.
I nodded I had expected it.
"Bear Island needs someone to hold it," she continued. "My mother is with King Stannis and someone needs to stay here to act as the lady of Bear Island and I have played my part".
"I will tell that to my father once I see him and to your mother" I said simply to her getting a smirk out of her for not putting up a fight.
After all, I would be keeping her men since after going to Castle Black there was one last thing I was going to do.
I was going to crush the ironborn and make sure that they would never rise up again against the north.
-later-
We took the leftover Ironborn ships.
Fifteen of them, mostly longships, fast and seaworthy. They would serve our purposes well enough.
The men who had sailed with me to Bear Island those who survived loaded onto the vessels alongside the prisoners. We had lost nearly a third of our force. The rest were wounded or exhausted or both.
Now we sailed east to deliver these whore born scum to the Nightswatch he could never believe that he wants had fantasized to joining this order.
-later-
The Ironborn prisoners are delivered to the Watch without incident.
The Watch needs men. I have heard the stories since we landed at Eastwatch whispers of a King-beyond-the-Wall who nearly broke through.
Mance Rayder.
A former crow who turned his cloak and united the free folk under a single banner. He almost made it through, they say almost brought his army south if only had a crush the savages.
The former Lord Commander is dead. Murdered by his own men, or so the stories say. I do not know the truth. I only know that my uncle now sits in his chair Benjen Stark, the 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.
I have not seen him since I left Winterfell.
I am afraid to see him. Afraid of what he will see in me. But I man up there's no point in overthinking it after all after we went to the iron Islands there was no turning point.
The ride to Castle Black is quiet. My men fan out behind me, their horses' hooves crunching in the frozen mud and ghost ranges ahead.
….
My uncle meets me in the courtyard.
He looks... old. Older than he should. His hair is shot through with grey, and there are deep lines around his eyes that were not there the last time I saw him.
He does not smile when he sees me.
"Jon," he says the man clearly tired.
"Uncle," I reply.
He leads me inside, but he does not speak and I do not push. Finally, we reach his chambers A bed, a desk, a hearth with a fire struggling to stay alive. And on the wall, mounted on a simple iron hook...
A sword.
He takes it down and holds it out to me.
"I know this is a conversation you and Ned should have had," he says. "But I cannot stay silent any longer. Not after Aemon's death."
Aemon who the hell was Aemon?
But regardless, I take the sword from his hands.
The blade is longer than I expected a greatsword, meant for two hands, though I can feel that it is lighter than it should be. The ripples in the steel catch the firelight, shimmering like water on a moonlit night.
Valyrian steel.
The hilt is warm in my hands, it is made of something dark and polished dragonbone, I realize.
Set into the pommel is a dragon's head, carved from the same bone, its eyes tiny rubies that gleam in the firelight. And on the blade itself, just above the crossguard, a larger ruby sits embedded in the steel, dark as dried blood.
"What is this?" I whisper.
"This sword belonged to maester Aemon formally known as Aemon Targaryen," he says finally.
"Now I will reveal to you the true story about your mother and father after all this sword now belongs to you as an inheritance of Aemon after all you are the last dragon".
-Ser Brynden Blackwood-
What was snow so angry? He had been completely serious this entire time as they left and returned back to their ships.
He was never the most social creature, even before all of this. The bastard of Winterfell kept to himself but now he just seemed angry and lashed out on anyone who slowly provoked him.
Even though he had came to respect the wolf knight as other were calling him now he hoped that snow can release some stress when they reach the iron islands.
We have boosted our forces since Bear Island.
Lowborn Northmen, mostly and the mountain clans came down from their frozen fastnesses when they heard the Golden-Bane was marching. The Norreys and the Burleys and the Liddles, men who worship the old gods and keep the old ways. They do not trust me, a southron knight with ravens on my shield. But they trust Snow.
Everyone trusts Snow.
I have added Blackwood men to the host as well. A hundred archers, fifty knights, twice as many foot soldiers. My father's best, sent south to prove our loyalty to King Stannis and the Northern cause.
As for our next plans on the iron islands, the plan was simple. We sail for the Iron Islands. For Pyke itself.
The Ironborn have left their homes undefended. Most of their fighting men are reaving in the Reach, stealing cattle and burning villages while the Tyrells and the Lannisters tear each other apart. The old men, the women, the children they are all that remain.
Was this honorable? Absolutely not but the Iron Man deserve no honor or any benefit of the doubt.
If we did not know for a fact that we had killed a majority of their warriors including Victarion's fleet at Bear Island, the scattered raiding parties along the Stony Shore without that knowledge, this would be suicide.
But he still had hope for the plan of Golden bane.
-Part 1 war for the the western kingdoms-
By Maester Gerold of the Citadel, as compiled from ravens, witness testimony, and battlefield records.
In the aftermath of the Ironborn invasion of the North an incursion launched by Balon Greyjoy, who had crowned himself King of the Salt and Rock the most decisive response came not from the lords of the mainland, but from a bastard knight leading a host of northmen, rivermen, and mountain clansmen.
Ser Jon Snow, called the Golden-Bane, had already earned renown for his defeat of Victarion Greyjoy in single combat at the Battle of Bear Island. Rather than rest on that victory, he pressed his advantage, sailing west with a captured fleet of Ironborn longships and a host numbering some three thousand men.
The Iron Islands had been left largely undefended. Most of their fighting men had sailed south to reave the Reach or east to harry the North's western coast. The old men, the women, and the children remained and they were no match for the fury that Ser Jon brought to their shores.
House Greyjoy fell first. Pyke was taken after a siege of nine days, its walls breached by fire and ram. Balon Greyjoy died in his tower, though accounts differ as to whether he fell to a sword, a crossbow bolt. His surviving sons had already perished and his last son Theon burned on Dragonstone by order of King Stannis, and Balon last brother's being confirmed dead.
With the male line of House Greyjoy extinguished, Ser Jon turned his attention to the other noble houses of the Iron Islands.
House Harlaw. House Blacktyde. House Drumm. House Goodbrother. House Orkwood. House Stonehouse. House Stonetree. House Saltcliffe. House Sunderly.
One by one, they fell.
Every male of noble birth who could be found was put to the sword. Every keep was taken. Every longship was seized. The old and the young, the trueborn and the bastard, if they carried the blood of the Ironborn nobility, Ser Jon Snow gave them a choice.
The blade or the black.
Some chose to die. More chose the Wall. By the time the Golden-Bane's host sailed away from Pyke, the Night's Watch had received nearly two thousand recruits the largest single influx of men in the order's history in the last 500 year.
With that, the majority of the Ironborn noble houses were rendered extinct from the male line. Ser Jon also took as captives all the noble ladies of the Iron Islands wives, daughters, sisters, and cousins. He gave strict orders that any man under his command who touched them would be castrated and sent to the Wall or executed.
Having stripped the Iron Islands of their ships, their warriors, and their leaders, Ser Jon Snow loaded his captives aboard the captured fleet and sailed east. He returned to the Riverlands with his host largely intact, his reputation greatly improving throughout the entire continent, and his prisoners distributed among the loyalist lords for safekeeping.
The Iron Islands, once a scourge upon the western coasts of Westeros, were broken. Whether they will ever rise again is a question for future generations.
In the Vale, Tyrion Lannister having won a trial by combat managed to convince several northern clansmen to his cause and secured the services of sellswords. With this unlikely army, he began his siege against the Gates of the Moon.
His path has been bloody. Several cadet branches of major houses have been extinguished by his forces, along with numerous lesser houses who stood in his way. The mountain clans, long a nuisance to the Vale lords, have found in the dwarf an unlikely leader or perhaps merely a convenient excuse for slaughter.
Yet despite his victories, the Imp is not treated seriously by the lords of the Vale. They expected for his army to turn on him before he could become a true threat.
But winter is almost coming. And it has almost reached the time when the entire court of the Eyrie would eventually have to descend from their mountain fastness to the Gates of the Moon. The high seat of House Arryn, so impossible to storm in summer, becomes a death trap when the snows close in.
This marks a dire time for House Arryn.
Fortunately for Lord Robert Arryn, Lord Yohn Royce marches with his army toward the Gates of the Moon. Lady Anya Waynwood travels with him, and together they lead a host of Vale houses Templeton, Redfort, Hunter, and others prepared to protect their liege lord from the Lannister threat.
Whether they will arrive before Tyrion breaches the Gates remains to be seen.
Of all the great houses of the Seven Kingdoms, none found themselves in a stranger position following the death of Renly Baratheon than House Tyrell of Highgarden.
Lord Mace Tyrell, ever ambitious and ever cautious in equal measure, has elected to adopt a position of neutrality in the war that now consumes the realm. This decision, while prudent given the circumstances, marks a dramatic departure from his house's traditional strategy of backing the strongest contender and reaping the rewards.
Several factors contributed to this choice.
First, and most pressingly, the Reach found itself under attack from two fronts. The Dornish, seizing advantage of the chaos following Renly's mysterious death, launched a series of raids across the southern marches. While none of these incursions breached the Reach's inner defenses, they required a substantial military response and tied down thousands of Tyrell swords that might otherwise have been deployed elsewhere.
Second, and more damaging, were the Ironborn.
The kraken rose from the depths with fury unmatched since the days of Harren the Black. Lord Balon Greyjoy, crowned King of the Iron Islands for the second time, unleashed his reavers upon the western coasts of the Reach with a savagery that shocked even those who had witnessed the Greyjoy Rebellion.
Lord Tywin Lannister, ever the opportunist, compounded this misery. While officially allied with the Iron Throne, the Old Lion has been sending his bannermen to "requisition" resources from Reach lands ostensibly in support of the crown's war effort, though few in Highgarden believe this justification. The Lannister foraging parties have stripped granaries, commandeered livestock, and left little behind but resentment from the reach man.
The death of Renly Baratheon slain at Storm's End under circumstances that remain hotly disputed left House Tyrell without a king to champion.
Two primary candidates presented themselves.
Stannis Baratheon, Renly's elder brother, claimed the throne by right of blood and law. His alliance with the North and Riverlands gave him considerable military might. Yet Stannis was also a man of uncompromising rigidity, a follower of the red god R'hllor whose foreign faith troubled the devout lords of the Reach. Moreover, Stannis had never forgiven the Tyrells for their support of Renly over his own claim.
Joffrey Baratheon or Joffrey Waters, as his detractors named him sat the Iron Throne but ruled little beyond King's Landing and the Crownlands. His claim derived from the assertion that he was Robert Baratheon's trueborn son.
King Robert receive little love from the reach, and that extended to his children so many weren't really excited to ready their arms for a potential bastard.
Dictated to and transcribed by Maester Gerold of the Citadel, late 298 AC
XxX
I have decided to divide this last part of the story into two chapters or more….God this whole chapter feels like a whole different fic.